"The Empress of the Empire led her army out of the encirclement?"

Aurier shot to his feet so violently that the hem of his robe even knocked over the teacup on the table.

As a prince of the Kingdom, he did possess a certain level of strength. Though whether in realm of combat or natural talent, he was far inferior to that younger brother of his—the one who had long since been discarded as a sacrificial piece and whose grave by now probably had grass half a meter tall growing over it—still, for him to lose his composure like this was enough to show just how badly his mind had been shaken. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Tea spilled out, soaking the official papers laid before him, but Aurier had no attention to spare for that anymore.

"Say that clearly. She led troops out of the encirclement—not escaped with a small group, and not stayed behind in Notasia Fortress to make a last stand?"

Aurier stared fixedly at Kaepel, who had come to report the news. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and the look on his face was savage, like some beast out of legend.

Last night, because the course of the battle had tilted further and further in the Kingdom's favor, to the point that total victory had seemed possible at any moment, he had been too excited to sleep at all. He had spent the whole night awake in his tent, constantly waiting for Notasia Fortress to fall—and for the even better news after that, the kind of news that would carve his name into the history of the continent.

Unfortunately, in the end he had not received the delightful news of the Imperial Empress being captured. In fact, even after a whole night had passed, the great army enhanced by Ancient Magic still had not managed to break Notasia Fortress.

After the second ice wall forged by the Empress's own authority shattered, the Imperial soldiers had suddenly erupted with an unimaginable will to resist. They had even managed to withstand the Kingdom army dancing beneath Ancient Magic head-on, dragging a front that had originally favored the Kingdom into a complete deadlock.

At that point, Aurier had not yet felt any real unease. He had assumed the Empress truly had no road left open to her, and so had chosen to fight to the death, which in turn had forced out the Empire's latent strength. He had still had more than enough patience to wait.

But now he had received news completely opposite to what he had expected. How could that not leave him stunned... even shocked?

"Yes, Your Highness. I also found it hard to believe, so I confirmed it again and again. But the troops we left in front of Notasia Fortress have sent the same report several times over."

Kaepel lowered his head and said in a heavy voice,

"The Empress of the Empire truly did personally lead an elite cavalry force straight out through the front of the fortress!"

"How many?"

"We don't know the exact number, but according to the troops at the front, it should have been fewer than thirty thousand."

"Thirty thousand? For Notasia Fortress in its current state, thirty thousand is no small number. That has to be close to a third of their total force, doesn't it?"

Aurier paced back and forth, thinking. "And you say they were all cavalry?"

"Yes," Kaepel answered. "I don't think anyone could have mistaken that."

"That only makes it even more unbelievable." Aurier frowned. "If they could ride, then at the very least they weren't too badly wounded. To still be able to pull out nearly thirty thousand cavalry after fighting desperately through an entire night of defense means..."

Aurier {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} suddenly turned his head toward the fortress, where the sounds of slaughter still had not ceased.

"That woman pulled all the elite troops out of the entire fortress and left only the old, weak, sick, and wounded to hold the line?"

"That..."

Kaepel thought it through as well.

"Reasoning from common sense, that should be the case. I don't think the sovereign of the Empire is Muen Campbell. She shouldn't be able to conjure another thirty thousand cavalry out of thin air."

"But why would she do that?"

Aurier stopped and lowered his gaze to the sand table.

On that lifelike model, at the most crucial point—Notasia Fortress—the blue markers representing the Kingdom army had all but completely submerged the red markers representing the Empire.

The Imperial army inside the fortress was like a duck in a pot, and all he needed to do was let it simmer slowly over a low flame. Before long, that duck would become a fine dish set upon the table...

Of course, "before long" still meant some time. After all, the duck's resistance could not be called anything but fierce. Even an army that knew no death had to gnaw at it piece by piece.

But at a moment like this, the strongest, toughest feathers on that duck... had flown off on their own?

Was it plucking itself bare so he could stew it more easily?

"She had two real options. Secretly leave with a tiny handful of people and leave the main force behind to buy time. Or stay there completely and raise morale for one desperate final fight. But instead she picked a compromise that lands in the middle of neither?"

Aurier still couldn't understand it. A halfway measure like that could do nothing to improve the Empire's disadvantage. On the contrary, it would only make the fall of Notasia Fortress in the near future an undeniable certainty.

"Perhaps there wasn't some tunnel dug in advance inside the fortress, and that Imperial Empress wanted to flee, so she gathered all the elite troops in the city to escort her in a breakout?"

