Battle of Italica

Italica

"Furuta! Put the machine gun over here. Azuma, rifles go there." Kuwabara assigned each soldier their designated Area of Responsibility.

The troopers braced themselves and their Type 64 rifles against the crenelated walls.

They would be firing down from a height of three stories. If the enemy drew close enough, they could start shooting arrows at them, so they designated the range of the bows as the FPL (final protective line), and apart from that, they could pick their ets at their own pace.

There was only an hour left until the sun was completely set. Kuribayashi distributed the night vision gear while Kurokawa was left to mind the vehicles and equipment.

Behind Itami and the others were a large number of citizens carrying farming tools or wooden clubs, waiting uneasily for directions. Just then, Nishina came, holding a phrasebook in one hand with both arms out, making digging motions, and indicating that they should fill the sacks they had with earth and bring them over.

The others were collecting burnable wood, in preparation for a bonfire. The townspeople wondered why they weren't making a fire at night as they worked.

Meanwhile, someone asked a question of Itami, who was looking through his helmet-mounted night vision gear with Tuka and Lelei.

"Eh? Why are we helping the Imperials who should be our enemy? Well, it's to protect the people of this town." Itami replied.

Rory laughed as she heard the answer. "Do you really mean that?"

"Yes, I do." Answered Itami.

Itami's attempt at humor made Rory shrug in a "stop kidding me" way.

To Itami, the Empire was his enemy. If they went by the reasoning of "The enemy of the enemy is my friend," it would not be strange to take the bandits as allies, but Itami did not do that.

Piña was an Imperial Princess defending Count Formal's family. Because of that, she had negotiated with Itami and asked for his help.

Rory was there too, but since she couldn't stand Pina's presence, she left shortly after.

Being the first city where the expedition force will come. It would be quite unpleasant if they had to rebuild it after they killed the bandits. It would be a waste of precious resources.

Officially, they could fight together because they had the same objective of defending Italica.

Even so, Rory still could not understand why Itami was taking orders from an enemy princess. After all, they should have expected that the south gate would become a forlorn hope and the site of a fierce battle.

The battle began when the night was almost over.

The attack was executed just before the sun rose.

In the darkness before dawn, the bandit archers launched flame arrows at the eastern gate.

At the eastern gate was the knight Norma Co Igloo.

Under Norma's direction, the sentries and militia returned fire with their bows. Though they were called militia, they were farmers who had never touched a bow in their lives, and expecting accuracy from them was impossible. However, their arrow fire would suppress the enemy and might even cause a casualty or two. In this way, the battle became an exchange of arrows for a time. The soldiers, the farmers, the broken men who had become bandits, they all screamed and fell.

Between the archers marched footmen in armor and carrying sturdy shields. They pressed close to the wall. Their uniforms were varied while their shields were of different sizes and shapes, which suggested that they were of mixed origins. Against them, the stout grocery shop aunties, and the older children hurled rocks or poured cauldrons of molten lead down on them. These weapons were more efficient and destructive than the inaccurate bows volleys.

Below the walls, the bandits raised their shields in an attempt to protect themselves from the storm of arrows and rocks raining down on them. Even if they were shot by arrows, knocked out by rocks, or burned alive by boiling oil, they did not retreat. They must have wanted to expand the hatred and frustration they felt at not being able to attack Arnus against this place, and they rammed the eastern gate with huge logs.

As for the bandits... for the remnants of the defeated coalition army, the Battle of Arnus was not a battle.

In Arnus. Without having even glimpsed their enemy, without knowing what was going on, their own people had simply fallen over.

That was not a battle. No, that was a one-sided massacre.

The hatred for the Empire, which had cruelly kept them in ignorance of their foe, their grudges against the useless commanders who could only urge them forward to their deaths, these feelings and the fear of facing were deeply carved into their hearts. Without commanders, without comrades, without allegiance, without supplies, without food, without their sane mind. They wandered around in the wilderness, and in the end, they had become bandits, without even their homes. Soon, others who had suffered as they did come together, and their numbers had grown until now.

