I couldn't help but feel a pang of pity for whichever enemy had ended up facing Laura, whoever they might be.
Launching a night raid with cavalry—easy enough to say. In reality, it meant going all-in on the most critical troops guarding the fortress, doing it the very moment the siege was complete.
A conventional commander would wait and observe. Even if the fortress were surrounded, it could hold out for at least half a year without a problem. Breaking out of a secure fortress to fight an army of monsters head-on was no easy feat.
The commander judged that dragging things out would accomplish nothing more than wasting time. The central government currently lacked the capacity to send reinforcements. If they were going to launch a surprise attack, it had to be right after the siege was established—striking in that fleeting moment of complacency when the enemy would think, "Surely they won't attack this soon…"
So the commander had gathered cavalry from surrounding cities and launched the assault.
Boldness, judgment, negotiation—there wasn't a single quality lacking. Laura had seen through it all in a single sentence. The Habsburg military was "competent." Because they were competent, they would absolutely launch a surprise attack… And she predicted that next time, they would use fire ships.
"I'm not entirely sure, but basically we just destroy every ship that shows up, right?"
Sitri wiped the whipped cream from the corners of her mouth.
"We could use lizardmen and water spirits to smash all the oars to bits."
"I'm sorry, but that won't work, Sitri. The enemy will certainly pick a day with strong winds—weather where even if every oar is destroyed, they can still advance using the sails alone. A surprise attack of this nature doesn't allow for failure."
Laura spoke as naturally as if the enemy's thoughts were right in her hands.
"Fail once, and our vigilance becomes that much greater… The opportunity comes only once. The enemy will undoubtedly think exactly that. They will be meticulously careful."
The enemy was competent. They would absolutely aim for the moment when a surprise attack would be most effective. And precisely because of that, Laura declared, it was paradoxically possible to predict what the enemy would decide.
"The Necar River flows from east to west. The closest city to Heidelberg fortress is Heilbronn, but its port is far too small—not suitable for hiding fire ships. That means the fire ship fleet will most likely be waiting at Stuttgart."
She traced the river line on the map.
"The enemy will leverage their mobility using trireme galleys. From Stuttgart, a trireme galley would take roughly eight hours. Adding a brief stop at Heilbronn to rest, the total comes to about nine hours."
We stared blankly at Laura. Either she didn't notice our gazes or simply didn't care—she kept looking down at the military map, twirling a strand of hair beside her ear with one finger. Her mouth kept murmuring without pause.
"Exactly what time they depart—that is the question. The enemy will likely use nighttime again to avoid our scouting. They would want to arrive here between roughly eleven p.m. and four a.m. Working backward from that, the fire ship fleet would depart Stuttgart between one p.m. and six p.m."
"……"
"One p.m. is far too bright, though. The enemy would want it as dark as possible even during their brief stop at Heilbronn. So they would depart between five p.m. and six p.m."
Laura raised her head and looked at us.
"A day with strong east winds, between five and six in the evening—that is when the enemy will execute their operation."
"……"
"If a trireme galley is spotted under those conditions, it is almost certainly a fire ship."
I let out a bitter smile. Paimon's expression had gone rigid. Sitri's jaw was practically on the floor.
"Huh? Huh? …Huh? Wait, what?"
"The enemy will also be prepared for underwater monster attacks. There will most likely be squads of mages aboard. Even if every oar is destroyed, the mages will do whatever it takes to keep the sails intact and ram the fire ships into the bridge… That is the enemy's true aim."
Laura smiled with evident satisfaction.
"There's no need for us to dance to the enemy's tune. We launch a lightning assault the moment the fire ship fleet docks at Heilbronn. Heilbronn is a small fishing village with no city walls at all. My recommendation is to burn the entire fleet, village and all."
Sitri cautiously raised her right hand.
"So… you're saying, attack the village?"
"Yes. A day with strong east winds, around ten or eleven at night. Sitri, I'd like you to lead the special unit and raid Heilbronn."
Laura replied matter-of-factly, with the attitude that we had understood every word she said—and that this was only natural.
"They would never imagine us attacking from the anchorage. It should be only slightly more difficult than wringing a child's neck."
I could almost hear an echo from somewhere saying, "See? Easy peasy!"
Paimon and Sitri were both skeptical. Laura's strategies had built the bridge, completed the siege, and thwarted the night raid—but even so, wasn't this level of prediction a little too precise?
After the meeting ended, Paimon spoke to me privately.
"Dantalion. The girl may not be unparalleled in tactics, but there are things she has realized through her share of bloodbaths. What matters in war is not brilliant imagination or clever calculation. It is sound judgment and control over one's soldiers."
"You're absolutely right."
No matter how ingenious the plan, it couldn't match a brave and powerful regiment. Sound judgment—knowing when to deploy this regiment, when to pull the preceding regiment back, where to build the encampment. These things mattered far more.
War is overwhelmingly not a battle of wits. That is the misconception many strategists fall into.
A strategist, in a sense, is like an orchestra conductor. The one actually playing the music is the performer, never the conductor. The conductor simply creates the space in which the performers can deliver their best.
