Chương 15: [1-9] Rescue Chaining

Hague made his opening move. Despite the board having two players, he still got to act first. Hero privilege, he guessed. Or Sophia's blessing really did surpass the human imitation, like the snotty item description said. Didn't matter. All it meant was Hague was still playing Fire Emblem, just with a face and name for the enemy AI. And like any actual AI, you could figure out how it thought, what it prioritized. Hague's first goal was to charge Kaynes as fast as possible.

He briefly considered, and rejected, holing up within the city walls, using Gaspar to hold a chokepoint while Tuatoru pew-pewed from behind. It might work for a bit, especially if the Lucian pegasus knights showed up to make trouble, but without any healing resources the plan lacked long-term viability. Especially once Piru-Piru hurled a magic blast against Gaspar's pisspoor RES. What Hague said to Sophia was true: he had no way of actually reaching Kaynes on turn 1.

But he could get close, closer than Kaynes expected. It was time to bust out the movement tech. Time resumed. When it first froze, he'd been about to run back into the city. He didn't bother trying that now, though he saw no forcefield to bar his progress past the bounds of the map. He didn't want to try, because running away at this point was the same as joining Kaynes: an admission he couldn't win.

"Everyone! Forward," he yelled. He didn't have to, but he wanted Kaynes to hear him.

"Let's get that motherfucker before he can retreat!" When Hague moved his pieces to pull off his little maneuver on the gameboard, it went like ballet: a synchronized series of steps in perfect order. First, Adelheid moved to the utmost extent of her range, which put her directly ahead of Tuatoru. Due to the rubble impeding her progress, it was impossible for her to go past this spot. At least, impossible without help. Next, Hague moved as far as he could go, which put him directly ahead of Adelheid.

Since units could act after moving, he chose as his action to rescue Adelheid, picking her up and carrying her like Truth the battle before. Adelheid had 1 less CON than Hague, so this was just barely possible. Next came Tuatoru. He also managed to move exactly one tile ahead of Hague. And he too had an action: he took Adelheid from Hague and dropped her on the ground in front of him. The result was that Adelheid was now positioned three tiles ahead of where she could move on her own.

In Fire Emblem parlance, this was called a rescue chain. Chains could actually get way more elaborate than this, but right now Hague didn't have many units to work with, so this was the best he could do. Now, all that made sense on the gameboard, using the mechanics of Fire Emblem. If you thought about it for five seconds, it made no fucking sense in reality. In what universe was picking someone up and passing them to someone else faster than everyone just running the whole time?

So as Hague and his allies trekked across the jutting slabs of rubble from the collapsed gate, part of him wondered if his plan would work at all. By this point, though, he just had to believe in the system. At least the movement-impeding effect of the rubble made sense. Too much sense, making him nearly trip and faceplant as he dashed across random bits of jagged rock. He barely reached his mark, steadied himself, and turned for Adelheid.

Unlike on the gameboard, where units moved in sequential order, here everything happened at the same time. Hague kept ahead of Adelheid, Tuatoru ahead of Hague. So all that remained was the pick-up-put-down motion, the one he still wasn't fully sure would work. He envisioned himself grabbing Adelheid off the ground and holding her out to Tuatoru. An insane image, but the only way it made sense to happen. It was not how it happened at all.

The moment he turned around, he watched Adelheid plant her foot among the rubble, vault over the rocks, and hurtle toward him. An absolute lunatic maneuver, the kind of thing you can only do if you don't care what happens next. Or if you completely trust someone else to catch you. Hague only got his arms out at the last possible second. How the fuck would this work? He knew his strength, he wasn't strong enough for this shit. Truth was one thing, that was a little girl.

Adelheid stood about a foot taller, with extra weight to match, and she was pouncing like a tiger, not fainting gently into his arms. Uh yeah. This shit was impossible. The only thing about to happen was a legendary-tier wipeout. Chat better get a kick out of it, at least. That was what he thought as Adelheid went flying at him. But he'd forgotten one key detail: His Famespirit. As he reached out to catch Adelheid, light flared around his body. His outstretched arms became a pale, staticky flame.

Strength surged through him, like his muscles were transmuted to strands of iron. His feet found purchase, rooted his body to the unstable terrain, and braced. Adelheid flew into his arms. He gripped her behind her back and around her waist. Even with his newfound power, she was heavy as hell, but heavy the way a barbell you can just barely deadlift was heavy: the cusp of possibility. He knew, if he had to, he could clamp her to his chest and hold her, even hobble at a halting gait with her in tow.

