His Soul is Marching On to Another World; or, the John Brown Isekai

67th of Summer 5859

Sir Korvus’ Not-So-Humble Dwelling, Casamonu

Sir Corvus woke up, didn’t brush his teeth because dental hygiene hadn’t been invented yet, and then clapped his hands to call a servant to his bed for breakfast. He waited for a good second, and then he waited for a bad second, before finally realizing that nobody was coming. The young master got off his own hindside for once. It was certainly a struggle, and he made up his mind to whip the servants who had slacked off. Nearing the door, he heard some faint murmuring. A whole lot of it. Corvus opened the door to see a large congregation of servants, retainers, and other unmemorable personages of the castle arguing between each other.

“You tell him!”

“No, you tell him!”

“…people, he’s right there.”

The congregation immediately fell silent upon seeing their lord look at them with confusion. Corvus looked at them, they looked back at Corvus, and this would have gone on forever if not for Corvus opening his mouth. “What’s going on here? Speak, or you’ll all be hanging tomorrow!”

“S-sir!”

“Uhm…”

“Yeah… Nothing?”

Corvus could clearly see the congregation fidget and look at each other in anticipation. His birthday was a few months off, so this clearly couldn’t be a birthday surprise. Nor could it be an assassination attempt of some sort considering nobody had tried to stab him yet. What was going on? “Just tell me what’s going on!”

“Uhm…”

“Ahem…”

“So…”

Finally, a retainer with well-polished armor stepped forth. “Sir, the- the castle was infiltrated yesterday.

“And?” asked Corvus. He began pacing around while waiting for an answer with his brows furrowed deeply.

“And… Erm…”

“And?” asked Corvus once more. He had paced around to a window facing out towards the castle’s gate. There he saw a pile of ash where his lovely granary used to be. “…and.” He turned around to the congregation behind him as if he was waiting for them to confirm whether he hadn’t gone mad or not.

“…as you can see, sir.” concluded the well-polished retainer. “They burnt down the granary.”

“I can see that, you bloody fool!” Corvus’ plans about hanging someone for failing to serve him food had been thrown out the window now that excrement had hit the windmill. Now he wanted to hang someone for having doomed their defense. “Where are the fools who were guarding the gates yesterday?”

“We weren’t able to find them, sir. They apparently ran away yesterday.”

“The guards let the intruders burn the granary?!” To Corvus, it was obvious that the Demon King’s army was behind this. Who else would come in and bribe his guards to burn the granary down? “Find those lousy guards and… and…” It was way too late. There was nobody who could unburn the granary, since no magician in Gemeinplatz had dared study into something as silly-sounding as “unburning magic”. “…you know what, we don’t have time for that! Everyone! Listen up!”

Silence fell upon the congregation in the room. The retainers of Corvus, those who knew at least a little bit about war, could feel the fact that their food stores being destroyed in a siege was no good. The rest of the servants could feel the fact that the retainers were feeling no good. Nobody felt good about a bunch of evil demon-lovers entering their castle.

“Now, let me say this clearly: We’ll be starving to death in a couple of days.” That much had been clear since the start, but clear mention of it by Corvus caused shoulders to be slumped and faces to be sullen. There was doom, gloom, and despair in the air. Doomsday had arrived, the one consistently preached by priests, and the people here were about to meet it head on. “They have us surrounded. There’s no way we can simply escape unnoticed or unscathed. We have been unable to contact anyone outside the walls for reinforcements, and none will come before we run out of food and eat each other. Therefore!” He pointed out the window, towards the burnt granary “We have no choice but to sally forth and sortie, or we’ll all be razed like this granary!”

“Being razed doesn’t sound good…”

“It definitely doesn’t.”

“Mhm.”

The people around Corvus weren’t exactly motivated by their lord who had planned on looting the city and leaving in a similar fashion, but they couldn’t help but agree on the fact that they didn’t want to be the ones being razed.

“Then, if you agree that we should live standing than die kneeling, get everyone you can! We’ll easily ride the savages down!”

68th of Summer 5859

Below the disintegrating walls of Casamonu, Casamonu

Brown was pacing around the camp. His hair would have whitened from the stress if not for the fact that it hadn’t done that way before he had landed on Gemeinplatz.

