Heavy Cavalry, retreat!
Margrave von Rosenberg received the frontline units' reports in relatively short order. In the Imperial Army, liaison officers constantly shuttled between subordinate and superior units. Thanks to them, the Imperial Army was able to coordinate closely between its formations.
"Has the Demon Lord's Army entered a counterattack posture?"
"No, Your Highness. They deployed small-scale units and defeated the Heavy Cavalry in detail."
The officer answered stiffly. Present in the command tent were not only Margrave Fritz von Rosenberg, but also Rudolf von Habsburg, Crown Prince and first in the Imperial succession, General Michael Kolowrat, General Johann Kutusov, and Mercenary Commander Ferdinand Wallenstein—the highest command echelon of the Imperial Army.
From a liaison officer's perspective, these were truly titanic figures. He had to report their own army's retreat to them… They might well fly into a rage at this sorry report—for instance, the Crown Prince might kick the liaison officer who stood before him. If that happened, he would spend the rest of his military career branded as "the man who was trampled by His Imperial Highness." His advancement would be finished. The liaison officer resented the Heavy Cavalry that had been defeated by those monster bastards, and above all, he cursed the fate that required him to be the one to deliver this report…
"There, you see, Count!"
Crown Prince Rudolf spoke in a loud voice.
"Have I not warned you repeatedly that a passive operational plan is worthless? The future knights who were to serve under me have been left rotting on the ground. Talent is the lifeblood of the nation. Tell me, Count—are you one of those who holds soldiers' lives cheaply?"
"My deepest apologies."
The Margrave bowed his head respectfully toward the Crown Prince. His posture was low, but his movements retained a measured dignity. The Crown Prince waved his hand magnanimously, accepting the apology. Inwardly, however, he was far from pleased.
*A cockroach feeding off the Empire.*
Crown Prince Rudolf harbored dreams of becoming an absolute sovereign. Someday, upon ascending to the throne, he intended to abolish every Margravial seat. To him, a Margrave was nothing more—and nothing less—than a potential traitor wielding excessive military authority. One ruler, one standing army, one nation—on the path to absolute monarchy, regional warlords were nothing but obstacles.
The Crown Prince's feelings found expression in various ways. It was not merely his contorted face. Before the battle began, he had refused to commit the Central Army first, instead ordering the Margrave to move his forces. He had even decided to commit the mercenaries behind the Margrave's troops. The intent to grind down the Margrave's army was transparent to anyone with eyes.
The Margrave, naturally, argued against military affairs being subordinated to politics, presenting an entirely reasonable argument. To this, the Crown Prince and the generals of the Central Army gave a brief reply:
—If you don't like it, hand over command.
Fritz von Rosenberg, the Margrave, had a headache. There was nothing to be done. Their logic—that as Commander-in-Chief he should lead from the front—was not entirely wrong. If his Margravial force of a mere ten thousand wished to assert leadership between the twenty thousand of the Central Army and the twenty thousand mercenaries, he had to accept a certain degree of losses. In the end, the infantry and knight orders currently deployed against the Demon Lord's Army's right wing were composed entirely of his ten thousand Margravial troops. The Margrave's bold decision at least forced the Crown Prince and the Central Army generals to step back. Their attitude was: very well, let's see just how well you can command.
The Margrave addressed the liaison officer.
"The Heavy Cavalry was composed entirely of knights' attendants. They should not have fallen so easily. What type of unit did the Demon Lord's Army deploy?"
"Monsters in black armor. They wielded greatswords taller than a man…"
"Death Knights."
The Margrave immediately cut off the liaison officer's words, recalling the diary his grandfather had left behind. He swallowed hard. The Margrave's own grandfather had also held the title, and over the preceding centuries had recorded every battle against the Demon Lord's Army in meticulous detail. The entries began with phrases like "according to records from a hundred and fifty years ago" and went on to describe in granular detail just how terrifying Death Knights were. Having read the ancestral records dozens of times since childhood, the Margrave could easily conjure them in his mind.
This piqued the interest of the other generals. Death Knights. A thoroughly unfamiliar name. However, pride was at stake, and none dared ask rashly—if the Margrave knew of a monster they did not, it was not merely a personal embarrassment but a blow to the Central Army's prestige. Just then, Mercenary Commander Wallenstein skillfully read the room.
The Mercenary Commander spoke.
"Commander-in-Chief. I must say, I have never heard of a monster called a Death Knight. For someone who has scoured every corner of the continent, that is saying something. Could you tell us what kind of monster it is?"
"Undead monsters—specifically, ethereal ones. They say only dark mages of the 7th Circle or higher can command them. Each one possesses the combat strength of a hundred soldiers, every bit the equal of an elite knight."
"Oh my."
The Mercenary Commander hunched his shoulders.
"Quite the terrifying lot."
"You could consider them the personal guard knights of Barbatos, the 8th-ranked Demon Lord. I have never heard of any Demon Lord other than Barbatos fielding Death Knights. It appears the Demon Lord's Army's right wing is no less formidable than expected."
"Oh? Then could we conclude that the 8th-ranked Demon Lord Barbatos himself is positioned on the enemy's right wing?"
The Margrave shook his head.
"Unlikely. Judging by the fact that this is merely a small independent detachment, only a minuscule number must have been assigned. Liaison Officer, report on the scale of the detachment."
"Yes, sir. While the figures vary somewhat, the monsters that the Heavy Cavalry units encountered numbered approximately sixty."
"Sixty."
