The training gathered momentum.
Nade, who had been concealing his ability, had no choice but to instruct the apprentice knights.
With his secret already laid open to Ethan, he had judged that keeping it any longer was meaningless.
Manpower was short. For Ethan's part, every method available had to be used.
The apprentice knights' pride ran high, and being instructed by a mere butler was a matter possible only when that pride was set down.
There was a small rebellion at first, but once Nade exercised his skill they all went quiet.
Nade's ability was no lie, and how precious instruction from a man of that order was did not need saying.
Time was short and the men were few.
There was no time to settle their frame of mind first.
It was hopelessly short even for raising each man's capability.
Which is why Ethan demanded the highest efficiency in the shortest possible span.
The regular subjugation was no honorable duel between knights.
Honor was not the point. The purpose was simply to take the enemy's heads and wipe out their seed and drive them off.
They had to train around what was as realistic and achievable as possible.
Efficiency is lethality.
Ethan stressed that point, and Nade, while finding it unpalatable, followed Ethan's orders.
'Perhaps he is placing his hopes on it.'
On what anomaly Ethan would raise next.
Nade had hopes of it.
***
Once Ethan's subjugation party had some structure to it, rumor went around.
Those who had joined Ethan's party were all apprentice knights with promising futures.
Men even the knights had been watching had all gone under Ethan.
Ethan's hard-to-predict course was an irritation to the eye, but nobody minded greatly.
However much their futures were looked forward to, they were mere apprentice knights.
"Heh. So he's begun to pull a set together after his own fashion, is he?"
Morun chuckled on hearing the news.
Ethan's ten-man unit had begun to take a proper shape.
He had roared with laughter on hearing the first member picked was a servant who minded a stable, and now the rest were apprentice knights, apparently.
A fairly surprising result, and that was all it was.
An apprentice is an apprentice to the end. They could not handle mana.
Which meant they would not amount to a real fighting force.
The head count was different to begin with.
Every unit except the one Ethan commanded took its orders from Morun.
Nor was any grand operation required.
The regular subjugation was not a punishing battle.
It was hard work, but the opposition was nothing more than monsters.
They were no match for soldiers and knights who had drilled systematically.
So the crux of this regular subjugation was how few casualties a man took.
'With that head count and apprentice knights, it's obvious.'
Far from a threat, it was laughable.
The thread of worry that had been left vanished in a moment.
"I won't need reports on him any more."
"Will that be all right?"
"What is a handful of apprentice knights going to do that anyone would notice? He's being carried anyway. Forget him."
Morun laughed with a face full of confidence.
***
Chen came to the lord's study. The visit was for his regular report.
"Well. What is he up to this time?"
Vincent looked at Chen with interest written all over him.
The commotion had not let up once since Ethan changed.
What he had at first taken for an oddity had reached the point, these days, of making him look forward to what the fellow would get up to.
"It appears he has completed the composition of his subjugation party. Apart from a servant named Hugo, they are all apprentice knights who had been well thought of."
"Hmm......"
Vincent's expression turned subtle.
Apprentice knights.
Not a poor choice. From his present standing, recruiting even apprentice knights would not have been easy.
But this was not enough.
10 members. Apprentice knights who had not awakened mana.
And Ethan.
Let the regular subjugation run on as it was and the result was self-evident.
Most of the achievement would pass to Morun, and it was plain Ethan would get no satisfaction out of it.
'Was it high spirits, then, or bravado?'
But something about that would not sit right.
That confident expression from the other day came back to him.
Ethan seemed to have a card hidden somewhere, and because of it, he seemed likely to cause something again.
"Keep watching him."
Vincent asked that of Chen. Something would not sit right enough for him to let his attention go now.
'I believe he will cause something.'
It felt as though this business might change the clan's fate.
***
When the dawn of the regular subjugation broke, the Blante clan prepared for battle.
The air across the whole estate was heated.
As befitted the renown of a great sword clan, the bearing each individual soldier gave off was no light thing.
This was a hunt, and it was also a war.
A war to defend one's own territory.
The name Blante had never yet been defeated, but casualties always occurred.
There was no law saying your own name would not go onto that roll.
As the departure drew near, the air grew heavier still.
Then Morun appeared in armor.
On his armor the black lion that symbolized Blante shone.
"Perfect."
Morun smiled. Looking at the soldiers, confidence seemed to fill him.
Which stood to reason, since this subjugation was the occasion for proving his valor and his honor before he succeeded to the title.
'And there is my idiot brother.'
The ten-man unit Ethan led looked positively shabby set against his own host.
When Ethan had been strutting he had burned with anger, but seeing it like this, even a thread of pity came to him.
"We march!"
The gates opened, and the soldiers under Morun's command went out from the castle.
The subjugation's curtain was up.
***
Ethan whistled as he watched the soldiers. There was no need for him to go out with them now.
Because his subjugation party was going to break off toward the outskirts in any case.
"Have you taken fright at this late hour?"
Karon sneered at Ethan, having come up without his noticing.
Ethan looked at him with a face thoroughly full of disdain.
"Have you got damn all to do? Why are you over here starting things."
"Y-you punk!"
Ethan's reaction seemed to be not what he expected and Karon's face reddened, but he recovered his composure, barely, and spoke.
"Hmph. All that arrogance, and this is what it comes to in the end?"
