Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria - Volume 4 - Chapter 5

ACT 5 

“Tch, I know I used the same strategy, but it really is annoying as all hell when it’s used against you.” Yuuto glared in the direction the enemy had appeared from, clicking his tongue in irritation. 

Presently, the Wolf Clan army had departed Sylgr, and it was making their way towards Myrkviðr in order to take it back. 

The current fly in the ointment for Yuuto was the very same horseback hit-and-away tactics he’d once ordered Sigrún to use against the Hoof Clan. The Panther clan appeared like a sudden gust of wind from out of nowhere to create a disturbance among the enemy with a few quick attacks, then disappeared just as swiftly. 

During the war with the Hoof Clan, the Múspell Unit had simply fled after attacking, but the Panther Clan always left a parting gift in the form of a rain of arrows, making them all the worse as opponents. 

Yuuto had ordered his men into infantry square formations capable of dealing with attacks from all sides, so he wasn’t suffering too many actual casualties. But over these past few days, the constant threat and uncertainty of when the next attack would come had prevented them from having a moment’s peace. 

He could already see the signs of physical and mental fatigue appearing on the faces of his soldiers. Things were starting to head in a bad direction. 

“Big Brother, please get down!” Felicia cried. 

“Ah! Whoa?!” 

As he heard Felicia’s words, Yuuto’s body moved on instinct. As he ducked down, an arrow whizzed just over his head. 

In quick succession, a second arrow slammed into the side of Yuuto’s chariot, bouncing off with a ping! 

“Phew...! I’m so glad we reinforced this thing with sheets of iron.” 

The enemy was using iron-tipped arrows. That particular one might have pierced right through if he’d been riding in a chariot lined only with wooden boards, like the ones they used to use. Just thinking about that sent a chill up his spine. 

“Still, the enemy must be an archer of tremendous strength and skill to be able to fire at you accurately from so great a distance,” said Felicia. “Perhaps he is even stronger than the Horn Clan’s master archer Haugspori. And all while riding on horseback, which should by all rights cause his aim to waver...” 

“That sounds about right for the guy who was actually able to wound Skáviðr. But we’re not just letting them take shots at us for free, either.” 

Currently, the only weapon the Wolf Clan had that could deal with the Parthian shot tactic was their crossbows, which had a longer range than the Panther Clan’s bows. 

The crossbow had historically been used in ancient China as a countermeasure against attacks from the Xiongnu from the north. The catch was, a crossbow took much longer to prepare and fire a shot. In about one minute, a soldier could fire off about ten arrows from a standard bow, but a crossbow could only manage two shots at most. 

And that was where Yuuto had adopted another tactic. 

Skáviðr’s commands reverberated in the air, his voice chilly, yet dignified. “First rank, fire! Second rank, pass crossbows to the first. Pass the used crossbows to the third rank!” 

The truth was, even before researching anti-cavalry strategies online, Yuuto had already known about the three-rank volley fire tactic Oda Nobunaga had used to defeat the Takeda clan’s cavalry at the Battle of Nagashino. It was one of those popular bits of trivia that was relatively common knowledge in Japan. 

When he had looked it up, he’d read that the account of Nobunaga using volley firing was in dispute as possibly having been added in later years. And besides, the Wolf Clan didn’t have guns to begin with, so he had been about ready to scrap the idea as a viable tactic for his circumstances. 

However, going back another three hundred years before Nobunaga to the Song dynasty in China, there had been clear evidence of three-rank volley firing, using crossbows. Soldiers in the third rank would wind and set the bowstring, then pass the crossbows to the second rank who would load the bolt, and the first rank would only need to focus on firing the prepared crossbows. This made up for the weapon’s slow firing speed. 

It was a military technique 2,500 years ahead of Yggdrasil, and Yuuto had now implemented it in the Wolf Clan army. 

“They’ve gotten a lot better, haven’t they?” Peeking over the side of the chariot’s carriage, Yuuto looked on with pride at his reliable crossbowmen. 

Naturally, theory was one thing, but putting it into practice was always another story. 

Firing off volleys of arrows with no lag in between required practiced, efficient, and disciplined movements by every soldier in the formation. 

Even the soldiers of the Wolf Clan, who were more used to life under the rule of law, couldn’t accomplish that sort of thing overnight. 

In their first real engagement with the Panther Clan, their coordination had faltered, and they hadn’t been able to get off more than two or three consecutive volleys. 

But just as Yuuto had personally experienced with learning a new language, when people are under threat and struggling desperately, it tends to make them learn a lot faster. 

In the eleventh chapter of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, titled “The Nine Situations,” there was a particularly relevant passage: “...the men of Wu and the men of Yue are enemies; yet if they are crossing a river in the same boat and are caught by a storm, they will come to each other’s assistance just as the left hand helps the right.” 

The important point was that, when faced with a shared and deadly threat, even historically bitter enemies could put aside their differences to work together and survive. The implication being that, under that same kind of duress in war, comrades in arms should be capable of reaching an even higher level of cooperation and coordination, and truly be like two hands of the same body. 

It was the origin of the rather famous old Japanese idiom, “Wu and Yue in the same boat together,” used to describe strangers or enemies forced to share their fate. 

And just like the words of Sun Tzu implied, in their current threatening situation, the Wolf Clan soldiers had improved their coordination. It had been inevitable, in a sense. 

Over the past few days, the Panther Clan’s constant attacks had indeed dealt a great deal of stress to the soldiers of the Wolf Clan. But at the same time, they had served as an even greater form of training.

“Shiiit! What is the deal with them?!” Váli cursed and used his sword to deflect the crossbow bolts as they sped toward him. 

He’d now engaged with the enemy a dozen or more times since their first encounter at Sylgr. In that first fight, he’d been tripped up by their use of soldiers lying in ambush, but since then, he’d been playing everything by the book. 

He’d attack the enemy over and over, then they’d be unable to fully defend against sudden cavalry attacks from who knows where. He’d push them into a corner mentally and drain their morale. 

That was how things were supposed to be going. 

But instead, each successive attack saw an increase in the firing speed of the enemies’ crossbows. By this point, the interval between volleys was nothing compared to how it had been in the beginning. 

With a veritable rain of bolts coming down on them, even the elite fighters of the Panther Clan now had to use everything they had just to deflect the shots, and they didn’t have the time to ready and fire their own weapons. After all, their weapons had less range than the enemy’s. 

Even if they charged in with bows drawn and ready, being exposed to attack was enough of a threat to disrupt their concentration, and it was becoming increasingly harder to steady their aim on their targets. 

“Gyaah!” NP “Guhagh...!” 

Váli heard the cries of more of his comrades falling, their horses shrieking. He cursed through gritted teeth. “Kh... Damn you!” 

The difference in numbers was too great for him to do anything. 

If he’d had enough men on his side, he could have taken advantage of the fact that the opponent was only using crossbows. He could have shut his eyes to a certain number of casualties, and have his men charge in with spears, striking in all directions to disrupt them. But with this many enemies in formation, if he tried that, he’d only manage to get his forces all shot down before they could charge into the center. 

Váli’s hit-and-away tactics worked well for him precisely because he used a small band of riders, but now he was suddenly finding himself unable to act in the face of the enemy’s force of numbers. 

“Grrgh, these guys really are a nightmare!” Váli growled to himself once more, then shouted to his men. “All right you bastards, we’re getting outta here!”

“Big Brother, the enemy is withdrawing!” Felicia reported excitedly. 

“Oh? Looks like they couldn’t spare us a parting shot this time, either,” Yuuto said sarcastically, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a smirk. 

As always, the Panther Clan’s retreat was swift and coordinated, but the three-rank volley fire had whittled down their numbers a good amount. 

The corpses of fallen Panther Clan soldiers and their horses gave every indication that the Wolf Can had managed a remarkable accomplishment in this series of battles. Going by the numbers from their first battle, they might have taken out around half of the soldiers in the enemy’s warband. 

It seemed even the elite warriors among the cavalry of the Panther Clan couldn’t completely defend themselves against such a flurry of crossbow bolts. 

Yuuto hadn’t been able to defeat the enemy commander, but surely inflicting this many casualties on them would keep them from being too eager to conduct simple raids for the time being. That should give his own soldiers enough of a break to relax and get some sleep. 

“Still, I guess there was no way we’d lose against only their vanguard unit in their first place,” Yuuto murmured. 

He knew the real strength of the Panther Clan army wasn’t in that sort of scouting and raiding party with only a few hundred men, elite fighters though they might be. The main body of their army was somewhere else. 

The unit they’d been fighting was meant to do nothing more than feel them out. 

He’d just received a report back from Kristina, whom he’d sent on ahead, that the enemy forces were amassing in Myrkviðr. 

There were about three thousand of them. 

And judging by how incredibly skilled the vanguard unit had been, it was safe to imagine that those three thousand would be strong enough to easily wipe the floor with his own special forces cavalry, the Múspell Unit. 

Yuuto had struggled so much, for days, against a scouting force of only a few hundred. They were far inferior in number to the Wolf Clan forces, yet strong enough to require all of their attention. 

That being the case, it was fortunate he’d had the chance for his troops to become capable of using three-rank volley fire in actual combat now, before the main conflict began. 

With this, he’d finally gained a useful tactic to use against cavalry.

“...Uhh, so this is the wheat, that’s the barley, and over there is the salt and the vinegar, and this here is the ammunition for the crossbows.” Ginnar pointed one by one to the cargo on various horse-drawn wagons, checking each one against a list he had on paper. 

It was a resupply for Yuuto’s army. 

Obviously, soldiers couldn’t survive without an adequate supply of food. 

What was especially striking in the light of the most recent battle, though, was that they couldn’t fight without an adequate supply of arrows. 

And the more they fought, the more they depleted that supply. 

Yuuto was having Ginnar and some of the other merchant traders in his network buy goods from nearby towns and cities, so they could resupply him periodically. 

Military logistics was the term used to describe the discipline and understanding of the various kinds of combat service support an army needs to maintain and sustain itself. 