Likewise, in war, the ones who actually fight are the soldiers, not the strategist. The strategist must set the battlefield so that each and every soldier can fight as bravely and as disciplined as possible. Fail to realize this, and defeat is inevitable.
For reference, that was precisely why I suffered a crushing defeat against Queen Henrietta.
Suddenly feeling melancholy…
Paimon looked at me with worried eyes.
"Miss de Farnese is certainly brimming with talent. But the depth of a battlefield is not so shallow that an eighteen-year-old human girl could see through it completely. Wars don't run on brains alone… I want you to teach Miss de Farnese that truth."
"I agree entirely."
Paimon's advice was entirely reasonable. Reasonable yet precious. If I hadn't known that Laura was the strategist who would bring a storm of blood across the continent, I would have backed down right here and now.
Laura de Farnese, the Iron-Blooded Chancellor.
Not a kind nickname. In truth, it had been coined by Bretagne's enemies. "A chancellor who is supposed to be running an entire country, yet keeps running around on battlefields, stirring up blood and carnage." That was the gist of it.
"But Paimon, I'm her guardian. I won't deny that I'd like to stake a bet on her talent."
"……You don't actually think that prophecy will come true, do you? Surely you're joking, Dantalion."
"Yes, yes, I'm joking. I'm merely saying there's a possibility, however slim."
I offered an embarrassed smile.
"A guardian is someone who believes in those slim possibilities to the very end, aren't they? Even if no one else will, I want to believe in her."
"You really are something—impossible to tell whether that's a good thing or a bad one."
Paimon was exasperated.
"Dantalion. As one of the commanders, I cannot accept tactics that go beyond reason."
"Now, now, Paimon. Do me a favor here. Just think about it simply—at most, we're deploying a special unit on a single operation."
"Hmm. Be that as it may."
Paimon still looked hesitant. That was her personality in a nutshell, really. She was the Demon Lord who had spent centuries acting with extreme caution just to found a single republic.
I casually slipped in a proposal.
"How about this? If Laura succeeds, Paimon grants one of my wishes. If Laura fails, I grant one of Paimon's wishes."
"……A wish?"
Paimon blinked.
"Yes. Anything within the limits of what the other can grant."
"Anything…"
Paimon covered her mouth with her fan and pondered.
"Say, for example, if I told you I wanted a necklace made from your fingers… would you grant it?"
"Excuse me?"
My voice involuntarily rose. What kind of nonsense was this girl spouting?
Paimon waved her fan back and forth.
"I'm just speaking hypothetically. I was curious whether you had the resolve to offer up your fingers to challenge a young lady to a bet."
"No, well. Of course it's possible. It's not as if my fingers are worth a fortune… I can always regrow them anyway."
But that's incredibly perverted.
I did have a necklace I'd made for Barbatos like that. Could it be that Barbatos had been showing it off to the demon queens and it had spread like some kind of craze? A necklace made from fingers—the hottest new trend.
……It was hard to say definitively that such a thing wouldn't catch on, given that Demon Lords were all perverts.
What a terrifying place this was. If my mother could see me now, she'd be pounding the floor, wailing, "How did my sweet boy end up keeping company with such deviants!" I was sorry to have become such an unfilial son.
"Very well, Dantalion. I accept the bet."
"……Thank you."
I felt a nagging unease in the back of my mind, but I expressed my gratitude.
That season, a westerly blew in from the white sea. East winds were rare, and ones lasting more than two days were rarer still. But about two months after the fortress was surrounded, there came a day when the east wind blew fiercely.
Laura immediately called a military council.
"Today is the day we strike. Sitri, I'm counting on you."
"Sure. I still don't really understand the plan, but the gist is to go in, smash everything up, and leave a mess behind, right?"
"Off I go!" Sitri declared cheerfully, setting out. Five hundred dark elves mounted on wolves rode out.
Paimon still wore a skeptical expression. She had agreed to Laura's strategy, but separately from that, she was preparing for the possibility that fire ships might approach. She had stationed sixty water spirits near the bridge.
Half a day passed, and Sitri returned.
Sitri was drenched in blood from head to toe.
"Wow! There really were galleys crammed into that village! I fired a few flaming arrows to see what was inside, and it all went up in flames. Didn't even need to swing my sword much—they were running around on fire and panicking. Heh heh, quite the spectacle to watch all by myself."
Sitri beamed as she boasted about her spoils.
I glanced to the side. Paimon had forgotten to hide behind her fan, her mouth hanging open.
"Oh, right. There were nine mages too."
Sitri slammed something onto the floor of the tent—what she'd been holding in her left hand. Nine severed heads, strung together in a line.
"I was going to take prisoners, but they kept resisting, so I just killed them all. Too much hassle. Did I do well?"
"Yes, very well done. As expected of Sitri. Perfect execution. The fact that you separated the heads on their own shows your aesthetic sensibility as well."
Laura smiled radiantly.
"……"
Paimon stared at Laura as though she had seen a ghost. She seemed to want to say something but couldn't form the words, opening and closing her mouth several times before finally turning to look at me. I grinned.
I mouthed the words silently.
'I. Re. Member. The bet? You owe me one.'
Paimon's face was colored with despair.
This is why you must be careful about choosing your subordinates.