The 9Th Class Swordmaster: Blade Of Truth [EN]: Chapter 254

179. The Battle of Yoman (1)

The Great Fortress, Yoman.

Buzz… Buzz….

The voices of the gathered soldiers seemed to echo from outside the barracks.

“Are you the ones? The ones confident in your noses?”

As the tent flap of the barracks was drawn back, Serika looked at the five soldiers and spoke.

The commotion vanished instantly, and their faces tightened with tension at her question.

“We gathered soldiers from mountain villages, specifically those who lived in the northern forests.”

Serika Loren tilted her head slightly at the adjutant’s report, delivered with a crisp salute.

“Hmm…”

The soldiers standing before her likely shared the same question: Why were they summoned?

The knights watching also felt the same way.

‘What on earth is that little brat planning…? I can’t understand why Lord Fran entrusted the Battle of Yoman to such a child.’

The most anxious of all was the commander of Fran’s army stationed below the Great Fortress.

Entrusting their lives to a child who looked barely over ten years old was, understandably, difficult for him, a veteran of many battlefields.

‘This is a battle we can’t win anyway. Just maintaining the front line is doing our part….’

The commander thought, looking at Serika with eyes full of doubt.

He didn’t realize that his long experience, honed on the battlefield, was creating prejudice, and that prejudice made the soldiers feel as if defeat were an unchangeable truth.

「The Great Fortress Yoman can never be breached.」

It was a mantra they had heard so often that it was ingrained in them. Naturally, the soldiers of the Grand Duchy took pride in it.

They had never imagined that they would ever have to attack this place.

Moreover,

Yoman, called the impregnable fortress, was guarded by Ganes, the Grand Duchy’s Sword Master.

Yoman and Ganes.

Those two names alone convinced the soldiers that victory was impossible.

The most reliable ally becomes the fiercest enemy when they turn against you.

Naturally, they believed that maintaining the stalemate was the best they could hope for.

However,

“We will breach the Great Fortress,” Serika Loren stated confidently, as if declaring a fact.

At first, they doubted their ears.

It was something no one had ever dared to attempt. A thought considered impossible was suddenly being challenged by a girl who had seemingly come from nowhere.

Initially, they laughed, dismissing it as the nonsense of a brat.

‘But… even Lord Anthem said so….’

They were suspicious, but no one stopped her.

They assumed she would soon tire of it.

One day, two days, three days, four days….

But as time passed, she surveyed and investigated the outside of the fortress every day, without fail, even in the fierce blizzards.

The blizzards of Yoman were so deadly that even those who had lived in the Grand Duchy found it hard to endure.

To go out and investigate such a place for dozens of hours without a second thought was beyond their comprehension.

But she did it.

She braved the blizzards for dozens of hours every day, enduring the arduous investigation as if it were a natural thing to do for the sake of victory, without complaint.

‘I have to admit it.’

Before they knew it, the soldiers’ gazes towards her had changed. Regardless of the outcome, they had at least acknowledged her sincerity.

They realized that she was seriously preparing to attack Yoman, and her dedication seemed to rebuke them for resigning themselves to defeat before the battle even began.

A week later,

Serika Loren summoned them for the first time before heading to the fortress walls.

“Those who lack confidence may leave. What I am asking of you now is not ordinary. It may be difficult even for the ethnic minorities who live buried in the mountains their entire lives.”

At her words, the soldiers exchanged bewildered glances.

What was she going to make them do that she was warning them so intensely?

“But if you accomplish this, you will achieve a more glorious position than anyone else.”

Thump— Thump—

At her casual words, the soldiers felt their hearts beat faster.

A talent more suited to war than battle.

This was why Khalil had deployed her to the battlefield, even though she was not yet fully ready.

Despite her young age, there was a strange sense of exaltation in her words.

“I am from Deftar. It is a village that cultivates and collects plants in the highlands. I am a soldier now, but when I was young, I helped my father gather medicinal herbs. I am more confident with soil than anyone else.”