Kaepel ventured.

"That... does make some sense. It does sound like the most likely explanation, even if it doesn't quite fit the personality of the woman I know."

Aurier nodded, then let out a contemptuous sneer.

"But do you think I never considered that possibility? Of course I did. I simply don't think it's a clever one. With fewer than thirty thousand cavalry hastily cobbled together like that, trying to break through the great army in front of the fortress is absurdly overestimating herself."

Anyone with even a little experience commanding troops knew that cavalry's advantage lay in mobility. In terms of smashing through formations, they were not even as strong as heavily armed heavy infantry. Not to mention that in a complete encirclement, cavalry's advantages could not be brought into play. No matter how elite the cavalry that woman led might be, they were only trapped beasts in a cage.

And what use was a trapped beast struggling?

It only made for a better joke.

"I trust I should be hearing good news very soon, don't you think, Kaepel?"

"..."

"Kaepel?"

"..."

Kaepel kept his head bowed low, saying nothing, but the cold sweat on his forehead was already sliding down in drops like condensation off a steamer lid.

"Kaepel."

Aurier's smile gradually stiffened. Step by step he walked over, seized Kaepel by the collar, and forced him to meet his eyes.

"Judging from that look on your face, don't tell me that woman has already gotten away."

"Th-that... Your Highness."

Kaepel forced out a smile.

"Though it's hard to believe, according to the reports from in front of the fortress... although our soldiers put up a stubborn and intense resistance, the Empress of the Empire was simply too powerful. She led that force and just now tore open our lines..."

"What kind of joke are you telling me?"

The veins on Aurier's forehead bulged instantly. In a fury, he hurled Kaepel to the ground so hard that he even used battle aura.

At once, spiderweb cracks spread across the carpeted floor of the tent. Kaepel's face turned pale, but he still had no choice except to force down the metallic sweetness rising into his throat.

"Your Highness, please calm your anger, calm your—"

"Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down? Too powerful? Hah. You can actually say that with a straight face? I left nearly two hundred thousand troops in front of the fortress! Two hundred thousand!"

Aurier roared, "And yet a full two hundred thousand troops couldn't stop fewer than thirty thousand cavalry. They got punched straight through from the front and rode off in grand style... If news like that gets out, where does that leave the Kingdom's dignity? Where does that leave mine?"

"Your Highness, perhaps this truly can't be blamed on them. After all, they had already spent the whole night attacking the city. They were exhausted, and perhaps a moment's negligence—"

"But that woman's thirty thousand soldiers spent the whole night defending the city too!"

Aurier snatched up a piece from the sand table and smashed it into Kaepel's face.

"Which is more exhausting? Two hundred thousand troops taking turns attacking a fortress, or the mere few tens of thousands of Imperial soldiers inside Notasia Fortress, forced to deal with attacks from both front and rear and unable to be in two places at once?"

"That..." Kaepel lowered his head again. No matter how thick-skinned he was, at a moment like this he truly could not find any excuse.

Thirty thousand ripping open the lines of two hundred thousand—and doing it with a direct frontal punch-through...

That was something that could only be described as a miracle.

And yet, in the space of a single day, he had already witnessed quite a few miracles. For example, why was that fortress—which had clearly had all its elite troops stripped away, leaving only the old, weak, sick, and wounded—still standing unshaken under the siege of the Kingdom's undying army?

"The one commanding the front-line troops right now is Bivis, correct?"

By sheer force of will, Aurier calmed himself again and sat back down, though his chest was still rising and falling violently.

"Yes."

Kaepel hurried to answer.

"Viscount Bivis is in command."

"Tell him to press the attack harder and make up for this failure. If he keeps dragging his feet like this and accomplishing nothing, I will personally cut off—"

Aurier's voice suddenly caught. He had originally meant to say he would cut off Bivis's head and use it to consecrate the standard. But then he remembered that Viscount Bivis was also a top great noble of the Kingdom, with a powerful family behind him. If Aurier wanted to contend for that position in the future, he might still need the Bivis family's support...

So he changed course mid-sentence.

"Tell him that if he is this careless again, I will punish him severely under military law!"

"Yes."

The corner of Kaepel's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, but he lowered his head and answered all the same.

"Then this subordinate will take his leave—"

"Wait."

Aurier stopped him.

"No rush. I have other orders to give."

At last suppressing the boiling anger deep inside himself, Aurier stood, personally picked up the game piece from the floor, and returned to the sand table.

