Ch.161Advance from the Coast

Two days after the declaration of war.

Bisenia, the nation closest to the Amurtat faction, was under heavy attack from its neighboring country, Faerun of the Amurtat faction.

BOOM! CRASH!

Rat-tat-tat!

“Keep firing! Bring down those cowards hiding behind the walls along with the walls themselves!”

“For Faerun and Amurtat!”

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Flat cannons, mortars, and howitzers.

The walls of Bisenia, battered by these three types of artillery, were already cracking severely, but the archers atop the walls continued their tenacious resistance, raining arrows down upon the enemy.

“Fire another volley!”

WHOOSH!

Thousands of arrows poured down, and Faerun’s assault team approaching with mortars fell back, bristling with arrows like hedgehogs.

“What’s the status of our mages?”

“Not good, sir. But they’re somehow managing to maintain the reinforcement spells!”

“Scour every corner of the fortress for even one more mana potion! If the reinforcement and restoration spells fail, we’re finished…!”

“Y-yes, General!”

Fortunately for Bisenia, their defense commander was competent, and the mages they had trained themselves, along with those provided by Fahrenheit’s support, were desperately casting continuous reinforcement and restoration spells on the walls.

“The wall is collapsing! Everyone take cover!”

CRAAASH!!!

“AAAAARGH!!”

“GET DOOOOWN!!!”

However, destruction always takes precedence over creation. While the mages’ magical power was finite, gunpowder could be used repeatedly as long as the barrels were cleaned—it was an uneven battle from the start.

The reason they couldn’t stop the distant artillery batteries was that if the short-range mortars got close enough to fire, the shells would fall not on the walls but on the city behind them, which was why they were desperately trying to prevent their approach.

“Damn it! What are the catapults… what are the catapults doing?!”

“W-we’ve run out of stones to launch…”

“For heaven’s sake! Then gather the fallen wall fragments and fire those! We can’t just take this beating!”

“Yes, sir!”

The saying “fight with your gums if you have no teeth” might sound sentimental, but for the soldiers who actually had to implement it, it was an unbearable ordeal.

Making do with what you don’t have is one thing, but being asked to make the impossible possible was beyond comprehension.

BOOM! RUMBLE!

“AAAGH!!”

THUD!

“N-no! A mage has fallen!”

“Damn it! General! The enemy’s fifth wave is approaching!”

And the result was as shown above.

In a siege rather than a skirmish, Fahrenheit could never defeat Amurtat, even if they were to die and be reborn.

Particularly, Amurtat, having seized the entire coastline, could move troops and supplies with insane efficiency through “maritime transport” via Sunset Port and Pale Port. This was the driving force that allowed the Amurtat faction, despite having 1 million fewer total mobilizable troops, to launch such aggressive offensives.

“Slingers! Prepare to fire!”

“PREPARE TO FIRE!!!”

Bisenia’s slingers, waiting at wide intervals below the walls, loaded various stones into their slings and began spinning them. Once they gained sufficient momentum, they released their slings.

Rat-tat-tat!

Soon, Faerun’s assault troops attempting to scale the walls with grappling hooks were struck directly by lead and stone projectiles that penetrated even their helmets, turning them into mere corpses. With this, Faerun, which had been maintaining its offensive, ceased further attacks as they poured cooling water over their red-hot gun barrels.

HISSSSS!!!

Whoooosh….

As cold water was poured and steam billowed out, the cannons and gun barrels retreated. Bisenia’s soldiers atop the walls, now able to see through the white smoke, shouted as they watched the enemy withdraw.

“The enemy is retreating!”

At least for today, Bisenia had withstood the enemy’s fierce attack.

But could they hold out tomorrow as well?

*

“We’ve lost 23 mortars, 12 flat cannons, and 2 howitzers.”

“Tsk… The smaller ones suffered the most damage…”

The Faerun attack commander frowned as he heard the report.

It wasn’t unexpected loss.

However, they were dependent on Amurtat for their supplies, and they knew well that causing too much supply demand would inevitably result in some form of disadvantage from the suzerain state.

Yet, contrary to the commander’s concerns, Amurtat was demonstrating its national power by providing supplies via ships and wagons even to this distant location.