But that wasn't his objective. It happened fast. He maintained Adelheid's momentum as he turned, swinging her along his side like a battering ram. One heave, one taut painful spasm of every muscle in his arms and back, one sky-piercing shout, and he threw her toward Tuatoru. Tuatoru had higher CON than Hague. He caught Adelheid much more easily and tossed her too.

Adelheid hit the grass past the debris, rolled, and lurched upright, simultaneously drawing her estoc to brandish at the big armored lady beside her with an exultant "Hyaa!" The combined rescue chain took no more than three seconds. Less, probably. Despite that, Hague didn't have time to celebrate. He shot a finger at Kaynes.

"You're dead bro. Even if you take me out, these two will finish you off!" Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"You'll die for murdering my father!" Adelheid added. Thanks to the rescue chain, Hague now had three units in range of Kaynes. This was essential to his strategy. Though Kaynes's bodyguard Ignez was insanely OP and could kill any of them in a single hit, her Safeguard skill only allowed her to block one attack intended for a unit next to her. Thus, the problem became one of action economy. If Hague only had two units in range of Kaynes, Ignez could kill one and block the attack of the other.

Kaynes wouldn't even need to retreat, he could go on the offensive with Ignez and demolish Hague's forces. But with three units in range, Kaynes had no choice but to fall back. Mutually assured destruction. In choosing this positioning, Hague had accounted for every possibility. No combination of Kaynes retreating and Ignez remaining left Kaynes out of danger, because Kaynes only had 4 MOV instead of 5. (Starting to see why MOV is the most important stat?) Tuatoru and his ranged bow would always be able to reach Kaynes next turn, while Adelheid would also be able to reach him unless Ignez blocked her path. Kaynes had no choice but to retreat and take Ignez with him. The only complication was the battle objective. Could Kaynes "win" by killing Hague (or maybe Adelheid), nullifying any future moves? In Fire Emblem, as long as you completed the objective, it didn't matter how bad your position was: the battle ended, onto the next one.

But in this world, reality persisted from one moment to the next. If Kaynes killed Hague, Adelheid and Tuatoru would still be standing right there, ready to strike back. (The same applied in reverse. Hague's objective was to defeat Kaynes, but if he did, would Kaynes's army surrender immediately or keep fighting? In a war of succession, if you lose your claimant to the throne, you kinda lose everything, so maybe. But something to keep in mind.) Point was, Hague needed to ensure Kaynes understood he couldn't rely on the game abstraction for his salvation, so he shouted his plans out loud in case Kaynes was so dumb he tried attacking anyway. He also did this on the gameboard, but he wanted to make extra sure. And also because he liked seeing Kaynes's face go pale. Like it did right now. Yep, dude knew what the fuck was up. This strategy only worked because Hague understood Kaynes. It would've been suicide versus the last boss.

Marpasia, for all her hesitation, was a zealot at heart. If she could kill off the Hero, even if it meant she'd be killed immediately afterward, she'd do it. Kaynes, though? His smug tone, his smarmy self-assuredness—he thought he was better than the Hero. Better than the Hague. You don't trade yourself for a piece you think has less value than you, no matter your ideals.

"Your Majesty!" barked Ignez.

"Adelheid is right in front of me, let me finish her off!" In her massive armor, with her giant spear and shield, Ignez stood like Goliath against Adelheid's scrappy, chihuahua-esque David. Adelheid betrayed no fear staring down a woman who could crush her ribcage with a hug. If anything, she looked eager. Eager to avenge her father. Eager, maybe, to run her sword through someone who insulted her intelligence. Hague could respect that.

"No!" Kaynes said.

"Fall back, Ignez! Protect me! He's baiting us into overextending. We don't need to take risks, our numbers will overwhelm them eventually." He said all that, impressively enough, while hurrying as fast as he could toward his army. Ignez gave Adelheid one final, dismissive glare.

"If you were smart, you'd surrender and beg for clemency. But you've always been a cretinous little piranha, haven't you?" In particularly unladylike fashion, she hocked an enormous wad of saliva at Adelheid's feet, then followed Kaynes. Adelheid's hand trembled on the hilt of her sword.

"Let me after her, Hague."

