Chapter 1685 - 234 - The Duchy of Lerbia (1)

Leon's POV

The war had officially begun, and by this point, the fighting had already reached Milham, turning what had initially seemed like a distant conflict into something that was happening right on our doorstep.

Almost a month had passed since the war started, and the situation had become considerably more serious compared to how things had been when the first battles broke out.

Currently, I was stationed near the outer border of the Great Forest, which also meant that I was relatively close to the border separating us from the Demon Continent.

The people from the Empire were attempting to invade our countries, and they were doing so with highly modernized cannons that still retained some fairly traditional designs.

Quite a few of those cannons appeared to have been specifically designed with the intention of bringing down the Guardian 2.0, which was probably the worst possible target they could have chosen if they were hoping for an easy victory.

I didn't think those weapons would actually be powerful enough to destroy the Guardian 2.0, but I couldn't deny that the constant bombardment was doing a surprisingly good job of putting pressure on it.

They weren't exactly scratching it with sticks and hoping for a miracle, either, because the sheer number of cannons firing at once was enough to make the entire battlefield shake whenever they opened fire.

Lilia, who was essentially serving as one of the commanders during the war, had been handling her position surprisingly well despite how little experience she had with actual warfare.

Alongside Veronica, she had been crushing the enemy forces with relative ease, and the two of them had managed to keep the damage on our side at a remarkably low level.

"As long as things continue progressing like this, I don't think we're going to have any serious problems," Lilia said while observing the battlefield from our current position.

She seemed to genuinely believe that if everything continued going this smoothly, then there was very little reason for us to become worried about the situation.

Looking at things from a purely strategic perspective, I couldn't exactly disagree with her assessment, since our side had been performing considerably better than I had initially expected.

The enemy was sending large numbers of soldiers toward us, and we were consistently defeating those forces while suffering only a single-digit number of casualties in return.

Of course, human life was still human life, and it was something that needed to be valued regardless of how small or large the number happened to be.

Calling it something as simple as "losing a few soldiers" would have been an incredibly insensitive way of describing what was actually happening, because those soldiers had families, friends, people waiting for them to come home, and lives that were being cut short because of this war.

Still, this was war, and unfortunately, we couldn't afford to ignore reality simply because reality happened to be unpleasant.

If we wanted to survive, we had to make decisions based on what was actually happening rather than pretending that everything could somehow be resolved without anyone getting hurt.

"I didn't think you were this capable as a commander, though," I said while looking over at her with some genuine surprise.

"I don't get involved in wars very often, but I have studied them, you know?" she replied with a slightly annoyed expression, as though my comment had somehow offended her. "I wouldn't have accepted this position if I hadn't intended to take it seriously."

I was fairly certain that Lilia didn't take most things related to her responsibilities seriously, considering the way she normally behaved whenever there wasn't an immediate crisis forcing her to pay attention.

Apparently, she was still capable of doing her actual job properly when it mattered, which was honestly a little surprising to me.

Of course, part of that came from her ability, which made her particularly suited for commanding large numbers of people during a conflict.

She possessed the ability to command people in such a way that they would naturally obey her, making her extremely valuable in a situation where coordination could easily mean the difference between victory and defeat.

I wanted that ability for myself.

That was actually one of the reasons I had been planning to conquer her as quickly as possible, although her requirements weren't exactly making it easy for me to accomplish that particular objective anytime soon.

She certainly wasn't making things convenient for me, which was becoming something of a recurring theme whenever I dealt with people whose abilities I wanted.

"The Empire seems much more concentrated on attacking us here than the Republic is," Lilia added while watching the enemy forces move across the battlefield. "It almost seems like they're planning to deal with this place first, although I have no idea why the Empire would choose to do something like that when there are bigger fish to fry."

She paused briefly before continuing her explanation, apparently trying to make sense of the enemy's movements herself.

"The Republic is also concentrating much more of its forces on the Demon Continent rather than attacking us here."

"So they're basically trying to eliminate the people they consider to be on the lower end first, and then, once that's taken care of, they'll fight each other afterward?" I asked while considering the possibility.

The idea made some sense when I looked at the situation from their perspective, although I still wasn't completely convinced that everything would actually work out the way they expected.

If they managed to defeat the countries they were currently fighting, then it seemed inevitable that they would eventually turn their attention toward one another.

By that point, both sides would have already spent a considerable amount of resources fighting their previous enemies, which would probably leave them in a relatively equal position once they finally started fighting each other.

"Well, I think it's more or less something like that," she said after thinking about it for a moment. "There's more to consider, though."

She looked toward the distant horizon before continuing with her explanation, and I could tell from her expression that there was something else about the situation that had been bothering her.

"The continent beyond the Great Ocean is also being attacked, and there's currently a war happening between the human inhabitants there and the Mermaid Kingdom."

I listened quietly while she explained the situation, since I hadn't really paid much attention to what was happening on that side of the world.

"I don't think there will be any immediate repercussions from the war happening there, but..." She hesitated slightly before continuing. "This could eventually be taken advantage of by either the Republic or the Empire."