The battle between the Brennan Territory and the Lubant Territory
had finally begun.
And yet—
One person who should have been there was absent.
Reion was nowhere to be seen.
&
Papapap!
Reion was currently riding hard, making a wide detour around the embankment of the Brennan Territory.
Five men followed behind him.
Among the soldiers, they were the boldest,
the quickest with their hands and feet, and those with the best stamina.
Of course, they were still only soldiers.
He could not expect refined mounted combat from them, as he would from knights.
Still, what they needed now was not swordsmanship, but speed.
The horses’ hooves kicked up dirt.
As they raced through the forest path, the soldiers’ breathing grew ragged.
The closer they drew to their destination,
the heavier the tension weighing on their saddles became.
I tightened my grip on the reins and spoke.
“Everyone, stay sharp!”
At my voice cutting through the wind, five pairs of eyes turned toward me all at once.
“If we fail here, our families go back to living in poverty! We’ve only just begun eating proper food—are you going to let those bastards take it from us again?”
The soldiers’ faces hardened.
“No, sir!”
“Absolutely not!”
“How dare they!”
Good.
Fear was still there.
But anger was beginning to cover it.
I drove my horse harder and put more strength into my voice.
“They’re not just after our livelihoods. They’re after our people, too.”
I could see strength enter the soldiers’ hands.
“Do not hesitate. The moment you hesitate, your wife dies and your children starve. If you can still hesitate after that, then go ahead!”
The honor of knights could not move soldiers.
The pressure of nobles was even more useless.
It had to be something direct.
Hunger,
family,
life.
Touch those, and the body responds.
I drew in a short breath.
“I’m young, so you probably don’t trust me. This road might look like a road to our deaths.”
Even as we rode, I was at the front.
The fastest.
The first.
“But look clearly at just one thing.”
I did not even look back.
“Who is at the very front right now.”
There was no need for a long speech.
At a moment like this, a back speaks faster than explanations.
I was riding first.
That alone changed the light in the soldiers’ eyes.
The faces that had been soaked in fear only moments ago slowly began to stiffen.
Their wavering gazes began to gather.
Trust.
Still small and imperfect,
but that light was clearly beginning to appear.
And the moment I felt it,
my own heart began to beat faster.
Exhilaration.
The wind striking my ears,
the branches brushing past,
even the smell of dirt became vivid.
Ah.
At this rate,
I won’t die.
The forest ended, and the view opened wide.
Beyond the grassland,
the upstream embankment facility managed by Lubant came into sight.
In the distance were the sluice gates, a low barricade,
and even the soldiers guarding beside it.
I narrowed my eyes.
Ten.
Just as expected.
For an embankment, two men would normally be enough, five at most.
But since this was a territorial war, they seemed to have increased the number.
Still, that was as far as it went.
They never imagined we would strike straight at this place, at this very moment.
“Pick up speed!”
I shouted, pulling hard on the reins.
“We hit them now!”
The five soldiers gritted their teeth and spurred their horses on.
Tadadak! Tadadak! Tadadak!
The sound of hooves trampled the grassland.
Only then did the Lubant soldiers notice us.
“Wh-what is that!”
“That’s...!”
“It’s Brennan! The enemy!”
Their faces turned white in an instant.
It was the Halsen family that had confidently started this territorial war, not the soldiers.
They, too, could not help but fear a real fight.
On top of that, the sight of men charging in on horseback
must have been more threatening than expected.
A rabble.
I deliberately raised our speed even more.
At the beginning, you had to overwhelm them.
That way, courage would never have the chance to form.
Flash!
The moment I drew my sword,
the cold edge of the blade gleamed.
Tadadak! Tadadak!
We closed the distance in an instant.
“St-stop them!”
“Stop them!!”
I could see them fumbling to draw their swords.
Slow.
No—
everything I could see right now was slow.
I leapt down from my horse as if throwing myself off it.
Thud!
The moment I landed, I shot forward.
The soldier standing at the very front screamed and swung his sword.
Hrk!
Clumsy.
It had only force behind it,
and his center of balance had completely collapsed.
To my eyes, that sword was far too clear.
The angle at which the blade trembled,
the direction his wrist bent,
even the trajectory, closer to shoving than cutting.
The tip of the sword swept in as if grazing past my face.
But I did not so much as blink.
One step.
I slipped precisely inside.
Swish!
The instant the blade passed beside my face,
my sword flashed briefly.
Slaash!
“Guh, guh...”
Before he could finish speaking, his throat was split open.
Spurt!
Red blood sprayed out in a single stream.
The soldier flailed, trying to clutch his own neck with both hands,
but blood only poured between his fingers.
His knees buckled just like that,
and he crashed to the ground with his eyes rolled back.
Silence.
It had happened too quickly.
Neither the enemy nor our side could follow it.
The Lubant soldiers, who had been shouting just moments ago, froze.
Even the soldiers following behind me swallowed their breaths.
I looked down at the bloodied sword.
I wiped the blade once with the back of my hand.
Then, brushing my hair back, I looked at them.
My eyes felt so cold that even I was aware of it.
But my voice, in contrast, was very gentle.
“If you want to live.”
I took one step forward.
“You may run.”
Those words pierced their chests.
Ten men.
They still had the greater numbers.
But numbers meant nothing.
Just now, before their very eyes,
one of the men at the front had died far too easily.
The true face of war seen for the first time.
Death.
Fear.
And the momentum that made it all the more vivid.
In that moment, their choice was as good as already made.
“Hiiik!”
“R-run away!”
