RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
One day after leaving the capital.
Up until the moment they departed, Kaon had been confident.
Screwing over that idiot author, crushing the enemy with his head held high, and then building up his own faction—it had all seemed within reach.
Everything was a battle of willpower.
Covering an average of one hundred kilometers a day, charging forward with spirit, and fighting the ene—like hell!
‘My ass is killing me.’
And it was not just his ass.
His arms, his legs, his lower back.
There was not a single part of his body that did not ache.
Fortunately, as an imperial prince, this body had learned horseback riding from childhood. If that muscle memory had not remained, he would have fallen behind long ago.
“Your Highness! There is a cliff ahead that should block the cold wind. Shall we make camp in front of it?”
“Y……eah.”
Kaon barely had the strength to speak.
Being dropped into a novel did not suddenly let him split rocks like tofu or sweep away enemies with a single spell.
The one fortunate thing was that, as commander of the force, he did not have to do everything personally.
If he had been forced to pitch tents, prepare meals, and stand night watch like the other cavalrymen, he would never have endured it.
Kaon could barely remain standing, but he refused to show weakness.
The arrow had already left the bow.
If Kaon showed even the slightest sign of breaking down, he believed the already-uneasy morale of the troops would collapse at once.
“Your Highness! Let us eat!”
Crack!
“Are you all right?”
When Kaon staggered, Mitchell asked anxiously.
Kaon hurriedly looked around.
Fortunately, they were standing in a blind spot between the torches, and no one seemed to have seen.
Mitchell let out a small sigh.
“If it is that difficult, you should have rested now and then along the way. How do you plan to endure another four days?”
“…….”
‘Another four days of this?’
He had planned this himself, but the gates of hell were clearly about to open wide.
“Ugh…… What happened today stays between us.”
“Of course I will keep it secret.”
Mitchell might have seemed a little frivolous, but he was warmhearted and knew how to think.
When Kaon sat down among the knights as if nothing were wrong, even they looked surprised.
More than half of them had honestly expected him to fail.
No one had expected much from a prince who had spent his days drinking instead of pursuing the throne.
“What are you staring at? Is my face that handsome?”
“Ahem. Your Highness, are you not tired?”
“Honestly, is there anyone here who is not tired?”
When Kaon acted unconcerned, the knights began looking at him a little more favorably.
The soldiers were the same.
The Kaon portrayed in the novel had been little more than a child.
No one had believed he could endure a march of one hundred kilometers a day.
And so, rumors began spreading through the camp.
“I heard His Highness has been hiding his true nature all this time?”
“No way. His Highness is not that good an actor.”
“Look at him now. We are dying from exhaustion too, but His Highness endured it. Did he even stop to rest once today?”
“Come to think of it……?”
Positive comments began popping up here and there.
Kaon decided to give them a little more hope.
“The enemy will have let down their guard. Do you really think they imagined we could travel from the capital to the rebel camp in only five days?”
“So you intend to catch them off guard. I am not sure whether it will work.”
“That is why we are carrying those.”
Among the supplies, each unit had been issued a mysterious sack.
Kaon had given strict orders not to open them, so everyone had obeyed as if it were an iron rule.
It was unlikely, but if there happened to be a spy among them, the entire expedition could fail. That was why security had been kept so tight.
“What in the world is inside those……?”
“You will find out when we arrive.”
It was one of Kaon’s trump cards.
He was not blindly charging toward the enemy camp.
One day passed, then two.
Kaon became half-dead.
At first, he had somehow maintained a dignified appearance so the soldiers’ morale would not drop, but the strain was beginning to catch up with him.
The third day of the march.
Kaon was practically draped over his horse as they moved.
‘Were those Mongol army bastards all monsters?’
There was a reason he had set one hundred kilometers as their daily marching distance.
Goguryeo’s heavily armored cavalry were said to have covered more than seventy kilometers a day on average, while the Mongol army reportedly traveled one hundred and thirty-four kilometers.
Since his own force was made up of light cavalry, Kaon had thought it should be possible.
But that had clearly only been possible for monsters who had trained to the absolute limit or nomads who had lived with horses since childhood.
For Kaon, who had never trained properly in his life, this was a death march.
Even the cavalrymen were exhausted enough to be hanging on through sheer willpower, so for Kaon, it could not have been more extreme.
Even so, the marching speed did not decrease.
The fourth day of the march.
Kaon no longer had enough strength even to hold the reins.
Every knight, including the staff officers, recommended that they stop and rest, but Kaon trusted his young body and pressed on.
In the end, they tied his body to the horse with rope and continued riding.
Three cavalrymen rode at his front and sides, practically dragging him along as they barely managed to finish the day.
The final day.
Kaon was half a corpse.
He himself thought he looked utterly pathetic, but the soldiers saw things differently.
“For someone raised in luxury to endure a forced march like this for five whole days! His Highness really has changed.”
“Tell me about it. I nearly pissed my pants today while taking a leak. My legs gave out.”
Everyone admired Kaon’s willpower.
The knights were no different.
“I did not think His Highness would make it.”
“Neither did I. Even we knights are struggling this badly. Imagine how hard it must be for His Highness, who was raised like a flower in a greenhouse.”
He looked so miserable that anyone who saw him might have mistaken him for a slave tied to a horse rather than an imperial prince, yet everyone regarded him with respect.
