Chapter 22
The mountain above the gorge, which had been perfectly fine, suddenly exploded.
What on earth was the cause?
Eric Smith, being a medieval man, could think of only one answer.
An ambush.
Because he had no modern-warfare knowledge at all, Eric Smith could not reach the truth that a cannon fired from 10 kilometers away had shattered the mountain.
Thus, Eric Smith chose the most common-sense response available to infantry that had fallen into an ambush.
"The enemy numbers aren't that great! Each officer, focus on calming the soldiers! The wyvern knight brigade will fly over the gorge and search for the ambushers!"
From Eric Smith's perspective, it was a rational response.
Wyverns don't exist in the South. Nor do good-breed horses grow there.
So it was safe to say the South had almost no mobile forces. At worst, it would be an ambush of a few dozen or a few hundred men.
Besides, an ambush isn't something that can simply be handled by arriving first.
To bring down a mountain like this, you would need at least several days of preparation.
That meant it wasn't something the slow Southern main force, marching 100 kilometers with only infantry, could do.
In other words, the enemy capable of arriving here in advance and attempting something like an ambush was, at most, a few hundred men.
"At worst, it's an ambush of a few hundred men! Everyone, stay calm and keep formation!"
And an ambush of a few dozen or a few hundred would just be swept away by the allied wyvern knights following behind them.
They could easily clear out the ambush with the wyvern knight brigade, then gather up and clear away the rocks that had collapsed into the gorge.
That was the most rational judgment in this situation.
If the formation broke and confusion worsened because of only a few hundred enemies, the loss would be greater.
Fortunately, the discipline of the Western regular army, tempered by war, was strict. The officers quickly began restoring order.
"All forces, assemble! Our skies are guarded by the proud wyvern knight brigade!"
"Show the cowardly Southern bastards the dignity and valor of the Western regular army!"
"From this moment on, any soldier who breaks formation or flees will be summarily executed under military law! Everyone, hold your formation!"
And that rational judgment became the worst possible choice in this situation.
Gathering an army under a battleship's bombardment... was the same as asking for suicide.
There was no warning at all before the second shell landed.
"Huh...?"
Only a few knights with exceptional dynamic vision caught the faint trajectory slicing through the sky.
The second bombardment was far more precise.
Eight shells struck, crushing both sides of the gorge. Black clouds of blast smoke rose tens of meters high, shattering the unstable ground.
Kugugugung-!
Only belatedly did the thought that something was wrong enter Eric Smith's head.
"Am... ambush?"
There are no high-ranking mages in the South.
He had heard that the South's leader, some guy named Kyle Leopold, was a formidable mage. But he couldn't possibly be the one up there hurling magic down at them.
And yet how could an attack of this power...
A human mind freezes in situations it cannot understand.
Even Eric Smith, hailed as the West Front's greatest general, was no exception.
Behind him, where he stood blankly staring at the collapsing gorge, chaos was erupting.
"Mages! Mages, raise a defensive magic circle! Now!"
"M-My leg! Aaaagh!"
"Save me! I don't want to die!"
"The ones who run will all be cut..."
"Are you insane? If we stay here, we're all going to die..."
"Father in heaven..."
The commander's voice desperately trying to restore order. The scream of someone crushed beneath the collapsing cliff. Soldiers running around after losing their minds, and people praying to the heavens.
The inside of the gorge had fallen into utter chaos.
With the front and rear both blocked, there was an unknown force that was neither magic nor ambush. The fear that that power could strike at any moment.
Human beings were bound to collapse before fear they could not comprehend.
And then, the third shell came crashing down.
This time, the shot was far more accurate.
One of the eight 305mm shells slipped past the collapsed cliff and landed inside the gorge.
The ground flipped over at once.
Kugugugung-!
With a thunderous roar, the ground below turned red-hot. The earth swelled, and immense heat began pouring out through the cracks.
For the ordinary soldiers, there wasn't even time to realize what was happening beneath their feet.
Because the bodies of the soldiers standing on top of it were literally melted away by the huge explosion that burst out like a volcano.
"..."
