“Here comes the reckless fool.”
Count Hamira kept his eyes fixed on Sir Asard while coordinating the battlefield.
“And you, Older Brother, are you fulfilling your duties properly?”
“At least I’m doing better than you.”
Even as he scolded Asard with words, the Count never lost sight of the battlefield. Crumbling palisades, the encroaching enemy, allies struggling to hold the line. He watched all of it, throwing out and hiding his hand in turn, confusing the enemy.
His movements repeated like a single army that had been split into hundreds of field armies—all thanks to the calculations made inside Count Hamira’s mind. He coordinated with a gesture, then coordinated again.
He manipulated the battlefield. It was a feat of control that only the Master of the House of Hamira, a born strategist, could show.
Even seeing that masterful coordination—something strategists would call a textbook example of battlefield control—Asard did not admire it. To him, that ability was only natural.
“Bullshit. Look at this mess.”
“This is the best I can do. I brought it this far with what little we have.”
“You should have focused on development instead of just tactics.”
“Did I not send someone to you for that? And yet you refused to teach them.”
“When you kicked me out, what was I supposed to do?”
“Half of that was your choice to leave the family, wasn’t it?”
“…”
“…”
The verbal sparring seemed to end with Count Hamira’s victory.
“Kill them!”
“Tch.”
Meanwhile, the battlefield kept heating up.
It was Count Hamira who opened his mouth first again.
“What price are you demanding for reinforcements?”
He seemed to have grasped the entire situation from the moment Asard arrived.
‘As expected…’
Since he had figured it out on his own, there was no need for explanations. Count Hamira had always been like this. Unlike Asard, he was brilliant in strategy. Since generations, those with exceptional strategic minds took the Count’s seat, so it was fitting that his older brother became the Master of the House.
Compared to him, himself…
‘I liked the sword.’
Rather than wearing down the enemy by using his wits, he enjoyed cutting down opponents with the Single Sword Style. He had polished the family’s swordsmanship—though insufficient for a Count’s house—until he reached the level of an Aura Expert. He had wandered the world without fear and acted as if the royal capital was his own domain. Then he met Rayrn, who showed him that there was a sky above the sky. There, his swordsmanship had taken another leap forward.
He wondered if now he could face his older brother before him.
‘Not yet.’
Asard still felt lacking. His older brother was still sharp and wise—so much so that even his swordsmanship could not break him.
Shaking his head as if admitting he could not win, Asard answered.
“The price is me.”
“That’s cheap.”
“My lord said I alone would be enough.”
“He must think highly of you. Anyway, ‘my lord’…”
Count Hamira closed his eyes. It was a habit he showed whenever he fell into deep thought. Even Asard, who had been trading barbs, stayed quiet during that time. Instead…
“Don’t do that over there. Move the left wing again.”
“…”
“…Yes?”
“Give it to me!”
Coordinating the battlefield in place of Count Hamira, who was deep in contemplation.
‘I may not be able to set up the board like my older brother, but I know how to move it.’
Before being a knight, he was a member of the House of Hamira. Even if he was inferior to Count Hamira in strategy and tactics, he could still read the board the Count had set.
‘He’s made an interesting move.’
Reading the board the Count had laid out, Asard infused his own free-spiritedness into it.
“A-advance?! But here, sir?”
“Yes. Instead, pull back the third line of the left wing and push the right wing forward.”
“The balance will break.”
“That’s the point!”
Reading the situation and blending his own method into it—that was not something anyone could do. Especially on a battlefield where a single wrong judgment could upset the balance. Yet Asard changed the battlefield to his style without feeling strained or difficult.
‘Nice.’
On the contrary, he felt free. While he was inferior to Count Hamira in setting up the overall board, Asard was naturally gifted at blending his own style into the battlefield.
His sudden coordination was an absurd eccentric maneuver.
But…
“It’s breaking through!”
“Just as calculated. Pull them in more. Instead, send more support to the center.”
“Then the left wing will—”
“The Knight Order will handle it. Hurry!”
The eccentric move succeeded.
“Kuaaaah!”
If Count Hamira had responded with a standard method against Might,
‘This is my lord’s method.’
Asard moved in a way that closely resembled Rayrn’s. He blended his own style into the rules he had gained while moving with Rayrn, throwing the enemy into confusion.
It was a sudden change in strategy.
“The order has come down!”
“Follow!”
Yet Count Hamira’s army moved without missing a beat. Watching them follow the signals from the command post as soon as they were given,
‘As expected, Older Brother trained them well.’
It showed how much the Count had drilled his army in peacetime. The fact that they could instantly follow a sudden change in strategy meant they were a well-disciplined force. A rabble of disorderly troops would neither follow the hand signals nor keep up.
It was the Kingdom of Might’s army that panicked.
“This is a method we’ve never seen before!”
“…Readjust!”
“We need to reorganize the formation!”
