"My lord! My lord!" A soldier ca yelling into the dining room of the lord of Carmon duchy, Duke Snider Carn.
"What is it?" Duke Carmon asked as he paused eating. His family, however, continued. The soldier took a deep breath and replied, "He's here, my lord. The heretic prince is here."
Once the soldier reported the complete state of current events, the duke simply laughed it off and said, "Announce my surrender. Let them pass through the city."
"…" The soldier was flabbergasted but before he could even ask the reason for such a command, the duke spoke, "And relay my ssage to the rest of the cities in the path to the holy church. Tell them I want them all to surrender and then…"
~~
"And so, my lord wishes to surrender and allows you to pass through the city without any hindrance. He is even willing to tell the rest of the lords in your path the sa. We do not wish to suffer the sa fate as those before us in your path." A knight relayed the intention of his boss to in a very, very long manner.
Now I wasn't born yesterday. I studied war tactics more than anyone else in the world and I could say that with utmost confidence. Still, playing the fool was also a tactic, wasn't it?
"Adrian…" Asmara, as good as she was in such matters, imdiately picked sothing up. Of course, I interrupted her and simply said to the knight, "It is good to see a good leader with a good head after so many tragedies."
Maybe she was well aware of , she caught on to my signal and remained quiet. As I said, Asmara was well versed in these matters. A little too much if I have to say.
And so, we were granted the pass through the city. We passed the giant city which took and my army about half a day. After that, we ca across three more cities which treated us the sa way. They just let us pass unhindered to our destination. Our destination being none other than the church.
And so, after about two weeks of unhindered travel, we finally arrived at the church. The long, tall, white walls of the church made of pristine marble, not stone, showed how hard they were trying to look majestic. In fact, the entire city behind those walls was made of marbles but I couldn't say with certainty.
What I could say with certainty was the infantry mounted on those walls. The foot traffic that I counted on the walls alone consisting of archers and mages in abundance reached around 15,000. And the army of warriors, knights, and paladins outside the walls as if waiting to waiting to welco us reached about 60,000. I was willing to bet there were more and more inside the walls as backup.
The interesting thing was that I couldn't spot the truly strong ones. The highest ranking mber in the army before was an SS rank. No way was he the strongest the church had.
But that wasn't the first point to notice. The first and foremost point to notice was how massive that army was and how mine wasn't. And the second point to notice would be the sound of the vuvuzela, the war horn ringing from behind my army.
Yep, as I turned back to see, all I could see were droves and droves of soldiers. There were at least 100,000 of them and so of them were also at the SSS rank. In one word, it was a simple and classic old pincer attack.
They pretended to surrender and let us pass through the city. Then they joined forces with all the cities of the church still left and ford an attack force to attack us from behind while in front of us would be the army of the holy church. In simpler words, we, just 10,000 and so of us, were stuck between two massive armies of almost 200,000 and more behind the walls of the church inside the city.
"Heretic prince!" I could hear the sound of an unpleasant man from behind. He didn't wait for my reply and said, "I knew you were a trash but a mindless buffoon as well. How pathetic!"
And now he was na-calling. Perfecto.
"You must have never expected this turn of events! Now face annihilation for your acts of stupidity!" The man kept talking even though I didn't reply.
"Oh no~~~ How surprising~~~ Whatever will I do now~~~"
Asmara stared at with narrowed eyes which was enough to convey she didn't buy my surprised act. Nor did the rest of the girls. However, one person did…
"My liege! Get behind ! I will hold this army off!" Max said as he jumped in front of , his shield out and empowered by mana as he braced himself for an attack.
"How gullible." Even Rose, who was more of a fighter than a thinker could tell what was going on.
However, their confidence stemd from thinking that I predicted this and ca up with a plan. Well, I kinda didn't. But there was a good reason for that. This war was getting kind of boring.
I turned my horse around and began to move to the back of the army. "Oi Max, follow ." I also asked Max to accompany . None of the girls moved because they were required to lead the front. The back, however, was all mine.
As I arrived at the back of the army, I looked at the envoy heading towards . There was the duke Carmon, I assud, and so other nobles along with a lot of knights. As he arrived before , with a haughty deanor, he said, "Surrender, Prince. There is no other path out of this predicant."
I looked at him, my eyes as aloof as they always were. While I wanted nothing but to rip his vocal cord out and shove it back down his throat, I decided to be a generous man because I was a pacifist. A peaceful man one might say.
"Lord Carmon. You surrendered once out of your own volition. Now, I am giving you a chance to surrender out of rcy. Command your army that they follow from this mont forth and I will spare their lives. Deny, and you die. There will be no rcy for your soldiers. Even if they surrendered, they would be killed. And so will you be." I made my stance as clear as I could have.
However, the other side took it as a hilarious joke because they started to boisterously laugh. Of course, their knights didn't laugh. Either they were robotic machines or maybe they were simply afraid but whatever it was, they were very, very quiet.
"So you have chosen death, heretic prince?" Duke Carmon asked with a serious expression which suddenly appeared after his boisterous laughter.
"It seems that choice is yours," I replied before I turned to the knights behind them, "Make sure to pass my words to your soldiers. Tell them, that if they surrender now, they will be spared. They just have to step forward and co to my side. If they do not do so, however, then even if they beg for rcy, tell about their young wives and children, mothers or sisters, back at ho, waiting for them to co, I will still kill them. No rcy."
Of course, I wasn't going to do that. I led my life with a certain set of morals. One of them was that I'd never kill an innocent. Even on a battlefield, I never killed an innocent. The problem was the not-so-innocent population. I was required to spare them even if they surrendered because of the code of the battlefield.
But with this tactic, I always had an excuse. I'll still spare those who I want, but for those who I don't want to, I will rip them apart. I had a valid reason now.
"It seems you have lost all your sanity, you heretic," The duke said before he turned and left with the final words, "Now you regret your words and die."
"Well," I had a few final words for him too, "That's just too bad."
Once he was back, his army got into position. I, of course, being the good guy I was, let them. I gave them a chance to surrender which I really, really hoped they wouldn't take.
And how glad was I when they didn't. It was a pity though. I was hoping my words would have managed to intimidate a few but seeing that no one feared was just hurtful.
So, so hurtful.
"Defend," I left one word for Max and got off my horse. I started to walk in the direction of the massive army in front of . Believe when I say that the ground shook when that army moved but as much as intimidating it was, it was also…
[Exhilarating]
'Haha,'
[AyaAkusa]
"Mutilate."
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