Dungeon Defense (WN)

* * *

The imperial army advanced without hesitation.

Laura immediately led her troops to Pavia after their successful ambush.

Pavia was surrounded by a decently-built rampart; however, the issue was the fact that they only had a small number of troops to defend it. It was probably around 400.

On the other hand, we had 6,000 troops, eleven of which were mages. Let me be direct. The enemy had no chance of victory.

Furthermore, our commander, Laura, was openly recognized for her expertise in siege warfare. Heidelberg, which had been purely built as a fortress city, and Parisiorum, the greatest city of Frankia, were all crushed under Laura’s feet. Pavia was basically like an afternoon snack to her.

Laura gave her command.

“Put the Earl’s head on display for them.”

The mercenaries attached the heads of the enemy they had defeated earlier on the ends of their spears.

Once dawn broke, the soldiers defending the walls were made to witness a gruesome sight.

Thousands of heads were impaled at the ends of spears. The head of Earl Pavia was also among them. The morale of the enemy troops plummeted drastically once they learned of their lord’s gruesome demise.

Laura didn’t miss that opening. Our eleven mages poured their spells on the gate at the same time. The gate was destroyed in a matter of moments and our cavalrymen charged in with great fervor as our bugles were blown.

Their morale had already dropped, but adding the destruction of their gate on top of that made the defending soldiers completely lose their will to fight. They gave up trying to defend the city in any systematic way and escaped down their own paths.

Thanks to this, our 6,000 cavalrymen ran through the city freely as if they were running on open plains. Laura gave them a brutal order.

“Do not lay your hands on the children or elderly.”

In other words, they could do whatever they liked to the men and women. To top it all off, Laura allowed our troops to pillage however they wanted. She promised that the commanding officers would not interfere no matter what they pillaged.

Pavia was turned into hell.

The mercenaries indulged in the rights naturally given to the winners. They broke down the front doors of wealthy houses and noble mansions, striking the heads of any of the servants or men that got in their way as they barged in with their axes.

“Kyaahhhh!”

“S-Spare me! Please spare me!”

The men and women were murdered and raped indiscriminately. There were even groups that killed humans and set private homes on fire to entertain themselves. The wealth that had been built up throughout the lives of the citizens of Pavia, no, throughout several generations, were all stolen.

Having only their wealth stolen was actually on the light side.

“The surviving citizens will all be treated as slaves.”

Laura smirked coldly.

“There is no need to show generosity to those that had treated me as a slave. Sardinia and Pavia must take responsibility for their actions.”

That single comment decided the fates of Pavia’s 15,000 citizens.

The imperial army made Pavia into its military base and resided there. The private homes were forcefully commandeered and used as quarters for our soldiers while the citizens were turned into slaves and made to serve the mercenaries. We weren’t lacking in wealth or provisions, so we were able to rest peacefully.

Pavia had fallen.

This news shook the Kingdom of Sardinia.

The royal army was shocked to learn that Earl Pavia had fallen in battle and that 5,000 cavalrymen were annihilated in a single battle. The Duke of Milano completely gave up on taking the battle outside his city walls after losing a large portion of his cavalry and chose to shut himself within his walls even further.

Laura muttered to herself after she received this report.

“Hm, it will be troubling if he chooses to shut himself in completely. It appears that Duke Milano is clearly wiser than Earl Pavia when it comes to military strategy.”

“There is no way for him to come out after losing that many cavalrymen.”

“Hmm…….”

Laura twirled her side bang with her finger.

“Lord, do you have an idea?”

“It is difficult to drag someone that is reluctant out from their hiding holes. However, there is a way to gradually make the Duke’s strategy problematic.”

“And that is?”

I smiled brightly.

“Make a declaration to the Duke. If he wishes for the slaves of Pavia to be returned to him, then he must pay the appropriate price.”

“……I see. And we prevent the Duke from purchasing them by putting an exorbitant price on their heads.”

Laura nodded to herself in understanding.

“The Duke would be ignoring the people even though he could free them. He would naturally receive criticism.”

“No, we will be doing the exact opposite. We will sell them fairly cheaply.”

“Hm?”

Laura tilted her head. Although she was practically my best pupil, she was always a step behind when it came to certain things. I guess you could say that her level of scheming was a bit too obvious. That was the feeling she gave off.

“Sell them for 30 libra per person. Regardless of whether they are a commoner or a noble. They will all be 30 libra.”

“Hah? What are you saying?”

Laura furrowed her brows.

“Is that not too cheap? That would allow Milano to purchase them with eas—”

“However, we will do so with a small condition attached. We will only acknowledge a blanket purchase. Shrewdly purchasing only the nobles will not be allowed.”

“Hmm……?”

“If he wishes to purchase them, then he must purchase all 15,000 citizens at once. We will accept only then.”

Laura still looked confused.

I laughed.

“Think about it. Selling even nobles for only 30 libra is mad. Despite this, we are still choosing to do so…….”

“…….”

“Duke Milano will undoubtedly start to question this. He will focus on the fact that we are requesting a blanket purchase. He will then think, ‘Oh, their expeditionary force must have an immediate need for money’.”

Laura brought her fist down on the table in realization.

“I see! We will be making him think that we do not have much funding!”

“Duke Milano is unaware of our financial situation. He will come to the conclusion that we went to pillage Pavia as soon as possible because of our financial trouble.”

This will make Duko Milano think the following:

We will be at an advantage if we prolong this war for as long as possible. The enemy forces might naturally dissolve due to being unable to pay their mercenaries…….

Furthermore, didn’t the Habsburg Empire recently go through the Puppet War? They must have used up a huge amount of war expenses. The Empire currently does not have enough financial leeway to carry out two large wars consecutively. No, they must have none. That is why they are trying to get immediate funding by selling the prisoners……!

