"You recognized guns and still made a sword?"
"So that’s what you meant when you said the age of swords was over."
From his previous life, Noah knew that their ranks and equipment resembled those of eighteenth-century armies.
Bayonets were fixed to the ends of the rifles so they did not need spearmen to protect them.
Noah watched the knights gathered on the terrace.
He understood that the knights had lost their monopoly over deciding wars.
The host raised his glass and announced with a proud smile:
"May I introduce the new pride of Nantes, the Hunter Regiment under the command of my son, Laxus Charlemagne Blackflag!"
The other group on the far side of the plain began moving.
Only then did Noah realize that the word "prey" did not refer to animals.
His face tightened.
Dozens of people faced the soldiers, wielding rusty swords and battered shields.
They were trembling even from that distance.
Robert said:
"They are just lesser beings. Don’t forget that."
Noah was silent. He was not a man who spared anyone.
Since coming to this world, he had killed dozens of people with his own hands. Not all of them had been acts of self-defense.
But he was about to see something worse than murder. The other side knew that they would be wiped out as soon as they arrived.
The nobles sat there eating and waiting for the show.
A horn blew across the plain. The prey darted forward.
"Chaaaarge!"
Some of the guests might have taken it for a brave cry. Noah knew that voice.
It was the cry of people forced to do something they did not want to do.
They knew that standing still meant death so they chose to run toward it.
"It looks like running through the woods has done their legs some good."
Another noble replied while enjoying the scene:
"Nantes clearly put effort into preparing them for today. It has been a long time since I saw prey carrying so much hatred."
The gap between them narrowed.
The soldiers waited until the enemy came within effective range. Then the soldiers in the front rank took aim.
"Fire!"
The survivors watched their comrades fall one after another before any of them could draw their swords. They pressed their lips together and kept running over the bodies.
Their decision was right.
Smoke from the gunpowder covered the front of the regiment and blocked the soldiers’ view.
It wasn’t enough in a world filled with magic.
A lone man stood among the ranks without a rifle. He had curly black hair and watched the battlefield calmly.
Noah asked:
"Is that Laxus?"
"Yes. He is the regiment commander the host introduced."
Laxus raised his right hand.
He uttered a vague incantation. A powerful wind swept across the front of the soldiers and drove the gunpowder smoke away from their lines.
The soldiers in the first rank crouched as they reloaded, while the second rank advanced with their rifles through the gaps they had left.
"Second rank, fire!"
Another volley rang out.
More people fell this time.
One of the nobles said with admiration:
"He cleared the smoke from an entire rank with one simple technique. The commander is very talented."
"He will become a great noble on the battlefield."
"Get the wine ready. I’ve never seen a more interesting show in a long time."
"Hahaha."
Their praise was not empty. They really enjoyed what they were watching.
The green grass suddenly seemed to turn into a red carpet.
With every step the survivors took, more dead bodies were left behind them.
Noah’s expression froze as applause erupted around him.
Robert said beside him:
"I should not have to repeat myself. They must be no more than dust in your eyes."
By then only a few survivors had reached the regiment and posed a threat. Laxus struck the ground with his heel. Brown threads of mana spread beneath his feet in a deliberate pattern and followed branching paths through the soil until they reached the area he had chosen.
Parts of the ground rose while others sank, turning the flat plain into broken ground. The attackers lost their speed, and some fell into the cracks.
Laxus raised his hand again.
The soil gathered inside the cracks, then solid spikes shot out from them. They pierced the bodies of those who could not stop, while the others remained where they were, unable to advance.
The third rank fired.
No one remained capable of continuing the attack.
Some survivors tried to flee but the soldiers caught them and finished the hunt with their bayonets.
The dead wore the same miserable clothes Noah had seen in the streets of Nantes.
They were people who had kept themselves alive day after day, only to end up as prey in a noble celebration.
When the last of them fell, the nobles overturned their glasses and poured the wine onto the terrace floor.
Noah then noticed the fine grooves carved into it. The wine flowed through them, and its aroma spread beneath the terrace.
The plain was stained with the blood of the lower bloodline, while the ground beneath the nobles was stained with wine.
The question left Noah’s mouth without him intending to ask it:
"Why do they do all this?"
Robert answered:
"It may be military training, or it may be held simply for entertainment."
Noah looked at the smiling faces around him.
"Look at the guests’ faces this time, and you will understand."
Members of the Superior Bloodline ruled because they had monopolized power and hundreds of members of the lower bloodline had stood on the plain carrying weapons capable of killing a knight and perhaps, one day, a noble as well.
The system would not fall apart only because it was unjust. Noah knew from his previous life that injustice could last indefinitely as long as the powerful could protect it. But one variable might change all of that.
It might be a more accurate gun, a man with greater skill who found a way to reload it more rapidly, a man who led an army that refused to bow to the nobles, or a man who achieved his dream of uniting all the accumulated hatred under one banner. And even the blood of the Superior Bloodline would eventually be insufficient.
The nobles lived as if their authority was part of natural law and looked at the weapon that had ended the age of knights without wondering if it might end theirs too. Noah despised their shortsightedness but couldn’t stand against them.
He knew where injustice could lead when the right variable appeared and knew what it was like to be among the weak after spending his previous life giving way because he had no power and dying without leaving anything behind.
Should he abandon the path of the nobles because their system might collapse ?
He did not need long to know his answer.
That variable might appear in ten years or a hundred, or it might never appear during his lifetime. The privileges of the Superior Bloodline were within his reach now. Noah would not let the principles of his previous life lead him back into the ranks of the lower class for the sake of an unknown future.
If the system ever started to collapse he would confront it on his own terms rather than prostrate at the feet of others.
Noah turned to Robert.
"I want to study the system as a whole by reading the records of the Empire’s founding."
Robert raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Today, I saw how the age of swords ended. I want to know what has allowed the age of nobles to continue until now."
Robert studied him for a few moments then looked back at the plain.
"I will ask your tutor to prepare the records."
Noah knew that the nobles were not immortal and that the system by which they ruled carried the causes of its downfall within itself.
Even so, The nobles path was his best choice until that change came.