”‘Fear not. However mighty the Urgalia Empire may be, we shall not suffer defeat’… indeed,” Mito murmured softly to herself.
Mito Selsetia, the King’s younger sister, who had led fifteen thousand of the Selseta Army and set up camp on the Dalai Plains, remembered the words she had spoken to Ney a little while ago, and bit her lip as if holding something back.
She had argued all sorts of things to encourage the girl she thought of like a little sister, but in that one last moment, the worry she had been hiding had shown on her face.
If Mito truly believed in victory in this battle, she would not have said “we won’t lose,” No matter how strong the Empire was, she would have declared “we will definitely win.”
The reason she could not do that was because Mito held no small amount of worry about this battle.
Mito’s gaze turned toward the royal flag of Selseta, fluttering and snapping in the center of the camp.
The biggest source of her worry was this royal flag.
A royal flag is, literally, the flag of the king. It tells everyone the king is present, lifts the spirits of allies, and overawes the enemy.
But the one commanding the Selseta Army on the Dalai Plains was Mito, the King’s younger sister, and her elder brother the King remained in the royal capital. Mito had told Ney earlier that she had “received the royal flag from His Majesty,” but to put it more precisely, what actually happened was: “she requested that her brother the King take the field, but he refused, and she was given the royal flag instead.”
Mito believed that her brother the King had definitely not been scared.
This time, Mito had raided Kino Forest with only the five thousand standing troops of the royal capital. If she had gathered standing troops from various regions or conscripted farmers before the battle, the Empire might have seen through her plan. To be careful about that, she had moved only the royal capital’s standing army.
When the surprise attack succeeded and she gained the cooperation of the Kino clan, Mito sent a messenger to the royal capital asking for more troops. Five thousand alone would not be enough to stand against the Empire’s army, which was sure to come. It was also at this time that she requested her brother the King take the field.
Her brother the King answered Mito’s request by sending another ten thousand troops, but he himself did not move, and only the royal flag was sent.
Of course, there must have been a reason for this.
The Kingdom of Selseta’s territory spans thirty provinces, and its mobilizable forces reach ninety thousand. Naturally, this ten thousand was just the advance force, and by now her brother the King should be in the royal capital organizing the main force of tens of thousands. Once that organization was complete, her brother the King would surely join this army as well.
Until then, Mito just had to protect the royal flag, that was how it was supposed to be.
But the movements in the royal capital reported by messengers were slow, and the main force’s arrival seemed to still be a long way off.
In a battle wagering the fate of the nation, the King was not present, and only the royal flag fluttered. This was the source of Mito’s worry.
Of course, the slowness of the royal capital’s movements was Mito’s own subjective view, and there was no sign of deliberate sabotage.
If the main force could arrive before the Empire’s army appeared on the Dalai Plains, there was still plenty of time in terms of days, perhaps her brother the King was thinking that and taking every precaution in organizing the troops.
Thinking of it that way, Mito’s worry seemed a little excessive. Mito herself was not unaware of that.
Still, she could not help thinking that with her brother’s abilities, he should be able to complete the organization much faster.
Mito was a child born in the later years of the First King of Selseta, and she was more than ten years apart from her brother, who was born early. Even so, the siblings got along well, Mito gave her loyalty to her brother the King, and her brother the King gave Mito important roles.
The brother and sister of the King of Selseta’s family had, even after their great father passed away, worked together diligently on state affairs, and while defending against the Urgalia Empire’s invasions, they had steadily raised the nation’s strength.
But at some point, Mito began to feel an invisible wall between herself and her brother the King. This became especially noticeable after her brother the King was blessed with a long-awaited son.
-And then, right there, Mito suddenly slapped her own cheek, SMACK! She struck it hard, as if cutting something off, and the cheek quickly grew hot and red.
Feeling the heat in her cheek that she had created herself, Mito opened her mouth.
”…I must not dwell upon such idle trifles. For now, let us direct our focus solely upon the impending battle,” Mito declared aloud, trying to steady her thoughts.
Her voice was swept away by the wind blowing across the plains, and reached no one’s ears.
Several days after that, the Selseta Army led by Mito hurried to strengthen the camp’s defenses, fully aware that makeshift fences and simple abatis would not stop the Horned Cavalry.
The Selseta Army built earthen walls, dug moats around them, and then built wooden plank walls on top of the earthen walls.
A plank wall is, literally, a wall made of planks. The plank walls, made by thickly shaving wood from Kino Forest, served first as a substitute for fences, second to block enemy arrows and stones, and third to hide the camp’s inner preparations from enemy eyes.
Mito planned to surround her camp with moats and plank walls, and then build a second and third layer of earthen walls and barriers inside. At this point it was less a camp and more a fortress, but to Mito, no matter how much she strengthened the defenses to hold off the Urgalia Empire, she could never think “this is enough.”
