I Became the First Prince

[Chapters are a hit slow due to holiday scheduling issues with the team. I apologize for the inconvenience. (Dec. 24)]

Chapter 178

The War of the Weak (2)

Leonberg’s paladins broke through the spear wall and jumped from their horses – and then they began running wild.

“Noo!” soldiers screamed, and severed heads flew into the air.

“Block them! Stop the paladins first!”

“Senior knights, charge the paladins! The rest, block the other knights!”

Imperial knights came to the fore, trying to prevent the collapse of the line, but their efforts were not enough. The kingdom’s paladins were crushing the imperial knights with overwhelming power. The distinction between double-chain and triple-chain was meaningless, for none could stop the swords of the paladins; in this, they were equals.

The Imperial Knight Commander then stepped forward.

“These guys!” the commander yelled as he summoned mana and let it flow over his sword. Even if he hadn’t crossed the wall himself, he believed he would be able to confront a paladin for a while, as he was determined not to die. His illusion was absolute, as his sword was sliced in half, and in the next attack, a long gash was cut into his chest.

“Oh, no matter if you are a paladin, how far is-” the commander expressed amazement, not even thinking of his wound, and these words became his last.

‘Schlk!’ the paladin’s sword sliced through the commander’s neck.

‘Tuk, degurdegur~’ a head with an expression of amazement rolled over the ground.

The senior knights who had gathered around their leader continued to watch as he lost his head.

“We need to get out of this place!”

“Join the other legions and plan the future from there!”

The high-ranking knights stepped back and shouted, then started running away.

“Woah! Retreat!”

“Retreat!”

The knights scattered all over the place, and the spearmen who had been desperately maintaining their lines as Leonberg’s knights trampled over them now threw down their weapons and began to flee.

But there was nowhere to escape to – the kingdom’s knights were in front, and the great wall of fire was blocking the rear. The imperial army was caught between flames and knights and had nowhere to go. The knights of the kingdom annihilated them.

Similar scenes were taking place all over the camp.

“The actual damage to our troops is not great! First, douse the flames! Then the way will be opened!” the commander of the 92nd Legion shouted, desperate to calm the chaos that has reached such an extreme pitch.

And through some effort, the soldiers who were wandering around began to extinguish the flames and soon started centering themselves around their legion commander, who had barely settled his mind when the news came.

“The enemy cavalry is charging to this spot!”

The messenger’s face was pale as he gave his report, and the commander asked with a scream, “The knights! What are they doing!”

“Our allied knights are annihilated!”

“What!” the legion commander shouted, his mouth agape.

Something was now seen approaching from beyond those flames that had not yet been doused. Despite being some distance off, the legion commander’s heart was crushed as a huge presence slammed into him.

‘Qwshaa~’ the stiffened legion commander saw the sea of flames split apart some distance off, and each time it did, a blue flash soared high into the sky.

“Woah! The paladins of the kingdom are coming!” the messenger shouted.

“Come on, get out of here!” the officers and escort knights shouted as they started pulling their commander back, but there was no time for escape.

‘Qashaaah!’ as if it was a typhoon, a wind suddenly struck, and the fire was caught in it and roared once more.

“Augh! My arm! My arm!”

“Help me!”

The soldiers who had been dousing the fire were now consumed in flames, and they screamed. Tents were torn down and swept away by the strong wind, which crashed into the soldiers. In an instant, the area had become a mess.

‘Shoo!’ and at that moment, disaster struck from the heavens.

‘Bwang!’

Under that sudden shock, the legion commander lost his mind for a moment.

When he snapped awake, the wall of fire that had run wild was gone, as if it was never there. All that remained were scorched barracks that had collapsed entirely into the ashes.

The legion commander stared at the scene and trembled at the absolute nature of the sudden change.

‘Kreeeh!’ came a painful sound, like the scratching of iron, and the commander felt a damp breath licking his back. He forced his stiff neck to creak as he looked behind him. Up until then, there had only been a burning tent, the place where the knights and officers escorting the legion commander used to gather; now, there was a giant wyvern standing right behind the commander with shreds of meat in its claws.

‘Kreuuak~’ the wyvern growled.

‘Hwraak!’ and the moment that the rancid, moist breath of the beast slammed into the legion commander’s face, and he collapsed.

“Are you the legion commander?”

It was only when the commander heard this heavy voice that he became aware of a rider who sat on the back of the wyvern.

