—The Banseim Kingdom capital, Central.
In the throne room of the royal palace, Ceres sat upon a newly prepared throne, swinging her legs and looking thoroughly entertained. As the armored dignitaries stood in formation, the great doors at the front burst open and a messenger came rushing in.
"A messenger! The rebel army has surrounded Central! Their numbers are approximately six hundred thousand!"
Hearing this, the Banseim royals who had been standing beside Ceres began to panic. The rest simply listened to the report with expressionless faces.
Ceres heard the report, twisted her lips, and smiled. Her husband Rufus looked at her uneasily.
"H-Hey, Ceres. Will this be alright? We concentrated our forces in Central, but we're still being attacked on all fronts, and our numbers don't even reach two hundred thousand. W-What if we lose..."
With that, Ceres stood up. She turned her face toward Rufus.
"Lose? Me? Impossible. Absolutely impossible. After all, everything has gone exactly according to my calculations. No matter how the living army postures, they cannot defeat the dead. Besides, our forces aren't two hundred thousand."
Rufus tilted his head slightly.
"No, Ceres... Central has two hundred thousand troops..."
Ceres said to Rufus with a smile.
"All of our people — over one million of them — are now my soldiers. They will all fight for me. Because life and death no longer matter."
As Rufus stood there looking confused, Ceres giggled. And with that, she proceeded to leave the throne room. Accompanied by her escort — the butler Bart in his tailcoat, and Lumerel with her long black hair trailing along the floor, Ceres's favorite — she headed for the balcony.
What Rufus saw when he followed was beyond imagination.
The square was packed, without a doubt, with soldiers. But even for a capital, it wasn't just men. A capital naturally had people of all ages and genders — and every single one filling the square was a soldier.
"From the elderly to infants... they all sacrificed their lives for me. That is why every last citizen of Central has become a soldier."
Rufus stumbled backward in shock and bumped into someone behind him.
"M-Maisel, sir... no, Father and Mother as well..."
Maisel and Claire appeared on the balcony in full armor. Their eyes were hollow, and they didn't so much as look at Rufus.
"Ceres, there you are. The commander needs to maintain proper composure."
"That's right, Ceres. Hurry inside. If anything happens, we two will protect you."
At their parents' words, Ceres turned around and gave them a smile. The skirt of her white dress flared out, and her blonde hair swayed in unison.
"Okay~! But when a battle gets this big, you can't help but get excited!"
Seeing Ceres smile so innocently, Maisel wore a gentle grin.
"As expected of the daughter of House Walt. You have the blood of Landed Nobility flowing through your veins."
Claire tilted her head slightly, resting a hand on her cheek.
"If only you'd be a little more ladylike... Well, Ceres is adorable just as she is, so it's fine."
Surrounded by the two, Ceres headed back into the palace, looking happy. Rufus, watching her retreating figure...
"Ah, how dependable she is, Ceres."
...blushed slightly before following after her.
"Mobile fortress, fixed in position! Aim the cannons at the city gate! Central's walls won't fall that easily. Focus fire on one spot!"
The mobile fortress slowly advanced, then stopped with a heavy thud as stakes were driven into the ground.
Under the overcast sky, the mobile fortress stood imposingly before the main gate of Central.
Inside the control room of the mobile fortress, Vera issued a stream of orders.
"Don't put out the furnace fires just because the reactor is stopped! Tell the workshop to be ready for immediate response, since we don't know when it might reactivate!"
As I observed Vera issuing orders while seated, General Broa addressed me.
"Well then, we should head to a location where command will be easier. Lord Laiel, please call out to us when the time comes to charge."
Nodding, I raised my right hand slightly in acknowledgment and looked ahead.
"Well then, let's see how the opponent plays this from the first day."
This is a big battle.
Are they really going to show their hand right from the start...?
Monica, who was nearby, came to report to me.
"I've confirmed figures on the castle wall. However, there's no Skill reaction from those Chickens. They're already dead."
Flags were raised atop the castle wall, and on the other side, preparations for interception were well underway. I brought a hand to my mouth at the quiet start.
"...What about the siege weapons?"
Monica answered immediately.
"Seventy percent are ready. However, there's a noticeable gap in how quickly the alliance has mobilized. It seems many forces aren't fully prepared yet."
It was only natural that most hadn't experienced a battle of this scale. In their day-to-day, many countries fought wars involving hundreds, or at most a little over a thousand. They were probably shrinking back.