“Commander, sir. A supply unit from Amurtat has arrived.”

“Oh!”

“By rough count, we have enough to maintain yesterday’s level of firepower for tomorrow as well.”

“What about cannons? How many cannons have arrived?”

“12 mortars, 6 flat cannons, and only 1 howitzer.”

“I see… What about troops?”

“Exactly 6,000 men have joined us. All are front-line infantry.”

“I see.”

Amurtat’s front-line infantry were elite soldiers equipped with cloth armor reinforced with breastplates and helmets, armed with longswords, daggers, and Minié rifles.

While other nations would struggle to provide even one of these items, for Amurtat, which possessed various advanced industrial facilities including steelworks, supplying such equipment was not particularly difficult.

However, as always, the issue was manpower. Amurtat kept its own soldiers as elite first-line troops and, when they found nations with good fighters, would dispatch non-commissioned officers or officers to serve as training instructors and staff, providing equipment equivalent to their own.

The troops that had just arrived were not drawn from Amurtat’s homeland but were soldiers selected from Faerun for their fighting prowess, retrained by Amurtat’s instructors and equipped with matching gear.

“With this level of troops, we’ll definitely capture the fortress tomorrow!”

The objective of this battle was to capture Bisenia, not to destroy it.

While there might be nations that needed to be completely eliminated, Bisenia was useful as a supply base, so if they could secure a pledge of cooperation with Amurtat after disarmament, this battle would be Amurtat’s victory.

If it were a place ruled by a madman who would lower the barrier upon defeat, such tactics wouldn’t be possible, but at least Bisenia’s ruler was of sound mind.

*

July 14th, Amurtat Calendar.

Contrary to the Fahrenheit faction’s expectations, Amurtat was pushing the front lines from all directions.

Unprepared nations fell within a day or two, at most a week, and Fahrenheit was shocked to learn that the border nations had fallen to Amurtat.

The reason was simple: Amurtat had fewer total available troops than Fahrenheit, so it was naturally expected that they would focus on targeting weaker nations.

However, their prediction relied on outdated thinking—Amurtat had cannons and guns, while Fahrenheit did not.

“AAAAH! That sound! That sound again!!”

“Someone make it stop! Please!! PLEEEEASE!”

The guns and cannons with terrifying power—capable of blowing off a comrade’s head in the blink of an eye or destroying walls that soldiers hid behind—were nothing short of a disaster for the Fahrenheit faction, whose forces consisted mainly of conscripted peasants rather than professional soldiers.

Especially when such panic spread to the commanding ranks, the repercussions were beyond imagination. Even knights trained in aura couldn’t easily block projectiles that flew at speeds too fast to counter, resulting in significant casualties among the knightly class, which soon fell into a state of anomie.

“Even steel shields are penetrated…? Does that mean there’s no way to defend against them?”

“We can’t infuse horses with aura, and wearing full magical armor reduces mobility too much… What should we do?”

So far, the Amurtat faction had suffered losses of only about 30,000 men, while the Fahrenheit faction’s losses approached 200,000.

Of course, much of this was due to their lack of information and adherence to outdated tactics, but the problem is that when the old dies, the new doesn’t always emerge to replace it.

And Amurtat’s knights, mounted on improved war horses from the central region that could run quickly even with heavy magical armor, and wearing improved armor that could reliably stop bullets, were serving effectively as heavy cavalry, steadily eliminating Fahrenheit’s cavalry and knight forces that had fallen into confusion.

THUD-DUD-DUD-DUD!

“Let’s clean up these Fahrenheit remnants! Eternal glory to Amurtat!”

“Let’s make Lord Tiberius into Emperor Tiberius! Everyone CHARGE!!!”

“UWAAAAAAAH!!!”

In this incomprehensible nightmare—where one had to flee at the sound of rumbling earth, die from bullets while fleeing, or die from cannon fire while hiding—200,000 soldiers met their end in extreme confusion and agony.

And there was no one to stop Amurtat’s forces advancing from the coastline toward the heart of Fahrenheit, which had likewise fallen into a state of anomie.