Chapter 220 — 깃발을 들다
Chapter 220
Raising the Banner
Time flew like an arrow.
* * *
Litmus Front.
The Imperial Army’s main camp.
A hoarse roar erupted from the grand command tent of House Neresta.
Bang!
“That’s why I’m saying I’ll go myself! With Gility—together with him!”
Augustine slammed the table hard.
Grinding his teeth, eyes blazing.
Across from him, however, Gai, head of House Neresta, merely finished his tea as if nothing were amiss.
“No.”
“Why the hell not!”
“Precisely because of that.”
“What are you even saying!”
Clack.
Gai set down his cup and narrowed his eyes.
“Do you truly not understand?”
“…Damn it!”
For all his bluster, Augustine had to take a step back here.
Augustine taking the field was anything but a simple matter.
The only man of the age who could be set beside the Golden Lion. Someone who could plausibly reach for the title of the world’s foremost—such a person did not move lightly.
If he moved, it was tantamount to House Neresta moving.
Whatever Gai’s true thoughts, that is how the other nobles and the Imperial Family would read it.
The Inspectorate would start dogging them at once.
They would latch on like leeches, calling it their long-awaited chance to finally dig into the enigma that was Augustine, and tear at House Neresta like a pack of wolves, looking for anything suspicious.
And what Augustine was asking now was no casual excursion.
To extract Elric Mervinger, stranded behind enemy lines.
They would have to poke through one enemy-held position after another to find a man whose whereabouts were unknown. They would draw eyes, and Augustine might become the target himself.
No one thought Augustine would fall easily.
But one hand cannot beat ten; isolated in the heart of enemy territory, even Augustine would be at risk.
Worse, the biggest problem was this:
‘If Grand-uncle moves, it won’t be just Grand-uncle moving.’
There were many waiting for a chance to rescue Elric.
His sworn brother Gility Lenz among them, and other elders of the Council as well—any number of them might rise.
Old men stormed his office several times a day, pestering him about when they would go to save Elric; he hadn’t had a peaceful day yet.
The Elder Council moves?
Gai knew all too well what that would mean, and how far the shock would spread.
The monsters of the Council likely didn’t know.
Or if they did, they didn’t care.
That was the sort of men they were.
In any case, as lord of House Neresta, Gai could not grant Augustine’s request.
He could not stop Augustine if he ignored him and went his own way… but even so, Augustine would not move without his leave.
As head of the Elder Council and its Grand Elder, Augustine had always held it a rule to uphold and respect the weight of the lord’s seat.
It was why Gai could keep a good relationship with him.
At any rate—not yet.
“If not, is it that you do not trust your disciple?”
“Of course not.”
“Then wait a little longer.”
“Grr…”
Gai deliberately ignored Augustine’s silent glare and finished the last of his tea.
Just then—
“Father.”
Sean, who had been quietly watching the exchange, rose to his feet.
“Call me lord.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Good. What is it?”
Sean’s eyes were more serious than ever.
“Do you mean to break the pact our house made with Mervinger?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why have we not moved yet?”
“I am waiting for the opening.”
“And by opening, you mean…?”
“Judging from the enemy’s reactions thus far, it’s clear Mervinger hasn’t been discovered yet.”
“That could be the enemy’s deception.”
“No. They still don’t know.”
“How can you be certain…?”
A faint smile touched Gai’s lips.
“Do you think I have only one or two sets of eyes and ears in this world?”
“…!”
This time, even Sean was shaken.
He was saying he had planted agents deep among the barbarian tribes—so deep even the Inspectorate gnawed their nails over it.
Only then did the throwaway remark people often used about his father float back to him.
Old fox.
How many schemes did that unreadable face conceal?
For a moment, Sean found his father both unfamiliar and frightening.
“A dragon does not move easily. It waits in silence. To others it may look like laziness, but it is patience upon patience. And when it finally rises, it creates the greatest wave.”
Gai had not stepped forward even once, despite requests from the Imperial Family and the Inspectorate. When Crown Prince Zeraitz had singled him out in a strategy meeting, he hadn’t so much as blinked.
If anything, he tightened discipline so there would be no rash moves, and simply watched the situation.
Each time, the Imperial Army kept getting pushed back by the Crimson Lion Army and the barbarian legions, suffering defeat after defeat.
Only now, with the enemy’s supply lines stretched and the Imperial ranks reformed, had things settled into a tense standoff.
“Even if others call us craven, I will wait and wait again. For the moment when I, when our house, rise and create the largest wave. For the time we can bleed the least and reap the most.”
Gai’s eyes blazed.
“This seat exists for exactly that.”
“…”
Sean could add nothing to that.
He might have been born of the direct line.
He might have grown up with every benefit and resource—but the seat his father occupied felt unbearably distant.