The successful, sudden change in tactics created a situation where the enemy found it difficult to respond.
That was the nature of war. When the strategies devised by both sides clashed, victory or defeat was often decided by the superiority of the strategy. The basic principle was to know the enemy’s strategy in advance and block it.
Thus, one had to know the enemy and know oneself.
Sometimes, there were those who did not. Those who, like beasts, instinctively sensed the enemy without knowing them. Such people neither created nor used standard strategies. They simply sniffed the battlefield and moved accordingly. There were those who succeeded without theory, standard methods, or calculation of their approach.
In the end, reading and following all those changes was the essence of combat and victory on the battlefield.
The Kingdom of Might’s army had lost that essence.
And Count Hamira’s army, by unknowingly accepting a new strategy, was able to restore balance to a battlefield that had been slipping.
As he coordinated for a while, Asard heard Count Hamira’s voice.
“Interesting. Is that the method you learned over there?”
“I’m just imitating.”
“Imitating… You always used to say things like that. As I’ve said before, if you had chosen responsibility instead of recklessness, the family might have prospered more.”
“Bullshit. I don’t have the capacity.”
“And yet you’ve been going around saying this older brother kicked you out?”
“That’s another pile of bullshit.”
“Enough. It’s an interesting method. Continue with it.”
Swoosh. Swoosh.
Having finished his deep thoughts, Count Hamira grasped the battlefield the moment he opened his eyes. He was coordinating while reading Asard’s method perfectly.
The brothers were surprising each other.
‘As expected, he’s a monster…!’
‘He’s improved even more since I last saw him.’
They had each developed in different ways. Even though they were brothers, what they possessed was different. Perhaps that was why they usually clashed like oil and water. But now was the time to work together.
“I will send a communication immediately, formally requesting support.”
“A wise decision! That is the way to save the family!”
Count Hamira accepted the proposal at once.
‘This boy’s lord…’
Asard smiled like a child. He was relieved that things were going as he wanted.
‘I’ll have to see him once. These are chaotic times, after all. So…’
Count Hamira’s thoughts were elsewhere, but Asard had no way of knowing that.
“I will go deliver the message!”
“You can request it via communication magic. There’s no need for you to go. That would be faster.”
Satisfaction was always short-lived.
Asard, who had intended to return to Rayrn—now his lord again—could not move as he wished. For the first time in a long while.
‘Damn, that look.’
Count Hamira was glaring at him with the stern eyes of an older brother looking at a disappointing younger sibling.
“Then what about me? What am I supposed to do here?”
“You should roll around here again. You take the left wing. I’ll handle the center and right.”
“Damn it.”
“That is the duty of a family member.”
No matter where you go, someone always ends up suffering.
Marquis Visque, who was in charge of the Royalist Faction, personally prepared the messenger.
“If only this job is done successfully.”
“Leave it to me!”
A fairly impressive person was chosen as the messenger. Baron Ellen. A man of baronial rank acting as a messenger? It was not common to use a noble as a messenger. But it was that important.
‘We must bring him.’
Because they had a goal.
For the Royalist Faction, the current situation was beyond their calculations. It was inevitably painful. Yet they did not forget their purpose. They had been rallying the royal army here and there, waging political strife to seize command.
Just when things seemed to be going well,
The House of Opern was causing trouble again.
“No one will accept this sort of thing!”
Eldin of the House of Opern, who had gathered young nobles, had formed a faction and delayed matters regarding the command issue for a long time.
“The situation is urgent. Rather than arguing over command, we should organize quickly.”
“Aren’t you the one blocking that?”
“Everyone has to give a little.”
“Hmph.”
As a result, the Royalist Faction became the one taking the criticism. Eldin’s political skills were not bad. On the contrary, they could be considered good. No one had expected that the eldest son of the House of Opern would show such remarkable talent in politics.
Thanks to that, the dispatch was delayed considerably.
In Marquis Visque’s view, Rayrn was no fool. Rather, he was a genius.
‘He must have already grasped the situation. How will he react?’
There was no way he hadn’t foreseen this situation. Even if a messenger was sent, he could ignore them or even have the messenger secretly killed. There were many methods.
That was why they had mobilized a baron to send the messenger. At least in Marquis Visque’s knowledge, Baron Ellen would be able to succeed in the messenger’s task.
‘This much is easy.’
With the royal family’s generous backing, the baron moved, even using a Teleportation Magic Circle.
“A message from the royal family!”
If this succeeded, a bright future awaited.
‘Rayrn Opern.’
They had to bring him out.
But when he actually visited the House of Opern—
“What?!”
Rayrn had already left for somewhere else long ago.
“Where did he go?”
“He left as reinforcements for Count Hamira.”
“Hmph, no one detected the army moving!?”
Rayrn was much faster than the Royalist Faction. And his reinforcements were—
“This should be enough!”
Surprisingly modest.
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