Excalibur Chronicle of Raidorl - Chapter 232: Collision

“Come, my army! Crush the enemy that threatens our great queen!”

“「「「「「Katakatakatakatakataka!!」」」」」”

“「「「「「AAAAAAAAAA!!」」」」」”

The knight of 『War』 – Garbolus’ order, the undead army that appeared outside the royal city shouted a horrific cry.

The undead horde led by Garboras marches on without fear. It is only natural, since they are already dead and their souls are bound and controlled.

“All troops, forward! Face the enemy!”

“「「「「「OOOOOOOOOOOOO!!」」」」」”

But the morale of the soldiers commanded by General Darren Garst is not to be outdone.

They had fought numerous battles against the undead before reaching this point, winning battle after battle. It is no surprise that the soldiers have been able to advance this far at such a breakneck pace.

In addition, many of the soldiers in the Zain Royal Army had lost friends and family members to the invasions of the two knights 『Plague』 and 『Famine』 and the vengeful soldiers were more motivated by their fighting spirit than fear.

“Go forth! Eat all living things!”

“Zain Royal Army, march! March!”

Both armies, under the command of their commanders, charge and collide at once.

The total number of the Zain Royal Army is 10,000. It is composed of 3,000 cavalrymen and 7,000 infantrymen.

In contrast, the undead army currently numbers approximately 30,000 men. They are still crawling out from the walls of the Royal City and their numbers are increasing.

Raidorl does not know how many of the former residents of the city were able to evacuate. However, even if half of them failed to escape and were killed and turned into undead, the number would still exceed 100,000. There was still a possibility of more.

“UOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! EVERYONE!! don’t be scared! Spear those undead to death!”

But……knowing such a disadvantage in numbers, one of the unit commanders boldly issued instructions.

The man issuing the proclamation in a rough tone of voice was a man who had been newly appointed as the commander of a thousand men in the past few months. He is a strong-looking man who has stepped into his first year of age and his short head of hair is also noticeably grey.

The man’s name is Irving Bonito. Not long ago, he was a gang boss in a small town in the western part of the Kingdom of Zain.

Bonito, who had been reasonably successful by lending money and gambling, lost many of his underlings when the town he was using as a base of operations was destroyed by an attack of the undead.

To avenge his men’s deaths, he joined the Zain Royal Army as a volunteer soldier, and his bossy and caring nature earned him the trust of young soldiers, who promoted him to the rank of chief of the Thousand Horsemen.

He is accustomed to rough work due to his profession, and the way he gives instructions to his soldiers is quite a sight to behold.

“Listen up, fellas! Fights and wars are no different, the first one to get scared dies first! If you don’t want to die, kill them before they kill you! If we kill all our enemies, no one can kill us!”

“Oou! Let’s do this!”

“I’m gonna kill every last one of you filthy undead!”

“「「「「「UOOOOOOOOOOOOOo！」」」」」”

The soldiers under his command boldly confront the enemy in response to their commander’s shouts.

Although Bonito is commanding only young recruits, their morale is high and they are energetic despite their inexperience.

Although they were influenced by their commanders and their rattles were bad, they were defeating the undead with the vigor of…… a boar.

“Ready your spears and thrust the approaching enemies to their death in turn!”

“「「「「「HAAAAAA！」」」」」”

Meanwhile, a short distance away, the female knight Saara Leifet is calmly commanding.

The soldiers led by Saara were in a dense formation, and the infantry unit standing in front of them was constructing a『Yaribusuma』 with spears held forward.

Undead soldiers do not feel fear. When ordered to [advance] they continue to advance straight ahead, even if they run into a wall.

That may be a strength but it can also be a weakness at times.

Just by holding up their spears in this way, the enemy will jump in and skewer them on their own. The undead jump into the densely packed spears one after another, and they are pierced by the tips of the spears and die.

