As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A New Recruit

After my first life in Japan came to an abrupt end, I was reborn in another world and granted the name Ars Louvent. The Louvents were a noble household who ruled over a barony called Lamberg, and I was the Baron’s first son and heir. I was also born with a certain skill: Appraisal, the ability to perceive the stats and abilities of the people around me.

Unfortunately, the nation I was born into─the Summerforth Empire─was going through some rather troubled times. Civil wars were breaking out left and right. I swiftly determined that my sole chance at surviving to see adulthood would be to use my skill to recruit as many talented retainers as possible and bolster our domain’s strength. So far, that plan had borne fruit. I’d managed to track down and recruit Rietz, Charlotte, and Rosell, three exceptional individuals who had all agreed to serve me.

Things had been relatively smooth sailing so far. Thanks to my retainers’ talents, I’d managed to rack up several achievements to my name. I’d even been given the chance of a lifetime to increase the size of my territory. In that moment, I made an oath to myself not to let that opportunity slip by me. I would become the Count of Canarre, whatever it took.

○

After my talk with Couran concluded, we made our way back to the party. We hadn’t been away long, as best as I could tell. My internal clock told me it hadn’t been much more than twenty minutes. The party continued as the night wore on, and eventually, the new year arrived. By that time, a fair number of nobles seemed to have drunk themselves into a stupor or otherwise departed from the hall, so the place was less packed than it had been in the beginning. Thirty minutes or so after we rang in the new year, the party came to a close and I retired to a room that had been prepared for me.

The mood the next morning couldn’t have been further separated from the celebratory tone of the night before. In anticipation of the upcoming war, Couran decided to take the opportunity to give the nobles who had sided with him a summary of his plans. In short, he informed us that he’d be calling a series of war councils to start, after which his invasion of his brother’s territory would begin in earnest. This wasn’t a matter of the far-flung future, either─he ordered us to be prepared to rally our troops at a moment’s notice.

With that, our gathering came to a close. I met up with Rietz and the rest of my entourage, and together we set off for Lamberg once more.

“War councils, you say…?” muttered Rietz. We’d arrived back at my estate, and I’d just finished explaining to him that I might need him and Rosell to accompany me to Couran’s meetings. “That’s quite the hefty responsibility to bear… I’ve grown used to providing Lord Raven my opinions over the course of the battles we fought together, but Rosell is inexperienced in the field.”

“Right. That’s what I was worried about, too,” I replied.

“Participating in meetings of this nature will be a valuable experience for him, but I’m afraid I can’t say that he’ll have anything to contribute. For now, at least,” Rietz continued.

It seemed he and I were on the same page. Rosell’s Intelligence was high, to be sure, so I didn’t want to write him off, but it was very hard to imagine he could come up with a scheme that would get the better of the enemy’s tacticians.

“I could say the same about myself, to be honest,” Rietz added. “The enemy’s tacticians are far more experienced than I am in the field of war, and there are several of them and only one of me. To be frank, I have very little confidence in my ability to overcome their schemes.”

Yeah, that’s fair enough.

I was starting to question my decision to take Couran up on his proposal.

“Of course, if you find an exceptional tactician to fill the role, that could change everything,” noted Rietz.

“Talented recruits don’t grow on trees, you know,” I sighed. I had no choice but to hope that Rietz and Rosell would somehow manage to pull something out of their hats. Especially Rosell─if he could make it past the plateau his skills had hit by gaining some real-world experience, I just knew he could grow far beyond his current capabilities. His maximum Intelligence score was 109! I couldn’t imagine more than a few people in the world having greater potential than that.

At that moment, one of our servants burst into the room.

“Urgent news, Lord Ars!”

“What is it?”

“We’ve received word that a member of the Shadows has arrived at the Tremps!”

“It’s been a month already…? Understood─we’ll leave at once!” I replied. I’d stationed one of my retainers in Canarre, just to make sure that the transfer of information between us and the Shadows went well. I assumed he must have sent the message that my contact had arrived.

“Lord Ars,” said Rietz. “Might I suggest that you ask the Shadows to help look for talented recruits?”

“You think I should ask the Shadows to help with my headhunting? Is that even something they can do?” I asked, cocking my head.

“I don’t imagine it would be impossible,” said Rietz. “They may not be capable of analyzing people with your precision and accuracy, but considering their leader Pham’s capabilities, I’m certain they can judge talent.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I agreed with a nod. “I can just appraise anyone they bring to me before I decide whether to hire them.”

“I believe that would be for the best,” said Rietz.

I wasn’t convinced that finding helpful recruits would be that easy, but I also couldn’t see any particular reason not to give it a try. Failing would be better than not trying at all. Plus, I knew that Arcantez had a massive population. The odds seemed high that there’d be at least a few people with latent talent that I could make use of.

With a plan in place and a new request for the Shadows, we prepared to set out for Canarre and the Tremps.

○

We arrived at the Tremps to find our contact Ben already there, waiting for us. I didn’t recognize him at first glance, but I’d taken care to remember his rather ostentatious real name. So it only took a single appraisal to verify his identity.

“The boss’s report’s in this letter. It’s all yours,” said Ben, handing the letter in question over to me.

I opened it up and gave it a read. The first item the report addressed: the Shadows’ attempt to infiltrate Castle Arcantez. They’d made an effort, it seemed, but the citadel’s security turned out to be airtight, and they’d determined that sneaking in would be impossible. That meant they’d have to resort to more roundabout tactics. The report said that they were working on making connections with a senior retainer employed in the castle, who they would use to sneak an agent in under the guise of the retainer’s assistant.

At the moment, they were working on gathering information to decide who they should start ingratiating themselves with. As a result, they didn’t have anything in the way of useful info to report on at the current time. That concluded the report. Once I’d finished reading it, I handed over their payment for the next month to Ben.

“This looks to be in order,” said Ben as he counted the coins. “I think we’ll have something more helpful on the next report, so look forward to it.”

“I will. Thanks,” I replied.

“Don’t mention it. See you next month,” said Ben, standing up to leave.

“Just a minute!” I interjected before he left the table. I still hadn’t asked him about my other request. “There’s actually something else I wanted to ask. Do you have a minute?”

“I can squeeze it in. What’s the job?”

I explained that I was looking for recruits, and was hoping that they’d take note of anyone promising they came across and send them House Louvent’s way.

“Yeah, that should be easy enough,” said Ben once I finished. “But what if we mess up and send you someone worthless? Will you dock our pay or something?”

“No, nothing of the sort,” I replied. “The opposite, in fact. If you do find someone useful, I’ll give you a bonus of twenty gold coins.”

“Twenty gold, eh? Got it. I can’t promise anything until I get in touch with the boss, but I have a funny feeling he’ll be up for the job.”

“Great, thanks.”

That concluded our business in Canarre, so we set off for my estate once again.

○

Some time later, in the capital city of Arcantez, Ben made contact with Pham in a shadowy back alley to deliver his report.

“A headhunting job, eh?” Pham muttered.

“What do you think?” asked Ben.

“I’m pretty good at picking out folks who can handle the sort of jobs we deal in,” said Pham. “But spy work’s a far cry from the soldiers that he’ll be wanting. Not so sure I can tell who’s suited for that business.”

“Do we turn the offer down, then?”

“Well, he said there’s no penalty for sending him worthless chumps, right?” asked Pham with a sly grin. “And we get a hefty bonus if we happen to hit paydirt. Sounds like a solid deal, if you ask me. Not like we have anything to lose by taking a shot at it, so we might as well send a few people his way.”

“Understood. Guess it’s headhunting season for us, then.”

“Mhm. Tell the others for me, will you?”

“On it.”

Ben left to inform the rest of the Shadows of their new mission. Pham, meanwhile, returned to his own place of work.

Even after relocating to Arcantez, Pham had continued working at a local bar to aid in his intelligence-gathering operation. At the moment, he was employed at a pub known as Kentlan’s. He’d also kept up old habits in the sense that, just like when he worked at the Tremps, Pham did so in the guise of a cute, youthful waitress. Nothing loosened up a person’s lips like a drink or two, and Pham knew it. Even better, most people were prone to underestimating a young girl’s ability to understand the things they talked about, prompting them to spill the proverbial beans more often.

Kentlan’s wasn’t frequented by any of the retainers employed in Castle Arcantez. It was, however, the preferred watering hole for some of the castle’s guards and servants, and they were less than prudent when it came to telling tales of the retainers who worked above them. Pham learned what sort of people they were, what their duties were, where they went in their free time─even their likes and dislikes. The idea was that collecting enough of that sort of info would allow Pham to curry favor with an easily influenceable retainer and secure himself a job as a servant within the castle itself through them.

An operation like that, of course, was a lot easier to plan than it was to execute. In this day and age, the castle’s servants weren’t recruited from the general populace, but rather born into the role. A multitude of families had served within the castle for generations, passing their positions and trades down to their descendants. It wasn’t impossible to earn a place within the castle if someone in a position of power took a liking to you, but it wasn’t easy either.

