Kaon was well aware that he had no time to spare.
He had defeated the rebel main force, but because he knew the original story, he also knew that several feudal lords should already be on their way toward the Grakal Territory to rise in rebellion.
His goal was to seize the Grakal seat as quickly as possible.
The knights, in truth, had some doubts about advancing this fast.
Even after being defeated once, ten thousand rebels had survived and fled. If they organized resistance from within the territory, the campaign could still drag on.
Kaon himself had been prepared to accept a certain amount of sacrifice, yet several small and mid-sized cities had already fallen into his hands.
“The commercial city of Zaben and every village around it have raised white flags!”
“I see.”
“Your Highness was right! Truly remarkable!”
‘Honestly, I’m surprised too.’
The place Kaon had expected to surrender without a fight was the territorial seat.
He had intended to prepare properly there and use another surprise attack like the first one, which was why he had expected to take it with only minor losses.
He had never imagined every city in the county would fold like this.
In the worst case, he had even been prepared to lose half his troops.
Yet whenever word spread that Kaon was approaching, his enemies came out as far as ten kilometers in advance to kneel before him.
“I greet His Highness the Third Prince! This humble man is Maolak, who governed Zaben.”
“You are surrendering?”
“Yes! His Majesty the Emperor entrusted Your Highness with an army of one hundred thousand and sent you forth to display imperial might. How could I possibly refuse to surrender? I opposed this rebellion from the very beginning and wished only to live as a humble countryman. I ask only for mercy.”
“…….”
The knights looked at one another in disbelief.
‘One hundred thousand? We only have two thousand.’
‘So this is the result of His Highness’s wondrous strategy!’
There was no other way to explain it.
Their victory in the first battle could be dismissed as luck.
But for days now, every city and village they approached had begun falling into their hands.
It left everyone dazed.
Each time, Kaon left behind one knight with only a tiny number of cavalrymen, then resumed the advance.
The knights assigned to govern each city and village recruited soldiers locally to form minimal defensive forces, and Kaon also levied some infantry.
Thanks to that, his army had now grown to five thousand.
Part of that increase also came from defeated soldiers who had switched sides.
Even though Kaon’s intentions had contributed to the result, such a rapid advance ought to have made him nervous.
But stopping now would have looked even stranger.
“Then we march on the territorial seat—”
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Just then—
With only a few days remaining between Zaben and the territorial seat, a messenger arrived.
It was an express dispatch from the Grakal seat itself.
Sir Mitchell checked it and immediately reported its contents to Kaon.
“Your Highness! The administrator currently governing the Grakal seat in the count’s absence has declared his intention to surrender!”
“Waaaaaah!”
Sir Mitchell’s voice was so loud that everyone heard.
Sir Jerome broke into a broad grin and raised his thumb.
“Your Highness! Did you foresee even this?”
“O-Of course.”
“As expected! The moment Your Highness began displaying your strategy, the enemy started collapsing helplessly! Ha ha ha! I truly never knew you had been hiding such ability all this time.”
“What did you think of me before?”
“How could I possibly say that with my own mouth?”
‘This bastard.’
In other words, he had cursed Kaon up and down in the past.
Irritation began to rise, but Kaon suppressed it.
After all, Jerome was not saying he still thought that way now.
“We move quickly!”
“Yes!”
Kaon mounted his horse and rode toward the territorial seat.
Even as they headed south, he could not stop thinking.
‘How did the rumor get so distorted that we became an army of one hundred thousand? Still, it does not matter. We just need to occupy everything as quickly as possible before anyone realizes how hollow the bluff is.’
There was one part of his own strategy that Kaon was underestimating.
The rebel main force had numbered nearly thirty thousand and had been routed.
Naturally, anyone would assume(?) that the two thousand cavalry were merely the vanguard.
And the people of the Grakal Territory were overestimating Kaon’s strength even more than he realized.
***
The Grakal territorial seat.
Count Grakal’s defeat after boldly raising a rebellion and sweeping across the south-central region of the Empire sent shockwaves throughout the entire area.
Field commanders knew that most of those thirty thousand troops had been conscripts—untrained rabble.
But people with no understanding of warfare did not see it that way.
Especially the administrators.
The Third Prince’s unconventional tactics had confused even Count Grakal, who was fairly intelligent.
There was no chance that mere scholars buried in books would accurately grasp the state of the war.
“One hundred thousand troops!?”
“The main imperial army is believed to number one hundred thousand, and it appears this expedition has been prepared for quite some time.”
“How in the world?”
“It seems we severely underestimated Imperial Intelligence.”
“This cannot be……”
No one knew exactly what Count Grakal had concluded in the middle of the chaos, but from what they could tell, the only reasonable explanation was that this had all been planned meticulously in advance.
Otherwise, the present situation made no sense.
The administrators’ reasoning went like this.
Imperial Intelligence had been monitoring the feudal lords for a long time.
They had designated dangerous individuals in advance and begun investigating them more thoroughly.
The administrators believed that the Empire must have known that Count Grakal was secretly recruiting troops and sending proclamations to other lords.
The moment signs of unrest appeared, the emperor and the commander-in-chief must have prepared an army of one hundred thousand and stationed it around the Grakal Territory in disguise as merchants, mercenaries, and the like.
The reason they had not moved even after the rebellion began was to uproot it completely.
The instant nearby lords joined the rebellion and began marching, the hidden army had mobilized all at once and annihilated Count Grakal’s force, which could be considered the rebel main body.
……That was as far as the administrators’ reasonable deductions went.
