The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 298
The decisive battle approaching right before my eyes.
I had to lead 3,000 troops and head towards Renova again.
As I was about to leave, the babies seemed to know somehow and began crying in chorus.
“Daddy, don’t go!”
Ryuna grabbed my trouser leg and wailed, and the other babies cried along without knowing the circumstances.
“Oh my, my daughter. Daddy shouldn’t go?”
“Don’t go!”
“If I don’t go, will you stop snacking?”
“…I’ll stop!”
“Ryuna, don’t make promises you can’t keep. Instead, you can eat lots of snacks while I’m gone.”
“Ugh….”
“Take care of your younger siblings, okay?”
“Okay…. Dad, go and come back safely.”
Leaving behind the tear-soaked send-off of the children, I came down to Renova and immediately gathered the commanders for a strategy meeting.
When I conveyed the message I heard from Guderian, Sophia chuckles.
“He wants someone else to deny the contradiction he’s harboring.”
“That’s about right.”
“Calvern…. He seems somewhat pitiable.”
“Pitiable?”
“He might be suffering a lot. He might have wished he wasn’t human. Then he wouldn’t have to agonize.”
Indeed, that was true. If Calvern had been another race like elves or orcs, such contradictions wouldn’t have arisen. He could simply hate humans purely.
“…Is that what it meant?”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“Just that I now understand the true meaning of Calvern’s words about showing his qualifications.”
He already knew from the beginning that he was wrong.
If Calvern truly thought of different races and humans as equal, there would be no contradiction. There would be no need to hate the other side. If they fought a war between equally equal beings, there would be no one to blame.
Nevertheless, Calvern hated humans.
This means he considered humans and other races as fundamentally unequal and separate entities from the beginning.
How could he possibly achieve the integration of all races?
“He’s asking me to show him that vessel. Whether he can truly see all races equally. Whether he can do what he couldn’t do.”
“Indeed. But how? You can’t prove that by winning a war, can you?”
“…”
I thought there was a reason why Calvern sent a message through Guderian.
There was another message.
I was starting to vaguely understand what it was.
I immediately called for Elena.
She appeared with a haggard expression, having recently traveled to the Elrich Mountains with the dragons.
She seemed exhausted from mediating disputes between dragons.
“What is it?”
“I have a favor. Elena, please deliver this letter to the dragons and Mirabel. If they do not agree, I hope you can somehow persuade them.”
“Me!?”
“Didn’t you get closer during this trip?”
“We didn’t get close at all! You have no idea how much we fought.”
Elena looks disgusted.
But there was no other way.
“You need to persuade Mirabel too, so there’s no choice. This is something only you can do.”
“Fine, I’ll take Eo with me. And the twin babies too.”
“Why the twin babies?”
“Since all the babies were taken away, it has upset the ancestor. Showing the twins might improve their mood somewhat.”
“Well…. Anyway, please get their agreement. The deadline is at most two months.”
“You’re using people roughly. Understood. I’ll leave right away.”
Elena leaves with her shoulders drooping.
At that moment, a messenger rushed in.
“Reporting! The scout team has discovered the enemy lurking! The enemy is fortifying and extending their front lines!”
“Haha, Ryuna’s intuition was spot on.”
The enemy forces extending their front lines thinly and lengthily in the south.
Following their movements, rebellions began to occur in the southern regions.
* * *
The key point was that the royal and noble families of the old Bülang were heavily positioned in the enemy camp.
The enemies were trying to extend their front lines as much as possible, fortify, and then absorb the surrounding territories.
“This… Is this the strategy of Calvern? He’s hit a pretty painful spot.”
This was the statement of Altior, appointed as the northern commander in place of Rutger, who went to help Kaien.
He looked me in the eye and spoke.
“What are you planning to do? At this rate, the surrounding territories will fall into the enemy’s hands. The areas they’ve established are places with less resentment towards the old Bülang nobles. The citizens are likely to surrender to the enemy.”
In that case, the enemy can secure supplies internally. Even if we cut off the enemy’s supply lines coming from the west, the problem won’t be solved.
In this scenario, the strategies for occupying and fortifying the Luden Mountain range and marine supply lines will come to nothing.
Sophia tilts her head and says.
“I understand those advantages… But why choose such a troublesome method?”
“To make us attack.”
Sophia furrows her brow at my answer.
“I see. In this war, we were in a defensive position….”
“That’s right. Because we attacked from the north, the enemy moved their southern front lines. In that process, Olaf was taken prisoner.”
This situation has changed recently.
Because I once routed the western army, and there were stalemates in the north and central regions.
In this situation, it was difficult for the enemies in the south to attack first.
Therefore, through this strategy, they are trying to induce us to attack first.
It is naturally advantageous to defend rather than attack in tactical terms. The enemy was trying to take this advantage.
“You’ve used quite a bit of your brain… Now what are we going to do, Ars?”
“Originally, I should have been conducting espionage to prevent citizens from surrendering to the enemy… But now, I received a request from that guy Juras to draw attention. Let do it!”
