Chapter 395 - In a Single Battle

“Wasn't that going too far?” the ferryman said.

“It was a whim,” the ferryman answered.

“That was madness. What did you like about him? That he amused you? It was only for a moment,” the ferryman said again.

“Wasn't that what was going to happen?” the ferryman asked once more. “Humans are creatures of potential and possibility.”

“And therefore arrogant.”

“He will be no different.”

“Who knows? Just as he amused us, he might change what's to come, mightn't he?”

“If he ends up trapped there, that will be the limit of him.”

He asked and answered alone, with no one to hear the exchange.

* * *

Krang held his first strategy meeting in the palace training grounds. He had a small platform erected and stationed the Royal Guard around it. The nobles were the first to gather there. Where people gathered, talk inevitably followed. One of the better-informed among them, who had heard all manner of rumors, began.

“I hear fifty Lycanthropes appeared before Border Guard. They say Count Molsen is a mage. Who knows what else might emerge from his lands?”

“Hah.”

“A dangerous business. Remarkable that they held them off. Remarkable.”

“They say the monsters that stirred up the capital earlier were his work too, not just the Lycanthropes.”

“Is that all? I hear the trouble in the palace, with Viscount Mernes at its center, was the count's doing as well.” Krang had not restricted the information. He had spread it further instead. As a result, everyone knew the full story behind the incident. “He also said we must fight without summoning any of the knights stationed elsewhere.”

“How does that make any sense? At least one knight from the Scarlet Cloak Knight Order must come at once.”

“... Surely this won't be a fight we have no hope of winning?” A young noble who had inherited his title overstepped with that remark. His anxiety had made him blurt it out before he knew what he was saying. Only Krang's supporters remained, but that did not mean they were all of one mind. Once anxiety took hold, even faith could waver. That was precisely what was happening now. The gathering included life peers, minor gentry, owners of trading companies in the capital, and guild masters.

“Outrageous.”

“Do you not trust the lord you chose to serve?”

Two nobles who had been watching gravely rebuked the young man. Then the noble who had started the discussion spoke up as well. “I doubt reproaching him will solve anything. We are of use only when we examine the situation, read the currents, and exercise judgment. If blind faith is all we need, why not go to the temple over there and do nothing but pray?”

“Baron Jeple, what are you trying to say?”

The man called Baron Jeple answered at once.

“That we should face the situation and do what needs doing.”

“Betrayal?” The man who asked looked ready to swing whatever came to hand. Since they were meeting at the training grounds, everyone was armed. Several of the non-nobles frowned. Was this really all right? Who knew how long the civil war would last? Was it wise to be on the same side as men like these? “Do you want bloodshed, Baron Rudin?”

There was a stiffness to the titles they used for each other. They were not quite bitter enemies, but their lands adjoined, with a mineral vein between them, and they had quarreled over it before. They could hardly be on good terms. Quite apart from the pair's little quarrel, unease spread further through the gathering. It was especially pronounced among the nobles whose lands lay close to Count Molsen's. What would become of their domains if a host of monsters formed a colony and attacked? Losing even one city would be devastating. Civil war or not, did they have to stake everything they owned? What if they lost? No, would anything remain even if they won? If a Territorial War broke out afterward, whose side would the king take? Those who had fought better? Or those who were useful to him then? Such concerns were shared not only by the nobles but by the craftsmen's guild masters and others. Everyone present had plenty of political considerations to weigh. Even so, they were people with courage and determination. Had they not turned their backs on Count Molsen to come here? Of course, many among them could never have sided with the count in the first place. One had lost an entire trading company handed down for generations when the count swallowed up the local markets in the name of business. Another had lost half his territory to exorbitant protection payments, extorted on the grounds that the count had defended him from nearby monsters. Such men ground their teeth whenever Molsen's name came up. “Humans turning into monsters? No, hasn't he been harboring monsters from the start? How can we call such a creature a fellow human being?”

