Chapter 1: A Sign (last part)

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Next, Liscia drew a picture of a castle on the blackboard. "That's a trend that

becomes especially apparent in castle battles. At first glance, you might think the air

force could fly over castle walls, directly attacking the castle and town, but it's

actually impossible."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Because there are what you could call air force killers, anti-air repeating bolt

throwers, installed on the castle walls."

According to Liscia, from practically the moment wyvern knights first came into

this world, there had been research into countermeasures against them. That was

because, if the wyvern knights were allowed to fly over the walls as they pleased, it

was a threat to the security of the state.

In order to counter the wyvern cavalry, the anti-air repeating bolt thrower had

been invented.

Inside a large rectangular box, there were small compartments, like a

honeycomb, and in each of them was a thick, stake-like bolt. The bolts had their

flying distance extended with attached spells, and they would also trace anything

moving in the air. The anti-air repeating bolt thrower could fire dozens of these bolts

simultaneously.

If any wyvern knight carelessly got too close to the wall, the bolts fired by the

anti-air repeating bolt throwers would attack them like homing missiles.

"That's why, in order to bomb a city, it's first necessary to attack the castle walls

from ground-level and destroy the bolt throwers," Liscia explained. "Up until that

point, the air force's job is just to guard the air above the land force."

"I see... castle battles are like a three-way deadlock," I said.

Land forces were beaten by air forces, air forces were beaten by bolt throwers,

and bolt throwers were beaten by ground forces. It was because of those interrelated strengths and weaknesses that Liscia said coordination between the air and

land forces was important. Basically...

"Setting aside the navy for the moment, in the present situation, where we don't

have a land or air force, if the Principality of Amidonia were to invade, we would

have no way to deal with them, huh?"

Liscia was silent.

The Elfrieden kingdom had a total manpower of around 100,000 troops.

To break that down, the king's personal army, the Forbidden Army, had over

40,000.

40,000 in the army, led by Duke Georg Carmine.

10,000 in the navy, led by Duchess Excel Walter.

1,000 in the air force, led by Duke Castor Vargas.

First, when it came to the king's personal army, the Forbidden Army, in reality

only around 10,000 of those troops could be mobilized. Publicly, the Forbidden

Army was said to be more than 40,000 strong, but those numbers had included

mercenaries dispatched by the mercenary state, Zem, as well as the personal forces

of nobles not attached to the army, navy, or air force.

Of those, I had already terminated our contract with the Zemish mercenaries.

This was partly to save expenses, and partly because of Machiavelli's advice against

trusting mercenaries. On top of that, while things might be different in a battle

against Amidonia, in the upcoming conflict between myself and the three dukes,

many among the nobility were going to be fair-weather allies. If it actually came to

war against the three dukes, I probably wouldn't be able to count on using their

personal forces.

As such, the number of troops I could deploy would be only 10,000 or so, made

up of the royal guard and the forces I controlled directly.

My directly-controlled army was almost entirely made up of infantry (800

members of the royal guard were heavy cavalry), but because I had put them to

work on infrastructure projects recently, all of them also had the skills required to

be combat engineers. Furthermore, in my personal forces, there were also 500 earth

mages like Kaede.

Now, as for the three dukes, if I were to give you the quick rundown, this is what

it looked like.

First, there were the 10,000 in the navy. Most of these were the crew of

battleships, cruisers, destroyers, or torpedo boats. There were only about 2,000

marines who could go ashore and fight. So, even if we had to fight them, because it

would be on land, they weren't much of a threat.

However, their admiral, Duchess Excel Walter, warranted caution.

She was an incredible woman, possessing not only wisdom and courage, but

political savvy as well. I'd heard that she had overcome the food crisis that had

struck the whole kingdom using her own independent plan. If I made an enemy of

her, she would probably come up with surprising ways to take advantage of my

weaknesses, even from outside the battlefield. Personally, of the three dukes, she

was the one I least wanted to make an enemy of.

In contrast, the air force had a leader who would be easy to handle, and soldiers

who would be dangerous to fight.

Each of their soldiers generally came paired with a wyvern, and there were

around 1,000 of these wyvern cavalry. Wyvern knights were every bit as strong as

Liscia had explained earlier. With the Forbidden Army having only a few wyverns

used for relaying messages, it would be hard to fight them straight up.

Air Force General Castor Vargas was a dragonewt, and it was no exaggeration to

say that he was a peerless warrior. Also, being a dragonewt, even without a wyvern

he could fly using his own wings. He was hot-blooded, impulsive, and had a distaste

for using any sort of petty tricks. While his actions would be easy to read, he had a

tendency to put his beliefs before his own interests, so if I were to attempt to

persuade him based on what was to his advantage... he was the one that would be

least likely to work on.

Finally, we were left with the 40,000 in the land forces, but both the general and

his troops were going to be troublesome.

While the simple number of soldiers they had was already impressive, their

equipment and overall quality was like an upgraded version of what I saw in the

Forbidden Army and my directly-controlled forces. In addition to infantry and

cavalry, there was also a siege weapon unit, and the firepower provided by their fire

mages would be on another level. This was truly an army built to play the main role

in a war.

