Chapter 137 - Clash (1)

Gaidar's soldiers clung to the castle wall like a swarm of bees.

The smell of boiling oil pouring down over them began to sting the nose with acrid heat.

Aaaaaaargh!

Screams too terrible to bear rose from below.

A soldier fell while clutching his melting face, and the men caught in his thrashing plummeted with him.

The sight lasted only a single moment, but it was a moment that contained every feeling one could have about war.

"Shit."

Cade had no time even to wipe away his sweat before he had to nock another arrow.

His fingers were already covered in calluses, but now red streaks of blood were running down from his fingertips.

The fierce siege that had gone on for three days was brutal enough to peel away even deeply rooted calluses.

'It was almost better back then.'

Remembering his experience in the fog-filled village, Cade silently drew the next arrow.

Each time an arrow left his hand, someone unfailingly toppled over, but even that lasted only for a moment.

Five thousand against one thousand three hundred.

The theory of war that said one could withstand three times the troops with a castle wall did not apply to the current situation.

Because this small wall had never been built with a large-scale war like this in mind.

Sigmund's firm resolve to take Deirmar today, no matter what, was making the situation more and more chaotic.

"You bastard!"

While Cade was dazed for a moment, a hand suddenly shot up from a ladder where no one had been.

The hand, covered in blood, scraped up the wall of Deirmar and finally succeeded in climbing over the top.

"You raccoon-like son of a bitch. I've been watching you for a while now!"

Something like faint smoke was leaking from around the growling man's left eye.

One who had built a world of his own.

Proof of it.

Aura.

"Die!"

"Urgh!"

CRACK!

A hole that had finally been breached despite their desperate efforts to block it.

The fierce tide pouring in through that hole began to crash savagely toward Cade.

"You stupid bastard! You won't draw your sword to the very end!"

With the nameless knight's sneer, the cracks in the bow spread wider and wider.

Cade's pride, and the beginning of the world he had so carefully built, was breaking apart.

"Just like rootless northern bastards. To think they parade a half-wit like this around as a knight!"

The knight of Gaidar looked down on him for using a bow instead of a sword.

But Cade's struggle was still too weak to strip away that sneer.

"Urgh!"

In the end, the bow could not withstand the aura-laden strike and split apart.

The sword tip he could not quite block grazed across Cade's chest.

"Rumors were all they had. The knights of the North aren't much either."

An unmistakable thrill swirled in the nameless knight's eyes as he looked down at Cade.

Proof of himself, confirmed through the weak.

A world that could only be felt through others because he had no confidence in himself lingered at the tip of his sword.

"What's your name? If you're going to die, we should at least exchange names first."

The knight of Gaidar spat atop the blood-soaked wall.

Expecting the red that would be painted over it again, the knight's sword tip began to tremble.

"I asked what your name was, you archer bastard."

Cade was smiling for some reason even in the face of death.

Leaning painfully against the wall, his gaze toward the knight was fixed somewhere a little farther away.

"Vlad of Soara."

"... What?"

SLASH.

He had asked the question toward the front, but the answer came from behind.

Along with that chilling answer, the world began to turn upside down.

From sky to earth, from earth to sky.

The knight's spinning gaze finally caught the flag of Gaidar fluttering far in the distance.

SPLAT.

"Cade. Are you all right?"

"Heh, hehe..."

Cade, who had been leaning against the wall, confirmed Vlad's figure and only laughed weakly.

"Hurry. Our side has been breached too."

"... The wall is too small. It was never built for a siege in the first place."

Supporting Cade, Vlad quietly nodded at his muttered words.

Stefan and Vlad's soldiers followed from behind.

As they withdrew, Gaidar's soldiers began seeping into the space one by one.

"Let's regroup first."

Vlad kicked the nameless knight's head, which had been rolling on the ground, far away.

Vlad never asked his name to the very end.

He only looked at the soldiers of Gaidar blocking his path.

Even now, the sound of ladders ceaselessly clinging to the wall rang loudly in Vlad's ears.

* * *

"The right wall has fallen! Gaidar's army is currently moving along the wall toward the gate!"