"Hurry them along. In the worst case, just make sure the barricades are built properly."
I already knew what kind of battles Ceres favored from fighting the forces dispatched from Central. Septem — perhaps due to Agrissa's influence — favored battles that inflicted massive casualties on both sides.
She waged wars without a care for attrition from the very start.
"...She'll make her move early."
When the catapults from the siege weapons and the magical exchanges began, spectacular explosions erupted all around. The start was ordinary enough, but the opponent's eerie quietness was unsettling.
As I watched magical attacks flying in get deflected by a barrier right in front of me and explode, I spoke.
"Ahead — the gate is opening."
—Laiel's main force.
Broa saw the enemy open the castle gates and began issuing orders to those around him. In the surrounding area, knights and mages were scrambling from the magical exchanges.
"They're attacking without any regard for their own casualties. Once you strip the dead of their emotions, they make awfully convenient soldiers. Well, not that I'd want them as my own subordinates. ...If they're just charging straight ahead without thinking, we can handle that."
As the messengers hurried off to relay orders, Broa watched the enemy charge forward undeterred by the magical exchanges between both armies.
They were screaming, but they looked utterly eerie all the same.
"...An army of the dead. Not funny at all."
Then, the enemies charging toward Lyle's main camp pierced through the magical bombardment exchanged between friend and foe.
Despite taking casualties from the spells launched from both the front and rear, they continued their assault without turning back.
General Broa covered his face with his right hand.
"True, we can't match their breakthrough power. But if it's just a matter of charging head-on, they're inferior to a horde of Monsters."
At that moment, Lyle's forces began to move. They split wide to the left and right, luring the charging enemy deep into their midst.
Siege weapons positioned at the rear began launching barrels packed with gunpowder, one after another.
It was one of the tactics Lyle had employed when fighting the horde of Monsters.
"If they fought like actual humans, it would have been a much tougher battle, though."
As General Broa spoke, the cavalry unit bearing down on him fell one after another into the trap, taking the allies directly behind them down as well. The forces further back simply trampled over their fallen comrades and advanced.
It was just like the charge of a Monster horde.
"Whoever came up with this has a nasty personality. Oil on the ground, gunpowder from the sky... and on top of that, a crossfire."
It was Lyle's idea, but the details had mostly been refined based on Miranda's suggestions.
As the enemy's vanguard faltered from the charge, the flanking units unleashed volleys of arrows and then gunfire.
However, looking at what was behind the charging unit, General Broa wanted to sigh.
"...I might just believe it if someone told me they were bottomless."
Watching the enemy continue to pour forth, his own forces calmly continued their strategy of maintaining distance and fighting.
— Baldoa Landberg was leading a unit armed with rifles, protected by installed barricades.
Ammunition was not an issue. Rifle maintenance was fine. The number of guns was also sufficient.
However.
"Fire! Show no mercy!"
Enemy soldiers who, even as bullets pierced through their abdomens and armor alike, refused to halt their advance.
The way they bled was wrong. They didn't look alive.
The unit positioned near Baldoa was the elves led by Eva. Armed with bows, they launched burst arrows — explosive projectiles — into the sky.
The arrows arced high in a parabolic spread, then rained down on the enemy formation and detonated — igniting the oil and engulfing the enemy in a sea of fire.
Many enemies had arrows embedded in them, their bodies blown half apart. And yet, they did not stop advancing.
Even enemies whose lower bodies had been blown off could be seen crawling through the sea of fire, trying to press forward with their upper halves alone.
The soldiers began to falter.
"What the hell — what the hell is that?!"
"...No way."
"They're jumping into the fire on their own..."
The enemy soldiers who hurled themselves into the sea of fire no longer seemed sane.
Baldoa raised his voice.
"Don't lose your nerve! This is the enemy we face! That is exactly why we must fight! Do not let them advance any further!"
It wasn't just that they had been charmed by Ceres. No — they weren't charmed anymore. They were being controlled. Baldoa was terrified of Ceres, who puppeted the dead like dolls.
(If we don't fight here, things would have certainly gone badly.)
As the full weight of Ceres's abnormality sank in once more, Baldoa issued orders to his subordinates —.
Meanwhile, in the royal palace, Ceres sat upon the throne, receiving reports.
"Lady Ceres, the fifty thousand soldiers who charged have been repelled to the last. Total annihilation."
The expressionless officials stood lined up in silence, maintaining the same posture from morning until night. They truly looked like dolls.
