A peaceful landscape.
Grain ripened across the fields as the journey continued without incident.
Once they passed through the empire's central region and reached the north, the environment changed.
The weather began to grow somewhat chilly, and the farther north they went, the more sharply the temperature dropped.
The lords stationed throughout the region did not bother him.
That was because Kaon's reputation as an outrageous scoundrel was infamous.
The past of this body had been such garbage that a single military achievement was nowhere near enough to change people's perception of him, so the nobles avoided him for fear of stepping in shit themselves.
Rumor had it that the entire empire was keeping its head down and praying for Kaon to pass through safely.
Even amid all that, Kaon did not stop training.
If there were no interference from the author, holing up in the north and living there would not be such a bad option, but he did not believe things would ever go that smoothly.
A prince commanding safely from the rear and merely putting on a show?
That might be normal, but if he neglected training and trusted only in troops and guards, he could suddenly die screaming.
That was why he made sure to combine physical conditioning and swordsmanship training every morning and evening.
RUMBLE—!
Under Sir Chester's guidance, Kaon was being thoroughly taught how to circulate mana efficiently and how to perform the Filtein Family Swordsmanship beyond its basic forms.
Since Chester himself could no longer circulate mana, members of the Imperial Third Knight Order served as Kaon's sparring partners.
“Ghk!”
“Gaaah!”
The knights collapsed after failing to withstand more than a few exchanges against Kaon.
Sir Chester watched from the side and corrected even the smallest shortcomings he noticed.
“Your mana circulation is still unnatural. Try doing it as though you are squeezing your heart for an instant.”
“Sir Chester, will my lord's heart even withstand that?”
Sir Jerome, commander of the Imperial Third Knight Order, objected, but Chester clicked his tongue.
“Tsk, tsk. Do you think our lord's heart is normal?”
“What?”
“Have you still not realized it? Our lord's heart has received the Dragon's Blessing.”
Sir Jerome and the other knights looked startled.
‘The Dragon's Blessing……?’
‘There are not many people born with a heart like that.’
One who had received the Dragon's Blessing.
That was merely an expression. It meant someone had been born with an exceptionally strong heart.
The Mana Hole surrounded the heart.
Every time mana was circulated, it inevitably placed strain on the heart, and no matter how naturally gifted someone was with mana, they could not properly perform swordsmanship if their heart was not strong enough.
That was why knights who possessed mana trained their bodies like mad.
Kaon lowered his sword and smiled.
“Why make such a fuss over something like this?”
“My lord, did you already know?”
“You mean whether I knew the condition of my heart?”
“Yes.”
At Kaon's words, the knights focused their gazes on him.
It was an important question.
They were asking whether he had realized it from childhood and trained in secret all this time.
He shrugged.
“If I had not, do you think my swordsmanship fundamentals would be this solid?”
“Oooh!”
“As expected!”
The knights were being hit with one shock after another.
Even Sir Mitchell, who had served Kaon since childhood, looked ready to fall over in surprise.
“You mean you trained even while cutting back on sleep? I truly had no idea.”
“I trust you now, but when you first became my knight, was it not only natural that I should be suspicious?”
“That is true. Your foresight was extraordinarily deep.”
Clap!
Kaon clapped his hands and drew the knights' attention again.
“If morning training is over, spread out and instruct the recruits.”
“We obey!”
The knights dispersed to train the recruits.
Kaon had begun recruiting new soldiers a month ago.
He had been heading toward his post with little thought, almost as though he were traveling for pleasure, but then he had once again felt that bastard author's interference.
At the time, he had even built wooden barricades and tried every trick he could think of, but no attack had come.
The author might be pathetic, but at least he did not use the exact same trick twice in a row.
Since then, not a single attack or other unusual problem had occurred.
That made Kaon even more uneasy.
Something dangerous was clearly being arranged, but since he had no way to know what it was, he decided to prepare in his own way.
He had plenty of money from Marquis Einsid, so he used it to accept new recruits.
Even now, people continued to enlist because of the generous terms, and the additional force he had recruited already numbered two thousand.
“I am still uneasy, though.”
The days looked peaceful, but beneath the surface, anxiety gnawed at Kaon without pause.
***
Recruit training ground.
Calling it a training ground made it sound grander than it was.
The Third Prince's party was constantly moving north like nomads, so all they had to do was settle on a broad open field.
The growing number of recruits and the grueling morning and evening training consumed a great deal of food, but the Third Prince had already secured two years' worth of the north's budget.
Feeding a mere ten thousand civilians and five thousand soldiers was not particularly difficult.
They did not go out of their way to visit cities, but supplies continued to arrive steadily.
There was no reason to worry about running short on food.
Sir Chester, the previous generation's Master, trained the knights, while the Imperial Third Knight Order trained the soldiers.
Chester also taught them how troops should be trained, so the new recruits and veteran soldiers produced considerable synergy together.
“It was an excellent method.”
“I agree.”
Mitchell nodded at Jerome's words.
The reason they could conduct two hours of military training every morning and evening was entirely thanks to their overwhelming financial resources.
Even now, the number of people wanting to enlist as recruits increased every day.
As the Third Prince had ordered, further applicants who were too old or failed the physical requirements were rejected at the outset, but even the knights could only marvel at their enthusiasm.
“To think he gives professional soldiers a small house and a plot of land.”
“There is the concept of installment payments mixed into it, but…….”