Perhaps inspired by her words,

One of the soldiers stepped forward, answering boldly.

“Is that so? That’s good.”

“……Yes?”

Serika Loren took out a handful of soil from her pocket. The soldier looked at her, bewildered by her sudden action.

“Smell it.”

“……Yes?”

The soldier, glancing around at the others with a puzzled expression, awkwardly took the soil she handed him and smelled it.

“This is…….”

Instantly,

The soldier’s expression hardened slightly.

“Shh.”

As he looked at her, about to say something, Serika raised her index finger to her lips.

“Do you remember the question I asked when I first came?”

Serika turned her head towards the young soldier standing next to him, who had been her attendant since she arrived at Yoman and accompanied her throughout her investigation of the fortress walls.

The young soldier nodded.

“You asked why the Grand Duchy’s Sword Master is here.”

“That’s right.”

Serika nodded and gestured for him to come inside the barracks.

“How many soldiers are currently stationed here?”

“Three thousand. But they are not a force capable of launching an attack, so Lord Anthem has ordered us to prioritize guarding Yoman.”

“Then what about those guys?”

“……Yes?”

“How many are inside the fortress? You should know, since you were from the same Grand Duchy, right? Unless there have been additional troops added in the meantime.”

The commander nodded hastily at Serika’s question and answered.

“Probably… the garrison itself is similar to ours, I would think. But I believe Lord Ganes brought an additional 2,000 private soldiers when he came to Yoman.”

“So, the defense force is a total of 5,000, and the Grand Duchy’s only Sword Master is currently in Yoman.”

“……That’s right.”

Just imagining it made him feel suffocated.

More troops than them, the geographical advantage of the Great Fortress, and even Ganes….

“Isn’t it strange?”

“……Yes?”

But Serika asked in a calm voice, as if she knew how they felt.

“The Great Fortress, which has never been captured in the history of the Grand Duchy. Why would they put a Sword Master on such an impregnable fortress, the pride of the Grand Duchy?”

“What does that….”

“Everyone knows the might of a Sword Master without me having to explain it. The outcome of a battle can change with just one of them. If I were them, I would deploy him to the front lines. To do much more.”

“Well, yes, but….”

The knights looked at her with dumbfounded expressions at her words.

“The fact that it has never been attacked means that no one has ever tried to attack Yoman, if you think about it the other way around, right?”

She said, putting emphasis into her voice.

“Is the Great Fortress really an insurmountable wall? Who is going to prove it?”

“……Yes?”

“What if it’s the opposite? What if the truth you take for granted is just a fabricated rumor?”

“Th, that’s impossible.”

“My father was just a mercenary, but he told me about his travels to many countries other than the Grand Duchy. And I, too, have made a resolution after leaving the Grand Duchy and seeing many things.”

Serika Loren looked around at the soldiers and said.

“I will not believe anything until I see it with my own eyes.”

She looked at the commander.

“If the truth of the Great Fortress is that Ganes, the Grand Duchy’s only Sword Master, is stuck here with his private soldiers because it is such a weak place that needs to be guarded by such a strong person, what will you do?”

“…….”

No one could refute her words.

Because they had never considered such doubts before.

“What will I do? I’ll have to check it out.”

She smiled at them, who had lost their words, and said.

“However… that’s just a prediction. What if the Great Fortress is really a natural fortress that cannot be breached? It would just be giving our lives to the enemy.”

The commander said to her cautiously in a trembling voice. Then she nodded as if she understood.

“That’s right. That’s why I called them.”

“……Yes?”

Serika pointed to the soldiers standing with tense faces, with a strange smile.

Among them, the face of the soldier who had smelled the soil she had taken out of her pocket a little while ago was particularly hardened.

“A secret may be sleeping inside the Great Fortress.”

She looked at the blizzard raging outside the barracks.

