Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria - Volume 20 - Chapter 3

ACT 3

“Looks like we made it in time,” Sigrún remarked as she allowed herself a sigh of relief, having caught sight of the silhouettes of the Flame Clan Army beyond the morning mist. Given that they were still encamped outside of Glaðsheimr, it appeared they had yet to take the city itself.

Although she had faith that Yuuto and the Steel Clan Army under his command would be too much for even the powerful Flame Clan to defeat in a handful of days, she was still greatly relieved to see that they were holding up with no major losses to speak of.

Sigrún turned to Hildegard and offered her thanks. “It’s all thanks to you, Hilda.”

“Th-That’s...good to hear...” Hildegard replied, sprawled out behind Sigrún and gasping for breath. Her face was soaked with sweat, and her slender chest heaved with every breath she took.

Ordinarily, traveling from Iárnviðr to Glaðsheimr on foot was a two-week journey. Hildegard had covered that distance running alongside the horses of the Múspell Unit all while carrying Sigrún on her back. Her tiredness was totally understandable given the circumstances.

“Y-You sure you’re fine?” Sigrún asked.

“Do I...look...okay...to you?”

“Not in the slightest. You don’t need to sit in on the war council, so go get yourself some rest.”

Because Sigrún regarded Hildegard as a promising protégé, she was typically harder on the young wolf than her other subordinates, but it was clear to her that Hildegard, despite her superhuman physical abilities, had pushed herself far past her limits. The only thing Sigrún could offer her for the moment was a brief respite.

With that in mind, Sigrún began barking out orders to her various Múspell subordinates. “Bömburr, get her something filling and nourishing to eat. Jard, Clay, put a tent up for her. We can’t have her catching a cold. Get her some soft blankets too.”

“M-Mother Rún...”

Hildegard teared up at Sigrún’s unexpected show of generosity. Given that Hildegard was thoroughly exhausted, even the slightest kindness felt like a gift from the heavens. Sigrún nodded as she noticed Hildegard’s gaze upon her.

“We need her ready to do her job when it comes time to fight, after all,” Sigrún explained.

“Oh, so that’s why!” Hildegard couldn’t help but retort at Sigrún’s display of her cool, pragmatic reasoning.

Sigrún’s Múspell Unit, both in terms of its reputation and fighting ability, was the most powerful unit in the entire Steel Clan Army. As a consequence of this, its practices were rather spartan. Kindness was typically very low on the list of priorities.

“Of course. You’re one of our best warriors. There’s no way I’m letting you sit on the sidelines with the fate of the Steel Clan at stake.”

“W-Well... I...understand that...” Hildegard muttered between labored breaths, clearly displeased.

“I’m counting on you for this one. I need you ready,” Sigrún stated frankly to Hildegard.

“Ah?! W-Well if you put it that way, w-well...I guess I have no choice.” Her expression quickly brightened at Sigrún’s remark. As usual, Sigrún’s protégé was adorably easy to please. It helped that Sigrún had meant every word.

“Tch! My right hand still won’t work right.” A sharp pain ran up Sigrún’s arm as she tried to grip her right hand into a fist: a souvenir from her duel with Shiba in the Realm of Godspeed.

Ordinarily, extended use of the Realm of Godspeed left her entire body sluggish and heavy, as though her limbs were made of lead. However, that usually mostly wore off after three or four days. Thanks to Hildegard carrying her for the last four days, she had been able to properly recoup. As it stood, she felt about eighty percent rested. Unfortunately, however, her right hand still showed no sign of improvement.

“It might not recover at all...”

She was aware she had probably pushed her body too far, but it was what she needed to do to survive against an opponent like Shiba. If anything, if all she suffered was a permanent injury to her right hand, she had probably come off lightly, given death had been a much more likely outcome at the time.

“No use complaining about something I can do nothing about. I can only make do with what I have available,” she thought to herself.

Sigrún quickly moved past that subject to focus on the more important problems facing her at the moment. Certainly, her martial abilities had always been the pillar that supported her in life. Perhaps she would one day regret the loss of ability that came with a permanent injury. Of course, she would only have that opportunity if she actually survived to regret it. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

“It doesn’t appear the situation is particularly promising,” Bömburr said as he stood next to her, looking over at the city under siege.

He was a man of large build, and while his fighting ability was perhaps a bit below average within the Múspells as a whole, his logistical skills—his ability to secure supplies, plan marches, and deal with conflicts within the unit—made him an irreplaceable part of the unit’s hierarchy. Yuuto himself rated Bömburr so highly that he once said that the Múspell Unit would cease to function without him serving as Sigrún’s right-hand man.

“I agree...” Sigrún replied as she turned her gaze toward Glaðsheimr.

The city had been decimated by the recent earthquake, leaving its walls, once the largest and greatest in all Yggdrasil, in ruins with large rubble-filled gaps along their length. As a result, the enemy had an almost endless supply of potential entrances to take advantage of.

“I’d like to somehow rendezvous with Father before the enemy conducts their main assault,” Sigrún stated.

Given how things appeared to be going, Yuuto was probably desperate for additional forces. The addition of the Múspell Unit, the Steel Clan’s most elite fighting unit, would be a great help to him.

“So, how do we actually get to him? We can’t very well force our way through the enemy lines,” Bömburr replied, furrowing his brow as he scratched at his cheek in thought.

The Múspell Unit had approximately two thousand men at their disposal—a stark contrast to the Flame Clan Army’s hundred thousand. Although the Flame Clan forces were spread fairly thin around the city to surround it, attempting to charge through them to get into Glaðsheimr would still be paramount to suicide.

