Dungeon Defense (WN)

“Do not retreat! Press forward!”

The petty officers within the Kingdom’s army raised their halberds and shouted loudly. However, although soldiers tend to fight back if their lives are in immediate danger, they are prone to flee if they see that their comrades on both their left and right sides are also in immediate danger.

The mercenary unit was defeated by Brittany’s cavalry, making them flee toward their allies. The Kingdom’s army was already surrounded on four sides, so the inclusion of fleeing soldiers in their ranks made their formation fall apart.

Forty thousand soldiers were being pushed together in one spot.

As the Kingdom’s forces retreated step by step, trying to avoid our spears and swords, it wasn’t long before all forty thousand of them found themselves cornered to the point that they could no longer move.

The space they had was too cramped. The enemy soldiers couldn’t even properly extend their arms to thrust their spears. In contrast, our imperial troops had all the space in the world to swing their weapons.

“This is not a battle; it is a massacre. Laura, what shall we do?”

“No mercy.”

Laura had stopped crying and was now speaking with her usual firm expression. There were still faint tear marks on her face, but no one pointed it out.

“Grant death upon them regardless of their peerage or status. I promise to give the mercenaries the right to loot the corpses once the battle is over.”

Our army did not stop the massacre.

The enemy’s line of command had already crumbled apart. The sound of people shouting “I surrender!” and “Please spare me!” could be heard from all around. The sight of dozens of people getting down on their knees to beg at the same time occurred frequently.

The Helvetica mercenaries showed no mercy as they sliced their necks ruthlessly. Blood splattered, intestines and guts were scattered about the dirt floor, and brain matter was sent flying into the air as spearheads were washed in blood. Only the sound of screaming filled the skies above Maledictus Plain.

The enemy troops carried out their final struggle. Their mages gathered together to start casting fireballs. However, since we had a similar number of mages, their attack was futile.

We easily blocked their spells until they eventually collapsed due to exhaustion. As a side note, we also didn’t forget to cast an anti-teleportation spell.

The guardian family of Sardinia will die here today.

There were a dozen or so soldiers who got incredibly lucky and managed to escape the encirclement. Those lucky individuals got to experience being hunted like turkeys by Juliana de Blanc’s cavalry. I am sure that must have been quite a fresh experience.

If you resist, you die. If you surrender, you die. If you flee, you die. There were a lot of soldiers who gave up completely and simply plopped themselves on the ground. Of course, the only response we could give was ‘Thanks for making it easier to kill you.’

We successfully annihilated the enemy forces after about an hour.

We annihilated all forty thousand of Sardinia’s troops, sparing no one. From what I could tell by observing through my telescope, our troops did not allow even a single enemy soldier to escape.

Even the Duke of Milano, who was the supreme commander, had his neck pierced by the spear of a random soldier. From dukes, marquises, and earls, a total of eleven high-ranking nobles were decapitated. Thirty mages were killed and the heads of ninety barons were put on display.

If we had sold them all as prisoners of war, we could have probably earned enough to fill the national budget three times over. However, Laura made it clear that there would be no mercy, so I did not intervene.

It was so that we could clearly demonstrate what fate awaits those who dare to forget diplomatic courtesies and go against the Empire.

The battle, named after the Padus River, concluded as follows:

Imperial Army: 19,400 infantry and 9,800 cavalry participated. Casualties were 4,900 infantry and 600 cavalry. Among them, 3,000 casualties were from the civilian militia under my command.

Kingdom’s Army: Approximately 41,000 infantry and around 7,000 cavalry participated.

Casualties were around 40,000 infantry and approximately 3,500 cavalry.

Out of the 48,000 troops that participated in the battle from the kingdom’s side, only about 4,500 managed to escape alive.

The name Laura de Farnese became a source of fear and dread throughout the Kingdom of Sardinia.

* * *

The general trend clearly tilted to one side now.

In less than half a year, the Kingdom of Sardinia lost about a hundred thousand soldiers, with more than thirty thousand soldiers being killed in each pitched battle. The royal family had reached a point where they could no longer hope to engage in a decisive battle.

“Lord Duke of Parma, we congratulate you on this great victory.”

“Your fame has already resounded across the continent.”

A few days later, envoys arrived from various countries to offer their congratulations. Other nations had promptly dispatched their envoys, anticipating our overwhelming victory in this war. Messengers came from nearly every nation, except for the Anatolia Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Habsburg Republic.

There was a small incident as well. The envoys had prepared small gifts. They must have thought that gifting gold wouldn’t leave much of an impression as they prepared special items instead. All nine nations prepared the exact same type of gift: a formal-dress sword. It was a rather unfortunate situation born out of a simplistic mindset: ‘Duke = General = Soldier = Sword.’

In the end, the envoys who had presented the same gift nine times over were left rather flustered and speechless. Laura hesitated as she was unsure how to respond. It was then that I clapped my hands.

“No commander has ever received a sword from the rulers of every nation. Your Highness, I propose naming the sword given by His Majesty the King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as the ‘Sword of Polish-Lithuania’ and the sword given by Her Majesty the Empress of Frankia as the ‘Sword of Frankia’. By doing so, we would transform these nine swords into a single precious symbol.”

My clever suggestion was met with enthusiastic approval from the envoys.

“What a brilliant idea!”

“Your Highness, I would like to also support the Count Palatine’s suggestion.”

Laura agreed to my suggestion with a smile.

