The next day, Zakri brought news.
"The Bretagne army has entered the Imperial Capital."
"Hm. Exactly twenty days since they crossed the border……"
I directed my gaze downward. A map was spread across the table.
"An unstoppable advance, I see."
"Momentum of splitting bamboo……is that what you meant? That's certainly apt."
The dwarf Zakri nodded. Whenever I used a four-character idiom, the meaning wouldn't carry across and the words would be translated literally, character by character. I had no idea how that mechanism actually worked.
Oh, right—ever since arriving in the Frank Empire, I'd learned that my pronunciation was apparently quite refined. One day, Zakri had pointed this out while drinking beer.
"It sounds just like the Frank spoken by the court nobles. Did Your Excellency Dantalion receive special tutoring in foreign languages?"
"Ah, well. Something like that."
"I've heard you're also fluent in Habsburg. Are there any other languages you happen to master?"
I could probably wield any language that existed in this world with complete fluency. In this world, people—especially those wealthy enough to purchase magical artifacts—rarely bothered to learn foreign languages. Translation magic existed, after all.
"Hm. As far as the languages of the Human Realm go, more or less all of them."
"Truly? That's extraordinary!"
Zakri was amazed.
"Most Demon Lords tend to be rather lax about studying……No, of course Your Excellency Dantalion is no ordinary Demon Lord. That's truly impressive."
"Hm. Hm."
After that day, Zakri began looking at me with even greater reverence. I kept my mouth firmly shut. My conscience pricked at me, but what did it matter? My conscience, if we were counting stabbing wounds, had already been sliced to ribbons a hundred times over.
In any case, the current state of the Frank Empire was far more pressing than my elegant pronunciation.
The enemy invaded and entered the capital in a mere twenty days. That was abnormally fast. You could almost believe they'd marched through without a single battle. If there truly hadn't been a single engagement, that would be one thing, but……
"The Frank Empire isn't just weak—it's completely powerless. What a mess."
"The Kingdom of Bretagne is far stronger than expected. The Queen's reputation is no small thing either."
The state of affairs was as follows.
When the enemy invaded suddenly, the Frankish nobles were thrown into chaos at first. The war against the Crescent Alliance Army still wasn't over. At a time when the Demon Lord's forces and humanity's forces were trading advances and retreats, no one could have imagined that humans would attack humans.
"Especially since the Frankish nobles had already conscripted large numbers of troops for the Crescent Alliance Army expedition. Their surveillance of the border regions would have been more lax than usual."
Zakri stroked his beard.
"The Frankish nobles are furiously denouncing Bretagne—asking how anyone could attack fellow humans in the middle of a war against the Crescent Alliance Army."
"A foolish reaction."
Even at this stage, the gap in competence between Bretagne and the Frank Empire was already evident.
"Queen Henrietta of Bretagne saw through it—that the Crescent Alliance Army expedition had effectively ended. The newly formed Habsburg Republic could never withstand the Demon Lord's assault. And yet the Crescent Alliance Army isn't attacking…… She must have asked herself why."
And then she figured it out. The Demon Lord's army had split apart once again.
It was infamous, just how spectacularly the Demon Lords had squandered their chances in every past Crescent Alliance Army expedition. If I bothered listing them all, I'd feel so miserable about why I'd been reborn as a Demon Lord of all things.
Queen Henrietta must have been secretly mocking the Demon Lords. Humanity's destruction had been right within their grasp, yet they'd been so consumed by their own factional infighting that they'd thrown away a once-in-a-eternity opportunity. What a pathetic story……
"According to our intelligence, Queen Henrietta had already been mustering her armies in advance. It seems she predicted that humanity would suffer a complete defeat at Habsburg and prepared additional forces accordingly."
Those forces were deployed in their entirety for the invasion of the Frank Empire.
The Frank Empire wasn't lacking in the brainless entirely. A regional army was quickly assembled, organized around the marquises.
The battle-hardened marquises led their armies and prepared to meet the enemy head-on—but from the imperial capital, an order came down like a bolt from the blue.