The importance afforded to military logistics in the 21st century could be summed up by a popular quote of the modern era: “Amateurs at war talk about strategy. Veterans talk about logistics.” 

“Thanks, Ginnar,” Yuuto said. “I was getting a little worried, since we gave up a lot of our rations back in Sylgr. I really am lucky to have such a capable child as you.” 

“Father! Do you really have to keep doing that even at a time like this?” Gunnar protested. 

Yuuto laughed. “No, I’m being as serious as can be this time.” 

Even though Yuuto laughed enough to make it seem like he was joking, in truth he really did feel deeply relieved, and deeply grateful. 

The Wolf Clan had retaken the city of Sylgr in short order, but the Panther Clan had already robbed it of supplies, including every last bit of food, and the citizens hadn’t even had anything to get them to the next day. 

There were of course a lot of people who had been killed, or kidnapped to be used or sold as slaves, but there were still nearly ten thousand survivors remaining in the city and the surrounding area. 

In Yggdrasil, a member of the population living in a particular territory or fief was called a “konr.” It was a word meaning “descendant.” 

Following the logic of the system formed by the Chalice of Allegiance and the clans, the citizens of his or her land were indeed a patriarch’s descendants, the children at the very bottom of the family tree. 

It wasn’t quite as idealistic and pie-in-the-sky as the concept of “all humanity as brothers.” But Yuuto could not simply turn a blind eye when faced with the suffering of the children of a related clan under his protection. As the head of a clan based on family bonds, they were his extended family. 

“Still, you really are a kind man, Father,” said Gunnar. “It’s a bit nai— er, no, I mean, it’s just a little cra— ahh, no...” 

“Ha ha, yeah, yeah, I know, I’m a real sack of sugar,” Yuuto said with a self-derisive laugh. 

In his drive to study up, he’d been reading war chronicles and novels of that sort, and it was pretty much a common thread that the importance of logistics would come up in each one. 

As far as real world events were concerned, the importance of an army being able to produce and procure their own supplies independently had only come to the forefront in later eras, after cannons and firearms becoming widespread. 

That was because individual armies could only use ammo and such that fit the specifications of their own equipment. The proper distribution of ammunition was now more of a lifeline than even food supplies. 

As far as food was concerned in times of war, the best method was to procure it in the theater of war rather than storing and transporting incredibly large volumes of supplies. That was a tactic that showed up in written works on military strategy as early as Sun Tzu, and it was a fundamental element of logistics from ancient times all the way up to just before the modern era. 

Procuring supplies in the theater of war — in other words, either by requisition or by looting. That was the case in Yggdrasil, as well. 

It had only become possible to transport an adequate amount of foodstuffs to troops out at war after the development of motorized railways and the automobile. 

With a chuckle at his own expense, Yuuto shrugged. “Even so, if I can’t play the role of hero here, even if it’s just a cheap imitation, then what’s the point of using all these cheats, you know?” 

In truth, transporting vast quantities of food all the way from Iárnviðr had been a nightmare. 

Traditionally, the makeup of an army in this era was over 90% combat troops, but the Wolf Clan’s transportation corps made up over 20% of its army. 

Furthermore, the transportation corps wasn’t armed for combat, so any casualties or thefts they suffered would have an impact on the army as a whole. It was potentially a critical weakness in his army. 

This was Horn Clan territory, so while of course looting was absolutely out of the question, there was still requisitioning. With a demonstration of their threat as a military power, they could force the locals to sell them supplies at a very cheap price, which would be both much less risky and much less of a burden on his army. 

In an emergency situation like this, it would be crazy to willingly agree to pay the normal price for goods and services, and even crazier to pay more than that to match demand. 

However, in this era, there wasn’t exactly a lot leeway when it came to food stores. Yuuto was asking the people to part with the food they’d been stocking up during the harvest season in preparation for the winter, so paying a fair price for it seemed the natural and right thing to do. 

Using his power to buy up their supplies on the cheap would have been the same as telling them to starve. 

“Ginnar, the only reason things are working out for us like this is because of people like my second-in-command, like Linnea, and like you,” Yuuto said. “So you really do have my thanks.” 

The English word “logistics” was said to have its roots in the Greek word “logistikós,” meaning either “actions with basis in rational calculation” or “one skilled in calculation.” 

Just haphazardly buying up supplies and transporting them wouldn’t do any good. The rates of consumption were different for each item, and so were their prices. One had to be able to calculate and estimate how what needed to be transported, how much, and to where. 

It was also important to select routes that would meet with fewer enemy raids, and to pick good locations to conduct resupplies. 

And in that respect, the Wolf Clan was nothing if not blessed with incredible talent. 

“Ha ha,” Ginnar laughed. “I think that Aunt Linnea figures into it a lot more than someone like me. I made a stop in Sylgr before coming here, and it was amazing. From the distribution of supplies to the allotment of work, not to mention countless other things, she was incredibly well-prepared to work through the recovery period. It’s only been two days since it was liberated, and it’s already functioning as a normal city again.” 

“Wow... As always, that girl is such a cut above the rest when it comes to that stuff.” Yuuto thought back to the face of the darling little sister who bid him farewell at Sylgr three days ago, and found himself giving a deep sigh that could be taken as either admiration or exasperation. 

If Sylgr had resumed functioning as a city, that also meant it had been recovered as a base and supply point. 

As long as Linnea was there to command and control the service and support side of things, the Wolf Clan had no need to worry about its logistics. 

“Oh, but even Aunt Linnea couldn’t make something from nothing,” Ginnar said. “At the end of the day, it’s silver that makes the world go around, after all. You don’t have to be modest, Father. It has all been possible thanks to your gathering up such a large amount of silver.” 

“And that’s something I couldn’t have done myself, either. We have Ingrid to thank for that.” 

There was the glasswares, the paper, the gritless bread, and all manner of other special products on the market now. And thanks to that influx of trade, the Wolf Clan now held vast amounts of silver, conveniently usable as a form of payment anywhere in Yggdrasil. 

It was thanks to that abundance of economic power that the Wolf Clan could now afford to send its army on a military campaign without having to requisition or rob from the locals. 

Yuuto spoke his feelings aloud. “It’s thanks to everyone else that I can put any other worries aside, and just focus on winning the battle.” 

He was aware of his own ignorance. He knew the limits of his own power and ability. And so, without any false bravado or haughty pride, he could respect and rely on those around him who could do the things that he could not, and he understood how important it was to do that. 

“Show them by example, instruct them, have them do it, and then praise them; otherwise, people won’t do anything. Communicate, lend an ear, acknowledge them, and entrust them with responsibility; otherwise, people won’t grow. Watch over them, with gratitude in your heart, and place your trust in them; otherwise, people won’t come into their own.” 

Those were the famous words of Isoroku Yamamoto, admiral and commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Yuuto didn’t know the words of this quote, but without realizing it, he had been putting them into practice. 

And it was in this way that Yuuto’s abstract plans and designs, by virtue of the wisdom and strength of his many allies, could finally take shape as “living wisdom,” and affect the world. 

And, ironically, the one who had made him realize and acknowledge his own shortcomings was now the very man he had to fight.

“Hmph, all that boasting you did, but in the end it didn’t amount to much, did it, Váli?” Hveðrungr stared coldly down upon his cowering subordinate, who had come to rejoin him as he traveled with the main force of the Panther Clan army. 

Váli had a reputation as the greatest warrior of the Panther Clan, but now he was a sorry mess, his body covered in arrow wounds. 

Not to mention he’d also lost half of the valuable elite fighters under him. 

Thinking back to how he’d bragged and bellowed about routing the entire remaining Hoof Clan forces with just his own small warband, this outcome was nothing short of pathetic. 

“Th-the reports about them were all wrong, sir!” Váli protested. “They... they were able to rapid-fire with crossbows! Weren’t we supposed to be able to get off five shots for every one of theirs?!” 

“...Hm. Give me more details.” 

“W-well, I couldn’t really see it all that well, but it looked like they had it set up so the guy in front fired, while two guys behind him prepared a crossbow with the next shot, so they could load and fire more quickly...” 

Váli was the greatest horseback archer in the Panther Clan, and his eyes were also the sharpest. Even in the midst of battle — no, especially in the midst of battle — his eyes were able to pick out and track his enemy’s movements from a distance. 

“Oho, I see,” Hveðrungr said. “So that’s his game. Good work. You can withdraw now.” 

“P-please wait, Father! I can still fight! Please, give me a chance to make up for this humiliation and get my revenge! I beg you!” 

“Hm? What are you talking about? Of course I’m going to let you do that.” Hveðrungr nimbly dismounted from his horse, and clapped a hand to Váli’s shoulder. “You did your job, just as I ordered you to. I reward my loyal subordinates properly for their work, and even if they fail, I give them second chances. So, Váli, I can expect your faithful service to continue, yes?” 

“Y-yes, Father! Thank you! Thank you so much!” Hearing such generous words from his patriarch, Váli raised his bowed head to show a face choked with tears. 

Hveðrungr smiled and nodded firmly in response, and grasped Váli’s shoulder more tightly. 

And then the aura of wickedness nesting in his eyes suddenly seemed to emanate outward, weighing Váli down with an unseen pressure. 

“And if you disobey my orders... if you betray me... you know what will happen, right?” 

“Y-yes, Father... I have already taken it to heart.” 

“Good, then. I’m looking forward to your performance on the next mission.” Hveðrungr nodded again, satisfied at the terrified trembling he could feel from Váli’s shoulder. He stood up and mounted his trusty steed. 

He’d had plenty of time to rest up. The enemy should be pretty close by now, so he needed to hurry. 

“Hee hee! Looks like you’ve finished domesticating Váli,” Sigyn remarked from her position atop a horse next to him. 

Hveðrungr scoffed. “Yes, and now the fool won’t be acting rashly on his own or snapping back anymore. This was good medicine for him.” 

Sigyn smiled at her husband, and added, “And here I was, so worried you might just execute him on the spot, after all that happened.” 

