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 inter-related 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 hotblooded, 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.