Altina the Sword Princess: Volume 9 by Yukiya Murasaki

Author:Yukiya Murasaki [Murasaki, Yukiya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: J-Novel Club
Published: 2021-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3: Late-Night Coffee

The night breeze was strong enough to rattle the windows of the houses in Grebeauvoir, but such luxuries did not exist on the mountain range around 5 lieue (22 km) away. It was early in the summer, so the forest was densely packed with leaves that obscured their vision.

Regis felt as though he had become a shaman straight from the age of mythology—beings who communed with spirits of the trees, the earth, the water, and the breeze. They lived among the faeries, and in a forest like this untouched even by the moonlight, it wasn’t strange to think they might run into one or two.

The First Army had been traversing the road stretching from the capital to Grebeauvoir when they decided to set up camp. Having their headquarters somewhere in plain sight wasn’t an option, since they would most likely be spotted by enemy scouts and made susceptible to a sneak attack, so they had made sure to hide themselves in the forest.

Their opponent was fighting on unfamiliar terrain, but they had already launched a successful surprise attack in the past—and on the First Army, no less. They couldn’t afford to drop their guard.

Regis was currently using the standard tent for senior officers. A single sheet had been spread over the damp soil, on top of which sat a collapsible chair, table, and bed. Another sheet was then stretched around its perimeter, serving as a partition.

Most soldiers were similarly afforded a sheet of cloth to place over the earth, but little else; this was where they slept, and only the particularly lucky ones were given a second sheet to cover themselves. It was calculated that the addition of just one senior officer—or at least one treated favorably enough to deserve a tent—required an additional one hundred supply carriers, plus even more to carry the food for them.

Incidentally, not even Regis’s tent had a roof, though this was hardly an issue. The northern parts of the Empire very rarely saw rain, and while it was indeed possible that he would get drenched, the weather usually cleared up soon enough and the air was so parched that most things dried in no time at all. For these reasons, it was rare for an army venturing to these parts to take measures to ward off rain; in fact, the only personal tent to come equipped with any covering was Latrielle’s.

Had the First Army been camping out on the open plains, they might have prepared the house-like tents used by the Fourth Army. These were far more comfortable, but they were unusable in the forest. It was the commander’s job to decide on their campsite beforehand and to ensure their unit carried the appropriate supplies.

The hanging cloth that served as the entrance to Regis’s tent shifted ever so slightly, causing the tactician to look up from his papers. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” came a familiar voice.

“Oh. Come right in.”

“I apologize for bothering you at this hour.”

The one who pushed through the cloth was Fanrine Veronica de Tiraso Laverde.

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