The best course of action

The Harbormasters Office

Shipbreaker Harbor...

Shipbreaker bay

.....

"How did this happen!?" Prince Everhard asked furiously rapping his fingers across the wooden table as he stared hatefully at a plain-looking slip of paper lying peacefully in front of him.

The young prince felt incensed, infuriated, and utterly enraged after reading the contents of that little slip of paper...

So much so that none of the nobles in the room felt like commenting on the situation lest they draw the incensed prince ire and resentment. Well almost everyone at least...

"Your Grace I advise you to remain calm lest make any rash actions in a fit of anger which might worsen the situation even more than it already is." One of the nobles among the five standing before the prince of Hertalese said to the infuriated young man whose mind was currently filled with murderous thoughts.

The speaker appeared to be in his mid-fifties with his supposedly formerly ink-black hair now 'stained' with multiple grey streaks and his once tall muscular frame nothing more than a shadow of its once glorious self.

With an apathetic look on his old wrinkly face, he turned to the young impulsive prince and respectfully but harshly scolded him before he made a foolish decision which he would most definitely regret later on.

The old foggy, Sir Richard who happened both one of the oldest knights and scholar still in service with the Hertalean royal family, as well as the young prince's babysitter.

Being the oddity he many rumoured him to be, this old fart had refused to accept the lands king Tukhus had bestowed unto him and become a duke, claiming it was too strenuous and time-consuming. He only preferred to spend his days peacefully researching the truths of the world or just occasionally practice his swordplay despite his aged body.

Given his lack of responsibilities and vast knowledge the king asked him to become the young prince's tutor, an agreement sir Richard accepted, albeit grudgingly. He mostly did so since tutoring the young prince for a few hours a day wouldn't take up much of his time, but the real reason he did so was that he would be able to easily afford the costs of all his research without having to worry about going broke since it was the royal family who bore all his expenses.

Long story short he had been prince Ever's tutor for as long as the young prince could remember, tasked with the responsibility of bestowing his knowledge unto the young prince...

And while he wasn't sure if any of his teachings and counselling entered the stubborn prince's thick skull, as long as he wasn't worried about not having source out research funds or work for a place to sleep he was fine with the arrangement either way.

He was currently tasked with the responsibility of being prince Ever's military adviser, while also supervising the invasion of Algrim.

Due to Everhard's infatuation with possessing princess Iris, he had stubbornly demanded that he led the invasion despite the king's relentless persuasion for him to do otherwise.

When the king eventually relented he made sure that he entrusted his best and most loyal knights with the prince's safety, whilst making Sir Richard tag along to make sure Everhard didn't screw up such an important matter due to his impulsiveness.

Richard had initially been quite adamant about leaving his research for a stupid invasion that added nothing meaningful to achieving his goals in life, it wasn't until the king promised him a year-long vacation from tutoring after the war was over did he relent and decide the accompany the prince on his conquest

It was mostly thanks to him that conquering Algrim was achieved without too many complications as he prevented the young prince from making rash decisions that would have most certainly ruined the whole plan.

When the war was over, the old scholar had thought that he was finally free of the young prince's antics and could peacefully hideaway in a study until it was time for him to return and be granted his due vacation.

He didn't even bother interfering in the matters regarding how the spoils of war should be dished out, leaving it all to the prince's digression. That was because while he knew the prince could be an airhead at times, Everhard did sometimes turned out being quite reliable as long as he doesn't get worked up or emotional while making his decisions.

Richard also didn't involve himself in the prince's little shenanigans of investing so many resources to capture Iris, a disposed princess who is now of little political value.

And while he had an inkling of Everhard's obsession with Iris he never truly paid attention to it nor did he develop an interest in such a pointless issue, only stopping to give the occasional advice he could, most of which unsurprisingly entered through one of the prince's ears and left through the other.

He had already made up his mind to stay away from all of theses 'minor' problems while waiting for the prince to finish up and settle this region so that they could quickly return to the Hertalese.

But his whole plan was ruined when a carrier pigeon from the capital returned with news of Hertalese being invaded by Aries and The Blacksails. While he didn't worry about his family being in danger since he didn't contact them much in the first place, he was very concerned about how his research would be affected by the sudden development.

With his entire expenses being borne by the royal family if anything happens to the kingdom he might have to find another sponsor to further his research and maintain his current livelihood.

He was clear that while he may be both a talented scholar and knight not many people might be as considerate as king Tukhus and grant him so much lee-way to behave so freely without offering much in return.

In fact, the only reason king Tukhus was so generous with him was that he trusted Richard since the old scholarly knight and his family had been serving Hertalese all his life and would not suddenly just betray the royal family to aid their enemies.

There many more scholars out there who are just as learned as he is, so he was clear on the fact that if not for trust issues the royal family could very easily replace him with another person. This was also the reason for his arrogance and impudence even when dealing with the king as he knew it won't be easy for them to just get rid of him and find a trustworthy replacement.

Knowing all this he knew that if the royal family fell into a predicament he could very easily suffer from the fall out of such an incident because there weren't many people of high calibre who would accept him as their family tutor if he was ever forced to permanently leave Hertalese.

Though he could join the Sanctuary of Scrolls and become one of their scholars he knew the benefits of doing so would be much paler in comparison with being sponsored as a tutor by a family of at least high nobility status.

Unlike most organizations, The Sanctuary of Scrolls depends on the sponsorship of other bodies of power to survive since it does not possess a stable source of revenue.

The sanctuary usually receives support from other organizations such as the Board of Trade and some of the royal families in the form of cash donations and monetary rewards which it uses for the upkeep of its scholars.