“Perhaps the secret of the hot sands of the past, which is unimaginable in the North now.”

“……?”

The commander looked at her with a puzzled expression, as if he still didn’t understand her words.

But Serika said in a confident voice.

“Let’s see. Whether it’s really an insurmountable barrier, or just a weak sandcastle that has been deceiving you until now, that they had to put such a monster to guard it.”

* * *

“Kinu, what do you think?”

“About what, Your Majesty?”

Miliana looked at the twin peaks and said.

“I heard the name of that canyon is Frau Hat [Lady’s Hat]? I think it’s a well-chosen name, don’t you think?”

But Kinu tilted his head as if he didn’t understand her words.

He, who had only lived in the Great Plains, had never been interested in the world of nobles or noblewomen’s ornaments.

He didn’t know what the connection was between a noblewoman’s hat and the twin peaks, and he didn’t care to know.

To him, it was just a small hill to be crossed.

“Women in the Grand Duchy have long enjoyed wearing hats with large brims. They cover their faces and hide their expressions, so there is even a saying in the Grand Duchy that to steal a woman’s heart, untie the hat’s strings.”

“Hmm.”

“The canyon between those twin peaks is like a woman’s face hidden by a hat. You can’t know what kind of face is hidden inside. Perhaps a trap has been set up and is waiting for us.”

Kinu listened to her explanation, but still replied in a calm voice, unimpressed.

“Compared to the South, it’s ridiculous to even call that a peak. It doesn’t seem impressive enough to hide anything.”

Miliana chuckled at his words.

“For someone who says that, you’ve been delayed quite a bit. At this rate, that little brat might steal the lead.”

“Your Majesty seems impatient. Do you really think the Great Fortress will fall?”

Kinu asked, seeming more interested in the story about Yoman than in the earlier impressions of the twin peaks.

“Isn’t that just a delaying tactic anyway?”

“Not necessarily. The rumor that Yoman is impregnable is so famous, but I don’t think Khalil would have placed Serika there without any chance of success.”

“Even so… she’s just a child who hasn’t been sixteen for long. She has experienced the civil war, but she only ran away. In fact, she has never properly experienced war. I wonder if such a child can command thousands of soldiers….”

“But she is a child who has been trained by Antihum. Khalil seems to think of that child as special. He must know something we don’t.”

Kinu Mukali certainly felt that Serika was unusual when he first saw her in Tatur.

But that was only based on her individual abilities, and since he had not seen her fight, he thought Miliana’s worries were a bit excessive.

“I am not yet sure about Serika’s abilities either. But apart from her abilities, the problem is us.”

“Yes?”

“Serika is checking the impregnable Yoman, so she can make excuses even if she fails. In short, it’s a win-win situation. But what about us? This is the only place where we gained the upper hand in the civil war.”

Miliana said, pointing to Frau Hat.

“We only break even if we win. And even a simple victory is not enough. If Serika manages to capture Yoman, we have to advance as the first to arrive to barely save face.”

“Then….”

“I now know what Khalil was thinking when he put me here. He said that Ganes, the spear of the Grand Duchy, is on the battlefield where Serika is, right?”

Kinu Mukali nodded at her words.

“No matter how outstanding she is, it will be difficult for her to defeat the current Sword Master. So, if she succeeds in capturing Yoman, it means that she will win not by battle, but by war.”

Miliana chuckled.

“But I am different.”

Instantly,

Kinu felt a chill at the intense energy emanating from her.

“Not only do I have to be the first to achieve victory, but in order for me, Miliana, to save face, I have to win here not by war, but by battle.”

She said, grabbing the Aqua Gale, which she wore crossed on her back.

“I heard there are about 6,000 troops in Frau Hat now, including the troops that retreated from Brown Ant, right?”

“That’s right.”

Miliana nodded to Kinu.

“I’ll go alone. I’ll show the bumpkins of the Grand Duchy what the Dragon Queen is.”