The engagement had been forced on her by her parents at first. That was why
Carla had been so angry, and she had chosen to stay with her father when he'd
opposed the king, saying she was going to save Liscia. ...However, after being shown
that level of determination, she had no choice but to accept it. Liscia already loved
Souma from the depths of her heart.
[MISTERLP]: but unfortunately is already to late to go back... F for her
If I were really thinking of Liscia, I should have tried to persuade Father, Carla
thought. Then, rather than opposing them, I should have served under them, I'm sure...
Well, it's a little late for regrets now.
How was she supposed to face Liscia now?
Carla shook her head, as if to shake herself free from those feelings, then bowed
to the knights following her. "I know I'll be putting you all through unnecessary
trouble, but I'm counting on you."
When Carla bowed, the men all pounded their chests once. "Leave it to us, My
Lady."
"We swear we'll capture Souma for you!"
Hearing the men's reassuring response, Carla nodded and raised her right hand.
Then...
"Charge!"
...she lowered her hand, giving the order to charge once more.
All of the wyvern cavalry fell vertically, head first, like puppets with their strings
cut. Then, they recovered mere instants before impacting with the ground and flew
at minimum altitude, as if crawling along the surface. It was a dangerous flight path,
but as a testament to the rigorous training they underwent daily, not one of the
knights dropped out while accomplishing this feat.
With Carla at their head, the wyvern cavalry continued flying at minimum
altitude, heading straight towards the Albert. As they had anticipated, there was no
cannon fire or rain of bolts. Carla visually confirmed the presence of anti-air bolt
throwers mounted on the sides of the Albert.
"Found them! All knights, proceed as planned to attack the enemy armaments!
We don't know where Souma is, so don't hit any section of the ship that you don't
have to!"
"""Yes, ma'am."""
"Here we go... Fire!"
As Carla gave the order, balls of fire erupted from the wyverns' mouths. The
fireballs impacted the weapons aboard the Albert one after another. The two main
batteries at the fore and aft of the Albert exploded, and the bolt throwers burned.
The difference in what exploded and what didn't was decided by whether it was a
gunpowder weapon or not.
With all of the weapons destroyed in an instant, the wyvern knight unit climbed
upwards away from the Albert, as if riding the rising smoke.
Confident of her victory, Carla had her wyvern fly in a graceful circle. "Good!
Now, storm the Albert! Take Souma into custody!"
"Yeahhhhhh!"
But she said nothing in return.
Among the fired up wyvern cavalry, Carla was alone in wearing a dubious
expression.
...It's strange. The Albert has secondary guns, but the only ones to fire on us were
the two main batteries and the anti-air repeating bolt throwers. If they'd wanted to
put up a curtain of fire, the more guns firing, the better, I would think. Maybe that
battleship... doesn't have the numbers for it?
As Carla was growing suspicious, the wyvern cavalry had already headed for the
bridge of the Albert. Despite her doubts, Carla followed after them.
When Carla reached the Albert's bridge, there wasn't a person in sight. The
bridge was empty.
It made sense that now, at this particular moment, she couldn't see anyone, but
there was no sign of anyone having been here recently at all. As Carla stood there
dumbfounded, a wyvern knight ran in to give her his report.
"Reporting in! We are presently searching the inside of the Albert, but we have
yet to find a single soldier, let alone Souma!"
"That's absurd! Then who were we fighting up until now?!" she demanded.
She felt like the wool had been pulled over her eyes somehow. The ship lay
vacant. The gunners were nowhere to be found. It was practically one of those ghost
ships she had heard of. Did King Souma have some bizarre secret powers at his
disposal?
As a cold chill began to creep up the wyvern knights' backs, a new report came in.
"I have a report! We have recovered parts of what appears to be armor from
around the destroyed main batteries and bolt throwers!"
"Armor? Were there dead bodies?"
"About that... inside the gloves we found, there were hands from a mannequin."
"A mannequin?"
Mannequins had been found instead of gunners.
Then there was the premonition she had felt herself, that maybe the ship lacked
numbers. When she considered all of that, Carla came to a conclusion.
"All knights, return to the castle on the double!"
"But we haven't found Souma yet!"
The wyvern cavalry reacted to the now-frantic Carla with puzzlement.
Carla explained to the wyvern cavalry, her face filled with regret, "No... Souma
probably isn't aboard this ship. I don't know what magic he used, but he was
controlling the mannequins we found to have them attack us. The unmanned Albert
was bait, and we fell for it hook, line, and sinker."