The incident that almost became an embarrassing diplomatic mishap had transformed into something elegant. It became known as <The Swords of All Nations>.

Once this rumor spread, Consul Elizabeth and the Emperor of Anatolia also sent their own formal-dress swords. With this, Laura had become the first commander in history to receive a dress sword from all twelve nations. Well, this is probably what you’d call propaganda.

Our imperial army advanced to Milano.

Milano had lost a significant portion of their civilian militia during the Battle of Padus. This was because the Duke of Milano, in an attempt to set an example, had led a large portion of the city’s militia into battle.

Thanks to that, the troops in Milano weren’t even nearly enough to defend against a siege. The sight of even old men being hastily recruited and sent to the city walls was rather pitiful.

Laura rode her horse right up to the city walls and took a quick look around. Then, with a light chuckle, she nodded once.

“We should return their precious family to them.”

The five catapults we had looted from Genova came forward. Our troops firmly packed the catapults with something heavy. Once Laura gave the order, five projectiles were flung at the city.

Shortly after, the sound of screaming could be heard from the ramparts of Milano.

We hadn’t flung stones at them. Instead, what we had thrown were dozens of severed heads from the Kingdom of Sardinia’s army. I am sure that the heads of those who were once citizens of Milano were included in there. What we had done was so gruesome that you wouldn’t believe it was done by another human. Milano’s improvised soldiers trembled in fear.

“What are you doing? Why are you not returning more of their families to them?”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

Our army showered the city with severed heads for about 2 hours.

The soldiers inside the city had completely lost their will to fight. There were even some among them who were cowering on the ground with their arms wrapped around their heads. After those two hours, Laura used amplification magic to give a brief notice.

“If you do not wish to be wiped out, open the gates within the next five minutes, fools.”

She delivered an ultimatum without even a shred of courtesy, but it was because of this that the ultimatum was effective.

There was a bit of a commotion, but the gates soon opened in less than three minutes. Our troops casually entered Milano as if we were on a picnic. Queen Henrietta muttered some words as she rode her horse next to mine.

“This isn’t exactly a pleasant feeling. This doesn’t feel like someone else’s business.”

“…….”

Oh right. Come to think of it, Queen Henrietta also received a downpour of corpses when she was besieged in Le Havre Fortress. It was a ploy to spread a plague, and it was also a plan that I had devised.

Queen Henrietta’s face looked strangely enraged. It felt like she would probably smack me if I confessed to her now that I was the one who suggested that.

“Do you know how it feels to have a corpse fall from above while you are eating?”

“I-I am not sure. I have not experienced it before.”

“Dantalian, I hope that you will be able to experience it once. It is a really shitty feeling. I don’t know which Demon Lord proposed that idea, but they’re dead if they get caught by me.”

“Haha, hahaha.”

I quietly shut my mouth…….

The mighty city of Milano, which boasted the strongest fortifications in northern Sardinia and had the wealthiest commercial hub across the continent, fell with little effort. The fall of Milano signified the loss of Sardinia’s control over the northern regions.

The royal family of Sardinia hurriedly reinstated Elizabeth as their supreme commander.

However, their situation was already steadily going downhill.

I secretly sent a request to the imperial family of Frankia and made the Empress Dowager ask for succession rights to the Medici family.

Although an actual succession would be impossible since the Grand Duke of Florence had a son, it was more than possible for the Empress Dowager to act as his ‘guardian’ since he was still far too young.

It may be in name only, but she would actually be no different from the regent.

Furthermore, the Empress Dowager had already done all sorts of things in the Frankia Empire as the regent. The royal family of Sardinia and the head house of Medici firmly refused the request.

The Frankia Empire took part in the war as soon as our request was refused.

The southern nobles of Frankia had unified to invade Sardinia. Their cause was pretty nonsensical.

“In these turbulent times, Sardinians continue to invade our land. In order to root out these bandits, refugees, and stragglers, we will temporarily take charge of maintaining public order here.”

This was complete and utter bullshit.

Referentially, I was the one who wrote them that cause.

Haha.

In exchange for generously allowing the Frank troops to advance, I was promised a substantial supply of provisions from the nobles of Frankia. Our imperial army received a large influx of food and weapons. The Frankish nobles naturally plundered the land of Sardinia ruthlessly in order to secure this immense supply.

Next were the Batavia Republic, the Kingdom of Castile, and the Kalmar Union.

I offered an “apology” for the disruption of continental trade due to our war and, as “compensation”, offered the tax-free usage of the port occupied by our imperial army. These nations had no reason to refuse an offer like this.

Batavia, Castile, and Kalmar each dispatched multiple fleets to protect their own merchant ships, and from time to time, they would lend their warships to our imperial army when necessary.

The three nations declared that they were only taking measures to protect their own merchants and had no intention of getting involved in the war, however, this was also a very sophisticated bullshit. Even more so if you consider the fact that we were selling the prisoners we had captured to them as slaves.

Every nation turned into a pack of wolves as they started to tear apart the delicious prey known as Sardinia.

Sardinia was in dire straits.

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter. RIP Sardinia. They basically got abandoned on all sides.

I got my work schedule packed till the end of the year now. Just a LOT of anti-malware blog translations. I joined a game translation company, right…? I hope they give the EN team a raise soon. Or at least a bonus. We’ve had to deal with way too much shit this year.

Ugh, in any case, I’ll see you guys in the next chapter.