General Horatio Dupont flipped through the documents on his table as he calmly dined on his lunch, which was a simple roasted chicken alongside a wheat pudding. He frowned a bit as he felt the walls around his office shaking a bit.

  Fort Henderson was a fairly formidable structure, easily one of the best bastion forts available in the region for defensive operations. Its magically reinforced and angled walls and bastions were comfortably taking hits from the enemy’s overwhelming bombardment.

  Every hour, approximately sixty fireballs struck Fort Henderson, hundreds more if you count the dug-in positions that were quickly erected by his troops around it. It was an overwhelming display of firepower, enough that, had they been standing in the open field, Horatio would have been forced to meet the enemy head-on in the hopes of improving his odds with close-quarters engagements.

  But Fort Henderson was holding so well that all he had to worry about was the occasional rumbles whenever explosions struck them. He continued his calm cadence, sipping wine, slicing up the meat on his plate, and analyzing the situation.

  Once Henry returns here with reinforcements, we’ll have a lot of options open to us.

  Horatio smiled a bit at that thought.

  All I need to do is to continue holding the line here.

  A knock distracted his thoughts. Horatio naturally called for the aide standing on the side of his office to open it, and in came his executive officer, Major Frank Reichten.

  “Sir! We need you at the front right now!” The young officer rushed to Horatio’s table, almost frantically. He handed a piece of paper to Horatio, a report from one of his corps commanders. “...The enemy incendiary attacks are taking a toll on us, sir.”

  “Of course it’s taking a toll on us,” Horatio shrugged at his subordinates. “Two thousand fatalities, eh? That’s not so bad. I bet the enemy is having it worse.”

  “Sir, that only counts the dead since morning,” Frank frowned. “The injured are now double that number. Our staff officers calculated that those numbers will easily triple by the end of the day.”

  “I know, and I understand. But this is natural. They started it; now, they’re going to learn why you shouldn’t use nasty tactics when your opponent is on the defensive.” Horatio laughed. “We’ve been hitting their open and exposed positions better. They’re going to be bleeding a lot worse than us.”

  “...That’s the problem, sir.” Frank took a deep breath. “The enemy has the saintess on their side. Our troops captured one of theirs, a soldier who was burned in an earlier assault on our eastern flank. He admitted that he didn’t die and was restored to full health because of the saintess.”

  “...”

  Horatio’s face darkened.

  Then, he looked down at his food. He felt like his stomach turned upside down. So that’s why that fox confidently started this pissing match? No, it couldn’t be. There was no way that the saintess was here. If she was here, and since she was so close to the crown princess, was that brat also here?

  This news didn’t bode well. Horatio was banking on his enemy suffering more losses so he could push out of the area around Fort Henderson and break them into a rout. With reinforcements from Henry, they would be able to dig in further here for the winter before the loyalists’ 1st and 3rd Group Armies arrived.

  “No,” Horatio shook his head, laughing. “There’s no way the saintess is here. What a joke. I’ve had enough of that farce earlier.”

  “But what if she is?”

  “Then confirm it. Tsk. Damn it,” Horatio began eating faster, angered. Pissed. Quite frankly, he was even cursing the goddess. How unfair. Why was the saintess so powerful that she could just restore someone who should be dead to their prime health?

  While Horatio rushed to eat, he barked at his executive officer to call in an emergency meeting with his field commanders and staff officers within thirty minutes. They needed to confirm whether this intel was true or not.

  Not that Horatio had a lot of measures against it at the moment. He couldn’t exactly retreat, because if he did so, the enemy would just rout him with their superior forces and numbers without his defensive advantage.

  Let’s just hope it doesn’t get worse. He crumpled the piece of paper in his hand. This is still manageable. Yes, it’s fine. No need for desperate measures yet.

  +++

  “Don’t let the enemy intercept General Clausewitz’s battlegroup,” Wilhelm said to one of his officers. “Try to keep their cavalry scouts off on the western approaches. Make sure that the path is wide open for our reinforcements."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll see to it.” The officer saluted before going for his horse and riding out.

  That was when Alexa arrived. Wilhelm seemed busy observing their progress at the western flank, so Alexa had to ride a horse with Adele just to reach him. While holding tight to her lady-in-waiting, Alexa raised her left hand to call to him.

  “Wilhelm!” Alexa shouted. “We need to talk.”

  He was about to raise his telescope, but he instead lowered it and tucked it back into his coat as Alexa and Adele dismounted their horse. Wilhelm left his staff officers and walked straight to Alexa.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay back?” Wilhelm asked, frowning. “It’s not exactly safe here, and you’re outside Phoebe’s protection.”

  “I’ve been waiting for hours now.” Alexa looked up at him. “Aren’t we going to do the decoy thing?”

  Wilhelm shook his head.

  “No, not yet. I’m still…developing the ideal conditions before sending you there.”