Fortunately for the Shadows’ paychecks, that was only Pham’s current objective. The rest of their agents were busy with their own distinct operations to gather information, each of them conducted in a manner that fit their strengths. Pham expected that every member of his band other than him would have relevant and useful information to contribute this month.

“I’m back, everyone!” Pham announced as he stepped into Kentlan’s. His tone of voice, expression, and mannerisms were so different from how they’d been during his discussion with Ben that he was unrecognizable.

“Rin!” said Lartz, the proprietor of Kentlan’s. “What’d that guy want with you?”

Rin was the name that Pham had chosen to go by while he operated in Arcantez. He explained to Lartz that Ben was his older brother, and made up a tale about how Ben was such a doting sibling that he felt uneasy if he didn’t come to see his sister in person every once in a while. Lartz swallowed the story without a second thought.

It was right around noon, and the bar was almost devoid of customers. Unlike the Tremps, Kentlan’s clientele dried up during the daytime. At this time of day, Pham didn’t have much to do other than clean the place…or at least, that was the usual case.

“You open?” a somewhat husky, but distinctly feminine, voice rang out as the door swung open. It seemed Kentlan’s had a midday customer for once.

“Yes, welcome…ugh! You?!” Lartz choked as he turned to look at the new arrival. She was an exceptionally tall woman, enough so that her height would be notable even if she’d been a man. That wasn’t to say she was mannish in appearance, though─in fact, she was beautiful beyond words. The sparkle of insight in her eyes left an impression: this woman was a force to be reckoned with. Her worn and ragged outfit, on the other hand, left the impression that she was a penniless vagabond, though her golden necklace raised all sorts of questions. Even at a glance, it was clear she was no ordinary woman.

“Mireille! Since when were you back in town?” asked Lartz.

“Hey there, Lartz,” said Mireille. “It’s been, what, two years now? Man, you’ve still got a face like a wrung-out towel─who pissed on your chips this morning?”

“If you’re here to insult me, then you can turn right around and get the hell outta my bar,” snapped Lartz.

“I’m kidding,” laughed Mireille. “You might not be a looker, but I’ll never get tired of that mug of yours. I swear I saw a fish that looked just like you the other day.”

“One more word and I’ll run your ass outta here,” growled Lartz.

“You really can’t take a joke, huh? Anyway, I’ll have the usual.”

“What ‘usual’?”

“What, you forgot already? Bowl of samella, loaf of bread, and booze.”

Samella was a tomato-based vegetable and chicken soup. The dish was characterized by how long it had to be simmered before it was complete.

“You expect me to remember your order when you haven’t been here in ages?” Lartz grumbled. “Now that you mention it, though, I don’t think I’ve seen you order anything other than samella.”

“What can I say? This joint’s samella tastes just like the stuff my old lady used to make. Not saying it’s good, mind you, but I just get the urge to eat it every once in a while.”

“Would it kill you to compliment my cooking?” snapped Lartz as he went off to prepare Mireille’s meal.

Pham, meanwhile, had watched their whole exchange with keen interest. This “Mireille” woman had caught his eye─she was clearly not your average patron, so he decided to look into her and get a feel for what sort of person she was.

“Who’s she?” Pham asked, sidling up to Lartz as he cooked.

“Hmm? Oh, that’s Mireille. She’s an old regular here and a nasty drunk.”

That cured Pham’s curiosity in an instant. Apparently, his first impression had been off the mark─the woman was nothing more than a hopeless bum.

“Who’s that cutie you’ve got over there with you?” Mireille called from across the bar.

“Huh? Her name’s Rin,” Lartz shouted back. “She’s a new hire. Real looker, ain’t she?”

“Hmm…” Mireille gave Pham a long, appraising look. Something about the way she stared at him felt unsettling. It was like she could see right through him, somehow.

Eventually, she turned away and muttered, “Eh, none of my business,” whatever that meant. In an instant, Pham’s opinion of her once again pivoted. He could tell on an instinctual level that this was a woman to be cautious around.

○

“Ahhh, yeah, that’s the stuff! Tastes just like it used to!” said Mireille as she dug into the meal Lartz had made for her. Pham, who had brought the dish to her table, watched as she ate. For all her insults, she made it look like the most delicious meal in the world. Mireille polished off her food, drained her glass in a single swig, then shouted, “Another, barkeep!”

“Comin’ right up,” said Lartz. He refilled her glass, set it down in front of her, then leaned onto the bar. “So? Where’ve you been skulking around these past two years?”

“All over Summerforth. I’ve been traveling. I took the grand tour of all seven duchies and their major cities. You’d be surprised at how much the culture, the food, even the language and how the people look can vary from duchy to duchy. Guess that’s a given, since they used to be their own countries and all.”

“Hmm,” muttered Lartz. “Never been outta Arcantez myself, let alone to another duchy.”

“And for a barkeep like you, that sorta lifestyle works just fine.”

“Sounds to me like you’re mocking me again.”

“But y’know what?” continued Mireille, ignoring Lartz’s protest. “No matter where I went, I couldn’t find a noble willing to take me in! Bastards don’t know talent when they see it─not one of them!”

“If anyone took a look at you and saw talent before they saw danger, they’d be just as crazy as you are,” jabbed Lartz. “Not to mention that you’ve got the manners of a wild animal. I’d bet money you went up to most of those nobles and insulted ’em to their faces, right? Hell, you’re lucky you didn’t offend anyone enough to put an end to you then and there.”

“Etiquette’s the worst standard to judge character by,” countered Mireille. “When I judge someone, I’m judging whether or not they’re capable─nothing else. The rudest son of a bitch on the continent could be the best candidate for the position, for all you know, and if you can’t figure that out, you’ve got no right to be lordin’ it up over others. And anyway, it’s not that I didn’t get run through by some lordling ’cause I was lucky. Trust me─they tried. I just turned the tables on ’em every time.”

“Boasting ’bout that just proves my point, y’know?”

The longer the conversation dragged on and the more Pham eavesdropped, the more curious he became. Who was this woman? No ordinary person would talk about traveling the continent and looking for a lord to serve, that was certain. And even though she hadn’t managed to find a lord who’d take her up on the offer, she seemed to have absolute faith in her own abilities.

“Come to think of it, weren’t you a noble?” asked Lartz. “Why not just go running back to your little upper-crust family?”

“Considering the state of things, I could do that. Thing is, I’ve got my pride, y’know? I’m not about to go crawling back to a man who gave me the boot, begging him to take me on as a retainer again.”

“Heh! Sure you aren’t,” chuckled Lartz. “I never believed you worked in the castle to begin with, myself.”

“I did, so your loss.”

She worked in the castle…? thought Pham. The only castle they could have been referring to was Castle Arcantez. That meant there was a chance that this mystery woman would have at least some degree of inside information on the citadel. On the other hand, he knew it had been at least two years since she was driven from her position, so she knew nothing about the current state of affairs. Not to mention the obvious question of whether or not she was making all of this up in the first place. Pham hesitated─was it worth putting in the effort to ply Mireille for information?

“Anyway, I had myself quite the fortune built up when I left, y’know? But I used it all up on my trip, and now I don’t have a coin to my name. How’s a girl supposed to get by without an income in this day and age?”

“Not a coin to your name, eh?” Lartz chuckled for just a moment before his expression darkened. “Wait. Not a coin to your name? You mean ‘not a coin to my name after I pay my tab,’ right?”

“Lartz, please. Have I ever been careless with my word choice? I mean I don’t have a coin to my name right now, so I don’t have the cash to pay for anything. I just happened to know a joint with a kindhearted owner who’d be happy to treat an old regular to a meal on the house.”

“Well, it has been a long time,” Lartz began, only to shoot Mireille a glare. “As if! Have two years on the road addled your brain, woman?! You’re paying back every copper you owe me!”

“Well, someone’s a miser! Look, I hate to say it, but I can’t hand over coppers I don’t have. This one’s on you for not making me pay in advance.”

“I’ve met burglars less brazen than you,” growled Lartz. “Anyway, that necklace you’ve got on looks like it’d fetch a coin or two. If you can’t pay with cash, you’ll have to pay with that instead.”

“Have you lost your mind, Lartz? You think a meal and a couple of drinks could possibly be worth a piece like this? And even if they did, I’m not handing it over to anyone. If I didn’t have this necklace on, I’d look like a dead-broke vagabond!”

“No worries there─that’s already what you are. It’s pay with your goods or pay with your body, no third way about it.”

“Oh, so that’s how you see me?” said Mireille with a salacious grin. “Sorry, though, you can’t get your hands on a beauty like me for that cheap!”

“I mean I’ll have you work your tab off, you maniac! Don’t you go putting words in my mouth!”

“What? You mean you want me to do your chores?” asked Mireille, looking positively scandalized.

“Right. And if you don’t like the sound of that, you can hand over the necklace and go on your way.”

“Eh, not like I have anywhere else to go. You win, I’ll do your dirty work. What a disaster today’s turned out to be, I swear…”

“Took the words right outta my mouth,” grumbled Lartz.

