Katahane no Riku Chapter 33

The Karkatas town was a very beautiful fortress town.

The small castle that stood over the hill was protected by huge walls. It didn´t have the beauty the royal capital or Derufoi city had, but the walls that were built by piling up stone had a strange beauty residing on it. Throughout the foot of the hill, there were grapes being cultivated. The white colored underside of the leaves would s.h.i.+ne as they swayed with the wind. Looking from the distance, it felt as if one was seeing a sea of grape trees.

…But currently, it was winter.

The green leaves had dried and decayed and only the lonesome branches swayed with the breeze of the wind. Looking from afar, it wasn´t possible to see that except as a desolate fortress city. However, once it was summer, it would change into a town even more enchanting to the eyes even more than its rumors. While thinking about that, Riku was sitting at her chair.

Inside the meeting room, the lord that governed the town of Karkata, Kraut Zawar, his adjutant, called as [The brains of Karkata city] and lieutenant commander of the Gortoberuk´s third army division, Riku Barusak and two of her subordinates were gathered.

“Ahem… Well then, let´s start, shall we?”

Clearing his throat, Kraut Zawar started speaking.

Originally being very like a civil officer by nature, he had an extremely weak body const.i.tution despite being from the same wolf demon race as Vrusto. Even so, he was able to raise a good and clear voice so that the meeting would be able to proceed well.

“I think you´ve already heard about it, but the spiritualists are heading toward this Karkata town. Their numbers are approximately a hundred thousand strong. Even adding lieutenant commander Barusak´s reinforcements of four thousand soldiers, our numbers would only reach about twenty thousand.”

“Tch, why… Why wouldn´t lieutenant general send us more reinforcements!!”

The man sitting next to Kraut was lamenting in frustration.

But it was a meaningless talk. Although they recaptured Myuuz castle, many exceptional soldiers were lost. Gortoberuk´s influence power was also declining inside the Demon Lord army. Actually being able to gather four thousand soldiers for them was something they should be grateful for.

“Be careful with your mouth. Lieutenant general Gortoberuk is our superior, you know?”

“Tch, I know.”

The man shut his mouth.

Realizing the man wasn´t going to say anything else, Kraut once again started speaking.

“The hill advantage is overwhelming. There is no way to they could capture this place besides doing a siege.”

“A siege?”

Riku furrowed her eyebrows.

“Are there any problems, lieutenant commander Barusak?”

“Are you planning on going for a slow and gradual death? Even if you wait, there won´t be any other reinforcements coming.”

Sending Riku´s troops was the best Gortoberuk was able to do, and it wasn´t really thinkable he could spare any more troops to reinforce there.

In order for Riku to be able to stand beside Leivein even if it was by only a minute earlier, she wanted to advance her career as soon as possible. Even if it was only a little bit faster, she wanted to win this battle quickly.

“Are you planning on ignoring what will be happening outside and just hope the enemy will retreat?”

“Our food supplies are plenty. With this much, we can fight for five years.”

Kraut´s adjutant presented a doc.u.ment.

It had the information of all the supplied food they gathered. Giving a glance to it, Riku snorted.

“…Isn´t all this your planning of sitting back since the beginning?”

“Those are needed preparations. Once the war starts, getting new supplies will be hard after all.”

Even though they have a proper supply line, if there are any emergencies, they will be limited by their food supplies.

Therefore, it was necessary to stockpile supplies. Riku understood that logic, but she felt that that case had a different feeling from that. It was nothing more than just intuition she had no way of proving, but she felt it wasn´t possible to feel the enthusiasm of wanting to win in the eyes of the people from Kraut´s side. It would be fine as long as they were able to avoid them; if they were to be besieged, their enemies would eventually go back. It felt as if they were having such naive thoughts. She thought about openly pointing this out, but doing that was would be too much hasty. Riku let out a big sigh.

“I´ve learned that going for a siege is always the last alternative.  ….Shouldn´t we be thinking about whether we can somehow shave off some of the enemy´s strength right now?”

“Of course, it is as you say. It´s not something that needs to be pointed out. But, would you have any ideas? Such as a method of defeating a big army of a hundred thousand without throwing away our twenty thousand men army?!”

“I´m still thinking about it.”

“If that´s the case, then leave the planning to us. You people should just retire and wait for the next order.”

With a nasty gaze that would be given when looking at a bug, he told Riku and her subordinates to leave the room. Riku, who was chased out of the room, was clenching her back teeth. Following behind her were Vrusto and Asty.