“Ideally, we’d receive orders from Father, but... How’s the radio transceiver?” Sigrún asked.

“I’ve been trying to make contact since we arrived, but no luck so far. All we hear is the occasional noises. I believe we’re still too far away,” Bömburr responded.

“I see... Unfortunately, we can’t afford to move any closer.”

They had conducted a forced march over three days and three nights with hardly any rest. The Múspell troopers were at breaking point, but more importantly, so were their horses. If they were to approach the enemy in this state, not only would they struggle to put up a credible fight, they might very well even have problems successfully retreating. Given that they were here to reinforce Yuuto, they couldn’t afford to give the enemy a morale-boosting victory of that sort.

“Then let’s try a carrier pigeon for now. We won’t be able to receive any replies, but we can at least tell them we’re here. That should have some meaning,” Bömburr suggested.

In a siege, nothing boosted the morale of the defenders like news of reinforcements arriving. When those reinforcements were a unit like the Múspells that had brought countless victories to the clan, the effect was even more pronounced.

“Agreed. What message shall we send them?” Bömburr asked.

“I’ll leave that to you,” Sigrún replied.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Bömburr quickly produced a pen and paper from his luggage, wrote out a quick message, attached it to the carrier pigeon’s foot, and set it off. The pigeon followed its nesting instincts and set off for Glaðsheimr...

“Ah!”

—Only to be pierced by an arrow fired at it, which saw it quickly plummet to the ground.

“They shot it down?!” Bömburr yelled with a note of surprise.

A modern-day person, even with perfect 20/20 vision, probably wouldn’t have seen the pigeon as more than a dot in the sky. However, this was Yggdrasil. It was said that almost all of the members of Africa’s Maasai people had eyesight that exceeded 20/5 vision. Even if that wasn’t the case in Yggdrasil, there were plenty of people who could see at levels of around 20/10 vision in modern times.

“Nobunaga is from the same land beyond the heavens as Father. No doubt he knew about carrier pigeons,” Sigrún noted and let out a frustrated sigh, then continued. “It seems it would be pointless to send more of them.”

Nobunaga was a difficult opponent—the methods they had employed against him so far often simply didn’t work, or he had access to similar knowledge and methods.

“So, we’re back to the original issue. How do we contact the main force?” Bömburr inquired.

“We can leave that for later. Our first move now should be to immediately get away from this location,” Sigrún replied.

“Huh?! But we’ve just set up camp—Oh!” Bömburr looked momentarily nonplussed at Sigrún’s words before her reasons dawned on him. Their message, which included their current location, was tied to the carrier pigeon’s leg. That meant the enemy knew where they were. That made staying put dangerous.

“Whoa?! Wh-What’s going on?!” Poor Hildegard was quickly dragged out of the dreamland she had just settled into.

“I hate to do this to you, but we need to move. It’s an emergency,” Sigrún explained.

“Wha? Whaaaat?!” Hildegard let out a whimpering cry, but Sigrún let it pass this once.

It was clear Hildegard was completely exhausted, and not only that, she had collapsed after reveling in the satisfaction of completing her task, only to be shaken back awake soon after. No doubt she felt the fatigue all the more keenly even as she was being forced back onto a march. Sigrún couldn’t help but pity her, but the enemy wasn’t going to wait for Hildegard to get enough rest.

“Noooo! My bed! My beeeed!” Hildegard pitiably stretched her hand longingly toward her cot, but she was grabbed by the scruff of her neck and dragged away. The gods above had abandoned this poor girl in her time of need, it appeared.

“They have reinforcements, you say?” Nobunaga said calmly, his expression remaining level as he heard his honor guard’s report.

He had been expecting the news since learning of Shiba’s defeat in the south. The arrival was on the early side, but the Múspell Unit was a cavalry unit, and he had accounted for the possibility in his planning. Nothing about the current situation was surprising to him.

“Yes. And this was the message upon the bird,” the guard replied.

“I see.” Nobunaga took the proffered sheet of paper and scanned it.

“While I would like to say go and send a unit to the location in the letter...” Nobunaga began.

“The Second has already issued orders to that effect,” the honor guard informed him.

“Hrmph. As I thought,” he responded, unperturbed by the guard’s comment. As expected, Ran had already taken the necessary steps and had probably chosen the best men for the job.

“Still, we’re talking about the Steel Clan’s greatest general. She’s probably already realized what happened and run off by now.” In Nobunaga’s experience, skilled generals had a particularly keen nose for danger. He had personally avoided disaster on more than one occasion as a result of merely vaguely sensing danger approaching.

“Well, that in itself is fine. Our focus, for now, is Glaðsheimr,” Nobunaga stated.

Everything else was simply a distraction. There was no need to pursue the Múspell Unit—they would show themselves if things in Glaðsheimr looked dire. It was a waste of effort to mobilize any force to follow after them, given that the Múspells had superior mobility. It was better to wait for them to come to him and wipe them out as they approached. That strategy had worked with the Takeda Clan’s famed cavalry. With enough caution, they were easy enough to handle. The more worrying opponent at the moment was still Suoh Yuuto.

“Any movement since then?” Nobunaga asked.

“Nothing that we can see. However, none of the scouts who entered Glaðsheimr proper have returned,” the honor guard responded.

“Is that so?” Nobunaga stroked his chin as he pondered the situation.

