Chapter 188 - Sitting Face-to-Face with the Marshal (11)
The Imperial Army planned to hold their position and wait for the arrival of the 7th Division before launching any attack.
However, the situation changed when the Konchanya Army withdrew Bertrand.
"They must have pulled Bertrand back out of frustration, since he wasn't able to drive our forces out of the forest. With Belliang now in ruins, Bertrand's own political standing must be shaky, so he had no choice but to step down."
"Yes, I'm certain Konchanya will attack us first, trying to fully drive us out of the forest."
As soon as it was confirmed that Bertrand had been removed, the Imperial Army hurriedly convened a meeting.
Everyone agreed that those foolish Konchanya bastards, having dismissed Bertrand, would now launch a reckless and hasty attack.
Despite their confidence in victory, the officers' faces showed a strange split: half of them gleamed with excitement, while the other half were twisted with unease.
After all, they'd made the exact same mistake as those foolish Konchanya bastards themselves—not long ago, they had ceded half the forest back to the enemy after barely capturing it.
"If Bertrand's gone, it's as good as won."
"Still, we should be careful. You never know what the enemy might try."
"Hahaha, who doesn't know how pitiful Konchanya's army is? This is a fight we simply can't lose."
"Hmm..."
For now, they set aside any reflection on past failures.
Judging solely by the immediate odds of battle, it was obvious the Imperial Army would win.
Even those who warned against letting their guard down only did so to keep the mood from growing too relaxed.
Anyone who doesn't know about the miserable state of the Konchanya Army's infantry doesn't deserve to call themselves a soldier.
Lately, Konchanya had bolstered their forces with newly developed artillery and a stronger artillery corps, but their infantry was still abysmal.
It all comes down to Konchanya's unique geography.
Konchanya is a kingdom located in the southwest of the continent, consisting of thousands of islands, both large and small.
Its mainland territory is mostly cut off by the Bertebras Mountains, and even where land does exist, there's hardly any large, fertile farmland available for settlement.
Everything in Konchanya is shaped by the sea.
The waters weaving between those thousands of islands are their homeland, their highway, and their final destination.
In Konchanya, even taking over a fortress or a city is left up to the Navy.
They may be called the Navy, but in reality, these are adaptable soldiers who can fight anywhere—land or sea—with equal skill.
This, of course, stems from Konchanya's island-studded geography.
Since people are scattered far and wide, it's hard to form a strong central authority, so lords, warlords, pirates, and even fishermen from little island villages have constantly been caught up in wars and skirmishes.
In Konchanya, a man who can't defend himself and his family isn't recognized as a man at all.
This is because fighting is so common and pirates are forever on the prowl.
So even if you just grab anyone off the street and draft him, you can build a force ready to fight equally well in naval or land battles.
There's an old anecdote that sums up this unique aspect of Konchanya.
In the past, foreign pirates would recklessly attack one of Konchanya's islands, only to be defeated by the island's fishermen, have their ships seized, and be sold off as slaves.
As this kept happening, the naive fishermen of Konchanya realized piracy might be worth a try, so they became pirates themselves, attacking foreign merchant ships, which led to serious trouble for trade.
The nobles, furious at the risk of losing their trading partners, launched a massive campaign to suppress the pirates, only to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of these fishermen-turned-pirates.
In the end, they pleaded with the King of Konchanya for intervention, who then officially enrolled the fisher-pirates into the military, putting an end to the chaos.
In short, within Konchanya, the Army's role is nothing more than to serve as a "human shield" until the Navy completes its objective.
In Konchanya, it's not so much that the Navy is strong, but that the Army is almost useless—so the nation has only focused on building up its Navy.
The common perception is that the Army is where all the untrained rabble, deemed unfit for the Navy, end up, and frankly, that's not far from the truth.
If the Konchanya Navy hadn't been so active at sea, the 1st Corps would have broken through Konchanya's border right at the start of the war.
The reason they struggled with the operation to capture Belliang, instead of simply breaking through the easily-defeated Konchanya Army, was because even if they occupied Konchanya's inland regions, they would be plagued by endless piracy and guerrilla tactics until they conquered every last one of the thousands of islands.
"Even so, it's best if we don't let our guard down and continue to fight carefully," someone said.
Having once suffered a major defeat, the Imperial Army resolved to proceed with caution. If they underestimated the lowly Konchanya Army and attacked recklessly, they could fall into a trap and suffer a disastrous setback.
"Konchanya will probably attack first, so let's hold them off once, then switch to a counteroffensive."
"So you want to fight the way Bertrand did?"