"I've got a better idea," Hague said. Behind him came clanking slow ass Gaspar. He'd started too far away to get involved in the rescue chain and struggled to pick his way through the rubble in all his armor. Coming to a stop, he set down Polymath Truth, the way Hague ordered. Truth was finally awake. Barely. On unsteady feet she wobbled, half-lidded eyes blinking heavily, and she couldn't hold out her arms to steady herself because they were clamped against her stomach.

Sweat rolled down her pale face as she took in rapid, sharp breaths. She looked ill, not simply faint but feverish. Hague briefly felt something like schadenfreude watching her. Her face, after all, was the same as Sophia's. Of course that was stupid. Truth wasn't Sophia, and despite Kaynes calling her "morally remiss" (what a fucking blowhard), everything indicated she summoned Hague for a real reason, not bored sadism. Plus she was a little kid. Anyway. Time for Hague's second war crime.

"Can you fight?" he asked her. The_Nuremberg: LETS GOOOOOOO"The Parties to the conflict shall take all feasible measures in order that children who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities and, in particular, they shall refrain from recruiting them into their armed forces." —Geneva Convention (Protocol I), Article 77 Okay so technically Truth was way, way older than fifteen, given she became the Polymath sixty-six years ago. But look at her.

Believe it or not, this was not the first time Hague and his chat encountered this particular technicality, and they'd previously agreed thousand-year-old lolis counted as child soldiers. If only because chat's general position was that more war crimes = funnier. Truth blinked at him. She groaned.

"Ah..."

"Please. I need your help." She shook her head.

"I can't..." Shit. He'd suspected she might still be too weak, hence why he hadn't fully factored her into his strategy—"I need my weapon..." Now that was a different story. Hague reached into his back pants pocket and pulled out a small, multicolored stone. The same stone Marpasia dropped when she died: Heteromorphite.

"This it?" The way Truth's eyes widened told Hague all he needed to know. To be fair, it hadn't been hard to deduce. He didn't know what the word "Heteromorphite" meant, but he knew how thousand-year-old lolis fought in Fire Emblem, and this stone fit snugly into that framework. He held the Heteromorphite out to her. She stumbled forward among the rubble and clasped it in her tiny hand. Polymath Truth was officially armed and dangerous. War Crime Counter: 2.

The_Nuremberg donated $10 and said: we're so back IronMarcus: WAR CRIME WAR CRIME brave_lakche: its not fire emblem without child soldiers Voortigern: Do you really count as a child if you're hundreds of years old? DGirlLiker: she's a loli so yes Briefvoice: Technically she's a lolibaba. fipindustries subscribed and said: im making an excel keeping track of the war crimes taking place"Doing god's work fip," said Hague.

"Thanks for the sub!" That did it for the turn. To the west, Kaynes's army trudged into range, a completely unfeasible swarm of dudes (for now). To the east, nothing (yet). Hague expected to return to the gameboard any moment. Before he did, Gaspar yelled: "Enemy at our rear!" Hague assumed he meant the Lucian pegasus girls. They'd been flapping overhead the whole time, and unlike the ground garrison, they didn't get nuked by Piru-Piru Labupon.

Sure, they were technically Hague's "enemies," but he bet they'd prioritize the army aggressively invading their city over the ragtag group fleeing to safety. They were fanatics, but not particularly decisive ones. Hence, the pegasi showing up was a good thing. Their numbers were too few to beat Kaynes's army, but they'd run interference, slow down the advance, thin the ranks a little. Meat shields while Hague did his thing. Unfortunately, Gaspar wasn't talking about the pegasus knights.

What Hague saw as time froze made him shout, " Really?!" Despite how obvious it was in retrospect, he somehow never anticipated it. Maybe because he thought the map was already unfair enough and couldn't possibly get worse. But fuck him lmao. It'd gotten way, way worse. From the base of the tower on the left side of the wall, the same tower he'd dipped into after firing his arrow at Kaynes, appeared the hook-nosed assassin with the cold, dead eyes.

Earlier on the wall, he hadn't known who Hague was, didn't give him a second glance. Not now. Hague's units always understood as if via telepathy what he wanted them to do, and Kaynes's guys were probably the same way. As he unshouldered his bow and nocked a black-fletched arrow, the assassin's dead eyes stared one direction and one direction only: straight at Hague. Coming for the kill, and Hague didn't have a single plan to deal with him. TURN 2 PLAYER PHASE START