The Knights' Honor (2)
“Looks like those Nordrin bastards are invading in force again.”
“Damn it, again? Even after all the pillaging they did a few years ago?”
To the north of the Empire lay a land of barbarians known as the Nordrin.
Calling it a nation was generous, as it was essentially a confederation of barbarian tribes. But they regularly crossed the frigid North Sea to raid, making them an object of terror for the Empire and many other nations.
Although they were culturally regarded as primitive and barbaric, they possessed naturally robust physiques and lived in a warrior society where virtually every tribesman was a fighter. Whenever they set out to raid, armies numbering anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands came pouring south.
“Haah, this winter won't be easy either.”
“What about the Imperial Army? Think they'll actually arrive on time this year?”
“Even if they do, they won't have enough troops. Just get ready to evacuate to the fortress.”
Successive wise emperors of the Empire had devoted great effort to constructing fortresses and defensive walls throughout the north, but it was impossible to cover the entire vast region.
Those fortifications had never been intended to physically seal off the north in the first place. Their purpose was merely to restrict the barbarians' advance southward.
So the northern residents had expected to suffer helplessly through another year of pillaging.
But this time, something was different.
“Have you heard?! His Highness the Crown Prince is personally leading the campaign this time!”
“What?! Why? What if something happens to him?”
“Doesn't that mean he's that confident? I hear they're going to fight the bastards in a pitched battle this time.”
The northern front was always so short on troops that criminals were usually dragged along to fill the ranks, yet this time, a proper force of regular soldiers had arrived for the campaign.
The Crown Prince had even accompanied them personally.
This time, it looked as though the Empire was truly determined.
But when the northern residents saw the expeditionary force, they found its appearance somewhat puzzling.
“Why aren't those soldiers wearing proper armor?”
“And why are they carrying nothing but clubs?”
“I heard those are some kind of new weapon, but how are they supposed to fight with things like that?”
There was something strange about the force the Crown Prince had brought.
There were plenty of ordinary-looking soldiers and knights, but the troops classified as the ‘modernized forces’ wore light armor and carried only short iron clubs called ‘guns,’ shorter than spears.
It was difficult to imagine them defeating the sturdy barbarians with such things.
“The residents seem uneasy.”
“The modernized forces do lack much of a show of force.”
“A show of force? You have learned some fancy terminology.”
“It was something I saw in ‘Civilization Development.’ It said an army's appearance is important beyond its actual combat strength.”
“That is certainly true.”
The Crown Prince agreed with his adjutant.
By conventional standards, the modernized forces certainly looked like an inadequate army.
But that was only because people had yet to learn their true value.
If they displayed overwhelming might during this campaign, those perceptions would probably change.
“That is why this campaign must succeed. If we show any weakness here, the reforms His Majesty desires will face obstacles from the very beginning.”
“We will not disappoint His Majesty.”
At the Crown Prince's words, the generals steeled themselves.
This campaign was important to both the reformists and the traditionalists.
The reformists commanding the modernized forces had to distinguish themselves here if they wanted to establish themselves as the core of the next generation of the military.
Meanwhile, the traditionalist knights also had to prove that they remained the Empire's hammer.
“Never be afraid. Fight exactly as you were trained, and they will not be able to touch so much as a hair on your heads!”
“Knights! Perhaps one day the Empire will no longer need our swords. But that day is not today. Until the day twilight comes for us, we shall fight like lions!”
The ambitious new generation and the stubborn old guard marched toward the battlefield, each burning with fighting spirit.
Their advance was soon detected by the Nordrin army.
“Have the Imperial bastards all gone mad? They want to fight us in a pitched battle?”
“This time feels different. I hear they brought a lot of knights. They have some new weapon too.”
“The Empire doesn't have that many knights anyway. And a new weapon? Ha! Whatever they brought, they can't face us in the open field.”
The barbarians laughed at the Imperial Army for abandoning the advantages of defensive warfare and coming out into the open.
