Chapter 1: A Promise to Keep
Some days after leaving the capital, the castle towers of Eintorian finally came into view.
It’s a powerful and emotional moment, coming home from the battlefield.
It hadn’t been long since Eintorian became mine, but it already felt like home.
“That’s Eintorian Castle,” I said, pointing to the castle towers. Jint stared at them before giving a silent nod in response. Perhaps it was to be expected, given his taciturn nature, but the journey had been a quiet one. Yusen and Gibun were making the trip separately because I’d ordered them to come with their families. When we reached the gates of Eintorian, my boring trip with no one but Jint for company was finally over.
“Your Excellency!”
“Master!”
Commander-in-Chief Hadin of the Eintorian Domain Army and the head chamberlain called out as they came to meet us, with soldiers following them.
“Your Lordship!” the soldiers all shouted before kneeling down before me.
The difference in discipline between when I first came to this world and now is like night and day. I see Hadin’s training is proceeding apace.
“The domain is already abuzz with tales of your heroism. I couldn’t be prouder of you, sir!” Hadin said as he knelt before me, looking every bit as pleased with my accomplishments as he said he was.
“Tales of my heroism? All I remember telling you is that I would be coming back home, though?”
“Oh, what are you saying? Word of how you drove off the Naruyans has already spread all across the country. How could we in Eintorian not have heard of it?”
Did the story spread all this way while I was spending time in the capital?
Eintorian Domain
Opinion: 85
Taking a look, Opinion had risen from 70 to 85, even though exempting the populace from taxes had only brought it up as far as 70.
I guess defending the nation had a major effect on it.
“Oh...” I scratched my cheek.
It’s not a bad thing. If anything, I wanted this kind of acclaim. I’m sure it will help us a lot when Eintorian goes independent after the destruction of the Runan Kingdom.
“Well, whatever. I’m heading back to the castle for now.”
“Yes, sir!”
The town was abuzz, just like Hadin said. All the people of my domain came out to cheer for my arrival. Their opinions of Erhin Eintorian had changed so dramatically, it felt as if he’d never been a villainous lord to begin with.
That Opinion of 85 is really starting to sink in.
The people’s passion was palpable as I arrived at the castle. I didn’t plan to just relax there, of course. Exhausted or not, I had things I needed to do. The experiences I’d been through since becoming a lord had given me a lot more stamina than I’d started out with.
Resting and surveying the domain can wait.
“Both of you, follow me to my office. You too, Jint.”
I planned to introduce Jint to the head chamberlain and Hadin and then head across the border to retrieve Jint’s sweetheart Mirinae immediately. I’d given some thought to dropping by there on the way back from the Runanese capital, but in the end, I decided it was best to at least prepare ourselves somewhat first.
I swear I’m going to keep my word. That’s my policy.
It’s why this had to be the first order of business now that we were back.
“Don’t worry, Jint. As soon as I’ve given my orders, we’ll be heading right back out.”
Our destination was the Naruya Kingdom, specifically a town along the border of the Sentreet Domain. Honestly, it was pretty close to the Eintorian Domain, seeing as it was a border town and all.
“Really?” Jint asked.
I had finally gotten a smile out of him. He’d been tense this entire time, and this was the first time I’d ever seen his expression soften.
“What would I gain by lying?”
I could see why Jint would want to rush there immediately, but I was uneasy about letting him go alone, so I had persuaded him not to.
I promised him that we’d go together. That’s why Jint’s waiting.
If he didn’t do as I said, he’d lose the guarantee that Eintorian would give Jint and Mirinae shelter. Without our backing, he was nothing but an enemy soldier who had deserted his own side. Of course, he was also holding back because he believed in my promise to make the two of them happy.
“You two must be curious about this man,” I said, glancing at Hadin and the head chamberlain in the office.
Hadin was quick to nod. “Yes, sir! Who the devil is he?”
“A new Eintorian retainer. He’s even stronger than Randall of the Ten Commanders, the one who invaded us before.”
“Stronger than Randall, you say?” Hadin looked at Jint, surprised.
“It’s more than just that. He’s so strong he even gives the famous Lord Erheet a run for his money.”
“My word...! Even Lord Erheet?”
