Only now, with the cavalry routed, did reality finally set in.
The Kingdom of Sardinia's forces came at them in full force. The Duke of Milan personally took to the front lines to rally his troops. He was no doubt bellowing something along the lines of "Kill every last one of them — countrymen or not!" The old man's voice thundered louder than a newborn's cry.
"Push through!"
"Roooaaar!"
The Kingdom's forces were now in danger of defeat if they couldn't break through our infantry. For now, our cavalry had gone off on what amounted to a picnic — sent far away to annihilate the Kingdom's cavalry — but once they were done, they would surely turn their sights on juicier prey.
They would want to end this before their rear was exposed. The Kingdom's forces pressed forward with ever greater ferocity — advancing, and advancing only. The more they advanced, the further my unit fell back, naturally drawing the enemy deeper in.
A bloody battle erupted. Before long, the limits of my unit — made up of citizen soldiers — began to show. If we just held our ground blindly, the enemy would shatter us like a watermelon split open.
"Let the enemy break through the center, then split the unit to both flanks."
"Yes, sir!"
The adjutant relayed the order. This command had been decided before the battle even began. Four fresh regiments of reserves stood ready behind our unit. All that remained was to hand them the baton.
"...?"
While my unit was — in the best case — tactically dissolving, and in the worst — collapsing and fleeing toward other units, a strange sense of déjà vu seized me. Then I realized why.
This was exactly the same as when we had annihilated the Duke of Florence.
Back then, our forces had been encircling the Sardinian Kingdom's army just like this. At the very moment the encirclement was about to be completed, Laura had issued a command that was difficult to fathom: "Let the enemy break through the center."
The cornered Duke of Florence had escaped death thanks to that. He broke through the front of our forces and fled. I had lamented that we'd missed the chance to eliminate him. What was it Laura had told me?
"A perfect victory is just as harmful as a perfect defeat."
And at yesterday's war council, Laura had said this:
"The Duke of Milan is a shrewd man."
"A wise man always tries to learn from past failures."
"The Duke of Milan will have thoroughly analyzed why the Kingdom's forces have suffered defeat after defeat."
It was as though lightning had struck inside my head.
If Laura was right — if the Duke of Milan was a shrewd man who had learned from past failures and was trying to apply those lessons...
Then he would have looked back at the previous battle — the one where the Duke of Florence had been allowed to break through at the very end — and not understood that Laura had let the enemy escape on purpose. Instead, he would have chalked it up to a single cause: the Empire's central infantry was too weak to hold.
In an instant, everything became clear.
"One sees what one wants to see."
"The Duke of Milan has walked into a death trap of his own choosing."
Back then, Laura had deliberately let the Duke of Florence go.
The reason was simple.
To make the enemy believe that our weakness lay in the central infantry.
Laura hadn't even considered the Duke of Florence a rival. It was nothing more than preliminary work for the next battle — preparation for a conflict that would someday be fought on a far larger scale.
But how?
How had Laura known the enemy would learn from past failures? After the Duke of Florence was removed, who would be appointed as the next commander-in-chief was not yet decided. For all she knew, a fool who couldn't learn from failure could have taken the position.
"Ah..."
And then I realized. Ah — I had told Laura! I had told her, without a doubt, that we would someday face Consul Elisabeth in a full-scale battle!
Laura knew how highly I regarded Elisabeth. Always and everywhere, Laura trusted my assessments absolutely. In other words, Laura had concluded that a rival commander so highly praised by her lord could never be a fool who failed to learn from the past!
Allowing the Duke of Florence to escape at the Battle of Trebbia had been a trap, a disguise, and a lie — prepared in advance for the day she would fight Elisabeth.
Who on earth could have imagined such a thing?
That she would calmly let go of a commander-in-chief already cornered in an encirclement, all to ensure she could pin down a successor who had not yet even been named!
No one would believe such a thing. Not even Queen Henrietta — another so-called military genius — would believe it. The mercenary captains of Helvetica, the commanders of Bretagne — they would all dismiss it as an absurdly reckless strategy.
—And therefore, the enemy would never imagine it either.
Not the Duke of Milan, not the nobles and generals who had crammed themselves into the Kingdom of Sardinia from across the land — none of them could see it. The less foolish one's opponent — the wiser they were — the more surely they would throw themselves into the spider's web Laura had spun.
"The nobles of Sardinia are quite capable."
Laura had murmured that once. Perhaps she had wanted to add, "And there's no opponent more useful than a capable one."
Before this battle took place, I had declared publicly that we would no longer need to fight Consul Elisabeth. And so the desperate strategy devised by Laura de Farnese had been aimed not at Elisabeth von Habsburg, but at Ludovico di Sforza...
"..."
Indescribable emotions surged within my chest.