"Unless there's a particular reason not to, I don't see a better tactic than that."
"Hmm… True enough."
The Operations Meeting decided to adopt the tactics Bertrand used when he routed the 6th Division.
"Bertrand's Tactics are very well-developed. They might not be flashy, but they're extremely refined. Carrying them out won't be easy."
But there was one problem: while Bertrand's Tactics were simple in concept, they were difficult to execute.
Bertrand had attacked the tiny gap between regiments at the Imperial Army's front line with perfect precision.
He pushed forward against the 16th Regiment's line, while maintaining the front with the 17th Regiment.
This created a widening gap, and, with a brilliantly timed assault, the Imperial Army's entire front suddenly collapsed.
You had to have a thorough grasp of the terrain, an eye for spotting the exact points where regiments connected, the ability to move troops with flexibility to widen those gaps, and the sense to strike at precisely the right moment.
It might sound easy, but if it really were that simple, then in battles involving regiment-level units or above, each one would get carved up and slaughtered like pigs sent to the slaughterhouse.
If that were the case, the current command system would never have developed.
Bertrand invested tremendous resources for the sake of that single battle.
They deployed Konchanya Rangers for relentless reconnaissance, searching for weaknesses and familiarizing themselves with the terrain.
Bit by bit, they reduced uncertainties and seized a path to victory.
But the Imperial Army doesn't have that kind of luxury now. Even if they scraped together every "real Ranger" from the 2nd Corps who could still perform their duties properly, they would struggle to form a single company. As it is, they haven't even fully grasped the lay of the forest.
Anyone can hold the line until Konchanya's offensive runs out of steam.
The Imperial Army remains strong despite its defeat.
If they just dig in and endure, they can manage that much.
But afterward—once chaos erupts in the tangled terrain of the enemy's forest, when the battle becomes confusing—very few commanders, even across the entire continent, could pinpoint the enemy's weakness, break through in exactly the right way, and lead their troops to properly execute the operation.
Could it really be possible that someone with that kind of ability is here, at this border region where they're fighting Konchanya, and that he's among the Imperial Army's 5th Division troops assigned to this forest?
"The 1st Battalion will spearhead this breakthrough operation."
"...."
"2nd Company Commander, you're to take point."
Ernest glared at his immediate superior, Lieutenant Colonel Soren Kaufmann, the 1st Battalion Commander.
Soren, seemingly resigned to all hope, simply wore a gloomy expression, undisturbed even by such insubordinate eyes from his subordinate, Ernest.
The Operations Meeting had nearly reached the consensus that "Bertrand's Tactics are too risky to imitate, so let's fight with a more stable approach."
Then, however, someone quietly brought up the 13th Regiment's record of remarkable achievements, and the mood shifted rapidly.
In the end, the 13th Regiment was once again assigned this daunting mission.
Naturally, Levin gave this impossible task to Soren—and Soren, in turn, handed it down to Ernest.
But neither Levin nor Soren truly had a choice.
From Levin's perspective, Soren was the most trustworthy option.
And from Soren's perspective, Ernest was also by far the most reliable.
In reality, it was Ernest—not Soren—who had been at the heart of the previous forest infiltration operation.
In that battle, Ernest had done nearly everything, while Soren, simply leveraging his position as Battalion Commander, had just held the center.
Soren was a commander who understood his own limits precisely.
If he let himself get swept up in reckless bravado and tried to take on more than he could handle, he would only end up ruining the operation and putting himself in danger.
Trusting in a capable subordinate and distributing missions accordingly is one of the marks of an excellent commander.
Soren was performing his duties as Battalion Commander admirably.
To be frank, if you looked at it objectively, Ernest was the kind of guy who should have been promoted immediately and put in charge of a battalion at the very least.
But because of his age and lack of seniority, he was still just a Company Commander—so his superior, Soren, unwillingly kept finding himself showered with the spotlight and thrown into the deadliest assignments, simply because of Ernest's exploits.
In the end, the relationship between Ernest and Soren was a fantastic example of a superior and subordinate complementing each other where needed—while at the same time, they were like adversaries, pushing each other into peril and accumulating unwanted military merit.
"Captain Fox will lead the vanguard!"
"Hurrah! We've already won!"
"Fox! Fox! Fox! Fox!"
Regardless of the anger and frustration felt by Ernest and Soren, the soldiers of 1st and 3rd Companies in 1st Battalion—devotees of the Myth of Captain Fox—were overjoyed.
2nd Company was much less enthusiastic.
"Because of you, we're at the front again!"
"You bastard!"
"...."
