In the middle of the 9th month, 1,546th year, Continental Calendar.
In Elfrieden, where the four seasons were especially distinct, even compared to
the other continental nations, the lingering heat of summer had faded and it was
now a more temperate season. The season of bountiful harvests, when this country's
food crisis was expected to be resolved. Even with that season lying before them,
there was still an air of unease hanging over the kingdom.
The source of that unease lay in the opposition between the new king, Souma
Kazuya, and the three dukes.
Souma, who was said to have been summoned from another world as a hero, had
had his potential recognized by the former king, Albert Elfrieden, who had then
ceded the throne to him. With support from the daughter of the former king, Liscia,
who became Souma's betrothed, Souma moved to enrich the state and strengthen
the military. He gathered a diverse variety of gifted personnel, solved the food crisis,
set up a transportation network, and got involved in disaster prevention. It all might
have been a little plain for one called a hero, but his stable reign had the support of
the populace.
The three dukes, on the other hand, were the three people who controlled the
kingdom's land, air and sea forces.
General of the Elfrieden Kingdom Army, Duke Georg Carmine, who was a lion
beastman.
Admiral of the Elfrieden Kingdom Navy, Duchess Excel Walter, who was a sea
serpent.
General of the Elfrieden Kingdom Air Force, Duke Castor Vargas, who was a
dragonewt.
These three had protected the kingdom for many long years, but they were still
not loyal to the new king, Souma, and they had taken their forces and were secluding
themselves in their own territories. It was unclear what each of their intentions
were, but of the three dukes, Army General Carmine had given shelter to nobles
being investigated by Souma for corruption, and he was taking a clearly defiant
stance.
The new King Souma and Army General Georg Carmine.
People believed it was only a matter of time before the two came into conflict.
◇ ◇ ◇
"Listen, Souma," Liscia told me. "In this world's wars, it's coordination between
the land and air forces that's important."
It was a day that, with things gradually growing chilly, you could really feel that it
was now autumn. On this day, I was having Liscia teach me about wars in this world.
As the inevitable conflict with Georg, who was sheltering corrupt nobles, and
Amidonia, who were maneuvering in the shadows, drew ever closer, I wanted to at
least have a sense for what the flow of battle would be like.
Of course, as a total amateur, I wouldn't be commanding troops. When the war
came, I would probably end up leaving control of my personal forces, the Forbidden
Army, to the Captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin. Even so, as the king, and thus the
one who had to decide whether or not to open hostilities, I felt I should know these
things, and so I was having Liscia teach me.
Though she was royalty, she had graduated from the Officers' Academy and was
knowledgeable enough on military matters that Ludwin had said of her, "While she
lacks the experience to lead a large army, she has courage, and would have no
trouble leading a smaller army."
...Honestly, I just wanted a rough outline of how a skirmish would go, so she could
have kept it simple, but Liscia was too serious for that. She had even prepared a
blackboard to draw diagrams on as she explained things, turning this into something
like a lecture at officers' school.
Liscia drew two circles on the board, labeling them "Our Army" and "Enemy
Army." She also wrote the words "land force" and "air force" in both circles.
Here, I should caution you about one thing. What was meant by a "land force" or
"air force" here was different from what you would expect on Earth. The wars in this
world were still fought by knights in armor, so if you were looking at just the style, it
was similar to the Hundred Years' War. However, in this world, there was magic and
there were fantastic creatures like wyverns.
In the land forces there weren't just infantry, cavalry, and archers, there were
also mages. And as for the air force, it wasn't made up of fighter planes, it was made
up of wyvern knights, who fought on the backs of great flying lizards. Because of
that, the flow of battle naturally ended up being different than on Earth.
"I'm not familiar with naval battles, so this will only cover land battles, okay?"
Liscia said. "First, in a field battle, the air and land forces of both camps will begin to
fight at practically the same time."
Liscia first drew arrows from the two land forces and had them ram into one
another.
"The battle between land forces is orthodox. It starts with long-range fire from
archers and mages, and then, when the enemy formation breaks, infantry advance
and push in. Knights and cavalry look for openings, charging in small numbers to
disrupt the enemy's formation, or massing in larger numbers to charge the enemy,
followed by infantry, in order to tear the enemy unit apart. We call the former tactic
'cutting,' and the latter 'breaking.' That's probably pretty similar to the battles in
your world, right?"
"...Well, we don't hurl spells back and forth, but aside from that, I think it's the
same," I said.
Somehow, it called to mind memories of watching the battle scenes in the Taiga
drama series.
It started with an exchange of fire using the matchlock rifle and bow and arrow.
Then, when the ashigaru foot soldiers were given the order to charge, they advanced
through rifle fire, even as they were shot down, to reach the enemy's fence. Because
it was hard to use ranged weapons to deal with enemies once they were allowed to
close in, the defenders would send out their own unit of ashigaru soldiers, and from
there the two units of ashigaru would slug it out. Because this world hadn't
developed firearms, it might be easiest to think of magic as a replacement for
matchlocks.