  Wilhelm looked at the distant positions held by the enemy. Large craters now filled the no-man’s land between the two armies, while fires from the incendiary attacks continued to burn brightly, the smoke they generated severely reducing visibility.

  Alexa couldn’t imagine how hard it was for the soldiers advancing forward. After all, they had to go through a war-torn stretch of land that was being hit constantly by spells, crossbow bolts, and fireball artillery.

  As a result, [Sappers] had to lead almost all assaults, each of them digging rapidly with their equipment, skills, and magic to get close to enemy lines. Then, normal [Crossbowmen] and [Swordsmen] would charge forward from the forward ditches and trench lines created by the [Sappers].

  It was a complete slog, and if it weren’t for Phoebe’s ability, the mountain of corpses would be high. She thus wondered what Wilhelm meant by ‘ideal’ conditions.

  “Any longer that we’re here, unable to end this battle, the conditions become less and less ideal,” Alexa said, her hands crumpling into a fist. “I need to end this now.”

  Wilhelm wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was using his telescope to observe the enemy positions ahead. Alexa found that quite annoying, so she grabbed his telescope out of his hands.

  “Hey—!” Wilhelm yelped.

  But Alexa rebuked him. “Let me look at what you’re looking at,” she said, placing the telescope in her eyes. “I truly don’t understand what you mean by developing—”

  She went silent.

  Having their assault methods explained to her was one thing; seeing it closely was another. She watched as [Sappers] ahead of them, hundreds of teams stretching in a frontage that was miles wide, dug and dug. It was a gruesome process, as they had to use shovels rapidly with their skills or utilize spells that moved earth rapidly to dig long lines that protected soldiers from the fighting above ground.

  Behind them, on ditches that connected each line of trenches, squads of soldiers were constantly fed forward, both into and out of the front line. The ones who walked forward carried their weapons and held grim faces. The ones who walked back to the rear lines usually had injuries; some even carried their badly wounded brothers with stretchers.

  “...Wilhelm,” Alexa spoke, her heartbeat turning fast. “What do you mean by ‘developing ideal conditions’?”

  That was when Wilhelm gently pulled his telescope back. Alexa tried to fight for it, but he took it anyway. Then, he sighed as she gave up.

  “I know you’re frustrated and you want to end this fight now,” Wilhelm said. “But this is the reality of war. We’re trying our best here. It looks ugly, but we’re doing better than the enemy.”

  He didn’t smile at her to gloat about that fact. All he did was lower his head, as if his words were just a bitter pill for her to swallow. “In war, that’s what matters the most. The enemy is losing more, and you’re losing less. But you will never not lose anything.”

  “...If you send us out there,” Alexa’s voice wavered. “I’m sure we’ll find out a way to end this fast. I’ve already tried a few spells with Phoebe. She can give our soldiers shields to protect them completely.”

  “I know that. That’s why I picked you guys for this mission. I know that whichever unit carries the saintess is going to be the most powerful one. Unless the enemy has a trump card of their own, you and Phoebe will be effective.”

  “Then why hold us back?”

  “Because things aren’t perfect to my liking yet. And…it doesn’t bode well for me to send two young girls into danger without assurance that it won’t be in vain.”

  “...I didn’t know Sir Wilhelm had it in him to care for women like that,” Adele, who had been silent so far, awkwardly spoke up behind the two, as if she was trying to defuse their little routine spat. Alexa turned to Adele, staring at her blankly, while Wilhelm grumbled.

  “You make it sound like I don’t care,” Wilhelm said. “Is my image to everyone really this ugly now? I guess it’s the consequences of my actions…whatever. I’ll live with it.”

  “To be fair,” Alexa shot an annoyed look at him. “You’ve been quite callous since this civil war started. You’re gambling on people’s lives too much. I wish…that you’d lessen that behavior of yours.”

  Then, Alexa facepalmed. “But, whatever. I’m being unreasonable anyway. Whatever you’re doing…it seems to be working, so far. So who am I to criticize you?”

  Right. I know all of this looks horrendous, but in the end, Wilhelm is the one that’s more experienced in strategy.

  Who am I to whine that his methods look too unsightly?

  Alexa felt the cold breeze hitting her. Winter was getting closer and closer. Realizing that, perhaps Wilhelm’s methods truly weren't madness. No, it was a rational calculation.

  Those scenes that she saw, of her soldiers struggling, were so frustrating that she couldn’t contain her anger that she lashed out a lot at Wilhelm. But what if they had to do all that during winter?

  “...I guess I’ll leave this in your capable hands,” Alexa said. “But, I also still want to go out there and finish this myself. Each day that I see my subjects suffer this much, I lose sleep over it.”

  “Just trust in the plan,” Wilhelm said. “I’ll call you and Phoebe up when the conditions are favorable. Trust me, this will all end soon.”