Suoh Yuuto wasn’t the type of man who would simply sit on his hands and watch as Nobunaga continued to demolish Glaðsheimr as part of his advance. He obviously had something up his sleeve to try to change the tide of the battle. Nobunaga had no idea what form that would take, however. That wasn’t an issue though. If he couldn’t guess what Suoh Yuuto would do, then he simply needed to be positioned flexibly enough to deal with any eventuality. Nobunaga knew from experience that it was the mindset that was important when it came to dealing with unexpected situations, not specific countermeasures.

With all that in mind, Nobunaga gave his orders. “Very well. Ready cannons! Turn Glaðsheimr into a mountain of rubble!”

“So, why’d you call me out here, Great Uncle?” the man who appeared in front of Hveðrungr asked casually with a ghost of a smile on his lips.

His tone was light, but his gaze made it clear he wasn’t amused at the summons. He was standing just outside of effective attacking range from Hveðrungr, with his weight balanced on the back of his heels, ready to jump back at a moment’s notice.

“Heh, no need to be so cautious. We had such a lovely time communicating with our bows, didn’t we?” Hveðrungr quipped.

“I seem to recall the sentiment behind my arrows was more lethal than friendly,” the man—Haugspori—replied with a sardonic chuckle.

Haugspori was present in Glaðsheimr as the representative of the Horn Clan. He was a renowned general within the Horn Clan and reputed to be not just the greatest archer in the Horn Clan, but perhaps across the entirety of the Steel Clan.

When Hveðrungr had been patriarch of the Panther Clan, he had attempted multiple incursions into Horn Clan territory, and the two had exchanged arrows multiple times. They weren’t the only two present, however...

“Ahem, I am rather busy as well, so could you please tell me what it is you want, Uncle?” Kristina, the third, asked impatiently.

She was the other person Hveðrungr had invited to this location. Kristina was the blood daughter of the wily old fox Botvid of the Claw Clan, and she had established a solid reputation as a cunning trickster. Hveðrungr was aware that having these particular people assembled here made it quite clear his scheme wasn’t exactly on the up and up, and he couldn’t blame them for their caution. After all, what he was about to propose was rather horrible indeed.

“Well, I’m sure both of you can connect the dots given who’s here,” Hveðrungr returned as though he were testing his interlocutors. He was a man who lived wearing masks—not only on his face, but countless masks over his own personality. Straightforward conversation felt less comfortable to him than this sort of verbal sparring.

“This is about the Flame Clan cannons, isn’t it? We have no real chance unless we can do something about them, after all. Father isn’t one to simply leave them to their bombardment, so I assume it has to do with the supplies you had your subordinates haul out here, right, Uncle?” Kristina asked.

“You really do share that fox’s blood,” Hveðrungr replied.

It appeared that she was well aware of his movements—without Hveðrungr being aware he was being watched, no less. That was quite the feat in and of itself. It was also rather remarkable that she had a clear grasp of the strategic situation. She made it clear as to precisely why she was the head of the Steel Clan’s intelligence gathering despite her youth.

“Still, this is a terrible odor,” Kristina said, pinching her nose as she frowned.

“Heh. I suppose it’s a bit too much for a girl, huh?” Hveðrungr remarked with a chuckle.

“That is it... It feels like it’s going to seep into my skin. It’d be enough to cause problems in my infiltration missions,” Kristina replied.

“Well, I certainly hope not. But I need your abilities this time. I’ve gotten Yuuto—uh, Big Brother’s permission. If I were being picky, I suppose I would have preferred your older sister for this, though...” Hveðrungr stated frankly.

“My sister? Meaning you want me to read the wind. Or do you want it whipped up?” Kristina asked.

“I want your ability to read the wind. Though if you can cause a wind to blow through the entire battlefield, that’d be more than fine with me,” Hveðrungr explained.

“If we had that sort of power, the Claw Clan would have taken over Yggdrasil a long time ago.”

“True enough.”

Hveðrungr chuckled and shrugged at Kristina’s retort. She was correct in that the ability to control wind at that scale was equivalent to being able to control the weather itself. That power would allow the wielder to control rain clouds, securing bountiful harvests for one’s own clan while condemning one’s enemies to starvation. It would literally be divine in scope.

“If you’re discussing the wind, then do you mean to suggest that you’d want to toss this into the enemy’s ranks using those?” Haugspori, who had hitherto remained quiet, pointed at the trebuchets lined up behind him.

Trebuchets were the Steel Clan’s pride and joy—the siege weapon that enjoyed an overwhelming range advantage in this particular era. Historical trebuchets were capable of flinging boulders of over a hundred forty kilograms over three hundred meters—a range comparable to that of any black powder cannon.

Haugspori, who was currently out of the loop, asked another question of his companions. “Given your topic of discussion, I have to ask... What exactly am I doing here? I’m just an archer.”

“Not to worry, you’ve got your role.”

Hveðrungr smirked as he began to explain his scheme. Haugspori’s expression tensed as Hveðrungr’s description progressed.

“Wait... You want me to do what?! Th-That’s a stretch even for me!” Haugspori couldn’t help but raise his voice in disbelief. What Hveðrungr was asking for was simply ludicrous. He’d never considered even trying such a thing.

“If you’re not going to do it, I will. I’ll be taking shots at the same time either way, though. We can’t afford to miss, after all,” Hveðrungr stated.

“Even then...”

“Do as you wish. But if you’re not going to take part, I’ll take the title of the best archer in the Steel Clan. I’ll be doing the same if my arrow hits first as well.”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Haugspori said with a note of frustration as Hveðrungr hit a nerve.

