The army officers reported to us one by one.

"Reporting, the enemy has changed their formation to a wide left-to-right deployment."

Count Ambroise, Leonhardt and Gabriel nodded.

Nothing in particular changed.

We all sat cross legged with Myla leaned on my shoulder.

"Reporting, a small enemy night raid squad tried to detour and is now starting to engage with our left wing."

"Reporting, there will be a delay in the arrival of supplies. We are currently in the process of confirming."

Count Auclair made a bitter face, though it wasn’t anything rare on the battlefield.

Rather, it would be praiseworthy if such a thing happened on schedule every time.

It was right when Sekrit and Demia walked into the large tent.

"Reporting in! An enemy squad suddenly appeared on the north road――"

Our eyes followed the mentioned location on the map.

The place was directly behind us.

Everyone froze in place.

Did they circle around us at night?

I didn’t think they slipped through our surveillance, and the enemy in front of us hadn’t decreased.

"How many!?"

Gabriel bellowed.

"I am not sure but must over 10,000 men. terrifying amount of carts and the symbol of the enemy’s eastern army flag have been confirmed! It’s the enemy’s eastern army that circled behind us!"

According to the map, the enemy eastern army should be far off to the southeast of us.

To actually be just north of us…… what’s going on here?

"Check the details immediate..."

Ambroise’s words were silenced by an earth-rumbling sound rising from the enemy lines.

"The enemy is making a move! This is…… a full scale attack, it’s a full scale attack!"

"Don’t tell me, this was all planned……?"

"Did they aim for this from the very beginning and lead us to this place……"

Now we’re in trouble.

I wrapped Myla in layers of blankets out of concern, and once again she protested.

The realization sank in that the enemy had executed a meticulously planned maneuver, catching our forces off guard and surrounding us. Officers walked in and out of the tent to give real time reports.

"They’re behind us!? What is the scouting unit doing!?"

"Did they breakthrough? Or did they go around?"

Our allies ran around in a flurry.

"More importantly, a full scale attack is coming. We should focus on dealing with that first."

"You must be joking, you think we can fight with the enemy behind us!? We should change our location!"

Angry yelling flew back and forth.

"If several thousands have circled behind, then that should mean the force in front has thinned. We can launch an attack……"

"The report said it was the eastern army. In that case, the armies are two separate entities. Simply put, we are being pressed from two sides!"

"But wasn’t the eastern army located far away from us? How did they detour――"

In a panic, hurried plans were suggested left and right.

It was utter chaos.

Leonhardt gave cue to me with his glancing. He told me before he had prepared escape plan.

"So, what should we do?"

"Hggh…… mrrgh……so hot……"

I raised the question to Ambroise as I wrapped a third blanket around Myla.

The only one who could put an end to the disorder is him, the local lord, Count Ambroise himself.

Ambroise waited about a minute in silence before standing up.

"Everyone will focus on stopping the attack in front of us. Do not worry about what is going on behind us."

"There is no need to spare any arrows. Hit them with everything."

When the officers looked like they were about to say something, Ambroise added an order to seal their mouths.

"As for Commander Hiro, I want you to use your high mobility army to engage the enemy to our rear."

"You want me to defeat them on my own?"

This man was crazy.

Compared to the many thousands of enemy forces, my army consisting of my personal soldiers brought from Hezri Kingdom and the Marquis Cyril de Montfort soldiers added up to a mere 3,000.

"If possible, yes…… if not, at least uncover more details about the enemy."

In other words, this was like a brute force scouting mission.

What kind of a strategy was that?

"Puhah! Power scouting?"

The situation was dire, and his plan seemed risky at best. Engaging the enemy to our rear with such a small force was a recipe for disaster.

Count Ambroise noticed my skepticism and sighed heavily before speaking again. "Commander Hiro, I understand that this plan sounds reckless, but we have limited options at the moment. If we ignore the enemy behind us and focus solely on the front, we'll be caught in a pincer attack with no chance of survival. By engaging the enemy to our rear, we can buy ourselves some time and gather crucial information about their strength and intentions."

Leonhardt and Demia furrowed their eyebrows, staring at him in scepticism.

 Myla popped her head out from the blankets.

She looked very sexy with a slight bit of sweat glistening on her skin, however I didn’t have time to embrace her now.