When I name-dropped the most famous commander in all of Runan, Hadin’s jaw dropped so hard he forgot to close his mouth afterward. That was apparently a bigger surprise than Randall.
“Say hello, Jint. This is Baron Hadin, the commander-in-chief of the Eintorian Domain Army.”
At my instruction, Jint bowed his head to Hadin.
“I should also mention, I’m going to be heading to a Naruyan border town to bring this guy’s woman back for him.”
“So suddenly?!”
“I promised on the battlefield that I would, and my word is my bond.”
I should let Hadin and the head chamberlain know about his situation, at least. Hadin’s the commander-in-chief of my forces, so obviously he needs to know about his subordinates. As for the head chamberlain, he’ll be looking after Jint and Mirinae from here on out. Mirinae has her own situation, so I intend to have her stay in the castle for a while after I bring her here.
After telling the story as succinctly as I could, Hadin patted Jint on the back, his face full of emotion.
“You went through all of that? What an incredible man you are!”
Well, that’s just how Hadin was. The man’s loyalty didn’t waver one bit, even after being locked up in the dungeon by his villainous lord for a whole year.
“Then I will go with him. Clearly, I can’t let you go with him yourself, sir...”
Although, he did have an issue with getting ahead of himself.
“It wouldn’t sit right with me not to go myself. You don’t need to worry about what might happen to me. Or do you not have faith in my strength?”
“Perish the thought!”
“There you have it, then. Head Chamberlain, prepare two sets of peasant garb for us. We’ll need simple clothes that won’t stand out.”
“Yes, of course, Master!”
We’re traveling across the border to snatch someone, so we can’t afford to draw attention. Dressing ourselves as soldiers isn’t an option, and dressing as nobles is completely out of the question. Ideally, we want to bring her back quietly.
I mean, it’s not like we can just go in there with the army, right?
It wouldn’t be that tough to occupy the Sentreet Domain, but there’s no way that the King of Naruya would just shrug off losing the territory. He’d probably come after us for revenge, saying it was to prepare for the Grand Subjugation, or whatever.
That’d mean another war.
Now, that would be a pain. Even if we managed to win in the short term, Eintorian wouldn’t be able to amass the power that we need to go independent. Right now, what I need to be focusing on is the preparations for that, not another war. I’d like to keep this as quiet as possible. I probably don’t need to bring a whole army just to bring back one person.
“By the way, have we been making progress on construction work to repair the strategic pass?” I asked, suddenly remembering I had ordered them to do that.
When the supreme commander of the Royal Naruyan Army, Valdesca Frann, sent a decoy unit to attack Eintorian, they hadn’t even been able to use the pass because it had collapsed in an earthquake. It was going to be important for us to repair it properly in preparation for future developments. We had the money too, so I’d issued a repair order before leaving for the battlefield. I didn’t expect them to already be done with a major construction project like that, though.
“Yes, sir. We are going as quickly as we can. I suspect it should be finished by winter.”
“Oh, yeah? It’s a big project, so make sure to give it sufficient funds.”
“Of course, sir!”
Anyway, I can deal with all these administrative tasks once we get back from that border town.
*
It was still afternoon.
We took the road into the mountains after briefly surveying the construction ongoing at the mountain pass. The road leveled out on the other side of it, and we continued along that route for some time until the Naruyan checkpoint came into view.
Traveling merchants used to use this route before the war, but now it was shut up tight. If we wanted to go straight through the checkpoint, we were going to have to fight a war for it.
That being the case, Jint and I veered off the road midway and infiltrated the Naruya Kingdom by crossing the mountains.
With just the two of us—well, plus our horses—it wasn’t all that difficult getting through the mountains. There were some Naruyan patrols, sure, but they couldn’t watch the entirety of these precipitous peaks.
The problem’s going to be when we get into the foothills.
There were watch posts all around the base of the mountains, and the scouts there worked together with the border patrol units.
I expected this, of course.
“Let’s hurry to town!”
We spurred our horses as fast as they would go, and I had Jint lead the way. The mission was to extract a woman from a Naruyan border town as quickly as we could. While there was a need to be inconspicuous, abducting a person also required an element of speed.
We’re disguised, though, and they don’t know we’ve crossed the border. We can afford to be a bit reckless, was my line of thinking, but...
“Tch!”