The first one to show his back
was the soldier who had been holding a spear before me just moments ago.
With a face half-emptied of his senses, he turned around.
But because he retreated too hastily, he slammed shoulders with the comrade right behind him.
“Wh-what are you—”
Thud!
The two lost their balance together and tumbled into a heap.
That brief gap was the end.
Even the men standing behind them backed away, one step,
then two, faces filled with terror;
someone dropped his weapon,
and someone fled without even looking back.
Fear spread in an instant.
Our soldiers were also staring at me with dazed expressions.
For a moment, I caught a glimpse of my face reflected in the blade.
Hair soaked in blood.
And eyes gone cold.
Perhaps, to me, it was not an unfamiliar face.
But to them, it would be different.
For an instant, I wondered if I had looked too cold,
but fortunately, what surfaced in the soldiers’ eyes was not fear.
It was trust.
“Y-young master...”
“So cool...”
“You’re the best!”
At last, one soldier shouted until his throat nearly burst.
“Our young master! He drove off the enemies!”
“Uwaaaaah!!”
With that one brief cheer, the atmosphere completely overturned.
The men who had been terrified only moments before
were now shouting with flushed faces.
Their morale soared in an instant.
“...”
It was a strange feeling.
In my previous life, I fought alone.
I had always been alone,
killing alone,
running away alone,
enduring alone.
But now, it was not like that.
I felt my fingertips tremble faintly.
It was not fear.
Rather, it was the opposite.
The battle just now.
And the fact that the strategy I had thought of was working.
The excitement and exhilaration rising within me without my realizing it made me tremble.
I sheathed my sword and spoke.
“We don’t have time. They’ll move to retake this place soon. First, we close the embankment.”
“Yes, sir!”
The soldiers immediately headed toward the embankment facility.
When we rushed inside,
the workers and administrators, not soldiers, were huddled in a corner, trembling.
Their faces were deathly pale,
as if they could not even tell whose side we were on.
I deliberately lowered my voice.
“I am Reion Signal of the Brennan Territory. I have no intention of harming you. As long as you do nothing foolish, you won’t be hurt.”
Only then did life barely return to their faces.
Now I had to make use of them.
We headed straight for the sluice gates.
But once I actually began examining the structure,
my brows slowly drew together.
It was quite different in form from the embankment on our side.
The shaft that opened and closed the sluice gates,
the way the stones were set,
even the grain of the reinforcing timber inside was subtly different.
“Who is in charge here?”
“M-me, sir! Young master!”
One worker hurriedly raised his hand.
“Good. How do we move this?”
“Ah, this is... an old method, you see. First you loosen this part, and then you have to lift the inner fixing pin...”
As I listened to his explanation, I suddenly stopped in my tracks.
“An old method? Ours is about seventy years old, too. It isn’t exactly recent.”
“Th-this is even older than that.”
I turned my head back toward the sluice gate.
Looking only at the exterior, it did not seem that ancient, and there were clear signs it had been reinforced.
I knew that if reinforcements were done well, something like this could continue to be used, but I felt a strange sense of unease.
I asked again.
“How exactly does this thing work?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes! You first release this fixing pin, and then when you turn the lower latch, the water pressure...”
Even as the worker continued his explanation, my eyes did not leave the structure of the sluice gate.
***
“What!?”
The head of the Halsen family,
Doren Halsen, sprang up from his chair the moment he heard the report.
“Our embankment was attacked!? What the hell were those crazy bastards doing! Huh!?”
“Th-that is... We never thought they would strike this side immediately, so we only stationed about ten guards...”
Doren slammed his desk.
“That’s why I’m asking why you only left ten!”
“That was your order, my lord...”
“Shut up!”
Doren’s face flushed red.
He crumpled the paper on his desk and shouted.
“Call Antony at once and retake the upstream!”
“But... Sir Antony is currently near the Brennan Territory’s embankment...”
“You idiot! Our embankment is several times more important!”
The man who had come to report hurriedly caught his breath.
“Then... how about this? They say the one who attacked our embankment is Reion Signal. The eldest son of the Signal family. If we capture him, it will be much easier to shake them.”
“O-ohh.”
The look in Doren’s eyes changed.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I was about to say! Relay it as my idea! To Antony, quickly. And send more soldiers from here as well, so we can strike from above and below together and capture him completely! Kya, even if it came from my own head, that’s truly brilliant.”
“U-understood.”
Thus, the order was immediately delivered to Knight Antony.
After hearing the report, Antony fell briefly silent.
“...I said from the beginning that this operation was crude.”
He turned his head and looked behind him.
Deep in the forest.
There, Brennan soldiers and one knight were hiding.
Troublesome.
Their movements and purpose were obvious.
There had been no proper battle.
They repeatedly showed themselves, exchanged brief attacks, and withdrew immediately.
No one had died, but amid the continued tension, our stamina was being rapidly worn down.
He knew very well.
They were absolutely not doing that because they were frightened.
“Do not worry! We can stop cowards like them on our own!”
“It is the opposite.”
Antony cut him off coldly.
“We are the ones being played.”
He immediately turned around.
“Everyone, move out.”
“Pardon? Then what about this place?”
Antony looked down at the soldier as if he were pathetic.
“If I leave, who will stop that knight? Just because he seems frightened, do you think you can defeat a knight?”
“Uh, well... that is true, but... The family head ordered only half of us to move...”
“If you want to die, then stay.”
Antony tapped the hilt of his sword.
“Those who want to live, follow me.”
And so, he led his troops upstream.