"Is that so? That's terrible, losing fifty thousand on the very first day. Still… it doesn't change the fact that we hold the advantage in numbers."
In Ceres's eyes, the lives of soldiers were worth less than garbage. The only distinction was that those who worshipped her were slightly higher-quality garbage than the rest.
Then Maisel spoke up toward Ceres.
"Ceres, it seems like That One has been preparing specifically to fight you. We could keep throwing soldiers at it and whittle down its forces, but I'd rather not play into its strategy."
Claire picked up where Maisel left off.
"Indeed. Even if the main force is ready, what about the rest? They may claim to have over six hundred thousand, but how many among them actually intend to fight us in earnest…"
Ceres listened to the two of them and answered with a smile.
"Then let's ignore that piece of trash tomorrow and challenge someone else instead. Still, the surrounding lords are so useless. We're out here fighting — they should be attacking from behind. Could it be… betrayal?"
Even feeling betrayed, Ceres kept smiling. And then.
"What about the hostages we're holding? Would they even care what happens to them? Let's make an example of them — do all sorts of things and display them on the city walls."
The one who spoke to the smiling Ceres was Bart. Expressionless.
"That won't be possible."
"…Huh?"
Ceres, irritated at having her good mood disrupted, glared at Bart. But he continued regardless.
"There are no hostages left alive. Every single one was either killed and repurposed as material for soldiers, or—"
Bart's gaze pointed toward the Monsters standing behind the dignitaries lined up in the audience hall. Among them were ones that had clearly failed, but every last one was unsettling.
Ceres clapped her hands.
"Oh, right… I used them in my experiments. Haa, going through the trouble of procuring corpses now and doing all that would be such a hassle. Well, once we've dealt with that piece of trash, let's go kill some people to pass the time."
Still smiling, Ceres decided to leave the lords aside and focus solely on the battle before her. Raier's thought about being flanked from behind had been valid — systematically conquering the surrounding territories and freeing them from Ceres's charm had served a purpose after all.
For Ceres, having nothing threatening Raier's rear was a source of frustration. But it was only frustration, nothing more.
After all.
"Hey, weren't there quite a few mercenary groups that came to our side?"
Bart said with a perfectly courteous bow.
"Yes. It seems they weren't hired by the Alliance, so they drifted over to us."
Ceres twisted her mouth into a grin, and Claire, who was standing beside her, gave her a warning. Ceres stuck out her tongue and said something cute like "Sorry," and Claire let out a sigh while allowing Ceres to carry on.
"...I got scolded. But we do have materials, right? Let's kill those guys and use them as fresh soldier material. How many of them are there?"
Bart went to give Ceres an accurate headcount.
"The number of combat-capable fighters who've gathered is—"
"That's not what I asked. I asked how many gathered total. Women and children make no difference. I'll graciously grant them all the honor of becoming my soldiers."
Bart, while saying "Pardon me," continued.
"Across all of Banseim — no, considering the entire continent has its eyes on this battle, we've assembled over fifty thousand. I haven't confirmed the numbers for the support — the behind-the-scenes personnel who sustain the mercenary groups, but there should be at least that many."
Ceres rose to her feet, staff in hand.
"Isn't that wonderful? More than enough to replace the soldiers we lost today. The more we fight, the more soldier material we'll acquire. I do hope that bastard is enjoying his despair."
No matter how many futile charges they repelled, for Ceres it was simply a victory from which she could recover as much as she pleased.
"Come now, let's enjoy this battle. I can hardly wait to see his face twisted in despair."
Ceres's laughter echoed through the audience chamber, and the dignitaries who had been perfectly still until that moment began to praise her. It was as though they were repeating actions that had been predetermined from the very start —.
Watching Ceres laugh from within the yellow Jewel was Agrissa.
She sat upon the throne, legs crossed, watching Ceres's form with evident delight.
"My adorable Ceres — do have a lovely little killing spree with my precious Raier. I'll dote on whichever one survives. Though if you ask me, I rather prefer Raier myself."
Agrissa smiled bewitchingly, amused by the sight of Ceres letting her guard down.
And she found Raier — who was stepping up to challenge Ceres — utterly precious.
"Raier, whether you can take down Ceres — that's something to see. But even with Novem at her back... Ceres won't fall easily. Still, once you overcome that, you'll truly be worthy of my love. I'm looking forward to it."
With those words, Agrissa smiled, and hearing Ceres's laughter, she laughed along—.