"It was bait...?! Then what was his real target?!"
Seeing it beginning to dawn on the wyvern cavalry, Carla nodded gravely. "Most
likely, it was my father back in Red Dragon Castle."
◇ ◇ ◇
—One hour earlier. As seen by Souma Kazuya.
Castor's opposition was not something we had expected.
Georg had been making unsettling moves, and Castor had left his wife and child
with Excel after she'd tried to persuade him. However, even if he took a rebellious
attitude up until the last moment, I had thought Castor would side with us in the
end.
However, that was a naive hope. We had underestimated Castor's sense of
chivalry.
I'd never thought Castor would side with the enemy, ready to martyr himself for
his friendship with Georg. It was a small respite that out of concern for his
subordinates, he had only taken himself and one hundred of his personal troops.
Still, when Excel's spies had brought that information to us, both Hakuya and I held
our heads in our hands.
That was because it meant we were going to have to change part of our carefully
formulated plan.
When it was confirmed that Castor would oppose us, the biggest problem was
that I had no forces to send to Red Dragon City.
Of the 15,000 troops I could move, the 10,000 from the Royal Guard and
Forbidden Army had to go to the Carmine Duchy, while the remaining 5,000 had
been dispatched to the south of the kingdom where the armies of the Principality of
Amidonia were. While I had managed to secure Excel's cooperation, I had other
orders for the Navy.
So the problem was, I had almost no troops left on hand.
Even though Castor only had one hundred of his personal troops, they were all
wyvern knights, said to be equivalent to five hundred soldiers from the Army. If I
sent anything less than a proper force, they wouldn't be able to take Red Dragon
City.
With this lack of manpower, Hakuya and I chose to befuddle our opponent with
scheme after scheme, then try to take Red Dragon City in one quick strike.
First we remodeled the Forbidden Army's battleship, the Albert, to be able to
operate on land.
In order to put pressure on Red Dragon City, which was halfway up a small
mountain, we absolutely needed to have long range weapons. That was why it had
occurred to me to use the Albert's cannons. The idea had come from the railway gun
I had seen in a war manga.
By putting wheels on the ship and having it pulled by the rhinosauruses that
Tomoe had managed to gather for us, we were able to make it so it could run across
land.
...Though, after a crazy remodel like that, we'd probably never be able to make it
back into a ship again. It meant that I'd thrown away the Forbidden Army's only
battleship, but hard decisions had to be made.
Using the Albert as a mobile artillery platform, the first thing I did was bombard
Red Dragon City. That must have surprised the enemy. I mean, there was a ship
running across the land and firing on them.
At the same time, I used the jewel for the Jewel Voice Broadcast to contact Castor.
When I did that, it made him think I was on the Albert.
Plans that took advantage of human psychology like this were Hakuya's specialty.
Castor was sure to lead his hundred personal troops out to attack the Albert.
Wyvern cavalry were a type of troop that had both power and mobility. Even though
cannons could destroy castle walls, it didn't matter how powerful they were if they
couldn't hit them. Since all we had done was drag the Albert up on land, it would
probably be destroyed by the wyvern cavalry in a matter of moments.
In order to prevent that, we loaded a wyvern killer, the anti-air repeating bolt
thrower, onto the Albert. If there were anti-air repeating bolt throwers aboard, the
wyvern cavalry couldn't approach it easily. At the very least, it would buy time.
By the way, the Albert's cannons and the anti-air repeating bolt throwers were
being operated by dolls I controlled with my Living Poltergeists. In other words, the
Albert was unmanned.
Then, once Castor and his wyvern cavalry went to attack the Albert, I thought we
would take Red Dragon City while it was lightly defended.
Because Excel had sided with us, we knew that there was a series of escape
tunnels under Red Dragon City, just like the ones in the capital. By using those
tunnels, if we sent in an elite unit led by Aisha, no matter how firm the castle's
defenses were, they would be able to easily occupy it.
Once Red Dragon City was taken, the city's anti-air repeating bolt throwers
would be used to attack Castor and his troops as they returned. Besides which, once
his own castle fell, Castor would finally have to admit defeat... or so I thought.
However, this was where something we hadn't planned for happened.
Castor had remained in Red Dragon City.
When we came up to the castle walls to seize Red Dragon City's anti-air repeating
bolt throwers, we ran right into Castor. Standing behind him was a middle-aged man
who looked like the family steward.
When our eyes met...
"...Castor Vargas."
"...Souma Kazuya, huh."
Like that, Castor and I each said the other's name. This was our first time meeting
face to face.