Haugspori had worked hard to earn his reputation as an archer, putting years upon years of training, trial and error, and hard-fought battles into refining his skill. His pride wasn’t going to let him simply hand over that title.

“Okay, fine! I’ll do it. I’ll do it!” Haugspori shouted in resigned exasperation. “However, if I hit them, you’re going to owe me at least a bottle of wine,” he stated.

“Certainly. I’ll ready a real strong drink, the likes of which you’ve never tasted before.” Hveðrungr nodded magnanimously, though his lips were curled into a malicious grin.

The thunderous roar of cannon fire and the rumble of collapsing masonry echoed through the air.

“It appears they’ve begun.”

“So it seems,” Hveðrungr replied flatly to Kristina’s calm observation.

They had roughly figured out the range of the cannons the day before, and the awareness that they were safely beyond the cannons’ effective range helped add to their sense of calm in contrast to the nervously fidgeting Haugspori.

“Why are we just sitting around?! We’ve got the wind at our backs. Isn’t now the time to be returning fire?!” Haugspori asked, utterly exasperated.

“It’s still too weak. And this wind won’t last long, isn’t that right?” Hveðrungr asked as he looked to Kristina standing at his side.

“Yes. As I noted earlier, the wind will change direction within half an hour,” Kristina replied without bothering to look in Hveðrungr’s direction. He knew that while it was typically disrespectful to do so, she wasn’t doing it to insult him. She was simply focused on reading the wind.

“That’s how it goes...”

“You could have let me know that earlier, you know. Sheesh...” Although he groused as he muttered the words, Haugspori stretched out to relax.

Despite the fact that the enemy was lobbing cannon fire in their direction, Haugspori was maintaining his composure without issue. He, too, was a skilled veteran of countless battles, after all. He was regarded as the best tactician in the Horn Clan, and often served as the supreme commander of the Horn Clan’s forces in Linnea’s stead. That was something that required not just brains, but nerves of steel.

“So, I guess we’re waiting for that divine wind, huh?” Haugspori asked.

“That’s about right,” Hveðrungr replied.

“It’d be awfully convenient if it started doing that,” Haugspori quipped.

“I already checked the archives on this one. At this time of year, Glaðsheimr frequently gets strong winds coming from the northeast,” Hveðrungr explained.

“I see. But that word there, ‘frequently,’ is a little worrying,” Haugspori replied nervously.

“True. Still, the chances are quite high that it’ll happen. We’ve got someone who can read the wind with us too. It’s worth taking a gamble,” Hveðrungr said casually, as though he were only talking about the weather and not the fate of the entire clan. He had done everything he could. If the winds didn’t cooperate, then all he could do was curse his bad luck. He’d reached a resigned sort of enlightenment.

“At any rate, now’s the time to be quiet and unmoving,” Hveðrungr stated.

As the Takeda Clan’s motto went: “quiet as a forest, unmoving like a mountain.” Based on his own experience, Homura was like the wind that could read the presence of people. She probably couldn’t detect objects as well as she could living creatures, however.

Vassarfall, according to Kristina’s reports, used sound to determine what was happening at a distance. With those two serving as the enemy’s figurative eyes and ears, then the best thing to do was to stay quiet and not act until the moment was right. Of course, actually waiting for that moment required a great deal of nerve...

The roar of the cannons and the rumble of the collapsing buildings steadily grew closer as the day went on. The wind that had been blowing earlier had died, and the air was still. Thoughts started to intrude into Hveðrungr’s silence. Perhaps they should have taken advantage of the wind earlier, even if it wasn’t quite enough. The sounds were getting awfully close. Had he let the perfect be the enemy of the good?

However, as each thought tried to make itself heard, he quietly muffled them in his mind. Hveðrungr smothered them with a lack of doubt. He had silenced his emotions and simply continued to observe his surroundings without comment.

“Hey! Um, they’re getting a bit close for comfort now, aren’t they?!” Haugspori asked with a hint of anxiety, nearing his own limit.

True, they were close to the limit of how much they could wait. The sounds made it clear that the cannonade would soon reach this area as well. But soon was the operative word.

“It’s not much, but we still have time,” Hveðrungr replied.

“There are times in which a general needs to be able to abandon the goal that seems just within reach. Isn’t this one of those times? Please think calmly!” Haugspori exclaimed.

“Haugspori, you’re the one who needs to calm down,” Hveðrungr said bluntly.

“Huh?”

“Judgments made under pressure aren’t reliable. We decided on a line to retreat earlier, remember? They haven’t gotten there yet.”

“Oh, right!”

Haugspori widened his eyes in understanding and turned his eyes to the building that had been chosen as the marker. It was indeed still standing.

“You’re right that adaptability is important for dealing with unexpected developments, but when there are things we can anticipate, it’s best to plan for them ahead of time. That’s the best way to secure victory,” Hveðrungr explained.

In war, it was necessary to make quick judgments in succession. It would be ideal if the individual in command could adapt to changing circumstances and always make the right decision, but there were limits to the ability for the human mind to process such changes. Under pressure, people’s perspectives tended to become myopic, and they made mistakes.

For that reason, Hveðrungr preferred to plan for as many contingencies as he could anticipate ahead of time and choose between those contingencies when required. He believed that was the best way to reduce the number of judgment errors. A modern application of Hveðrungr’s theory of thinking was the use of stop-loss lines in stock trading—the act of setting prices to sell and buy at ahead of time based on calm, rational decision-making and to follow those rules even in crises. It was commonly cited in pop business books as a surefire way to win as an investor.