And so, Mireille wound up working at Kentlan’s. Pham had no clue what to make of the development, but he did know one thing: whatever was happening, it had him more than a little unsettled.

○

“Ugh, I’m exhausted,” moaned Mireille. She and Pham were on the second floor of Kentlan’s, alone in a room together. Their room, specifically. On account of Kentlan’s lacking any vacant bedchambers, it was decided that the two of them would have to share one for the moment.

“You’re, umm…Rin, was it?” said Mireille. “I’m not planning to be here for long, but good working with you until I split.”

“Likewise,” Pham replied with a smile.

“Seems we’ve got some time on our hands, so what say we get to know each other?”

“All right,” agreed Pham.

“First up, then─what’s a guy like you doing dressed like that?”

Pham was only shaken once in a blue moon, and this was one of those all too rare moments. Never in his wildest dreams had he anticipated Mireille seeing through his disguise. Maybe if she’d seen him disrobed, sure, but she’d had no such opportunity, and he hadn’t planned on giving her one.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m a girl!” said Pham, making a show of pouting. There was always a chance that she was just joking around, so it was too soon to overreact and admit that he was in disguise.

“Sorry, I’ve already got your number. You put a lot of effort into that disguise, I can tell, but it’s not enough to fool me.”

“You know, I try my best to be a nice person, but even I get mad sometimes!” said Pham, doing his damnedest to keep up the act. “Why would you treat me like a boy? You’re so mean!”

Mireille smiled…then, in the blink of an eye, reached out for Pham’s groin. Pham’s reflexes kicked in and he dodged backward, only to realize a split second later that he’d just messed up big time. The groin was a man’s biggest weak point. Even someone like him, who was used to pain, would be rendered immobile for at least a second or two by a solid strike to the unmentionables. Those precious few seconds could be a matter of life and death in battle, so defending his groin from attack was a matter of pure, deeply-ingrained reflex for him.

“Now that was one hell of a reaction,” said Mireille with a smirk. “Guess that rules out you being a plain ol’ cross-dresser, eh?”

Pham knew that if his true profession hadn’t already been exposed, then Mireille was more than a little suspicious of him. His cover being blown was a shock, of course, but even more so than that, he was preoccupied by how outrageous of a woman she’d turned out to be─enough so that he found himself questioning her sanity. What kind of person would go straight for someone’s groin with such little pretext? He hadn’t seen it coming, so it took him a moment to compose himself and come up with an excuse.

“I’ve always attracted the wrong sort of attention, and I’ve gotten good at dodging when people try to grab me thanks to that,” said Pham. “That, and you’re right─I am a boy. I have some circumstances that’ve forced me to pretend to be a girl, though. You know how it is. Please don’t tell Lartz, okay?”

Pham had decided to give up on hiding his sex. He knew that sticking to a cover that had already been blown would just call the rest of his story into question. By admitting that she was right about one thing, he hoped to encourage her to believe the rest of what he told her in the process. Thankfully, his sex was the least damaging thing she could’ve figured out about him.

“Hmm. That’s a dangerous look in your eyes…but I’ll leave it at that, for now,” said Mireille. She still had her doubts, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to press the issue.

“Umm… You don’t think it’s weird for a boy to dress like this…?” asked Pham, feigning an air of tragic anxiety.

“It’s weird, sure, but I don’t give a damn. Not like you’re hurting anyone, and hey, everyone’s got a little weirdness going on deep down.”

“O-Oh, okay. Thank goodness…” Pham sighed. “The truth is…I do have reasons for dressing this way,” he added, then proceeded to tell a tale to justify his cross-dressing that was as heart-wrenching as it was untrue. By revealing a fabricated past, he hoped to clear away Mireille’s doubts and trick her into revealing her own past at the same time. Pham was, at this point, invested in figuring out just who she was and what made her tick.

“Hmm… You’ve had it pretty rough too, haven’t you?”

“‘Too’?” repeated Pham, eyes wide. “You mean you’ve been through something like that as well, Miss Mireille?”

“Sure have. And y’know what, why not? I’ll make an exception and let you in on my whole history,” said Mireille. And just like that, she launched into her life story. “Y’know the Duke of Missian? The one that kicked the bucket a while back? Well, when I was younger, he met me and my little brother, and decided we had the talent to serve him. He had a good eye for people, too. My brother had a knack for battle and ended up as Vasmarque’s right-hand man. I, meanwhile, ended up getting appointed baroness of a territory of Arcantez called Pelnolla. Used to be the barony the duke’s house ruled over, so he had the power to hand it right off to me. I did my part in battle, too─won the man a fair few victories of my own.”

“O-Oh, wow,” gasped Pham. “Does that mean that you’re nobility?”

“Eh, I was…until I got stripped of my title, anyway.”

“Why did they do that?”

“Could’ve been any number of things,” replied Mireille with a shrug. “Bad behavior, unconventional methods of ruling over my barony─I think it was something along those lines. ’Course, that was just the pretext.”

“You mean it wasn’t the real reason? Then what was?”

“That…is a secret,” said Mireille with a sly grin.

“Aww,” Pham pouted. He hadn’t been planning to sell the information he extracted from her, to be clear. No, Pham was interested in Mireille herself and was considering suggesting her as a candidate to serve as Ars’s newest retainer. Assuming her story was true, she had the potential to be useful. Her personality seemed liable to cause problems, but if the recruitment went through, there’d be no need for Pham himself to bother plying her for information. And, above all else, even if she turned out to be worthless, there wouldn’t be any consequences for letting her take her shot at the position. Pham resolved himself to recommend her for the job.

“Umm, Miss Mireille? You were talking about wanting to serve a lord earlier, weren’t you?”

“Hmm? That’d be nice, yeah,” Mireille replied. “I’ve got nowhere else to go. ’Course, searching for a patron hasn’t been getting me anywhere so far.”

“I think I know someone who might be just right for you. Would you like to hear more?”

○

After asking the Shadows to help look for promising recruits, I decided that I should chip in and made a trip to Canarre to look for people on my own. I’d been there plenty of times for that precise purpose before, but the city was large enough that I knew I wasn’t even close to appraising everyone with potential. I was looking out for someone with the skills to be a tactician in particular, but the task turned out to be as difficult as I’d feared it would be.

I had found an inn in Canarre to stay at while I conducted my search, so it had been some time since I’d last returned to my estate. I’d informed my retainers about my extended absence, so if anything happened back home, I’d receive a timely report on the matter.

One evening, I found myself at the inn with Rietz and a few of my other retainers. Charlotte hadn’t accompanied us this time─she was busy training up the rest of our army’s mages. Strengthening the forces we already had was just as important as recruiting new ones, after all.

Rosell had also accompanied me, but he wasn’t staying at the inn with us. Telling him that he might have to attend a war council seemed to have lit a fire under him, and he’d asked that I give him more chances to study. He’d already read through all the books at my estate, though, so I ended up asking Lumeire if he could let Rosell look into the books at Castle Canarre. Thankfully, Lumeire was happy to oblige, and Rosell had taken to spending his nights at the castle as a result.

The inn we were staying at was quite close to the Tremps. I’d made sure to inform the pub’s owner, Alex, where we were staying. That way, Ben would be able to report to me the moment he arrived in town. Of course, it hadn’t been very long at all since his last report, so I wasn’t expecting that to happen any time soon.

My expectations, however, were overturned when Alex arrived at my door.

“Hey, Lord Ars! Ben’s here to see you,” he said.

“Already?” I asked, surprised.

“Ayup. Says they found a recruit for you to meet.”

Now that was even more of a shock. I hadn’t expected them to find anyone that fast. Alex looked apprehensive, though, which confused me.

“This is just my opinion, but I think you oughta keep your hopes low. Their ‘recruit’ just looks like some washed-up lady to me.”

So the Shadows brought a woman over?

That was yet another surprise. Women were looked down upon in our society, and it was rare for people who lacked the ability to see their true potential to take them on as retainers.

Did she do something that impressed Pham?

“In any case, I’d like to meet her,” I replied. “Is she in the usual room?”

Alex nodded.

“Then we’ll leave at once. Rietz?”

“Right away.”

The two of us stepped outside and made for the Tremps. We arrived at our destination soon after, climbed the stairs, and stepped into the room where we always met our contact with the Shadows. Standing inside was Ben, whose face struck me as unremarkable and unmemorable as ever, alongside a woman whose presence was so intense that I almost didn’t notice Ben at all for a second.

She was very tall, looking to be around the same height as Rietz or so. Her rather unkempt black hair reached down to her waist, and the look in her eyes was so piercing that for a moment, I was overwhelmed.

“Don’t tell me you’re the Baron of Lamberg?” asked the woman as I stared at her.

“I am,” I replied.

“Well, I’ll be. You’re still just a brat, aren’t’cha?”