“It’s no big deal…they’re slow and don’t have the brain to handle weapons properly. On top of that, if I know their weaknesses, it’s easier than exterminating insects.”

“「「「「「AAAAAAAAAA!!」」」」」”

The undead pierced by the soldiers’ spears turn to ashes and disappear.

The spears and swords equipped by the soldiers of the Zain Royal Army were equipped with special devices that granted them suicide attacks against the undead.

A few months after the knight’s attack of 『Plague』 and 『Famine』. Raidorl was preparing for a reverse invasion by gathering soldiers but at the same time, he was also creating weapons to counter the undead.

It may sound like hyperbole to say things like [weapons that kill undead] but……the truth is that the undead are a being full of weaknesses.

They are weakened during the day when the sun is shining and they are vulnerable to silver weapons, purified water, and salt. In fact, more and more undead that had been pierced by silver spearheads were disappearing.

“No matter how many we fight, my army is not so…… weak that it can be defeated by a raven of numbers and General Darren Garst’s army is not weak! Destroy the enemy!”

Saara said with dignity and ordered her men to destroy the enemy.

Overcoming a three-fold difference in numbers, the Zain Royal Army was rapidly exterminating the undead soldiers.

Of course, the enemy commander, Garbolus, could not sit idly by and watch.

“Gunununu……go around and envelop the enemy! We will overwhelm them by sheer numbers!”

“「「「「「AAAAAAAAAA!!」」」」」”

Under the direction of Garbolus, the undead soldiers try to surround the Zain Royal Army from the left and right.

The undead have the advantage of numbers. If they were surrounded and crushed, the army of the Kingdom of Zayin would be helpless.

“Burn them down, you guys!”

But…… of course, it was a move Darren Garst did expect.

The battlefield exploded into flames and the undead who were trying to get around the right side of the Zain Royal Army were engulfed in flames.

Fire is another absolute weakness for the undead. The undead soldiers engulfed in flames had no time to resist and were transformed into black charcoal.

“Haha! That’s a pretty nice colored fire for a rotten piece of wood! Quite a fiery job!”

The man laughing dexterously with a cigarette in his mouth was the man who used to be known as 『The Fire-eating Bird』. He was a middle-aged man who now calls himself [Flare Bird.]

Behind Flare Bird, a former court magician, followed by about 20 young men and women. All of them were magicians who had been selected as members of the newly established magic corps because they had been discovered to have magical talents.

“Come on, burn it down! Burn, burn, burn! Incinerate the rotten trash!”

“「「「「「Fireball!」」」」」”

Under Flare Bird’s direction, the young wizards release their magic all at once.

Countless fireballs are thrown at the undead soldiers, and pillars of fire rise from everywhere.

The members of Flare Bird’s magic unit are all teenagers. They had lost their villages and towns to the undead and had nowhere to go.

They have been selected from those who became volunteer soldiers for revenge or for a meal and those with a talent for magic have been trained as a special unit over the past several months.

Normally, magic is not taught to commoners, no matter how much of an asset they may be.

A good magician can be as strong as a whole company by himself. This is because many powerful people believe that if commoners learn magic, the status of the nobility and royalty will be in jeopardy.

However, Raidorl easily broke this unwritten rule and organised a magic unit composed mainly of commoners.

In addition, those who agreed to it were subjected to the same forbidden technique of 『fusion with spirits』 as the flare bird do and the magical training that would normally have taken several years to complete was skipped.

“「「「「「AAAAAAAAAA!!」」」」」”

The burned undead disappear.

The undead soldiers who had bypassed the right side of the Zain Royal Army disappeared. What remains is the left side…..

“「Nuooooooooooooooo!!」”

A cavalry unit led by a knight reaped the undead soldiers who were trying to move around to the left, and marched forward at a terrifying pace.

“Last time we were defeated by their attack but not this time! Now is the time to redeem ourselves and regain our honour! Cut through the enemy army!”

