March 30, Year 1506 of the Continental Calendar. Around nine o'clock.
The elite monster division led by Barbatos had crushed the Imperial army under the command of Margrave Fritz von Rosenberg. The Demon Lord's forces successfully seized the Fračen Heights.
No sooner had Barbatos reorganized the battle line than she wheeled around and committed her entire force to the Demon Lord army's right wing—the very point where Commander Zepar and I were desperately holding the line. Now, with overwhelming numbers, the roughly 20,000 Imperial troops that had been attacking the right wing were caught in a pincer from both directions.
—The Crown Prince has been taken prisoner! The Margrave has fallen!
Confronted with the news that their command post had been annihilated, the Imperial commanders were openly thrown into disarray. Those who argued for retreat at any cost clashed with those who insisted on fighting to the death. The former position was backed by officers of the Habsburg Central Army; the latter, by officers of the Border Army.
The Demon Lord army's right wing had been fighting fiercely since dawn, and its numbers had dwindled from 4,000 to a mere 1,500. Barbatos's division, too, numbered only 2,500. The Imperial army, meanwhile, still maintained a force of some 20,000.
As the Imperial army vacillated between options, Barbatos deployed the <Lord of Bones> for the first time in this campaign. A Bone Dragon consumed staggering amounts of mana just to move, and the entire mage division was drained of energy supplying it, removing them from the fight. But the results were spectacular.
When the twenty-meter Bone Dragon descended upon the battlefield, the Imperial army was consumed by panic in an instant. The entire battle line collapsed momentarily. Seizing the gap, Commander Zepar and Legion Commander Barbatos hurled their troops into a charge.
Despite a full fifty mages pouring their mana into it, the <Lord of Bones> could rampage for only ten minutes. But ten minutes was more than enough to decide the fate of the battle.
Unable to withstand the Demon Lord army's pincer assault, the Imperial forces broke and fled. Regardless of factional disputes, every Imperial commander fought with extraordinary valor. They stood against the waves of monsters to the last and died on their feet.
Kolobrat, Kutusov, Kienmayer, Rangeleron… one after another, the fearsome generals whose names had made them renowned in the <Dungeon Attack> fell in battle. This alone accomplished half my objective. The Habsburg Empire would now be afflicted by a severe crisis of leadership.
Even if Third Princess Elisabeth seized power, as long as no talented people stood behind her to support her in word and deed, there was little reason to fear. Even if the Third Princess was the game's ultimate munchkin, managing an entire nation alone was impossible. The Human Realm had been decisively weakened.
Thus the Demon Lord's forces had won at the center and the right wing. The left wing soon sounded its own victory as well. Beleth had been assigned the left wing from the start with the largest force—8,000 strong. By all accounts, it had not been a difficult fight.
As the setting sun bathed the hills and plains of Austerlitz…
The battle had fully concluded.
The Demon Lord's forces pursued the retreating Imperial army and reaped a tidy bonus in the process. In any battle, the greatest casualties rarely came from the fighting itself but from the enemy's pursuit during a rout. Granted, the Empire's elite soldiers had fought with abnormal ferocity this time, so the battle's own toll had been enormous as well… but why had they fought so hard? It made no sense.
Our Demon Lord's forces gathered together to praise one another's exploits. All nineteen Demon Lords who had taken part in the battle were unharmed. The worst injury had befallen Commander Zepar, who had charged a bit too far forward during the final assault and taken an arrow to the shoulder.
—I swear, you'd have to be a dog to match that charging instinct of his.
Barbatos clicked her tongue. Commander Zepar shrank in on himself, thoroughly embarrassed. Seeing that, Brother Beleth doubled over laughing.
I compiled the engagement results in my capacity as Chief of Staff of the Crescent Alliance Army's Sixth Legion.