That was not the sort of attitude one was supposed to take with a noble. It was downright rude in general, and I noted that Rietz was already frowning at her. I’d never been bothered by a little impoliteness, though, so it didn’t get to me.

“May I assume that you’ve come here to enter my service?” I asked.

“That’s right. I wasn’t expecting a kid, but at this point, I don’t even care. I’ll take what I can get.”

Rietz’s expression grew even more irate. It seemed he didn’t appreciate the implication that the woman was settling for me.

“Your name?” I asked.

“Mireille Grunzeon,” she replied.

Grunzeon. That name rings a bell─where have I heard it before?

I knew it was familiar, but I just couldn’t bring the specifics to mind.

Guess I might as well start with an appraisal, I thought. However, before I had the chance, Mireille spoke up again.

“So, I hear you’ve got a good eye for people, eh, kiddo? Or that’s what Rin told me, anyway. Kind of a dubious talent for someone your age to have, gotta say.”

I decided to reply before I used my skill.

“I do, yes, but who is ‘Rin’?”

Ben sidled up to me and leaned down to whisper, “That’d be the boss,” in my ear.

I whispered back to ask what all the whispering was about. He explained that since Mireille wasn’t working for me yet, they were keeping her in the dark about the Shadows. Ben still had a ton of information left to share with me, and he was currently pretending to be an ordinary bystander who was just waiting around to discuss something unrelated with me. Pham had discovered Mireille, and Ben was pretending to be his big brother. Anyway, the whole thing they had going on seemed way too complicated for my tastes, so I decided not to delve into the details.

“What’re you two whispering about? Feel like letting me in on the fun?” asked Mireille. “Not that I care, I guess. So, how about it? Is your eye for talent telling you that I’ve got what it takes?”

“Give me just a moment,” I replied, then appraised her.

Her status screen was, in a word, astonishing. Her Leadership was high, but her Intelligence was even higher─a maximum score of 103 put her in the absolute top tier of stats I’d seen. Even better, her current score had already broken the hundred mark, meaning she had a higher Intelligence than both Rosell and Rietz. Plus, while her Valor of 70 and B-ranked Mage aptitude didn’t tower above the competition, they were rather high. Perhaps her high Valor was related to her height and the athleticism that it implied in my mind?

Her Politics, however, was pretty low. That wasn’t too much of a shock, since she didn’t seem to be the cooperative sort. It wasn’t the biggest downside, and overall her stats were pretty fantastic. But there was one point that grabbed my attention most: her Ambition. It was sitting at a score of 100. Up until this point, I’d thought 99 was the maximum score, but apparently, that had been a faulty assumption.

An Ambition of 100 was outrageous. I’d never seen someone with a score like that before─never even imagined it. Hell, I’d been shocked when I saw Licia’s score of 80! And yet, Mireille was a full twenty points above her? Even if I did bring her to my side, it felt like it was only a matter of time before she’d betray me.

Hmm…this is a real stumper.

Her stats were exactly what I’d been hoping for. An Intelligence as high as hers was ideal for my purposes. Considering her age, I assumed she’d been through a lot, and that those experiences had led to her developing her current score. Rosell had great potential in the long run, but in the current moment, she had him beat by a hefty margin. Even better, Mireille could teach Rosell an awful lot. If I were to hire her, I knew she’d make the perfect instructor to take over Rietz’s current role.

The merits of bringing her into my fold were impossible to ignore, but so was her Ambition score. I knew not to judge her on that one factor, though, so I decided to interview her to try to get a feel for her personality.

“To start, I’d like you to tell me a little about your origins,” I said.

“My origins, eh? Sure, makes sense. Can’t imagine there’s a lord out there who’d take someone in as a retainer without knowing where they came from.”

That was more or less what I’d done when I offered Rietz and Charlotte positions among my retainers. In retrospect, it was rather careless of me. Then again, it wasn’t like I could’ve afforded to let talent like theirs go, so maybe my imprudence was for the best.

Mireille began to tell me her life story. She explained how she’d risen to a position as a Missian noble, and achieved great things in battle. A woman becoming a lord was rare in this region, and she was supposedly a household name in her home territory, but I’d never heard of her, and I had some doubts about whether the whole of her story was true. Of course, I had to keep in mind that Lamberg was quite far away from the barony she claimed to have ruled over. It was plausible that I’d just never heard of her thanks to that distance.

In any event, Mireille’s stint as a baroness had been a brief one. She lost the position about a year after she was granted it. Her territory was also just about as small and insignificant as Lamberg, which backed up the idea that her celebrity had been a very local affair. Considering her stats, I was convinced that if she’d remained a lord, she could’ve ended up renowned throughout the whole duchy. Instead, she’d been cast out.

As for the reasons behind her losing her title, Mireille claimed that she’d been blamed for matters beyond her control. I couldn’t say with any certainty whether that was true, but it was possible. This was also around the time that it came out that she had a little brother who was working as Vasmarque’s right-hand man.

That helped me put the pieces together. Couran had told me about a man named Thomas Grunzeon who was one of Vasmarque’s most trusted advisors. According to Couran, Thomas was an extraordinarily intelligent individual. That, coupled with their shared last name, had me convinced: Mireille’s little brother was the very same man. And if that assumption proved true, then the odds were good she had at least some degree of inside information regarding his methods. I couldn’t have asked for a more capable tactician under these circumstances.

I was, however, still curious about why our enemies had chosen to drive her away. The fact that she’d managed to work her way up to a lordship in spite of society’s views on women implied that she had to be pretty darn capable. If they drove her out anyway, there was probably a good reason.

She must’ve caused some sort of big problem, right?

I was more than a little apprehensive about the possibility.

“I wouldn’t dream of second-guessing your judgment when it comes to recruitment and personnel, Lord Ars,” said Rietz, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “But this woman strikes me as dangerous. I would recommend against bringing her into your service.”

“Dangerous? How so?” I asked.

“Hmm… I’m afraid it’s hard for me to explain in specific terms. Call it instinct, if you will. She framed herself as the victim of conspiracy in regard to her dismissal, but we have to account for the possibility that she is deceiving us.”

It seemed I could count Rietz’s vote as a solid “nay,” then.

I’m going to have to think carefully about this one.

“Think you could give me an answer before I fall asleep over here, kiddo? Arcantez wasn’t exactly an afternoon stroll away from here, so I’m pretty worn out,” said Mireille.

I took one last moment to assess the situation. A very important factor I hadn’t taken into account yet was that if I didn’t hire her, it was very possible my enemies would take her into their service once more. Whatever had caused her dismissal, it had happened years ago. Given the turbulent political climate, it seemed possible that they would decide to let bygones be bygones if it meant getting her talent again. I did not want her as a foe, that was for sure─she could cause me all sorts of problems.

That left me with one choice: I would take Mireille on as one of my retainers. In the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to say no to a talent like hers. I knew I’d regret it if I let her slip away from me. Her personality might become an issue, sure, but that just meant I’d have to learn to work around her foibles. And if it turned out she was too much for me, then, well, I’d just have to deal with that problem. This wasn’t a Licia-type situation, after all─I wouldn’t be bound to Mireille for life if I made her my retainer.

“I’ve made up my mind,” I announced. “I have determined that you are an exceedingly capable individual. I would very much like to take you into my service.”

“Oh, would you?” said Mireille with a grin. “Guess this means you do have an eye for talent, kid. I wouldn’t come all the way out here just to say no, so this sorta goes without saying, but I’m in. I’ll be your retainer.”

“Are you sure about this?” asked Rietz, leaning down to whisper directly into my ear in a more urgent tone than last time.

“I also think she’s dangerous, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s exceptional,” I replied. “I’ve decided that the merits outweigh the risks. Hiring her is our best option.”

“Hmm… Well, if you say so. I’ll trust your judgment, Lord Ars.”

He still sounded apprehensive, but at the very least, he wasn’t going to oppose my decision.

It was already after dark, so we ended up staying the night in Canarre. The next morning, we set off to bring Mireille back to my estate.

○

A few days had passed since I’d brought Mireille into my service. Things had been quiet so far, and I had yet to receive notice that Couran would be calling a war council meeting.

I was sitting in my room when I heard Rietz’s voice from outside.

“Lord Ars? May I speak with you for a moment?”

“Come in,” I replied.

“Thank you,” said Rietz as he stepped inside. I could tell that he was in a somewhat sour mood. “I was hoping to talk with you about Mireille…”

“What about her?”

“Umm…” Rietz hesitated for a moment, then spoke up once more. “I apologize for my insolence, Lord Ars, but I have concluded that she is unfit to serve as your retainer.”

Mireille had only been my retainer for a matter of days, and she’d already proven herself to be something of a handful. In fact, this was far from the first time I’d received a complaint about her from one of my other retainers.

The situation in Missian was unstable, but open conflict had yet to break out. As such, I’d tasked Mireille with training our troops and acting as Rosell’s teacher. Her Valor score was high, and she had a decent Infantry aptitude as well. She was capable enough in combat to defeat the average man one-on-one without difficulty. That wasn’t the extent of her talents, though─she was also competent in the realm of magic, and had taken on the training of our mages. The one problem: her motivation. She would frequently slack off and not show up, and even worse, she’d encourage others to do the same.

