I Became the First Prince

The Roaring Lions of the North (2)

“If you have cursed this one so, will the others not charge out of anger?”

I was asked if my insult had been universal to all orcs, and I shook my head.

The majority of orcs here never had so much as seen the shadow of the Fire Dragon, so to them, my words had been naught but incomprehensible bullshit.
Any orc that survived a fight with the fire dragon would be rather proud of it, as fighting a mighty enemy made any orc chuffed, even if they were defeated.

However, the Overlord had been angered by my words as if he had received the gravest of insults.
If he had been truly lucky to survive a battle against Hwaryong, there would be no reason for my words to make him mad.
So this was how I discovered how the Overlord truly survived battling against the fire dragon: It was obvious that he had fled in terror from Hwaryong, and that was something that a proud greenskin should never do, even more so if he’s the leader of an army.

“But you must still be worried,” said Ophelia, saying that how the warlord had survived was not what was important now.
She was correct, for the most important task now was to drive out those who have invaded my territory.
That said, I couldn’t help but ponder on it: If the Overlord possessed special abilities that I was unaware of, which had helped him to survive against the fire dragon, I had to know of them.

But such thoughts were tiring, and I concluded that the Overlord survived not because he was special, but because he had hidden behind others and run away faster than them.

His reaction to my provoking words, his half-molten body: These were all evidence.

If a commander of giants properly came under the flaming breath of Hwaryong, it melted until nothing was left, so the Overlord would not be in the shape he was in now had he been brave.

And as such concerns were cleared from my mind, I was able to focus on the battle at hand.

“This war,” I muttered as I looked at the knights around me.
“Kill the leader and finish it.”

Bernard Eli wagered that it would not be as simple as I had declared, for the number of monsters gathered upon the snowfield was great indeed.

At his words, I gave a bloody laugh.

“With one Sword Master, you can block an advancing legion.
If you have two Masters, you can break through the encirclement.
Add one more, and you become able to destroy the entire legion.”

And here were five Sword Masters, not three.
The number of enemies we faced was too large to be destroyed, but it would not be difficult to break through the ranks of monsters.

I looked at my knights: Arwen stood sturdy without trembling.
Adelia was wiggling her sword as if about to charge out immediately, and Eli was filled with excitement.

And I didn’t know why, but the old man was in a better mood than he had been in a while ago.
It was possible to defeat the Overlord with them, but there was one problem: After having been under intense fire from cannons and crossbows, the Overlord went and hid himself.
I did not feel his fervor, nor the energy signature so peculiar to him.
I had offered him irresistible insults, and we had even goaded him by lighting fires, but Urdu still seemed to have no intention of showing even the tip of his nose.

I decided that it was enough, as I was now sure that the Overlord had hidden.

“I thought that, because he had survived the battle with Hwaryong, he must be very talented,” I mused, now seeing the truth, for an Overlord hiding behind his minions was an even more embarrassing creature.

“I have to wait and see.”

First off, the number of monsters upon the snowfield had to be reduced to some extent.
That way, the Masters and I would be able to reach the Overlord while still preserving some of our energy.

I knew that if I went through that large army as it was now, at best, I would be exhausted and killed by Urdu once I reached him.

I decided to wait, and so a day passed, and two days more.

Winter Castle’s forces proved surprisingly adept at defending against the monsters.

The Overlord still did not appear on the front lines, and another two days passed.

The tide of monsters was endless.
Even if we slaughtered them all night long, the monsters crawling out of the mountains quickly filled the gaps we had created.

Monster carcasses crushed by cannonballs were scattered all over the snowfield, as well as those torn apart by arrows, bolts, and magic.
The carcasses of the monsters who had died under the swords and shields of the knights had formed a mountain beneath the wall.

The monsters were now gaining the wall without difficulty as they stepped upon this mound of corpses.

The Masters had been dispersed all over to counter the assaults of the larger monsters, and the knights took turns in supporting them.

Winter Castle was truly impregnable, and even now that twice than 50,000 monsters were pressing upon the fortress, the defenders seemed able to block their attack.