“Ah! Uncle! It’s coming!” Kristina yelled excitedly.

Finally, his patience had paid off. Upon hearing Kristina’s signal, Hveðrungr stood up and waved his hand.

“Now’s the time! Let fly!” he yelled.

“Fire!”

At Ran’s command, the cannons set up along the Flame Clan’s front line opened fire in a thundering volley. The lead cannonballs leaped out of the guns and, in a blink of an eye, demolished the houses two hundred meters away with a shattering din. They destroyed one block of houses. Then another. Then another. They made short work of the adobe construction.

“Quite the sight, isn’t it?!” Nobunaga exclaimed as he nodded in satisfaction. There was a certain satisfaction that came with destroying something. Even in the modern era, a company had made a fortune by marketing a piece of paper that made a satisfying tearing noise as a stress relief tool. Here, however, Nobunaga wasn’t just tearing paper; he was destroying two hundred years of history. This was an indulgence that only a conqueror bringing about a new age had the opportunity to enjoy.

“Hm?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw objects arcing toward them from deep within Glaðsheimr. Nobunaga reacted quickly with his orders. “Ah, yes, the Steel Clan’s giant catapults. Tell the troops to watch for enemy fire from above!”

Unlike cannons, projectiles from catapults arced through the air as they flew to their target. In practical terms, it meant that those on the receiving end had time to get themselves out of the path of the boulder while it was still airborne. They were devastatingly effective against immobile walls, but they were no threat to soldiers who could simply move out of their way.

“What?!” Nobunaga yelled in apparent confusion. The Steel Clan’s projectiles had landed, but rather than the huge crash expected of a boulder impact, the sound of objects shattering against the ground instead rang through the air, prompting Nobunaga to furrow his brow questioningly. Similarly, a number of Flame Clan soldiers began to voice their confusion over what had just occurred.

“Ugh, what the heck is this...?! Wait, is it wine?!”

“They’re throwing wine at us?!”

“Urgh, this is some strong stuff. The smell is overpowering.”

“What are they trying to do? Get us drunk?”

“Hah! The smell alone isn’t enough to get us drunk.”

Nobunaga heard the derisive laughter from his soldiers. Had Nobunaga been aware of one simple fact, he might have been able to prevent what was about to happen. That would have been asking too much of him, however. Even Nobunaga had no way of learning about things that simply didn’t exist in his time, and as such, he did nothing as the Steel Clan catapults continued launching bottles full of spirits, drenching the area in alcohol. Still at a loss, the soldiers conversed among themselves.

“Dammit, the cannons are soaked with wine.”

“Are they trying to ruin the gunpowder inside?”

“Why wouldn’t they just use water, then?”

“Who knows, they’re all a bit weird. Could they be offering this as a sign of surrender?”

“If they were doing that, I’m sure they’d just bring it out properly.”

“Yeah, true. Right then, let’s send them some metal balls in return,” one soldier suggested.

“Good plan. Hey! Bring a fuse!” another, who appeared to be his superior, responded.

“Yes sir!”

At that command, a soldier approached one of the cannons—and the air instantly caught fire. The flames quickly spread, engulfing the soldiers around the cannon.

“Gaaaaah!”

“Hot! Hooot!”

“Ahhh! Water! WATER!”

The panicked screams of the soldiers echoed through the Flame Clan ranks.

“What?! What is going on?!” Even Nobunaga was caught staring in shock. To him, it appeared that the area had been instantly enveloped in a ball of flame. This confused him all the more when he recalled that they had taken every precaution against accidental fires when first setting up their cannons. There shouldn’t have been anything flammable anywhere near them. Of course, Nobunaga hadn’t known, and had no way of knowing, that highly concentrated alcohol was not only flammable, but evaporated quickly in open air and permeated the air around it.

During the Warring States Period in Japan, the only alcohol available had been clear and cloudy sake—brewed rice wines. While Nobunaga was said to be the first Japanese man to taste wine, even it only had at most fifteen percent alcohol by volume. Distilled spirits had existed in southern Kyushu in the form of shochu, but their spread to Honshu would only happen in the Edo Period. There was no way Nobunaga could have possibly been aware of distilled spirits, let alone their possible offensive uses.

Crucially, this was a piece of knowledge that Nobunaga lacked, but Yuuto was aware of. This was why Yuuto had employed this tactic; it allowed him to exploit a knowledge gap in his favor. The liquid that the Steel Clan had bombarded the Flame Clan Army with was a pure spirit that had been distilled to the absolute limit. It was at just over ninety-six percent pure alcohol by volume. In essence, it was almost pure ethanol.

The bottles launched at the cannons had shattered upon impact with the ground, and the alcohol had quickly evaporated, filling the air with alcohol vapors. The slow match immediately lit the air on fire.

The Steel Clan, however, wasn’t finished. The catapults followed up the bottles of alcohol with earthenware urns. When they shattered against the ground, they released a foul-smelling black liquid that immediately fed the flames.

“This is rock water, is it not?!” Nobunaga immediately identified the stench that wafted over the smell of the alcohol. It was rock water—essentially crude oil. There was, in fact, an oil field in Japan in the province of Echigo, modern Niigata Prefecture, and the substance had been known as burning water as far back as the Nara Period.

