Chapter 218: Crown Europa as Your Diadem
Rome's way of dealing with barbarian tribes was an old craft.
They had practiced it so many times that it no longer required special instruction. Rowe did not need to add anything. In less than a day, the massive legion swept through the conquered tribe, took away the young and strong, and left behind a small detachment of a hundred Roman soldiers along with the elderly, women, and children of the original inhabitants.
The army rested for one night.
Then it advanced again.
Boudica led the vanguard.
Rowe, Einzbern, and Melusine held the center.
Barghest moved between the flanks as a mobile support.
Baobhan Sith floated overhead, carrying Rowe's orders across distance like a living relay.
The campaign continued.
It proved a simple truth.
Rome was one of the few strong powers of this era. One of the poles of the world, matched only by the vast and powerful Han Dynasty on the other side of the continent, a civilization that could be called the world's center.
And yet, even within Europa, there were still too many places Rome's influence had not reached, too many regions Rome's gaze had never touched.
Celts, Germans, Sarmatians.
Countless scattered peoples existed across this land in a state of wilderness, untouched by what could be called true civilization.
Rome's conquest had only just begun.
War, continuous war, rolled across the vast land like flame. People died in numbers that blurred into dust. In the accounts of those who lived through it, that war was described once as sweeping away fallen leaves.
Later generations often believed that war brought only destruction to Europa. Slaughter. Ruin.
Yet when they searched ancient ruins and looked up at the nations and cities built afterward, they finally understood.
Like burying decayed roots into the earth, the destruction was brief.
What followed was healthier, deeper prosperity.
Inside a palace, an anxious voice rang through a sunlit hall.
"The Roman army has reached the border. Your Majesty, please decide at once."
In the light that poured through the doorway, an old king in a long robe stroked his beard. Pale brows drew tight as he listened to the report.
But soon, the king steadied himself.
A reputation arrives before the army that carries it. The word Rome alone weighed heavily in this age.
In the end, though, Rome was far from here.
He gripped his scepter, struck it against the floor, and spoke with forced calm.
"No need to panic. I have already received news. The Roman campaign was sudden, yes. Their initial offensive was unstoppable, yes. But we are different from the enemies they faced before."
"We are a nation. We have tall walls around us. We have the shelter of the great Wolf God."
"Even Iskandar the Conqueror never conquered us."
The king's confidence sounded sincere.
He was not afraid of a distant army. To cross mountains and rivers, to march in from beyond the range, no matter how strong the legion, it must have lost momentum along the way.
And they were different from the scattered tribes Rome had crushed earlier.
They had built city states.
Before those city states lay mountains.
Within those mountains stood walls like a fortress.
With terrain like this, it was almost possible to create a situation where a single man could hold a pass against ten thousand.
As long as the front held, as long as the rear supported, Rome would not break through in one blow.
Then Rome would retreat.
Logistics, morale, distance. A long campaign required too many things to go right.
The king believed it.
He believed in himself even more.
Then his confidence shattered.
"The Roman legion has appeared outside the royal city."
"What?" The king rose halfway from his throne.
"How is that possible? Were they not at the front? Has the city at the pass fallen?"
The messenger's face was pale.
"It has not fallen. It is just that the Roman legion bypassed the rugged mountain roads entirely."
The king opened his mouth to deny it.
Then he remembered fragments of rumor from within Roman territory. News of development. Of infrastructure. Of things that should not have been possible in this era, done anyway.
They had skipped the front pass.
They had rushed here.
If the kingdom's terrain was what he once believed to be protection, then at this moment it had become a cage.
Outside the mountains, a legion stood.
Within the mountains, more Roman forces pressed in.
"If I had known, I would have ordered the soldiers on the high walls to retreat and defend the royal city."
"But now…"
The king sank back onto his throne.
"It is too late."
Only then did he understand.
The army outside the valley was likely a feint. A curtain.
It existed to hide the unit that had already slipped behind the walls and arrived at the royal city's throat.