Because the country was at war, the border guards were especially high-strung at the moment. A distant sentinel spotted us the moment we came out of the mountains and got on the road. Smoke rose from the watchtower before they even bothered identifying us.
We needed to move faster.
“They’re onto us! Let’s hurry!”
We managed to get out of sight of the sentinels somehow.
“Is it still a long way to town?”
“We should start seeing landmarks soon.”
After we’d ridden some distance, Jint pointed out some fields and hills that he recognized to me. Though I called them fields, they were small and barren.
“I always used to rest on that hill with Mirinae when I finished working the fields.”
“Oh, yeah?”
One glance was all it took to see traces of all the hard work that had gone into developing this land.
“I used to eat the herb porridge that Mirinae made for me over there. It was really good.”
Jint gazed at the hill for a while, basking in fond memories. Then he pointed to a town in the distance.
“There, that’s the town!”
Once the little town became visible on the other side of the hill, Jint urged his horse to run faster. The place looked like the last refuge of those who’d lost everything.
Border towns were at high risk of being put to the torch when there was war with a neighboring country. That’s why the only people who’d live in them were those like Jint and Mirinae with no other place to go.
Once we were sure no one was chasing us, Jint stopped at a ramshackle hovel on the outskirts.
“Mirinae!”
It must have been their home once. Jint dismounted and ran inside.
“Mirinae!!!” he bellowed her name again.
I had a bad feeling. There was no joy in Jint’s voice, only a fearful haste. When he emerged from the house, his face was as pale as I’d worried it would be. He continued shouting her name, as if possessed by terror.
“Mirinae...! Mirinae!”
Come to think of it, the whole town was quiet. I hadn’t noticed before now because we were in such a hurry, but we hadn’t seen a soul since getting here.
Oh, no...
I began to imagine the worst.
“Mirinaeee!”
Jint started searching the other houses nearby for her too.
In response to his shouting...
“Who’s making all that racket?”
An elderly man emerged from the neighboring house.
It was kind of a relief seeing someone. Jint was running around like a horse off its reins, so I left him to his own devices and approached the old man.
“Pardon me, but would you happen to know a woman who lives next door by the name of Mirinae?”
“Of course I do. I suppose that must be Jint, then?”
“Yeah.”
“I see. So he made it back alive. Everyone gave him up for dead once he got conscripted,” the old man murmured, an intrigued look on his face.
“Well, anyways... Where is Mirinae? I don’t see any townsfolk either, besides you.”
“She’s out working. There’s nothing left in this town, after all... Mirinae said she was going to the next town over to help work the fields and do needlework.”
“Got it.”
Oh, thank goodness. My heart was pounding for a moment there. What a relief.
It seemed the town was so desolate because of the draft. If all they had left were old men and women, I suppose that made sense.
“Jint!” I shouted as I jumped toward Jint, who was totally losing his head, and punched him in the face.
Thump!
I wasn’t using Daitoren, so without the bonus stats it granted me, my Martial was way lower than his. Normally, Jint would dodge it easily, but he was too far gone now.
“Pull yourself together! Mirinae’s off working in the next town over!”
Jint blinked at me.
“Really...?”
“Just calm down for now. Do you know where the neighboring town is?”
“Sure do.”
“Then mount up already! There’s no time to waste!”
*
“Are you okay, Mirinae?”
Mirinae’s hands were covered in cuts and scrapes. Because of all the work she had been doing out in the fields, they never had a day to heal. But Mirinae prided herself on her sewing, so she kept her needle moving with a deft hand.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Can you really handle all this work? I got what you asked for, but...” Malfie, the middle-aged woman who had come to work with her, said in a concerned tone.
There was a large bundle of old cloth in her hands: cloth for jobs that Mirinae had accepted.
“I need to make all the money I can. When Jint comes back from the war... I know he’ll be exhausted, so I want him to be able to eat his fill.”
“Oh, you poor thing...” Malfie felt bad for Mirinae. She figured there was almost no chance of Jint ever coming home. When those without power were drafted, they were just expendable. Her own brother had been drafted at a young age and died like that too.
Because of that, Malfie felt sorry seeing the way Mirinae waited so bravely for Jint to return and repeatedly told her that she should give him up for dead. But Mirinae, who lived only for Jint, stubbornly refused to accept it.
