Ch.169Devastation.

“Open the door.”

Knock, knock, knock.

A dry, monotonous voice came from beyond the door.

But if one listened carefully, it wasn’t truly monotonous, but rather a voice deliberately trying not to convey any emotion.

“Go away! This isn’t our house, I tell you!”

“Ma’am. We’ve come to the right place.”

“No, you haven’t! Go away!! I said go away!!!”

Of course, it wouldn’t matter if the mistress of the house lacked the rationality to recognize that voice.

The war had been going on for a full year now.

Even in this ambiguous time at winter’s end and spring’s beginning, people were still dying with certainty.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“My husband can’t be dead! It’s not true…! We have two children..!”

“Ma’am. Please open the door. We must deliver your husband’s personal effects.”

The process of a family falling apart was devastatingly simple.

The head of the household is conscripted and sent to war.

Then he dies.

His death is reported.

And finally.

The family collapses.

A woman—wife to one man and mother to two sons—was desperately trying to prevent this, standing firm against the shaking door.

With each rattle of the door, her long hair swayed, and with each word that reached her ears, tears streamed down her face.

War does not question the past.

War does not look to the future.

War does not care about the present.

That’s why it kills and allows killing.

The victors die in the next battle, and the defeated die in this one.

That’s the nature of war.

It was the monarchs, not the soldiers, knights, and mages, who gained more land, and it was the descendants of those who fought who would be bound to live on that land.

But tragedy always arrives without warning.

While the wife and mother wiped away tears inside the house, her sons, returning from working in the fields, spotted the men in black standing at the door.

“Brother… who are those people?”

“…No…”

“They’re just visitors we don’t know, right?”

“No..! No..! No!!!”

“By the angels…”

The elder son ran to the front gate in tears, while the younger collapsed to the ground, clutching his head.

Soon, the sounds of three people wailing under one roof began to rise, and the men in black, having delivered the personal effects, moved on to the next house.

Like grim reapers, countless deaths were delivered throughout the city, and many children lost their fathers.

Whether rich or poor, with large families or small, in grand houses or humble ones, the messengers in black delivered death, and the reactions of those who received the news were all the same.

When the head of a household dies and the family collapses, society will collapse as well.

But fear not, for it is not only your societies and nations that are crumbling.

Starting with the less populated cities and countries, both Amurtat and Fahrenheit began to slowly deteriorate and become desolate.

In just one year, both sides had suffered losses exceeding one million people,

and this was by no means a good thing.

As workers disappeared, factory production began to decline, and as there were fewer people to buy goods, a bleak atmosphere settled over the marketplaces.

With all resources being requisitioned for the war, the domestic economy plummeted to rock bottom. In taverns where meat and bread had once been plentiful, one could only hope to taste a bowl of stew made from preserved meat on a lucky day.

Of course, the capitals of Fahrenheit and Amurtat still maintained their former vitality, but even these two nations could not prevent the gradual disappearance of young men from their streets.

For war has always been this way.

*

Boom! Boom-boom-boom!

“The enemy formation has collapsed! Advance!”

“Uwaaaaah!!!”

Once again, fierce battles erupted between Amurtat’s vassal states and Fahrenheit’s vassal states.

This was because the leaders, Amurtat and Fahrenheit, had suffered extreme losses and needed time to catch their breath.

The vassal states of Amurtat, having seized supply bases and thus able to use gunpowder freely, mobilized large-scale forces for lightning-fast all-out attacks without hesitation. In response, Fahrenheit’s vassal states actively employed small units of mages for guerrilla warfare, utilizing collective magical operations to counter them.

“They’re coming! Prepare area-effect magic!”

“Begin magic circle linkage!”

“We command the children born of clouds and fragments of the sun…”

Chain lightning descended upon the charging front-line infantry, and the first wave of advancing soldiers was reduced to ashes.

Crackle-sizzle!

“Kyeeeeek!!!”

“Everyone halt!!! Area magic!!!”