“What are you saying? I’m a generous man to people who follow my orders and show their loyalty. And the man did good work for me. There’s nothing at all to punish him for.” As Hveðrungr said this, a wicked grin spread across his face. 

He’d known from the start that a simple-minded fool like Váli wouldn’t prove to be too much of an opponent for his nemesis. That brat excelled at wily, cowardly schemes, just like the one that had driven Hveðrungr into this exile. 

Hveðrungr had predicted that Yuuto would come up with some sort of countermeasure against his cavalry. 

If Hveðrungr had simply allowed his vanguard to make a clean retreat, nearly unscathed, the enemy would surely have remained on their guard. But, by having Váli lose some of his men and suffer some degree of defeat before fleeing, he could now deepen the enemy’s confidence that they might just be victorious against the Panther Clan. Surely that would spur them onward, in high spirits, to reclaim Myrkviðr. 

Oh yes, Váli had indeed done his job well. 

“According to Narfi’s report, the Wolf Clan had around eight thousand soldiers, yes?” Hveðrungr asked. 

“That’s right,” Sigyn confirmed offhandedly. “It looks like they’ve spent the past year expanding at quite a clip. He may still be a young one, but it looks like the boy’s quite the capable leader.” 

The nomad clans of Miðgarðr were thorough believers in valuing ability above all else. 

As was the case with the current Panther Clan patriarch Hveðrungr, even when it came to outsiders, they had no qualms with seeing someone capable as worthy of a place at the top. 

That was one difference between them and the Wolf Clan: while the latter maintained a meritocracy that valued strength and competency, it also allowed for the existence of people like Bruno and his group of elders, who refused exchanging the Oath of the Chalice with Patriarch Yuuto, yet still held status. 

It was a point of pride for the Panther Clan, and for Sigyn, to recognize and show respect even for the enemy they were fighting. 

“Hmph. In the end, his is only a borrowed power. He himself is nothing special.” Hveðrungr’s voice was quiet and subdued, but there was a strain of hatred that seemed to writhe violently in the undertone. 

Sigyn had never asked Hveðrungr what had happened to him in the past. A good woman knows not to pry into a man’s past, she told herself. But she could feel the terrifying hatred and rage that seemed to seethe in the eyes behind that mask. Judging by that reaction, there was no doubt he shared some twisted destiny with the young patriarch of the Wolf Clan. 

“Kh-heheheh, now come to me, Yuuto. This time, I’ll be the one who sets a trap for you.” Hveðrungr’s lips twisted into a dark grin, rapt with anticipation. 

By Váli’s account, the Wolf Clan forces should soon be entering the region, an area known as Náströnd. 

Evil urges began to well up within him. 

A little more, just a little more. 

He knew Yuuto very well. The boy’s values were a little different from those of Yggdrasil, but thinking back on it now, he also had a frame of mind particular to someone residing in a foreign land. 

“We’ve got more soldiers, too. My army cannot possibly lose,” Hveðrungr said with a confident sneer. 

Discounting the former citizens of the Hoof Clan he’d pressed into slavery, the total population of the whole Panther Clan was less than fifty thousand. It wasn’t that different a figure from the Wolf Clan during its weakest period. 

However, when an agricultural nation went to war, at minimum, a tenth of their fighting-age population or more needed to stay at home to maintain farms and industry. In contrast, for nomadic nations like the Panther Clan, excluding babies, the elderly, and slaves, every man in the clan was a participating soldier. 

And on top of that, most of the soldiers drafted into the armies of an agricultural nation lacked any serious military training, while every man of the Panther Clan spent their days chasing down game and sharpening their skills with the bow. 

And in this past year, practicing with stirrups had also ensured that every clan member could fight with weapons on horseback. 

The reason Hveðrungr had stationed only three thousand soldiers to guard Myrkviðr was also to enact a ruse — to tempt his enemy with a force of inferior numbers and make them drop their guard. 

And to top it all off, the Panther Clan cavalry had another all-powerful weapon aside from their deadly horseback archery. 

Hveðrungr could no longer see even the slightest chance of defeat. 

“Come, Yuuto. This land of Náströnd shall be your grave.”

Náströnd. 

It was an area of broad, grassy wetlands stretching across the northwestern part of the Horn Clan territory. 

If one headed further west towards the Myrkviðr area, the landscape changed and deep forests began to appear, but in this area, the soil didn’t seem to be able to support large trees, so the vegetation was dominated by reeds, sedge, peat moss, and other small water plants. And over the long months and years in this perpetually mild, humid climate, that vegetation slowly formed into peat. 

In Yggdrasil, there was not yet any technique or technology for draining swamps or marshes, so in the whole area, only the main road connecting Sylgr and Myrkviðr was just barely solid and well-maintained enough to allow the passage of heavy carts. 

“Okay, I’m at a real deep disadvantage around here,” Yuuto whispered as he gazed at the green grasses stretching here and there across the flooded land. 

With land this open and wide, armed cavalry could utilize their superior mobility advantage to its absolute fullest. 

Of course, with ground this soft and soggy, they wouldn’t be able to move or maneuver at their full speed, but a horse’s legs were much more powerful than a human’s. Even the horses pulling carts behind him were moving across the terrain with little trouble. 

By comparison, the progress of the Wolf Clan soldiers had slowed to a crawl as their steps became less steady and their boots slipped or got stuck in the mud. 

“However, if we manage to make it through this area, we will be at Myrkviðr,” Felicia said. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Yuuto replied with a nod. 

He’d already heard a lot of the details on this area from Linnea earlier. Still, it bothered him that the only way to head directly to Myrkviðr was to pass through this mire. 

If he was going to fight cavalry with infantry, what he wanted was rivers or lakes, mountain cliffs or ravines or a forest — the kind of terrain that would more severely limit their horses’ movements, and force them into a head-on confrontation. 

That kind of place was waiting for him much further ahead, where the terrain became more and more forested. 

If he could just make it there, and set up his formation... 

Buooooooh! 

Suddenly, the high-pitched sound of warhorns cascaded through the air. 

“Damn! The enemy?!” Yuuto cried. “I should have figured they wouldn’t be nice enough to just let us pass!” 

Finding terrain advantageous to your own forces and forcing the battle there had been a constant, ironclad rule of warfare since time immemorial. Of course the enemy wouldn’t want to pass up the chance to stop them from taking control of that advantageous terrain. 

In order to take back Myrkviðr, Yuuto knew he had to keep pressing onward. And that was why he had moved slowly, carefully, and deliberately en route to that goal, studying and making note of the enemy’s movements. 

He hadn’t heard anything back yet from Kristina, whom he’d sent on to Myrkviðr. But he’d sent Albertina along too, an Einherjar who could control wind currents. Both girls were small and very light. 

It didn’t matter how amazing the horses of Miðgarðr were; cavalry moving together as an army couldn’t possibly outdo the speed of his swift-footed personal messengers operating independently. 

Therefore, there shouldn’t have been too many of the enemy in this attack. However... 

“Wh-what the hell?! What’s with those numbers?!” 

The sight of it was so intimidating, it nearly took Yuuto’s breath away. 

Ahead of him, a giant dust cloud was billowing up in the distance. 

He couldn’t actually get an accurate number just by sight, but even just making a rough estimate based off of what he could see now, there had to be at least five thousand of them. 

And that wasn’t the end. 

“Big Brother! Th-they are coming from that direction, too!” Felicia cried out and pointed, her face just as taut with shock as Yuuto’s. 

Off in the direction indicated by that trembling finger, the silhouettes of countless horseback figures were rising up above the horizon of the wetland plain. 

The figures continued to multiply, seemingly without end. The rumbling of the earth caused by their galloping horses became loud and overbearing. 

“Th-they’re so fast!” The sheer speed left Yuuto staring wide-eyed. 

The enemy forces didn’t charge at them in a straight line. They split apart as they approached, as if deflected by some invisible force, their formation spreading out and around Yuuto’s group until there wasn’t any visible ground left in any direction. 

The Wolf Clan forces, with their overwhelmingly inferior mobility, could only stand by and watch as it all happened so quickly. 

The Wolf Clan were powerless to react, and in the next moment, they were completely surrounded.

“Khhhahaha! Ahahaha! HAAA HA HA HA!!” 

Hveðrungr’s maniacal laughter rang out. Once his encircling formation had closed around Yuuto’s forces, he’d become completely assured of his victory. He was awash with delight, for everything had gone exactly how he’d wanted it to. 

Bait the enemy with a smaller vanguard force, let them make their way closer, then fully surround and annihilate them — this was the trademark winning strategy of the Panther Clan. 

As a nomadic clan, they never needed to hold onto bases or strongholds. 

And as long as they had sheep and kumis, they could sustain themselves no matter where they traveled. 

Of course, that meant they didn’t need to stay in cities, transit through them, or resupply there. That was why the locals had such a hard time predicting their movements. 

They appeared in unexpected places, at unexpected moments. That was the true character of the people of the Panther Clan. 

“It looks like you put too much faith in the power of your smartphone, Yuuto,” Hveðrungr smirked. 

The Panther Clan stayed constantly on the move and supplemented their livelihood by raising livestock, so trade and interaction with merchants in various lands was yet another skill vital to their culture. Naturally, that meant that plenty of information about the Wolf Clan had reached Hveðrungr’s ears. 

In a word, the Wolf Clan was powerful. They’d taken on the Claw, Horn, and Hoof Clans, each of whom outnumbered them, and each time had still won in a direct confrontation. 

As for the Lightning Clan and their Battle-Hungry Tiger, they’d devised a clever scheme to take on that reckless but unbelievably strong fool, and then destroyed their enemy seemingly without any real effort. 

This time as well, up against horseback archers and armed cavalry techniques that should still be unknown in Yggdrasil, this hateful foe had somehow still managed to come up with several countermeasures. 

“But once I know what you’re going to try and use against me, I can wrest the battle in my favor!” 

That little brat’s smartphone and the knowledge it could provide him with were dangerous, and required the utmost vigilance and caution. 