“I asked if you are the legion commander,” the stuffy voice came from a helm that covered the man’s entire face, and it was far too dignified a voice to belong to a knight.

The legion commander nodded out of instinct.

“I won again this time,” the wyvern rider mumbled quietly.

‘Swaa!’ the commander heard a sharp noise.

‘Slchup!’ and at that moment, he felt a burning pain spread across his back. When he lowered his head, he saw a sword blade protruding from his chest.

‘Ugh~’ a groan escaped the imperial’s lips a moment later. His entire body was drained of strength, and with the last of his energy, he turned his head. A knight in golden armor stood before him, and the world started flashing white and then black. In the midst of that dark world, only the symbol of a lion engraved upon the knight’s chest remained as an afterimage in the imperial’s mind.

The legion commander closed his eyes, and they never opened again.

* * *

The King of Dotrin frowned.

“Isn’t this a little stupid, now that the battle is over?” he asked.

Leonberg’s prince did not care, despite the tone of displeasure in the king’s voice. The prince recovered the sword that had pierced into the commander’s back and gave his response.

“It doesn’t matter who put the sword through in the end. What matters is who discovered him first.”

“It’s rude to put your spoon into another man’s soup,” said the king.

“Honestly, Dotrin just heated the pot. Isn’t it clear that we stirred the stew and cooked the real deal?”

“If the warlocks had not rained down fire, things would not have gone so easily.”

“Would the results have been different if you had not lit a fire? And besides, cold soup is easier to sip than soup recently heated,” said the prince, and I got in the next words, “Anyway, the head of the Ninety-Second Legion commander belongs to our kingdom.”

“What is this? I forced myself to get here today, and now you doubt my talent?” the king of Dotrin clucked his tongue and shook his head.

Luckily, some imperial officers had survived the attack of the wyverns who were watching. All were trembling in fear and contempt, yet none dared step up and insert themselves into the conversation between the two men.

Their camp was burned, and their legion devastated; the knights who had gone to defend the outskirts of the camp were annihilated, and all the heads of the legion, including its commander, were now dead.

They had decided that there was no benefit to be had in fighting, and so all the surviving knights and officers had thrown down their swords as one.

“They have surrendered.”

The two men looked at the imperials and then back at each other. Both then opened their mouths at the same time:

“Whoever wants to – face me!” cried the king.

“Raise your swords again! I give you this chance to fight with honor to the end,” urged the prince.

* * *

The words flowed from the king and me almost simultaneously, and our intended meanings were similar.

I glanced at the King of Dotrin. His helm-covered face was not visible, but I understood well enough that his fervor had not cooled down yet. The same was true of me.

“I do not accept your surrender,” I said, and the imperial officers cowered as they gave answer to my words.

“Oah! Our legion has lost all ability to resist. We surrender so that unnecessary sacrifices are prevented between us.”

His blatant answer was so utterly mediocre.

“The empire started this war,” I stated flatly.

“It doesn’t matter who started it. You have competed on the battlefield, and you have won. Even though I was defeated, I hope you will honor me as a captain.”

I laughed and asked them, “So, because you have admitted defeat, you now ask that I save your lives?”

Was my expression too explicit of a threat? The imperial officers had been talking kindly; they now offered more concrete pleas.

“In the future, my family will pay a reasonable ransom for my release.”

It was a great spectacle, and I listened to their answers for a while.

It wasn’t as if they were grasping at straws at the last moment; the imperial officers truly believed that their offers would prove enough. They certainly believed that we would spare their lives.

“If my guess is correct, you must be the prince of the Leonberg Kingdom. If you know of chivalry and nobility, you must recall the promise and duties of those with blue blood.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“If you are the victor but your opponent surrenders, you must ensure his unconditional safety – only if he is a knight or noble, of course. This is so that those of noble blood are not wiped out, and this is the implicit promise between all noble families on the continent.”

I acted the fool, agreeing with the words of the imperial officers who made such loud noises.

Eventually, I burst into laughter.

One does not kid in war, and it was so ridiculous that these dogs who had run off to trample over other people’s lands were now trying to save their lives by telling me they would line my palms with gold once times became more advantageous. I sniggered and laughed, and then I asked the King of Dotrin, “What do you think?”

“Oh, their meaning of war and war as I know it is vastly different,” said the king sitting astride his wyvern as he looked down upon the officers of the empire. “In our Dotrin, the loser always follows the victor’s treatment, even if it proves to be a miserable death.”