The man leading this army corps, General Georg Carmine, was a fierce

commander and veteran of many battles.

While his martial prowess was no less than Castor's, he didn't just rely on that.

He was the rare warrior who could make level-headed decisions backed up by past

experience. Honestly, I didn't want to make an enemy of him any more than I did

Duchess Walter, but... It didn't look like he had any intention of backing down. He

had sheltered the nobles I was investigating for corruption, and was clearly

positioning himself for a confrontation.

From what I had been told by Hal's father, Glaive Magna, there were many nobles

and knights in the army faction who had left Duke Carmine over doubts about the

position he was taking, but his forces were bolstered by the personal soldiers of the

corrupt nobles he was sheltering as well as Zemish mercenaries that he had hired, so

there was no real change in the numbers.

40,000 in the army vs. 10,000 in the Forbidden Army.

If fought, the enemy would have four times our number.

"Four times our number... Those are numbers where Sun Tzu would say to either

flee or avoid the battle," I said.

"Sun Tzu?" Liscia asked.

"A military strategist from my old world."

The name Sun Tzu refers to Sun Wu (He wrote The Art of War), who served the

King of Wu during the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history, or to his

descendent, Sun Bin (He wrote Sun Bin's Art of War), who served King Wei of Qi

during the Warring States period. They were both excellent strategists, and The Art

of War and Sun Bin's Art of War are both excellent books on military strategy.

When I explained that to her, Liscia looked at me dubiously.

"Souma, you were a student, right? Were you reading books on military

strategy?"

"Yeah, because I liked history," I said. "It was related to my interest in that."

I had especially liked reading Records of the Grand Historian, Romance of the

Three Kingdoms, and books about the Warring States Period in Japan. As an offshoot

of that, I had read both The Art of War and Sun Bin's Art of War because both Sun

Tzus appear as characters in Records of the Grand Historian.

If you read them, they're actually quite interesting. Like Machiavelli, they lived in

turbulent times, and in their work they accepted that "This is just the way humans

are," and so they discussed how best to deal with the unending wars.

Both became famous through war, but that wasn't to say that they were bellicose

men. Both of them spoke against easily resorting to war. Sun Wu had said, "To break

the enemy's resistance without fighting is best" (in Sun Wu's "Strategic Attack") and

when giving council to King Wei, Sun Bin had said, "War is not a place for

merriment" (in Sun Bin's "Meeting King Wei").

However, in a chaotic world, such platitudes wouldn't always be enough. If you

didn't defend, didn't attack, the result would be that people died.

Both Sun Tzus understood that. Sun Bin said, "Even the great rulers of legend

wanted to rule by morals, but they couldn't do that. That was why they had to

subjugate evil kings by means of war."

It's important to separate ideals from reality, and to do the things that,

realistically, you ought to do.

"Even if I don't want to do it, I have to," I said. "Because I'm the king now."

"Huh?! Souma...!" Liscia began to say.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," I called out, and my adopted little sister-in-law, Tomoe, poked her

head out from the shadow of the door.

"Big Brother Souma, Hakuya is calling for you," she said.

It seemed that Tomoe had been sent by my prime minister, Hakuya, to come and

call me.

"Hakuya is?" I asked. "Got it. Well then, Liscia, please teach me the rest next time."

After making that request to Liscia, I left the room to go see Hakuya.

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"Um... Is something wrong, Big Sister?" Tomoe asked.

As I stared vacantly at the door Souma had left through, my adopted sister spoke

up, sounding concerned.

Oh, that's no good, I thought. I can't go worrying such a little girl...

"It's just... There was something that bothered me..." I said.

"Something bothered you?" Tomoe tilted her head to the side quizzically. She

looked adorable the way she did it, which helped to calm me down a little bit.

"...You see, Souma, he said, 'Because I'm the king now.'"

"Big Brother Souma is the king of this country, you know?" she said.

"Well, yes, but..."

But... I didn't think that the Souma I had known up until then would ever have

said those words.

Up until just recently, he'd said things like "I'm just holding onto the crown

temporarily," or "Once I've finished reconstructing this kingdom, I'll give it back to

you, Liscia." Like I'd thought, taking part in the relief effort at the God-Protected

Forest might have caused Souma to have a change of heart. Of course, I wanted

Souma to be the king, and if he'd gained an awareness of his position, it should have

been a good thing, but...

But, I don't know... For some reason, there's an uneasiness in my heart.

I couldn't put it into words very well. There was a sort of premonition creeping

into my breast. It felt as if Souma was slowly turning into someone he wasn't.

"Big Sister? Is Big Brother Souma strange?" Tomoe was looking at me worriedly

again.

It seemed I'd had a gloomy look on my face again. I patted Tomoe on the head.

"It'll all be okay. Souma's not alone. He has all of us with him, after all."

"Yes, he does!" Tomoe's little wolf tail was wagging about energetically.

...Yes, that's right. No matter what future awaits...

...I will walk alongside you to the very end, Souma.