Chapter 1: A Sign

In the middle of the 9th month, 1,546th year, Continental Calendar.

In Elfrieden, where the four seasons were especially distinct, even compared to

the other continental nations, the lingering heat of summer had faded and it was

now a more temperate season. The season of bountiful harvests, when this country's

food crisis was expected to be resolved. Even with that season lying before them,

there was still an air of unease hanging over the kingdom.

The source of that unease lay in the opposition between the new king, Souma

Kazuya, and the three dukes.

Souma, who was said to have been summoned from another world as a hero, had

had his potential recognized by the former king, Albert Elfrieden, who had then

ceded the throne to him. With support from the daughter of the former king, Liscia,

who became Souma's betrothed, Souma moved to enrich the state and strengthen

the military. He gathered a diverse variety of gifted personnel, solved the food crisis,

set up a transportation network, and got involved in disaster prevention. It all might

have been a little plain for one called a hero, but his stable reign had the support of

the populace.

The three dukes, on the other hand, were the three people who controlled the

kingdom's land, air and sea forces.

General of the Elfrieden Kingdom Army, Duke Georg Carmine, who was a lion

beastman.

Admiral of the Elfrieden Kingdom Navy, Duchess Excel Walter, who was a sea

serpent.

General of the Elfrieden Kingdom Air Force, Duke Castor Vargas, who was a

dragonewt.

These three had protected the kingdom for many long years, but they were still

not loyal to the new king, Souma, and they had taken their forces and were secluding

themselves in their own territories. It was unclear what each of their intentions

were, but of the three dukes, Army General Carmine had given shelter to nobles

being investigated by Souma for corruption, and he was taking a clearly defiant

stance.

The new King Souma and Army General Georg Carmine.

People believed it was only a matter of time before the two came into conflict.

◇ ◇ ◇

"Listen, Souma," Liscia told me. "In this world's wars, it's coordination between

the land and air forces that's important."

It was a day that, with things gradually growing chilly, you could really feel that it

was now autumn. On this day, I was having Liscia teach me about wars in this world.

As the inevitable conflict with Georg, who was sheltering corrupt nobles, and

Amidonia, who were maneuvering in the shadows, drew ever closer, I wanted to at

least have a sense for what the flow of battle would be like.

Of course, as a total amateur, I wouldn't be commanding troops. When the war

came, I would probably end up leaving control of my personal forces, the Forbidden

Army, to the Captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin. Even so, as the king, and thus the

one who had to decide whether or not to open hostilities, I felt I should know these

things, and so I was having Liscia teach me.

Though she was royalty, she had graduated from the Officers' Academy and was

knowledgeable enough on military matters that Ludwin had said of her, "While she

lacks the experience to lead a large army, she has courage, and would have no

trouble leading a smaller army."

...Honestly, I just wanted a rough outline of how a skirmish would go, so she could

have kept it simple, but Liscia was too serious for that. She had even prepared a

blackboard to draw diagrams on as she explained things, turning this into something

like a lecture at officers' school.

Liscia drew two circles on the board, labeling them "Our Army" and "Enemy

Army." She also wrote the words "land force" and "air force" in both circles.

Here, I should caution you about one thing. What was meant by a "land force" or

"air force" here was different from what you would expect on Earth. The wars in this

world were still fought by knights in armor, so if you were looking at just the style, it

was similar to the Hundred Years' War. However, in this world, there was magic and

there were fantastic creatures like wyverns.

In the land forces there weren't just infantry, cavalry, and archers, there were

also mages. And as for the air force, it wasn't made up of fighter planes, it was made

up of wyvern knights, who fought on the backs of great flying lizards. Because of

that, the flow of battle naturally ended up being different than on Earth.

"I'm not familiar with naval battles, so this will only cover land battles, okay?"

Liscia said. "First, in a field battle, the air and land forces of both camps will begin to

fight at practically the same time."

Liscia first drew arrows from the two land forces and had them ram into one

another.

"The battle between land forces is orthodox. It starts with long-range fire from

archers and mages, and then, when the enemy formation breaks, infantry advance

and push in. Knights and cavalry look for openings, charging in small numbers to

disrupt the enemy's formation, or massing in larger numbers to charge the enemy,

followed by infantry, in order to tear the enemy unit apart. We call the former tactic

'cutting,' and the latter 'breaking.' That's probably pretty similar to the battles in

your world, right?"

"...Well, we don't hurl spells back and forth, but aside from that, I think it's the

same," I said.

Somehow, it called to mind memories of watching the battle scenes in the Taiga

drama series.

It started with an exchange of fire using the matchlock rifle and bow and arrow.

Then, when the ashigaru foot soldiers were given the order to charge, they advanced

through rifle fire, even as they were shot down, to reach the enemy's fence. Because

it was hard to use ranged weapons to deal with enemies once they were allowed to

close in, the defenders would send out their own unit of ashigaru soldiers, and from

there the two units of ashigaru would slug it out. Because this world hadn't

developed firearms, it might be easiest to think of magic as a replacement for

matchlocks.

