Rhoen sat at the rickety wooden table on the second floor, unconsciously tapping his fingers against the tabletop in a steady rhythm.
The system interface floated before him, its translucent edges glowing faintly.
He stared at it for quite a while.
His gaze drifted downward and stopped at the Party section.
The numbers had changed.
The party was no longer twenty-two strong, but thirty-seven.
At the top of the newly added names was Miko, the young man who had been the first to beg to join his army.
The names that followed were mostly common local names from Velen, but those fifteen recruits were very real.
At this very moment, they were out in the courtyard, being drilled so hard by Karl that they were already complaining nonstop.
Rhoen studied the number for a moment before opening the troop tree.
The interface unfolded before him like an upside-down tree, its branches extending downward.
At the very bottom were the recruits, represented by dull gray-white icons.
They wore no armor, carried no weapons, and looked as bare as newborn babies.
He remembered what recruits had looked like in the game—a ragged tunic, a wooden club or a pitchfork clutched in hand.
Once they reached the battlefield, they would charge forward trembling with fear, only to turn and flee in droves the moment the battle started going badly.
Following the trunk upward, the icons gradually changed color.
The Imperial Infantryman icon carried a faint blue tint.
The silhouette now wore padded armor and wielded an iron sword and a kite shield.
Higher up came the Imperial Trained Infantryman, clad in heavier armor, with broader shields and standard-issue throwing spears.
The next tier was the Imperial Veteran Infantry, outfitted in a full suit of sturdy scale armor.
Their massive shields covered nearly half their bodies.
At the very top stood the Imperial Legionary, equipped with the same heavy armor as the cataphracts, carrying a Calradic mace designed for crushing armor alongside a standard Imperial saber.
There was no doubt that they would be considered elite troops in any world.
Then the tree split.
The left branch led to the Imperial Menavliaton, whose primary weapon became the two-handed menavlion, one of the indispensable backbone units of any battlefield.
Beneath the Imperial Elite Cataphracts icon were three small symbols: a warhorse, heavy armor, and weapons.
To the right was the Imperial Legionary branch.
Since they fought on foot, only the armor and weapon symbols remained.
Rhoen’s gaze lingered on the Imperial Elite Cataphracts icon for a long time before finally moving on.
He switched to the status panel for his personal guards.
The sixteen cataphract icons were gold—a color that matched nothing else on the entire troop tree.
It was a unique designation granted solely by the system, one he had never seen anywhere in the original game.
The Battanian troop tree was also available, though not in its entirety.
From Recruit up to Battanian Hero, every tier was unlocked, their icons shaded grayish green.
Longbows from the woodlands, heavy scale armor, and two-handed greatswords—a fifth-tier unit.
The sixth tier, however—the Battanian Fian Champion—remained grayed out, like a region of the map that had yet to be unlocked.
The Nord Royal Guard and the Nord Berserker also appeared in the list, with their highest tiers likewise locked.
That was exactly what he had expected.
The fact that common soldiers could even be promoted into noble troop lines, something impossible in the game, had already been a pleasant surprise.
Restrictions like these were perfectly reasonable.
Then he noticed several names that were completely unfamiliar.
Redanian Halberdier?
Temerian Heavy Axeman? This story is hosted at g.com.
Rhoen’s hand froze in midair before slowly lowering again.
He stared at the two names for several seconds, making sure he wasn’t seeing things.
These were troop types he had never encountered in the game before.
Their troop trees were remarkably short.
There wasn’t the usual progression from recruit all the way to elite.
Instead, they advanced from Recruit to Tier 1, then Tier 2, then Tier 3—and stopped there.
The icon for the Tier 3 Redanian Halberdier depicted a soldier wearing half-plate armor, gripping a halberd across his body.
His sharp, angular features gave him a stern appearance.
The Tier 3 Temerian Heavy Axeman, meanwhile, carried a round iron shield and a one-handed battle axe.
His armor looked even heavier than the Redanian’s.
Beneath the half-plate cuirass worn over a padded gambeson was a finely woven coat of mail.
