Player Who Became A Constellation [EN]: Chapter 97

The heavy blizzard subsided, and the fog lifted.

On the frozen lake, under the rare warm sunlight, 20,000 troops of the Central Army arrived.

“What… what happened here?”

The scene was horrifying.

Ruins. And defeated soldiers.

That’s all there seemed to be.

“…What in the world happened here—?!”

Marquis Pharnham’s shout echoed across the frozen lake.

It took the Central Army about three days to reach this place.

It was the result of marching as cautiously as possible.

Thanks to that, the damage from the weather was minimal, and they were able to reach this place while preserving a large number of troops.

Marquis Pharnham had predicted that if the vanguard had been this careful, they would have safely made their way to the frozen land.

However, the result was devastating.

“Welcome, Marquis Pharnham….”

Count Tymon, looking disheveled, approached and greeted Marquis Pharnham.

Hair tousled and unkempt.

His eyes were hollow, as if he hadn’t slept properly for days.

Marquis Pharnham’s expression twisted as he looked at Count Tymon.

“Speak! Count Tymon. What happened to the ten thousand troops…? Where are the other soldiers!”

“Other soldiers… ?”

Count Tymon laughed emptily.

“It seems you weren’t ambushed, Marquis.”

“Ambushed?”

At those words, Tymon burst into bitter tears and knelt down.

“They all died. Yes, they all died! We couldn’t cope with a mere hundred or so raiders! Damn it!!”

To Pharnham, Count Tymon seemed insane.

“Count, this is absurd. Are you saying you lost more than half your troops to mere barbarians?”

Count Tymon raised his head and looked at Marquis Pharnham.

Pharnham gave orders to the soldiers.

“Arrest Count Tymon! He is an incompetent commander who led his soldiers to their deaths!”

“…Incompetent? Me? Ha, hahaha! I opposed this ridiculous war from the start! How could we conquer a place that even a hundred thousand troops couldn’t subdue with only eighty thousand? To even consider such an absurd thing… Ash, that bastard is insane!”

Pharnham stared indifferently at the Count and said.

“Even insulting royalty… Count. I will hold you accountable.”

He gave orders to the soldiers.

“Try him under military law… Execute him publicly!”

***

Loki looked at the minimap.

On the ice. It was the scene of Count Tymon’s head falling on a makeshift execution platform.

The head, cleaved cleanly by the crimson axe blade, marked the beginning of Central Commander Marquis Pharnham’s address.

The Central Army cheered with high morale, but the merged vanguard watched the execution of their former commander, Count Tymon, with expressions of despair.

The Central Army’s morale rose, but conversely, the vanguard’s morale plummeted.

Watching the scene, Loki clicked his tongue with regret.

“…Too bad. If only there was a function to hear what kind of nonsense he’s spouting.”

As Loki was looking at the minimap, the man sitting across from him groaned.

It was Per, Aum Rinia’s younger brother.

He was staring at the chessboard set up on the table, deep in thought.

Moving a chess piece, he looked at Loki with a serious expression.

He was trying to read his mind, but there was no way to read the face hidden by the goat helmet.

All he could rely on were the red glints visible through the helmet.

As Per carefully placed a chess piece, he confirmed that Loki’s red eyes narrowed.

“Good! Haha! It seems you were careless, Constellation! That’s what happens when you let your attention wander! No matter how stupid I am, I can’t lose to Loki when he’s distracted…!”

Per seemed to think he had won, wearing an expression of confidence, but when Loki moved a chess piece, Per’s face hardened.

“Ughhhhh!! I lost again!”

Per overturned the chessboard, grabbed his head, and groaned.

Loki chuckled, finding the sight amusing.

“…Since you lost, go back to the front lines.”

Unlike Ronia, Asgard was peaceful.

***

The Central Army of 25,000, led by Marquis Pharnham, resumed their march.

As if blessed by the heavens, the blizzard and fog disappeared, and warm sunlight shone down, making it bearable for the soldiers to endure the cold.

With the cold gone and no ambushes for days, Marquis Pharnham frowned.

“To fail at such a simple task. What on earth did Count Tymon do to lose so many troops?”

If the current weather persisted, they would be able to safely reach the frozen lands.

If they were lucky, they could occupy a nearby Nord village and rest there.

“Three or four more days, perhaps….”

It was as Marquis Pharnham thought that.

The soldiers stopped walking, startled, and looked down at the ground.

“…What’s wrong?”

At the voice of a comrade exhausted from marching, he used his foot to clear the snow covering the ice.

The ice was vibrating.

The soldiers were anxious that the ice would collapse, but they were puzzled.

The ice was clearly intact.

There were no cracks or signs of collapse.

So what was this vibration…?.

Then, in the distance, they saw white dust rising like a snowstorm.

“What is that…?”

The soldiers gripped their spears nervously.

The majestic sound of hooves.

The sound of four wheels vibrating and echoing across the land.

-Hooooooo!

-Heeeeee!

Two horses encased in barding [protective armor] breathed heavily.

The soldiers’ faces turned pale as they saw the sight.

“Enemies…!?”

“It’s an ambush!”

“That’s a ‘chariot’!”

Marquis Pharnham was startled by the soldiers’ hesitant shouts.

Exhaling a white breath, he quickly drew his sword, fluttering the fur draped over his shoulders.

‘…Chariots?! Good heavens! Are the barbarians using chariots?!’

