Chapter 1: A Sign (part 1)

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.