As he saw the next volley of urns arc through the air, even Nobunaga couldn’t hold back a shiver of dread. If those were filled with rock water—and if they landed in the middle of this conflagration—the results would be horrific. His mind immediately worked out how his forces would fare in such an event, but reality one-upped even his vivid imagination.

Arrows cut through the air and shattered the urns mid-flight. The arrows hadn’t been fired by Flame Clan soldiers. No, it had been Steel Clan archers taking those shots. The rock water inside the urns burst forth as they shattered, showering a wide area. The Steel Clan continued to launch ever more of them into the air, shattering them with their arrows mid-flight each time. Though some of the arrows missed, most of the urns were successfully destroyed. Rock water rained down onto the entire area, and the flames spread in the blink of an eye—engulfing the Flame Clan forces.

“Retreat! Retreat!”

The wall of flame that burned like a vengeful hydra was too much even for Nobunaga to deal with. The only option he had under the circumstances was to run as quickly from the flames as possible. As he did so, however...

“Tch. Old age is a terrible foe,” he remarked. While he still maintained an impressive physique for his age, he was still over sixty. Even he couldn’t avoid losing a step or two from age. His body refused to obey him in the same way it had done in his youth.

“The lad certainly got me this time,” Nobunaga thought to himself.

At this point, Nobunaga had a vague idea of the mechanics behind the Steel Clan’s attack. It was only a hypothesis based on what had transpired, but the wine the enemy had launched was flammable. It was difficult enough to believe that liquid, much less wine, would burn, but what was even more unexpected was the fact that the scent of sufficiently strong wine itself would burn.

Being unaware of this had led to his soldiers bringing an open flame to the wine-soaked ground and set off the massive fire that was currently engulfing his forces. Had they started with rock water, that is, a form of oil, Nobunaga would have been on guard. He would have probably immediately ordered any open flames to be put out. However, the Steel Clan had instead used wine. He hadn’t been able to figure out what they were planning, and it had slowed his reaction to their attack. He had let them soak the area with it while he had stayed on the front to watch. Those few minutes had been fatal for his men, and could, too, have been for him.

“Blast. The flames are moving quickly...” Nobunaga clicked his tongue bitterly as he ran. As the countless scars on his body attested, Nobunaga preferred to lead from the front, regardless of his importance as the army’s supreme commander, as well as clan patriarch. Doing so allowed him to react quickly to enemy movements while bolstering the morale of his forces. However, that preference had worked against him this time. Because he was so deep into enemy territory, it would take time for him to get back to relative safety. Worse, the flames had spooked the horses and they had fled, forcing him to escape on foot. He had no choice but to force his aching bones forward.

“I will not stand for this! I am Oda Nobunaga!”

Nobunaga forced his body to obey with his overpowering strength of will, and he increased the pace of his running even as his lungs and flanks ached from the effort. He could see the city gate in the distance. As he made his escape, however, a sharp pain pierced his chest, and he broke out in a fit of coughing. The strength left his knees. It seemed he had pushed himself too far.

“My Great Lord! Are you okay?!” Ran appeared to lend him a shoulder, having hurried to his side after seeing Nobunaga stumble. Ran then continued running, dragging Nobunaga along, but of course, his pace slowed as a result of the extra burden. The raging flames cared little about their plight, and the fire’s fangs lashed out to swallow Nobunaga.

“Cough, cough... At this rate, it’ll catch us...” Nobunaga stated.

“I’ll make sure it won’t! Beg your pardon, My Lord!”

Ran swept Nobunaga off his feet and picked him up, evidently deciding that it would be faster. However, the flames were still faster than Ran. The wind was siding with the fire, blowing in the direction of the Flame Clan. The fact that the Steel Clan had held off on their attack for so long must have meant they had been waiting for the right moment. They had been waiting for the finicky winds to blow in their favor. Nobunaga could do nothing but tip his hat in salute to their masterful planning.

“Ran, enough. Get out of here while you can...” Nobunaga asked his Second.

“I’m afraid I won’t be doing that! This is one time I can’t obey even your words!” Ran responded in outright refusal.

Nobunaga blinked in surprise. His mouth was agape in shock. Ran was an extremely loyal subordinate. He had never—not even once—disobeyed Nobunaga’s orders. Ran was a man who, if Nobunaga said something was white, would call something that was quite clearly black...no, would paint that black thing white. And yet now, even if it was to save his lord’s life, he had refused Nobunaga’s direct command.

“If I abandon you here, I won’t be able to face my parents or my brothers!” Ran shouted as he continued running. His back caught fire as the flames lapped at them.

“Ran! Enough! Enough, so...”

“Please be quiet! You’ll bite your tongue! Ahhhhh!”

Ran kept running despite the fact that his back was on fire. He let out a primal roar and continued to run. His expression was set in grim determination and fueled by adrenaline. He ran and ran until, finally, he passed through the city gate and had outrun the flames.

“Guh...” Having expended all his strength, Ran collapsed. His back was burning, both figuratively and literally.

“M-My apologies, My Great Lord. Are you unhurt?” Ran asked. The only person he was concerned about was Nobunaga. To trip at the very end and end up injuring his liege lord would have been unforgivable. In Ran’s eyes, that would have been a mortifying mistake.

“Fool! Worry about yourself first!” Nobunaga shouted, taking off his cloak and beginning beating Ran’s back with it. He was probably trying to put out the fire. Ran felt apologetic for making his lord do such a thing.

“M-My Great Lord... Y-You’ll ruin your favorite cloak...” Ran nervously stated.

“You damned fool! I like you far more than I like this damned cloak!” Nobunaga barked in rebuttal.

