Conversation With The General

Led by Ilmitt, I headed to a room in the castle where the general in question was being kept under house arrest.

Two summoned soldiers stood guard before the door, and their utterly motionless bearing would likely have made anyone unfamiliar with summoned soldiers think they were standing watch with not the slightest opening.

“They are no good as guards who need to respond flexibly, but summoned soldiers really are convenient for this kind of watch duty.”

“That is true~. If there is someone nearby to give them orders~ they can handle land clearing and logging too~”

They really were extremely good at endlessly repeating the same task, after all… well, they were helping as labor for clearing land and the like, at least.

If I were being greedy, I would have liked them to have a little more adaptability, but… no, asking for more than this would just be greedy.

Having them stand here as guards like this was already something to be grateful for.

As I thanked the summoned soldiers guarding the door in my heart, Ilmitt knocked and called into the room.

“General Saga~ it is Ilmitt~ may we speak with you again today~”

“…Please, come in.”

After Ilmitt announced us and opened the door, on the other side stood a gentleman who looked slightly younger than Arandor, though his hair was shot through with gray, giving him the feel of a distinguished middle-aged man. His posture was so straight it looked as though he had a ruler inserted down his back.

Without question, he must be the General Saga in question.

“You always honor me with your trouble, Ilmitt-dono. Might I ask—has the date of my execution finally been decided?”

With a thoroughly serious expression, General Saga said something outrageous.

“General Saga~ I understand fully that you are stubborn~ but as I have said many times~ we have no intention of executing you~”

“However, I have committed an unforgivable crime. In light of both national law and treaties between nations, there can be no question that the death penalty is appropriate. Therefore, I request a swift execution.”

Even if he requested something like that…

“Though, if it may be granted… could arrangements be made so that the consequences do not extend to the king and my subordinates as well?”

Seeing General Saga bow his head with perfect decorum, Ilmitt let out a small sigh.

So he was asking that the king and his subordinates be spared… from what Ilmitt had said, the king sounded questionable, but… General Saga really did seem like loyalty incarnate.

“General Saga~ please raise your head~. We have come today because I wished for you to speak with this person here~”

“…My apologies. It is an honor to meet you. I am Regza=Saga. I was granted the post of general in the Est Kingdom.”

“And this~ is His Majesty Fels-sama~ King of Einheria~”

“!? My deepest apologies!”

Upon hearing Ilmitt’s leisurely introduction, General Saga’s complexion changed, and he dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

“It is fine. Be at ease, General. I do not care for stiff formalities. I came today because I wished to speak with you, the one who served as supreme commander in the battle the other day. Because of my position, my guard will be present as well, so bear with it.”

“That is only natural, given Your Majesty’s station… however, the battle the other day…”

As he rose, General Saga’s expression darkened somewhat.

Still, I ignored that and sat down in one of the chairs in the room.

“You sit as well, General. Ah, it is not that I wish to hear about the war out of idle curiosity, understand? I took part in that battle myself. It is not exactly that I want a casual post-battle discussion, but as one involved, I wanted to know how it looked from the enemy’s side.”

Wearing the relaxed expression I could only show because I had won the war, I invited General Saga to take a seat, and with tension written plainly across his face and his whole body visibly stiff, he sat down across from me.

“…Hmm, was asking for your impressions of a battle fought over the very survival of your nation somewhat insensitive of me?”

Even without thinking very hard, General Saga had suffered a crushing defeat only a few days ago and had just lost no small number of men.

And on top of that, the king of the victorious side was asking him to tell me a little about it… that had not been my intention at all, but the more I thought about it, the more it felt like I was provoking him.

The more I thought about it, the sorrier I felt… but this was the only topic I could think of.

“No… if it is what Your Majesty desires, I have no objection.”

After saying that, General Saga took on an expression as if he had steeled himself, then showed a slightly gentler smile.

“However, there is just one thing… might I be granted permission to make a petition?”

“Hmm? I would like to say I do not mind, but… if you mean to petition for execution, then I will not hear it. Such matters are not decided on emotion.”

I mean, he had just said as much to Ilmitt a moment ago… the content of the petition was probably going to be a plea for mercy, right?

And not for himself, but for the King of Est and his subordinates.

But why was he so fixated on execution?

