The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 11

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Imperial Commander Has Returned — Episode 11

‘Of all places, the front line.’

Delram gazed at the rows of barracks and turned the thought over in his mind.
Out of a thousand recruits, why did he have to draw the front line?
It was proof that his luck had gone catastrophically wrong.

Still, there was hope left.
The front line was bearable—as long as it wasn’t a front-rank unit.

‘But it’s a front-rank unit?’

The unit Delram had been assigned to was the 1st Unit.
The number at the front indicated the order in which the unit was deployed during combat.
So the 1st meant they would stand first—at the very vanguard.

First contact with enemies bristling with bloodlust?
And with allies pressing from behind, no chance to retreat?
It was nothing short of serving as cannon fodder.

‘Looks like unit assignments were drawn at random.’

The Training Camp commander’s authority probably extended only to appointing Decurions.
The front-line commanders would handle unit placement directly.
Otherwise, there was no reason they would have stationed Delram here.
It was a unit where at least half would die once battle began.

Whissh.

Delram stood facing forward with his spear extended straight ahead.
A posture as if he’d just thrust it.

What was strange was that nothing else was happening.
He simply stood motionless in that position, as though basking in the sun.

But anyone with a keen eye would notice.
Delram’s spear shaft was moving with extreme slowness.

“You’re doing well. Keep thrusting.”
“Uh…”

At Delram’s sudden words, Mark flinched.
He lifted the spear shaft he’d been about to lower and reset his stance.

This was the Training Ground.
Delram was both practicing and instructing Mark.

“But… aren’t you going to teach me how to block or evade?”
“Your allies fill the space behind you anyway. If you think you’re about to die, just throw your body straight backward. Your comrades will handle the rest.”
“I see.”
“That’s why don’t grip the spear too far forward. Keep your weight distribution back so you can dodge at any moment.”
“Got it.”

Mark nodded and glanced around the Training Ground.
Only the two of them were here in this vast space.
Even though there were hundreds of barracks not just in the squad where Delram served as Decurion, but all around, not a single person was training.
Mark found that strange.

Before coming to this place, Mark had never held a spear in his life.
Yet after only a few days of training at the Training Camp—and having learned nothing but the thrust—he’d grown remarkably familiar with the weapon.
If the Mark from before entering the Training Camp fought the Mark of now, he could probably knock him down without much effort.
As for Spear Technique, there was no question about it.
So then, shouldn’t everyone here be training until they’re spitting blood in the Training Ground, if they want to survive actual combat?

“You’re right about that, I guess.”
“Right? Right?”
“But we’re a frontline unit. The survival rate for the first battle is fifty percent. So what’s the probability that a soldier who’s deployed three times in a row will still be alive?”
“Well, I don’t know. Twenty-five percent?”
“Twelve and a half percent. That means nine out of ten men will be dead within a month—so what’s the point of freezing yourself to death training? Better to spend that time drinking a little more.”
“Ah…….”

Mark’s face had gone ashen.
He’d heard the talk of danger before, but nothing to this degree.
He’d thought that if he trained hard enough, there might still be a path to survival—but if that slim chance was only ten percent, well, it made sense to feel that way.

“But wouldn’t survival rates go up if people trained together? Like that Phalanx Formation thing you were talking about, Delram?”
“I don’t know.”

Mark wasn’t wrong.
If they all trained together, the chances of survival would definitely improve.
And the one teaching them was none other than Delram.
A prodigy who’d risen through tactics and strategy all the way to supreme commander—if he took charge, he could save at least half of those marked for death.

But that was impossible.
It wasn’t a matter of Delram’s skill; it was the problem of age.

-Sir, I’ll acknowledge you as a Decurion.
-You’ll acknowledge me?
-I will, sir…….

There hadn’t been serious fighting in the Barracks.
Just a few blows to demonstrate the gap in strength.

After all, these were soldiers who’d deployed at least once and survived.
Their blood was boiling hot, their minds wound tight as springs.
There was nothing to gain by needlessly provvoking such men.

-What is it you want from us?
-Nothing. Just live while doing what you have to do.
-What does that mean?
-As long as you don’t break military law, I won’t care what you do. Just treat me as a Decurion in front of others. If there are things I should do as a Decurion, I’ll do them.
-If that’s the case…….

The soldiers were satisfied, but Delram felt only bitterness.
They were the same unit, yet he could only watch them die.
But for now, there was nothing he could do.
Unless he recovered the strength he’d had before the Regression.

‘Well, there is one thing.’

The childhood friend whose special talent was driving nails through his parents’ hearts.
Now he was straightening out, training hard beside Delram like a proper young man.
At least he could protect this one fool.

With that resolve in his heart.
Delram smacked the back of Mark’s head.

Whack!

“Ah, why!”
“Just because I felt like it. Does that bother you?”
“Ah, no…….”

Delram chuckled softly and picked up his spear again.
This had happened four days before the first battle.

* * *

Thud-thud-thud-thud.

The entire world was trembling.
Or rather, Mark’s world was.

Whoooosh—

It was early autumn.
The season when the wind that was beginning to blow grew cool.
Of course, Mark wasn’t shaking because of the cold.

“Glory—”
“His Majesty, our great King—”

An enormous voice rolled across the Battlefield.
It was a speech meant to stir courage before the battle began.
But Mark couldn’t hear it properly.

Tens of thousands against tens of thousands.
It was a Battlefield where vast numbers of soldiers faced off.
The Plain stretched wide enough to accommodate them, and there were many people gathered.
Even if someone amplified their voice with magic, words shouted from the rear could scarcely reach Mark in such a place.
Mark was at the front, on the opposite side, after all.