When the first wave was literally turned to ash, the charge immediately stopped. Realizing the front line had been disrupted, Fahrenheit’s knights revealed themselves.

“The enemy formation is broken! Everyone charge!”

“Death to Amurtat’s hounds!”

Thud-thud-thud-thud!

And infantry without formation were merely infantry, and disorganized foot soldiers facing charging cavalry on the battlefield could only pray for a quick death.

Until the advent of modern tanks, knights and cavalry were the only forces capable of literally trampling and crushing infantry with devastating impact.

“Neeeigh!”

“Gyaaaah!”

Crunch! Crack!

With the sound of bones and flesh being crushed, thousands of infantry began to be slaughtered.

Having suffered overwhelming losses many times greater than what they had inflicted with their volley fire, Amurtat’s vassal forces lost their initial momentum and began to retreat in disorder, while Fahrenheit’s knights did not miss the opportunity to expand their military achievements.

“Pursue and annihilate them!”

“Show no mercy to these plutocrats who disturb the north!”

Soon, the pursuit and annihilation began, and the disorderly retreating forces of Amurtat’s vassal states suffered near-total casualties.

No matter how powerful gunpowder weapons might be, they could not overwhelm knights wielding aura and mages casting spells without automatic rifles or recoil-operated artillery.

The very existence of bulletproof armor meant that knights wearing armor could withstand volleys from rifles, and even without that, knights were human weapons capable of taking five or six bullets head-on.

Moreover, mages could summon lightning or thousands of fireballs, rendering the concept of “formation” meaningless with their area-effect abilities. As the war shifted to a chaotic melee with magic and aura running rampant, Amurtat’s vassal forces, heavily reliant on gunpowder weapons, suffered great setbacks.

While Amurtat’s main forces had solid knight and magic forces, many vassal states had so few knights they could barely form knightly orders.

For these countries, musketeers in formation were the only viable strategy against Fahrenheit, but when the enemy simply absorbed bullets and kept advancing, the inferior vassal forces were repeatedly defeated.

“Damn it! Why won’t their formation break?!”

“Retreat! We’ll regroup and attack again!”

Of course, not all infantry formations were equal, and not all vassal forces were the same.

“The knights are withdrawing!”

“First row, fire! Second row, prepare to replace the first after they fire to counter any additional charges!”

“Each squad maintain sufficient distance! We must not be caught in area magic!”

The more capable vassal states began dividing their infantry into squad-sized units to minimize damage from area magic and systematically trained to resist knights’ charges so they couldn’t be broken in a single assault.

In particular, large-caliber cannon grapeshot, capable of sweeping away knights in one blow, was widely recognized as an effective means of stopping cavalry charges. Front-line units began melting down 6-pounder howitzers and 12-pounder guns to cast 24-pounder howitzers, deliberately building overwhelming firepower capable of grinding down knights.

“Grapeshot attack! Mages!”

“Deploy barriers!”

Boom-boom! Boom-boom!

Of course, hundreds of mages gathered together could block the barrage of grapeshot fired by dozens of 24-pounder cannons.

“Damn! They’re taking no damage at all!”

“Everyone draw swords! Hand-to-hand combat!”

Thud-thud-thud!!!

CRASH!

“Gyaaaah!!!”

Conversely, this meant that the collective power of mages was needed to block concentrated artillery, suggesting that gunpowder weapons and mounted magical forces were quite capable of killing and destroying each other.

And as the battlefield expanded, strategies evolved, and casualties mounted, the number of the living on this continent gradually began to decrease.

“No!! Please!! He’s too weak to even work in the fields!”

“Silence! Even men with missing limbs are gritting their teeth and fighting, and you think this able-bodied man can avoid his duty to national defense?!”

And those words meant that harsh conscription was beginning, and the recruiting officers who had once taken only young men gradually expanded their scope to include old men and young boys.

“Darling!!! Reynald!!! Bernhardt!!! Gyaaaah!!!”

“HAH!!!! Welcome to voluntary enlistment, Grade 3 soldier!!!”