"I haven't shown you anything yet, though?"
"Still putting on a front......"
"The front was what you were putting on before I knocked you down."
"Nngh!"
Karon began to lose his temper again, but Ethan, apparently uninterested, called his members together.
"Shall we get moving?"
The members swallowed, as though the moment had come.
"You remember the plan?"
"......Is that truly the case?"
Gato still showed signs of being half in doubt.
But Ethan's expression was all confidence.
"Don't waste energy worrying. I'm going to show you a real upset."
To say it again, Ethan was confident.
***
Outside the Blante domain a mountain range ringed the land, and in the range savage monsters had made their ground.
When their numbers swelled beyond holding, the monsters came down out of the range to survive.
The subjugation force climbed the mountain before the monsters came down.
The mountain was punishing. But the soldiers were every bit as rough as it was.
They cut the monsters down steadily, without so much as fearing the ones that came at them.
The subjugation force pressed the work forward without hesitation.
Ethan, by contrast, was at the rear. He did not go out in front to deal with monsters; he was taking it easy at his leisure.
The sight of it gave Karon misgivings.
'Has he given up after all?'
That guess seemed the soundest, and the easy manner grated too much to let it pass.
"How long are you going to trail after me?"
Ethan flapped a hand as though the man were a nuisance, and Karon's face twisted.
"......What exactly are you scheming?"
He had felt it at the duel before, but Ethan had changed.
The lack of manners was no different, but the most important thing, what was inside him, had become hard to see.
There was no knowing what the man was thinking.
"It's hardly a scheme."
Ethan said it with a snort of a smile.
"We're going to start climbing."
***
Ethan began to climb the range in a direction different from the one Morun's force was advancing in.
The range was crawling with monsters now.
Naturally, a great many monsters appeared along Ethan's path as well.
But the apprentice knights blocking the way in front of him were dealing with them without any great difficulty.
Their conduct was practiced to a degree hard to credit as a first subjugation.
They did not relax because a monster had gone down; they drove their swords firmly into its neck.
And through all of it their faces barely changed.
Ethan was no more moved by it than they were.
Ethan crossed the punishing ground muttering to himself.
'In the direction where the color of the fallen leaves grows darker.'
A short line, as described in the original.
He was walking on with nothing to go by but that one line.
The higher they climbed, the more savage the monsters became, and their numbers grew too.
As the smell of blood began to spread, the monsters had been stirred up.
But this was only the beginning.
The monsters would catch the scent and crowd in further.
Having put his thoughts in order once, Ethan raised the pace.
It was early yet to be feeling a crisis.
'Darker and darker.'
They had marched out before sunrise, so a good deal of time remained before dark. But as they began to enter the deep layer of the forest, the light gradually drained away.
Their field of view darkens.
"Young master, past this point it is dangerous."
Nade spoke at Ethan's side.
Nade's instinct was warning him that what lay ahead would not be easy.
"Nothing for it. Going forward doesn't change."
Ethan's expression did not shift. A considerable distance still remained to the destination.
"Huff, huff."
A party member's breathing turned rough.
It was not that their resolve was shallow.
High-grade tension sustained for long enough starts to exhaust mind and body quickly.
Not knowing when or from where a monster would fall on them was maddening.
Unease began to settle, little by little, into the apprentice knights' eyes.
'Can we really trust Ethan?'
'Have we not been taken in by a wastrel's words?'
'Forget knighthood, what if we die here?'
The party's concentration was coming apart.
And in a place like this, one sliver of carelessness leads straight to casualties.
KREEK!
A goblin burst out of the undergrowth.
Concentration had slipped, so the party member the goblin targeted was slow to respond.
Before the goblin's club could bury itself in his face, Hugo's blade punched through the thing's neck.
A reaction nimble enough to be hard to credit as a response made in an instant.
"Th-thank you."
"Don't let your guard down."
Having said it, Hugo moved off after Ethan again.
The apprentice knight whose life had been saved closed his mouth and walked on.
"About here, I'd say."
Ethan looked around.
It had already begun to darken like evening. Proof that the destination was close.
'And now this fellow is what matters.'
Hugo's role was very important for obtaining what he wanted.
In the novel too, Hugo had gone along with the subjugation force.
"I see it."
The dark made the shape uncertain, but a cave was visible ahead.
The party members swallowed.
Just as Ethan had said, there was a cave. Its size was no ordinary thing for something like a goblin to have made its ground in.
They had not even entered and already it was giving off a sinister air.
'We're going in there?'
Enough to make even men who had been burning with fighting spirit hesitate.
There was a very high likelihood of a monster seated inside the cave.
And a monster holding ground is twice as awkward as a monster that attacks.
"Wait here. And Hugo, you come with me."
Ethan said it looking around at them.
He meant to head into the cave with Hugo alone, but Nade, who had been standing silently at his side, objected.
"That place is dangerous, young master."
"Here is just as dangerous."
Nade's face drew tight at the sophistry.
"And you call that a reasonable......"
Then Ethan held Nade's eyes.
"Don't doubt it. I'm coming back."
Ethan's eyes were full of certainty. He turned and looked at Hugo.
"And don't you chicken out either."
Hugo nodded, tense.
"If we aren't out in two hours, withdraw without us."
"......I shall be making camp."
Ethan nodded shortly and went into the cave with Hugo.