"The gate won't last much longer either, unless we destroy the battering ram."

Joseph stood still with his eyes closed and his ears open.

He could tell even without the reports coming in from every direction.

A heavy sound mingled with an ominous air.

It was the sound of Gaidar's battering ram continuing to pound against the gate.

"When in the world are the reinforcements coming? We've held out for three whole days!"

One of Heinal's knights, unable to endure it any longer, slammed the wall and vented his anger.

His armor was sticky with enemy blood.

Gaidar's soldiers, who kept rushing in no matter how many were cut down, seemed to have gnawed away even at his patience.

"They are a little late."

"..."

But the voice that answered his anger was only far too calm.

"We will abandon the right wall. Destroy the stairs leading down into the castle."

"But!"

"We will prepare for street fighting from this point on. Set fire to the houses near the wall, as planned."

Even amid the ceaseless screams, Joseph's response remained calm.

Because Joseph Bayezid was a man who always prepared for the worst.

"Are you abandoning the wall?"

"I am sorry, Sir Duncan."

At Joseph's apology, Duncan lowered his head.

He wanted to say they must not, but the old knight already knew well that the situation had reached its limit.

Anyone would have no choice but to withdraw in this situation.

"So this is how it ends after all."

They had to abandon Deirmar.

Seeing the despair of the old knight who had protected Heinal his entire life, the knights of Heinal also lowered their heads.

"...?"

At that moment, a faint sound circled around Duncan's ears.

A sound low but deeply resonant enough for even him, sunk in grief as he was, to hear.

It was an unfamiliar sound he had never heard on a battlefield before.

"... It is a tooth horn. It is made from the tooth of a saber-toothed tiger that lives only in the North."

"What?"

Duncan's eyes widened as if asking for further explanation, but Joseph merely let out a small sigh and sat down.

Only now could they see the young man's face up close.

A pale complexion, deep shadows under his eyes.

It seemed they could only now see the struggle he had made to appear calmer than anyone else.

"... Ha."

I have grown old for nothing.

Only now grasping the situation, Duncan quietly closed his white brows.

How much had he been enduring?

For the certain moment that was to come, Joseph had to bear not only the enemy's attack, but even the fear of his allies.

That was the weight of a commander, and the duty he had to shoulder as a Bayezid.

"Is that whiskey?"

"Yes."

None of the Heinal people present could get angry at Joseph for deceiving them.

Because the fingertips of Joseph's hand, holding the canteen, were trembling faintly.

The young man with dark shadows under his eyes had clearly staked his own life on the wall of Deirmar as well.

"It was something I had been saving, but fortunately, I lived long enough to drink it."

As expected, warmed wine or pale tea would never satisfy him.

Only this liquor, digging down his throat and burning all the way to his innards, made him truly feel that he was alive.

WOOO... WOOOOOO...

The horn sounded faintly from far away.

As that sound drew closer, the sticky air of the battlefield drained away, and the cold wind of the North settled in.

Along with the familiar sound of the North, Joseph raised the whiskey he was facing for the first time in a very long while.

* * *

"Get on them already! Climb up, I said!"

The conqueror of the West roared savagely.

Sigmund had personally drawn his sword and was shouting like a madman.

"If any bastard comes down quietly, I will kill him myself! Stab something before you come down!"

His eyes were red from burst blood vessels, and he was even running around nonstop as if he had thrown dignity itself aside.

To anyone watching, he did not look like a noble aristocrat, but even so, Sigmund had no intention of stopping.

"Today! Today, we cross this damned wall!"

It was not refined, but this too was certainly one method of command.

Gaidar's movements, so passionate they seemed almost insane, were certainly driving the soldiers on harshly.

"There. That's it."

Feeling the momentum of the battlefield tilting more and more, Sigmund smiled brightly.

BANG! BANG!

From the gate breaking apart helplessly to the wall that was now filled with their own soldiers.

In the end, this was all there was to it.

No matter what strategic genius came, to suppress an enemy holding a siege, one ultimately had no choice but to push soldiers in with stubborn force.