The Margrave stroked his mustache. Sixty was not a large force, but neither was it a negligibly small one. Death Knights were, excluding Bone Dragons, unquestionably the most powerful unit type in the Demon Lord's Army. Such monsters had been deployed on the Demon Lord's right wing… Which meant the right wing was the Demon Lord's Army's weakest point, and to shore up that weakness, Demon Lord Barbatos had even detached a portion of his personal guard.
If sixty units were needed as reinforcement, the right wing might be far more fragile than anticipated, the Margrave mused. Even if the Heavy Cavalry feint had failed, the tide of battle would not suddenly turn. The most that was lost was a bonus. The fundamental advantage remained unchanged…
—gulp.
The liaison officer swallowed. Sixty Death Knights—the frontline commander had been inflating the numbers. The Imperial force of ten thousand currently facing the Demon Lord's Army's right wing was the Margravial Army. But the division commander overseeing them all belonged not to the Margravial force but to the Central Army. When the Margrave had been unable to move a single step from Central Command in order to fulfill his duties as Commander-in-Chief, a Central Army general had been dispatched in his stead.
Here, the structural flaw of the Habsburg Imperial Army was laid bare.
Just as Dantalion had predicted, the Imperial Army's upper echelon had split into two factions. The Central Army and the Margravial Army. They clashed at every turn over who would hold command authority in battle, forcing the frontline field commanders to act on political rather than tactical considerations.
A Central Army general's failure meant a weakening of the Central Army's command authority; a Margravial general's failure meant a weakening of the Margravial Army's command authority. Thus, when the Heavy Cavalry tactic ended in failure, the division commander reported with no small degree of exaggeration that it was not his own incompetence that had caused the defeat, but rather the enemy's overwhelming numbers.
The root problem was that there existed both a nominal Commander-in-Chief and an actual Commander-in-Chief from the very beginning. With two heads on a single body, the army could hardly function properly. This staggeringly inefficient system existed for one purpose: so that if the war was won, all credit would go to the nominal Commander-in-Chief, Crown Prince Rudolf, and if the war was lost, all blame could be dumped onto the actual Commander-in-Chief, the Margrave.
Fritz von Rosenberg, the Margrave, was fully aware of this reality as well. Considering his house's position, he had given Crown Prince Rudolf his unwavering support, but the current conduct was impossible not to find at least somewhat distasteful. Most despicable of all, however, were not the Crown Prince himself, but the Central Army generals who sat at the Crown Prince's side, coveting military command at every opportunity. And so—
*Every last one of the central nobles is nothing but a cockroach.*
A situation arose in which the Central Army treated the Margravial Army as cockroaches, and the Margravial Army treated the Central Army as cockroaches. The Central Army was incensed that in a battle where the Crown Prince was personally commanding, a mere Margravial force had claimed the title of Commander-in-Chief—and moreover, that this title had been assumed by a defeated general who had disgracefully lost his own territory. The Margravial Army was furious at the Central Army's attitude of distrusting and belittling those who, more than anyone, possessed expertise in fighting the Demon Lord's Army.
In the midst of all this, the Crown Prince, ostensibly to strengthen royal authority, leaned on the support of the Central Army generals and attempted to interfere in every command decision, while the Mercenary Commander served as an intermediary, trying his best to smooth over the tensions between the generals—only to be dragged along by his employer, the Crown Prince, in the end.
The result was simple.
"I had my doubts from the very start. Picking at them with catapults was a mistake from the very beginning!"
"What are you saying now? We all agreed to this in the last meeting."
"Catapult strikes restrict not only the enemy's movements but our own as well. We should cease this at once—"
"The Heavy Cavalry failed. That much is clear."
"Which is precisely why I am proposing—nay, insisting—that we commit the Imperial Guard Knights!"
The meeting dragged on interminably. Hours could pass without any conclusion being reached. Of course, the Margrave as Commander-in-Chief knew perfectly well that prolonging a meeting in the middle of a war would yield not the slightest benefit for their side.
"Very well. The right wing will proceed with a solo assault by the ten thousand as planned."
In order to end the meeting if nothing else, he resolved to shoulder the responsibility for every operation alone.
"Ahem."
"Fine, let's do it. Hmph."
The Crown Prince and the Central Army generals eyed the Margrave with undisguised displeasure. With the Commander-in-Chief declaring he would move his own troops, they had no legitimate grounds to object. Of course, should the Commander-in-Chief's solo assault fail, they were fully prepared to tear Margrave von Rosenberg apart like a pack of wild dogs…
Despite facing threats both internal and external, the reason Fritz von Rosenberg pressed forward with such resolve was simple:
Absolute confidence!
He believed in his army. And he had identified that the Demon Lord Army's right wing was its most vulnerable point. A strong friendly force striking a weak enemy—of that he was convinced there could be no defeat.
"Take this order and deploy immediately."
"Yes, sir! Commander-in-Chief!"
The order from headquarters was transmitted at once to the Imperial Army at the front. It was a dispatch signed in the Crown Prince's own hand. With the Emperor having effectively retired from political life, no heavier order could exist in the Habsburg Empire. Division Commander Kienmeier of the Central Army immediately bellowed to his subordinates with vigor:
"All forces—advance!"
Eight thousand five hundred infantry and fifteen hundred knights marched into the dense fog.
Beyond lay the field fortifications that the Demon Lord's Army's right wing had spent days meticulously constructing, and behind them, four thousand monsters waited in formation. The order handed down to the Imperial Army was to break through the enemy's right wing at all costs; the order given to the Demon Lord's Army was to defend the right wing to the last.
The Imperial Army's spearhead and the Crescent Alliance Army's 6th Legion's shield, Margrave von Rosenberg's offensive and the 16th-ranked Demon Lord Zepar's tenacious defense—these were at last about to collide.