Next, Liscia drew arrows from the two air forces, having them ram into one

another, too.

"And, at the same time as the two land forces are colliding, the air forces will

crash into one another, too. If they can seize the airspace over the battlefield, the

wyvern cavalry can fly at altitudes that arrows can't reach to drop gunpowder

barrels (a sort of bomb), after all."

"That's... brutal," I said.

It was like... the fear and the pain that came from being punched, with no way to

fight back.

"In that case, is the key to victory or defeat in battle held by the air force, then?" I

asked.

"No," she said. "The battle between air forces almost never decides the outcome

of a battle."

"Huh? But, just now, you said if you can gain control of the air, you can attack

without there being any way for them to fight back..."

"Yes, I did. Which is precisely why the primary goal of the air battle is not to gain

control of the air, but to keep the other side from gaining control of the air."

Next, Liscia wrote "1,000" next to the air force of our army and "500" next to the

enemy's.

"Wyvern knights are only a small fraction of the overall army. In the Elfrieden

Kingdom, there are 1,000 knights, and in the Principality of Amidonia, around 500

knights. Now, hearing that, you might think in a straight up fight, our side would win,

but the enemy know they're at a numerical disadvantage. They won't actively try to

go on the offensive: they're going to stick purely to defense. If we try to force the

attack, we'll take heavier losses. It takes a lot of time to raise a single wyvern knight,

so we don't want to take those losses."

"Ah, I think I've got a sense of it. Basically, in a field battle, the air force's job is to

guard the air until the battle between the two land forces is decided, right?"

"You've got it. ...Well, if our air force is considerably more powerful than the

other country's, there are times when things can be decided by just the air battle,

though."

Liscia turned to the map of the continent on the blackboard and pointed to the

big country on the western edge, the Gran Chaos Empire. Then she pointed to the

Star Dragon Mountain Range in the center, and to the Nothung Dragon Knight

Kingdom in the north.

"The Gran Chaos Empire has air force units that are organized not around

wyverns, but another type of mount called griffons."

"When you say Griffons... they're the ones with the head of an eagle, and a body

that's like a lion with wings, right?"

"Yeah," she said. "They can't fly continuously for as long as wyverns do, but they

can make tight turns in mid-air, and they can overpower wyverns in a fight. On top

of that, the Empire has a large number of wyverns, too. That makes them

dangerous."

From what I was hearing, wyverns were like bombers, while griffons were like

fighters. Both had strengths and weaknesses depending on how they were used, but

when it came to a battle, fighters, which could make tighter turns, would be the

stronger of the two. While I was sitting there satisfied with my own explanation,

Liscia continued on.

"Next, the Star Dragon Mountain Range and Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom

have dragons."

"Now that you mention it... I think I heard about them when we found the dragon

bones at the sedimentation pool," I said.

Dragons had a degree of magical power that was incomparably higher than what

wyverns had, they were intelligent, they understood human language, and

apparently they could even take on human form. While they didn't fall under the

classification of mankind, they had a pact of mutual non-aggression with mankind

and had built a country of their own in the Star Dragon Mountain Range. In terms of

appearance, while wyverns had wings in place of their forelegs, like pterosaurs,

dragons had wings, but they also had front legs and back legs, looking more like the

Western conception of dragons on Earth.

"North of the Star Dragon Mountain, in the Nothung Dragon Knight Kingdom,

there are dragon knights who've formed contracts with dragons from the Star

Dragon Mountain Range," Liscia said. "A dragon knight takes a dragon as their

partner, and in exchange for helping them to produce offspring, the dragon lends

them their strength on the battlefield. Basically, they get married to the dragons."

"Hmm... Can I think of them like an upgraded version of the wyvern cavalry?" I

asked.

"They're similar, but dragon knights are an order of magnitude more powerful.

When a dragon and its knight become husband and wife, they're in perfect sync with

one another. Even 1,000 soldiers from the land force would be no match for them. I

hear they even managed to turn back an invasion by the Empire when it was at its

peak once, even with the Empire's griffon units."

"Well... they definitely have the strongest air force, then," I said.

So they went into battle like a married couple running a three-legged race... No, in

their case, I guess it would be a five-legged race.

By the way, dragonewts, like Air Force General Castor Vargas, were a race born

from the union between those dragons and their knights. When a child was born to a

dragon and knight, it might be a dragon, it might belong to the knight's race, or it

might be a dragonewt. There was no way to predict which it would be. It was totally

random. On the other hand, a dragon couldn't be born from a dragonewt. And if a

dragonewt married someone of another race, there was a 50-50 chance a dragonewt

would be the result, so they were fairly numerous.

"Wait, huh? Why did we start talking about this again?" I asked.

"Because we were talking about how it's hard for wyvern cavalry to be the

deciding factor in battle, remember?" Liscia stared at me, appalled.

Oh, right, right, that was it.

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.

◇ ◇ ◇

"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.