Anthony tapped the hilt of his sword.
“If you want to live, follow me.”
With that, he led the troops upstream.
&
“From here on, we make a wide detour and regroup near the downstream levee.”
“Yes, sir!”
“What about the horses?”
“Send them the other way.”
I spoke curtly, gripping the reins tight.
“Their eyes will follow the horses. We slip away in the meantime.”
The soldiers nodded at once.
The calculation was simple.
If they had lost the upstream side,
Halsen would naturally try to take it back.
They would pull some of the troops occupying the downstream side and send them up,
and in that opening, Miles would strike while we circled around and got out.
That was the board I had drawn.
For those who had never properly experienced a territorial war, even this simple level of play was enough to land a blow for the moment.
So we sent the horses off and were moving along the edge of the forest in a wide arc.
But then.
“Found them!”
My head snapped around.
“What...?”
The ones who should not have been visible were there.
In the distance, between the trees, I could see Halsen soldiers,
and there were more of them than I had expected.
The fact that they had come this far up meant one of two things.
Either they had not merely detached a moderate number of troops from downstream,
but had sent far more than expected.
Or else.
It meant they had abandoned downstream altogether.
“Damn it!”
My judgment had been wrong.
The head of House Halsen was a stubborn man and greedy besides,
so I had thought he would covet downstream,
and try to hold on to upstream as well.
But to think he would send that many men up here?
At this rate, sending the horses in the opposite direction became a bad move too.
With no other choice, we immediately had to break out of the forest and run.
We burst out onto the grassland and sprinted madly toward the foothills of the Asterus Mountains, not far off.
“Haa...! Haa!”
“Hek, hek...”
The soldiers’ breathing behind me grew rougher and rougher.
I had brought only the youngest and fittest men, and yet this was the state they were in.
Getting this far had not been an easy journey to begin with.
Add to that the terror of being chased,
and it was only natural that their breath would be torn away several times faster.
Once we began climbing the Asterus Mountains, their expressions twisted even more,
and now I could hear them nearly choking for air.
I glanced back briefly.
There was distance between us,
but I could see Halsen soldiers coming up from below.
When I looked at the sky, the day was already nearly gone,
and climbing any higher in this state was impossible.
We had to find somewhere to hide, anywhere.
I quickly swept my eyes over the surroundings,
but there was no cave in sight.
The gaps between the rocks were too narrow.
The only things that looked even remotely useful were the trees.
And then,
I caught sight of a place where we might just be able to twist our bodies in.
The roots of a giant tree had burst up through the ground, creating an empty space underneath.
If the six of us crouched and crammed ourselves in, we could somehow hide there.
“There. Run!”
We headed that way as if our lungs were about to burst.
But one soldier tried to cut away a branch blocking the path.
“Don’t cut it.”
“Haa, haa... It, it’s too much in the way.”
“No.”
I cut him off at once.
“It’ll leave traces. And right now, that tree is on our side.”
We shoved ourselves under the roots as we were.
We crushed our shoulders against one another, pressed our bodies against dirt and bark, and barely managed to crouch inside.
I positioned myself on the outermost side.
The moment we were discovered,
I would have to be the first to jump out.
But we could not fight now.
The moment a fight broke out, my plan would fall completely apart.
It would be difficult to protect these five,
and I might be in danger as well.
Darkness was falling,
so I could only pray we made it through this situation safely.
I wanted to believe that.
Rustle.
The wind swept through the forest once.
The sound of leaves brushing against one another rang thickly above our heads.
Before long.
Footsteps.
Ragged breathing.
They drew closer and closer.
“Search the area thoroughly!”
“Huff, huff! They couldn’t have gotten far!”
“Damn it, just cut all these branches away!”
They were right there.
We lowered ourselves further,
and I could feel everyone swallowing even the sound of their breathing.
I too very slowly raised my gaze and assessed the situation.
I saw them.
Their legs between the trees.
If they came just a little closer,
we would be close enough to be discovered.
Please.
Just pass by.
It was almost completely dark now, so I thought perhaps they still would not see us.
But it was at that moment.
The moonlight tilted and fell across my breastplate.
Flash.
My heart dropped.
Damn it.
At first, it had been blocked by the trees,
but as time passed, the light was creeping down little by little.
At this rate, the reflected light would enter their eyes.
I hurriedly tried to twist my body and cover it with my hand.
No good.
There was metal on my back too, and metal on my shoulders.
Even if I curled up, I could not block every piece of metal set between the leather armor.
I bit my lip hard.
At this rate, we would be discovered.
Maybe I should just jump out alone and draw them away...
At that moment.
Frsssh.
“...?”
It was so strange that at first I thought I was mistaken.
But it was clear.
The tree.
It moved.
No.
The trees.
As if swaying in the wind,
so naturally.
Little by little.
And yet unmistakably.
The line of sight that had been open toward us slowly closed.
Branches overlapped,
leaves layered over one another,
and even the moonlight was covered, as if another layer of darkness had settled down.
I thought my breath had stopped.
Without even blinking, I stared at the sight.
“Doesn’t look like they’re here.”
“Did they already circle around and go down!?”
“If they went, it was this way! Everyone move!”
Their footsteps began to grow distant again.
Even as I listened to that sound, I could not come back to my senses for a while.
How much time had passed?
“Y-Young master. It seems they’re gone.”
“Young master?”
“Uh... ah?”
Only at the trembling voices of the soldiers did my senses return.
Still dazed, I looked up above me.
The branches that had been hiding us just moments ago had already returned to their original positions.
The moonlight was falling onto my armor again.
I slowly looked down at my breastplate,
then up at the trees above my head again.
And I swallowed a very small breath.
“Whew. Let’s move.”
We carefully pulled ourselves out.