“I’ll acknowledge that she is quite capable, but she does not have a temperament suitable to her position. Just this afternoon, she neglected to finish her work in favor of returning to her room and sleeping. Even when she does bother making an appearance at the training grounds, her instructional methods are more often than not haphazard and unenthusiastic. When asked to reassess her attitude, she’ll make some nonsensical excuse about how ‘everyone has an off-day every once in a while,’ making it clear that she has no intention of improving her work ethic. She is talented, yes, but that does not change the fact that on the whole, her presence is a detriment to House Louvent!”

By the end of his speech, Rietz’s face was beet-red. If one thing was clear to me above all else, it was the fact that he was very, very upset. Unfortunately for him, my mental arithmetic assigned more weight to Mireille’s abilities than his did. I still couldn’t bring myself to let go of her in spite of her eccentricities.

“I’m coming in, Ars!” called Rosell from outside, moments before he barged into my room. He looked just about as upset as Rietz was. “We need to talk about Mireille. I know you said she’d be teaching me from now on, but I can’t take it anymore!”

Rosell wasn’t the sort of person who was easily angered, but for once, he seemed furious.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, she’s a lazy bum who spends most of her time asleep!” Rosell began. “That wouldn’t be so bad if it were the sole problem, but when she does wake up, she starts talking about how ‘reading’s a waste of time’ and takes me outside to run around doing this or that! Then when we’re finished and I ask what the point of it all was, she’ll tell me to ‘think about it and figure it out’! I know she’s just making excuses, though! She’s making fun of me, plain and simple! I don’t even need a teacher anymore, so I don’t care if she spends all her time asleep, but I will not tolerate her getting in the way of my studies!”

I sighed. Apparently, Rosell had built up quite the grudge in just a few days.

Hmm─could it be that we just don’t understand what it is that Mireille’s trying to accomplish?

I still didn’t feel like I had a solid grasp of her personality, so I couldn’t say what her goal with all of this was.

More and more complaints about Mireille’s behavior kept rolling in from my other retainers. They all tended to fit into the same broad categories, too. They were either about her utter lack of work ethic or about how she’d said something offensive to someone. Her popularity among House Louvent’s employees was falling by the day. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to evaluate her performance until I’d seen how she handled herself in battle, but it was becoming clear that I’d need to give her situation some more thought before that time arrived.

Just as I was thinking that I’d have to give her a personal talking-to, I heard a thunderous roar from somewhere outside.

“Wh-What in the world was that?” asked Rietz.

“Whatever it was, it scared me half to death!” said Rosell.

The three of us hurried outside to figure out what in the world that noise had been, though not before taking a moment to arm ourselves. It wasn’t unthinkable that we were under attack, and we had to be prepared for the worst. As we sprinted out of the estate, the soldiers who’d been out on the training grounds joined up with us to investigate.

It didn’t take long to track down where the noise had originated. There was a copse of trees just a short ways away from my estate, the better part of which had been transformed into a crater. My mind flashed back to the time we’d had Charlotte test her magic out in a field, and speaking of which, Charlotte and Mireille were standing at the edge of the crater together.

“Damn,” said Mireille. “Didn’t know we had a mage with that sorta talent. I’m shocked, not gonna lie.”

“That wasn’t even my full power,” boasted Charlotte.

“For real? Let’s see you shoot another, then.”

“Can do.”

“No can do! Sto-ooop!” I bellowed, charging in to stop Charlotte before she took it upon herself to turn the rest of the copse into a scorched wasteland. If she’d been casting spells, then the ear-splitting explosion made perfect sense.

“L-Lord Ars,” said Charlotte, who was shocked to see me.

I stopped to take a deep breath and asked, “Charlotte…why?”

“Miss Mireille told me she wanted to see me cast a spell, so I did,” explained Charlotte. She was more or less the sole exception among my retainers when it came to Mireille, and had taken quite the shine to my newest recruit.

“Well, using magic that powerful is dangerous, and it could cause a panic!” I shouted. “You couldn’t have considered holding back?”

“That wouldn’t have been nearly as fun,” said Mireille. “I heard that Charlotte was something special, so I wanted to see what she could do when she goes all out. She blew my expectations away, that’s for sure!”

“And you didn’t feel like informing me before you attempted this little experiment?”

“Oh. Yeah, my bad. But I swear, I didn’t think it’d be that wild.”

It didn’t seem like her intentions had been bad, and it wasn’t like I failed to see how Charlotte’s magical firepower could have surpassed her wildest expectations. However, my opinion wasn’t the problem. The rest of my retainers’ pent-up resentment was already close to hitting critical mass, and her insincere non-apology was the spark that set that resentment ablaze and converted it into pure rage.

“Are you kidding me?!” shouted one of my soldiers.

“Enough is enough, dammit!” added another. The entire contingent of retainers who’d followed me outside was starting to turn against her, and by “her,” I meant Mireille. Charlotte was the one who’d cast the spell, but nobody seemed interested in blaming her.

“What’s your problem, people? You want me to quit? Is that it?” asked Mireille as their jeers continued. She seemed as proud and arrogant as ever, even in the face of all that abuse. “Well, that’s the kid’s call to make. What do you think? Do I get the boot?”

“I…” I began, then paused to think. “I don’t intend to relieve you from my service. That said, I may consider it if things continue as they’ve gone so far.”

“Hmm. Well, that’s a bit of an issue from my perspective,” said Mireille. “I’m just being myself, y’know? Kinda hard to change who I am as a person at this age. Besides, I’m the sort of person who proves her worth on the battlefield, not during peacetime.”

In other words, she’s not planning on working on her attitude at all.

She’d been eager to place the blame for the loss of her barony on some conspiracy, but I was starting to suspect that it was a simple matter of her superiors getting sick of her crap and deciding she wasn’t worth the trouble.

“Can’t say I wanna quit, though,” Mireille added. “Oh, I know. You said something about a practice battle coming up soon, right?”

“That’s right.”

I had a policy of getting all of House Louvent’s troops together for practice battles on a regular basis, and the next one was scheduled to occur in just two days. It would be the first one Mireille would participate in.

“How ’bout this,” said Mireille. “If I prove my stuff in your practice battle, you don’t kick me out. Sound fair?”

Before I could give her an answer, everyone behind me broke out in protest over her terms. I, however, thought that it was a very good idea. I’d brought her into my service in the hopes that she’d be an asset in battle, after all. So long as she proved herself useful on that front, I was willing to turn a blind eye to her eccentricities…until the current war was over.

“Listen to me,” I said, turning to face the crowd. “I’ve judged Mireille’s talent for myself, and I assure you that she has an incredible knack for battle. I acknowledge that she has no small number of flaws outside of that field, but assuming she manages to produce results in this next mock battle, I hope you’ll overlook those problems.”

My retainers weren’t happy to hear that, but they begrudgingly accepted my terms and stopped heckling Mireille.

○

House Louvent carried out mock battles regularly. We did our best to emulate the feel and circumstances of a real battlefield, but it went without saying that we weren’t about to go killing off our own men during practice. As such, a few things set these sessions apart from the real deal.

Our skirmishes were dictated by a set of broad rules. To start, battles were fought between two forces of fifty men, plus their commanding officers. The scenario often revolved around one side arriving to assault Lamberg, while the other side sallied forth into a nearby field to mount a defense. Thus, one force was designated the attacking army and the other the defenders. The attackers would start a fair distance away and march upon the town, while the defenders would set up in the plains nearby to intercept them.

Victory was won by either taking out the enemy force’s commander, or otherwise by forcing them to surrender. Each force consisted of thirty infantrymen, fifteen archers, and five mages. We didn’t field any cavalry in our mock battles, and our infantrymen were armed with wooden swords. Getting hit by one of those still hurt like hell, but everyone was also equipped with armor and protective gear, so there was almost no danger of anyone dying.

The archers, meanwhile, were using wooden arrows with tips that had been both blunted and wrapped with a bundle of cloth dipped in red paint. The same paint was applied to the infantry’s swords─that way, it was always obvious when someone had landed a fatal blow on their foe. If someone was hit in the head, the chest, or anywhere else that proved fatal, they were declared dead and taken out of the exercise.

As for the mages, fire magic was too dangerous to use in any capacity, so it was banned outright. There was such a thing as defensive fire magic, but it was only used to defend against offensive fire magic, so with the latter banned, there was no point in using the former. Further complicating matters was the fact that the only types of aqua magia that weren’t rare and valuable in Missian were flame- and sound-aspected. In short, the sole type of magic that could be used in our drills was sound. Sound magic had very few offensive applications, but it was important for stuff like delivering orders to your troops from a range, which made it an essential tool in battle.