Their respect for the Empire had become an equal amount of hatred and anger, which ruled their souls. This was war, which sliced with swords, killed with arrows, burned with fire, and trampled with hooves. This was war, with its rape, its plunder, its massacres, and its deaths.

Indeed, they had made war their motivation. A personal war, a war that could satisfy them. A simple slaughter, a simple spreading of death. The feelings of stabbing, slashing, and being stabbed, bathing in one's opponents' blood, hugging the cold earth as they died. They threw themselves forward to experience this. If not, the war would be over for them.

Several ladders caught on the city wall. The bandits raised their shields and climbed them. Avoiding the arrows that flew at them, the bandits finally reached the top of the wall.

A brave farmer hacked up a ladder even after taking an arrow in the shoulder. The bandits praised his courage as they fired their arrows, cheering for him even as they cut him down. The ladder that had lost its grip on the wall fell with the soldiers to the ground, along with the farmer that had brought it down.

Even the loud crash as it hit the ground brought a round of cheering. It was as if though they had gone mad at a festival, banging on the shields with their swords and screaming in their tongues. This was the song of praise they sang to Emroy, the god of war.

The madness of battle was their sacrifice to Emroy and the flames of war, fuelled by the souls of the dead combatants, burned fiercely.

The flame arrows struck the clock tower, which burned wildly out of control against the black of the night.

The Apostle, Rory Mercury, was trying to endure it.

She hugged herself to endure it.

Sweat gushed down her forehead.

"Wh-why?"

The spirit of the battle that floated around her infected her flesh and penetrated her spirit.

"Why aren't they attacking here?"

The flames of war scorched her soul and sweet movements flowed from her heart and up her swaying spine.

Her arms and legs moved on their own, and she shook like a priestess who was intoxicated by hallucinogenic drugs.

"Huuu.... haaaa..."

The pleasure flowing out from inside her nearly brought her to climax, and against the black of night, the demigoddess twisted her body so everyone could see her bewitching form.

"Is she alright?"

Itami wanted to go over to Rory since he was surprised by her sudden frenzy, but Lelei and Tuka stopped him.

"It's because she's an Apostle..."

He did not quite understand, but that seemed to be why Rory was so frustrated.

If she was like this while she was so far away from the battlefield, what would she be like in the center of it?

She would probably see everyone as an enemy and slaughter them all. Nobody would be able to stop her, not even herself.

Lelei's explanation just made Itami nervous.

Itami turned to Lelei's. "Can you help her?"

She thought for a moment. "I could, but that will irreversibly damage her connection to whatever she is connected to. It would be like I cut out your spine and expect you to walk without it as if nothing happened."

Itami gulped nervously.

Meanwhile on the other side of Italica.

"Bandits should go attack villages! You're pretty damn bold to attack a town!"

This was Norma the knight's cry. He had discovered that none of the arrows on his side had hit. Even if all the people on his side were amateurs, he could see that the path of the launched arrows had mysteriously diverted from their targets, as though they were protected by the wind.

"Could it be that the enemy can summon spirits?"

Norma drew his sword and cut down a southern bandit who was scaling the wall. The stricken soldier fell off the wall and to the ground.

However, a bearded bandit from the north tried to hack Norma down from behind.

After intercepting it with his sword, the bandits behind continued attacking the militia on defense. They had spears, clubs, morningstars, twin swords, scimitars, and more.

The endless flow of bandits overwhelmed the people of Italica, and they had nowhere to run.

There were some differences in the current situation from Pina's battle plan.

They had expected the first line of defense to fall, but it had fallen too soon. Now the tops of the city wall were a battleground, and the sentries and militia had been forced off.

"We're too weak. That's even when you consider the raised morale."

They had expected the enemy to be aware of their schemes and to be on guard for it.

However, in truth, the enemy was not on guard at all.