“Armageddon, young lady, this is our Armageddon.” The old man was followed by Ayomide, and around them were the thousand or so free soldiers. “Here we shall sever the wicked, and from our wounds the Lord shall let freedom flow.”

From the perspective of the League, defending against a sortie wasn’t easy. The walls around Casamonu had two gates, and there was also one breach made by Ayomide right next to one of the gates, so there were three locations in total the defenders could sortie from. The two gates were in opposite directions to each other, which meant that the League had to practically divide their forces in two to anticipate the attack, which an attack would surely come if the defenders didn’t plan on starving to death while doing nothing. One force was being led by Brown and Ayomide while Tubman and Shinasi attended to the other.

“Old man, look.” Ayomide pointed at the top of the wall “They don’t have any men on the walls.”

“This means that they must have gathered everyone for an attack.” Brown stopped in middle of a group of troops. “This is good, they don’t even have anyone checking the walls itself. Our little surprise won’t be ruined.”

“Little surprise? I haven’t heard of such a thing.”

Brown smiled. “You’ll be hearing and seeing it soon, young lady. Providence provides to those who are patient.”

Ayomide shrugged, not wishing to dig further into the old man’s antics for now. “I’ve been more than patient, I’d say.”

“You need to be more than more than patient then, young lady.” Such quips were the only thing left to do while waiting for the attack. Brown had never considered what Julius Caesar must have been doing to pass the time while waiting for the barbarians to attack. The poor fellow must have died from boredom.

Suddenly, a soldier from the frontline screamed “I think I see them!” Their thought turned out to be correct. Brown saw the thick iron gates of the walls slowly roll up to reveal a mass of troops.

On the other side of the gate, Sir Corvus II had one simple command: “Cut them down!”

On one side was the men of Casamonu, comprised of Corvus’ retainers, the city’s garrison, reinforced with armed citizens and somewhat-armed adventurers. Sir Corvus’ personal retainers were very well armed, some having full steel plate armor combined with state-of-the-art culverins. These men, being of excellent noble and chivalrous breed, stayed back to let everyone else graciously take the brunt of the attack.

In front of the retainers were the city’s garrison, who had diminished greatly in quality and quantity during the recent period of turmoil that Casamonu had found itself in. Still, they were all armed with excellently tailored gambesons, and nobody could deny that their helmets looked mighty shine and fine. The garrison was frontmost, with their shields raised up and spears raised forward to protect the troops behind them.

Sandwiched between the noble and the ignoble folk were the truly ignoble folk: a collection of armed citizenry and paid adventurers. Casamonu’s citizens, like many other cities in the Empire, were obliged to defend the city in case of an emergency like a siege. Legally speaking, at least one adult in a household had to keep a weapon and a helmet ready, though the level of readiness was shaky due to the corners cut by the citizens looking to pinch pennies here and there.

Lastly were the adventurers, whose skills in defeating low level mobs was high, and their skills in defeating besieging armies was about to be tested.

On the other side were the men of the League. In terms of numbers, they were outnumbered about three-to-one. The fact that the army of Corvus had to trickle out the gate negated this a bit. Their equipment was a whole lot more standardized compared to Corvus’: a copper helmet/bowl, a copper spear, a gambeson, and a huge shield. They paled in comparison compared to Corvus’ fine retainers. What they lacked in equipment however…

“Hold the line! Keep those shields up! Do not move an inch!”

…they made up in discipline and training. The League moved as if it was one giant body unlike the cacophony of Corvus’ army. Sure, there were some kinks here and there, but the men of the League had quickly and efficiently formed a square before they had even met the enemy. No matter how much Corvus’ retainers circled, they wouldn’t be able to find an opening to charge in with their horses.

“Behave yourselves, do not charge yet! Wait for the adventurers to wear the enemy down.”

Corvus wasn’t an idiot however, so he kept his retainers back to let the lowly infantry smash against the square and create an opening. The retainers stayed back, the infantry began their charge, and one crossbowman fired the first bolt of the battle towards the square.

The Battle of Casamonu had begun.