Since what was done was done, and the fact that that woman had broken out through the front in the most humiliating way possible could no longer be changed, there was no point in dwelling on how badly his face stung.

Aurier believed the greatest difference between himself and those stupid brothers of his was that he was rational enough, tough enough, and above all clever enough.

"It's only that a feather developed a mind of its own and flew away. It changes nothing about the duck in front of us that's nearly finished cooking."

He reset the pieces on the sand table. Once again, the blue pieces representing the Kingdom completely surrounded the red pieces representing the Empire. Only now there was one more tiny red piece. It had pierced through the many lines before the fortress and reached the rear of the Kingdom army.

"Even if that woman has passed through our lines, the roads open to her are still only two. Either west, to join up with Count Eller, the Empire's border commander, or east, to join up with the Empire's eastern army. But no matter which way she goes, she is bound to come into contact with the armies on our two flanks."

After all, besides the vanguard under Aurier's own command, the Kingdom army also had two great wings supporting it on either side. Each of those two armies numbered in the hundreds of thousands and had no shortage of cavalry. Though they were mixed with a great many private troops from various great nobles and thus difficult to coordinate as one, they should not be so helpless as to be punched straight through like this.

He refused to believe that woman would go on creating miracles forever.

"And if she doesn't want to take that risk, then the only option left is to go around by a much longer route. But that would consume too much time. At that point, she might as well be considered out of this war."

After analyzing it carefully, Aurier sneered again.

"So, Kaepel, pass on my order. Tell Grand Duke Borgia on the western wing and Grand Duke Brutus on the eastern wing to stay alert for the Empress of the Empire's army. They are not to give her the slightest opening."

"Understood!"

"Oh, and one more thing."

Aurier's gaze shifted a little farther back.

"Tell them to detach part of their forces to guard the grain route. Even if a force that small couldn't completely cut the route, we still can't rule out the possibility that woman might lash out in frustration and try to harass the logistical transport—"

"Wait, the grain route?"

Aurier suddenly froze. As he reached that point, he finally seemed to realize something of enormous importance. His eyes locked onto the specially marked line on the sand table.

The Kingdom's logistical supply line.

This war, it could be said, had drawn upon the full strength of the Kingdom. The central, western, and eastern armies combined numbered over a million.

And to sustain an army of that size, logistics were of supreme importance. To keep the supplies moving smoothly, the Kingdom had not only relied on the existing grain roads; it had also spent immense effort surveying the terrain and specially opened up a broad new route.

Under normal circumstances, there was nothing wrong with that road. The Kingdom knew perfectly well how important it was. There was a small checkpoint every ten li and a major one every hundred, minimizing as much as possible the danger of the supply line being cut.

But the issue was not the road itself.

It was the terrain.

For such a road to have been opened in so short a time, the surrounding land had to be flat enough. There could not be any especially dangerous or difficult terrain there.

And terrain like that was not only good for rapidly moving supplies. It was also more than enough for a cavalry force to move quickly along the same route.

The logic governing the movement of a vast army and that of an independent cavalry force were completely different. They did not need to care about the grain route itself, nor about the checkpoints guarding it. All they had to do was keep advancing along the terrain the road ran through, using mobility to bypass anything that could hinder them—and in a very short time, they could reach the very beginning of the entire supply corridor.

The royal capital.

"So that's the third road..."

Aurier muttered unconsciously. Once he understood all this, he felt the blood throughout his body gradually turning cold.

To think he had carelessly exposed such a massive flaw before the enemy!

"No."

Under Kaepel's baffled, startled gaze, Aurier suddenly slapped himself across the face.

"What the hell am I even thinking? It wasn't my carelessness. This so-called third road was impossible from the start!"

Because...

Aurier lowered his head and looked at the tiny piece in his hand.

The woman was not leading an army of one hundred thousand or a million. It was fewer than thirty thousand—and a cavalry force exhausted by successive battles at that.

Even if she truly had gone mad and charged down that route, what could fewer than thirty thousand cavalry, cavalry with no siege capability whatsoever, possibly accomplish except getting themselves trapped beyond all rescue?

Break the royal capital with thirty thousand men?

Ridiculous. Not even cheap roadside fiction would dare write something like that.

It would be suicide, plain and simple.

"No need to concern yourself with it, Kaepel."

Aurier let out a long breath and, within moments, had completely regained his usual composure.

"Carry out my orders exactly as I said. Everything is still under my control."