It was not as though we had committed any sort of massacre in the occupied land… and even in the war with the Lumoria Kingdom, we had hardly executed anyone except those guilty of particularly vile crimes.

Why did he want execution…? I needed to ask him about that too.

“…Still, well, if what you wish is to plead for mercy… I cannot be too lenient concerning crimes, but if there is room for extenuating circumstances, I will consider it. At the very least, I will not impose an unreasonable death sentence merely because yours is the losing nation.”

I had gone ahead and made that promise rather casually, but… well, whether or not there was room for extenuating circumstances was up to our judgment anyway, so it would probably be fine.

Besides… even if the Est royal family did not prove fit for appointment, it might still be useful to keep them alive for the time being.

To gather together resistant elements, or redirect the spearhead of anger toward them in dealings with the Duchy of Yuran… well, basically they would be used as human sacrifices, or something along those lines.

If Ilmitt had judged them useful, that would have been another matter, but… I was the Overlord, after all. There was no need to be that magnanimous to someone who had once opposed me.

Well, I would keep my promise, of course. But I was not going to take responsibility for all the trouble that came after, all right?

“You have my gratitude, Your Majesty.”

I did not know whether my thoughts had come across or not, but as if to say that was enough, General Saga bowed his head.

To sacrifice oneself in order to save those around you… it was easy enough to say, but actually doing it required a tremendous strength of heart—or perhaps madness.

He would be reassuring as an ally, but making someone like this change his mind… was that not difficult? Was Ilmitt’s request difficulty actually ultimate?

It weighed on me quite a bit, but well, I would just do what I could.

“Then let us begin. It was a battle that started with quite a difference in troop numbers, ten thousand against fifty thousand, yet you seemed more wary of us than I had expected, despite our smaller numbers.”

“From the point where… no, even before that, when your forces defeated our invasion army. We had suffered one defeat after another, after all… so we believed that the gap in training and quality was so great that even some difference in numbers would not be enough to bridge it. There was no way we could afford to let our guard down.”

“I see.”

“To be sure, there were those in the military who looked only at your numbers and underestimated your nation, but at least among the officers who fought in that battle alongside me, there was no one who looked down on the army of Einheria.”

Well, that made sense.

No matter how much one disguised one’s strength by fighting with a small force, no normally functioning person would look at an army that had pushed all the way to the vicinity of the royal capital and conclude that it was weak.

Still, after smashing three nations in war this time around, turning one into ours through Kiriku’s schemes and another into a vassal state through… negotiations… after expanding our territory this much in such a short span, there was no way any nation would continue to underestimate Einheria’s military strength.

“The main force arrayed on the plain was in a formation oriented toward defense. The hill had also been fortified. You were aiming to invite our attack and then intercept it, were you not?”

“Yes. Even if it made us seem weak-hearted, we had no intention of attacking first in the early phase of the war.”

“I see. So despite having five times the numbers, you were aiming for a prolonged battle. I had thought your true aim was an early decision by the surprise force you had sent around behind our main camp.”

“That force’s primary purpose was to throw your main camp into confusion. However, I heard that the main surprise force was destroyed before it could even launch its ambush…”

“We had the ones hidden in the forest dealt with first, yes… though you were quite persistent. Two ambush forces… given the risk of discovery, was that not a fairly difficult decision?”

At my question, General Saga showed a slightly awkward expression.

“In truth… one of the ambush forces, the smaller one, was a suicide unit formed for a separate mission.”

“Oh? What were they after?”

“…In fact, they were moving with the intention of targeting your provisions. Unfortunately, because they could not locate where the Einheria army’s supplies were stored, they were unable to act…”

So they were after provisions… yes, that certainly was a vulnerable point of an expeditionary force.

Well, our side did not have any place where provisions were stored, so… I did not feel sorry, exactly, but provisionless warfare really was a massive cheat.

“A prolonged battle on top of targeting provisions, then. Were you planning to hold out until we withdrew?”

When I asked that, General Saga shook his head.

“No… the reason we targeted provisions was not to burn them, but to poison them.”

“Poison, huh. Not a bad move.”

“…Huh?”

“Hmm?”

For some reason, at my words, General Saga let out a dumbfounded sound.

“Is something wrong?”

“Ah, no! My apologies.”