Fortunately, materials could be supplied from Kino Forest. Originally, the Treant were a race that hated harming the forest, and Mito herself felt pangs of guilt about damaging Kino Forest for the sake of battle, but in this situation she had no choice but to put the battle before the forest.
At the very least, she had no way to repay Kino Forest and the Kino clan except by protecting this land to the end.
Several more days later, Mito was directing the work at the command post built in the center of the camp.
The east side of the camp’s defensive wall was almost complete, and the north and south were about seventy percent done. Once the delayed west side was on track, she intended to begin the second defensive wall.
When building the second defensive wall, the earthen wall would be piled even higher than the first. Mito’s ideal was to create a small hill on the Dalai Plains and surround it with three layers of defensive walls.
If she did that, she could see the Urgalia army’s movements at a glance, and her own arrows would be easier to land.
Mito looked toward the large pile of wooden crates stacked at the back of the command post. They had been sent from the Holy Kingdom, and inside were weapons perfect for defense.
”Three thousand crossbows dispatched from the Holy Kingdom. The Empire remains blissfully ignorant of their existence. Should we loose them from atop the earthen ramparts as they charge to breach our walls, we shall give those Horned Cavalry, puffed up with arrogance as if no neighboring realm could ever match them, a most splendid thrashing,” Mito remarked quietly to her staff.
If they could strike the Horned Cavalry in the opening battle, the Empire’s army should lose a great deal of momentum.
Then they would drag things into a war of attrition, wait for anti-Empire movements to rise in various places, and turn to a counterattack. Only after reaching that point would victory for the Selseta Army come into view.
Once things reached that stage, they could also hope for the Holy Kingdom to join the war, it was right when Mito had thought that far.
Suddenly, a great bell rang out through the Selseta Army’s camp.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! The bell, struck over and over, was the signal announcing an enemy attack.
Realizing it was far too soon, Mito kicked back her seat and stood up, clicking her tongue softly.
The day the Selseta Army defeated the Kino Empire force, the number of days for that report to reach the imperial capital, the distance between the imperial capital and the Dalai Plains. Putting all of that together, if the Empire’s army was appearing at this stage, it meant the Empire had received the urgent report from the border and sent out troops with almost no delay.
For a moment, the thought of her brother the King, who still had not left the royal capital, crossed Mito’s mind. The Urgalia Emperor and the King of Selseta, what a contrast in decisiveness, but Mito quickly shook her head and brushed the thought away.
Then, as if telling herself, she said,
”I simply cannot fathom this to be the strategic mind of a child emperor who hath barely ascended the throne. It is far more likely the handiwork of Marquis Gram, or perhaps General Oswald. I suspect they have dispatched an advance force in all haste to pin our movements,” Mito reasoned to herself.
If so, the number of troops itself should not be that large. The fifteen thousand here should be more than enough to handle it.
Mito had sent scouts toward the east as well, but if there had been no report until the enemy was visible, then they must have been hunted down by the enemy.
She had to hurry and send a fast messenger to the royal capital to inform them of the Empire’s attack, thinking that, Mito ran up the watchtower built next to the command post.
There, seeing the great cavalry force rushing toward them while kicking up thick clouds of dust, Mito was left speechless.
The massive cloud of dust, as if covering the eastern sky, was absolutely not something a force of one or two thousand could create. At the very least ten thousand, no, more than twenty thousand troops were heading their way.
The Urgalia Empire’s cavalry were all made up of Horned Cavalry. More than twenty thousand Horned Cavalry could not possibly be just an advance force. What was coming toward them was the enemy’s main force.
The Selseta Army’s camp had not even completed its first defensive wall. If they were attacked by the enemy’s main force in this situation, they would not stand a chance,
”Report! I have confirmed the Urgalia Emperor’s flag at the head of the enemy army!” a frantic scout shouted, bursting into view.
And so, the ‘Battle of Dalai Plains’ opened in a way that overturned the King’s younger sister’s expectations.
Trivia:
- Mito’s hesitation to say “we will definitely win” reveals she already suspects the royal capital’s slow response may be intentional rather than mere inefficiency.
- The invisible wall Mito feels with her brother the King appeared after he had a son, hinting at succession politics quietly straining their bond.
- The Empire’s nearly instant mobilization after the border report suggests an intelligence network far faster than Selseta’s own court bureaucracy.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ The source pairs the English term “Horned Cavalry” with the katakana rendering “Longara,” suggesting a fantasy race or elite unit whose name carries weight beyond a simple translation. The English keeps the descriptive label while the parenthetical preserves the original sound.
2 ↩ The source uses the English “Treant” alongside the katakana “Silkuu,” indicating a forest-dwelling race with a specific in-world name. The dual rendering preserves both the familiar fantasy archetype and the original pronunciation.