It was far too dangerous to throw his army’s full resources at Yuuto before knowing exactly what he might try to make use of next. 

And that was why Váli had been so useful. 

Against tall city fortifications, they just needed to use the trebuchet, as Váli himself had done before. That would bring the enemy out to them whether they liked it or not. 

The crossbows being able to fire rapidly was going to be a bit of trouble, but as far as Hveðrungr had heard, they still couldn’t fire more quickly than his own horseback archers. 

The only reason Váli’s warband had lost so many men had been the sheer difference in numbers between the warband and the Wolf Clan army. 

The Wolf Clan’s key infantry tactic, the phalanx, was strong enough in the front to repel even a cavalry charge, but Hveðrungr had learned that from the flanks or rear it was completely fragile. 

In that case, Hveðrungr only need surround Yuuto with vastly superior numbers, on terrain that put his own forces at an overwhelming advantage, and then use the cavalry charge, their second trump card, to bring the story to a close. 

“Keheheh, what was it they called it where you’re from? ‘Checkmate’? Tell me, Yuuto... Hm?” 

Just as Hveðrungr was preparing to issue orders to his whole troop for a full charge, he spotted something strange. 

With a loud rattling and clattering, the carts that had been at the center of the Wolf Clan formation were being pushed forward to the front. 

Hveðrungr stared blankly at this for a second, then smacked a palm to his iron mask and roared with crazed laughter, leaning back with his hands reaching up towards the sky. 

“Kkhahaha! Kahahaha! Come on come on, Yuuto, you’re already surrendering?! ‘I’ll give you all of my supplies, so please spare me,’ is that what you’re thinking? Oh, good show, Yuuto, this really is the best! That’s a fitting end for a wretched, cowardly dastard like you!” 

Hveðrungr at last called out to his men. 

“Ignore them! Crush every last soldier of theirs under your hooves! All troops, charge—!” 

“Raaaaaaaaagh!!” 

Hveðrungr fired his whistling signal arrow into the air, and with a roaring war cry, all at once his soldiers began to charge toward the Wolf Clan forces at their center. 

The elite cavalry fighters of the Panther Clan kicked up thick clouds of dirt as they closed in on the Wolf Clan from all directions. 

The Wolf Clan soldiers were caught like a rat in a trap. At this rate, they wouldn’t be able to escape, or even fight back. They would just be overrun. 

A series of many loud whooshing noises suddenly filled the air. 

“Huh?” Hveðrungr was mildly surprised. He’d been sure the Wolf Clan were on the verge of throwing themselves down in surrender in such a helpless situation, but instead a volley of arrows was flying out from within the formation. 

Several of the Panther Clan fighters who had let down their guard during the charge took direct hits, and fell from their horses. 

“So you made like you were about to surrender, only to launch a surprise attack. Heh, you’re just as cowardly a wretch of a man as you always were!” Hveðrungr made no attempt to hide his intense contempt as he practically spat the words at Yuuto. “Fine, we’ll respond in kind. Men, return fire!” 

Using their superior mobility, the Panther Clan’s horseback fighters moved forward, weaving their way through the Wolf Clan’s crossbow bolts, and in the blink of an eye, they were close enough to fire. 

Releasing their hands from the reins, using the saddles to steady their bodies, and guiding the horses with only their legs, they pulled back their bowstrings and fired. 

It was a technique of sublime dexterity, a work of art. And every one of the Panther Clan’s soldiers pulled it off. 

There was once again the unique whooshing sound of countless arrows threading their way through the air. The rain of missiles fell towards the Wolf Clan from all directions. 

Clang! Cl-cl-cl-clang! 

With hollow, metallic sounds, the arrows all bounced off of the covered carriages of the carts that had been pushed out to the outside of the Wolf Clan formation. 

They had been covered by linen cloths, which Hveðrungr had just assumed was to protect the contents from dust or the like, but as the arrows hit, the cloth coverings fell away. What was underneath was clearly not wood, but a dull-colored, metallic shell. 

And behind that protective shell, the Wolf Clan soldiers had mounted crossbows within the carriages. They took aim and began to fire back. 

“Gyargh!” 

“Gwa!” 

The screams of riders and horses filled the air. The Panther Clan had no useful tool to block the volley of shots fired their way. And they were right in the middle of charging at full speed towards their enemies. 

One after another, riders were struck and fell, and so did their horses. 

Despite this, the Panther Clan refused to give up, and launched another massive volley of arrows at the Wolf Clan. But just like before, they were all deflected by the protective shielding provided by the tall carriages. 

The third volley of Wolf Clan crossbow bolts rained down on the Panther Clan horsemen, stealing their lives one after another. 

“Wh... what... is this?!” A hoarse voice that was almost a croak escaped Hveðrungr’s lips. 

He couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. 

This was supposed to have been a one-sided massacre of the Wolf Clan by the Panther Clan, but instead, the exact opposite was playing out. 

Since time immemorial, the greatest generals would always seek out terrain that put their own forces at an advantage, fully utilizing the features of that terrain to secure victory. 

That was how humanity had fought its wars for untold thousands of years. 

But then history eventually saw the appearance of a new concept. 

Rather than simply using existing natural terrain, one could change the features of the battlefield, restructuring it in a way that gave one’s forces the advantage. 

This was the advent of man-made field fortifications. 

The widely-known story of Oda Nobunaga using three-rank volley fire at the Battle of Nagashino was suspected of being a fabrication, and perhaps it really was. However, there was another fact about that battle in 1575, less known but unchallenged: it was the first recorded battle in Japanese military history where an army made use of quickly-built field fortifications to change the terrain of the battlefield. 

Much the same had been happening in Europe during that era. At the start of the 16th century, the old offensive tactic of charges led by heavily-armored knights began to be replaced, as mounting evidence was showing the superior strength of defensive tactics featuring field fortifications. Quickly improvised lines of spearmen and stockades made from wooden stakes could hinder the enemy’s charge, while crossbows, guns, or cannons could be fired on them from behind the defensive line. 

Then there were the Hussite Wars which had begun in Bohemia a hundred years earlier, in 1419, and a general named Jan Žižka, rising to great prominence during that time. 

His Hussite faction was mainly a collection of ordinary citizens and peasant farmers, with hardly any military training. On the other hand, his enemies were the crusaders of the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, many of them knights with an incomparable advantage in both equipment and training. And of course, they held an overwhelming advantage in numbers. 

What overcame Jan’s terrible disadvantage was an innovative tactic. He reinforced farmers’ horse-drawn wagons with iron plating, so that when a battle started, they could be joined together in a linked ring formation, creating a simple, improvised fortress wall. This was the “wagon fort” tactic, later more popularly known by the German name Wagenburg. 

His gunners were grouped in teams of three, with the roles of firing, loading, and barrel-cleaning divided among them so that they could fire on the enemy continuously without interruption. 

Armed cavalry had been the dreaded bane of infantry for thousands of years with their moving archery volleys and fierce charges. But they could do little against an iron-walled mobile fortress with gunners using volley fire, so they lost completely to the smaller Hussite forces. It was said that the Hussites even managed to capture battle standards and command papers from the Holy Roman Empire forces, and that the roads leading back to Germany and Hungary filled with crusaders fleeing from battles with the Hussites. 

The wagon fort tactic was still in use in the 21st century, as well. In Japanese police dramas and in news footage from overseas, one could see policemen using their cars as mobile barricades, or shields during a firefight. 

“To think you were able to bring together this many soldiers under your command in just a year and a half...” At the center of his own ringed wagon fort, Yuuto wiped the sweat from his brow. 

It was nearing the end of autumn, and already the chilly wind carried the first traces of the coming winter. And yet, Yuuto’s hands and forehead were sweating profusely. 

The massive size of the army pressing in on him was a bit higher than he’d estimated. 

Even if he was protected by a literal wall of iron, even if Jan Žižka had used this same tactic to win against a much larger enemy army, the intense impact of the Panther Clan forces charging towards him from all directions with deafening war cries was enough to terrify him. 

“You really are an amazing man, Big Brother,” murmured Yuuto. “But I haven’t just been sitting idle for this year and a half, either.” 

In order to strike a decisive blow against the Panther Clan, whose cavalry boasted superior mobility, first Yuuto needed a way to lure the larger part of their army to his position. 

Based on the history he’d learned so far, nomadic nations whose armies fought on horseback preferred hit-and-away skirmish tactics, and tended to avoid large-scale decisive battles. That meant he needed something on par with the tactics of Li Mu, who had brilliantly lured an army of one hundred thousand Xiongnu into a trap. 

Yuuto was a different person from the boy who hadn’t been able to imagine and consider his older brother’s feelings. “I’m not just some punk kid who uses nothing but technological cheats anymore...” 

He recalled the words of Sun Tzu: “What causes opponents to come of their own accord is the prospect of gain.” 

If he wanted to get an enemy force to advance toward his position, he needed to show them that there would be some obvious gain for them in it. He had used this same line of thinking to formulate his strategies during his battles with the Hoof and Lightning Clans. 

Yuuto could now put himself in his opponents’ shoes and think from their perspectives. 

The nomadic clan’s conventional strategy was to use a small number of mounted fighters to bait their enemies and lure them out onto open ground, then quickly surround and crush them. 

And Loptr himself had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the combined forces of the Claw, Ash, and Fang Clans when they’d completely surrounded him. That was the start a chain of events that had led to his killing of his patriarch and thus exile from the Wolf Clan. 

Loptr was intimately familiar with the terror, and the superiority, of that tactic. 

And that was exactly why Yuuto had chosen to lead his forces slowly across this marshland. 

He had been certain that, with such wide muddy terrain that gave cavalry an overwhelming advantage against his infantry, his opponent would seize the opportunity to bring the bulk of his force and fully surround Yuuto. 

And he had also made sure to forbid the use of the wagon fort tactic until this very moment, so that his enemy would take the bait and wouldn’t be given a chance to prepare a countermeasure. 