If the Imperials hid behind fortress walls, even the Nordrin could not annihilate them.
But in the field, the Nordrin had the advantage in both the quality and quantity of their troops.
The knights, with their heavy cavalry, were troublesome, but there were not enough of them to defeat an army so numerous and filled with strong warriors.
So there was no reason to avoid battle.
Rather, seeing it as an opportunity to annihilate the Imperial force and pillage even more, the Nordrin gladly accepted the pitched battle the Empire offered.
“Forward! Kill those weak Imperial bastards and take everything they have!”
“WAAAAAAAAAAH!”
The Nordrin warriors began their advance, their morale soaring as they anticipated victory.
Opposite them, the modernized forces stood at the front in horizontal lines.
Compared to the feverish excitement of the barbarian warriors, the modernized forces had an extremely stern and cold atmosphere.
“First rank, load!”
“First rank, load! Load quickly!”
The knights of the modernized forces stood beside the soldiers instead of mounting horses and issued their orders.
The soldiers they had personally subjected to harsh training finished loading with precise, mechanical movements.
“First rank, aim!”
“First rank, aim! Level your guns at the enemy! Do not fire without orders!”
Training that controlled every single action.
An army governed by extreme discipline, where no one was permitted to break formation without orders regardless of what happened.
This was the tactic chosen by the knights of the modernized forces.
It wasn't simply intended to strengthen discipline.
They had chosen it after understanding the characteristics of firearms.
They themselves had only recently encountered guns, so under normal circumstances, gaining a deep understanding of the new weapons would have required extensive training and real combat.
But through simulations using ‘Honorlord,’ they had been able to substitute actual battlefield experience.
After fighting countless mock battles against the traditionalist knights, they had found the most efficient and ruthless tactics.
‘Individual differences in strength and courage are meaningless before the power of guns anyway. What matters is getting as many men as possible to perform the same actions and maximize their firepower.’
Through extreme close-order drill, every action from loading to aiming to firing was controlled to maximize firepower.
What this required was not exceptional individual ability from each soldier.
Only the courage to keep following orders without panicking in the face of the enemy.
The knights themselves also abandoned cavalry charges.
They stood among their soldiers, facing the enemy while issuing commands.
They raised the soldiers' morale and devoted themselves entirely to command, completely rejecting their traditional role.
To knights who valued tradition, it was behavior cowardly enough to seem dishonorable.
Instead of mounting their horses and charging the enemy to display their courage, they stood among soldiers and fought only with words!
“Ha ha ha! Look at the ridiculous games the Imperial bastards are playing! Maybe standing shoulder to shoulder like that makes them less afraid?”
“Let's kill them all! Charge!”
The enemy also roared at the incomprehensible sight of the modernized forces and charged.
Javelins and arrows flew during their advance, and several soldiers were struck and fell.
But the soldiers behind them merely stepped forward and filled the empty spaces.
Breaking formation or fleeing was impossible.
The moment anyone even tried, the knight standing beside him would cut off his head without mercy.
Then, when they were close enough to see the whites of the enemy's eyes—
“Fire!”
“FIIIIIRE!”
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
“Ghk…?!”
“Wh-What? What just… urgh…”
A horrifying roar unlike anything they had ever heard.
And warriors collapsing in droves.
It was unbelievable.
Warriors who could have endured arrows and blades with their sturdy bodies were falling like bundles of straw.
“What the hell just happened…?!”
Some among them even wore fairly sturdy armor, but it could not stop the ‘bullets’ the enemy fired.
“First rank, fall back! Second rank, forward and aim!”
“Second rank, forward! Step up and aim quickly!”
“Fire!”
And that was not the end.
The first rank immediately withdrew after firing and began reloading.
The second rank stepped forward and fired.
Then, after they fired, the next rank stepped forward and did the same.