"Right now, we are in a situation where we don’t know if they actually have tens of thousands or whether it actually is the eastern army…… any information would help."

Gabriel backed Ambroise up but he sounded hesitant.

The difference in the strength of our armies was large, although I guess it’s fine considering we didn’t need to fight to the death.

Let me check with Leonhardt.

Well, he wasn’t saying anything, which probably means he had no problem.

We separated from the main force, who would begin their fierce fighting soon, and headed north.

"Enemy sighted. It didn’t look like they’re trying to hide anymore…… they’re marching in the middle of the road."

Split up into several smaller groups, the enemy army marched boldly with their flags held high.

Ambroise light cavalry could also be seen running around the perimeter, although they couldn’t do anything.

"There looks to be over 10,000. It wasn’t a miscount."

"Yeah."

Leonhardt and I exchanged a few words as the attack order was given.

My personal cavalry rushed forward while the Marquis cavalry also charged with their swords drawn.

"A defense formation is being taken by the enemy."

Without any sense of panic, our opponent transitioned into an anti-cavalry formation.

"For argument’s sake, it doesn’t seem impossible if everyone was on horseback like the bow cavalry……"

"Based on what I see, their ratio of cavalry is not that large. At the very least, more than 2,000 are some kind of infantry."

Many spearmen and crossbowmen set up in front with archers shooting arrows from behind them.

Our allies stopped charging and the bow cavalry returned fire as they distanced themselves.

"I don’t see the countless carts from the initial reports. Everything from this point will be purely conjecture."

"Tell me."

Light cavalry ran out from the enemy lines to cross swords with the royal army cavalry.

"I believe the enemy has a unit dedicated to transport, which maintained its composition of large carriages."

"So you’re saying they transported the entire eastern army?"

The barrage of arrows from our Dalish archers killed dozens of enemies, quickly making the enemy cavalry, who had no intention of chasing deep, pull back and reorganize themselves at a location where they can keep us in check.

Our bow cavalry slowly chased them, continuing the shootout with arrows, however Gheyna had told them to keep casualties to a minimum and therefore were firing outside enemy range.

Naturally, that would mean a decrease in power, accuracy and fatal blows inflicted.

"Even if they used large carriages, don’t you think they got here too soon? A little more than a week has passed since the start of this operation. The eastern army was transported from that far away?"

Wagons were definitely fast, but not as fast as cavalry.

Besides, horses needed water and food to move too, so it’s not like they could run non-stop.

Furious shooting by the bow cavalry pushed the enemy back tremendously and the rearguard soon made their appearance.

"There are two possibilities. The first is that the eastern army circled around through Guiscard’s territory."

Count Guiscard could not preserve border security when they were just recovering from a disastrous victory over Saxon-Fanoss Union besiegers.

"That will end up requiring them to take a longer route."

Leonhardt used a finger to tap a point on the map with the words “eastern army” written on it.

"Which brings me to the second possibility. Did an eastern army exist in the first place?"

What does that mean?

"We only confirmed the over 10,000 of the eastern army at the start of battle. After that, their march was clearly slower than that of the western and southern armies."

"Surely Ambroise also had scouts attached."

Leonhardt didn’t say anything.

With distance opened up by my personal cavalry and marquis cavalry, they began to have a stare off against the enemy.

The enemy’s neatly-formed anti-cavalry wall approached our army at a crawling speed.

"Very little scouting and information analysis was done. What would happen if the army was pretending to be there or if a spy participated in the analysis process?"

I didn’t know that much.

"I suspect the eastern army moved immediately after the end of the first engagement and then met up with the transport squad. It was a card left in their hand which they could play at any time they wanted."

After Leonhardt said that, he gave orders for my personal cavalry cavalry and the Marquis cavalry to halt their attack.

The army before us was strong and had endless ranks of soldiers.

It’s impossible for us to breakthrough.

"If we can’t get out from the back, we’re going to be surrounded."

"Yes, in this scenario we should be prioritizing low losses rather than victory."

I kicked my horse’s belly and turned in a different direction.

I saw Sekrit tilting her head for once.

Again, she joined the fight and got herself covered in blood from the chest up.

"A thorough retreat, detour and encirclement…… a formation in the Olga’s style…… perhaps…… if that’s true, then this is quite odd."

She ran off somewhere while mumbling to herself.