All of this was part of a strategy of feigned weakness followed by a full-force attack, summed up by the saying, “coy as a maiden, then swift as a rabbit,” which had its roots in another passage from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. 

“Heh... I really am gonna go to hell when I die,” Yuuto said with a small, self-derisive chuckle. 

Didn’t you swear an oath to fight to protect your family? a voice whispered to him from somewhere deep in his heart. So then what are doing luring your sworn older brother, your precious family, into a deadly trap? 

He already had the answer. The calm, rational part of Yuuto’s mind knew that as clan patriarch, he needed to be dispassionate, even cruel, in order to protect everyone. But that didn’t drive away the tightness in his chest. 

Even at this late hour, Yuuto was unable to rid himself of his hesitations. Even so, he was still the patriarch. He had to follow through. 

He tightly shut his eyes for a moment, telling himself that he’d have time for regrets when all of this was over. He quietly focused on hardening his heart. At last he opened his eyes again, and staring out at the Panther Clan army, he coldly issued the command to his men: 

“Shoot until there’s nothing left.”

“What the hell are you all doing?!” Hveðrungr screamed at his men in a fit of rage, like a child lost in a tantrum. 

The enemy had fallen for Hveðrungr’s trap and come out to these wide marshlands, and now he had them fully surrounded with a far larger force. His side should have the advantage right now. 

His Panther Clan fighters felt the exact same way. Their victory should already be decided at this point. The enemy had just used their wagons to make a wall out of desperation. They were nothing more than simple wagons! 

For generations, the nomad clan had known wagons to be weakly defended and full of foodstuffs and other valuables, the perfect target for raids. To be unable to take out a few wagons like this brought shame upon the proud name of the Panther Clan. 

If their arrows couldn’t pierce the carriage walls, then they just needed to rush in with a charging assault and smash them into pieces. 

But even their charges were repelled. 

So clearly they just had to leap over the wagons. But horses were too frightened to attempt it, perhaps because of the added instability of the soft, muddy ground. 

So the soldiers leapt from their horses and climbed on top of the carriages. But they were quickly felled by the enemy’s longspears. 

And while all of this was going on, the crossbow bolts continuously rained down upon them in volley after volley. 

“Forward!” Hveðrungr shouted. “Forward! Smash their little wagons apart and show them what we’re really made of!” 

Hveðrungr hadn’t acknowledged the reality of the situation. 

He was supposed to have been the one that lured them into a trap. He couldn’t bear to admit that he had been the one taking the bait all along. 

He was supposed to be the superior military commander. 

He’d force his way past this little trick of Yuuto’s any moment now. 

That illusion, and the expectation it gave him, delayed his ability to make rational decisions. 

Meanwhile, on the Wolf Clan side, Yuuto also couldn’t deny the feeling that his strategy lacked a decisive edge. 

Jan Žižka had won overwhelming victories against cavalry with his wagon fort strategy and the use of continuous, concentrated volleys with firearms, but the Wolf Clan didn’t actually have a real stand-in for the latter. 

There was a marked difference in strength between guns and crossbows, after all. 

Compared to crossbow bolts, bullets were smaller, harder to see, and much faster. Arrows and bolts were comparatively easier to deflect or dodge. 

Crossbow volleys also lacked the explosive noise firearms made that would terrify horses. 

And so, this tactic hadn’t been enough to drive the enemy into despair. The enemy could still hang onto the belief that with just a bit more effort, they could overcome Yuuto’s defenses. 

The battle only seemed to be growing more and more fierce.

Five hours had elapsed since the beginning of the battle between the Panther and Wolf Clans. 

At this point, the area surrounding the Wolf Clan army’s wagon fort was filled with the corpses of Panther Clan fighters and their horses. 

The Panther Clan had changed to a tactic of firing upwards at an angle to send their arrows in an arc, and had finally been able to begin producing injuries and casualties on the Wolf Clan side, but only a small amount. 

Firing in a steep arc meant their arrows hit with less power, and were less accurate due to the wind. The Wolf Clan, meanwhile, took steady aim with each shot from behind the wagon walls, and could target the Panther Clan soldiers easily thanks to the longer range of their direct shots. 

It was clear to see that only one side would see their losses grow under these circumstances. 

“Rrrggghhh!” Hveðrungr was biting down on his thumb, unable to suppress his anger. There were already deep bite marks on the skin and nail that attested to just how irritated he was. 

“Hey, Rungr,” Sigyn said. “Let’s withdraw. It’s frustrating to admit it, but we lost this time. We’ll just be losing more of our boys for no reason at this rate.” 

Sigyn offered her counsel with a heartbroken expression. One of her duties as the sovereign’s wife was to support her husband by saying to him what others could not. 

They had already sent for the three thousand men that had been left back in Myrkviðr, but even with those reinforcements, the Panther Clan had been unable to break through the Wolf Clan’s defenses. 

As a proud member of the Panther Clan, it pained her to say that they’d lost to a bunch of people in wagons, but accepting the facts and making the best decisions based on them was the responsibility of those who ruled above others. 

They mustn’t let themselves be fooled by the wagons’ appearance. However it might look, what the enemy actually had was a fortress wall. And what was even more ridiculous was that it was movable. 

It was said that one needed at least five to ten times more troops than the enemy in order to breach a fortress with a direct assault, and cavalry were ill-suited for attacking walled fortifications in either case. Continuing their attacks in this fashion would do nothing more than increase their own casualties. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Hveðrungr snapped. “How could we withdraw now, just when it’s looking like we’ll be able to cross over that wall of theirs?” 

“Rungr... calm down and listen. We can’t get past those wagons. It won’t work no matter how many times we try.” 

To Sigyn, Hveðrungr had clearly lost his composure. 

He was the type of man who appeared calm and collected, but was actually driven by very strong emotions. She assumed that he’d lost himself to his inner hatred and rage. 

However, the fact was that Hveðrungr was now perfectly calm. 

Certainly, until a moment ago, he had been worked up in anger, and that had led to the unnecessary deaths of countless numbers of his men. 

But as he’d sent his clan sons to their deaths, he’d used them as guinea pigs to work on a countermeasure for Yuuto’s defenses. And finally, on the backs of all of those sacrifices, he had glimpsed the way forward. 

Withdrawing now would be the most wasteful thing he could possibly do. 

“It’ll work,” Hveðrungr told her. “At least, it will now. And Sigyn, I’m going to need your power to do it.” 

With that, Hveðrungr explained the plan he’d come up with. 

The people of Yggdrasil operated on a much simpler and harsher view of ethics compared to the 21st century, yet the contents of Hveðrungr’s plan were upsetting even by those standards. Indeed, it left all the other officers of the Panther Clan grimacing darkly. 

However, Sigyn alone was different, laughing loudly and whole-heartedly. “Ahahahaha! Perfect, Rungr, just what I’d expect from the man I chose! I’m in. Let’s do this.” 

“I figured you’d say that,” Hveðrungr replied, the corners of his mouth twisting into a grin. 

The two figures smiling and laughing at each other reveled in their true nature, as callous and cold-blooded demons who thought of other people as nothing more than things.

“The sun’s begun to set,” Yuuto muttered as he stared out at the reddening western sky. 

The iron wall created by his wagon fort tactic had held strong against both horseback archery fire and cavalry charges, two of the greatest tactical threats in Yggdrasil. 

That said, he couldn’t afford to relax for the slightest moment. 

The warriors of the Panther Clan continued to mount their suicidal charges without pause, and there was no way to tell what might happen next. 

Yuuto couldn’t be rid of the fear that some stray arrow might suddenly rob him of his life. 

He couldn’t be rid of the worry that some unexpected trouble might happen and allow his defensive wall to be broken. 

He could feel the stress slowly but steadily grinding down his mental strength. 

“It looks like... we will finally be able to get a moment of rest soon.” Felicia’s relieved face was also looking quite worn out. 

There would have to be a break in the fighting once night fell. The nights of Yggdrasil were interminably dark, with only the faint light of the stars and moon. In that state, it became more difficult to see obstacles and the terrain under one’s own feet, not to mention the difficulty in determining relative positions and spotting ally from enemy in the darkness. 

Of course, there was still the chance of a sneak attack launched under the cover of darkness, so one still needed to be vigilant, but it seemed at least that there would be a chance for Yuuto to catch a small breather. 

“Yeah, though I’d appreciate it if they took this chance to leave,” Yuuto said. 

Back in his home territory, Yuuto was starting to be treated like a god of war, but in truth, he didn’t like battle one bit. Actually, he would have preferred nothing more than an alternative that avoided fighting altogether. 

That was particularly true now, due to his own personal feelings in this case. 

“After all, our objective here is just to make them realize that they won’t be able to attack us anymore without heavy losses.” 

Yuuto had no desire to exterminate his enemies, even if they were trying to kill him. He told himself that he didn’t have a choice when he had to kill them, but of course he still felt a sense of guilt over it. 

That was why, though it might seem contradictory, he needed to use this battle to hurt the enemy as strongly and thoroughly as possible. 

Indeed, he needed to make them suffer enough that every remaining soldier felt despair from the bottom of their hearts. 

“If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” That was the teaching of Niccolò Machiavelli. 

Though a great many might die during a short span of time, in the long term, that would lead to fewer total deaths and less suffering overall... that was the theory, anyway. 

There was no way to accurately keep track, but the Wolf Clan had already killed over a thousand Panther Clan soldiers. 

By contrast, the Wolf Clan’s own casualties numbered only around twenty or thirty. 

Looking just at those figures, it was safe to call this a total victory for the Wolf Clan. 

Yuuto was hoping that once night fell and both sides temporarily ceased combat, the enemy would come to grips with the facts and withdraw, deciding that they should never attempt war with the Wolf Clan again. 

“Wha...?! The enemy is preparing something! Soldiers are gathering together to our northwest!” Felicia shouted. 

“Tch! Damn it! They’re still not giving up?” Yuuto clicked his tongue and cursed at the news. This should have been more than enough! 