Not a single soldier fell behind.
The prince himself was still going. How could an elite soldier fall out?
The thought alone would have been unbearably humiliating.
At last.
“Your Highness! We have reached our destination!”
“Fu…… fuck!”
The moment Kaon dimly saw the hill ahead, he passed out on the spot.
***
Back when Kaon had lived in Korea, after submitting his university applications, he had once worked a day-labor job with his friends.
Unfortunately, the job involved carrying bricks up and down to the fourth floor over and over.
He had lasted about three days, then spent the next several bedridden.
The current situation was several times harder than that.
Willpower?
That only mattered if a person had at least some basic physical conditioning.
For someone like Kaon, who lacked even the fundamentals, being reduced to near death by such an extreme march was perfectly natural.
Yesterday evening, the moment they reached their destination, Kaon had lost consciousness.
He had thought he had merely closed his eyes for a moment.
Apparently not.
“Your Highness, it is four in the morning.”
“……!”
Kaon shot upright in a panic.
‘You useless idiot!’
Even he thought it was pathetic.
What had he worked so hard for during those five days?
Only to catch the enemy off guard.
At a time when every minute and every second mattered, staying awake all night would barely have been enough, and yet he had overslept!
Sir Mitchell helped Kaon into his armor as he spoke.
“The preparations are complete, so there is no need to rush quite that much.”
“The preparations are complete?”
“Did you not explain the operation to me yesterday, Your Highness?”
“Ah.”
Kaon slumped back down.
Mitchell was right.
It had been yesterday, the fifth day of the march.
Even while drifting in and out of consciousness, Kaon had called Mitchell over and barely squeezed out his voice.
“If I cannot wake up for some reason, you must relay the operation to the knight order.”
“What kind of……?”
“Those sacks contain lightweight scarecrows. If there is even a little wind, they will sway as though people are moving. Set the scarecrows up sparsely and make it look as though they are holding torches. Everything is already prepared, so it should not be difficult.”
“When did you prepare all of that?”
“Did you really think I came here without preparing anything? Once that is done, place trumpeters here and there. Make it sound as though we are sweeping in from every direction.”
“And then we charge?”
“When the preparations are finished, you must wake me.”
Kaon returned from his thoughts.
It could only be called a stroke of incredible luck.
He had given the instructions while barely conscious, but because of that, it seemed the expedition would not fail before it even began.
He rubbed his chest in relief, then changed into his armor.
“Still, Your Highness. Are you all right?”
“Maybe it is because I am young. I feel better than I expected.”
In truth, considering the march they had endured until yesterday, it would have been more normal if he had been unable to get up at all.
His entire body ached, and walking was difficult, but he was not completely incapable of standing.
‘Was the Third Prince’s basic stamina actually better than I thought?’
For now, that was all he could conclude.
When he stepped outside, the cold air brushed against him.
He could even see a light layer of frost on the soldiers’ weapons and armor.
Just as Sir Mitchell had said, the entire force was already prepared.
Even amid the tension, the atmosphere was steadily rising.
It was easy to assume that medieval soldiers lacked even basic judgment, but the opposite was true.
Their lives were on the line. How could they not pay attention?
There were a few new recruits mixed in, but most of them were veterans with at least ten years of service.
Just from looking at their current formation and the preparations that had been made, they could tell what kind of operation Kaon intended to use against the enemy.
The knights gathered around the moment Kaon appeared.
“Your Highness! You may simply rest!”
Sir Jerome, commander of the knight order, spoke in alarm.
As far as he was concerned, what Kaon had shown them already was more than enough.
The hellish march.
And an operation that was much more solidly structured than expected.
For something improvised in such a short time, it was surprisingly good.
That was exactly why he was worried when Kaon insisted on taking command personally.
But the knights’ reactions quickly shifted from concern to shock.
“I’ll lead the vanguard.”
“……!”
Objections exploded at once.
“You cannot! We are more than enough!”
“What are we supposed to do if you are injured or killed?”
“Even if we win, it will be treated as a defeat!”
“It means I am staking everything as well. You just need to protect me, do you not?”
“But—”
Kaon wore a solemn expression, but inwardly, he did not think a major battle was likely to happen at all.
The rebel force was not yet cohesive.
It was little more than a mass of hastily gathered peasants, so the moment their morale broke, they were bound to scatter.
After a few more months passed, they would receive some training and gain experience, eventually forming a proper army.
At that point, the situation would become serious enough that even the protagonist struggled against them.
But not yet.
‘Do you think I’m crazy? I’m not dying here.’
Kaon, who still had the mentality of a modern person, saw this as a kind of performance.
The symbolism of an imperial prince personally charging at the head of his cavalry.
In reality, the rebel camp was little different from a mob of beggars and would likely collapse the moment he tore into it, but once the story spread, there was no doubt it would be exaggerated into something tremendous.
It was not that he felt no fear.
But if he could create even the rumor that he had personally led the charge, Kaon’s reputation would shoot straight upward.
Put another way, it was an opportunity.
Everything was ready.
Before the knights could object any further, Kaon mounted his horse and charged forward.
“Let’s go!”
“D-Damn it! Follow His Highness!”
The moment Kaon surged ahead, the horrified knights and cavalrymen raced after him.