The commander of the defenders would be Rietz, while I would be taking charge of the attacking team. Commanding an army to assault my own barony was a strange feeling, to say the least! Mireille would also be supporting the attacking team, while the defenders had Rosell and Charlotte on their side. Rosell, by the way, had started taking part in these exercises not too long ago, and had been more or less serving the role of a tactician.

Charlotte was a powerful tool in their arsenal, in theory, but with only sound magic to work with, she wasn’t as threatening as she otherwise would’ve been. That didn’t change the fact that they were at an advantage overall, of course, but you also had to take into consideration the fact that even though this was practice, a lot of our soldiers would still hesitate to swing a sword at me. In short, comparing our advantages and disadvantages wasn’t so simple.

Mireille, meanwhile, had asked to be put on my team. She didn’t explain why, but I assumed she was hoping that if she was on my team, our soldiers would listen to her orders. She wasn’t popular among my troops, and there was a real danger that they’d ignore her commands if she gave them directly. It would be another story, however, if she were advising me and I were passing on her suggestions to the rest of our force. As far as I was concerned, having Mireille on my team meant I’d have a much easier time evaluating her skills, so I didn’t object to the plan.

Two days after we agreed to Mireille’s trial, the day of the mock battle arrived. I’d spent the past two days worried that a war council would be called at the worst possible moment and we’d have to discard this whole plan, but nothing of the sort ended up happening.

Me and my fifty-soldier squad set out from the estate, traveling about half a mile away from Lamberg. We’d stage our assault on Lamberg from there. When we first started doing these drills, I’d thought that having to walk all the way out and back again would put the attacking team at a disadvantage, but I soon realized that plenty of factors worked to the attackers’ advantage as well. It wasn’t so easy to say which side was the more favorable role, but regardless, this was a training drill, not some sporting event. A little imbalance in the scenario wasn’t always a bad thing. Learning how to compensate for your disadvantages and how to make use of your advantages was part of what made these exercises worth running.

As we made our way out to our team’s starting point, Mireille struck up a conversation with me.

“I know this is just a drill, but this’ll be my first battle in ages.”

“Will it, now?”

“Yup. I used to all but live on the battlefield, but I haven’t taken part in a good fight since I got chased out. What about you? Had your first campaign yet, kiddo?”

“Not yet, no,” I admitted. I had yet to witness a real battle so much as once.

“That so? Guess you are still a kid, then. Little practice skirmishes like this are fun and games compared to the real deal, y’know? You’d better keep that in the back of your mind. If you start thinking you’ll get used to combat through these little matches, you’ll be in for a rude awakening when the time comes.”

“I know that already,” I replied.

“Oh? Should’ve guessed. You seem like a sharp one.”

I’d heard about the trials and terrors of real battles from more than a few people, and I’d gotten the impression that they were rather horrific. The practical application of magic to warfare was a recent development, so modern battlefields were a lethal storm of spells of all varieties. Tactics, on the other hand, had yet to catch up to that dramatic paradigm shift, and as such, tacticians who could think on the fly, break free of the established theories, and come up with countermeasures to the enemy’s magic were essential to any army. We would only have access to sound magic this time around, but even that meant our armies would have access to quite a wide variety of spells, and countering their effects was no simple matter.

Back on Earth, wars in the Middle Ages were a lot less nasty than you might expect in terms of the number of casualties and fatalities. In this world, however, war was a lethal affair, and even a single conflict could claim a tremendous number of lives. It wasn’t like most armies would bust out their powerful spells in minor skirmishes, though, so I didn’t imagine I’d be seeing that sort of devastation anytime soon. That wasn’t the case for large-scale battles, however. I’d heard that losses in the tens of thousands were by no means unheard of.

It was rare for military leaders to command from the front these days due to such high losses. The logic was simple: if you were marching in the front of your army’s ranks, the odds were good that you’d be dead before the day was done. There were exceptions to that rule─my own father had charged out to lead his troops by example, hacking and slashing his way through the battlefield. The fact that he’d managed to lead like that and come out of each and every engagement alive was unexpected.

A small hut had been designated as the starting point for the attacking team. I led my force up to it, then commanded them to halt.

“All right, then─I’ve come up with a few plans for us to consider, so let’s go over our options,” said Mireille, her tone and expression taking a sudden turn. She sounded calm, all things considered. “Magic-wise, we’ve got sound, and that’s it. We also only have medium-sized catalyzers on hand, which means we can use a maximum of thirty M’s worth of aqua magia per side. That means we’ve got four spells in our arsenal today, so we won’t have to come up with anything complicated to win this one.”

Catalyzers, the tools used to cast magic, came in three sizes: small, medium, and large. The one we’d used to test Charlotte’s magic way back when was a small catalyzer that was roughly the size of a baseball. Medium catalyzers were just about basketball-sized, while large ones were around the size of those rubber exercise balls that people sat on. As you might expect, a metal device of that size was heavy and hard to move around, so they were transported using carts. We wouldn’t be using any of those in this practice battle. Hell, House Louvent didn’t even own any!

The bigger the catalyzer, the larger the volume of aqua magia you could pour into it. That made a big difference, since higher-level spells required a massive amount of aqua magia. Large-sized catalyzers were used primarily to cast that sort of battlefield-changing super spell. As a side note, the unit of measurement used for aqua magia was M. A small catalyzer could fit three Ms of aqua magia, while the mediums each side could use for the mock battle could fit thirty. Not having anything bigger wasn’t an issue because we didn’t have the funds to be blowing much more aqua magia than that during practice.

“So the four types of magic we’ll be able to use today are, umm…Hyper Voice, Rumble, Transmit, and Noise Trap, right?” I asked.

Each of the available spells had different effects. Hyper Voice amplified the volume of the caster’s voice. Rumble created a thunderous roaring noise that could, in theory, distract or disturb your enemy. Transmit allowed you to send sounds across long distances, but there were a bunch of caveats─you had to use a specific sort of catalyzer, for one thing, and you could only send sounds to another catalyzer of the same variety. You had to know a number associated with the catalyzer you were transmitting to, and you couldn’t even transmit complex sounds, meaning speech was off the table. Just to make things even more complicated, the maximum possible transmission distance was determined by the caster’s magical ability. The final spell was less complicated, at least: Noise Trap was another spell that made a loud roaring noise, but only when somebody passed through an area you designated as you cast the spell.

With medium-sized catalyzers, those four spells would be our entire repertoire for the day. As far as their aqua magia expenditures went, Hyper Voice required two Ms, Rumble and Transmit took three, and Noise Trap took ten. In terms of practicality, Hyper Voice and Transmit were both used to convey information across a battlefield. Noise Trap was also useful, since setting the spell up in strategic locations would allow you to detect the enemy’s movements without keeping an active guard posted. Rumble, however, was a bit of an exception─as far as I knew, it was pretty useless in actual combat.

“I bet they’ll try to ambush us,” said Mireille. That theory seemed convincing to me, considering ambushes had proven to be effective in our practice skirmishes thus far.

The tough part about being on the defending side was that if you tried to mount your defense in the precise location where your troops started, the enemy would know your army’s location and you’d lose the initiative. Losing out in that manner meant putting yourself at a notable disadvantage, and when you had the precise same number of troops as your enemy, that sort of disadvantage would decide the outcome of the battle in your foes’ favor.

Moving your troops out from their defensive position to set up an ambush, on the other hand, had the opposite effect. It could gain you an overwhelming advantage if things went well, and even if you didn’t manage to pull the surprise aspect off, you wouldn’t be fighting on your enemy’s terms.

That might make it sound like there were nothing but upsides to attempting an ambush, but there were a fair few downsides as well. Three situations could bring an end to the match: if a commanding officer was neutralized, if one side surrendered, or if the attacking team managed to slip at least thirty of its troops into the town of Lamberg, in which case the defenders would lose. On the flip side, if the attacking team didn’t manage to accomplish any of those objectives by sunset, the match would be called in favor of the defenders. In other words, if the defenders abandoned their defensive position, the attackers could win by marching right on into town.

There was only one proper road leading into Lamberg from where my team was located. That said, my army was small enough that traveling cross-country was practical. That meant it wouldn’t be easy for our opponents to predict which route we’d take into town. Typically, the defenders would send out scouts to locate the enemy force. Those scouts would then report back on the attackers’ movements via the Transmit spell, and the defenders would set up an ambush along the attackers’ chosen route.

“And of course, we’re up against Rietz,” said Mireille. “If we did march straight in, he’d catch us in an ambush and wipe us out without breaking a sweat.”

“You’re not wrong about that, but I’m surprised you’re giving him that much credit,” I replied.

“You’re not the only one with an eye for people. I’m not half-bad, either, and I can tell that he’s got a real impressive head on his shoulders, and isn’t the careless type. If I had to pin his biggest flaw down, I’d say it’s that he takes himself too seriously. You hear people go on and on about how Malkans are inferior, but it only takes one guy like him to show how stupid that belief is. Did you pick him out as a retainer ’cause you figured out he was talented at a glance too, kiddo?”

“That’s right,” I confirmed.