A royal city that was now empty in all the ways that mattered.
Facing a sudden assault, it could not hold.
The royal city would fall.
The high walls would be attacked from both directions, with no path to victory.
Outside the city, Boudica raised her blade and ordered the attack.
The Roman legion that had bypassed the mountain roads swept forward like a dark cloud.
Barghest manifested her colossal machina god body and soared into the sky. She crashed directly into the wolf shaped phantasmal beast worshipped by this nation, a creature that had usurped a divine position and gained power comparable to a god.
She smashed it hard between the mountains.
"Lord Rowe, everything is going smoothly."
On a high hill, the red fairy girl smiled brightly. Her red dress fluttered in the wind.
She was smiling because she had heard Rowe praise her.
Outside the ring of mountains, Rowe sat in a swaying war chariot and looked toward the high walls still resisting in stubborn desperation.
"I won again."
He smiled and glanced at the chessboard set before him.
Across from him, Einzbern held a book. She smiled as well.
"You won again," she said, almost amused. "To be honest, I thought you would use your own power."
The nation ahead was not a loose tribe.
It was a state with walls and terrain.
If the Roman legion assaulted the mountain pass head on, even if they took it, the losses would be heavy.
Einzbern's optimal solution had been simple.
Rowe personally intervenes. Break the pass. End it cleanly.
But he did not.
Since the campaign began, the number of times Rowe personally intervened remained zero.
He gave orders.
He directed the army.
With only mortal hands and only Rome's blade, he tore open one barrier after another.
Feint. Divide forces. Cross the strong city. Bypass the powerful barrier. Strike directly into the core hinterland.
A tactic comparable to the Trojan Horse.
But unlike the Trojan Horse, this kind of crossing and bypassing displayed the art of war more clearly.
Using stratagem.
Using terrain.
And above all, using the quality of the soldiers.
And this battle was only the beginning.
The Roman legions came like a flood. Even powerful city states could not withstand their offensive.
Some tribes chose alliance.
"We must unite to resist Rome."
"I have sent scouts. In at most a month, the Roman legion will be here."
"Alliance?" someone sneered. "Do not joke. I heard you already accepted a title from Rome. You are here to poison us."
Rowe did not need to send assassins.
He only needed one rumor.
He had his people spread the news that one tribe had accepted a Roman title.
The alliance collapsed instantly.
Elsewhere, in a primitive tribe, countless people knelt and stared at the sky.
They felt the ground trembling.
They felt the outsiders coming.
The conquest they imagined was always accompanied by slaughter.
They did not want to die.
"Great Tree God, grant us your divine power. We will offer blood and flesh to your might. Only resist the invaders for us."
Unwilling to die, yet willing to offer their lives to an evil god.
A contradiction built from ignorance.
"How ridiculous. How pathetic. How blind."
A voice exploded from above.
A massive vanguard combat machine descended.
Barghest arrived a step ahead.
And beside her was scattered divine blood.
The barbarian god's blood poured down like rain and soaked the land.
People screamed.
They shook.
They stared upward in terror and disbelief.
Yet inside that fear, something cracked.
Something loosened.
They understood that even gods could die.
That the blood of a god was not more sacred than their own.
Reports continued to come in.
"The Germanic tribes in the north have been eradicated. Provinces have been established in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Governors have been dispatched, following Adjutant Rowe's orders."
"The great lord of the Sarmatians in the north has surrendered. They request forgiveness for their defiance, and permission to remain in their lands."
"The Alans in the west attempted resistance, but were routed in a single strike. Their entire tribe migrated, crossing the Caspian Sea to the south."
And more.
The front advanced.
In the rear, within Rome's heartland, report after report flowed into the palace.
"Umu umu. As expected of my Adjutant."
In a magnificent hall so lavish it bordered on arrogance, a young blonde girl stood before the throne with hands on hips.
She wore the same fiery red dress as always, a rose bloom of cloth around a petite frame that somehow still felt bold and full. Her smile was bright, passionate as flame.