“Heh... You do me too much honor.” Ran felt an intense glow of satisfaction upon hearing those words. The burns on his back were excruciating, but they felt so insignificant at the moment. To him, Nobunaga was everything.

“My Great Lord! Are you okay?!” Ran asked, looking increasingly concerned for his lord’s well-being.

“I’m fine. Ran... I’ve put out the flames, but, well...”

“Ah?! Second?!” one of the soldiers who had rushed to help the pair yelled.

“Th-Those are terrible burns! F-Fetch the healer! Quickly! Second, please hold on!” another exclaimed.

The nearby soldiers fell into a panic as they saw the extent of Ran’s injuries. He couldn’t tell for himself, but it sounded as though they were quite serious. Honno-ji, the bomb from the other day, this flame—it seemed he had awful luck when it came to fire. But all of the wounds he had suffered had been to protect Nobunaga. As such, Ran had no regrets.

“What are you standing around for?! Hurry!” Nobunaga yelled.

Ran heard the strain in Nobunaga’s voice. This was probably the most anxious he had ever heard his liege lord. Even at Honno-ji, Nobunaga had laughed it off with a predatory grin. In stark contrast, Nobunaga was worried for Ran’s life. Ran almost wept in gratitude. It was more than enough. He couldn’t keep Nobunaga here any longer.

“M-My Great Lord! L-Leave me and return to command! The soldiers are in a panic. You’re the only one who can restore order. I-If the enemy attacked us now, they might very well destroy us entirely!” Ran pleaded to Nobunaga with a determined expression, tightly grasping his arm. He had spent his life working to make Nobunaga the conqueror of the world. It would haunt him into his next life if Nobunaga failed on his account.

Nobunaga seemed to pull himself together in an instant. Although he often appeared to be ruthless, he was a compassionate individual, and because of that, there were times he let his emotions drive him, causing him to make mistakes. When he razed Mount Hiei’s Enryaku-ji Temple, the act had been driven by a desire to avenge his kin and his retainers, but doing so had given his enemies an excuse to band together and encircle him in an attempt to contain him. In this case, however, Nobunaga had already regained his composure. As such, there was nothing left for Ran to worry about.

“Don’t you dare die, Ran! It’s far too early for you to die!” Nobunaga ordered.

“Of course, I won’t, my Great Lord. I haven’t seen you conquer the world yet,” Ran replied.

Ran forced himself to smile and watched Nobunaga depart. He was telling the truth—he had no intention of dying. He would will himself to live with everything he had. He hadn’t completed his duty, and there was no one else who could properly support Nobunaga. For that reason alone, he couldn’t die. Not yet.

“Daddy! Are you okay?!” When Nobunaga returned to the main camp located outside of Glaðsheimr, he was immediately pounced on by Homura. She was supposed to be in the rear echelon creating saltpeter, but she had probably rushed over, worried about Nobunaga, when she saw the flames rising from the Holy Capital.

“I’m fine. Ran made sure of that,” Nobunaga replied in an effort to comfort his concerned daughter.

“Ran did? O-Okay,” she replied and furrowed her brow. She wasn’t particularly fond of Ran. If anything, she disliked him. That said, it wasn’t that she disliked his personality, she was simply jealous that Ran was constantly at her beloved father’s side.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t spare time for you at the moment, my darling,” Nobunaga replied, patting Homura’s head apologetically, before getting on with the task at hand. “What’s the situation?” Nobunaga asked the officer who had been in command of the main camp.

“There’s too much confusion for a detailed report, but from the soldiers who somehow escaped, it appears many of the men who had been at the front were swallowed by those flames...” he replied.

“Fool. I was there, I know that full well. I’m asking if there’s been any movement by the Steel Clan,” Nobunaga asked bluntly.

“What? No, surely they have their hands full with the fire...”

“You imbecile!” Nobunaga ripped into the officer. There was nothing more meaningless than sticking with common-sense assumptions when the enemy was completely unbound by them.

“There’s a good chance they’ll use this opportunity to attack! Tell the sentries to keep their eyes peeled for any changes!” Nobunaga barked at the officer.

“...I-In that huge conflagration?!” the officer turned to look at Glaðsheimr and asked, still skeptical. The flames were burning so powerfully that they seemed they’d reach the heavens themselves. It looked like they would consume the entire city at any moment. Surely, the officer’s expression said, the Steel Clan wouldn’t just let the fire burn and attack.

“Your mindset is exactly what he’s trying to exploit. Hurry and reorganize the main forces with those who can move!” Nobunaga announced curtly and issued his orders. The boy he was facing had a plan for everything. He wasn’t stupid enough to die in a trap of his own making. It was a virtual certainty that he had already accounted for dealing with the fire, meaning he would soon be going on the offensive. Unsurprisingly, Nobunaga’s guess was right. At that very moment...

“Right! It’s high time we made our move!” Yuuto announced to his assembled generals in the heart of Glaðsheimr.

“According to Kristina’s report, we were able to catch a good number of their soldiers along with their cannons. There’s no way we can miss this opportunity,” he continued.

“Under these circumstances, Your Majesty?” Fagrahvél asked and furrowed her brow skeptically. She wasn’t the only one looking at him in apparent disbelief—at least half of the other generals seemed to share her doubts. Yuuto was well aware of what they were thinking.

“Don’t worry about the fire. It won’t reach the Valaskjálf Palace,” he said confidently. The generals who had been with him since his days in the Wolf Clan, as well as with Horn Clan officers, seemed convinced, but those who had only been under his command for the last year or so were less confident in his claims.