Juras’ strategy was trusted, and a big plan was decided upon.
I entrusted the defense of the western region to Altior and gathered Sophia’s army.
I decided to launch a full-scale attack on the southern enemy.
* * *
Meanwhile, in the western camp.
Tetora Anistri had not been able to sleep properly for days due to her rage.
“Damn it! Ars Elaine…!”
She had not expected such a large-scale power struggle to be launched from there.
In the past wars, Ars had used a unique strategy of spreading a plague.
So she judged that there must be something profound this time and planned to preemptively strike concisely.
That’s why she led an army of 70,000 and quickly advanced north to target Renova, but Ars seemed to have known this from the beginning and overwhelmed her with a power struggle.
“Casper! Are you outside?”
“Yes, Tetora.”
Casper clicked his tongue and looked around her surroundings.
Around her were maids who had become targets of her anger, lying in pools of blood.
Casper was afraid he might become a target of her anger too.
“Did you previously capture a high-ranking prisoner named Olaf?”
“If you’re talking about the prisoner taken by Svenner, then yes.”
“Where is that prisoner now?”
“Well… Since Calvern, the special operations general, is a secretive figure even from Svenner’s side, we lack information.”
“Could he have been released…?”
“No way. That would be an act of betrayal.”
“…”
Tetora was concerned about Calvern’s attitude.
While he was undoubtedly an excellent general, something seemed suspicious.
‘That guy has something.’
She wanted to uncover what that was. Only then could she reclaim the operational rights of the army.
Currently, Calvern had monopolized the operational rights using the defeat in the previous battle as a pretext.
During this moment, a shocking piece of news reaches her.
“Urgent report! Liande is advancing southward with all it’s troops! The enemy’s scale is 100,000!”
“A total attack!? Is this true?”
Casper asked with wide-open eyes.
This would surely mean that Svenner’s army stationed in the western region would advance eastward.
Casper could not understand why Ars had made such a move.
On the other hand, Tetora sensed something fishy.
“Drawing attention…? But then, what is he aiming at?”
“Tetora, we must somehow block the enemy’s offensive.”
“That’s right…”
Liande was dividing it’s army into two branches for the southern advance.
An army of 50,000 led by Sophia, and another 50,000 led by Ars.
Accordingly, the western & Svenner armies also began to divide into two to confront them.
* * *
The chosen battlefield was a region called Frixon.
It was a terrain sequentially composed of forest, mountainous area, canyon, mountainous area, and plains.
This was territory previously governed by the former Count Lloyd, a strategic point in the south.
If this area was occupied, the enemy’s thin and elongated battle line could be cut off, which is why the enemy also dispatched troops to defend it.
“Ars, the scout deployment is complete.”
“Thank you, Gaspar.”
The key to this terrain was the canyon nestled between the mountain ranges.
The enemy was establishing a fortress in this location.
This was the region Ryuna had connected when doing coloring practice.
“Our goal is to destroy this fortress and push the enemy back. The best method would be to occupy both mountain ranges and isolate the fortress between them.”
To do this, they needed to occupy the forest on the left and the plains on the right.
“Sophia, I want you to take charge of the left forest.”
Sophia’s opponent would be the western army led by Tetora Anistri.
I assigned master Ilya, Ash, Gunther, and Gaspar to her.
“Forest combat is my specialty. Leave it to me.”
Sophia nodded resolutely.
Next, my army of 50,000 would head to the plains on the right.
“We’ll determine the strategy according to the on-site situation. Then, we will advance.”
Sophia left the military camp first.
She double-checked the spy network with Gaspar and then put on her armor and departed.
‘Sophia…’
She felt reliable, yet there was also an uneasy sensation.
She might get entangled in Tetora Anistri’s cunning tactics.
Therefore, I decided to instruct Ash about one emergency operation.
Ash opened his eyes wide.
“Wouldn’t Sophia get angry if we did that?”
“Isn’t it better than dying?”
“Well, that’s true.”
“Then I’ll trust you.”
Ash nodded heavily and whipped his horse, departing.
Afterward, I organized 5,000 troops for supply and began to advance with the remaining 45,000.
After about a day of advance, the sun was about to set.
Along with that, the enemy camp’s lights began to appear.
The enemy camp with Svenner’s flag fluttering.
‘Calvern must be there…’
Aggert was there as well.
A battle with a cross-species great hero.
I pondered all night with wide-open eyes about how he would emerge.
And so, at dawn.
The opponent made the first move.
Boom! Boom! Troops advancing in unison.
The enemy had chosen a total attack from the first day.
Hi guys, please check out the new novel I picked “I killed the Demon King. It was a mistake.”
TL NOTE:
Schedule: Everyday
Hope you enjoyed the chapter! If you would like to support me or read up to 50 chapters ahead of two novels with one sub, you can do so via patreon.com/ChibiGiant. OR by unlocking chapters.
You can also Rate this series in your free time @NovelUpdate.