‘I’m really out of my mind……!’

Instead, Mark felt his eyes grow moist.
What? Make a name for myself?
Be recognized for my talent and become a Knight?

Now he understood.
It was all nonsense.

And Father!
Now he understood why he had wailed so…….

‘At least I’m not alone.’

The one comfort was the comrades pressed shoulder to shoulder beside him.
Over the past few days, he’d kept a distant air with the eight other members of his unit.
Because Delram had beaten Mark along with them from the start, as if catching rats, he’d had no chance to grow close.

Of course, that had been fortunate.
Looking at the Recruits in the other Barracks, he realized that “becoming close” was synonymous with “getting beaten thoroughly.”

In any case, weren’t these his Squad mates!
Now that things had come to this, a camaraderie that had never existed before welled up in his chest.

Especially since these eight had survived many battles.
You could call them warriors of reversal!
So if he stayed right beside someone and simply mimicked their movements,
there was at least a chance he wouldn’t die.

Rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle.
“Aahhhhh…….”

But Mark’s hope crumbled almost at once.
The shoulders of his squad-mates pressed against his own.
What transmitted through them was trembling.
Worse than his own—much worse.

He tilted his head to look, and his suspicion was confirmed.
All eight of them were shaking like aspen leaves.
Fear of death, it seemed, was not something you grew accustomed to.

“Hey, relax.”

Yet there was one.
In the midst of this chaos, a single voice spoke without a tremor.
Delram, positioned at the center of the squad.

Delram seemed utterly unaffected.
No trembling, no anxiety—his gaze fixed solely on the barbarians before them.
He looked as though he had been born for war itself.

“Y-you, you, h-how, h-how are y-y-you…….”
“How am I not nervous, you mean?”
“Y-yes, that’s it.”
“Then look at my legs.”
“What?”

Mark glanced down at Delram’s legs.
The voice had sounded so calm, but they were trembling violently.

Even Delram?
Mark’s face drained of color, turning a sickly gray.
But then Delram’s trembling stopped abruptly.

“Just messing with you.”
“You bastard!”
“Right—so instead of tensing up so badly, curse me out instead. Like I said, stay glued to my side. Remember that.”
“Yeah, got it.”
“The rest of you too.”

Delram addressed the other eight recruits.
But none of them seemed to be hearing him—their eyes glazed with panic.
Even if they had listened, they would have trusted the experience of someone who’d survived multiple battles, not a thirteen-year-old boy.

‘That’s their own fate.’

Just then.
Had some final speech before the battle just concluded?
A long blast from a war horn cut across the battlefield.

Boooooooop—
“Waaaaahhhhh!”
“Chargeeeee!”

It was the command for a full frontal assault.
At that moment, soldiers with wild eyes surged forward.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!

Not a single soldier broke ranks or faltered.
Not just the front line, but the ranks behind it.
Wave after wave surged forward in relentless succession.
Stop here, and you’d be trampled by the soldiers pressing from behind.
Then you’d simply be crushed flat, nothing but dried flesh.

Delram and Mark were no exception.
Training had honed their strength, and they tore across the Battlefield with every ounce of it.

From the opposite direction, Barbarians came charging toward them.
Blood smeared across their faces and tattoos covering their skin—the sight was grotesque.
Seeing it was enough to make your knees weak.

But today was different.
Fear requires reason to exist.
In the frenzy where ally and enemy alike charged forward with saliva streaming from their mouths, there was no room for reason to take hold.

“Shields up!”
Crack!

Delram struck the back of Mark’s head and shouted.
Only then did Mark hastily raise his Shield.
Almost at once, a dull impact rippled across it, followed by another and another.
Arrows fell like rain, their collisions creating the percussion.

“Ahhh!”
“Gaaahhh!”

Screams erupted from both sides and behind them.
Soldiers who’d lost their nerve and failed to raise their Shields, or those unlucky enough to have limbs jutting beyond the Shield’s edge, took Arrows meant for them.

“Charge! Don’t stop!”
“Yaaaaaahhh!”

A mindless roar tore from Mark’s throat.
His vision blurred, and all he could see were the enemies ahead.
Soon even that faded from sight.

War horses have blinders fitted over their eyes so they’ll charge straight ahead without hesitation.
Mark and the soldiers had become like those horses.

Clash-clash-clang!
Crack-crack-crack-boom!

“Gaaahhh!”
“P-please! Spare me!”

The two front lines collided and became entangled.
They smashed with Shields and drove Scimitars forward to kill.

After the first clash came the melee, as always.
Now each had to survive on their own.
Until the illustrious Knights and mages joined the fray from behind.

“Gasp, gasp… gasp…!”

Blades flew from every direction, heads flew, and severed limbs sprayed blood like burst balloons as they scattered across the Plain.
Mark was among them.
His face vacant, as if his soul had fled.

He charged forward like a man under hypnosis, but it lasted only a moment.
The truth was Mark was just eighteen years old.
Somehow, thanks to the Training Camp, he still gripped a spear in his hands.
That alone deserved praise.

“A gutsy one, aren’t you!”

Of course, the enemy cared nothing for such things.
A Barbarian in a fur-lined coat brought his Scimitar down toward Mark.

……

Mark simply stared at it, dumbfounded.
The curved blade approaching his throat, wickedly sharp.
Death was inches away.
And yet it didn’t feel real at all.

Then something impossible happened.
A blade appeared from nowhere, suddenly erupting into view.

Slash!

It licked past the Barbarian’s throat and was gone.
So effortlessly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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