The Rising of Tanaka – 20
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Pasifista
Trampling Down
Republic of Gokuri – a large country located in the western part of the continent. Its origin was that of a small Gokuri city-state.
At the time, the city-states scattered across the western part of the continent were under the threat of the eastern neighboring great power that was Purin Kingdom. Unreasonable demands were thrust upon them from time to time. Depending on how they responded, economic measures would be taken in a retribution-like manner.
In such a situation, Gokuri reached out to the nearby city-states and organized a City-States Alliance. An alliance of economic cooperation to deal with the foreign pressure that was Purin Kingdom. Initially, it was merely an alliance of nine city-states in the same cultural sphere as Gokuri, but soon the number of participating city-states expanded, before eventually turning into a great alliance with most of the western part of the continent participating. And then, the content of the alliance also began to include military cooperation.
A few years later, the City-States Alliance was dissolved and the new Republic of Gokuri was founded. It was ironic that this newly emerged country of the western part of the continent immediately became a new threat to the other countries that had long stood prior to it. Republic of Gokuri proceeded to annex the remaining western countries one by one, before finally swallowing up the last remaining medium-sized country, Torochi Kingdom, by force. Here, the western part of the continent belonged solely to the great Republic of Gokuri.
The relationship between Republic of Gokuri and the neighboring Purin Kingdom was at its worst from the beginning. It was inevitable given the fact that they once suffered under the pressure of Purin Kingdom.
There were frequent differences between them and Purin Kingdom, causing a number of small armed skirmishes. Eventually, the idea of waging war against Purin Kingdom began to spread in the Republic. The upper echelons of Republic of Gokuri were dominated by the nine city-states that participated in the early days, so the country’s policy was leaning toward the war against Purin Kingdom.
However, city-states that had no connection with the pressure from Purin Kingdom, and city-states that were unhappy with the monopoly of the upper echelons by the nine city-states, began to show uncooperative attitudes to the upper echelons who were eager to wage war against Purin Kingdom. The upper echelons suppressed the dissidents under the declaration of national unity against the foreign pressure that was Purin Kingdom. While they were at it, they stepped up their suppression to unify even the cultural ideology. In response to this, however, the dissidents opposed even more strongly, and finally insurrections erupted all over the places. Plunged into a period of civil war, Republic of Gokuri gradually lost the power they had been accumulating since the early alliance days.
Year 5963 of creation calendar, the civil wars in Republic of Gokuri were as usual showing no signs of abating in the slightest. Then, in early summer, an incident occurred which turned around the situation completely.
The disappearance of magical energy incident – the magical energy in the whole world suddenly vanished, rendering most of the magic tools unusable for about a month. As a result of this incident, the civil wars were turned around, and the rebels began to suppress the national army.
The country side, which was mainly composed by the nine city-states, was outnumbered from the very beginning. The main factor they managed to keep up with the rebels was the high quality of their army. And the ones that mainly supported that quality were magic tools. Their usage of magic tools didn’t simply cover their weapons, as they also utilized them in other fields, such as treatment and transportation. Once that advantage was gone, however, the superiority of the national army was virtually gone. The qualities of the troops themselves still remained, but the difference in quantity overshadowed them.
The rebels gradually suppressed the national army in various places one after another. After that, the various cities then formed an alliance. The alliance was organized to return the country into the lax national alliance they used to be. The cities that had been taking a neutral stance also approved of this alliance. By the time magic tools could be used again, the tide was already leaning toward the Western National Alliance. At this point in time, the influence of Republic of Gokuri had receded only to the nine cities that were originally of the same cultural sphere.
Then, in the spring of year 5964 of creation calendar, the 20,000 troops of the Republic of Gokuri and the 50,000 troops of the Western National Alliance were about to confront each other in the Tenohira plains in the western part of the nine cities.
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A fat General, who led the Republican armies, looked at the opposing Alliance armies with an irritated look on his face.
「Hmph, those damn rebel armies. Getting so ahead of themselves…. But this is as far as they go. Don’t you think so too, Brutus-dono?」
The person spoken to by the General nodded quietly. That person, Brutus, was a petite woman, clad in robes which exposed only a small part of her face.
She was one of the leading experts in the group of magic tool researchers in the Republic. The reason why she showed herself in this war was to test out the new weapon they had developed.
「First of all, let us test the strength of our newly reorganized, transformed army. All troops, charge!」
The Republican armies, under the command of the General, began their march. As if in response, the Alliance armies also began their march. Thus raised the curtains of Tenohira Plains war.