He stood in a lower stance with a more stable center of gravity, looking ready to charge at a moment’s notice.
Local troop lines.
Rhoen leaned back in his chair, which creaked in protest.
Folding his arms across his chest, he absentmindedly circled his thumbs around each other as he stared at those gray icons.
“Tier 6 units require nobles,” he muttered to himself, a trace of mockery in his voice.
“Where the hell am I supposed to find nobles for them?”
This was Velen.
Temeria had already fallen.
The nobles had either fled or died.
The few prominent figures still alive had all hidden away in their luxurious mansions in Novigrad, terrified that the chaos outside might stain their silk robes.
And even if there happened to be some down-on-his-luck noble hiding in a forgotten corner somewhere, why would he come to serve Rhoen?
He was nothing more than a warlord occupying an abandoned castle, commanding barely thirty men.
In Velen, he couldn’t even make a ripple.
Rhoen pushed those thoughts out of his mind.
The matter of nobles could wait.
There was no point dwelling on it now.
He turned his attention back to the troop tree and began weighing his options.
The Imperial Legionary line was fully unlocked, from Recruit all the way to Imperial Legionary—a complete five-tier progression.
Every step was within reach.
It required no horses, no noble blood—only training, equipment, and time.
The Battanian line only went up to Tier 5, but that was already more than enough.
Longbows, scale armor, and two-handed greatswords—their range, accuracy, and melee capabilities far surpassed those of most archers in this world.
Against the bandits of Velen and the monsters lurking in its swamps, deploying Tier 5 archers almost felt like overkill.
As for cavalry, he had no intention of thinking about them for now.
In the corner of the interface, the sixteen golden icons representing his cataphract bodyguards gleamed as if silently reminding him:
This is your foundation.
Cold-forged lamellar armor, Imperial sabers, and Imperial warhorses brought all the way from Calradia.
Once any of them was damaged, there would be one less.
He also needed to find a way to re-equip the bodyguard unit.
The plate armor craftsmanship of this world was already highly advanced.
A full suit of plate offered protection every bit as good as lamellar armor, if not better.
But that required money.
A great deal of money.
And his current assets weren’t even enough to cover a fraction of the cost of a single suit.
Besides, Velen was hardly suitable terrain for heavy cavalry.
Swamps stretched endlessly into more swamps.
Rivers crisscrossed the land like a spider’s web.
Dense thickets reduced visibility to only a few paces.
On terrain like this, heavy cavalry became little more than living targets.
Their horses’ hooves would sink into the mud, unable to pull free.
So his core force would have to consist of infantry and menavliatons, supported by archers.
The cavalry would remain his trump card, to be used only when lives truly hung in the balance.
Rhoen silently worked through the numbers in his head.
Thirty-seven soldiers, plus the forty-odd refugees who also needed feeding.
How many days’ worth of food remained?
How many more battles could their weapons withstand?
How many sets of armor needed repairs?
How much would those repairs cost?
How much longer would the loot and crowns seized from the bandit chief keep them afloat?
The figures kept flashing through his mind.
Just as he was about to sort them into order, someone knocked on the door.
The knocks weren’t loud, but they were urgent.
There was a brief pause, followed by two more.
Rhoen raised a hand and swept it through the air.
The system interface vanished.
Outside the window, Karl’s shouted drill commands and the distant clash of steel drifted up from the courtyard.
“Come in.”
The door opened.
Erwin stood in the doorway, beads of sweat clinging to his forehead, several strands of hair plastered against his brow.
He was still holding the wooden board he used as a writing surface, but the sheet of paper clipped to it had been replaced.
The edges of the new page were blackened with scorch marks, as though it had been snatched from the edge of a fire.
“Rhoen.”
Erwin swallowed, his throat dry.
Unlike the others, he never addressed him as Your Highness, and Rhoen had never insisted that he do so.
“I found something.”
He extended the writing board toward him.
The blackened sheet trembled faintly in the light streaming through the crack in the doorway.
“You need to see this.”