“Don’t devote your life to a man who might be gone for good...”
These words always met with the same response. Even when Mirinae was so exhausted she had bags under her eyes, there was a vital sparkle in them when she talked about Jint.
“Jint’s strong. He’ll definitely come back alive. Definitely.”
She repeated the word “definitely” like some sort of mantra. At that moment, they heard a voice coming from outside.
“Is Mirinae here?”
The unfamiliar male voice made Malfie and Mirinae look at one another. The other townsfolk looked over in suspicion.
“Who’s there?” Malfie asked, opening the door.
It was Erhin.
And beside him, looking restless, was the man they had just been talking about—Jint.
“Huh...?”
Jint and Mirinae’s eyes met. A moment later, each raced to the other so fast that you couldn’t tell which of them had moved first.
“Jint, you’re not hurt, are you?! No injuries?!” Mirinae asked as she felt his body all over, checking for herself.
“I’m fine,” he confirmed with a nod.
With that, Mirinae was finally reassured, and she nuzzled up against Jint’s chest.
“I always believed you’d come back alive. But the women in town kept on telling me you might not, so...I’m just happy to see you’re back. So happy...”
Tears streamed from Mirinae’s eyes.
“If you died on me, I was planning to follow you,” she said, revealing her tragic resolve.
“It was the same for me,” Jint told her. “I’m just so glad you are still alive.”
Jint and Mirinae shared a passionate embrace.
I, however, was unfortunately going to have to be the insensitive clod who interfered with their touching reunion.
“Sorry to ruin the moment, but...we need to get going, Jint.”
They’d have plenty of time to bask in all these touching emotions after we were safely back in Eintorian. The smoke signal from the watchtower earlier meant there would likely be enemy soldiers searching the area, so we probably wouldn’t be getting out of here without a fight.
“Mirinae, there’s a lot going on. Let’s get out of here quickly,” Jint said, realizing what I was getting at, and scooped Mirinae up in his arms before putting her on a horse.
“Eek! Jint!”
Her eyebrows arched with surprise as she rode a horse for the first time in her life.
“We’re going on horseback? Hey, wait, this is...! Jint! You stole again!”
“Sorry...” Jint apologized reflexively. “Uh, wait, no. I didn’t steal it. This is his horse.” He pointed at me.
“Come to think of it, who is he?”
I looked at Jint and waited for him to answer. I was a little curious what he would say.
“My savior.”
“Your...savior?”
Jint surprised me a little, calling me that.
“I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry,” Mirinae said to me. “Jint isn’t very talkative, and he’s terrible at explaining things...”
“I’m well aware of that. But it’s not important now. We’ll talk more later.”
I set my horse galloping, and Jint followed behind me.
“Wait, Jint!”
“Sorry. I’ll explain everything later!”
“This is the wrong way! Aren’t we going home?”
Her confusion was understandable, but we ignored her shouting as we raced back down the road we’d come from.
Along the way, we ran into the border patrol unit, just as I’d anticipated. They’d been searching for us a while now, and were understandably pissed off as a result.
“Think you can cross the border when it’s closed, do you? Are you Runanese scouts?!”
Sentreet Border Patrol
100 men
Morale: 76
Training: 85
The border patrol was made up of rather capable soldiers, as befit a nation like Naruya. There were units like this scattered across the border too. The system used for border defense was just about the same, whether you were in Runan or Naruya. The main differences were in unit size and their degree of training.
Based on information I’d received before, there were more than ten units of one hundred men on the Eintorian-Naruya border. They worked with the sentinels in the watchtowers, who gave them orders in real time.
Which means troops will keep rushing to our location. There’s only a hundred of them now, but that could grow to a thousand if we dawdle.
I triggered a skill to get away from the patrol unit. During the recent war, Jint and I had used guerrilla tactics to wipe out the enemy’s remaining manpower once Erheet Demacine drove them out of Ruon Castle. That had earned me some points when I leveled up, so my Martial score was now 64.
I’d even learned a new skill.
“Jint, I’ve got this! You pull back!”
“As if I could do that! I’ll help too.”
“Just protect Mirinae, okay? I can handle a group like this just fine by myself, but if anything were to happen to her, it would defeat the entire purpose of coming here!”
