Chapter 162: Let’s Be a Hero a Little More (1)
“Man, that was really tough. The technique of occupying space, conjuring an image, and then realizing it with illusion magic wasn’t easy to learn in a short time, but the other mages were quite cooperative.”
“Who are you?”
“Hey hey, look at this guy. Have you already forgotten me after seeing me again after so long?”
“Who are you?”
“Oh oh? Sword King-nim, you don’t have to follow your husband around like that. He already has a great potential to be a henpecked husband, you know!”
“Risel, what is ‘this’?”
“Aila, you can’t point at people like they’re objects. Anyway, I almost missed the deadline, but who am I! The future Archmage, aren’t I! Mwahahaha!”
Lucy showed off his talent for ignoring everyone else’s words and chattering on about his own.
The reason why I, Levidian, or Aila don’t ignore him any further is that, regardless of the process, he has made a significant contribution today.
Above all, since it was a task I entrusted to him, believing in his abilities, it would be difficult to reprimand him further.
The main force of the 17,000 strong 8th Legion was able to enter Hanah City at 2:30 PM today. And they defeated the original Hanah garrison that came up along the river.
If you ask how we were able to cross the river, I would answer that it was thanks to Lucy’s magic.
“Anyway, using magic that isn’t my specialty is quite fun. It’s always been my job to amplify the effects by using the expansion and control of specialized magic from the basic elements, but today was a good day. Somehow, I managed to create a 50-meter wide, 2-meter thick ice bridge that lasted for over 30 minutes, reaching across the river 2 kilometers away! Gulp, gulp. Phew! As expected, beer after work is the best!”
Thank you for the detailed explanation, which needs no further elaboration.
The way he empties his beer mug so refreshingly is still the same. However, his specialty is not magic, but self-harm and digging his own grave. He said with a grin,
“But, Risel. You’re really amazing too. How can you operate in a way that revives a dying military branch?”
“That’s the role of a commander.”
I replied awkwardly to his compliment.
Currently, among the people sitting at the table, the only one talking was Lucy. Lucy cheerfully took a big bite of a chicken leg and said with a munch,
“At first, everyone must have thought you were crazy. In this day and age, a tank unit? It’s amazing that relics of that bygone era still remain, but that tank division certainly played a big role today. Who knew that 2,500 tanks could transport 10,000 infantrymen? Still, it was a bit difficult to get the logs that we attached behind the tanks today. We split them up to use them as sleds, but 1,250 logs… I got a lot of flak for preparing that.”
It seems I won’t need to explain how the 17,000-strong main force was able to cross the river without boats.
Lucy continued to boast about his achievements, and his self-praise finally ended after he had consumed three beer mugs, two chickens, one carp, and vegetables equivalent to a small garden.
“Phew, I feel alive now. Even though the concept of freezing is simple and easy to scale up, large-scale magic is still too tiring. So, how have you been doing so far?”
He asks so quickly. To think he only asks about others after talking about himself for over an hour.
I sighed and shook my head, then briefly explained the events from Dakard Barony until this afternoon. It wasn’t that long, and he already knew the details of the operation, so there wasn’t much to embellish. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could do it as grandly as Lucy.
Lucy was deeply impressed by my tactic of seizing the walls immediately after the siege began.
“Oh! Amazing! I’d like to try that sometime too.”
“You can just fly over.”
“That’s different. The feeling is different.”
I shook my head again. If it were Lucy, he wouldn’t die easily just because the feeling was different.
Anyway, from what I’ve heard, it seems that the battle on the Narvis Plain ended with the Herduke Kingdom Army occupying half of the plain.
In fact, the 8th Legion was at the vanguard, but soon retreated and moved to the rear before eventually withdrawing from the battlefield, so I couldn’t hear much about it.
“But Risel, why did you occupy this place? Now that you’ve arrived on time, I should hear the story. You promised, right?”
“Ah, right. I was curious about that too. Attacking Narvis Fortress from here would only be a nuisance, and it would be difficult to achieve any tactical effect. Why did you come here?”