They attacked and attacked, without any tactics or strategy,

And the militia and sentries who took this attack were caught wrong-footed right from the beginning. Thus, they could not pin down the enemy as Pina had hoped. They could not even inflict significant losses. Still, on the whole, the defenders could fight.

"Reality is different from what you picture in your head." Pina, who knew this, was not surprised that her plan had not turned out exactly as she had hoped.

Even if she felt a vague sense of foreboding, like something stuck between her teeth, Pina followed the plan and moved her main fighting strength from the east gate to the defensive barriers they had built in the interior.

The east and northwest gates were reinforced with a second defensive line of berms and fences.

Although a second defensive line sounded good on paper, they had been built with the assumption that the first line would be overrun. So the first line was essentially a sacrifice.

The militia did not understand this when the battle started. However, now they realized that the people manning the gates had been abandoned from the start.

Their allies stood at the berms and other barriers they built behind them, yet none of them stepped forward to help. They were merely watching them fight and die. How many people would not despair after realizing this?

Some people realized this and gave up, swinging their swords wildly until they soon fell.

"Where are the men in green? Where are our reinforcements?!"

They could not possibly come. After all, they had been stationed at the south gate, as fellow sacrifices.

And so, as the townspeople watched, the gate's last defender finally fell.

Pina had assumed that the bandits would immediately press the attack once they took the east entrance, but the bandits did not do so. They raised their swords and spears and cheered three times. This was a literal sacrifice, after all. After that, the city gates opened slowly, and the cavalry and soldiers from outside entered.

The horsemen dragged the corpses of the militia and sentries who had fallen from the city wall. They began tossing those bodies into the city.

Among them were the bodies of the rock-throwing children and the aunties.

They hurled the severed heads of farmers and merchants at the inner fence.

As the townspeople waited for the enemy to attack, the corpses of their friends, relatives, and family piled up like a small mountain.

The townspeople facing the bandits from behind the fences gritted their teeth against their tears and despair, while the bandits mocked them.

They cursed and insulted them as cowards hiding in a cage.

They toyed with the corpses as though they were puppets.

How could the militia, made of farmers and merchants with weapons, bear to watch this?

"Bastards!"

A hot-blooded young man leaped over the fence, shovel in hand, while others also joined him.

In this way, the battle inside the city was completely different from how Pina had envisioned it, and her battle plan fell apart.

Rory's lewd moaning and physical contortions grew more intense as time passed.

She held her breath and shook her hair. Her body bent backward like a bow. She grabbed her head, on the verge of tears, and her feet stamped to the ground.

Her feverish grasping and twisted expression looked like she had been cursed like she was a puppet shuddering on her strings, her body twitching, and her arms flailing.

It was a cursed, mad dance she could not control by her own will, but it was beautiful.

According to Lelei's explanations, the souls of the fallen were passing through her body on their way to Emroy. Although she would be influenced by the personalities of the soul and their fighting spirit, to a demigoddess like her, they were like an aphrodisiac.

Just giving into this frenzy would be easy, but she couldn't just give in, or rather, she was not allowed to give in. The heat and anxiety burning through her chest were making her suffer.

"No, no, nooo! I'll go crazy if this goes on!"

You, watching from behind, whispered, "Dammit. I'm hard."

"Shut up, man, so am I."

Although neither of them was into children, Rory's moaning must have made them think of something pleasant. The voice from Rory's shuddering body was just that seductive.

As expected, Kuribayashi whispered, "This is bad, right?" Tuka covered her blushing face, while Lelei's was a picture of calm indifference.

Itami's sigh was his answer.

It would seem both sides had forgotten this place. There was no sign of the enemy, nor were there any messages from their allies. Thus, they had no way of knowing what was happening at the east gate.

The reinforcements from Arnus should be here, and they needed a forward observer to guide their attacks, so he decided to send someone over.

But Rory could not bear it any further.

She jumped down from the three-story-high city wall and darted toward the east like a rabbit.