13 (11)

Louis woke from a deep sleep. Perhaps because he had been uncomfortable all night, his head felt heavy. He would have liked to have dreamed—anything—but it had been one of those ordinary nights with no nightmare at all. The distinctive scent of an old dead tree made Louis sit up. A blanket he had roughly thrown over himself slid off his body.

“Did you cough, sir?”

A commander of a thousand who had been standing by on the right spoke up. He had worn a tense face all night, as if afraid he might make even a single mistake around Louis. At the outer door, a centurion-rank soldier stood guard, and precisely every three meters, Louis’s soldiers held this place like iron. Only a few days ago, this wooden building had belonged to the barbarians—by Louis’s terms, their “nobles,” especially their ruler, Gijik—but now it belonged to Louis. The original owner was bound and kept in a prison. There was nothing particularly special about a barbarian prison. If anything, hygienically it was better than some neglected underground dungeons. Proia had been the worst; its underground cells had leaked water. Louis recalled the subterranean prison in Proia, the city he had once ruled. It was so hellish that if you went in, you either starved to death, died of disease, or came out crippled. Of course, that was the past—only the early days. When he had started pulling gladiators out of there, he had also had the prison repaired.

He would not need to worry about gladiator supply for a while. Louis accepted a waterskin the commander held beside the bed. After sleeping all night, he was thirsty. He poured it down his throat in one go. The thirst eased a little. The taste was unpleasant. In this region, clean water was difficult to obtain. So even if this water did not look good, to the centurion standing outside it would be water too clean to dare touch. Not only that—there was also fresh water filled in a small basin for quick washing. After a night’s sleep, the room looked small. Outside, dim light was gathering. It seemed to be morning. And there was nothing strange about morning here. If anything, Louis felt light, as though he had finished an old piece of work.

Louis dressed quickly and stepped out. Soldiers saluted him, calling out a brief chant and an honorific for their lord. He received those salutes about fifteen times. He walked without thinking, but the mere fact that Louis had risen meant the lower ranks’ busy day had begun. By the time he reached the lower floor, eight officers were already trailing behind him in a line.

Stepping outside, the cold, damp air unique to Pantalist filled his lungs. The ground was littered messily with dried mud and straw. Here and there, bloodstains were etched so clearly that yesterday’s—and three days ago’s—events could be guessed at a glance. Louis had occupied Gedria, the place called the barbarians’ capital. Gedria was not truly the deep center of Pantalist, but rather an outer position; still, by terrain it suffered fewer monster incursions, its rain and climate were moderate, and it had at least some mud-rich ground that could produce crops—so it served as the “capital” of the barbarians, more precisely the Gedra Tribe.

For a morning, the outside was surprisingly bustling. Unlike civilized cities, the buildings here were made of wood. They looked like they should burn easily, but strangely, the trees that grew here did not catch fire well. Even though Louis had used fire attacks when he advanced in on the first day, only a small number of buildings had been lost.

Louis opened the status window. His territory had expanded sharply upward again. The border line that had defined the edge had collapsed, bending inward into Pantalist, and a new city called Gedria had appeared. Gedria had not a single tile of farmland, but for Louis—who had always secured food mainly through wheat—there was one crop he was seeing for the first time.

Bananas.

As Louis inspected, Jodan suddenly appeared behind him.

“How shall we deal with Gijik?”

“I am thinking of taking him and executing him.”

“If you plan to keep fighting Atila head-on, it is not a bad choice.”

“…We will decide based on the situation.”

“Eat breakfast first. Fresh food came in yesterday.”

“Let’s do that.”

As they headed forward to eat, a warm, wet groan came from the right. It was the kind of woman’s sound every man recognized. One of Louis’s men was clearly having his fun with barbarian women. But the timing was the problem. Up until yesterday, such acts had been tolerated, but starting last night, Louis had banned all looting. He had decided to use Gedria as a city. If he had not, he would have burned it down into ash—but either way, thanks to a man being faithfully ruled by his instincts, every officer behind Louis wore a sour expression.

“Hmph. Busy from the morning, are we.”

“H-ha. Indeed…”

Jodan trailed off and signaled with his eyes to the officers behind—meaning, drag him out. Two chiliarchs glanced at each other once, then moved toward the door to go inside. The wooden door was locked, but the burly chiliarch on the left simply smashed it.

Inside were three barbarian women covered in bruises, and a centurion so drunk he was practically unconscious. Of course the centurion was naked. In the heat of it, he was gripping hair, sweating profusely, focusing on his “work,” but the sudden commotion annoyed him—he turned savagely to shout who it was—then saw Louis and froze solid.

He was close to blackout-drunk, yet his face visibly shifted between red and blue (perhaps sensing the threat to his life). He struggled to pull back the reason that had flown away, and in barely three seconds he dropped everything, sprang up on the bed with a stiff face, lifted his gaze toward the ceiling, and—staring at Louis—shouted his name and rank so loudly the room seemed to shake, saluting at full volume.