Some appealed to the basic principle that monsters were humanity's enemy. That speaker was the master of a craftsmen's guild. They took pride in making weapons for humankind, so it was understandable. More than twenty people had gathered. The great nobles, Marquis Vaisar and the Marquis of Fertile Lands, had yet to arrive. More precisely, both were with Krang, inside a small barracks behind the training grounds that smelled of stale sweat. “They will not all be of one mind.”

“But we cannot call them enemies.”

The two marquises spoke in turn. Some had joined whichever side the current favored. Some stood with Krang but had no intention of staking everything. Others carried their own bundles of private considerations. Even so, they were needed. It was difficult even to gauge the count's hidden strength right now. In such circumstances, they would have to turn a blind eye and accept even a Ghoul if it took their side. Indeed, that was precisely what the count was doing. 'So he's a mage.'

Vaisar felt as though the furrows between his brows were deepening. Whatever Count Molsen had done, creatures neither quite human nor monster stood on his side. There was no way to learn how that was possible now, nor any need to. This was a time to fight and win. “You must take the long view,” the Marquis of Fertile Lands added.

His power came from the land. Otherwise, he would never have earned the epithet “Fertile Lands.” As the war dragged on, he stood to suffer more than anyone else. Could farmland possibly remain intact with bloody fighting breaking out everywhere? Yet he was arguing against a short war. To win, they would have to wear down Count Molsen's strength. He had probably also calculated that prolonging matters might cause the knight order to intervene of its own accord.

“You said you would decline the knights' intervention? You should not have done that.”

No, he even voiced the criticism outright. He believed they could not afford to be choosy about the means at their disposal if they wanted victory. He was right. Krang merely gave a faint smile at all of this. The weather was fine, the sunshine warm. Summer would soon arrive. This was the season when the chorus of insects grew noticeably louder.

“Fine weather,” he said. Marcus entered late, saw the two marquises' stiff expressions, and asked, “Have you been having a good round of cursing?”

Marcus could be called a loyal retainer. If the two marquises had joined after weighing the terms, or were here because they could not stomach the other side, Marcus had staked everything on Krang himself. “You lack refinement, Marcus.”

“Since when have you concerned yourself with my refinement?”

Having retorted to the marquis, Marcus took his place beside his lord.

“You'll finish it in one battle, won't you?”

The question came naturally.

“I'll have to. I'm a little too fainthearted to do this twice,” Krang replied.

“Oh, so it's one battle because you're fainthearted? You're making a mockery of those who really are.”

Marcus was all banter. “What do you mean, finish it in one battle?”

The question came from Marquis Vaisar. The old statesman was not easily rattled, but he could not let that pass. It meant staking everything on a single battle. “If we drag out this civil war, what will be left of this land?” Krang asked with a smile.

“If we fail to win this civil war, we will lose everything we hold.”

A sound argument.

“Then we need only win.”

“Do you think winning with that lot will be easy?”

“Are you underestimating the count's strength?”

“Neither. I will simply do everything I can. For the rest, we can only pray that the goddess of luck smiles on us.”

“We must ensure it does not come to that.” Victory, even at the cost of sickening the country. Inwardly, Krang shook his head. Not that he failed to understand the two men before him. Fail to win, and they would lose everything. That was how they saw this fight. Krang was looking further ahead.

'Winning alone cannot be the end of it.' Count Molsen, too, would probably try to end it with a single battle. To the two of them, that was only natural. If they wanted the throne, and wanted that throne still to be worthy of the name afterward, that was what they had to do. They could not become mighty beasts that fell prey to jackals once the fight was over. Rihinstetten to the south. Aspen to the east. There were still many enemies, and the threat of the Demonic Realm was terrifying. That was why they had to settle this here, in a single battle, with the strength they already possessed.

'Broader. Greater.' “The threat of the Demonic Realm grows every year, and we are losing territory. I have no desire to stand by and watch it happen.”

Krang dispensed with the explanation and spoke of the days ahead. The two marquises were no fools. Both understood. Beyond the civil war. Krang was envisioning the future. They fell silent. “My heart is still too small to fathom a grand ambition.”