“Urgh... Fine.”
Jint must have had no counterargument, because he scooped Mirinae up in his arms and helped her down from the horse.
Ideally, I had wanted to break past the guards on horseback, but being on a horse made you an easy target for skills. With a Martial score like Jint’s, he could deflect ranged attacks from archers and the like with his sword, so he must have figured he was safer on foot.
“Jint? H-Hey, wait!” Mirinae cried.
Once I was able to see that Jint had taken the confused Mirinae a safe distance away, I turned to face the hundred soldiers.
Will you use Tremor?
I triggered my new skill.
When facing large numbers of enemies, what I needed was a skill with a large area of effect. The skills I’d already had were powerful in a one-on-one matchup, so this time I’d gone for an AoE attack skill. When I triggered Tremor, my body began moving automatically and thrust my sword into the ground.
Rifts then formed in the ground, starting from my blade and stretching out towards the soldiers’ feet!
Red beams shot out from between the cracks, and...
Rummmble!
The land caved in beneath the enemy, forming a massive hole that swallowed up over half of the hundred men.
As an added benefit, since this was a battle of one against one hundred, the system recognized that as a “battlefield,” which meant I was able to gain experience.
“Wahhh!”
The soldiers screamed, unable to understand what was happening. I looked at the status screen and saw only thirty of them remained.
No need to use skills now.
Will you use the bonus?
I swung Daitoren around as I finished off the survivors. Mirinae could do nothing but blink at this sudden development. Jint looked jealous of my skill.
“Jint, we’re crossing the mountains pronto. We need to shake the other patrols that are after us!”
We had to hurry because I knew a fresh border patrol unit would be after us before long. Fortunately, we managed to gain a significant lead. The many and varied border patrol units were converging on our position, though too late, and began to chase us.
“They’re Runanese infiltrators! Seize them! Hey, stop!” the member of the border patrol shouted as the guards pursued us through the foothills. I couldn’t help but scoff to myself. What kind of fugitives stop just because they were asked to?
Because I’d wiped out the first border patrol unit, it wasn’t all that hard to escape the others.
Mirinae was my sole worry, but somewhere along the way, Jint picked her up and carried her in his arms as he ran.
Once we were over the mountains, there would be no further risk from the Naruyan border patrol.
Even if they thought we were enemy spies, once we got away from them, that would be the end of it. While they might be able to send a person or two across the border after us, a whole patrol unit would amount to a declaration of war. The border patrol didn’t have that kind of authority.
After a long trek, the plains of Eintorian spread out before us.
That was proof enough that we’d successfully extracted Mirinae.
*
A few days later, Erhin had the head chamberlain prepare a house for Jint and Mirinae to live in—a lovely two-story home near the castle.
Unable to believe this change in their fortunes, Mirinae repeatedly asked Jint, “We’re really allowed to live here? You’re sure? I’m not dreaming?”
She’d never even dreamed of living in a place like this. Every house they’d lived in before had been so run-down it could have collapsed at any moment. Mirinae looked all around their new residence, sighing with emotion at each new discovery.
“Jint, look! There’s a bed! It’s so soft!”
After lying down on it for a bit, she went to the kitchen where she was in for another surprise.
“Just look at this kitchen! I’ve never seen anything like it! I’ll be able to make so many delicious meals for you here!”
When Jint walked over, she rested her forehead on his chest.
“Jint... I’m so overjoyed. If this is really happening, we’re truly blessed. Are you sure we can have all of this?”
“Yeah. That guy’s no liar—unlike the rest of the nobility.”
“Hold on, Jint. ‘That guy’...? You’re not talking about the lord, are you?”
“Who else would I be talking about?”
“You idiot! You dummy, dummy, dummy! How could you refer to His Lordship so casually?!”
“Well... That’s how I’ve been talking all this time...”
Mirinae pinched Jint’s cheeks, a look of exasperation on her face.
“You’re his retainer now, aren’t you? You need to show him the proper respect!”
“O-Okay...”
Jint said with a nod, his words slightly slurred by her grip on his cheeks.
“Anyway, so you saved the country with His Lordship?”
“That’s how it worked out. It wasn’t Naruya I saved, though...”
“You silly man! What does Naruya matter to us? It doesn’t, that’s what. From now on, this country, the one that accepted us, is our homeland!”
