Zero no Tsukaima:Volume7 Chapter5

Roughly a mile out from the battlements of Fort South Gotha, at the staging area for the assault, the three hundred and fifty troops of the De Vinuiyu Battalion were awaiting the horn to signal the beginning of the attack.

Today, fifteen days after the landings, the Allied Army was finally launching their offensive.

Leading the Second Company, Guiche was shivering from head to toe, staring intently at the mist-covered city of South Gotha.

“Company commander, sir!”

The sergeant on guard at his side, Nicola, spoke in a soft tone.

“W-w-w-what is it?” Guiche stammered.

“You dropped your wand.”

Guiche immediately looked below at his feet and saw his rose-shaped wand lying on the ground.

He frantically picked it back up and shoved it into his chest pocket, while trying to maintain the solemn expression on his face.

“Company commander, sir!”

“W-what is it?”

“Although it might not be my concern, I still think it would be better for you to go take a leak first.”

Guiche immediately glared at him and exclaimed:

“I’ve already gone!”

“That’s good, then.” Nicola replied while grinning.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about. According to the reports in the past few days, the enemy’s cannons have all been destroyed by our fleet’s bombardment, and they’ve only deployed monstrous humanoids [--- TL: replace with something better? Basically a category for orcs, trolls, ogres, etc. but not monsters in general ---] troops to guard the streets”

“M-monstrous humanoids are incredibly ferocious, and their bodies are massive.”

“But they are foes that are incredibly easy to lure into traps.” Nicola remarked while watching ahead.

Guiche observed the small man carrying his arquebus. This was the first real battle he has participated in, and there was no one else he could rely on. With such thoughts in his mind, the man in front of him appeared to be larger than any lunkhead he knew.

“However… from where could we start our assault? The whole city is surrounded by those huge rock walls…”

Hearing Guiche’s concern, Nicola nodded his head.

“Someone’s going to come ‘open a route’ for us soon.”

After some time idly passed by, a fleet of battleships appeared in the skies above. The ten battleships, by then all neatly lined up in a row, proceeded to begin bombarding the wall with cannon fire. In the face of the floating battleships’ firepower, the enemy was completely powerless.

“Boom—! Boom—! Boom—!” Accompanied by the thunderous roar of cannon fire and thick clouds of smoke, the walls began to crumble and cheers could be heard erupting from the soldiers assembled at the staging area. Under the barrage of cannon fire, the walls along the battlements collapsed.

And then, appearing right in front of their eyes, was a group of huge mud golems.

“They must be golems made by Triangle Class magicians.” Guiche thought to himself.

Since he himself was a Dot Grade magician, he could never create such large golems. He looked up at it in admiration – Although it was slightly smaller than the mud golems created by Fouquet of the Crumbling Dirt, whom had once rattled the whole of Tristain, they were still huge. The mud golems, with a height of roughly twenty meters, solidly stumbled along, gradually nearing the collapsed walls.

On the backs of the mud golems were flags bearing the family emblems of their respective creators, and Guiche, upon noticing a familiar emblem amongst them, instinctively yelled out loud:

“Brother! That is brother’s mud golem!”

Bearing the emblem of the Gramont family, it must belong to his second brother who was attached to the Royal Army. The flag fluttering on its back, bearing the emblem of the Gramont family, ‘A Rose and Panther’, was glowing brightly.

At that instant, with a whoosh, a large object of some short flew straight towards the mud golems approaching the wall. Wham! One of the mud golems had its abdomen shot through into a gaping hole. The golem immediately lost its balance, and collapsed into a heap onto the ground. The metallic lights shot towards the approaching golems one after another, felling many of them as they were struck by its fire.

“What in the world is that?” Guiche gasped.

“It’s a giant ballista.” Nicola replied immediately. “I’m afraid they are probably operated by the orcs. It is a three meter long weapon based on the crossbow, capable of shooting giant bolts. If a human were to be struck by it, they will surely be smashed into pieces. But then again, they were not designed to be used against people.