In the end, part of him still wanted to avoid fighting Loptr. 

“All right,” Yuuto shouted, “then we’ll stave them off as many times as it takes! Solidify the defenses on our northwestern side!” 

One of the terrifying strengths of the wagon fort tactic was that its ironclad defenses were also mobile. One could quickly reposition soldiers along the defensive wall of the formation to match the enemy’s movements. 

“Raaaaaahhhh!!” 

With their bellowing cries ringing in the air, the huge mass of Panther Clan army soldiers launched their charge. 

The concentrated forces gave off a feeling of fierce intimidation unlike anything Yuuto had felt so far. It was enough to frighten some of the Wolf Clan soldiers, even though they knew they were behind the protection of the wall of wagons. 

However, though it would be a different story in melee combat, a frightened soldier could still pull a crossbow trigger easily. One might even say that their fear and the desire to keep the enemy from coming closer would encourage them to load and fire their weapons with even more fervent effort. 

If the walls were breached, they would all be overrun in the blink of an eye. Yuuto watched the action, holding his breath. 

“Uuuooogh!” 

Leading the charge was a short-haired man whom Yuuto recognized as the Panther Clan’s master archer Váli, who had given the Wolf Clan troops so much trouble with his vanguard warband. 

The man pressed forward while swinging his sword to deflect incoming arrows, rapidly closing the distance to the defensive line. He was quite the fearless warrior, as expected of the man who had fought to a draw with Skáviðr. 

And, in the tiny gap between crossbow volleys, he quickly pulled out his bow and nocked an arrow. Just as a Wolf Clan soldier popped up from behind the rim of the carriage wall to fire at him, Váli aimed and shot him right between the eyes. 

His furious momentum and skill marked him as the type of fighter who was a match for a hundred normal men. But, even a warrior as great as he was, in the end, no more than a single mortal soldier. 

“Guh...!” 

Váli grunted as a Wolf Clan arrow found its mark and pierced through him near his shoulder. The impact forced his body backward, and he fell from his horse, sending up a splash of muddy water as he hit the ground. 

Yuuto couldn’t tell if the man had died or not from where he was standing, but it was safe to say that one of his most powerful foes had just been taken out of the fight. 

However, the defeat of the Panther Clan’s hero did nothing to dull the strength or momentum of their assault. 

Their continuing waves of attacks seemed to grow more furious afterward, like a violent thunderstorm, as if the Panther Clan were pouring every last bit of their remaining strength into their charges. 

Yuuto watched and waited, wondering just how long this would continue. A little under an hour passed, but it seemed to last an eternity. By the time the color of the sky had settled into the dark blue of dusk, the enemy’s attacks had at last begun to wane in intensity. 

“All right, looks like we pulled through this one,” Yuuto said, clenching his fists as he finally became certain of his victory. 

And that was when it happened. 

“The time has come for the darkness to replace the light of the sun.” 

“Gh...! What is this?!” Yuuto suddenly heard a voice echoing in his mind, and felt his heart begin to pound more strongly. 

It was a woman’s voice, and completely unfamiliar to him. 

“Let the chains of the holy covenant be now loosened, that the imprisoned hungry wolf may be set free.” 

The voice continued chanting the incantation. 

Yuuto saw an image in his mind’s eye of a woman dancing. 

He still didn’t recognize her. 

She seemed to be about in her mid-twenties, a beautiful woman with long silver hair tied into a ponytail. 

Her outfit was provocative, no more than a thin layer of cloth draped around her chest and another around her hips, yet at the same time it also had an air of sacred and inviolable dignity. Her appearance bore a strong resemblance to Felicia offering up her sacred dances as a priestess in the sanctuary in Iárnviðr. 

“Who are you?! What are you doing?!” Yuuto shouted and looked around, but he didn’t spot anyone resembling the woman in his vision. 

He didn’t understand what was causing this phenomenon. 

However, it felt like something he’d experienced before. 

He couldn’t help but think back to that time, when he’d first been summoned to Yggdrasil. 

Back then, Yuuto had seen a vision in his mind of Felicia dancing, just like what was happening now. The two situations were too similar by far to be a coincidence. 

“Th-the enemy is attacking from the southeast, as well!” Felicia shouted. 

“What?!” 

Unfortunately, with no regard for Yuuto’s state of mind, the battle at hand was seeing a surprising new development. 

Even as the bulk of the Panther Clan army was maintaining its focused assault from the northwest, a small band of riders dressed entirely in black had appeared from the completely opposite direction, galloping straight for the wagons. They were already unexpectedly close. 

Their black clothes and small numbers had helped them blend in with the darkness, while the larger assault had served as a diversion. Those factors combined had been enough to delay the Wolf Clan spotting them until just now. 

Yuuto had ordered the defenses be focused on the northwest. However, there was still at least a minimum necessary amount of defending soldiers everywhere else, too. A group of that size wasn’t powerful enough to overcome the walls of the Wagenburg. 

Yuuto immediately prepared to give the order to counterattack. But just as he raised his hand... 

“O keen frozen fangs, break apart the idol of madness, and bring forth the chaos of calamity... Fimbulvetr!!” 

The beautiful woman in the vision in Yuuto’s mind concluded her dance of offering, and raised both hands up to the sky. In the next instant, in the real world Yuuto saw with his eyes, the group of ambushing Panther Clan riders was surrounded by a faint, pale light, like the glow of fireflies. 

What is that?! Yuuto thought. But just as he began to focus his attention on it... 

“B-Big Brother?! Y-your body is...!” Felicia suddenly shouted to him in a trembling voice. 

Reflexively, Yuuto looked down at his own body, only to doubt what he was seeing with his own eyes. “Wha—?!” 

His body was very slightly, but still noticeably, transparent. 

He felt a strange sensation, like something that was covering and permeating his body had grown slightly weaker. However, it only lasted for a split second, and Yuuto’s body returned to its normal, solid state. 

“Wh-what just happened to me?!” 

This was the middle of a battle, and no time to be focused on visions or hallucinations. He knew that in his head, but he couldn’t stay calm. He couldn’t focus on anything else. 

Returning home to 21st century Japan; that was Yuuto’s greatest wish. For two and a half years, he’d tried to research a way of getting back with no luck, and here and now he’d finally come across a true hint to the solution. There was no chance that it wouldn’t capture his attention. 

At that moment, as his heart was disturbed by this dilemma, Yuuto saw him. 

Emerging from the darkness among the group of Panther Clan riders was a man with his upper face concealed by an imposing black iron helmet. A man with long, golden hair just like Yuuto’s adjutant Felicia! 

“W-wait, don’t shoot, that’s...!” Without thinking, those were the words Yuuto shouted. 

If Yuuto hadn’t seen him, he would have calmly given the order to fire. But to give the order to kill his own older brother while looking at the man with his own two eyes was something that required an incredible strength of will and conviction. 

Yuuto had supposedly understood the fact that he needed to deal a thorough and decisive defeat to his enemy, but in that fateful moment, his lack of focus, and lack of a truly solid determination to fight his brother, had a terrible consequence. 

The Wolf Clan army had been guided to victory time and time again by Yuuto’s orders. So his soldiers’ trust in him stayed their hands. 

There was also the fact that after repelling so many attacks from the Panther Clan, they had the impression that the wagon fort defense was impenetrable. 

That ever-so-brief pause in the Wolf Clan’s crossbow fire was enough for the group of Panther Clan riders to reach the wagons. 

And then— 

Several soldiers riding at the head of the group leapt down from their horses. They got down on all fours in the mud, and hardened their bodies in that position. 

The riders who had been following behind, still atop their horses, stepped up onto their backs without any hesitation or remorse, and leapt over the carriage walls. 

“Wha?!” Yuuto was dumbfounded at this unbelievable turn of events. 

Even if one used human bodies as a stepping stone, horses were averse to leaping over tall obstacles by their very nature. Getting them to overcome that fear based in instinct was impossible without very long and arduous special training. 

Then, how did they do it? Yuuto’s mind raced, and almost immediately he thought of one possibility. 

Just a moment ago, the Panther Clan riders had been enveloped in an eerie pale light, just like the light given off by the divine mirror in the Wolf Clan’s sacred tower when Yuuto had his phone calls with Mitsuki. 

That light was probably from ásmegin, the mysterious “divine energy” present in this world. 

Then there was the word “Fimbulvetr” he’d heard during that incantation, which he’d heard before. It had been during Kristina’s explanation of different seiðr magics. 

Fimbulvetr was a seiðr that could turn one’s allies into fearless, frenzied berserkers.

“HAHAHAHA! At last I’ve done it, I’m past the wall!” Hveðrungr laughed loudly in triumph as he finally made his way into the middle of his enemy’s formation. 

He had made use of the power of his wife’s secret art, the seiðr Fimbulvetr. Hveðrungr had instructed her to cast it not on his men, but on their horses. 

Doing that had not only eliminated their instinctive fear of trying to jump head-first over obstacles, it had removed any natural hesitation from their minds entirely, allowing them to unleash their full strength and reach the limits of their jumping ability. 

“Out of my way!” Hveðrungr bellowed. 

Hveðrungr cut a swath with his spear, mowing down the Wolf Clan soldiers that were closest to him. 

“Urgh...!” 

“Gyaahhh!” 

Behind him, the other black-clad riders from the ambush group followed his lead and leapt over the walls of the wagon fort. 

However, there weren’t many of them in total. Horses driven into a wild fury by Fimbulvetr were too violent to control by any normal means. The only ones capable of such a feat were the elite among the elite, the hand-picked members of Hveðrungr’s special forces, the Skyndi unit. 

Additionally, seiðr spells greatly exhausted the user’s mental energy. Even for a powerful woman like Sigyn, one of the few skilled users of seiðr magic in all of Yggdrasil, at most she could affect thirty or so horses, and she couldn’t use it more than once per day. 

It was exactly the sort of trump card meant to be saved for important times like this. 

“Aaahhh!” 

“No! Noooo!” 