“Oh... It is?”
“Of course it is. They took in people like us... Fugitives. Besides, they recognize your talent... That’s marvelous! How do you think we should repay them, Jint? Just how many pieces of clothing will I have to mend? How many tens of thousands of them?”
Mirinae was counting on her fingers, but the numbers were far beyond anything she could count like that. Her eyes began to spin.
“Well, I’ll do my best! Oh, that’s right! I managed to save up this much with my needlework.”
Mirinae pulled out the precious silver coin that she had tucked away in her pocket.
“I’m going to buy you something nice to eat with this... So...we can be together...forever, right?”
With the silver coin clenched tightly in hand, tears that Mirinae had been holding back since they were reunited started to overflow.
The image of himself in jail flashed through Jint’s mind. If he hadn’t managed to make it back, then Mirinae would never have shed these tears of joy. His debt was great—so great, it wouldn’t be repaid even when his sword lay broken and his severed head rested on the ground.
As he thought about that, Jint’s hands tightened into fists.
*
Jint and Mirinae’s story didn’t end there. Several days after the head chamberlain found a house for them, Mirinae suddenly came to visit him.
“I’ll do anything. I’m confident in my sewing and I can clean too. Please, let me work!”
When I heard about it from the head chamberlain, I summoned her and Jint so I could speak to them.
Mirinae
Age: 21
Martial: 5
Intelligence: 59
Command: 10
Those were her stats. The numbers fascinated me. An Intelligence score of 59 when she’d never properly studied? Martial, Intelligence, and Command all represented both a person’s innate talent and the result of the effort they put in. Additionally, the system capped ability scores based on talent.
That meant there was an initial value based on the person’s talent, and hard work could raise their ability scores up to that talent cap. It took time to raise your stats through hard work, of course, and nobody—except for me who had access to the level-up system—could go beyond their talent cap.
However, there were some people whose talent cap had what was called A-class Breakout. Those with such a gift were able to get their ability scores over 100 and become S-class.
A person’s capacity for wielding mana was deeply connected with this.
There was a skill in the system that would allow me to view people’s talent caps, and having it would help me discover people with hidden abilities, but it cost 3,000 points. That wasn’t happening at my current level.
Even without the skill, I can be reasonably confident that Mirinae’s never worked to raise her Intelligence score. She was never in a situation where she could have done anything about it. So, assuming her initial score was 59, she might totally transform if given the chance to work on improving it.
Curiouser and curiouser.
“You want to work here?”
“Yes, Your Lordship!”
Mirinae had bowed down before me the moment she arrived, pulling on Jint’s arm like she was saying, “You hurry up and bend the knee!” to try and make him bow too.
“Enough of that. You don’t need to bow and scrape all the time. Besides, Jint is one of my retainers. As his wife, you should address me as ‘Your Excellency.’”
“Call you ‘Your Excellency’? I-I’m not sure I...”
Mirinae was clearly confused at the honor of being allowed to address me as the nobles of this world did. Her eyes wandered nervously. I decided to cut to the chase.
“Anyways, you wanted work, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I don’t know how to repay you... I’ll really do anything!”
“No matter how painful it is?”
“Yes!”
Hearing the resolve in her voice, I shrugged and said, “Why not try studying? Yes... How about learning to read for a start?”
Mirinae blinked at this for a good ten seconds before looking at Jint.
“Not Jint. He’s too far removed from that sort of thing.”
When Mirinae heard that, she pointed at herself.
“Me? I-I couldn’t! Never! Book learning is for the nobility!”
“Must I repeat myself? You are my retainers now, which makes you practically nobility. If you genuinely want to work for the sake of the domain, then you’ll start by learning to read. I have no intention of letting you work otherwise.”
Mirinae gaped at me, unsure what to make of this proclamation.
“But...! Are you sure I can do it?”
“That, I can’t tell you. But if you work at it, I’m sure you’ll get results. Let’s wait and see what those results are.”
Yeah. That part was a mystery to me too. Would her Intelligence score rise, like I was hoping it would? Or was it going to remain unchanged? There were all sorts of things one could have intelligence for too.
The intelligence needed to manage a domain.
The intelligence needed to wage a war.