General Saga hurriedly bowed his head at my question, but he still seemed not to have accepted what I had said.

Shrugging my shoulders, I continued speaking to him.

“If you poison the provisions, you can deal a greater blow to the army than by the poison’s direct effects alone. There is no way an army can keep fighting while carrying food that might be poisoned.”

“The intent was to cause the soldiers to fall ill from a weak poison on the very first day of the decisive battle.”

“Heh heh… quite a nasty method. Rather than kill the soldiers with a powerful poison and force the abandonment of all provisions, you aimed to weaken the troops… so rather than drive the army into retreat, your intent was to weaken them just enough that they could still fight, and in that state cut down as many of our soldiers as possible?”

“…Exactly as you surmise.”

Rather than let us escape, they had wanted to cut us down as much as possible… well, if we only retreated, we would just reorganize and come attack again soon enough.

That said… only ten thousand had been attacking the Est Kingdom, and no matter how much those were reduced, unless Saria and the others were taken down, it would not hurt us at all.

Still, since we had dispatched invasion forces against three nations at once, it would not have been strange for them to think our manpower was stretched to the limit.

Normally, if one had reserves to spare, no matter how elite the army, one would not invade deep into enemy territory with only ten thousand men.

“Poison and ambush… truly excellent methods. Come to think of it, you also launched a preemptive attack using catapults.”

“…Yes.”

“Hmm… but that only makes me wonder all the more: if you meant to reduce our army by such means, why was your actual battlefield formation so defense-oriented?”

“That is…”

“To be sure, it was a formation very convenient for a large army facing a smaller one, but you were not the ones who pressed the attack. And the catapult preemptive strike was not intended to deal us damage either, was it?”

“Yes… that strike which broke the treaty existed only to enrage the enemy and draw them into the next trap.”

“I see, so that was what led into the pitfalls and fire attack-type methods.”

“In order to cut down as many of your troops as possible, we had spread traps across a wide area, but… we had not expected you to attack the center immediately.”

“The left wing felt as though it was littered with a great many traps. And to attack the right wing, the troops glaring down from the hill were in the way… from our side, a central breakthrough was the only option.”

“…So it was a central breakthrough made after seeing through all the traps.”

“I cannot say all of them… but at the start of the battle, the center appeared the most cautious while also showing the greatest complacency. Targeting that point was inevitable.”

General Saga, who was gradually becoming more absorbed in the conversation, showed a slight gesture of thought.

“The formation you took, General Saga. It was truly a beautiful one, but I think the right wing was too strong.”

For a moment, my one remark brought an expression to his face as if he understood at once, but then it immediately twisted in frustration.

“…Ahh, so that was it. Certainly, now that I think of it after the fact, the left wing smells too suspicious.”

General Saga, now becoming visibly more animated, said that with his eyes closed as if recalling the situation at the time.

Watching him, I continued.

“As it appeared, the forces on the left and right had been divided evenly in number. To be sure, if one is considering encirclement, that is probably correct, but…”

“The hill on the right wing side… because of that, an opposing army would not normally think to attack the right wing.”

“The same goes for the center, of course. If they charged carelessly, they would be surrounded with ease. Which meant… the enemy army would aim for the left wing. And if you laid a great many traps there…”

“That was exactly why we had prepared many devices on the left wing, but… if that was read through, then a central breakthrough really does seem the optimal move. Provided, of course, that one has the strength necessary to break through.”

Holding a hand near his mouth, General Saga gave a low groan.

“For example, if instead of splitting the army evenly left and right, you had arranged it with more weight on the left wing, we might have changed our point of attack. The right side had the hill, after all. If the left wing had been made thicker, then both wings would have become difficult to attack.”

“But would that not have made it even harder to know where the enemy would target?”

“There is no need to increase the left wing to an extreme. The ideal is only to make the enemy feel that the left wing has somewhat more troops, but that this is only because the right wing has the hill. To that extent, you could erase the scent of waiting behind traps. The important thing is to pose as though you are doing what you can to reinforce a weak point.”

“So by deliberately crushing a weakness, you show it as a weakness… is that it?”

“A trap is either set in accordance with the enemy’s habits, or it is sprung by showing weakness and luring them in.”

It felt like even I was gradually getting more and more absorbed in the conversation.