'Bretagne is not our enemy. It is a friend of the Frank Empire. I hereby command all commanders: grant Bretagne whatever passage it desires, and provide Bretagne with whatever supplies it requests.'
There was no hiding it. It was the Emperor of the Frank Empire.
It was the moment when the provincial commanders of the Frank Empire fell into utter disarray. What emperor in the world would order his forces to make way for foreign invaders and provide them with supplies? Yet that was exactly what had happened.
Should they resist the invaders, or obey the Emperor's command? Heated arguments erupted among the commanders. It was an unprecedented crisis.
Bretagne took advantage of this confusion and marched on in leisurely fashion.
Should any imperial troops block the road, —
"We have here a command decree issued by His Majesty, the Emperor of Frank."
"We are the garrison forces defending this area..."
"Shut your mouths! You dare think of defying His Majesty's command!"
Queen Henrietta blustered in just this manner.
She was, in fact, holding the parchment on which the Imperial Edict was inscribed. Under normal circumstances, they would have scoffed and asked where she had obtained such a forged decree. But the imperial troops had no choice but to withdraw, swallowing their bitter pride...
"It is said that as many as three fortresses watched the Kingdom's army pass by right under their noses. What is more, the garrison troops at those fortresses were even disarmed."
An emperor who could produce blunders on par with the Demon Lords themselves.
The Bretagne army crossed the border regions and fortress zones without suffering a single casualty. Only then did a handful of Frank nobles finally begin to think, 'No matter what, this is going a bit too far, isn't it?'
The republican-minded nobles were particularly shaken. To draw a comparison, it was as if the King of Joseon had invited the Japanese invaders to his own land in order to slaughter his ministers.
'His Majesty has brought in Bretagne — our mortal enemy — to destroy us!'
Unable to endure it any longer, certain nobles rose up in revolt. Marshal Montmorency, the Supreme Commander of the Frank Army; the Duke of Guise; Marshal Saint-André — nobles from both the Queen Mother's faction and the Neutral Faction gathered together. They hurriedly mustered their forces.
Regrettably, only about fifteen thousand troops could be assembled. Bretagne was bearing down with overwhelming momentum. They had scraped together every soldier that could be gathered in such a short time.
Facing them, the Bretagne army numbered roughly nine thousand. In terms of sheer numbers, Frank held an overwhelming advantage. One might almost call it befitting of an empire. Imperial troops and the Kingdom's forces clashed at a strategic chokepoint.
"At this level, it's fightable. The Frank commanders must have been thinking exactly that."
"Well, they might even have harbored hopes of driving Bretagne out entirely."
Nearly everyone thought the same way.
But with one exception.
The Bretagne Kingdom's army was in an uproar over the war council.
"We should hold off until the Frank Emperor sends reinforcements."
"Can we really trust the Emperor? Let's do what we've always done to those Frank bastards—tell them it's an imperial order. They'll get scared and flee on their own!"
"Well, the enemy commander is Marshal de Montmorency. A mere threat like that would only earn us a contemptuous snort at best."
The nobles were generally inclined to wait a little longer. Going up against 15,000 with just 9,000 was pushing it. It was only natural to feel that way.
Queen Henrietta sat in the seat of honor, observing the meeting. The commanders were just beginning to reach a consensus when Queen Henrietta spoke quietly.
"We launch a full-scale assault at dawn."
The nobles fell silent. Then the veteran general, Marquis de Coligny, spoke on their behalf.
"Your Majesty. The Frank Emperor has promised reinforcements. There is no reason to take risks now, when our forces are at a disadvantage."
"The Imperial army before us is nothing but an impressive-looking scarecrow. It's hollow inside."
The young queen with crimson hair spoke with bold confidence.
"At first glance, their numbers look formidable, but their cavalry is few. Out of 15,000, perhaps 3,000 at most. Meanwhile, we may only number 9,000, but we have 5,000 cavalry. Gentlemen, you are all mistaken."
Queen Henrietta held up four fingers.
"The enemy does not outnumber us. We outnumber them by more than fourfold."
"...What? Your Majesty, fourfold?"