The moment we climbed out from beneath the roots and were about to head back down,
I stopped walking.
Then I looked back.
The tree.
Those trees that, just moments ago,
had unmistakably hidden us.
I bowed my head briefly.
Then I turned again and went down with the soldiers.
Rustle.
From behind, I heard the leaves brush softly against one another.
***
Fortunately, Miles grasped the situation immediately and moved, keeping watch on the upstream side from around the middle of the forest.
“I didn’t see any signs of fighting, so I was thinking it was a relief, but what happened?”
A soldier answered in my stead.
“We barely got out thanks to the young master’s astonishing judgment. Haa, haa...”
He still had not managed to catch his breath properly.
Miles looked at me in surprise,
and I only shrugged in silence.
I was in no mood to explain.
My head still felt strangely blank.
“Let’s hurry back first.”
Miles immediately turned around,
and we returned straight to the Brennan domain.
As soon as we arrived at the estate, my father and mother came out almost at a run to greet us.
“Are you all right!”
“I’m fine. More importantly... there’s something we must look at right now.”
Without even taking time to catch my breath, I entered the study with Miles.
As soon as the door closed, I spread out the notice.
“Here.”
I pointed to one line with my finger.
[That the Lubant domain has long built and maintained]
Father read the sentence and slowly raised his head.
“Was it not maintained by the Lubant domain?”
I lightly shook my head.
“The structure I saw myself when I briefly occupied the upstream levee was very old.”
Father did not understand.
“Could that not be because they maintained it for a long time? I heard they had done so for three generations.”
“That could be. But...”
At my reaction, Father’s eyes gleamed.
“It was an even older operating method, then.”
“Yes.”
With that one sentence, the air in the room changed.
Father leaned slightly away from the back of his chair and spoke in a low voice.
“If we can only prove that...”
“We can end this.”
Justification.
In the world of nobles, that was not a matter of face.
It was a leash.
If we could destroy the very justification Lubant had presented,
then this fight would no longer require swords.
I immediately called people in.
The technicians.
And even the administrator who managed our levee.
“It was made like this... and when this latch was released, the inside moved. The fixed axis looked like this.”
I dragged up my memories as best I could and roughly sketched them onto paper.
“It was roughly like this, and since the water pressure applies from this side...”
“Hmm...”
“Wow, even if I were a genius, if I could figure it out just from the young master’s drawing, I’d already have filed ten patents.”
One technician clicked his tongue in genuine disbelief.
Even to my eyes, it was a little much.
Looking again, what I had completed was a bizarre drawing, completely crooked.
Still, though they were laughing at my drawing,
their eyes did not leave the paper.
Everyone was turning it over in their heads.
After staring at it for a long while,
in the end, all the technicians shook their heads.
“We don’t know.”
“This isn’t my field either.”
I pressed my lips together.
“What if you saw it in person?”
“It still wouldn’t be easy. There’s a reason specialties are divided. We could steal the technique or unravel it, yes.”
The technician looked at the drawing again and shrugged.
“We can imitate how it works or make something similar. Even from this, I can roughly see how to build it. But whether this is an old style or not, that we don’t know.”
This was a headache.
Striking the upstream side again was too great a burden.
This time, they certainly would not leave it empty.
I turned my gaze to the levee administrator.
“What about you, as the administrator?”
“I-I only learned the method for the waterways I’m in charge of. A structure like that... I’ve never... heard of it.”
We were stuck.
I had thought it would be solved quickly.
“...”
But then something suddenly flashed through my mind.
“You said you can make this, correct?”
“Yes, well, roughly?”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just make the model and the operating method similar.”
I immediately pulled more paper toward me.
Holding the technicians and the administrator there,
I pieced my memory together one detail at a time.
Which piece of iron came loose first,
which direction the axis turned,
where the reinforcing timber had been driven in.
Within a day, we had a result.
It was not perfect,
but it had been made in a roughly similar form.
One technician looked down at the completed model and tilted his head.
“Is this right? It’s strange.”
“It doesn’t need to be exactly the same. It only has to give the right impression.”
I tapped the model with my finger.
“Load this onto a carriage.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Send it to House Pimale. Do not damage it under any circumstances.”
While the soldier carried the model out,
I stood by the window with Father.
I saw the carriage leaving the mansion.
“Pimale, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
Father laughed briefly.
“You have ties there as well?”
“By chance.”
Father looked at me with a pleased expression.
I felt it anew once again.
Why nobles struggled so desperately to build connections.
At times like this, a single path opened.
Now all we had to do was wait for an answer, but we could not sit still.
House Halsen would move again.
Just then, one of the technicians came running over, his face brimming with excitement.
“Young master, take a look at this!”
What the technician had made was fairly simple.
A footboard,
and a device beneath it.
“If you step on this...”
Clack.
Crack!
Several spears placed in the device shot up diagonally.
“What do you think? We hide this in the dirt, and when they come—shaaak! How about it!!”
The technician asked with his eyes gleaming.
But the technician beside him laughed.
“One look and it’s obviously a one-use thing. Once the enemy sees it, they’ll shoot it with arrows next time.”
“What!? You bastard, my invention!”
The two of them nearly grabbed each other by the collar right away.
I watched them, then slowly shook my head.
“No.”
Both technicians’ gazes fixed on me at the same time.
“Even so, that one time would be extremely threatening.”
I looked down at the spears that had shot up.
Battles were not always won by lasting long.
Once.
A single trap that worked just once,
could change the tide of battle entirely.
“Wahaha, I knew the young master would recognize its value!”
“However.”
I cut him off.
“I don’t want to use this right now.”
Because.
Not yet.
I did not want screams and blood,
and the terror of the ground collapsing beneath one’s feet,
to spread too deeply through our domain.