After Rowe departed, Nero returned to the palace and began to handle affairs personally.
Before, Rowe had carried much of that weight.
But the Emperor was not a decoration.
She was proud, willful, self assured, and more capable than many would dare admit.
She handled matters cleanly even without the Senate's Adjutant.
And she still had time to listen to news from the front.
"As expected of him," another voice said, sounding pleased in a different way.
"And honestly, it should be said like this. Without using his own power, merely by controlling the Roman army, he can reach this degree. It is incredible."
To hold a sword and not draw it.
Yet it did not look like foolish restraint.
It looked like a statement.
A posture that displayed strength.
The one speaking seemed delighted, as if she were watching a series that never ran out of new turns.
A white skirt swayed gently, black stockings clinging to her legs. A wooden staff touched the floor. She rested one finger on soft crimson lips, ruby eyes glittering beneath flowing silver hair.
Merlin.
The core of the Fairy Eye, a half nightmare fairy of Avalon.
As the Eye, she observed the present world.
And after Rowe's expedition, she became the channel through which he communicated with Nero.
Merlin could see Rowe at all times.
Rowe could see her.
So Merlin visited the palace often. Romans frequently saw this beautiful figure in white advising their Emperor.
Her appearance was often accompanied by petals.
Light and shadow of magecraft.
Over time, people called her the court magician.
Nero listened, chin lifted.
"Your aura is becoming more and more immense," Merlin said lightly.
Nero took it as obvious.
"Umu? Is that not inevitable? Because I am Rome."
And as Rowe advanced, Rome widened.
It grew heavier.
It grew stronger.
Merlin did not speak the next thought aloud.
From Nero, she could see the shadow of the Moon.
Nero carried the scent of the Moon Cell.
Merlin's sight, which observed reality itself, could not miss it.
And as Rome's position on the tree of Human Order expanded, Nero's kingship expanded with it. Her connection to the Moon Cell grew closer.
But this was not like Caligula.
This was not the Moon influencing a person.
This was a person eroding the Moon.
Merlin's smile did not change, but her gaze sharpened for a moment.
The Moon's counterattack will come soon.
She believed that.
She saw it.
Nero set aside the letters stacked at hand.
"Umu. Speaking of which, what is the latest news this time?"
Her anticipation was almost childlike.
Merlin smiled.
"This time, His Excellency Rowe asked me to tell you only one sentence."
"What sentence?"
"He will crown you again."
"Umu?" Nero tilted her head, confused. "What does my Adjutant mean? I have already been crowned."
She was already Emperor.
Merlin's smile deepened.
"His Excellency Rowe said he will use the entire territory of Europa as Your Majesty's new crown."
To use Europa as her diadem.
To make every city, every border, every road laid down by Rome the proof of Nero Claudius's emperorship.
At this moment, the Roman legion sweeping the continent reached the Ural Mountains, the border of what later generations would call Europa.
Banners snapped in wind.
Drums beat.
Rowe sat in his war chariot, rocked by the road's uneven teeth. He looked toward the undulating mountain range ahead.
It was like the spine of a giant dragon lying prone across the world.
The Roman army had conquered up to this point.
Beyond it lay another land.
Another world.
The Roman army reached the Ural Mountains and camped among the continuous ridges.
The commander, Rowe, ascended the peak and planted the Roman flag on the highest, farthest mountain, establishing it as Rome's new border.
He offered the entire territory of Europa to the Roman Emperor, a rose crowned in flame.
He crowned the Emperor.
And more than that, he crowned himself.
His name would be engraved forever in the history of war. He would shine like a constant star.
Lord of ten thousand soldiers.
An explorer in the name of conquest.
Exploration and Conquest.
That night, the sky was deep and vast, scattered with stars.
A blood red moon hung above it all.
Below the Ural Mountains, where the Roman flag flew and the army slept, Melusine stood before Rowe's main tent.
She drew a slow breath.
Boudica's words echoed in her ears.
She lifted her hand and knocked softly on the door.
.....
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