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The war continued in the exchange of offense and defense manner. Although the Alliance armies were overwhelmingly outnumbering their adversaries, the momentum of their numbers was brilliantly repelled by the Republican armies. This was made possible through the high mobility of the newly reorganized army, their individual high level ability and the power of the magic tools supplied to them.
Eventually, the war came to a stalemate. It seemed that the power of the Republican army, who was evenly matched against an enemy more than twice as large, was able to satisfy the General.
「Hmm. That’s not too bad. I’m sure they’re powerful enough to conquer those damn city-states in the future… Alright, momentary retreat! Focus on long-range attacks to keep the enemy from attacking back!」
The Republican army retreated. At the same time, the number of magical attacks, arrows, and stone catapults fired by the Republican armies increased. The Alliance armies were unable to go on the offensive, but they let out cheers for having forced the Republican army into retreat. Watching such Alliance armies with an irritated look, the General spoke to Brutus.
「Well then, Brutus-dono, our troops are about to finish retreating soon. Can I ask you to begin the preparation? The magic weapon that cost more than the reorganization of the army. Please let us see the fullest extent of its power.」
The General instructed Brutus to attack in a slightly venomous tone. However, Brutus showed no signs of being concerned by it, as she simply held up the magic tool in her hand. It was a wand with a large black crystal embedded on it. The crystal enshrined on the head of the wand began to glow faintly. It was the power of domination, now, the dominated weapon was about to be set in motion.
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The Alliance armies were raising cheers. Among them, one of the soldiers noticed a shadow beyond the sky and stopped moving. At his sudden conduct, one by one, the other soldiers turned their faces to the sky and froze as well.
That was the direction in which the Republican army had retreated to. Before they noticed it, the Republican armies had stopped retreating, and were standing in lines watching at their directions. Furthermore, a flock of jet-black dragons passed over them and headed to their side. The dragons were then gradually lowering their altitude. This was when the Alliance armies began to realize something. They realized that they were the target of those dragons….
As uproars began to break out in the Alliance armies, the dragons began their breath attack at almost the same time. Explosions occurred all across the ground. The shouting and screaming of the Alliance armies echoed. From there, it was a one-sided trampling down.
The dragons didn’t drop below a certain altitude as they continued with their breath attack. Some of the Alliance soldiers tried to attack back, but their arrows failed to reach the dragons, and their magic attacks were half as powerful at that distance, so they couldn’t deal any decent damage either.
A part of the Alliance armies were guild members. Some of them knew the theory of dragon slaying, but they were focused on running away. The basics of dragon slaying, as taught in the guild, were that the first thing to do was to cripple the dragon’s wings. It was because you held no chance against a dragon which could fly freely.
The dragons that were attacking them right now were focused on fighting while utilizing their wings. There was virtually nothing they could do about it now. In the first place, you had to first gather a number of skilled men to defeat a dragon. So it was impossible to defeat those dragons in this situation from the start.
Each of the Alliance’s soldiers scrambled for their lives away from this slaughter place. However, it was the dragons that showed them nothing but despair. Leaving a part of the flock continued to fly in the sky, several dragons descended to the ground as though to encircle the Alliance armies. With a flick of the dragon’s arm or tail, a number of soldiers were slaughtered.
To the east, the Republican army stood in wait for them, and to the west, south and north, the dragons were slaughtering them. From the skies above, several of the dragons continued to shower breath attacks on them. Alliance soldiers were falling one after another. The soldiers of the Republican Army were watching such a situation with glee.
「Hahahahaha! So this is our country’s newly developed weapon. It surely didn’t spend national funds for nothing. It’s very amazing, Brutus-dono.」
The General, who led the Republican army, also let out a laugh of joy as he watched this slaughter scene. In contrast, Brutus, who was being praised by the General, didn’t show any emotion, and simply tried to calmly and ruthlessly control the dragons to annihilate the Alliance armies.
When the General and Brutus were in the midst of it, however, something suddenly caught their attention. Something seemed to be shining in the midst of their army. The soldiers in the area were quickly distancing themselves from there, and a circular empty area was created in their midst. And then, foreign figures suddenly appeared there.
One was the embodiment of death – a figure in jet black robes and a scythe. And the face peeking out of the robe was that of a skull.
One was a muscle – a large, muscular man. He was clad in nothing but jet-black speedos.
One was ordinary- a common middle-aged man who was too out of proportion to the other two. The only thing he had in common with the other two was the jet-black cloak he was wearing.
The Tenohira Plains war was about to enter a new phase with the appearance of these foreigner figures.
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