The spirit was admirable, but he was naked, and between his thick thighs his “thing” was dangling… In any case, the barbarian women realized who had come; their faces reddened, then, recognizing that Louis was a being like Atila, their emotion flipped back into fear. They immediately climbed down from the bed, smashed their faces to the floor, and trembled. The scene was so ridiculous that everyone burst into laughter. Louis felt the same, and amid the snickering, he asked the frozen soldier:

“Raymond.”

“Y-yes… y-yes! Duke!”

“Do you want to get beaten senseless with a club this early in the morning?”

“N-no, sir!”

“I believe I said looting was only allowed until yesterday.”

“Yes, sir…”

The officers behind Jodan laughed and whispered, then quickly figured out whose subordinate he was. He was under the commander of a thousand who had been responsible for last night’s watch.

“In any case, I am hungry. Give Raymond an appropriate punishment, and we will go finish breakfast.”

“Yes.”

The two chiliarchs approached Centurion Raymond with frightening smiles. They dealt with the small matter and resumed moving toward food—when a man in an especially noticeable robe hurried toward Louis.

“Sir Louis. Urgent news.”

It was Spessart of House Orsini, his face strained with urgency. He looked like a tree drying up, as if he had not drunk water—perhaps he had been up all night.

“The Kingdom of Gaimer has fallen. The king and his children were killed by Atila, and Atila has taken the capital.”

Hearing Spessart, Louis immediately understood his condition. Even Louis, who had expected some result, had not anticipated Gaimer would collapse this quickly, so he was slightly surprised. But Jodan and every officer looked shocked. They had advanced here easily, and on top of that they had seen Atila bowing and scraping before Louis, so they had tended to look down on him. Gaimer was a small country on the scale of the Duchy of Eron.

Spessart had also secretly been watching to see what reaction Louis would show, and he could not help but be puzzled by Louis’s calm face.

“Did you already know?”

“No. But I have already learned through experience that he is no easy man. I have clashed with him before.”

Only then did everyone recall why Louis had raised this army in the first place. Still, with this, the balance of power changed. Because Atila was stronger than expected, they would need to reevaluate their strategy.

“First we eat, then we meet immediately.”

Atila destroyed the Kingdom of Gaimer and renamed its capital the Court of Atila. At the same time, he proclaimed a nation. Its name was Hun. This news spread to every surrounding country, including the Duchy of Eron. It could not not spread—Atila had sent letters to every state describing what he had done and asking for “future cooperation.”

Naturally, because of what Louis was doing, the duchy fell into a state of war with the Huns. But the Prince-King had already lost the power to control Louis, so if Louis insisted on continuing the war, the duchy would be forced to commit its full strength against Atila.

At that time, Atila was advancing again, leading additional forces. In a sense, Louis could march toward him even more aggressively—yet Atila’s movements were filled with confidence. But considering his leader traits, it was not recklessness. It was the +3 Strike to city attacks from Judgment of God, and the +1 March bonus from Dread Reaver. The +1 March, in particular, synergized extremely with Atila, who operated highly mobile barbarian forces.

A quiet afternoon. Yet for Gaimer, it was anything but quiet. Fields were on fire and blazing, and one side of the situation was collapsing at speed. The side collapsing was the Gaimer lords’ coalition—armies of lords who had joined hands to reclaim the crown. These men were not free of selfish motives; at first, with arrogant attitudes, they blamed the lax capital garrison and deliberately ignored requests for aid.

Soon the capital was invaded, and as usual, Atila cut off the king’s head and the heads of his children. The royal bloodline ended, and now Gaimer’s throne was effectively vacant. The moment rumors spread across the land that the king was dead, they rose up as if they had been waiting. Their intention—to become king themselves—was painfully obvious. But now they were drowning in chaos and shock.

Atila’s cavalry was encircling them from all sides, and from the center they were being hunted under arrows. Thousands of arrows flew and poured down. The arrows pierced the flesh of the infantry beneath. Blood flowed, and screams burst. In the middle of that sight, a general who had been moving troops under his lord’s orders began spurring his horse, taking fifteen elite soldiers and several armored men to find a way out.

The horse ran like mad across the blazing field. Waiting coldly for that general was Atila. Atila, disheveled yet instantly spotting the man in a flashy feathered helmet, sneered and drew his sword.

Then he gave his horse a light tap, and it surged forward like an arrow. The moment he moved, one chieftain behind him and the elite warriors also thundered after him in a mass. To the general and his elite, facing Atila was hell. The mana charging from Atila in the front poured out that sticky, characteristic killing intent.

A collision seemed inevitable. Three armored men accelerated forward around the general. Arrows fell chaotically around them, but somehow they dodged through. Then the arrows abruptly stopped. Amid the roar of human shouts, the three charging armored men felt a brief hush.

Kwaduk. Atila’s crude sword blade crushed a neck in a single stroke, and one man’s head flew emptily into the air. Before it even hit the ground, the soldiers coming from behind and the barbarians charging from the front tangled together in a violent knot.