Even knights wrapped tightly in aura and mages who had deployed barrier circles could not survive. Not even a corpse remained in the wake of the blast.
Only then was Eric Smith able to identify the true nature of the attack raining down on this place.
"No way..."
A battleship.
The South's mysterious new weapon.
The monster that had blown apart a fortress guarded by one 8th-circle mage and two 7th-circle mages with a single shot.
"No, but... how?"
There was at least eight kilometers from the coast to this gorge.
On top of that, it wasn't just the distance. The mountain range would also have blocked their line of sight, so how was such a precise attack even possible?
It didn't matter.
Eric Smith didn't need to worry about that.
The dreadnought's fourth salvo came flying toward the gorge.
Kwa-gwa-gwang-!
Under the overwhelming impact of the 305mm naval guns, the West's elite troops melted away.
That was no metaphor.
Anyone struck directly by a shell was erased without a trace.
Aura that could block 20mm rounds and endure 76mm shells? Such a thing was nothing more than a glittering curiosity before dozens of times more mass and kinetic energy.
Before the might of the battleship, knights using aura and fireflies were no different at all.
When the fifth shell landed, Eric Smith stopped thinking.
Even instincts like the survival drive only kick in when a way to survive can be seen.
Before overwhelming violence that crushed aura, shattered magic, and destroyed terrain, such a thing was utterly meaningless.
***
Explosions burst up between the gorge walls.
It was a hit signal that didn't even need to be checked with binoculars.
"The third shell hit!"
After Johan reported that, a busy voice came from the crystal.
- Correction for turret 2 is on target! All turrets, please match your gun angles to turret 2!
- Turret 1, ready!
- Turrets 4 and 5, ready!
- Fire the fourth salvo!
Kwa-gwa-gwang-!
Once again, the naval guns spewed fire.
Exactly 15 seconds later, the gorge was once again swallowed by blast smoke.
This time, three shells fell dead center into the gorge. Three successive explosions shook the very ground.
Could you even still call that a "gorge" now?
With the soil and sand sent tumbling down as both mountains collapsed, the gorge had been filled in completely and was no longer passable.
The fate of the people buried beneath it?
"...I don't want to imagine it."
The battleship's naval gunfire continued. The longer it went on, the more accurate it became.
And then, about ten minutes later.
- Fire the tenth shell!
By the time the tenth salvo came crashing down, no trace of the gorge remained.
Even then, the battleship's gunfire did not stop.
As if determined to bury them for good, shells continued pounding the gorge, whose terrain had already been completely destroyed.
Johan stared blankly at the sight.
The shelling finally stopped after the thirteenth naval volley.
- The Grand Duke and the Guard will arrive at the gorge shortly. Cease naval gunfire.
But he didn't think that was good news for the survivors inside the gorge.
Johan once again recalled the appearance of the 'Guard' he had seen before.
Gray coats and gray steel helmets. Gray masks. Wrapped from head to toe in hard, colorless tones, they carried a strange oppressive presence that couldn't be found in knights.
If knights symbolized honor and power, their uniforms seemed to embody the Empire itself.
Especially those emotionless eyes that glowed red...
"Ugh... I absolutely do not want to meet them as enemies."
Shivering, Johan stopped thinking about it.
He wasn't supposed to try to understand the darkness of the South.
***
"Urgh..."
Eric Smith groaned as he struggled to his feet amid the ruins.
He felt as if he were suffering from a hangover the day after drinking far too much. His head rang, his vision was blurry, and his whole body ached.
But this wasn't a bed in his bedroom. It was the middle of a battlefield.
The moment Eric Smith realized that, he tried to get up.
"Survivor found"
Until he heard the eerie, distorted voice that inspired instinctive fear.
When he barely opened his eyes, he saw the shattered gorge and the army reduced to scorched earth. And he saw soldiers in gray searching for survivors.
Could they be rescue troops?
Eric Smith, who had tried to get up with that hope in mind, found his body freezing in place.
"No survivors."
With those cold words, a soldier carrying a light machine gun and wearing heavy armor all over his body approached the fallen knight.
A string of gunfire turned the knight's body into tatters.
Eric Smith's expression froze white in an instant.