I smiled.

“This is a bad habit that humans have. Once they come to a conclusion, they interpret things however they want to match fit their conclusion. Duke Milano may doubt this thought once; however, we simply have to lower the price to 4/5th and make another proposal.”

“Hahaha!”

Laura grabbed her own forearms as she laughed.

“As I thought, you are the greatest, Lord! You are the most rotten and heinous man in the world!”

Laura then got up from her chair and hugged me. She then kissed me before I could voice my complaint.

This was truly a mystery. Why is it that all of the women I’m going out with like the fact that I’m heinous? Is this what people mean about bad boys having a certain charm to them……? I seriously don’t understand and I probably never will.

We immediately commenced this scheme on Duke Milano.

“If you wish to have the slaves of Pavia returned to you, then pay the appropriate price.”

The price was 30 gold per person. It was incredibly cheap for the price of a normal person’s freedom, and basically free for noblemen. You could call this a bargain sale.

However, we added the condition that they had to purchase everyone all at once. There were a total of 15,000 civilians captured as slaves, so they would have to pay 450,000 gold. That was a fairly large sum, but that could be considered chump change to purchase 15,000 laborers and have them indebted to the nation.

Duke Milano sent an envoy and cautiously refused our deal.

We dispatched a negotiator again and offered to lower the price to 350,000 libra. We were selling them for pennies!

Once we made this offer, Duke Milano refused us even more firmly, making it clear that he would never accept our offer. He most likely fully believed that we were having money problems now.

Not only did he refuse, but he also condemned our pillaging to a large degree. He went on and on about how enslaving free people was unpardonable and whatever……. There was no reason for me to remember what he had said exactly. You could probably find his exact words in any book about ethics.

The two of us read the letter filled with ‘well-mannered swears’ side by side. We then chuckled.

“Lord, is this enough now?”

“Yes, this is enough.”

Our imperial army left 3,000 soldiers in Pavia and headed north.

At the same time, we called over the 20,000 soldiers we had sent to Milano and joined up with them.

With a total of about 25,000 troops, we attacked the military base of Novara.

As a more well-organized military base, Novara was not an easy location to capture. The 5,000 mercenaries that the Kingdom of Sardinia had hastily hired were protecting the city. However, although they were formidable, there was no way that they could defend against an army five times their size for long.

If we were to examine our army’s position, then it was probably like the following:

Novara – our army – Milano. Like this, we were between two enemy bases.

If Milano were to come out from behind their walls and attack us from behind, then we might have been in danger.

Or, at the very least, it would have slowed down our capture of Novara immensely. Furthermore, the army being drafted in the southern region of Sardinia would have made their way up by then.

However, Duke Milano took no action.

Despite the constant request for reinforcement being sent from Novara via magic communication, and the collapse of a wall, the Duke didn’t take a single step from Milano as if he were choosing to abandon the mercenaries.

The mercenaries of Novara probably fell in despair. They weren’t asking for much either. They were simply asking Milano to keep the imperial army’s rear in check. That was it. However, Duke Milano ignored even this simple request.

Thanks to this, we were able to ignore our rear and focus entirely on attacking Novara.

“Duke Milano is mistaking our action as an attempt to lure him out.”

I spoke as I watched Novara from a distance. The enemy mercenaries were struggling desperately. Even though two walls had fallen, they were preventing our attempt to get inside by focusing their troops however they could in those areas.

“He believes that we are trying to end this quickly, luring him out for a short battle since we are low on funding. Well, that is a rational conclusion in its own way.”

“But he is wrong.”

Laura smiled.

“Duke Milano has successfully protected his city, or at least, that is what he will think. However, his only accomplishment is losing 5,000 cavalrymen and 5,000 mercenaries. Now Milano only has a civilian militia.”

That’s right.

We used the Kingdom of Sardinia’s grand plan against them.

If they want to protect their big city, then they can do so as much as they want. However, while they were busy doing that, we chose to annihilate all of their elite soldiers, and by pillaging Pavia, we were also able to sufficiently resupply our funds and provisions.

Duke Milano lost everything except for his city. His cavalrymen, elite soldiers, military base, and even his reputation and honor, they were all gone…….

He ignored the citizens of Pavia even though he could have freed them, and even allowed his military base to be destroyed before his very eyes. A large amount of criticism will most likely fall upon Duke Milano and Sardinia’s plan.

The military base of Novara fell by our hands in nine days.

The enemy mercenaries fought valiantly until their gate was breached, but they lost their will to fight once they realized that the possibility of reinforcement became clearly unlikely. They promptly surrendered to us.

Laura mercifully accepted their surrender and even went as far as to praise their struggle and offered to reemploy them. After executing the regiment commander that refused our offer to reemploy them, our forces gained an additional 2,000 soldiers. In the end, the Kingdom of Sardinia betrayed the trust of the mercenaries.

At this point, the kingdom had already lost about 10,000 elite soldiers.

Despite this, Duke Milano is probably reassuring himself that they at least obtained a strategic victory.

Very well, then. Comfort yourself however much you want. There isn’t much time left before you realize that what you obtained wasn’t victory anyway…….

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. A lot of manipulation happening in this arc, huh? People just playing into Laura’s hands. Welp, that’s what makes these chapters enjoyable.

In any case, the time has finally come. After 5 months since the initial decision, my trip to Japan has finally arrived. I’ll be leaving for my flight tomorrow evening. I finished applying for my loan today as well, so I won’t have to worry about that… hopefully. The bank clerk did say that they’ll most likely call me during the evaluation period for more information or documents, but I told them about my trip and that I’ll be back next week. I can only pray that this doesn’t cause any issues.

In any case, I’m looking forward to my trip and I hope you guys don’t mind waiting a bit for the next chapter. I’ll see you guys when I’m back!