At the head of the cavalry unit, wielding a spear, is a large, bespectacled knight – Justy Oigist, one of the Thousand Horsemen.

The cavalrymen led by Justy split the enemy army in half and went around to the rear of the enemy army in the opposite direction.

“I’ll take the head of the enemy general, the knight of war! All of you, keep going!”

“Gnuuh……what a petulant little human being you are!”

As his own soldiers are killed one after another, wrinkles of rage appear on Garbolus’s face.

His superiority in numbers has been overturned and he is being cornered, but …… it does not mean that the man is incompetent as a commander.

Garbolus is a knight who bears the name of 『War』. He is a human demon who has dedicated and served the Osman for the longest years.

While the other three apostles can only control 10,000 to 20,000 undead, Garbolus can command 100,000 undead soldiers. He is the first of the 『Four Knights』 in terms of his magical power. He was also trusted by Osman.

The cavalry, led by Justy, split the enemy army in half and went around the rear of the enemy army in the opposite direction.

However…the situation on the battlefield this time was  disadvantageous to him.

The time was past noon. The sun was high, though slightly overcast. The undead soldiers are weakened.

In addition, even though the battle was in the royal capital, the walls and defensive weapons were all broken and useless.

And above all, the undead soldiers are just too many in number and poor in quality. The strength per soldier is not even close to that of the granular Zain Royal Army.

In addition, there are no field commanders under Garbolus, which is composed of skeletons, zombies, and other lower undead who have no wisdom.

Without platoon leaders and company commanders, these units are unable to take strategic actions and thus are unable to take military actions like the Zain Royal Army, which is a force to be reckoned with.

Time of heaven. The advantage of the earth. The harmony of man.

In all things, the forces of the Kingdom of Zain were superior and the undead army led by Garbolus was lagging behind.

“Not yet, it is not over yet. …… I will not let the great Queen Osman be disrespected…….!”

Yes, it is not over yet.

There are still large numbers of undead soldiers inside the royal city. They were moving so slowly that just getting them out of the city walls was a challenge….. but he still didn’t know if they had won or lost yet.

‘And……abhorrent but the Knights of 『Death』 are here too…..!’

Garbolus was the leader in this battle. As a second-in-command, there was also a knight of 『Death』 – Zansha.

Zansha is a man whom Garbolus does not like, who was given a magic sword after he pulled out Garbolus head, but he is still Garbolus subordinate now.

With Zansha’s help, the war could easily be overturned.

“It’s an unpleasant thing but I’ll have to borrow the power of a young man here… Hmm?”

Then Garbolus looked suddenly to the side….and unexpectedly, his eyes widened.

“Naa?! Zansha?!”

Zansha, who was supposed to have been waiting beside him as his second-in-command earlier, had vanished before he knew it. Although he had been distracted by the battlefield, he had not noticed his presence disappear.

“W,whe–where did he go?”

Garbolus looked around in a panic but Zansha was nowhere to be seen.

“Evil knight, prepare yourselfff!!!OOOOOOO”

“Ghh…!!”

In the meantime, Justy Oigist is closing in, kicking away the undead army.

Garbolus gritted so hard that his back teeth cracked, his wrinkled face contorted as much as it could.

“You young bastards!AAAAAAAA!!!”

The old man’s screams echoed.

The undead stood as a wall in response to Garbolus’s rage but were breached one by one by Justy.

Garbolus was upset by the absence of his second-in-command, Zansha, but the……old general also was not unaware of something.

Zansha was not the only one who was missing. There was also something unusual happening on the side of the Zain Kingdom.

In the rear of the Zain Kingdom army, the general who was supposed to be standing astride his horse, Raidorl Zain, had also disappeared.

“Push, Forwarrrrrrrrrrrdddd!!!

“Gumeehh!!! Protect it! Defend!!!!!!!!!!”

The battlefield moved into a new phase despite the absence of important generals on both sides.

This was only two hours after the battle had begun.