“That’s so unfortunate,” I said as I nodded in an exaggerated fashion as if I had just heard something profound, “because that’s the law of Leonberg as well.”

When I shifted my gaze to look at the imperial knights, it was a ridiculous sight, them with their pale faces.

“If that’s the case, then no nobles and knights of the two kingdoms will be spared when the war ends!”

“I took that for granted,” I said, and it wasn’t worth listening to them anymore.

“If we cannot win the war, we are determined to lose everything. I came here with the intention of dying if I could not win.” War as I knew it was far different from what they believed war to be. There can be no safe place in this war, and death comes to all in the same manner as long as they go onto the battlefield.

“This is the war I know – the war of a small country that your empire wants to trample,” I told them as I raised my sword. “If you are lucky, and some of you survive, tell your glorious Imperial Army this,” I kicked a sword at my feet toward them, “Leonberg has bet everything on this war, so the empire should do so too.”

An imperial officer saw the sword that fell before him, and he was struggling with whether he should pick it up or leave it. I decided to relieve him of his indecision.

‘Chuk~’ I leaped from the ground and fell into the middle of the imperial officers, and those whose throats were cut spewed blood. The knights noticed the situation a moment later, screamed, and grabbed swords.

The people of the empire wielded swords but saw only the sword and not the fighting spirit needed to wield it. The blood from their bodies wetted my blade, splashed upon me.

“You mad prince! You will surely regret this!”

“Die! You war fanatic!”

“Your country will be trampled by the empire! No stone will be left!”

Hearing their shouts and curses, I knew they were small men acting big. I laughed as I slashed out with my sword for a long time until only corpses were strewn around me.

“What? Is there a problem?” I asked the King of Dotrin as I saw him stare at me, and he shook his head.

* * *

The battle was over.

The imperial army could not escape their camp, surrounded by fire, and they were annihilated by the knights and soldiers of Leonberg.

Those who did not leave the camp until the end were burned to death or were trampled by the Wyvern Knights.

There were no survivors.

My allies faithfully fulfilled my order to leave none alive, and once the flames subsided, they searched through the camp to finish off those who were hiding.

“Good work.”

Once I had reorganized my force, I told the knights gathered around me that they had worked hard, and their responses were profound.

“Since the imperials were weak to the marrow, there was little we had to do.”

“It’s rather a frustrating situation because my body isn’t even stiff,” Quéon said as he and his knights joined up with me. In fact, the knights of Leonberg, trained in battles against the vicious orcs, were sincerely disappointed by the weakness of the imperial army.

“I can’t believe that such weak-minded guys give the strength of their shoulders to the self-proclaimed ruler of the world. I was excited.”

“If I knew it was like this, we should have made war upon the empire right away.”

I shook my head at the belligerent words of the knights, whose excitement after the battle had not subsided.

“The empire is wide, and there are a lot of knights and soldiers. Not all of them are the same. If there are weak ones, there will be strong ones. Don’t be overly proud of our victories yet. The war has just begun, and we have only defeated a few of the empire’s numerous armies.”

As they heard my words, the knights quickly shut their mouths.

“Sorry. Our thoughts were focused on the moment,” Quéon said as he bowed down and apologized.

It was only after seeing this that I realized that I was being overly strict, but I didn’t try to give them back the joy due to them as victors. As I had said, the war had just begun.

The time will come when we can enjoy our rights as vanquishers; after we completely break the brunt of the imperial army advancing toward the kingdom.

“Your Highness.”

One of the Wyvern knights had left the battle while it still raged, in search of other targets to attack; he now appeared in front of me to inform me of the location of the enemy.

“Three days north from here, there are three imperial legions.”

The report did not fit the pattern of the recon that the Wyvern Knights have done up till now, which was mainly to mark single legion targets marching on their own so that we could minimize the damage to our own forces.

This time, the enemy would be more than worth the risk; it was as expected.

The Wyvern Knight informed me that he had identified the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army that marched up Leonberg, moving through the ranks of the legions.

“What will we do?” the Wyvern Knight asked for my opinion, adding that he could continue to search for enemies according to the original parameters set by our army.

“Let’s hear from the King of Dotrin,” I answered without hesitation.

“The head of their commander-in-chief will be enough to settle our bet, young lion,” said the king.

The battle-spirit of my allies, which had subsided for a while after my harsh words, now once more rose like a sharpened blade into the sky.

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