The lord’s seat. What did that seat really do?
“Ugh.”
Augustine, too, kneaded his temples, muttering about headaches—when—
Crash!
The door to the command tent flew open and a retainer stepped in with a bow.
“My apologies for interrupting.”
“What is it?”
“A courier has arrived.”
“A courier?”
Augustine and Sean turned as one.
Feeling the Lord of the Elder Council’s burning gaze, the retainer flinched, then did his best to keep his voice steady as he delivered his report.
“Yes, sir. Report from Akran Fortress: the banner of the Crimson Lion Army has suddenly been lowered.”
Gai’s eyes flashed. So did Sean’s and Augustine’s.
Akran was one of the three great fortresses of the Wynz March, prized by the Crimson Lion Army. The Ketline Fortress Elric had taken belonged to that trio as well.
The front had since been pushed all the way back to Litmus Castle in Imperial territory, leaving Akran far to the rear.
And suddenly the banner there had come down?
That could mean only one thing.
“And a new banner has been raised.”
“Whose?”
“It has not been confirmed, but…”
The retainer drew a breath, then spoke with emphasis.
“It appears to be Mervinger’s.”
“…!”
“Heh heh heh. As expected of this old man’s disciple. He kept his nose out of sight so long I wondered what he was even up to—but he was prepping something deliciously audacious.”
As if he had forgotten how he’d been pacing in front of Gai a moment ago, Augustine burst into a booming laugh, as though he’d known all along.
A faint smile tugged at Gai’s mouth as well.
He turned to his third son, who could not openly rejoice before the lord and the Grand Elder and was reduced to twitching his lips.
“Sean.”
“Y-Yes! My lord.”
Sean straightened up again.
“Attend to your grand-uncle well.”
Sean could hardly fail to grasp the meaning. Afraid Gai might change his mind, he nodded vigorously.
“Yes! Understood!”
It meant he was to guide Augustine and the Elder Council so they didn’t veer off into trouble.
Flushed with excitement, Sean hurried out of the command tent.
—A dragon does not move easily. But when it rises, it creates the greatest wave.
His father’s words kept circling on his tongue.
Now the dragon had risen.
A new wind would soon sweep the battlefield.
He was certain of it.
* * *
Snap!
Over Akran Fortress, the southern bastion of the Wynz March, the banner of Mervinger snapped in the wind.
The crests of House Vail and the Black Skull flew to either side, but the largest and most striking was Mervinger’s.
“W-When in the world did you get here…!”
“Here, there, and everywhere in a flash. That’s how we do it, no?”
Fabian, who had been holding Akran in place of the Crimson Lion Army after it left the March, could only grit his teeth.
If only I’d been a bit more suspicious…!
That the Mervinger banner flew over not just Ketline but Akran as well was, in the end, his blunder.
Just hours ago, dozens of wagons had rolled up to the gate. They claimed to be a supply detail sent from headquarters with rations, and because this was well to the rear of the front, Fabian had given them passage with barely a check.
And the result was the fall of the fortress.
Dozens upon dozens of soldiers had burst out of the wagons.
There were still around a hundred men left in the Akran garrison.
A skeleton crew, but he hadn’t been worried.
Most were seasoned elites, hardened by countless fights defending the March.
But Mervinger’s troops, though far fewer, were overpoweringly strong.
They moved like panthers, and their raw strength was enough to drop a sturdy man with ease.
And their armor and weapons—how extraordinary they were…
Weapons of a quality that would make even nobles drool the moment they hit the market. Where in the world did they get them…?
Fabian couldn’t make sense of any of it.
The Crimson Lion Army had known the Army of the Star split from the Imperial main force and moved east.
But follow-up searches discovered only that they had crossed into barbarian territory; beyond that, nothing at all.
So the Crimson Lion concluded the Army of the Star had been swallowed in the press of the barbarians and vanished on its own.
Even if not, they judged it would be hard to sustain themselves without support from the main body and that heavy losses were inevitable.
Yet the Army of the Star that reappeared was far sharper in discipline and far better armed than when it had taken Ketline Fortress.
They had completed their transformation into a true elite somewhere beyond the Crimson Lion’s grasp.
Thus Akran fell with barely any resistance.
But—
What terrified Fabian most was that no one knew what these men, now returned, would do next.
With the Imperial Army locked in a standoff, if the Army of the Star stirred chaos in the rear…
It would surely become a crushing burden to his lord, André Wynz.
I have to stop that…!
But Fabian’s anxieties did not last long.
Schlick—
With a casual sweep of Elric’s spear-blade, his head hit the floor.
Step.
Step.
“Spread the word far and wide.”
Elric walked the path his soldiers opened and climbed to the top of the fortress.
“That Mervinger has returned.”
The first step toward resurrection.
Talent-Swallowing Magician