People’s eyes turned to me. Thanks to controlling information as much as possible before executing the operation, even Levidian didn’t know why we had to occupy Hanah.
Now that we’ve occupied the city and established a stable defense base, it should be okay to tell them, right?
“First, please pay attention to the topographical map on the table. As you all have seen, the east side of Hanah is a river, and the rest is an artificially created plain, but the south is a bit lower than the other areas.”
“Where did you get this?”
“It’s a war trophy. Anyway, although it’s controlled by floodgates, it’s definitely a low-lying area that would have been flooded if there were no floodgates. In fact, according to the historical records of Hanah, this place used to be flooded frequently whenever it rained. Although flooding has decreased recently due to flood control measures such as building floodgates and dikes, isn’t it strange that a low-lying area lower than the average water level of the river is created right next to the river?”
“Oh? Now that you mention it, that’s true. Is there some other factor involved?”
Joey tilted his head, and I nodded. There is another factor. There has to be. I raised my hand and roughly drew a circle around the southern part of Hanah.
“There are ruins underground here. The date of creation is unknown. I don’t know from which ancient era these ruins are from, but they haven’t been excavated and there’s no possibility of them being excavated either. There is a huge cavity 30 meters underground.”
People, even Aila, widened their eyes in surprise. It’s the same reaction I saw when I heard the same story before I died. But the real surprise comes now.
“And this cavity extends southwest and reaches part of the underground here.”
My finger moved past the southern plains, across the forest, and over a mountain. The place I arrived at was Narvis Fortress.
“The north gate of Narvis Fortress is located right above these ruins. You can go straight there if you just dig.”
As expected, people had expressions of disbelief. Since I’m used to this expression now, I decided to wait for them to organize their thoughts.
The first person to speak was Lucy, who was quite accustomed to unusual things.
“How did you know that? Is it that top-secret document again?”
He must have said that because of the weather forecasting incident last year. I smiled vaguely and said,
“Well, something like that.”
“Hmm, information even I didn’t know.”
Aila crossed her arms with a disgruntled expression. I tried not to get carried away by the feeling of victory, which I haven’t felt in a long time, and shrugged.
“It’s one of the Empire’s top secrets.”
“That’s even more of a problem. You should know more, and in more detail, about the top secrets. Hmph!”
“Calm down. The areas we have access to are different.”
“Ugh! I’ll have to work harder in the future! Just you wait!”
The head of the intelligence organization threatened, and the Sword King, lost in thought, stared into the air and said,
“Ancient ruins under the city… It’s hard to believe, but it doesn’t seem like a lie. Risel hasn’t lied much until now.”
“He’s not the type to lie in the first place.”
Of course, there is no lie in this statement either. I just didn’t tell the whole truth. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve lied.
Since it’s not my first time surprising people, my friends were only surprised for a moment before readily accepting it. I’m confident that if there had been someone here who had just met me, they wouldn’t have understood this atmosphere at all.
Lucy looked at the topographical map for a moment and stroked his chin.
“Is the reason why the south became a strange low-lying area also because of the ruins? That means the cavity is gradually collapsing.”
“That’s right. Even if the technology used in the ruins is a lost advanced technology, it couldn’t withstand the weight of the land that has been pressing down on it for hundreds of years. But it seems quite sturdy. Considering that it hasn’t completely collapsed yet.”
Even three years later, when these ruins become known to the world, the collapse doesn’t occur.
The reason why these ruins become known to the world is because there was a person who destroyed Narvis Fortress in the way I’m about to do.
If time flows as it should, a new mayor and military commander will be inaugurated here next year.
He was pushed out of the power struggle in Narvilt and was demoted to Hanah, where he happened to learn about the existence of these ruins.
Normally, people would be excited about such a great discovery and would boast about their great achievements everywhere, but he felt more anger towards the fortress commander who had ignored him after his demotion. (For reference, the fortress commander was a man of strong character who used shock therapy out of concern for his subordinates.)
Here, we can see the old truth that people are good at thinking about bad things.