“Then that power of yours might be something special. No matter where you go in the Empire, Malkans get a rough lot in life. I bet Rietz went through some tough times before he joined up with you, eh?”

“He…did, yes,” I answered, a little hesitant. When I first met Rietz, he’d lost any semblance of a place where he belonged and had seemed just about ready to give up and die. He’d made a living for himself with a band of mercenaries up until that point, which might’ve been a decent environment compared to what other Malkans went through.

“Rietz has the potential, no doubts there. The other kiddo you’ve got training to be a tactician, though─Rosell, right? Hate to say it, but he’s not cut out for the role.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Okay, I should rephrase that. It’s not that he’s not cut out to be a tactician. It’s just that he’ll never be first-rate, no matter what he does. He’s got the brains, don’t get me wrong! Little guy’s as smart as they come. But you have to be more than just smart to be a tactician. You have to be creative─to have the ingenuity to come up with schemes that your enemy could never possibly see coming, which is something he lacks.”

“Hmm.”

Mireille had a very respectable Intelligence score herself, so I couldn’t dismiss her view of Rosell offhand. That said, Rosell’s Intelligence cap, according to my Appraisal skill, was 109 points. If that was accurate, yet he somehow wasn’t cut out to be a tactician, then I couldn’t even begin to guess what sort of person would be suited to the role.

Mireille might be decent at judging people, but maybe she just can’t see deep enough in Rosell’s case to give him the credit he deserves.

“Come to think of it, Rosell’s been complaining that your way of teaching is, well, pretty strange. Is that because you decided that he doesn’t have any talent?”

“That, and ’cause I’ve never been one for teaching,” Mireille readily admitted. “I do feel the urge to teach people a trick or two when it looks like they’ve got what it takes, but that’s about it.”

“Understood. In that case, I think you’ll find yourself wanting to teach Rosell for real before too much longer,” I replied.

Mireille arched an eyebrow.

“Oh? You’ve got an awful lot of faith in your ability to judge people, don’t you, kiddo?”

“We’re getting off-topic. We should figure out a plan and move out as soon as possible. Got anything cooking, Mireille?”

“Nothing too complicated. We’ll just send someone over to pretend they’ve double-crossed us, leak false info to the other side, and ambush them when they come looking for us.”

Now it was my turn to arch an eyebrow.

“And you think they’ll fall for that? You think they’ll believe that one of my men would betray me in a training exercise?”

“Eh, should work just fine. I’ve got a few tricks in mind,” replied Mireille. Then, she explained what she was plotting.

“That…does make sense,” I said when she finished. “That might trick Rietz and Rosell.”

“You think? Good. Then let’s pick someone to send out.”

I chose the soldier who’d be playing double agent, and we put Mireille’s plan into motion.

○

At the same time, Rietz’s army was holding their ground in the position they’d started at. Rietz had sent out a few soldiers to scout out the enemy, determine their movements, and report back using the Transmit spell.

The Transmit spell’s capability to transmit information was rudimentary. Casting the spell expended some of the aqua magia within the associated catalyzer, and the specialized catalyzers designed for the spell were made to emit a knocking noise when their aqua magia was expended. As such, while transmitting human speech was impossible, transmitting coded messages with a series of knocks could allow mages to communicate with each other. Rietz had sent out one such mage along with one regular soldier to scout ahead and had just received their report.

“Seems they’re on the move,” Rietz muttered. His scouts had informed him that Ars’s team of attackers was beginning to mobilize. He’d already told the scouts to continue observing and reporting after the enemy army began to march, so there was no need for him to send a reply. That was important, since casting the Transmit spell didn’t allow one to send a message back without expending more precious aqua magia.

“Where’re they headed?” asked Rosell.

“In two different directions,” replied Rietz. “It seems they’ve split their forces, with one traveling along the road and the other through the woods. Lord Ars is proceeding with the group on the road, so our scouts will be following them.”

Scouting was, traditionally, a one-mage job. If you sent two mages out to report back, you’d burn through too much aqua magia to transmit all the relevant information. Although splitting your forces meant that neither group would be capable of taking on the enemy’s main contingent, you would also more or less guarantee that your enemy would only know the location of one of your two troops. It wasn’t an unreasonable plan, given the circumstances.

Rietz and his troops were stationed on a road to the south of Lamberg. The road continued onward due south, and if you followed it for long enough, you would reach the starting point for Ars’s forces. Woodlands occupied the areas to the east and west of the road. The western woodlands were dangerous enough that they’d been declared out of bounds for the training exercise, but a known and safe route through the eastern woods made them fair game. A safe route wasn’t necessarily an easy route, however, and if you didn’t move with caution, you could get lost. Traveling that way was far from simple.

“Now we just have to decide how we deal with them,” Rietz muttered. There were any number of ways he could counter the attacking team’s chosen strategy. Choosing one enemy troop to crush first with his full might was an obvious option, but splitting his own forces to handle both at once had its advantages as well.

As Rietz and Rosell were just beginning to discuss their options, a booming voice rang out, “Can you hear me, Rietz?! This is Shamal, from the attacking team! I want to talk!”

Shamal was one of House Louvent’s mages. It seemed he’d cast Hyper Voice to deliver his message.

“What’s this about?” Rietz wondered.

“I say we ignore it,” cautioned Rosell.

“I’ve chosen to betray Lord Ars today, but I do it for his own sake!” Shamal’s voice rang out again.

“To betray him…? Is he offering us information?” asked Rietz.

“It’s an obvious trap,” said Rosell.

“Hmm… But think about the circumstances surrounding this battle,” replied Rietz. The instant that the concept of betraying Ars for his own sake was broached, he’d understood what Shamal was alluding to. If Mireille failed to lead Ars to victory in this battle, it was reasonable to assume that Ars would decide she hadn’t contributed in the manner he’d hoped, which would in turn lead to her expulsion from House Louvent. Considering the widespread distaste that Ars’s retainers held for her, it wasn’t implausible that one of them would decide to betray him here. “I think we should hear him out, just in case.”

Rietz ordered that Shamal be brought to him, and Shamal explained the details of Mireille’s strategy to Rietz. According to him, Mireille had plotted to have the contingent in the forest pretend that they’d fallen under attack from a real enemy force and sound the alarm. When Rietz’s troops rushed in to provide backup, the remaining portion of Ars’s troops on the road would mount a surprise attack and wipe the defenders out.

“That plan…doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the rules, does it?” sighed Rietz.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like the rules were all that clear cut,” noted Rosell.

“Yes, because under ordinary circumstances, nobody would consider putting a plan like that into action. It wouldn’t make for good training material.”

If there was any chance that a genuine enemy attack had occurred, then Rietz would have to rush in, whether or not he realized that it might be a trap. It would defeat the purpose of a training exercise of this nature. Nobody had tried to carry out an underhanded stratagem like that, so there had never been any reason to prohibit them.

“Of course, I wouldn’t put it past that woman to come up with something so brazen,” Rietz noted. “Her grasp of common sense is tenuous.”

“But she’s not their leader, is she? Ars is. Wouldn’t he stop her?” asked Rosell.

“Perhaps, but she’s a glib one. She may have talked Ars into going along with her scheme…”

Rietz could feel that he was missing something. Mireille had a way with words, to be sure, but Ars was no fool. He couldn’t believe that his lord had fallen for such a trick.

“Yes…you’re right. Everything I’ve just told you is a lie,” said Shamal, shocking everyone present.

“Huh?” grunted Rietz.

“It’s as you guessed, Rietz. Mireille told me to pretend to betray her and feed you false information. The thing is, I really hate that woman’s guts,” Shamal said, launching into an extended description of how and why he despised the tactician, concluding with a simple sentiment: “The way I see it, I might as well betray her for real while I have the chance. The plan I told you about before is a lie, but I’m about to tell you what she’s really up to now.”

Thus, Shamal launched into a second explanation of Mireille’s true scheme. In short, her plan started with the leaking of false information to Rietz’s army. She would allow them to get the jump on Ars’s flank, but only briefly─at the most critical possible moment, when their sneak attack was being launched, Shamal would cast Rumble. The spell did nothing more than make a loud and unnerving noise, but when said noise was coming from the center of their own formation, it would shock Rietz’s soldiers and throw off their operation. It would also have a secondary purpose: functioning as the signal for the attacking team to break down the defenders’ ambush and turn the tables on them.

“I think you should pretend to have fallen for their trap,” said Shamal. “After all, the whole operation hinges on me casting Rumble. If I don’t do that, we’re left with an actual surprise attack that they won’t be prepared for, and once Mireille’s plan fails, she’ll be chased out of House Louvent. Please, Rietz─make the right call!”

Rietz fell silent. He couldn’t decide whether or not to trust Shamal’s claim. It went without saying that both of the man’s stories could be fabrications, but his final tale was consistent with his motivations, so it seemed plausible. He didn’t appear to be lying, but Rietz didn’t know him well enough to say whether or not he was a skilled enough actor to pull off such a ruse, and Rietz wasn’t dumb enough to take someone’s word at face value.