Joy and remorse tangled together in a mess. This was my beloved. The woman I had corrupted and sworn to be with forever. What blinding talent. How recklessly and irresponsibly I had ruined such a brilliant person... yet this was my beloved...
"Adjutant. I'm leaving the rest of the command to you."
"Sir?"
"Our unit is as good as dissolved already. Whether I command or you command won't make much difference. Good luck."
The adjutant shouted something behind me, but I didn't hear it — I was already sprinting toward the rear, my cloak billowing behind me. My left thigh was screaming in pain, but I paid it no mind. To the Demon Lord, pain was nothing more than a passing thing.
The blue landscape banner — the military standard I had gifted to Laura — was fluttering in the distance.
I ran toward it, limping absurdly like a cripple. We were still quite far apart, but Laura spotted me approaching. She ran toward me as well. Her adjutants scrambled after her in a panic.
"My lord, what's wrong! Did your wound reopen?!"
I let out an involuntary laugh. She still called me "my lord." With so little discretion in places where anyone could overhear, I wondered how she would manage in the future. I would probably have to look after her for the rest of her life. She was quite a handful.
"My lord? Are you all right?"
Out of breath, I spoke to Laura, who was regarding me with that worried expression — the very picture of concern.
"You're a genius, Laura!"
I pulled Laura tight in an embrace.
"M-My lord?"
"No one knew. No one will ever know! You're a genius!"
The words tumbled out of me without explanation, without thought. But between the two of us, nothing more was needed. Laura's worried face bloomed with joy in an instant. She must have understood right away what I meant.
"Yes! I knew my lord would understand!"
"Don't be silly. No one else would ever figure this out."
The adjutants had stopped at a distance, staring at us with baffled expressions. First the commander of the first line had suddenly appeared, then the two of them had started exchanging words no one could understand, then suddenly both were laughing. Their confusion was entirely justified.
It didn't matter. What this battle truly was — now and forever — only the two of us would ever know. Laura had effectively killed Elisabeth! The one who was supposed to fall on this plain was none other than Elisabeth!
For one fleeting moment, Laura had become the greatest tactician and strategist on the continent. That was the true meaning of this battle. From the fact that I alone had realized this, I felt both rage and pride at once.
"Laura, right now you're the best. You killed Consul Elisabeth... I won't forget that."
"Ah..."
At my words, perfect joy bloomed across Laura's face.
"R-Really? To my lord, am I truly the best...?"
"Of course. What kind of question is that? To me, you have always been the best."
"..."
Laura buried her face against my chest. For some reason, she was crying. With tears mixing into her voice, Laura whispered in a jumble of words:
"Mm, I'll always try my hardest to be the best for my lord... and when I do, my lord will always notice, just like now. Yes. That's all I need..."
We held each other gently, as though the screams and battle cries of the battlefield were a lullaby. My Laura, my sin... proof of how I had lived. The proof that I must never throw my life away.
The commander-in-chief had suddenly slipped away from the command post, but the outcome of the battle was already decided.
Allied forces had perfectly encircled the Sardinian Kingdom's army on three sides. The enemy strained with all their might to break through the center, but the freshly deployed reserves held firm.
As time passed, our cavalry finally returned.
The Duke of Milan was no fool either. He had realized long ago that the battle could turn this badly. This was why he had stationed his elite mercenaries in the rear. The mercenaries skillfully formed a pike square — a formation designed specifically to counter cavalry.
The Duke of Milan had only been slightly careless. The cavalry of Bretagne — and specifically, the cavalry led by Queen Henrietta — was not merely a "negative" factor.
It was a nightmare.
At the Plains of Saint-Denis, the Frank forces had outnumbered the Bretons three to one. They had constructed thorough defensive fortifications complete with palisades. Yet they had been unable to withstand the Breton charge and were annihilated. And he was going to stop Henrietta with a mercenary force of barely five thousand?
Well. Personally, I would have advised against it.
Henrietta's Breton cavalry didn't even consider coordinating with the allied forces. After demolishing the enemy cavalry and returning, they charged without a moment's rest. Perhaps, thanks to Saint Longwy's blessing, both horse and rider were brimming with vitality.
There was a single sharp attack, and the outcome was decided.
The mercenary force — regarded as the finest elite among the Kingdom's forces — couldn't even withstand a single strike from Henrietta. The pike square collapsed miserably, and the enemy soldiers fled in utter disarray.
What blocked their retreat was none other than their own Kingdom's forces.
The enemy could neither fight back nor flee. Our Imperial forces had them encircled on three sides, while on the remaining side, the Breton army launched relentless charges. It was the same devastating volley-then-charge assault that had once wrecked me.
The Sardinian Kingdom's forces were slowly crushed between allies and enemies alike.
And the massacre began.