Moreover, there were roughly 100 of them.

Marquis Pharnham broke out in a cold sweat.

He was surprised that the uncivilized barbarians knew how to operate chariots, amazed by their mobility, which allowed them to maintain speed on this slippery ice without slipping, and also astonished that they were using outdated ‘chariots’ in this day and age.

His surprise was short-lived, and Marquis Pharnham decided there was no need to worry.

‘They’re just muscle-brained fools, as expected!’

They were as ignorant as orcs.

No matter how mobile chariots were, they couldn’t effectively deal with an infantry force of over 20,000.

Above all, his unit had over 1,500 archers, so 100 chariots would be annihilated by arrows fired from a distance before they even got close.

Just as he was thinking that, something shone and flew quickly, piercing through the Ronia army.

Bang-!

Huge holes appeared in the soldiers’ bodies.

The massive object passed through two or three soldiers behind them, scattering blood everywhere.

When some of the soldiers turned their heads, they saw only cold corpses with head-sized holes in their comrades’ bodies.

And the thing stuck in the last soldier was….

“…A spear?”

“No, that’s… a bolt!”

A bolt used for crossbows. But its size was incomparably larger.

It was as thick and long as a spear, like a siege ballista [an ancient missile weapon that launched large projectiles]….

“Could it be…?”

Marquis Pharnham’s eyes widened.

“A real… ballista?”

A typical chariot had blades attached to its wheels for ramming, and archers or spearmen would shoot from above.

But the chariots charging towards them were on a different level in terms of size and weight.

The horses looked twice as big and stronger than ordinary horses.

Moreover, the carts pulled by the horses were larger than those on the continent, and on top of them were ballistas modified for free directional movement and containers filled with bolts.

Integrating ballistas into chariots?

It wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar idea.

After countless trials and errors, it had been said that development itself was impossible due to the weight of the ballista and the problems with the firing impact.

And yet… the barbarians had created it.

As stable and highly mobile chariots.

“Just what are those bastards…!!”

The veins on Marquis Pharnham’s forehead bulged as he shouted.

“What are you-!!!?”

As if hearing Pharnham’s shout?

Per Rinia, who was leading the chariots, let out a pleasant laugh and shouted.

“How is it? A masterpiece created by the power of my great brother, Aum Rinia, and Loki!”

Aum Rinia had been considering invasions from the continent for a long time.

The result of that consideration was a chariot equipped with siege weaponry.

Not only were the weapons relatively light and streamlined, but the dwarves’ technology and the materials in Loki’s Valhalla Palace [Norse mythology: a majestic hall in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin] made complete arming possible.

Furthermore, the horses of the chariot unit were excellent steeds from Astoria Island.

The strongest weapon after Asgard’s Berserker Warriors [Norse warriors who fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury].

Or perhaps the most terrible weapon that even the Berserker Warriors, who lacked mobility, could not handle.

The chariots did not approach the Ronia infantry.

Rather, they simply fired ballistas at them from a distance.

With a range three times greater than that of a bow, attacks were impossible.

“…Cavalry! Send out the cavalry!”

Marquis Pharnham quickly assessed the situation and summoned the cavalry unit.

He had less experience in war than Count Tymon, but he knew how to devise a strategy.

The most efficient way to deal with such a chariot unit was with cavalry.

‘The problem is that there aren’t many skilled cavalrymen.’

The Central Army had approximately 600 cavalrymen.

In the first place, the frozen lands were heavily forested, so the need for cavalry was not felt, and the force was organized with a small number of troops.

Above all, operating cavalry on ice was suicidal.

“But we can’t just sit here and be attacked!”

Under Marquis Pharnham’s command, 200 cavalrymen charged forward.

The horses breathed heavily as they ran on the icy road.

The hooves left marks on the ice as they ran, but some of them slipped and fell on the icy road.

But they couldn’t slow down.

The moment they slowed down, they would allow the chariot to attack.

The spearmen closely pursued the chariot.

As the distance gradually narrowed, the cavalrymen smiled faintly and raised their spears, but….

Thud!

…They began to fall, pierced by the long spears of the Nord soldiers riding in the chariots.

“……!”

“Did you think we’d be stupid enough to just stand there?”

The Nord soldiers smiled and took out longbows.

The cavalrymen’s faces turned pale at that.

The cavalrymen were chasing head-on.

At this speed, the moment they turned, they would lose control and fall.

“Damn it-! They put such ridiculous armaments on the chariots?!”

Watching the Ronia cavalrymen screaming, Per, who was in charge of adjusting the ballista, licked his lips.

“That horse looks like it would make a good snack?”

“Well, we can bring it later. There’s no reason for the meat to rot here, is there?”

Per smiled leisurely.

“By the way, they’re chasing us too closely? Can we turn around?”

“Not only them… but we can’t turn around either. The moment we turn, we’ll capsize. Haven’t you experienced it once, Per?”

“Come to think of it, you broke your neck on the frozen lake, didn’t you?”

Per shook his head at the Nord soldier’s joke.

“Ugh! I don’t want to experience that again. Honestly, my neck was broken back then, and I was in constant pain. Well, if that’s the case… we’ll have to face them head-on!”

The ballista was aimed at the cavalryman’s body.

“…Hmph!”

The Ronia cavalryman was startled that his horse was being targeted and belatedly tried to change direction, but it was already too late.

The horse’s body exploded from the bolt that flew in.