Thanks to Ernest, they were once again at the vanguard, so there was no way they could feel good about it.
Even the vanguard of the 2nd Corps' 5th Division Cavalry Regiment probably found themselves at the very front less often than Ernest's 2nd Company.
"Vanguard... what does that even mean, anyway?"
"No, seriously, why do we even need a vanguard in the first place..."
They weren't some primitive force from the Old Era, locked in savage close quarters combat—so what was a modern army doing with a vanguard in a large-scale battle?
Wasn't the core concept of modern warfare to widen the area of engagement and pour maximum firepower on the enemy in the shortest amount of time?
Why bother with a vanguard?
The officers of the 2nd Company were getting confused about the very idea of a vanguard, and the fact that they were the ones assigned to play that role was even more bewildering.
But it was a perfectly understandable and reasonable confusion.
Any soldier put in that same situation would feel exactly the same way.
Regardless, orders were orders, and as soldiers, they had to carry them out.
Unwittingly, Ernest now found himself as Company Commander of the vanguard of the 2nd Corps, the vanguard of the 5th Division, the vanguard of the 13th Regiment, the vanguard of the 1st Battalion, and once again had to lead the 2nd Company into battle.
The day after Bertrand withdrew and the Konchanya Army was redeployed to the forest front line, morning broke amid a strange atmosphere.
"Wow, anyone can tell an attack's about to happen, right?"
"I'm sure the Belliang Army on the other side feels exactly the same way, waiting for us to make our move."
Strangely enough, there had been no official word about when the Konchanya Army would launch its attack, but absolutely everyone in the 13th and 14th Regiments stationed in the forest had a crystal-clear sense that the battle could break out at any moment.
It felt as if the very air had turned into sticky oil.
The uneasy mood wouldn't settle, and it was hard to breathe.
What made the tension especially unbearable for the 13th and 14th Regiments was that the reinforcements from the 7th Division, which they had been counting on, still hadn't arrived.
Because of this, the 5th Division's planned all-out assault had been canceled.
With Bertrand pulled back and the Konchanya Army moving up to the front, they showed no intention of giving the Imperial Army any time to regroup.
They pressed the attack right away.
With the 7th Division delayed, the Imperial Army was clearly undermanned.
Therefore, in order to maintain the front lines in the hilly area, the 5th Division's 15th Regiment would once again be fighting outside the forest on the hills, just like before.
"Don't push yourselves—focus only on holding out. All you have to do is endure. When the enemy hits their operational limit, they'll naturally start to collapse. That's when we'll turn to the offensive, break through, and drive them back. That's how we'll win."
Having not only lost Dream of the Honeybee but also having to risk his life once again crossing the battlefield, Soren was leading in a very earnest and serious manner.
"As expected of the Battalion Commander, sir! No one cares about us like you do, sir—no one but you!"
But in truth, Soren was only worried about his own safety.
If the soldiers fought recklessly and their numbers dwindled, he'd be in danger himself when it came time for a charge.
Still, nobody ever gave a thought to Soren's real motives.
Everyone simply interpreted everything in whatever way suited them best and praised him as they pleased.
It was true that there were people like Ernest and Levin who did understand Soren's real feelings.
However, since they were the very ones who'd smashed his honey jar with their own hands, even though they understood him, they simply ignored it.
It was a truly pitiful sight.
A man's long-cherished dream, held deep in his heart for years, was shattered so completely that not even a trace remained.
Yet not a single person mourned.
All anyone did was look at his broken dream and smile.
Time slipped by indifferently.
Even though it had been quite a while since they'd filled themselves with a hearty breakfast, their stomachs were finally beginning to feel empty again.
The soldiers stationed at the front line were growing weary after so many tense hours.
With lunchtime approaching, it felt as if the enemy would wait until they finished eating to attack.
"Stay sharp. These in-between times are the most dangerous moments."
Soldiers with battle experience, however, always watched out for these very lulls—when nerves dulled and fatigue crept in.
Ernest, who was far too seasoned for his age, kept moving nonstop, personally urging on and supervising the soldiers. The other officers and non-commissioned officers also did their part to keep everyone alert and focused.
Still, time dragged on to the point that some wondered if the day would just end without anything happening. At last, lunchtime arrived, and everyone hesitated, unsure what to do.
"Just eat enough to take the edge off your hunger—for now, eat on your own."
That was the order issued by Soren, the 1st Battalion Commander of the 13th Regiment.
Hearing it, Ernest felt a wave of nostalgia.
The command reminded him of his old company commander Yurgen's orders back in Bertagne Forest.