“Is that not basically the same thing?”
“Is it?”
“In the end, he is still giving it to them.”
“…….”
Sir Jerome and Sir Mitchell were military experts, not economic ones.
Installment payments were not entirely unknown in this era, but there were various complicated calculations involved.
The arrangement was essentially an almost interest-free installment plan: roughly thirty percent of a soldier's salary was deducted in advance before the remainder was paid out.
The Third Prince had set soldiers' wages somewhat high because he insisted that soldiers needed to be professionals, so from the recruits' perspective, it looked as though they were being given a house and land for free.
Even after the deduction, they received enough money every month for a family of four to live without hardship.
Naturally, people had no choice but to flock to him.
[The reason I am implementing a policy like this before we even reach the north is to sell hope.]
[Sell hope?]
[Living without a goal means you have given up on life. If that is the case, then I should force a goal into them.]
Once they were given even a single hope to cling to, the soldiers threw themselves into training without even noticing the hardship.
There was also an element of indoctrination, since they were required to spend thirty minutes every day on “mental education” devoted entirely to instilling loyalty to the prince.
Thinking about everything happening now, Sir Jerome said,
“He must have felt terribly stifled, living while hiding such talent.”
“Perhaps it would be better if the Crown Prince passed away sooner…….”
“Watch your tongue.”
Sir Mitchell's true thoughts slipped out before he realized it.
What if the Crown Prince recovered and they ended up looking like fools?
The Third Prince had been showing such outstanding qualities that Mitchell thought it was not impossible for him to become Emperor.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—!
While the knights were focused on training the soldiers, the scouts came galloping in urgently.
“C-Commander! There is a rebellion!”
“Hmm? Where?”
“In the north!”
“……!”
There could hardly have been a more out-of-nowhere development.
A rebellion?
And in the north, of all places!
The moment the news reached the Third Prince, all training stopped and the knights were summoned.
***
Kaon had worked up a refreshing sweat that morning and eaten until he was full when he suddenly heard news that nearly made the meal stick in his throat.
“A rebellion!?”
“Y-Yes. The current Northern Commander, Viscount Arkal, has gathered the local magnates and raised a rebellion!”
The scouts all gave the same testimony.
Troops were gathering, and they had risen up while shouting for the overthrow of the Third Prince.
Kaon was dumbfounded.
“Sir Chester, you said you and Viscount Arkal attended the academy together, correct?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Does that bastard have the guts to start a rebellion?”
“Not as far as I know. He has a fair amount of military talent, but he is the classic kind of trash who bows to the strong and tramples the weak. Even back at the academy, he was a bat who constantly switched sides depending on what benefited him. He squeezes his people dry and bullies his subordinates, but he is not the sort of man who would ever raise a banner against the empire. A noble who declares himself neutral because he is afraid of dying suddenly starts a rebellion? That makes no sense.”
“Ha! So this is that fucking bastard's doing?”
“…….”
The “fucking bastard” Kaon was referring to was the author.
Kaon had already been uneasy.
A month ago, he had become certain that the author was plotting something.
He knew because, as a countervailing effect, Kaon's skill had improved by leaps and bounds.
As time passed without anything happening, he had begun wondering whether he had been mistaken.
But this was what the bastard had been preparing.
Viscount Arkal, who was supposed to hand over his post to Kaon and return to his own territory, had suddenly lost his mind and started a rebellion.
Was that normal?
When a person acted in a way no one could understand, there was always a reason behind it.
“That motherfucking son of a bitch actually set this up. For fuck's sake, this is ridiculous.”
The knights did not object even when Kaon cursed viciously in a manner unbefitting a prince.
They were thinking the same thing inwardly.
‘Is that bastard a psychopath? A petty little shit who never joined any faction and only squeezed the blood out of his people suddenly starts a rebellion?’
‘Does that bastard have some kind of mental illness?’
In any case, the Northern Army numbered twenty thousand, while Count Grakal had separately brought another ten thousand troops from his own territory.
A total force of thirty thousand was stationed in the north.
Kaon's army, by comparison, numbered five thousand.
More than half of them were veteran soldiers, so they had no chance whatsoever in a direct confrontation.
There seemed to be no answer, but Kaon calmed himself.
“What exactly are they claiming as their justification?”
“They say that if the north falls under the rule of a scoundrel, its defenses will collapse and all manner of monsters and foreign tribes will pour south.”
It had been a good decision to plant spies in advance.
If he had not known what was happening inside, he would have marched his troops straight in and been annihilated.
Sir Jerome spoke in an extremely cautious tone.
“We should turn back.”
“If we do that, we will become a laughingstock.”
“What other choice do we have? My lord, even suppressing the rebellion in the southern region was close to a miracle. Attacking the heavily fortified strongholds of the north would be suicide.”
Sir Jerome was absolutely right.
In any war, overcoming a sixfold difference in military strength was no easy feat.
On top of that, Viscount Arkal had the rugged northern fortresses on his side.
Kaon thought for a long while before a sudden idea flashed through his mind.
“What if we can defeat him and eliminate every local magnate who joined the rebellion?”
What Kaon was saying sounded absurd, but he had results behind him now.
When a man like that spoke with complete confidence, expectations naturally rose.
Sir Jerome answered,
“I believe it would be impossible, but if you somehow accomplished it, ruling the north would certainly become easier.”
“We will not have any entrenched locals giving us trouble. Every bastard who might try will be dead.”