Guiche worriedly watched his brother’s golem. A bolt stuck out of the golem’s leg, but fortunately, the mud golem still remained standing.

“Is company commander sir [--- this is a tad bit awkward ---] a member of the Gramont family?” Nicola asked, noticing Guiche’s excitement.

“I’m the youngest son.”

Hearing Guiche’s reply, Nicola opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

“That means you are the Marshal’s…! What a surprise! What brought you to a lowly gun battalion like ours? With your father’s name, whether it be the knights, or an elite regimental headquarters, wouldn’t you be able to join anything that you desire to?”

“If I were to use my father’s name, does it not mean that it is no longer because of my merit?” Guice replied as he looked to the front.

Nicola was unable to say anything, but after a while, he grinned and slapped Guiche’s shoulder.

“I like your kind of attitude, young master. Since that’s how it is, we ain’t returning back home till we win our merit and glory!”

Soon after, a troop of dragon knights arrived as well. Heading straight towards the ballistae upon the battlements, with magic and dragon fire, they quickly silenced the ballistae.

Finally arriving at the foot of the collapsed wall, which had been turned into rubble by the cannon fire earlier, the mud golems began using clearing away the rubble.

“They are making an entrance.”

His men would soon breach into the city through that entry. Guiche’s entire body began to tremble uncontrollably.

“You are shaking?”

“… E-even though I would really like to say it is due to the excitement… but it is most probably because of fear. Uh…”

“Heh, being honest is a good thing, you will never succeed on reckless courage alone. But, you can’t be too cowardly either. Regardless, just let me take care of it.”

Nicola raised his hands towards the roughly hundred arquebusiers behind him. Another fifty or so pikemen acted as their guard. This company numbering roughly hundred and fifty men, were the soldiers under Guiche.

“Prime and load your cartridge—!”

The arquebusiers then leisurely loaded their barrels with the bullet and gunpowder.

“Company commander sir, might I trouble you to light this?” Nicola pulled a length of slow match towards Guiche.

Guiche nodded, and casted an ‘Ignite’ spell on the cord. Accompanying the sizzling noise of the slow match smouldering, a burning smell hung in the air. Nicola called a soldier over, and handed the ignited cord over to be distributed amongst the other soldiers.

“This is a slow match given by our company commander! Make sure it is not extinguished!”

The response that returned lacked any sense of enthusiasm.

Rumble—! The golems cleared away the wall. At that moment, Nicola poked Guiche in the waist and said:

“Company commander sir, let’s go.”

Raising his wand whilst still trembling, Guiche yelled out:

“G-gramont Company, forward!”

The veteran arquibusiers followed behind him with staggering footsteps. It was only then that Guiche realised – it was only his own company that was charging forward! The order to charge hadn’t been passed down from the top yet!

“Hey, sergeant—“ He was about to voice his complaint, but stopped upon noticing the Nicola’s calm and confident expression.

Once a troop has begun advancing, it was almost impossible to halt their advance, and thus they could only continue moving forward.

A few seconds later, an order to “Charge!” was sounded from the ranks behind.

Like a surging tidal wave, soldiers, knights and assorted others all stormed in their direction.

“We are all old veterans after all. If we don’t start out a bit earlier, we won’t be able to catch up.”

Probably due to the reason that they had set out earlier, Guiche’s troop was the first to reach one of the breaches along the battlements. But a couple of knights chased past them, storming into the city.

“But we were the first to get here!” Guiche shouted as he prepared to storm inside, before Nicole grabbed him.

Immediately afterwards, the knights which had just charged in were sent flying back out together with their mounts, landing in front of Guiche in a miserable state. It seemed that on the other side of the wall, were club-wielding orcs waiting for simple-minded fools like them to deliver themselves to their doom.

Enormous monsters with a size at least five times that of a human, the group of orcs spotted Guiche's party and immediately stormed towards them.