He used the ruins to destroy the north gate of the fortress, occupied Narvis Fortress, and raised the banner of rebellion against Duke Narvilt. He wasn’t even a child, and his attitude of denying the world that hated him became an idol for many losers.
Well, in the end, two legions of the Western Army swept them all away within three days of arriving at the fortress, but the existence of the ruins couldn’t be hidden. After that, Duke Narvilt had a hard time with the influx of archaeologists.
Suddenly, Al, who was looking at the topographical map, had a glint in his eye.
“Does the fortress commander know about this?”
“He probably does. He also knows that you can go straight to the bottom of Hanah’s walls through here. But he won’t come.”
“Why?”
“It’s one of the Empire’s top secrets, and the fortress will assume we don’t know about the ruins. Because we filled it with water to make it difficult for the enemy to invade, right? You have to dig through the ground to enter the ruins.”
And it’s also inefficient to divert the fortress garrison to attack this way.
Perhaps the fortress commander is planning to recapture Hanah immediately through the ruins if I rush out.
After that, he’ll probably have a scenario prepared to pressure our troops from the north and south for a clean and refreshing solution.
“Hyung-nim, then don’t you plan to dig?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Well, if it’s flooded, wouldn’t it be difficult to dig?”
“It doesn’t matter. We can dig down from inside the city.”
The Hanah city garrison is located near the south gate.
That place was requisitioned as a garrison for our army by my order, and the 1104th Engineering Battalion is stationed there.
Right now, First Sword Hanos Luxilen is probably diligently encouraging his subordinates who are digging, while cursing the general who only gives incomprehensible orders.
“Originally, among the duties of the Narvis Fortress garrison, there would be instructions to recapture Hanah as quickly as possible if it’s occupied, and to retreat to Hanah through the ruins if the fortress is occupied. The latter would also include instructions to collapse the fortress from the underground ruins. As you know, there’s the Narvis Tunnel behind the fortress.”
The river flowing in front of Hanah changes direction diagonally and flows towards Orknesia, and the plain to the south of it is dry land connected to the fortress.
Narvis Fortress is built in the center of a terrain where several mountains are connected like shoulders, closer to a mountainous region than a mountain range, and the main duty of the fortress is to protect the Narvis Tunnel.
Originally, there was a tunnel that pierced through the center of the mountain range. It’s a tunnel that is presumed to have been built around the same time as the ruins of Hanah, and the Western Army is currently maintaining and using it. It’s large enough for people and horses to pass through, and it’s an important transportation route both geographically and militarily.
If this collapses, you have to either cross the mountains or go around them. The mountainous terrain is quite rugged, and going around it requires a detour of 600 kilometers.
In this context, it seems that you have to occupy the fortress first to seize the Narvis Tunnel, but this is actually a misconception for the vast majority.
As long as there are underground ruins, the fortress garrison can escape through the ruins and collapse the fortress to block the tunnel.
You can’t use the tunnel unless you control both the fortress and the ruins.
“Hmm. So you’re saying we have to attack them first. Then how do you plan to attack?”
“First, we need to contact the main force of the Conquest Force and set a date. And we also need to look at the situation of the fortress. Lucy, what’s the military strength of the Western Army?”
“Three legions, nine divisions, twenty engineering battalions. A total of 100,000 men. However, the troops that participated in the battle were about 50,000. Even though it’s a plain, there are many things to consider, so the rest are rotation and support troops. We have the entire Conquest Force gathered here, but I think it’s a bit of a waste on their side.”
“What’s the size of the fortress garrison?”
“The 3001st Legion, belonging to the Western Army. A total of 18,000 men. They say the fortress has everything. It’s called a fortress, but it’s practically a city.”
If we estimate the enemy’s strength to be around 120,000, it’s not that different from the Conquest Force. There’s a significant difference in the unit of battle, but strategically, it’s almost a one-on-one situation.
Even if we have an advantage, we need to utilize it properly to turn the tide in our favor.
Above all, if we can subdue the Western Army concentrated around Narvis Fortress, it would be as good as subduing most of the Western Army’s strength. We need to quickly secure victory here to be able to occupy Narvilt.
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