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Battle of Austerlitz
Date: March 30, Year 1506 of the Continental Calendar
Location: Brno, Moravia, Northern Habsburg Empire — Austerlitz
《Crescent Alliance Army, Sixth Legion》 《Habsburg Combined Expeditionary Force》
Principal Commanders:
8th-Ranked Barbatos Rudolf von Habsburg, Crown Prince (prisoner)
13th-Ranked Beleth Fritz von Rosenberg, Margrave (killed in action)
16th-Ranked Zepar Ferdinand von Wallenstein, Baron (killed in action)
Sixteen additional Demon Lords Michael von Colloredo, Baron (killed in action)
Johan von Kutusov, Count (killed in action)
Troop Strength:
16,325 Monsters Border forces, approx. 10,000 (knight orders, approx. 1,500)
Central army, approx. 20,000 (Imperial Guard knights, 1,000)
Landsknecht mercenary brigade, approx. 20,000
Casualties:
8,031 Monster casualties Imperial forces, approx. 45,000 casualties
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The curtain fell on the complete annihilation of the Imperial Army.
Though the Crescent Alliance Army's 6th Corps had also suffered losses amounting to half its total forces — facing a result tantamount to near-total annihilation — Barbatos's direct units were immediately restored through dark magic. As a result, the 6th Corps still maintained 10,000 troops.
I was once again reminded of just how incredible Barbatos was. No matter how severe the damage after a battle ended, all she had to do was continuously cast dark magic for a week to two weeks, and the forces would be restored immediately! This was why single-digit-ranked Demon Lords were so broken. Damn.
When Barbatos's unit claimed 5,000 — half of the 6th Corps' remaining 10,000 — all for itself, panic set in among the other Demon Lords.
Each of them led their personal guards and thoroughly combed through the surrounding mountain ranges and forests. Searching for monster villages. They deployed both persuasion and brute force on the indigenous monster village inhabitants. That was how the Demon Lords replenished their armies.
In the border lord's territories, it was actually we who had been subduing monster villages. To resupply food, and to win the support of the territory's residents. Now the situation had completely flipped, and we had essentially drafted conscripts.
Ah, food wasn't something we needed to worry about for the time being. There were 40,000 Imperial corpses lying around Austerlitz. They had been neatly turned into smoked meat and carefully stored away.
Every time I passed by the food stores and caught a whiff of that delicious smoked aroma, I had to wage a constant battle against my own humanity. No, it really did smell delicious……
The conscripted monster villagers tasted the human smoked meat and immediately swore loyalty to the Demon Lords. Apparently, this region had been crawling with elite soldiers, so the monster villagers had never dared to attack human villages. Having not tasted human flesh in ages, they joined our army — called "enlistment" on paper, but "forced conscription" in practice — and suddenly a whole new world opened up for them. The rumors spread so widely that even monster groups who had fled to avoid conscription ended up enlisting voluntarily.
Two weeks after the Battle of Austerlitz ended.
The Crescent Alliance Army's 6th Corps once again had 18,000 troops at its disposal. They actually had more troops than before the battle!
I could only have my mind blown. Raura was the same. She shook her head back and forth and murmured.
"……This truly defies common sense. I've realized just how much easier it is for Demon Lords to operate armies compared to humans."
And what about me? I spent 500 gold just to buy a single Goblin! The other Demon Lords could replenish their forces this easily! Granted, these were short-term contracts, so they'd have to be released once the fighting was somewhat over, but still……
"Ugh."
Forget it. What more was there to say? Next time, I'd just have to grit my teeth and bear it.
Just as the Demon Lords were training their newly conscripted monsters, urgent intelligence flew into the Crescent Alliance Army's 6th Corps.
"Huh? A coup has apparently occurred in the Habsburg Empire."
Barbatos hummed a little tune as she read the parchment scroll. For reference, she was currently lying naked on the sofa. Earlier she had suddenly announced she wanted a massage, and promptly hired me as her personal masseuse for the entire day. Bratty little loli.