“All right, then. I’ll trust you,” Rietz lied. He didn’t trust Shamal by any means, but he’d chosen to play along for the time being.

If Shamal was lying, then it was only a matter of time before the fact would be exposed, and the attacking team’s next move would become that much easier to predict. If he was telling the truth, on the other hand, then as he’d said, a sneak attack could lead to an easy victory.

Rietz didn’t believe that he’d made the best possible choice…but at this point in time, he hadn’t the foggiest idea what a terrible mistake he’d just made.

○

Rietz directed his troops to march forward. Their destination: the location that Shamal had identified as the position where the attacking team would carry out their operation. Ars would be present in that unit, according to Shamal’s information. He also provided a map with the precise location marked on it, and according to Rietz’s scouts, Ars’s unit was already on the move toward that position.

Before moving out, Rietz had to confirm one last thing with Shamal: the status of the division that Ars had sent into the woodlands. Shamal explained that they were insurance. If Rietz somehow managed to escape unharmed from the ambush, the backup troops in the woodlands would pursue him and finish him off. Just to be on the safe side, Rietz decided to dispatch ten of his own soldiers to hold that extra division off long enough for the main force to deal with Ars.

That wasn’t the only precaution that Rietz took, of course.

“Now then, before we move out, I’ll be taking your catalyzer. I’m sure you understand,” Rietz said to Shamal. His knowledge of the enemy’s plan wasn’t clear, and if Shamal was working for them and did cast Rumble to call in a surprise attack, Rietz and his men would be sitting ducks. Fortunately, Shamal handed over his catalyzer─a small-sized one─without protest.

That’s strange, thought Rietz as he inspected the device. Catalyzers all had numbers inscribed into them. When a mage cast Transmit, the incantation involved reciting the number associated with the catalyzer they wanted to send a noise to. Something seemed wrong about the number on the catalyzer that Shamal handed over, though.

This catalyzer’s number is 23159…but that’s not Shamal’s number, is it?

Each catalyzer in House Louvent’s possession was assigned to a specific individual. Keeping the numbers consistent reduced the possibility of the flow of information becoming tangled. Furthermore, one of the rules for their practice battles was that you were not allowed to use Transmit to send information to the opposing team. Rietz wasn’t a mage himself, and as a result, he hadn’t had enough exposure to the catalyzers to memorize all of their numbers, but he still had the strangest feeling that Shamal’s was off.

But if this is the wrong number…did his break? Or does he have two?

A catalyzer breaking down wasn’t unheard of, but it would have been odd for Shamal to have already been casting spells early enough in the drill to get one swapped out. Rietz wasn’t sure whether or not Shamal would have had to cast anything to tell that his own catalyzer was broken, but the probability that he was carrying two seemed higher overall. If Shamal had two catalyzers, it would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he intended to betray Rietz. Otherwise, he would have handed the spare over as well─there’d be no need to keep it hidden.

Rietz knew that House Louvent’s mages all had the catalyzer numbers and their assignments memorized, so he went over to Charlotte in secret and asked her what Shamal’s was.

“Huh? Shamal’s number?” said Charlotte. “Uh, think that was…22134? Wait, no, 23112? Hmm…nah, sorry, no clue.”

“My apologies,” sighed Rietz. “I should have asked someone else.”

He’d forgotten that Charlotte was bad at memorization, and hadn’t committed any of the catalyzer numbers to memory. Her overwhelming magical ability made her an unstoppable force on an actual battlefield, but her inability to use Transmit meant that she was an impediment in a mock battle, if anything.

Rietz found a different mage to ask about the numbers instead.

“23159? No, that’s Tenks’s number. Shamal’s is 23111.”

“I thought so,” said Rietz with a grimace.

“Oooh, 23111? Dang, I was pretty close,” grumbled Charlotte, who had tagged along with him.

“It would save us a lot of trouble if you’d memorize the numbers yourself, you know?” Rietz sighed.

“Why’s his number different, though?” Charlotte asked. Rietz explained his theory, and she nodded in understanding. “Oh, he has two of ’em? That’d do it for sure.”

“It is strange for a mage to be carrying another mage’s catalyzer,” explained the mage who’d confirmed Rietz’s suspicions about the numbers. “Each catalyzer has a certain feel to it, and it’s much easier to cast with one that you’re used to.”

The fact that a mage found the situation so unnatural only deepened Rietz’s suspicions. Nothing had been proven yet, but this left him with one option: to search Shamal for a second catalyzer. Shamal was opposed to the check at first, but he gave in and allowed himself to be searched. Lo and behold, Rietz soon found a second catalyzer that he’d hidden.

“So tell me, why did you have two of these?” asked Rietz. Shamal didn’t say a word, and Rietz shrugged. “No need to hear it from the horse’s mouth─I already know your answer. According to my scouts, Ars’s unit has reached the location you told us about and is standing by. You were going to wait until we were almost upon them, then use your second catalyzer to cast Rumble. Well, sorry to say, but that plan is a wash now.”

“Tell me about it,” Shamal sighed. “You’re right about everything. Man, I’ve made a real mess of this operation.”

It seemed that passing over the borrowed catalyzer rather than his own had been nothing more than a careless mistake.

“Well then, new plan. We’ll pretend that we’ve fallen for their scheme and head straight for Ars’s unit. They’ll be counting on that Rumble spell to alert them of our presence, which means they won’t see us coming,” said Rietz. He was convinced that the battle was already all but over.

○

“So, yeah, at this point, I’m sure they think they’ve already won,” chuckled Mireille with a smirk as she explained how Rietz would be directing his forces.

To sum her plan up in the simplest way possible, she had designed it under the deliberate assumption that her enemies would see through her scheme. Mireille had set Shamal up in a way that made him screwing up and revealing the details of her plan to Rietz and his troops the most likely outcome. According to her, nothing put a person off-guard like the misguided belief that they’d seen through their enemy’s plans. She’d made her fake plan as convoluted as possible to aid in that effort because if the plan that Shamal leaked was too straightforward, Rietz might end up questioning its authenticity.

I was impressed. Mireille’s plan betrayed a remarkable level of psychological analysis on her part. The scouts that we’d sent had reported that Rietz’s troops were already on their way to our position, so now we just had to wait until he was closer to spring our trap and defeat him.

Once Rietz’s army was close enough to ours, we would move to a new location. Casting Transmit required a mage to chant a spell, and that took a hefty period of time. If we could relocate our troops and attack Rietz’s army from a blind spot before his scouts had the time to report back to him, we could catch him and his men off-guard and enter the battle at a massive advantage.

“Of course, there’s no guarantee that your plan will succeed. Rietz and his people might not have caught on to the part you needed him to figure out,” I noted.

“Yeah, I’m not too concerned about that,” said Mireille with a smirk.

If Rietz had missed Mireille’s convoluted setup, he’d still have made his way to our position. The difference was that in that instance, he would’ve been doing so without letting his guard down. That would require some major alterations to the plan, but it wasn’t a major problem.

All that said, our scouts had reported that Rietz and his troops were moving at a faster pace than usual. They were rushing forward in a manner consistent with them believing they’d seen through our strategy and dropping their guard as a consequence.

Just a little while later, one of the mages on my team received a message through their catalyzer. That was the signal we’d been waiting for─it was time for us to move out.

“All right, let’s get a move on,” I said.

“Right,” agreed Mireille.

I gave the order, and my entire squad began to move out. Rietz’s team wasn’t quite close enough to see with the naked eye yet, so me and my troops were able to move off to the side of the road and circle behind his group without being noticed. I knew that the slightest delay in setting up our trap could have spelled doom for our whole operation, so I urged my forces to move as fast as possible.

It wasn’t long before Rietz’s troops came into view, and we managed to circle around them without getting spotted. Rietz had ordered his troops to a stop. My best guess was that he was receiving a report from his scouts at that very moment, and I wasn’t about to give him the time to act on the information they’d sent him.

First, I ordered our archers to open fire. We peppered Rietz’s formation from behind with arrows, thinning their ranks in an instant. That threw their remaining force into a state of mayhem, but Rietz was a competent enough leader to rally them back into formation before the clash began. Unfortunately for him, that preemptive strike by our archers had taken its toll. It was a hard fight, to be clear─much harder than expected, considering we’d gotten the jump on him─but in the end, our team emerged victorious.

“My team has won the day, and we have Mireille’s strategy to thank for it,” I declared, addressing all of my troops after the battle was done. “As such, her employment with House Louvent will not be terminated.”

A lot of my troops didn’t look very happy about how things had turned out, but they had agreed to the terms and they weren’t the sort to break promises. In the end, nobody spoke out against my decision.

“That said,” I continued, turning to Mireille. “I can’t rule out the possibility that I’ll cast you aside if you continue to cause problems. I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

“Right, right,” replied Mireille with a dismissive wave.

Well, at least she can’t say she wasn’t warned now.

I was pretty skeptical she’d heed said warning, but in any case, Mireille had earned her place as a retainer of House Louvent.