“With the Crown Prince collapsed, His Majesty is giving the princes opportunities to prove themselves. The Third Prince is commander in name, while Commander-in-Chief Duke Langpine is likely directing the main force behind him.”
“This is disastrous!”
“The Third Prince is advancing south with the vanguard, so he will arrive here within a few days.”
Baronet Gail’s pupils shook violently.
He could easily stop two thousand imperial cavalry on his own.
The problem was the main army supposedly following behind them.
Why was a vanguard called a vanguard?
It existed to scout the surrounding region in advance and allow the main army to fight under the most favorable conditions possible.
It would also be intended to detect unforeseen threats.
What if he directly opposed the Imperial Central Army here?
Every direct blood relative of his family would be executed.
“It is not too late! We must surrender!”
Gail was swayed by the administrators.
If the alternative was having both himself and his entire family slaughtered, begging for mercy was the rational choice.
“Send an express dispatch to His Highness immediately! And prepare to receive him!”
“Yes!”
***
The Grakal Great Plain.
As befitted a major territory, the county was quite expansive.
Kaon had been advancing as quickly as possible, but when nearby feudal lords began joining him with their armies one after another, he had no choice but to slow down.
At least they had enough sense to bring their cavalry ahead as a vanguard instead of waiting for the infantry.
Their foot soldiers, they explained, were still marching behind them.
“We greet His Highness the Third Prince!”
Three small and mid-sized lords from the south-central region of the Empire knelt before Kaon.
His army now numbered ten thousand.
And that was not the end of it.
Nearby lords would continue accelerating their march just to get a share of the credit.
In another week or two, Kaon’s army would swell to several tens of thousands.
Kaon was somewhat surprised inside, but outwardly, he maintained a solemn expression.
“Rise, all of you.”
“We have heard the rumors. They say Your Highness has been hiding your abilities until now. We even heard that your debauched lifestyle was deliberate.”
“I am a claimant to the throne. You may not know how ruthless the imperial palace can be, but once my elder brother had firmly secured his place as the next emperor, the wisest course was to avoid the falling blade and survive.”
“Oooh, of course!”
“I merely intended to remain a sleeping dragon.”
The feudal lords looked genuinely impressed.
Kaon dressed himself up with convenient words and claimed that everything he had done had been a sacrifice for his elder brother.
‘I may not look like it, but I spent ten years as an office worker. After surviving ten years in that cutthroat modern society, fooling a bunch of country bumpkins is easy.’
The lords had not come empty-handed.
Desperate to curry favor with Kaon somehow, they had brought bundles of bribes and food.
There was no reason to refuse the bribes, so Kaon accepted them without hesitation.
As for the food, he distributed all of it to the cavalrymen who had suffered through the march.
They would return to another hellish march starting tomorrow, but knowing the end was finally near left everyone smiling.
Kaon lightly shared drinks with the lords while discussing the future.
Now that he had entered the contest for imperial power, building personal ties with the lords he had encountered was politically important as well.
Things were going so smoothly that Kaon could only feel grateful to the author.
‘Thanks, you bastard author!’
At that moment—
KRAKOOOM!
A bolt of lightning split the clear sky.
Baron Maroi, who was exceptionally quick at reading the mood, clapped in delight.
“Even the heavens are blessing Your Highness’s future!”
“Indeed!”
The other lords all shouted their agreement and nodded.
An army of twenty thousand.
Kaon tried to advance as quickly as possible, but once infantry began gathering as well, that became impossible.
He considered sending the cavalry ahead, then abandoned the idea.
Scouts had reported that Count Grakal had already established camp far from his own territory.
In other words, the count had no intention of trying to reclaim his lands until the rebel forces finished gathering.
That was the result of overestimating Kaon’s strength.
The Grakal seat had already declared its intention to surrender, so there was no longer any reason to hurry.
By the time Kaon had gathered this many troops, rumors had spread among the surrounding lords like wildfire.
A tiny snowball had grown into an avalanche, until the story became that Kaon had personally led two thousand cavalry into a charge and crushed an army of fifty thousand in an instant.
And even that was only one rumor.
All sorts of stories followed Kaon and his army wherever they went.
Then, at last—
Baronet Gail dropped to his knees at Kaon’s feet as Kaon arrived with his great army.
THUD!
“My people, my retainers, and I were completely opposed to this rebellion, and we welcome Your Highness’s arrival!”
“We beg Your Highness for mercy!”
There had to be several hundred people gathered there.
Baronet Gail, who had been entrusted with governing the territory, various retainers, and even the soldiers who had been defending the region had all come out and knelt.
It was quite a sight.
Kaon’s expression remained extremely solemn.
“Your intentions are commendable. In my name, I guarantee at least your lives.”
“Your Highness’s mercy is as boundless as the heavens!”
Kaon showed them mercy(?) and prevented a second rebellion.
For now, he had enticed them with the promise that their lives would be spared.
Whether the criminals would later be enslaved or not was something the imperial family could decide.
On the way toward the seat of the Grakal Territory, one of the great domains of the Empire’s south-central region, Sir Mitchell approached Kaon and spoke quietly.
“Your Highness, the imperial palace must be in chaos by now.”
“They are probably agonizing over how to reward me.”
“A reward?”
“If someone earns military merit, naturally they should be rewarded. Otherwise, who would risk their life to defend the country?”
But the situation in the imperial palace had already surpassed Kaon’s expectations.
Shockwaves far beyond anything that could be called mere chaos were sweeping across the entire capital.