Most of the Wolf Clan soldiers manning the wagons consisted of crossbowmen and their assistants. Faced with cavalry suddenly leaping into their midst, they fell into a terrified panic. 

Because the iron-plated wagon fort walls had provided such a solid, reliable defense thus far, having that defense broken was effective at breaking their composure. 

Under normal circumstances, the soldiers of the Wolf Clan were brave men that were capable of overcoming their fear of death and resolutely facing the enemy, but that was because normally they first had the time to psyche themselves up and harden their resolve to face the danger beforehand. 

And because they had been sticking to using long-range crossbows from behind a fortified wall, they hadn’t had the chance to mentally prepare themselves to face the enemies that were suddenly right in front of them, a terrifying elite cavalry who boasted many times their size and power. 

But the Wolf Clan still had a general who remained fearless and stood firm. 

“I will not let you pass!” 

This man leapt onto his horse and moved to block Hveðrungr’s path, alone. His appearance was thin and sickly, with an ominous air. 

His instincts had been developed by struggling to survive and find a path through many hopeless battles, and they had told him that the man in the black helmet was, without a doubt, the leader of the Panther Clan fighters. 

“Hyaah!” Skáviðr put all of his might behind his first spear attack, but Hveðrungr did not use his strength to block it. Instead, he somehow turned the attack aside at the last second, skillfully altering its trajectory. 

“What?!” 

A veteran military man like Skáviðr would hardly have shown any surprise if the enemy had simply blocked or parried his attack. He would have just swiftly transitioned into his next move. 

However, Hveðrungr had used the “willow tree technique,” Skáviðr’s own personal technique that he’d developed and honed over many long years of battle and training, and which used the supernatural power of his rune. 

For just a moment, a mere split-second, Skáviðr froze. 

In a battle between two expert fighters, such an opening could easily prove deadly. 

“Ghh...!” Skáviðr’s face contorted with pain as Hveðrungr’s spear struck a glancing blow to his shoulder. 

Even the man known by the alias Ní?h?ggr, the Sneering Slaughter, was vulnerable to pain and injury. 

Hveðrungr followed up with a merciless spear thrust aimed directly at Skáviðr’s chest. 

Skáviðr promptly attempted to twist his body out of the way, but he could not fully evade the blow. Fresh blood sprayed from his chest. 

“Hmph, you’ve gotten weaker, my brother. Or perhaps I’ve just gotten even stronger?” Certain of his victory, Hveðrungr grinned and taunted his defeated opponent. But just then, Skáviðr’s eyes shot wide open, and he grasped the handle of Hveðrungr’s spear. 

“Huh?! You don’t know when to give up, fool!” 

With irritation showing in his voice, Hveðrungr tried to wrench his spear out of his enemy’s hands. 

But Skáviðr wouldn’t let go, his face deathly grim. It was incredible strength for a man suffering from a deep wound. 

“That voice... you... you’re Loptr! I won’t... let you reach Master...!” 

“Tch, as if I have time to waste bothering with the likes of you.” Hveðrungr quickly switched from pulling at the spear to pushing. 

The sudden change sent Skáviðr’s body falling backwards. As Skáviðr tried to use the spear as leverage to right his body, Hveðrungr suddenly let go of it. 

“No...!” Skáviðr’s body continued to fall backwards. 

He tried once more to stop himself from falling, but as he put strength into his torso muscles, more blood sprayed from his wound. His strength failed him, and he fell from his horse. 

“Grhh!” 

Just as he was about to hit the ground, he contorted his body once more, and hit the ground at a roll instead of flat on his back in order to spread out the impact. 

He quickly rolled onto his feet and stood back up. 

But that was the most he could do. His legs buckled, and he dropped back down to one knee. 

Skáviðr fixed Hveðrungr with a piercing glare. He was still ready to fight in spirit, but after the injuries he’d sustained from the spear and the fall, the body of the former Mánagarmr could no longer keep going. 

“You always were the man that just wouldn’t die,” Hveðrungr sneered. “But I no longer have any interest in the so-called ‘Strongest Silver Wolf.’” 

Pressing a hand to the wound on his chest, Skáviðr summoned his remaining strength and shouted at his men. “Urgh... Longspears, what are you waiting for?! There are only a small number of them! Take them down, now!” 

At the sound of their general’s voice, the Wolf Clan soldiers snapped back to their senses and remembered their duty. They rushed to attack Hveðrungr and his riders. 

A moment later, both sides were struggling in a chaotic melee. 

“Worthless rabble! Don’t get in my way!” Hveðrungr yelled with irritation at one of the Wolf Clan soldiers, parrying the man’s spear thrust and following up with a powerful overhead blow that cracked both his helmet and his skull. 

He then rammed his horse into a second Wolf Clan spearman in the midst of his attack, sending him flying. 

The phalanx was a powerful infantry formation in melee combat, but that was only because when the longspearmen could maintain a tight, clean formation, it formed a “wall of spears” that allowed no room to attack or evade. 

Thanks to the ambush, the longspearmen hadn’t had time to create their formation, and fighting individually, they were no longer a serious threat. 

In the hands of barely-trained young recruits and peasant farmers, those heavy longspears were too unwieldy to control properly. The minute they began fighting individually, the almighty Wolf Clan troops became nothing more than a bunch of weak soldiers. 

“I’ll leave the rest of these small fry to you,” Hveðrungr called back to his subordinates, as he cut his way through the enemies in front of him. He was focused on a single point straight ahead. 

Finally, he locked eyes with his target. 

“Heh heh heh. We finally meet again, Yuuto...!” 

With his hated enemy finally right in front of him, Hveðrungr’s lips slowly twisted into a wicked grin. 

Upon seeing the young man again for the first time in a year and a half, Hveðrungr could tell that he had grown somewhat. He was visibly taller, and his face was tougher and more masculine-looking, with none of the childishness from before. 

But they were still the features of the man he remembered. There was no mistaking that it was him. 

Yuuto was staring up at Hveðrungr with an expression of shock. “Big Brother... is that really you?!” 

Hearing this, Hveðrungr reflexively grimaced and clicked his tongue. Those words irritated him so much that he couldn’t stand it. 

“We’re no longer brothers, you and I!” he shouted. “We haven’t been since that day!” 

The man who had once been Loptr of the Wolf Clan, who now lived as Patriarch Hveðrungr of the Panther Clan, punctuated his shouted remark with a kick to his horse, and charged straight at Yuuto. 

“I’ll make you pay for stealing everything from me! You damned traitor!!” 

As he unleashed his deeply held resentment in a scream, he unsheathed the sword at his hip and swung the blade downwards at Yuuto. 

It was the very sword Yuuto had once given him, the loathsome weapon that had killed his beloved patriarch Fárbauti. 

Hveðrungr had kept it on his person ever since that incident, as a physical reminder so he wouldn’t forget his hatred and his unending grudge. He had long since decided that it must be this same blade that took the life of his enemy in revenge. 

But his attack was deflected by none other than Felicia, his own flesh and blood. “I will not let you!” 

“Gah!” 

Hveðrungr flinched. A slight bit of hesitation flickered in the eyes behind his iron mask. To his mind, his sister shouldn’t be here right now. He had convinced himself that his beloved little sister had been confined behind the walls of Iárnviðr, imprisoned there by his treacherous foe. 

“Why?!” he exclaimed. “Why are you here, Felicia?! And why would you stand in my way?!” 

“I should ask you the same thing! What do you think you’re doing here?! Not only did you kill our sworn father, you are attacking the Wolf Clan that you always swore you would protect!” 

“N-no, that’s not it, Felicia! That man is deceiving you! Now move aside. Listen to your older brother!” 

“I will not listen to you!” Felicia declared. “As far as I am concerned now, he is my one and only big brother!” 

Felicia stood protectively in front of Yuuto, pointing the tip of her sword directly at Hveðrungr. Her words were firm, and final, severing the bond with her brother by birth. 

The two of them glared at each other fiercely for a moment. Then Hveðrungr burst out laughing. 

“Heh! Heh heh heh... your cowardly tricks never cease to amaze, Yuuto! You snake! You even prepared this fake to try and throw me off, didn’t you?!” 

Yuuto was shocked. “Wh-what are you even saying, Big Brother?! That’s the real Felicia, that’s your little sister!” 

“Silence!” Hveðrungr screamed wildly. “My little sister would never turn against me!!” 

His blade rapidly cut a thin line through the dark, like a tiny flash of lightning. 

“Khh!” Felicia barely caught the attack with her own weapon, but collapsed from the force of it. 

Felicia was an Einherjar, but she was a “Jack of all trades, master of none.” She had skill with a sword, but it was several levels below that of fighters like Sigrún or Skáviðr. 

“Begone, you fake!” Hveðrungr swung again. It was a strike without any hesitation, every ounce of his power directed with the intent to kill. 

Felicia wasn’t fast enough to respond to it. 

However, a loud Clannng! reverberated as his killing blow was halted at the last instant. 

“Grrrrr, Yuuuto...!” Hveðrungr shouted. 

“Ghh!” was the response. 

The former sworn brothers pushed against each other, their locked blades scraping. 

Yuuto held his blade in both hands; Hveðrungr held his in only one. But it was still the latter who held the upper hand, with superior physical strength. 

Hveðrungr sneered, sure of his victory, but as he did, his eyes met Yuuto’s. With gritted teeth, the young man glared straight into his eyes with a look of ferocious desperation, and Hveðrungr felt a cold sensation travel down his back. 

“I understand if you hate me,” Yuuto snarled. “But how could you... Felicia... she’s the only family you’ve got left!!” 

Yuuto roared, his rage seeming to billow up out of him like steam. Hveðrungr felt his body flinch reflexively. 

This, too, shouldn’t have been possible. 

Just how could a man like himself be intimidated by the aura of such a wretched little brat? Hveðrungr’s blade was nearly at his throat! What was there for him to be afraid of? 

There was a sharp pain from the scar on his face. 

That’s right... Thinking back to that time, it was this mysterious intimidating presence of Yuuto’s that had led to a dispute over the succession in the first place. 