Behind him, Marcus offered something like a joke. It was an old maxim. It sounded half mocking, but its real message was that if they found Krang's purpose hard to grasp, should they not trust and follow him? Naturally, both marquises understood. That did not mean they let it pass. “That tongue will bring him serious trouble one day.”

“I have warned him time and again, but he never changes.”

The two marquises criticized Marcus in cultured tones. Smiling, he followed his lord. Krang went outside. It was time to meet the assembled nobles, guild masters, and merchants. He needed their strength. Neither his claim to legitimacy nor his troops were in abundant supply. Above all, they had to unite if they were to fight properly. It would be better if they all shared the same purpose, but if that proved difficult, he need only bind them together around a common center. And if nothing worked? He could offer terms. The thought struck him anew.

'A fight at a disadvantage?'

He immediately rejected the self-deprecating question. Since when had he only fought with the advantage? And disadvantage did not necessarily mean defeat. A man at his side had turned the impossible into the possible. Accomplishing even half of what Encrid had shown him would be enough. So would having half the luck Encrid always credited. This was the first step. Krang climbed onto the platform and looked over everyone in the pleasant sunshine. The murmuring naturally fell silent.

“Did you sleep well?”

Those were his first words. A few words passed back and forth. The nobles voiced their exclamations, thoughts, and concerns. After hearing them all, Krang calmly raised a hand and swept it down. The words that followed that brief gesture silenced them.

“I believe we will win. Don't you?”

He was confident of victory? On what grounds? “Baron Jeple, I hear your light infantry are so swift that no one can keep up with them in the forest?”

Jeple commanded a ranger unit he had raised, fed, and housed in the woods. He himself would leap out of bed at the prospect of a hunt.

“... Yes.” “And Baron Rudin, I hear you are an excellent spearman.”

“My skill is lacking.”

“Yet I heard you once dreamed of joining the knight order. Was I misinformed?”

“It was a childhood dream.”

His skill was said to surpass that of a squire. Krang smiled.

“I believe once will be enough. Just once.” Voices spread across the broad training grounds and quickly faded. Yet Krang's words seemed to linger, hanging in the air, engraving themselves in their minds. All they saw was a faint smile, his arms resting at his sides. He did not look like a sovereign, nor did he look like a great strategist. But he seemed a man they could trust. Had he turned to fraud, might he not have become a swindler for the ages? But he was no swindler. He was their future king, and the present leader of this gathering.

“How will you fight?”

“He asked us to meet him on the Nauril plains. So we shall.”

He was as casual as if a friend from the far end of the city were coming to visit and he were going out to greet him. That composure and calm inspired trust. The belief that, of course, they would win. Some had trusted and followed Krang from the start.

“I have fifty well-trained spearmen under my command. They are few, but please put them to good use!”

One noble began, and others added their voices.

“My skills may be humble, but I will stand at the forefront.”

“I have stores of food. I shall send wheat and beans.” If he could not dispel their anxiety, he need only cover it with faith.

“Have faith. We will win.”

That was what Krang did. Without any grand speech, he united those who remained behind a single purpose. A single battle. He had said that would suffice. “What will you do if Count Molsen has other ideas?” the Marquis of Fertile Lands muttered.

He was hailed as a genius in domestic administration, but battle was another matter. War was not his specialty. Stepping down from the platform, Krang answered his question.

“Count Molsen is ambitious. And far too intelligent. That is why he will do it.”

* * *

A month passed quickly.

“Not a single knight is coming?”

Count Molsen adjusted his armor as he answered his guard and adjutant.

“You must be disappointed.”

“Yes.”

“So am I.” He had assembled this force assuming the knight order would intervene. Yet they intended to fight without it?

'Arrogance. You presumptuous bastard.' CLANK. He wore armor made of linked iron plates and held the magic sword that symbolized his standing as count. Fully armed, he declared,

“I will put an end to the royal house on the plains of Nauril.” BWOOOOOO! The count's army sounded its horns from its position on the plains. It was a signal: come out and fight.