Chapter 33
. FATTENED PIG
The Karkatas town was a very beautiful fortress town .
The small castle that stood over the hill was protected by huge walls . It didn´t have the beauty the royal capital or Derufoi city had, but the walls that were built by piling up stone had a strange beauty residing on it . Throughout the foot of the hill, there were grapes being cultivated . The white colored underside of the leaves would s.h.i.+ne as they swayed with the wind . Looking from the distance, it felt as if one was seeing a sea of grape trees .
…But currently, it was winter .
The green leaves had dried and decayed and only the lonesome branches swayed with the breeze of the wind . Looking from afar, it wasn´t possible to see that except as a desolate fortress city . However, once it was summer, it would change into a town even more enchanting to the eyes even more than its rumors . While thinking about that, Riku was sitting at her chair .
Inside the meeting room, the lord that governed the town of Karkata, Kraut Zawar, his adjutant, called as [The brains of Karkata city] and lieutenant commander of the Gortoberuk´s third army division, Riku Barusak and two of her subordinates were gathered .
“Ahem… Well then, let´s start, shall we?”
Clearing his throat, Kraut Zawar started speaking .
Originally being very like a civil officer by nature, he had an extremely weak body const.i.tution despite being from the same wolf demon race as Vrusto . Even so, he was able to raise a good and clear voice so that the meeting would be able to proceed well .
“I think you´ve already heard about it, but the spiritualists are heading toward this Karkata town . Their numbers are approximately a hundred thousand strong . Even adding lieutenant commander Barusak´s reinforcements of four thousand soldiers, our numbers would only reach about twenty thousand . ”
“Tch, why… Why wouldn´t lieutenant general send us more reinforcements!!”
The man sitting next to Kraut was lamenting in frustration .
But it was a meaningless talk . Although they recaptured Myuuz castle, many exceptional soldiers were lost . Gortoberuk´s influence power was also declining inside the Demon Lord army . Actually being able to gather four thousand soldiers for them was something they should be grateful for .
“Be careful with your mouth . Lieutenant general Gortoberuk is our superior, you know?”
“Tch, I know . ”
The man shut his mouth .
Realizing the man wasn´t going to say anything else, Kraut once again started speaking .
“The hill advantage is overwhelming . There is no way to they could capture this place besides doing a siege . ”
“A siege?”
Riku furrowed her eyebrows .
“Are there any problems, lieutenant commander Barusak?”
“Are you planning on going for a slow and gradual death? Even if you wait, there won´t be any other reinforcements coming . ”
Sending Riku´s troops was the best Gortoberuk was able to do, and it wasn´t really thinkable he could spare any more troops to reinforce there .
In order for Riku to be able to stand beside Leivein even if it was by only a minute earlier, she wanted to advance her career as soon as possible . Even if it was only a little bit faster, she wanted to win this battle quickly .
“Are you planning on ignoring what will be happening outside and just hope the enemy will retreat?”
“Our food supplies are plenty . With this much, we can fight for five years . ”
Kraut´s adjutant presented a doc.u.ment .
It had the information of all the supplied food they gathered . Giving a glance to it, Riku snorted .
“…Isn´t all this your planning of sitting back since the beginning?”
“Those are needed preparations . Once the war starts, getting new supplies will be hard after all . ”
Even though they have a proper supply line, if there are any emergencies, they will be limited by their food supplies .
Therefore, it was necessary to stockpile supplies . Riku understood that logic, but she felt that that case had a different feeling from that . It was nothing more than just intuition she had no way of proving, but she felt it wasn´t possible to feel the enthusiasm of wanting to win in the eyes of the people from Kraut´s side . It would be fine as long as they were able to avoid them; if they were to be besieged, their enemies would eventually go back . It felt as if they were having such naive thoughts . She thought about openly pointing this out, but doing that was would be too much hasty . Riku let out a big sigh .
“I´ve learned that going for a siege is always the last alternative . … . Shouldn´t we be thinking about whether we can somehow shave off some of the enemy´s strength right now?”
“Of course, it is as you say . It´s not something that needs to be pointed out . But, would you have any ideas? Such as a method of defeating a big army of a hundred thousand without throwing away our twenty thousand men army?!”
“I´m still thinking about it . ”
“If that´s the case, then leave the planning to us . You people should just retire and wait for the next order . ”
With a nasty gaze that would be given when looking at a bug, he told Riku and her subordinates to leave the room . Riku, who was chased out of the room, was clenching her back teeth . Following behind her were Vrusto and Asty .