"A princess named Elisabeth von Habsburg launched the coup. She seized the imperial palace in a single day and even took control of the government. Seems like a pretty capable girl."
"She's only seventeen years old."
"Hmm. A genius, or just someone who got swept along by the people around her—ooh. Ah, hey. Your hands are getting naughty."
I did it on purpose. The whole reason I was busy today was to reorganize the Crescent Alliance Army units. She'd dragged me here against my will just because she wanted a massage... If I didn't resist even a little, I wouldn't feel satisfied.
I carefully rubbed Barbatos's entire body with olive oil. Her marble-white skin glistened with a slippery sheen.
"Ah... haah. How am I supposed to talk when you're doing that, you brat."
I snorted.
"Cut it out. You called me over because you wanted to do it anyway."
"Oh? You noticed?"
"I've slept with you dozens of times already. The script is pretty obvious, you know."
Barbatos giggled.
"You little punk. You used to be as stiff as a wooden post when it came to this stuff, and now you're a total pro. It's like watching a well-behaved little brother turn into a manwhore—kinda unsettling."
"Little brother? Me? I'm the older brother."
"Appearances aside, I'm two thousand years old, little Dantalion."
Hmm. Technically she was right when it came to actual age, but wouldn't that make her a grandmother rather than an older sister?
Of course, I didn't say that out loud. What woman in the world would be happy to hear her sex partner call her a grandmother? I was a very considerate man.
The massage naturally transitioned into sex. We each climaxed around thirty times. The nice thing about becoming a Demon Lord was that, despite being male, I could reach orgasm repeatedly in succession. Apparently it was because half my body was made of mana, but I was hopeless when it came to magical logic and couldn't make heads or tails of it. Well, a good thing was a good thing.
After about two hours, we lay on the sofa catching our breath. I was on the bottom and Barbatos lay on top of me like a sandwich. My member was still inside her, and since it was too much trouble to pull out, we both just stayed there.
Barbatos buried her face in my chest and spoke.
"Haah... huuu... so, is now the time to advance on the Habsburg Empire?"
"No. We absolutely must not move. We stay put."
Barbatos lifted her face and looked up at me.
"Why?"
Her eyes were wide and earnest. That expression was so cute, I found myself ruffling her hair without thinking.
Barbatos let out a little huff through her nose. But she didn't seem displeased—a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. A soft, comfortable silence settled between us for a while.
"Because the Empire is in chaos due to the coup."
"Exactly—it's in chaos, so shouldn't we attack now?"
"No. According to our intelligence, the Third Princess has been bringing in a large number of republicans to rally support among the middle and lower classes. That means she's lost a great deal of backing from the nobility. And the middle and lower classes won't support the princess unconditionally either."
The Habsburg Empire's political order had entered an exceedingly turbulent period. The established noble families and the central military that had formed the Crown Prince's faction had been decimated in the recent Battle of Austerlitz. With the Crown Prince himself captured as a prisoner, that outcome was only natural.
Before they could regroup, the Third Princess had seized the capital in one swift stroke, leading the Imperial Guard. The Habsburg Emperor—who was already little more than a figurehead—was confined to a secondary palace, and the Second Prince was locked under heavy guard in his manor.
"To protect the imperial family from factions that might exploit the political chaos." That was what Princess Elisabeth claimed, but almost no one took her at her word.
The princess's faction moved swiftly to take control of the capital. Princess Elisabeth simultaneously assumed the roles of Minister of Military Affairs, Chief of General Staff, and Commander of the Capital Defense Force, consolidating military authority in her own hands. She had placed herself at the very apex of the military government, the chain of command, and the operational forces.
The princess's faction had won. That much was certain. But it was still too early to speak of a total victory. The Crown Prince's noble faction, though imprisoned, still maintained armies in their home territories. The Second Prince's faction also remained intact.
The enemy had conveniently plunged into internal strife. On the surface, there could be no better opportunity.
But I said firmly to Barbatos:
"If we attack now, we lose."