Since the Sanctuary of Scrolls doesn't actively generate money, the resources that are in turn available for its scholars tend to be insufficient which inevitably leads to caustic competition amongst the members.

So to secure resources for self-development, the members are expected to generate productive results that would be useful to the organization's sponsors, like simplifying the production process of certain goods to generate more products or inventing completely new items altogether.

Given the structure of the organization that is just barely twenty years old and an insufficient amount of resources within the group, though many scholars join the Sanctuary of Scrolls ever year, very few ever succeed in accomplishing anything substantial and are eventually forced out when they failed to prove their worth.

The usually lazy but studios scholar was faced with a serious predicament as his fate was tightly tied to that of the Wesselbutums of Hertalese...

But although he was deeply stressed by this new problem he refused to let it show, putting on an apathetic face as he fell deep in thought as to how best to advise this hotheaded prince from messing up everything and indirectly ruining a chance to achieve his life goals.

He looked down at the slip of paper in deep thought as he began to consider what the best course of action would be.

The letter directly from king Tukhus himself explained what was currently the situation back at Ferum, the capital of Hertalese.

It turned out that somehow information on the invasive expedition was leaked to Aries much earlier than expected. While it was impossible to hide such a huge operation completely from the rest of the world it was possible though to delay the spread of the news to buy time for the attack to be completed.

The plan was to carry out a lighting fast attack on Algrim and capture it much earlier than the rest of the kingdoms can properly react and take advantage of the situation. So to achieve this, king Tukhus reached out to his closest ally, the king of Verum to lend him some ships to overwhelm Algrim's fleet without having to engage in a prolonged battle.

The king of Verum did send a few ships but they weren't enough for the plan to be successful so king Tukhus sought out the Blacksails to compensate for the gaps in his navy. After destroying Algrim's fleet with an overwhelming force they quickly laid siege to Greystones and with help from the three Ancient families they quickly brought Algrim to her knees.

The plan was a stunning success and would have gone down the annals of history as one of the most elaborate conquests since the Great war a century ago if not for the fact that the king of Hertalese had been double-crossed and made a fool of by The Blacksails.

They had unhesitatingly leaked out information of the invasion to one of Hertalese's rivals and still shamelessly joined in to plunder her lands even after they had just collaborated with Tukhus to plunder Algrim.

Richard looked to Prince Everhard who was still swearing furiously under his breath and paused in thought for a moment before asking.

"What do you want to do now your grace?"

"Ai...

Let's go back.

We can't continue to let those bastards run amok in my kingdom." The young prince sighed before hesitantly replying.

"No your Highness, that would be irresponsible of you. If our army leaves now without a proper plan in place these scheming Algrians would without a doubt reclaim the kingdom and lock us out making all our efforts to conquer this land go to waste.

Do not underestimate these nobles because even if their numbers are less than what it previously was, Wall Maria is still standing and with the men they have they can still defend the city even if we bring back the entire army with us the next time."

"So what should we do then? We can't just stay here while the capital is under threat of an invasion. Even if we also have a defensive wall at the capital how are we sure that we don't have traitors among just how Algrim did? I'm not taking chances I am going to lead the army back first thing tomorrow." Everhard argued gesturing greatly as he tried to get his point across.

Though the prince did have a valid point, Richard wasn't going to let him make an impulsive decision.

"Calm down your grace, I understand what you are trying to say but I have a better solution."

"What do you mean?"

"I suggest we leave a third of the army here to manage things while the rest with three-fourths of the navy return to remove those vile animals from your father's lands." Sir Richard proposed

"I assume that leaving a third of the army should be able to keep these nobles from having funny ideas towards these lands, while the rest should be enough to force the Arien troops out of Hertalese."

Prince Everhard's eyes brightened for a moment before quickly dimming again.

"Who is going to be responsible for the army's management when I return?" He asked.

Richard was also aware of this problem, normally Ever is supposed to be the one left in charge of the army until the king personally appoints a Marquis to take over, but it was clear that Everhard wanted to personally lead the other half of the army back to deal with the problem at Hertalese.

Richard knew it was not possible to convince him otherwise given his conviction towards personally dealing with the invaders. But if he leaves Algrim now that would lead to a power vacuum which would be just as bad if not worse than not leaving any army here at all.

Managing the army could be left with one of the dukes that came along for the invasion, but the risk with that is if the noble in charge suddenly gets overambitious and covets Algrim for himself it would lead to a very problematic situation that the Wesselbutums might eventually have to suffer quite a bit to deal with.

So since there is a risk of leaving this matter unattended Richard took a deep breath before replying.

I will do it."

"Really?" Everhard asked, sounding somewhat doubtful. He was clear on his teacher's lazy habits and his different but ingenious methods for avoiding work, so he was surprised when he heard that Sir Richard had actually volunteered to take over.

"Hmm, but only for until you settle the issue at the capital and return to take over."

"Thank you, Teacher!" Ever said sounding particularly grateful. He knew how much this tutor of his wanted to avoid work and just stay in his study and was pleased to see he was willing to take up this responsibility for him.

"OK, it's settled then." Ever said in an arrogant voice sounding particularly pleased with himself before asking in an angry voice.

"What about the remaining pirates?" The pirate ships had mostly fled with only a small portion left leisurely plundering what they could before they left.

It was clear that their leaders hadn't made any plans for how they would safely leave Algrim nor informed them to flee, but instead left them as sacrificial lambs to buy more time for the remaining fleet to escape.

When Richard heard about the group that ruined his simply planned vacation his gaze grew cold.

"I suggest the best course of action is to kill them all off, your grace." He mirthlessly replied, sealing the fates of hundreds of men.

"It's decided then..."