And Sigmund was a man who had a definite strength in that virtue called stubbornness.

"Stand in the vanguard, my son. Go and raise up that broken pride of yours."

"Understood, Father."

At Sigmund's command, Ishtvan began breathing roughly.

Somewhere between tension and excitement.

His father's command was surely the moment Ishtvan had been waiting for for a long time.

If the sword stolen from me is not there, then I will pluck even a forget-me-not flower.

"The gate has been breached!"

"Good!"

A siege was something that could last more than a year if it dragged on.

But Sigmund had confidence that he could take Deirmar, and he had strong soldiers who could support that confidence.

"Still, the brat held out stubbornly for a whelp."

Looking at Deirmar's blackened wall, Sigmund smiled deeply.

The Bayezid brat had made an effort, but from the beginning, this wall was not at a level that could withstand five thousand troops.

Even if he had strained himself waiting for a father who never came.

"Knights, hear me! I will give three hundred gold coins to the first man who brings me Joseph's head!"

Cheers rang out from every direction as the golden promise began.

Along with them, Sigmund's voice that resounded was clearly filled with certainty.

"And to the one who brings me Baroness Alicia..."

But his words could not continue to the end.

WOOO... WOOOOOO...

A sound like a beast howling.

The chilly horn blast cut off Sigmund's words.

At the sudden sound, everyone had no choice but to turn around.

"... What is that?"

An unbelievable sight was unfolding there.

The forest behind the formation where they had been.

From there, soldiers began pouring blackly out onto the grassland.

At a rough estimate, they looked to number three thousand.

"No..."

Seeing that, Sigmund's eyes widened in disbelief.

He hurriedly wiped them with his hand, but his two eyes were still filled only with the army standing firm.

"... They abandoned Sturma?"

He had thought it was a trap impossible to escape.

But what stood before them now was clearly the flag of those who should not have been here.

"Why?"

The North had been waiting for a long time.

For the time when it could rise proudly beyond discrimination, contempt, and endless checks.

The threats of Dragulia and Gaidar had only become the spark that brought that time forward.

"Bayezid! Why is Bayezid here!"

The flag of Bayezid fluttered up ahead.

That flag was the North's answer to the West.

The walls of Sturma rippling on the flag were saying that they had endured for a long time.

* * *

"As expected, we ended up a little late."

Peter frowned as he looked at the blackened wall of Deirmar.

But at the highest point of the wall, the flag of Heinal was still waving, so they were not too late.

"You held out well."

Making a flanking maneuver with a large force of three thousand was certainly unreasonable.

But it must have been better than what Joseph had endured inside there.

Thinking of his second son, who must have struggled alone all this time, Peter smiled bitterly.

"My son. Lead the way."

"Yes, Father."

At Peter's command, Rutiger raised the lance in his hand high.

The place where the sharply raised lance pointed.

There, the formation of Gaidar's army waited with its rear wide open.

"I will not speak at length! My knights. Go and show them!"

A deep anger slowly began to rise from Peter's black eyes.

Those who had dared to insult him, humiliate his wife, and torment his son.

Peter's anger, honed cold, flowed through Bayezid blood and into Rutiger's heart.

"Who Bayezid is!"

With Peter's command, the knights' shouts began to ring out.

The Bayezid cavalry began charging across the wide grassland.

Gaidar's army, only now noticing them, hurriedly began forming ranks, but it was already too late to stop the cavalry that had begun to charge.

What is that!

Why are those bastards behind us!

We can't dodge them!

Hundreds of horses came charging from the front.

Behind them was the wall they had not yet breached.

Rutiger, his left eye closed, quietly flicked his lance with his finger.

"When you came in, it may have been as you pleased."

A resonance spreading from the Deep World began to travel along the tip of his lance.

Quietly smiling in anticipation of the destruction that would soon hang from his lance tip, Rutiger spoke.

"But when you leave, it will not be."

BOOOOM!

Aaaaaaargh!

Gaidar's soldiers scattered as if they were shattered fragments.

Rutiger's world, which had split even the hardest dragon, was charging with ferocious force toward the eagle of the West.