Nevertheless, the battle was not over.

Once the monsters grew hungry, they would eat the carcasses of their own kind that littered the snowfield, and then retreat and sleep.
And while they did so, the monsters swarming out of the mountain would charge at the wall.
Their numbers were truly ridiculous.
It was as if not only all the monsters of the Blade’s Edge Mountains but also those of Mount Seori had come here.
It was a great army that reached 100,000 by rough estimate.

Still, considering the number of those in the Enraged Flame Legion that the Overlord had mobilized in the Great War, the current force seemed paltry in comparison.
At that time, only the Elite War Legion alone numbered in their hundreds of thousands.

However, this was not the time of the Great War.

The Overlord has just newly reappeared, and the dark green waves that had once swept over the world existed no more.
The term ‘Prosperous Greenskin Kingdom’ was now an anachronism.

The problem was that the same counted for our side.
Winter Castle’s power was now greater than it had ever been in history, but it was still inferior to the might of the elite fortresses of the ancient humans.
As time passes, humanity will regain its glory, but it will not be an instant process.

And the Overlord seemed unwilling to wait until humans regained their might.
Maybe that’s why the cunning Urdu has appeared so hastily in the world: Before the legion of man regained their ancient castles.

If I was Urdu, I would also have seen it: The fact that the heroes of old, who had once blocked the paths of the orcish war legions, existed no more.

So he believed humanity would be easy to trample upon.

Urdu has made an obvious mistake and a very big mistake.

Here were thick-boned and stout-armed knights and soldiers, battling monsters.
Here were wonders that those elite fortresses of the ancient front line did not know of, and it would not be easy to find troops as experienced as these even in the Great War.

And I filled the final missing part, so what we had was enough.
I wagered that the country of Leonberg didn’t even exist in the Overlord’s calculations.

And his first spell of bad luck was the fact that I arrived at the castle on the very day that he chose to reveal his existence.
His second stroke of bad luck was the fact that he had chosen to invade my land from among all the other human realms.
Now I was just looking for the opportunity, awaiting the coming of the ideal moment.

But time passed, and Overlord Urdu did not show up.
All he did was urge his legions of monsters to crash against the walls of Winter Castle, day and night.

Winter Castle’s troops gradually got tired.
Their morale and fighting spirit was still there, but there was no way to circumvent their physical limitations.

The way in which the monsters fought was true evil: They did not distinguish between day and night and never reformed their lines.
If a weary monster fell behind, rested, then a vigorous monster fresh from the mountains would charge at the wall and strengthen the assault.

And even at this moment, the mountain was vomiting forth more monsters.

More carcasses piled up, and ogres and trolls began to form a mound with monster corpses on the area of snow directly adjacent to the wall.
The rangers fired arrows at once, in hopes to disturb such labor, but the large monsters did not care.

The mountain of carcasses had once reached only about halfway up the wall.
It now grew high enough to overlook the ramparts themselves.

‘Bwang!’ combat wizards cast fireballs, tearing down the corpse mountain and burning some of the carcasses.
However, due to the great number of dead monsters scattered upon the snow, the corpse mound was quickly rebuilt.

I was anxious, for I wanted to draw my sword and jump into the hordes of monsters right away.

I kept such impulses in check, for I knew that the moment I drew my sword would be the moment that the Overlord revealed himself.

“This is not like a normal war,” said Vincent as he approached me.

“What?”

“We have to think differently in these battles.
In the past, you would’ve already walked all over the wall and finally urged me to open the gates.”

I could not deny his words.

“We will not be able to return to those old days, will we?” said Vincent with a bitter smile.
“Now that you have become the Crown Prince, it is only natural that you rest your body.
As before, if you now turn to the right or turn to the left, only your subordinates will suffer.”

Before I could form a reply, Vincent spoke on.

“Trust in your servants,” he said and pointed across the wall.
Rangers were constantly firing arrows, and the knights upon the walls were pushing back monsters.

Although they seemed tired, their faces were full of fighting spirit, and no fear was to be seen.

“Thank you.”