"The Frank nobles are still dragging their feet because of the imperial order. The vast majority of the troops assembled before us are conscripts—not their knights' orders. Even among the already small cavalry contingent, the proportion of actual knights would be even tinier. At most, a hundred."
Queen Henrietta smiled.
"On the other hand, we have nearly nine hundred knights. In terms of quality, the advantage is overwhelming. This is why Bretagne surpasses the enemy by 'two fold.'"
The queen snapped down two fingers.
"Even though the enemy is gathered together, they are still anxious — tormented by the thought that they are defying the Emperor's orders. Just as we are reluctant to fight, so are they. By now, the enemy's command must have split into two factions — those who insist on launching an offensive and those who want to stall for time. In other words, the enemy is currently divided into two camps. And therefore—"
Queen Henrietta folded down two more fingers.
"They must face us — an opponent twice their strength — while their own forces are split in two. This is why I said we hold a fourfold advantage over the Imperial Army. My lords! We are united as one, while they are divided."
The nobles stared silently at the queen's fist. They were being drawn in by the fire in her voice.
"As time passes, the forces opposing the Emperor will gradually rally together. Right now, the majority of the nobles are too terrified to defy the Imperial decree — this is precisely our moment of opportunity!"
The queen slammed her fist down on the table with a resounding bang.
"Besides, have Montmorency, Guise, and Saint-André not joined the enemy's ranks? They are the leaders of the Empress Dowager's faction. Eliminate them, and the heart of the Empress Dowager's faction will be gravely weakened. My lords, the Goddesses have prepared a grand feast for us!"
Queen Henrietta smiled.
"Relay this to the knights. At dawn tomorrow, the Gods have prepared for Bretagne the most glorious of victories. The enemy will not even be permitted to scream — they will die like pigs."
The Imperial Army was routed.
The fundamentals of tactics are simple: place infantry in the center and cavalry on the flanks. As the infantry holds the center firm, the cavalry on both wings encircle the enemy. But Queen Henrietta committed an audacious act — she deployed the overwhelming majority of her cavalry in the center.
Hundreds of knights and thousands of horsemen thundered forward.
The Frank forces were caught off guard. They scrambled to prepare, dispatching two thousand cavalrymen as their first wave. Two thousand — that was nearly their entire mounted force. They must have hoped to buy even a little time.
The clash between cavalry and cavalry ended in a single devastating collision. The cavalry led by Queen Henrietta literally tore through the Frank forces.
The Frank army fled in utter rout. In their desperate retreat, the fleeing horsemen trampled their own allies behind them in a catastrophic disaster…
Commander-in-Chief, Marquis Montmorency, fought desperately at the front lines with his aged body past seventy years old, trying to hold the formation together. But before the lines could be restored, the blade of a Bretagne knight pierced through Marshal Montmorency's chest.
The commander-in-chief fell in the very first moments of battle. The Frank forces, already demoralized by the collapse of their cavalry, plunged into total chaos. And Queen Henrietta was not one to let such an opportunity slip by.
The Bretagne army cleaved straight through the center of the enemy. The Frank forces were split apart, helpless, and the left and right wings were defeated in detail…
Battle results.
"The Frank forces suffered five thousand casualties and six thousand captured… In contrast, the Bretagne army sustained only slightly over four hundred in damages."
"What a terrible outcome."
I forced a bitter smile.
Henrietta de Bretagne. As expected of a monarch who led the Iron-Blooded Chancellor Laura de Farnese in Dungeon Attack and even aspired to continental unification. She would undoubtedly be a difficult opponent.
============================ Author's Notes ============================
The Black Mountains campaign, which served as Dantalion's debut battle.
There's a scene where Barbatos comes to congratulate after the battle and teases the vanguard commander Zepar, calling him "a brat who mindlessly charged into the knights and got his forces wiped out." The knights who annihilated Demon Lord Zepar's forces at that time were none other than Bretagne's knights, as mentioned.
The Kingdom of Bretagne, along with the Teuton Kingdom, boasts the strongest knightly orders in the story.