“May I ask why?” Fagrahvél inquired as their representative.

“We don’t have the time, so I’ll explain it simply. For fire to burn, it needs three things. Air, fuel, and a high enough temperature,” Yuuto replied as he listed off the items on his fingers.

“Remarkable! So such knowledge is available in the land beyond the heavens?!” Fagrahvél said, eyes wide with admiration. It was understandable. While combustion was one of the most basic lessons taught in sixth-grade chemistry, it had only been discovered in the 18th century—over three thousand years after the people in this room were born.

“It is, yeah. So, as I was saying... What’s important is that if any of those three items are missing, fire can’t burn. It goes out. This is an absolute.” Yuuto emphasized the word “absolute” and the room went quiet.

Soon after, however, the generals let out a loud cheer.

Yuuto had expected some surprise, but the reaction was more emphatic than he had expected, and he blinked in surprise. To him, it had simply been knowledge that he had learned as an elementary school student. For the people of Yggdrasil, however, it was something else entirely. Fire brought them many benefits—warmth, cooking, forging—but it was also a constant threat. There was little humans could do against raging fire. To possess the know-how to extinguish even the most intense of fires at will was nothing short of incredible to them.

“You shouldn’t be that surprised by it. You do the same thing,” Yuuto scratched at his cheek awkwardly as he told the room. He couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed at them giving him credit for something he had learned as a child.

“We do?” they asked, confused.

“Yeah. What do you do when a fire happens? You usually break down the buildings near it, right?”

“Yes, well, that’s true...” Fagrahvél nodded and replied after a moment’s thought.

There was no such thing as fire hoses in this era, and because water containers were all ceramic, bucket relays were also out of the question. As a result, almost all firefighting in Yggdrasil consisted of creating firebreaks. It worked by destroying any buildings that were near or downwind of a fire and starving the fire’s ability to spread.

“You’re putting out the fire by removing one of the elements—that is, the object to burn—from the picture,” Yuuto explained.

“Oh, I see!” Fagrahvél nodded as the fact dawned on her.

“My solution is pretty much the same. By removing the things that can burn around the fire ahead of time, the fire won’t spread past it. Meaning it’ll stay in southern Glaðsheimr.”

He was applying the concept of a permanent firebreak between regions of a city. The idea seemed obvious: just avoid putting fuel in the path of fire. However, it was an idea that only seemed obvious in hindsight. For example, during the Tokugawa Period, Edo, as the new capital of the Shogunate, experienced rapid development along with explosive growth in population density. As a result, fires became so common in Edo that the saying “Fires and quarrels are the flower of Edo” came to define the city for its population.

In spite of this fact, initially, the only real measures taken against fire had been to push for buildings to be built with shingled roofing, dirt foundations, and lacquered, in an attempt to make the houses more fireproof. Unfortunately, these measures also tended to raise the cost of building, which slowed their adoption, which was why in the end, the Tokugawa government was forced to implement hiyokechi disaster parks—artificial firebreaks—over the objection of the city’s residents. The first of these open spaces weren’t commissioned until 1657, over half a century after the establishment of the Edo Shogunate.

“Fortunately, Glaðsheimr has the great streets that stretch into each cardinal direction, creating their own great fire walls thanks to their vast openness. They’re plenty wide, and Kristina tells me the wind will blow southward for a while, meaning the possibility of the fire spreading to Valaskjálf Palace is pretty much zero,” Yuuto continued, allaying the generals’ concerns.

Even if an unlucky gust pushed the flames northward, most of Glaðsheimr’s houses were made of non-flammable brick. A few embers from the fire in the south wouldn’t be enough to ignite them.

“Currently, most of the fire raging in the south comes from the spirits and oil we tossed in that direction. I’m sure there’s some clothing left in the houses and wood used for the furniture or rooftops that might be contributing to it, but it’s not enough to be worried about. The fire will probably run out of fuel soon and burn itself out.”

“I... I see.” Fagrahvél nodded as she replied, as though overwhelmed and convinced by the volume of Yuuto’s argument.

She probably didn’t fully understand what he was saying, but in situations like this, the image of credibility was more important than the logic. An air of confidence and a flood of words was usually rather convincing when the audience wasn’t fully knowledgeable on a subject. It was a common conman’s trick, but Yuuto wasn’t in a situation where he could spend too much time explaining the fine details.

“It’s also worth keeping in mind that, to most generals, the idea of riding out into a burning city would be a fool’s errand, right??”

“Well, of course—Oh!” Fagrahvél was about to voice her agreement when she seemed to realize what Yuuto was trying to get at. Again, while she tended to be a bit lacking in political guile, she was still an extremely able commander.

“We’re facing Oda Nobunaga. He won’t fall for my schemes all that often. This is a golden opportunity for us. If we miss this chance, we’re going to be out of options.”

The sound of the officers swallowing was audible through the room as Yuuto bluntly made his assessment. They were aware of that fact. Even though they had turned the tide somewhat in their favor with the insurgency tactics and the fire, they were still clearly outnumbered by the Flame Clan Army. If things remained the way they were, Nobunaga was still going to slowly close the noose around their necks. They needed to take the fight to Nobunaga, even if it meant taking some risks. Yuuto waited for understanding and determination to spread through the ranks of the assembled generals before continuing.

“So, with all that said... Let’s get moving! Let’s show them that the only thing that awaits anyone that attacks us is death!”