"As reported, the enemy forces over 10,000. Getting past them with a half-decent army is impossible……we’re falling back."

We turned our heels and headed back to headquarters.

The enemy remained calm and collected, spreading out the army’s wings before resuming their advance south.

Ambroise slumped his shoulders after hearing my report.

If we tried to force our way through, we would fail miserably and suffered heavy losses.

"The enemy in front of us is not any easier. At this point, we’re fighting hard just to hang on."

Distress was clearly shown on Gabriel’s face.

"The enemy behind us will likely arrive by evening. Of course having our backs threatened is a scary prospect……"

"More importantly, the morale of our soldiers will drop if they find out their escape route has been sealed."

Auclair was slumped over the desk with his hands on his head.

"Is there any way?"

Myla and Demia stared at the placements of ally and enemy on the map as they were pondering a solution.

It looks like they couldn’t come up with a countermeasure.

"If we want to free ourselves from this situation, we should swiftly squash the enemy’s frontal attack, then move at least half our forces to deal with the rear threat. That way, instead of being sandwiched on both sides, we’ll only be fighting the enemy in front of us. We should be able to fight on equal terms until a problem arises with supplies."

Ambroise shook his head at Leonheardt’s suggestion.

"Like I said earlier, the enemy’s frontal assault is no joke. We won’t be able to hold out if more than 20% of our strength is shifted."

Leonhardt sat back down, muttering “is that so” to himself softly.

Does that mean we had no options?

"If we can’t win, we should run. It’s better if we prepare now because things will get worse once we get surrounded."

Retreating when the enemy was relentlessly attacking was a difficult task, though still better than retreating when surrounded.

"The enemy will pursue us persistently…… the casualties will be massive."

"We don’t have much choice."

Gabriel’s opinion got cut down.

"Considering the damage we will suffer, enemy and ally strength will be reversed. We will once again be on the defensive."

"With that said, there is no meaning in standing our ground when our desire to win is gone."

Ambroise sighed and gave the order.

"Order all units to retreat. Retreat while minimizing losses!"

The war council ended and the entire headquarters took action.

"I hope we can retreat successfully."

Leonhardt said as I proceeded to wrap Myla with a blanket, who rejected me.

"If we allow a 30% loss of our forces, it will be possible. When we regroup close to Toulouse, we can create a situation where the enemy can’t carelessly attack."

As expected, the state of battle deteriorated at once.

It’s natural when the soldiers were slowly retreating.

When it came to the soldiers’ morale, saying “hold on” was fine, but saying “start retreating” would make it drop.

Retreating practically meant losing and even the lowest ranked soldier knew defeat was directly linked to the endangerment of life.

It was actually a testament to the ability of the Ambroise army that they maintained order and didn’t fall apart completely at the same time they were told to retreat.

"The right wing is about to collapse. Send reinforcements."

"No, I won’t send any. We should instead have the left wing step back to ensure they aren’t isolated."

"Pull the spearmen from the center and have them retreat. They aren’t mobile so they’ll be left behind if they stay in the front."

The Ambroise army didn’t stay still and inch backwards bit by bit.

Soldiers were being kept in line while the speed of retreat increased.

"I’m sure the enemy knows our intentions by now. They’ll be violently bulldozing their way in."

The enemy mounted a forceful attack in a rough formation.

If we were aiming to counterattack, they were using a rather dangerous tactic. They could only do it because they knew we wouldn’t.

"Yes. It’s safe to say that the enemy has a clear understanding of our situation. We are falling behind because of our lack of intelligence."

Leonhardt commented as he gave a few more small orders.

"Should we head to the front and try stopping the enemy?"

With how reckless they’re being, we could find an opening to kill a few officers and stop their momentum even a little bit.

Leonhardt grabbed my hand before I could ride on my horse.

"You will absolutely not go out. I need Your Majesty to stay here."

"I’m not going to mount a full counterattack. I’ll just go wild a little――"

Leonhardt repeated himself.

"You will not go."

"……fine."

Leonheardt’s unexpected insistence convinced me to remain here.

Myla and Sekrit came to my side after I was left feeling irritated from being won over by Leonhardt.

"Hihi, it was pretty comical watching that unfriendly guy talk you out of doing something."

Sekrit chuckled in amusement.

On the other hand, Myla had a serious look on her face.