Foolish Pride

"Ah, I see you're hard at work, Margus."

"Father..."

Margus's father, the Earl of Argus, approached the training grounds where Margus was drilling with some of the soldiers. "With the mastery of both magical arts and swordsmanship that you've been granted, you are nigh unbeatable. I expect great things from you."

"Yessir."

"As I believe you are aware, we cannot afford to lose this battle."

Margus sheathed his sword and turned to face his father. "What do we know of Lord Gitelle's forces?"

"We anticipate about twelve thousand troops all told."

"About four thousand of those should be elite forces, right?"

"You've got a good grasp of this, eh?" Typically, the noble houses considered keeping a thousand troops on hand to be sufficient; in an emergency, peasants could be drafted into service as extra units. In Lord Gitelle's case, there were a relatively large number of career soldiers among those ranks.

But right now that wasn't the biggest concern. "Lord Rostel is also preparing to deploy troops. One or two thousand. For now they're only officially doing 'training' exercises, but I have no doubt that they will manufacture some pretext to launch an attack on us."

"So you intend to strike before Lord Rostel can muster his full force, right, sir?"

"Yes. As a neighboring territory, we can claim justified self-defense just on the basis of his gathering an army at all."

It was a defense of last resort, but technically the earl's statement was correct. Except in cases where the monarchy itself got involved, military skirmishes between nobles were governed only by the principle of "might makes right." Of course, civil war was technically prohibited, but in reality it was accepted as inevitable that the nobles would need to blow off a little steam by fighting each other now and then. As long as they weren't mobilizing fifty or one hundred thousand troops, it wasn't treated as a big deal.

Accordingly, it was also not unusual for the nobility close to the capital city to employ so-called "ace-class" knights capable of single-handedly repelling a force of a few thousand conscripted farmers. And given that the relative power of the involved parties could be ascertained before any moves were actually made, it was common for these skirmishes to be more contests of scouting prowess than actual wars.

"It goes without saying, but we should draft as many troops as possible," the earl continued.

"Most of those twelve thousand are more for show than anything, but four thousand elite troops is a real threat," Margus said.

"Exactly. All the more reason to strike before they're expecting us."

"Elite" forces referred to soldiers who could not be easily scattered by an ace-class attack—generally knights on retainer. The outcome of a battle was generally determined by the number of elite soldiers and the quality of the aces.

"So basically, you want to attack before they've been able to acquire any assets stronger than me?"

"Hah. You're not the only weapon up my sleeve. You just worry about wiping the stain from your own name."

"Yessir..."

Despite his words, deep down Lord Argus did indeed have high hopes for Margus. Already Margus could wield both sword and sorcery, and in Lord Argus's estimation he was already powerful enough to match up with a B rank opponent—a high rank for an adventurer. All in all, he had the potential to become a powerful ace, capable of taking on thousands of troops single-handedly. None of the knights employed by Lord Gitelle should be able to stand against him. As for Lord Rostel's aces, this conflict shouldn't be enough to mobilize them; in fact, Argus had already confirmed that they had not been mobilized, as doing so would risk upsetting the delicate balance of power within the royal capital.

And furthermore, Argus had already set plans in motion to obtain his own aces in addition to Margus.

"I'm counting on you, son."

"Yes, sir..."

They both believed—as did everyone in House Argus—that as long as their enemy didn't manage to find and recruit some unexpected outside asset, their victory was assured.

But they had no idea.

They had no idea that just such an outside asset had already offered himself (well, okay, had himself offered against his will) to Lord Gitelle as a supplement to his military forces. Or that that asset was the very same son of poor country nobles whom Margus had mocked as worthless, and the very cause of the stain on Margus's name...