The previous patriarch Fárbauti had been a deliberate and thoughtful man, but he had also been indecisive. Whenever proposing new policies or reforms, the old patriarch had so prioritized harmony and moderation that he had never fully implemented anything except in half-measures. 

Hveðrungr had often been secretly furious with him over this, wondering how the man could be so carelessly irresolute in the face of the clan’s worst crisis. 

But this strange trait of Yuuto’s had charmed the man, igniting a passion in him unbefitting his age, and it had so warped his mind that it had driven him to go against the values he had stuck to up until that point. Yuuto’s aura was a charisma on par with magic. 

Perhaps it might truly be that he was naturally endowed with the spirit and presence of a lord... a supreme ruler. 

The flames of hatred burned away the words that had started to cloud Hveðrungr’s mind, and he once again poured his strength into his sword arm. “Do you think a bluff like that would work on me?! Someone like you... someone like you could never be...!” 

That alone was enough to overpower Yuuto, forcing him down onto one knee with a thunk against the carriage floor. 

“Keh ha ha ha, you’re powerless against me,” Hveðrungr gloated. 

Honestly, you always have been a weakling of a man, he thought scornfully. In the end, someone like this could never hope to oppose him. 

Hveðrungr taunted Yuuto with a laugh, and easily thrust aside the young man’s blade. He raised his own up high. 

“Die, and disappear from my life forever!” He made to bring down his blade. But in that instant, his horse suddenly began to thrash about. 

“What?!” Hveðrungr grabbed the reins and managed to keep from being thrown off. But as he tried to use his knees to guide his horse, it refused to calm down from its panic. 

“Wh-what’s going on?!” he shouted. 

“I, Sigrún, shall not allow you to assault Father any longer!” 

Hveðrungr was high off the ground on his horse, but the spear thrust at him came from even higher up. He deflected it at the last moment with his sword, and looked up at his new foe. 

It was the person who had once been his sworn younger sister within the Wolf Clan, the silver-haired young lady whose talent for combat he had once tried to help blossom. She was staring down at him, mounted atop a camel. 

“Ha!” he shouted. “Do you think a little girl like you is really going to make a difference at this point? You still have no chance of... Gahh! Whoa! Calm! Calm, I say!” 

Hveðrungr couldn’t finish, as his horse continued to act out. It was completely ignoring his commands. It flailed its head this way and that, and began to step backwards. 

It was as if it was afraid of Sigrún... 

No, he realized, not afraid. 

It was more like it was simply repulsed by something. 

From behind Sigrún, he spotted over a dozen more camel riders heading this way. 

Glancing quickly behind him, he saw that the horses of the elite subordinates he had brought with him had also begun to misbehave, halting in their tracks and thrashing about despite their riders’ commands to advance. Some of them even threw their riders and fled. 

“Grrrr...!” Hveðrungr growled like a beast. The target of his revenge was so close at hand, but his horse wouldn’t take a step forward. 

The Wolf Clan soldiers that had been thrown into panicked chaos were also regaining their senses after seeing their patriarch in mortal danger. Resuming their most important role, they lined up in front of him in tight formation and readied their longspears. 

“...Tch! Men, retreat!” 

Hveðrungr shouted the command, and then turned his horse away. 

It was the most vexing situation he could imagine. 

Those soldiers wouldn’t have presented any challenge to Hveðrungr and his elite Panther Clan soldiers if they’d been able to fight at their best. But they couldn’t hope to fight with their horses in this condition. 

“I’ll remember this, Yuuto! Don’t think this means this is over! Next time, I’ll definitely lop off your head!” 

As he spurred his horse on, Hveðrungr left those words behind, his angry parting shot. 

Once his horse was away from the camels, it came to its senses and began to follow his commands loyally again. 

The inside edge of the wall of wagons was lined with small platforms, likely to make it easier for the crossbowmen. Hveðrungr’s riders guided their horses up the makeshift stair and leapt over the wall. 

The masked demon and his band of black-clad riders disappeared away into the darkness.

“Father, are you hurt?!” Sigrún leapt down from the camel and rushed to Yuuto’s side. 

Yuuto was slumped with his back against the carriage wall of his chariot. He gave her a tired smile, and waved his hand to dismiss her concern. 

“No, somehow I made it through in one piece. You saved me there, Rún.” 

“No, Father, I must apologize for arriving so late. When I saw you locking swords with the enemy, it scared me half to death...” Sigrún stopped and took a long, deep breath, her head hanging low and one hand clutched onto Yuuto’s clothes. 

She was trembling. 

Tears fell from her downcast face, the droplets making tiny stains on the wooden carriage floor. 

Yuuto softly placed his hand on Sigrún’s head and stroked her hair, a gesture to show her that he was here right now, alive. 

As he did, she sprang forward and buried her face in his chest. Her warm tears soaked into his shirt, but he let the silver-haired girl do as she wished, patting her back gently as she cried into him. 

After a moment, Sigrún finally calmed down and pulled away from him. 

“P-please forgive my rudeness! I’m just so glad you were unhurt, Father,” she said, still sniffling a little. 

“It’s all right. I’m sorry for making you worry,” Yuuto replied. He reached out a hand and wiped a tear from Sigrún’s cheek in one more reassuring gesture. 

In that moment, Yuuto had also really wanted to feel the touch of another living person. The warmth of Sigrún’s body had been a direct reminder and proof that he really was still alive. 

“It was a lot of trouble, but I’m glad we brought along the camels,” Yuuto added, glancing up at the camel Sigrún had dismounted with a sigh of relief. 

He had learned that horses have an incredibly intense dislike for the body odor produced by camels. 

During the 6th century B.C. this fact had been utilized in actual combat by General Harpagus of the Achaemenid Empire, in a battle with the kingdom of Lydia. Harpagus had used armed camel riders on the front lines to disturb and scatter the Lydian cavalry, crediting him with the Achaemenid victory. 

And so, Yuuto had likewise kept a group of camel riders within his army, on standby just in case by some chance the wagon fortress was breached. 

That said, camels were not well suited to humid climates, and they became sick easily. Their bodies weren’t meant for travel through such watery terrain. 

Upon needing to rush to Yuuto’s location on a moment’s notice, their movements had been sluggish and they had been slow to arrive. However, they had still made it just in the nick of time, saving his life. 

The terrible camel odor clinging to Sigrún made Yuuto’s nose twitch, but he found even that felt comforting after his ordeal. 

Felicia seemed on the verge of tears herself as she looked at Yuuto meekly, speaking formally with a pained expression on her face, which was terribly pale. “Big Brother, I ask that you forgive me. Protecting you is my duty, and I failed.” 

She seemed to want to rush to his side as well, but was desperately holding herself back from doing so. 

Her eyes were like those of an abandoned puppy on the street, and yet she also looked like a convicted criminal awaiting the pronouncement of her sentence. 

Her brother by blood had just tried to kill Yuuto, and she hadn’t been able to protect him. She surely felt a heavy sense of accountability for both of those things. 

Yuuto could easily tell that while she was prepared to be relieved of her responsibility as his personal bodyguard given that circumstance, she still wanted dearly to remain as his adjutant and assistant. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Yuuto told her in a soft, kind voice. “You had a bad opponent this time around. You’ll always be my trusted adjutant, Felicia.” Then he gently patted her on the shoulder. 

This whole situation had put her in a difficult position emotionally, and Yuuto wanted to make sure he was considerate of her. 

“R-right! Thank you, Big Brother!” Felicia’s expression softened, and she replied in a bright voice of heartfelt relief. 

“Now then, Father.” Sigrún glared off in the direction the masked man had fled. “Do we pursue the enemy?” 

The standard practice in warfare was to actively and thoroughly pursue a retreating enemy. 

However, Yuuto slowly shook his head. “No, we wait until morning. Everyone must be exhausted from that fierce battle, for one thing.” 

Even as he said that, Yuuto felt his hands clenching into fists. If he were being honest, he wanted to go after them right away. 

Right now the scene playing over and over in Yuuto’s mind was that strange vision in the middle of the battle, of a woman and her bewitching dance. Specifically, he couldn’t stop thinking of the strange phenomenon that had happened to his body when that dancer had completed the casting of her seiðr. 

He couldn’t remember the entire incantation, but one line had left a strong impression on him: “Let the chains of the holy covenant be now loosened, that the imprisoned hungry wolf may be set free.” 

Yuuto had been pulled into Yggdrasil by Felicia’s seiðr, Gleipnir. It was a magic with the power to capture and bind things of an otherworldly nature. 

Most likely, the seiðr called Fimbulvetr had, for just an instant, somehow weakened whatever power was binding Yuuto to Yggdrasil. 

Perhaps the reason it had only worked for an instant was because the seiðr’s power had been cast not on Yuuto, but on the horses of the Panther Clan, and Yuuto had only been touched by some of the residual energy of the spell’s aftermath. 

Taken another way, even just the residual energy of the spell had been enough to affect Yuuto’s body. 

There was no mistaking it: That dancer held the key to Yuuto’s way back home to Japan. 

He wanted to find and capture her more than anything right now. But no matter how desperately they might pursue, the Wolf Clan wasn’t going to catch up to cavalry. 

What with the use of the wagon fortress tactic and the rapid volley fire from the crossbows, Yuuto’s strategies had dealt a fair amount of casualties to the Panther Clan, but their remaining force was still equal in number to the Wolf Clan’s. 

Moving his army at night, when visibility was so poor, would be far too dangerous. If the enemy managed to get the drop on them before they could stop and reconnect the wagons, they’d be forced into melee combat, and might suffer losses that easily erased their gains from their victory today. 

Indeed, logically he fully understood that. He was fully aware of what he needed to do. 

Now was the time to rest and wait. 

But Yuuto couldn’t quiet his thoughts, nor quell his impatience. 

“Damn it! And just when I finally, finally found a clue!” 

Yuuto didn’t manage a wink of sleep or a moment of rest as he waited for the morning light.