“Really, what´s up with them to call me only to ditch me after?”

“That´s true-de gozaru! I will send honored grandfather a complaint letter later-de gozaru!!”

“You are a bit annoying. Shut up.”

Their complaints were resounding through the corridor.

If someone was to tell on them about their complains and get executed for disrespect for the superior without even going to the battlefield, there would be no meaning to it. Both Riku and Asty became despotent. But that was only for the moment.

“…Just because they won a siege once that they are being so proud.

Vrusto muttered in scorn. Riku stopped her feet and turned her look to Vrusto.

“That you said, what do you mean?”

“What? Doesn´t ojou-chan know about Karukata´s old tale?  …Ah, ojou-chan was a human.”

Vrusto was showing an expression as if that had completely escaped his memory. Riku glared at Vrusto.

“A famous tale among the demons?”

“Something like that. Asty knows about that too, right?”

“I know-de gozaruyo. Hundreds of years ago, the spiritualists launched an attack to retake Karkata-de gozaru.”

As if telling an tale, Asty started talking about it.

“The demons had some tolerance over the humans who submitted to them, but the spiritualists looked at them as traitors-de gozaru. That´s why they were planning on doing an strong offensive that would annihilate all of them-de gozaru. The demon side stayed on a siege for three years-de gozaru.”

“Three years?”

Looking from the perspective of someone reading the doc.u.mentation, it would seem like only a few moments.

However, experiencing this much time pa.s.sing itself would prove that this is quite a long time. The people that fought for those three years must have suffered a lot during that siege. Even if they had a water well and food supplies to some extent, even then, how they fought day after day without having their mind broken ended up making Riku moved by that.

“Yeah, and then, because they didn´t think the war would continue for three years, their food started to deplete. At that time, the lord of the town fed their precious food supplies to a pig.”

“To fatten it so that they could eat?”

Vrusto shook his head to Riku´s question.

“It´s not that-de gozaruyo. Out of all things, they released the fattened pig outside the walls-de gozaru!”

Feeding the few precious food supplies they had remaining to the pig, and without even eating it, they released it outside. The demons that had seen that lord doing it should have been trembling.

“And then, the spiritualists got surprised by seeing how much food they still had and immediately retreated. They were made to realize their lack of food supplies and morale necessary to maintain the army.”

“I see.”

Riku let out a sigh.

Perhaps it was because this town had a past record of winning a contest of endurance. Because they won once using this method, the idea of simply going for a siege war got in the heads. There was a reason for them to abandon going for any direct engagements despite not thinking enough about other plans.

“Stupid fellows. With that, doesn´t it mean I won´t be able to go back home for years?”

There is no way Riku was going to be fighting a prolonged war such as a siege.

But the upper bra.s.s was obsessed with the idea of going for a siege. Before the enemy arrives, Riku needed to somehow think of a plan so that she could get an advantage over the spiritualists with just her army.

“Soon, I will start a strategic meeting. One only between ourselves.”

She needed to do something about that.

After closing her lips, she hurried to her room.

—————————

“A siege, you say?”

Riding her horse, Mary asked to Rook, who was ahead, diagonally located from her.

With no hesitations, Rook nodded.

“The strategy they will choose will definitely be going for a siege. In the past, among the stories Kurumi used to tell me, there was a tale about the siege of Karkata.”

The moment Rook said Kurumi´s name, unconsciously, he became teary. Mary twisted her face unhappy. But neither took concern about each other´s expressions. As if nothing had happened, Rook continued speaking.

“That´s why they will choose to go for that this time. Whether it is three or four years, they will endure and then will show us the fattened pig.   …Of course, I will beat them before they can turn the war into a siege.”

“However… That fortress is unexpectedly formidable. From what our forward troops found out, the fortress will be difficult to capture.”

Mary frankly spoke. But even so, Rook´s face was filled with confidence.

Things such as Selestinna and Rebecca´s death and Charlotte´s refusal which happened until now were all things that didn´t happen in accord to the development of the game. This time´s battle too was a battle that would have been easier to win if Kurumi was here. However, it doesn’t mean that Karkata can´t be captured if she isn´t present.

The brains of Karkata, and anyone else were obsessed with going for a siege. Despite being thin, their lord was as stupid as a fat pig. Rook didn´t have any feelings he would be losing for those people that couldn´t even see the reality.

“It´s alright, Mary. I have made a plan. A plan to bring their general out of that fortress.”