Count Dirac Siso had been promoted. He had received a battlefield promotion from colonel to the Restoration Army's only general, and his officers could now proudly proclaim to the world... they served under General Dirac.
But Dirac, who was writing and sketching on a sheet of paper, found no joy in it.
The reason was simple: heavy roars kept rolling in through his window, their deafening thunder tearing through the morning stillness.
It was the sound of the Bagnia Republic's thirty-two mortars outside the city firing on Hegrande.
Dirac tilted his head and counted the shots. Three.
"Ah, looks like they're running short of gunpowder too."
Dirac tried to find some comfort in his misery, but such optimism did nothing to improve his predicament.
The Republic was low on gunpowder, but Hegrande had little left in reserve either.
With his share of Prince Chris's smuggling profits, Dirac should never have been so short of gunpowder. The problem was that a few days earlier, someone had set fire to his powder magazine in Hegrande and turned it into one enormous firework.
Who had done him that favor?
Why, the townsfolk and wealthy citizens who had swallowed the other side's lies, of course.
Though the exact circumstances behind the collapse of the forward defensive line remained unclear, they had certainly played a part in it.
General Dirac had already dispatched men to maintain security and root out traitors within Hegrande. Yet the effort had achieved little, and only a handful of traitors had been caught. Someone was clearly shielding them.
Boom...
The fourth cannon shot.
General Dirac set down his quill and listened again to the sounds outside his window. From the soldiers' shouts, he learned that an enemy stone cannonball had landed inside the city, probably in someone's house.
"Heh. May