It remained to be seen what kind of intelligence she possessed. It felt like I’d just bought a lottery ticket, and now I was waiting to find out if I’d picked a winner.
*
I’m currently level 19.
Wiping out the Royal Naruyan Army in the recent war brought me to level 18, and our battle with the border patrol while we were rescuing Mirinae pushed me up to 19.
My Martial is 64. I have 300 skill points remaining. I can’t neglect leveling up during the one year I have before Naruya starts the Grand Subjugation. I’ll keep searching for personnel too.
Ultimately, I’m going to keep needing to influence the outcomes of a variety of battles. Although, that will probably be after I have my own domain in order.
“Hadin, gather all our forces!”
My first order of business was to assemble the army to introduce my new retainers to them. This included Yusen and Gibun, who had arrived after us.
I’ve told Hadin about them already, but this will be the first time that the army as a whole sees the new retainers. Since this is such a choice occasion for it, I want to have a martial arts tournament with a prize and everything. I can see people’s ability scores, but no one else can. No one but me knows what Jint, Yusen, and the others are like.
This was why it was important to show off the martial prowess of the new retainers I had brought on board with a tournament.
The outcome isn’t important. It’s all about the process. Basically, making them understand just how competent the new folks I’ve brought on board are, and preventing any dissatisfaction that might emerge when I put them in important positions. Because no one in my current army is a match for Jint.
Even Yusen lost after crossing blades with him just once.
As I expected, Jint won the tourney, and Yusen took second place.
There was even a bonus match where all of the hundredmen took on Jint at the same time, and he still won with an overwhelming victory! I did that so they could personally get a feel for his strength.
Once the event finished, I announced my retainers’ new titles. Hadin, the only noble among the retainers I valued, was to remain commander-in-chief of my army.
In light of his high Command score of 90, I appointed Yusen to be lieutenant commander of the army.
Then I appointed Gibun and Bente to the newly established rank of thousandman. These two were the most suitable candidates for leading new units with a manpower of over a thousand men. Gibun had a Command of 76, and Bente’s was 82.
Now that I look at it, we have a serious shortage of personnel.
In Jint’s case, his Command was too low, so I appointed him as captain of a special operations unit that didn’t have any subordinates assigned to it yet. His rank was equal to the thousandmen.
With ranks reassessed, I took a look at our manpower next.
The Eintorian Domain Army currently consisted of fourteen thousand men, but that didn’t make a standing army. If you looked at European or Chinese historical standing armies, they generally only made up about one percent of the total population. This one percent weren’t foot soldiers, but specialized troop types like cavalry and horse archers.
However, whenever a war came, China often conscripted as much as ten percent of the population to fight. In that situation, one percent of the population made up the standing army, and another nine percent—usually farmers—were held as reserve manpower that could be called up in times of need.
By making them work the fields in peacetime, it became possible to raise up a tremendous portion of the population as soldiers.
Eintorian’s manpower consisted of both career soldiers and conscripts as well.
As things stood, the Runan Kingdom had a population of ten million, and the Eintorian Domain had a population of two hundred and twenty thousand. Since it was clear that war was coming, I intended to raise our standing army to ten thousand men and the number of conscripted farmers to twenty thousand.
My first goal is a combined total manpower of thirty thousand.
The primary issue was that, as a border province, we generally had a lower population than other domains, though it had much increased as of late.
Our population started at one hundred and eighty thousand, but my tax exemption policy and personal fame drew refugees from the northern areas of the Runan Kingdom once the fighting broke out.
Maybe our population would keep growing if I were to continue lowering the taxes a reasonable amount once the exemption ended and develop the land? Living on the border was always risky, but in troubled times, problems could crop up anywhere and people would choose somewhere safe to live.
If I can make people confident that they’re safe here, our population will continue to grow. Immigration may cause some issues, of course—but for now, I can loan them unused land and use them as extra manpower. Once we have a population of three hundred thousand, I’ll have thirty thousand soldiers at my disposal.
That’s my primary objective for now.
Will you draft troops?
In order to work towards that goal, I used the system to make it so I would have twenty thousand troops at my disposal.
Who will draft troops?
One somewhat interesting feature of the system was that a higher Martial or Command was reflected in the draftees’ Training score, and the higher the Popularity of the drafting commander, the less the public’s Opinion would fall as a result.