“Really, what´s up with them to call me only to ditch me after?”
“That´s true-de gozaru! I will send honored grandfather a complaint letter later-de gozaru!!”
“You are a bit annoying . Shut up . ”
Their complaints were resounding through the corridor .
If someone was to tell on them about their complains and get executed for disrespect for the superior without even going to the battlefield, there would be no meaning to it . Both Riku and Asty became despotent . But that was only for the moment .
“…Just because they won a siege once that they are being so proud .
Vrusto muttered in scorn . Riku stopped her feet and turned her look to Vrusto .
“That you said, what do you mean?”
“What? Doesn´t ojou-chan know about Karukata´s old tale? …Ah, ojou-chan was a human . ”
Vrusto was showing an expression as if that had completely escaped his memory . Riku glared at Vrusto .
“A famous tale among the demons?”
“Something like that . Asty knows about that too, right?”
“I know-de gozaruyo . Hundreds of years ago, the spiritualists launched an attack to retake Karkata-de gozaru . ”
As if telling an tale, Asty started talking about it .
“The demons had some tolerance over the humans who submitted to them, but the spiritualists looked at them as traitors-de gozaru . That´s why they were planning on doing an strong offensive that would annihilate all of them-de gozaru . The demon side stayed on a siege for three years-de gozaru . ”
“Three years?”
Looking from the perspective of someone reading the doc.u.mentation, it would seem like only a few moments .
However, experiencing this much time pa.s.sing itself would prove that this is quite a long time . The people that fought for those three years must have suffered a lot during that siege . Even if they had a water well and food supplies to some extent, even then, how they fought day after day without having their mind broken ended up making Riku moved by that .
“Yeah, and then, because they didn´t think the war would continue for three years, their food started to deplete . At that time, the lord of the town fed their precious food supplies to a pig . ”
“To fatten it so that they could eat?”
Vrusto shook his head to Riku´s question .
“It´s not that-de gozaruyo . Out of all things, they released the fattened pig outside the walls-de gozaru!”
Feeding the few precious food supplies they had remaining to the pig, and without even eating it, they released it outside . The demons that had seen that lord doing it should have been trembling .
“And then, the spiritualists got surprised by seeing how much food they still had and immediately retreated . They were made to realize their lack of food supplies and morale necessary to maintain the army . ”
“I see . ”
Riku let out a sigh .
Perhaps it was because this town had a past record of winning a contest of endurance . Because they won once using this method, the idea of simply going for a siege war got in the heads . There was a reason for them to abandon going for any direct engagements despite not thinking enough about other plans .
“Stupid fellows . With that, doesn´t it mean I won´t be able to go back home for years?”
There is no way Riku was going to be fighting a prolonged war such as a siege .
But the upper bra.s.s was obsessed with the idea of going for a siege . Before the enemy arrives, Riku needed to somehow think of a plan so that she could get an advantage over the spiritualists with just her army .
“Soon, I will start a strategic meeting . One only between ourselves . ”
She needed to do something about that .
After closing her lips, she hurried to her room .
—————————
“A siege, you say?”
Riding her horse, Mary asked to Rook, who was ahead, diagonally located from her .
With no hesitations, Rook nodded .
“The strategy they will choose will definitely be going for a siege . In the past, among the stories Kurumi used to tell me, there was a tale about the siege of Karkata . ”
The moment Rook said Kurumi´s name, unconsciously, he became teary . Mary twisted her face unhappy . But neither took concern about each other´s expressions . As if nothing had happened, Rook continued speaking .
“That´s why they will choose to go for that this time . Whether it is three or four years, they will endure and then will show us the fattened pig . …Of course, I will beat them before they can turn the war into a siege . ”
“However… That fortress is unexpectedly formidable . From what our forward troops found out, the fortress will be difficult to capture . ”
Mary frankly spoke . But even so, Rook´s face was filled with confidence .
Things such as Selestinna and Rebecca´s death and Charlotte´s refusal which happened until now were all things that didn´t happen in accord to the development of the game . This time´s battle too was a battle that would have been easier to win if Kurumi was here . However, it doesn’t mean that Karkata can´t be captured if she isn´t present .
The brains of Karkata, and anyone else were obsessed with going for a siege . Despite being thin, their lord was as stupid as a fat pig . Rook didn´t have any feelings he would be losing for those people that couldn´t even see the reality .
“It´s alright, Mary . I have made a plan . A plan to bring their general out of that fortress . ”