The 1st Battalion had to break apart those damned brick-like biscuits with hammers or entrenching tools, then put the pieces in their mouths and let their saliva soften them.
They also sliced up jerky and chewed on it bit by bit.
The other units also kept their meals simple, eating just enough to stave off hunger.
There was no need to light fires for cooking, and their formations remained intact.
Paang...
In the midst of that modest meal, the muffled sound of gunfire—deflected off a tree—echoed from across the forest.
The soldiers, who had been quietly melting biscuits and jerky in their mouths, froze instantly.
"Prepare for battle!"
The moment the gunshot rang out, Ernest gave the order to prepare for battle without hesitation.
The other commanders also rushed to their stations, barking the same order.
"Prepare for battle! Prepare for battle!"
"Get in formation!"
"You fool! Keep your head down!"
The once quiet forest erupted in chaos.
Tatadat! Pabang!
As if in response, the sharp cracks of Powder Guns and Balt Guns rang out in quick succession.
It was clear the Rangers—stationed up front to watch for the enemy—had engaged in combat.
"Hold your positions!"
"Raise your muzzles!"
Ernest ordered his soldiers to stand by to support the allied Rangers.
The platoon leaders quickly echoed this, urgently shouting for muzzles to be raised.
Moments later, new figures came running between the trees on the far side of the forest.
Clad in leaf-colored cloaks, with actual leaves attached, the Rangers blended so well into the forest shadows that even if you looked right at them, it was hard to notice they were there.
The same was true for those chasing them.
Konchanya Rangers were on the hunt, pursuing and killing the Imperial Rangers.
Most of the Imperial Rangers were new recruits.
With the Konchanya Army attacking, they had no choice but to turn their backs and run.
"Hold!"
Ernest called once more for his men to hold their positions.
Yet, instead of following his own order, he personally aimed his loaded gun straight ahead.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three shots rang out at regular intervals. ]
Even though the order to hold had been given, the soldiers were so startled they nearly fired their weapons skyward.
Thud.
Three shots, three deaths.
As three Konchanya Rangers chasing the Imperial Rangers emerged between the trees, each was struck cleanly in the chest and collapsed.
Startled by the precise gunfire, the other Konchanya Rangers hesitated, then carefully retreated behind the trees for cover.
Bang! Bang!
"Shit!"
But whoever was shooting—every time one of them showed themselves between the trees, bullets flew out in steady intervals, picking off the Konchanya Rangers, precious elite soldiers who were more valuable than a hundred ordinary infantrymen.
To make matters worse, they were wearing the same uniforms as the Imperial Rangers, so you shouldn't have been able to tell them apart.
Yet each shot targeted only the Konchanya Rangers with deadly accuracy.
It was as if the shooter could distinguish friend from foe just by their movements.
The Konchanya Rangers huddled behind the trees, unable to move an inch.
The Imperial Rangers, at first thinking their own side was massacring them by mistake, ducked in panic behind trees.
But once they quickly realized what was happening, they rushed past the Imperial Army's line to safety.
"Crazy Fox!"
One of the Rangers, standing tall as he spotted Ernest firing directly at the enemy, couldn't help but exclaim.
Ernest, instantly recognizing the familiar voice, shifted his gaze slightly to glance over at him.
"That's insubordination to a superior officer."
"Kahahaha!"
It was the same Ranger who'd been caught by Ernest for hiding his rank last time.
When Ernest once again pointed out his 'insubordination'—something he'd said to him a hundred times—the Ranger burst out laughing, gave a sloppy salute, and retreated to the rear.
"Prepare to fire!"
"Prepare to fire!"
The Imperial Rangers fell back.
Those within Ernest's line of sight escaped unscathed, but the others, stationed elsewhere, had probably suffered serious casualties.
In any case, from now on, anyone coming from the front was the enemy.
Kill everyone you see.
Then suddenly, the sporadic gunfire stopped.
After that, a fierce storm began to sweep over the battlefield.
Whoooosh!
"Balt Wind…!"
From the enemy camp in the south, the powerful Balt Wind swept in, sending fallen leaves swirling and obscuring the view.
Everyone ducked for cover.
Konchanya was betting everything on their Navy.
The most crucial skill in naval warfare is reading the currents, and the next is reading the wind.
No matter how many Baltrachers they have, it's impossible to change the currents.
But the wind—they can change.
Konchanya's Baltrachers stake their lives on the Balt Wind.
It's what lets their wings spread wide and soar.
"Charge!"
"Waaah!"
With the Balt Wind at their backs, the Konchanya Army began their charge.
The battle had begun.