Next, Liscia drew arrows from the two air forces, having them ram into one
another, too.
"And, at the same time as the two land forces are colliding, the air forces will
crash into one another, too. If they can seize the airspace over the battlefield, the
wyvern cavalry can fly at altitudes that arrows can't reach to drop gunpowder
barrels (a sort of bomb), after all."
"That's... brutal," I said.
It was like... the fear and the pain that came from being punched, with no way to
fight back.
"In that case, is the key to victory or defeat in battle held by the air force, then?" I
asked.
"No," she said. "The battle between air forces almost never decides the outcome
of a battle."
"Huh? But, just now, you said if you can gain control of the air, you can attack
without there being any way for them to fight back..."
"Yes, I did. Which is precisely why the primary goal of the air battle is not to gain
control of the air, but to keep the other side from gaining control of the air."
Next, Liscia wrote "1,000" next to the air force of our army and "500" next to the
enemy's.
"Wyvern knights are only a small fraction of the overall army. In the Elfrieden
Kingdom, there are 1,000 knights, and in the Principality of Amidonia, around 500
knights. Now, hearing that, you might think in a straight up fight, our side would win,
but the enemy know they're at a numerical disadvantage. They won't actively try to
go on the offensive: they're going to stick purely to defense. If we try to force the
attack, we'll take heavier losses. It takes a lot of time to raise a single wyvern knight,
so we don't want to take those losses."
"Ah, I think I've got a sense of it. Basically, in a field battle, the air force's job is to
guard the air until the battle between the two land forces is decided, right?"
"You've got it. ...Well, if our air force is considerably more powerful than the
other country's, there are times when things can be decided by just the air battle,
though."
Liscia turned to the map of the continent on the blackboard and pointed to the
big country on the western edge, the Gran Chaos Empire. Then she pointed to the
Star Dragon Mountain Range in the center, and to the Nothung Dragon Knight
Kingdom in the north.
"The Gran Chaos Empire has air force units that are organized not around
wyverns, but another type of mount called griffons."
"When you say Griffons... they're the ones with the head of an eagle, and a body
that's like a lion with wings, right?"
"Yeah," she said. "They can't fly continuously for as long as wyverns do, but they
can make tight turns in mid-air, and they can overpower wyverns in a fight. On top
of that, the Empire has a large number of wyverns, too. That makes them
dangerous."
From what I was hearing, wyverns were like bombers, while griffons were like
fighters. Both had strengths and weaknesses depending on how they were used, but
when it came to a battle, fighters, which could make tighter turns, would be the
stronger of the two. While I was sitting there satisfied with my own explanation,
Liscia continued on.
"Next, the Star Dragon Mountain Range and Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom
have dragons."
"Now that you mention it... I think I heard about them when we found the dragon
bones at the sedimentation pool," I said.
Dragons had a degree of magical power that was incomparably higher than what
wyverns had, they were intelligent, they understood human language, and
apparently they could even take on human form. While they didn't fall under the
classification of mankind, they had a pact of mutual non-aggression with mankind
and had built a country of their own in the Star Dragon Mountain Range. In terms of
appearance, while wyverns had wings in place of their forelegs, like pterosaurs,
dragons had wings, but they also had front legs and back legs, looking more like the
Western conception of dragons on Earth.
"North of the Star Dragon Mountain, in the Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom,
there are dragon knights who've formed contracts with dragons from the Star
Dragon Mountain Range," Liscia said. "A dragon knight takes a dragon as their
partner, and in exchange for helping them to produce offspring, the dragon lends
them their strength on the battlefield. Basically, they get married to the dragons."
"Hmm... Can I think of them like an upgraded version of the wyvern cavalry?" I
asked.
"They're similar, but dragon knights are an order of magnitude more powerful.
When a dragon and its knight become husband and wife, they're in perfect sync with
one another. Even 1,000 soldiers from the land force would be no match for them. I
hear they even managed to turn back an invasion by the Empire when it was at its
peak once, even with the Empire's griffon units."
"Well... they definitely have the strongest air force, then," I said.
So they went into battle like a married couple running a three-legged race... No, in
their case, I guess it would be a five-legged race.
By the way, dragonewts, like Air Force General Castor Vargas, were a race born
from the union between those dragons and their knights. When a child was born to a
dragon and knight, it might be a dragon, it might belong to the knight's race, or it
might be a dragonewt. There was no way to predict which it would be. It was totally
random. On the other hand, a dragon couldn't be born from a dragonewt. And if a
dragonewt married someone of another race, there was a 50-50 chance a dragonewt
would be the result, so they were fairly numerous.
"Wait, huh? Why did we start talking about this again?" I asked.
"Because we were talking about how it's hard for wyvern cavalry to be the
deciding factor in battle, remember?" Liscia stared at me, appalled.
Oh, right, right, that was it.