Under the relentless volleys pouring into them without pause, the barbarian warriors simply collapsed in heaps.
Their numerical superiority allowed them to keep closing the distance, but far too many were being killed before they could even make contact.
“Th-The Imperial bastards brought demonic weapons!”
“Everyone run! We can't even get close!”
“You fools, do not run! Keep pushing forward and we will win in the end!”
Unlike at the beginning, when their morale had been overflowing, the Nordrin warriors grew terrified by the one-sided slaughter and began breaking away.
Several war chiefs tried to stop the fleeing men, but it was useless.
They had assembled by tribe, and regardless of their individual courage, their discipline as a unified army was haphazard.
Of course, there were still those who did not lose their courage and continued advancing.
If they succeeded in closing the distance and beginning hand-to-hand combat, the modernized forces might indeed have difficulty resisting them.
But that never happened.
“Now! Knights, sound the horns! Let us sweep away those barbaric bastards!”
BWOOOOOOO—!
The traditionalist knights suddenly appeared from the flank, sounding their horns as they charged.
Unlike the modernized forces, they wore traditional full-body armor and carried lances as they thundered toward the enemy.
“WAAAAAAH!”
“K-Knights!”
The barbarian warriors, already halfway to collapse, were completely shattered by that.
There was nothing left for them to do except turn tail and flee as fast as they could.
“We won!”
“Long live the Empire!”
“WAAAAAAAAAAH!”
It was an overwhelming victory.
The Imperial Army suffered almost no losses, while the Nordrin were scattered in every direction.
Most were hunted down where they fled, and only a small number managed to reach the coast and barely escape across the North Sea.
“Incredible! Did you see that battle? Those barbarians couldn't do a thing against that new weapon called the ‘gun’!”
“Exactly! Every time they fired a volley, the bastards dropped in heaps…”
“Maybe I should enlist in the army too. With a weapon like that, I think even I could fight well enough.”
The people praised the modernized forces for winning such a decisive victory through an entirely new style of warfare.
Of course, the knights had finished the battle, but anyone could see that it had been the modernized forces who dominated it.
“This should be enough to prove the power of the new weapons.”
“However, supplying gunpowder and ammunition is a problem. And even a little rain makes it difficult to fight with guns…….”
“Well, for the time being, we will simply have to use traditional methods alongside them. But if technology continues to advance, perhaps even those problems can be overcome.”
No.
They definitely would be.
The technologies shown in ‘Civilization Development’ made that clear.
The Crown Prince simply found it difficult to believe that all those concepts had supposedly been created from a single man's imagination.
“Remarkable… Just how does that fellow create games like these?”
‘Civilization Development’ was one thing, but ‘Honorlord’ was also realistic enough to simulate tactics in advance.
The fact that they had been able to introduce guns this quickly was practically all thanks to it.
But not everyone could celebrate the victory.
“How are the traditionalist knights?”
“The mood among them is not particularly good. They must have felt quite a lot after seeing what the modernized forces were capable of.”
“Even so, they distinguished themselves greatly as well… I hope they do not become too discouraged. We should properly commend their contributions too.”
“I will see to it.”
“Do so.”
All the knights had shared in the victory.
But one side was destined to bask in glory like the rising sun, while the other resembled the setting sun or starlight fading at the end of dawn.
“It cannot be helped. When something new appears, the old must eventually disappear.”
But the old knights would remain knights until their final moments.
Because that was their honor.
“Still, I wonder what sort of game Ian Maxwell will make next.”
The Crown Prince had a feeling that the games Ian created would continue to provide the Empire with all kinds of inspiration.
If so, then no matter what it took, they had to keep him within the Empire.
They absolutely could not allow a talent like that to fall into the hands of the Empire's enemies.
“When I return, I should ask His Majesty to grant Ian Maxwell a suitable reward.”
Having made that decision, the Crown Prince returned in triumph to the imperial capital not long afterward, bringing news of victory with him.