Only then did it sink into my mind: Winter Castle never submits.

And as soon as such confidence entered my heart, my impatience disappeared as if it had been an illusion.
My once-narrowed vision was now clear and open.
My gaze had been confined to the walls – now it roved over the snowfields and the mountains.

Only then did I realize: There were no new monsters pouring in from the mountains.
The number of monsters that the Overlord could mobilize seemed to have peaked.

The battle continued as orcs rushed over the corpse mound piled against the wall.
The number of monsters upon the wall was greater than at any prior time, and the rangers now wielded swords and spears instead of bows.

Knights slashed out in all directions as they stemmed the tide of onrushing monsters.

And just then, an old man knelt in front of me.

“Your Highness! Please allow the troops of the Central Army and the Knights of the Palace to participate in the war!”

There was no reason for me to hesitate, and when I nodded, Nogisa jumped up and fired off an order to the palace knight behind him.

“Push the enemy out with the Central Army!”

“Ha!” the palace knight gave a brief salute and headed down the wall.

Shortly thereafter, he reappeared with the heavy infantry of the royal family behind him.
They were garbed in red cloaks and their bodies fully armored in iron armor, which the troops of Winter Castle did not prefer due to the freezing iron sticking to their bodies.

‘Chuck, chuck, chuck~’

The heavy sound of footsteps reverberated all over the walls, not matching the tumult that was playing out in battle.
The heavy infantry formed themselves up in a single rank behind the rangers.

The heavy infantry did not budge an inch, for even as curses and shouts rang out before them, and as blood flowed, they merely held out their shields and breathed roughly.

“Your Highness, you used to resent the fact that his Majesty was helpless, with his power taken away,” Nogisa, who guarded over me, suddenly said after he had given orders to the palace knights.
“But his Majesty did not have all his might removed.”

The Central Army moved before I could respond to the words of the old knight, words so calm that they did not fit the situation.

“Shield wall!”

“Ha!”

Two thousand central troops raised their shields at once from where they stood at the rear of the cramped wall.

‘Shud!’ their footsteps were far heavier than the lighter tread of the rangers.

“Advance!”

“Ha!”

Heavy infantrymen pushed forward with their shields held in front of them.

“Shields aside!”

At the command of the palace knights, heavy infantrymen turned their shields aside and grabbed onto the necks of rangers.

‘Ochk!’ choked one, startled.

“Bastards!” cried a ranger.

“These mad lads!” exclaimed another.

Rangers cussed and swore and cursed as they were hurled back.

“Close!” and meanwhile, the heavy infantry which has surged forward brought their shields to the fore once more.

‘Shkk!’ even if two thousand shields had moved, they emitted a single sound, so precise was the maneuver.

It was a rare sight to behold.
The monsters fiercely roared as they charged at the shield wall.

‘Thud!’ the heavy infantrymen braced themselves at once as the monsters’ blows rained down upon their shields.

‘Klshh!’ the ranks of heavy infantry staggered back, yet there was not a single gap.
The sturdiness of these troops was far superior to the central heavy infantry that had fought in defense of the Rhinethes.

‘Schtuck!’ the infantry angled their shields, and their swords slashed out at once through the gaps they had created.

‘Aoow!’ the monsters struck by the swords cried out – and that was all.
It is not easy to inflict fatal injuries, to cleave through the tough, leathery hides of the monsters.
Not many monsters fell to mortal wounds under the infantry’s counterstrikes.

The surviving monsters rallied, and their attacks grew fiercer, fueled by the pain of their wounds.

‘Dshoo! Dshoo!’

And then, hundreds of roaring explosions sounded out, and the monsters facing the shield wall were felled at once.

“Here is the true reason for his Majesty’s desire for a fellowship with the dwarves,” came Nogisa’s voice into my battered ears.

“Here is one of the secret weapons, the unbroken sword that the royal family has kept hidden.”

This was the thing that had caught my eye: The heavy infantry had hooked iron cylinders over their shields.

“That is the Royal Heavy Armored Squadron,” continued Nogisa.

The acrid smell of gunpowder broke right into my nose.