When Euracia was visiting the Eintorian Domain, I’d had her lend me a hand with drafting troops. In her case, it was her high Charisma score that had the effect instead of Popularity, but that’s probably because she wasn’t officially one of my subordinates.
Hadin — Popularity: 90
Jint — Popularity: 50
Bente — Popularity: 70
Yusen — Popularity: 50
Gibun — Popularity: 50
Mirinae — Popularity: 50
The starting value for Popularity was 50, and most of the new retainers had only just come to the domain, so this was to be expected. If anything, I was surprised to see that even Mirinae, who’d barely shown her face in public, still maintained a Popularity of 50.
I’d initially hoped that Yusen’s Popularity would quickly rise thanks to his amiable personality and ability to make friends, but those hopes aside, the only one suited to recruiting men right now was Hadin.
Will you have Hadin draft troops?
6,000 men can be drafted.
Expected Drop in Opinion: -5.
That was the message that showed up when I picked Hadin to serve as my right-hand. I struggled with the decision for a while before deciding to do it myself this time. Between the recent war Eintorian itself had experienced, and the seventy thousand Naruyans who’d invaded the Runan Kingdom, everyone was feeling tense these days.
I decided to appeal to those feelings.
“Naruya continues to build their manpower. Soon, an era of war and chaos will be upon us. The time will come for you to defend your families. When it does, I of course will be doing everything in my power to defend Eintorian. Yet I cannot defend this land alone. You, my people, will need to defend Eintorian and your families with your own hands. We will carry out this draft in order to defend Eintorian. So, allow me to promise those of you who will take to the battlefield this one thing: I will stand at the vanguard in that battle. I will always be there, leading the charge!”
With my own Popularity being pretty high, and the times being what they were, my speech in the plaza had the following effect:
Opinion increased by 2.
Surprisingly, not only did the public’s Opinion not fall, it actually went up by two points. Thanks to that, our manpower successfully rose by six thousand to become twenty thousand. I then reorganized these twenty thousand men to begin training them anew.
I entrusted Gibun, Bente, and Yusen with the task, with Jint’s assistance. I didn’t have many retainers, so everyone had to get involved. I planned to choose the members of the standing army from this bunch and pay them a salary. We would train ten thousand career soldiers.
From those ten thousand, we would choose two thousand of the best performers to form an elite unit. There were no knightly orders in this game, but I planned to make one anyway.
Thankfully, because our war chest was flush with cash, my struggle would mostly be against time. I had my Eintorian ancestors to thank for that. Now that I had done all this, all that was left was to raise the Training of my troops.
Am I just going to wait for that to happen? No, of course not. Because the absolute key thing is the foreign element.
In fact, thinking about what was to come a year from now, you could see just how important our ability to counter external threats was.
The Naruya Kingdom is very quiet right now, just like they were in the game’s history. History’s been rewritten, but the Grand Subjugation was never going to be an easy thing for them to start. The pride of Naruya is its ten elite units, each led by one of the Ten Commanders.
The units all had flashy names taken from the noms de guerre of their commanders, and were a pain in the butt to deal with in the game. Now I had to deal with those nuisances here in the real world. I could raise my manpower all I wanted, but the manpower available to a single domain paled in comparison to the manpower available to a king.
Closing that gap requires strategy and tactics: in other words, using my head. If I fight with manpower alone, I’ll never win. Of course, even if I do use my head, I need manpower to serve as my hands and feet, even if it’s smaller in scale than our enemies’.
That’s what I’m training now.
In parallel with that process, I intend to move forward with preparations to deal with foreign adversaries. My plan is to expand Eintorian’s influence in a manner akin to Zhuge Liang’s stratagem to divide the land in three in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
I expect to receive reports of a new war soon. Not between Naruya and Runan, but between the nations of the south.
In the game’s original history, the Runan Kingdom was already ruined by the time this war broke out, and the Naruya Kingdom stayed out of it as they were preparing for the Grand Subjugation.
But history had changed.
The relationship between the country where the war would break out and the Runan Kingdom meant things were going to get interesting.
And if they do, I’ll have a chance to get involved.
My plan might not have been as grand as Zhuge Liang’s stratagem, but it would lay the foundation for Eintorian’s independence.
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