Inside the Kingdom of Selseta’s territory, there’s a huge forest that stretches across several provinces.
In this forest, called the Rug Sea of Trees2, lots of Silku1 live in tribal groups, and they’ve built a cooperative relationship with the Kingdom of Selseta.
If you trace this cooperation back to its start, you end up at the founding of Selseta forty years ago.
Humans and tree people, two races that often end up as enemies, have kept friendly ties for forty long years. That’s rare no matter where you look on the whole continent.
It’s believed the reason the friendship lasted forty years is that the tree people helped a lot when Selseta was founded, and the first King of Selseta, grateful for their help, declared that “friendship with the tree people is the foundation of the Kingdom of Selseta,” and worked hard to bring the two races together.
That reason probably isn’t wrong.
But as a more pressing reason the forty-year friendship held together, you also have to mention that there was a powerful outside enemy that neither side could handle alone.
That outside enemy was the Urgalia Empire.
Before Selseta was founded, there was a country called Harmos in that land, but Harmos was conquered by the Urgalia Empire. The Empire slapped heavy taxes on the occupied Harmos territory, and the people suffered terribly.
It’s said the first King of Selseta, and his lover, a tree person girl, stood up because they couldn’t stand watching that.
The first King of Selseta worked with the tree people, and after a hard struggle, drove the Empire’s army out of Harmos territory and founded a new kingdom.
But of course, the Empire wasn’t just going to accept defeat. Even after Selseta was founded, the Empire kept attacking again and again, spreading the flames of war, and the Kingdom of Selseta and the tree people fought desperately to hold them off.
Selseta’s army alone couldn’t stop the Empire. The tree people’s warriors alone couldn’t stop them either. The two sides had no choice but to work together.
As a result, this forty-year friendship between humans and tree people, rare on the continent, came to be. Kind of ironic, really.
-If anyone on Selseta’s side heard my take on this, they’d probably get furious and say, “Don’t comment like it’s someone else’s problem when you’re the Emperor of Urgalia, the one who started it all.”
But from my point of view, the feud between Selseta and Urgalia really is someone else’s problem. I mean, sure, now that I’m Emperor, sort of, maybe I should take responsibility for everything the past Emperors did as if it’s my own. But a puppet Emperor with no real power (and inside, just a forever-low-ranking, mediocre office worker) can’t possibly have that kind of noble resolve.
Even this first battle, I just went along with it because the Chancellor decided it. I don’t have any sense of duty or responsibility for leading the Empire’s army.
And then, right at that moment, “-What did you just utter, General Oswald?” Lord Inselm demanded coldly.
Lord Inselm’s displeased voice hit my ears.
Hearing that, I snapped back to my senses and hurriedly refocused on what was happening in front of me.
Right now, I’m in a tent set up on the outskirts of the imperial capital. Here, Lord Inselm and I were being told the battle plan by General Oswald, who’s the real commander-in-chief.
General Oswald is an old general whose hair, eyebrows, and beard are all white. His deeply wrinkled face is carved with several slash scars. The biggest one runs diagonally from his right eye to his right cheek, and just looking at it tells you it was a really deep wound.
He looks exactly like a veteran of countless battles.
His voice was hoarse with age, but at the same time, it was deep and rumbling enough to shake your gut. A famous general’s voice, one that cuts through the noise of the battlefield, giving allies confidence and enemies fear. I’ve never been in a battle, but somehow I just knew that.
That general responds to Lord Inselm like he can’t be bothered.
”We’ll send only the cavalry ahead to strike the enemy army. I said I want Your Majesty to come along too, Lord Inselm,” General Oswald barked gruffly.
”So you mean a surprise attack. Do we truly require such tricks against someone like Selseta? This battle is His Majesty’s first. Fighting fair and square and winning fair and square, that’s what shall make His Majesty’s military might and the Empire’s prestige grow even more,” Lord Inselm countered haughtily.
Hearing that, General Oswald furrowed his brow. His thick white eyebrows bent along with it.
It was the same scene I saw at the war council the other day. Between that annoyed look he first showed and everything else, it seems the general dislikes not just the Chancellor but Lord Inselm too.
While I was quietly thinking that, the general started explaining what he meant by the plan.
”Just now, my lord said ‘someone like Selseta.’ It’s true Selseta is a small country and can’t match our numbers. But it’s also true that with those few soldiers, they’ve kept stopping our invasions for years. Now that Selseta has brought out even their royal banner, they must be prepared for something serious. We need to crush their resolve first,” General Oswald countered firmly.
The general said that’s what the long-horned cavalry’s fast legs are for, a first strike.
A trained standing army’s marching speed is nothing like conscripted farmer soldiers. And if you make that standing army all cavalry, the marching speed goes up even more.
Using that outstanding speed to get ahead of the enemy and snatch victory in one go, that must be the general’s aim.
Hearing that, I nodded to myself. It’s like what Sun Tzu’s Art of War3 says, “speed is the essence of war,” or something like that. Probably.
-And why do I know about Sun Tzu’s Art of War? Because back when I was a salaryman, I read a few business books like “Use Ancient Military Tactics in Modern Business!”
Honestly, it didn’t help at all at work, but if it helps me in another world like this, I guess that’s fine.
At this point, I was on board with the general’s plan, but Lord Inselm wasn’t backing down from his opinion. Well, from a duke’s point of view, he probably wants to take his time, settle in, and win me over in the meantime, so of course he’d reject the general’s fast-decision plan.
In times like this, it’s the Emperor’s job to make the call, but neither Lord Inselm nor General Oswald is going to ask for a decision from someone they know is just a puppet.
Officially, General Oswald is the commander-in-chief, so the final say is his, but whether Lord Inselm will quietly back down is another question.
This is gonna take a while before the plan gets settled, I thought, like it was someone else’s problem, when suddenly the general looked my way.
Then he said in a heavy voice:
”What does Your Majesty think? I’d like to hear your thoughts,” the general grunted.
”…Hmph, you wish to know my thoughts?” I stammered, caught off guard.
Please don’t suddenly throw the ball to a kid about to fight his first battle. I almost choked hard.
Whether he knew about my panic or not, the general kept his eyes locked right on me and wouldn’t look away.
”Yes. I would very much like to hear it,” General Oswald pressed, locking his gaze on me.
”Hmm… I think both the general’s plan and the duke’s plan have their merits. It’s hard to choose, but if I had to pick, I would go with the general’s plan,” I offered cautiously.
”And why is that?” the general barked.
Hmm? You’re really pushing, general.
I answered the old general while trying my best to look calm.
”The Empire stands with the long-horned horses, so said the founding Emperor. He also said that one who is not of the long-horned cavalry is not the Emperor. So I will follow the general’s plan, ride across the battlefield as a long-horned cavalryman, and strike down the enemy. If I can decorate my first battle with victory, the founding Emperor and all the Emperors before me will surely praise me,” I declared smoothly.
I spun out my words slowly, like I was chewing on each one.
Of course, I hadn’t been thinking anything that noble from the start. I just put together some lines that sounded right in my head and said them.
General Oswald just stared at me, who somehow managed to get through it without stumbling, without looking especially impressed.
After a moment, the general let out a snort through his nose and spoke.
”Leave it to me. I will make sure to decorate Your Majesty’s first battle with victory, Lord Inselm, you have no objections either?” General Oswald rumbled, turning to the duke.
When the general asked to confirm, the duke nodded with a face like he’d bitten into a bitter bug.
”Of course. I too shall perform my humble duty for the victory of His Majesty and the Empire,” Lord Inselm conceded stiffly.
Hearing that, I was thrown off. The general, sure, his plan got picked. But Lord Inselm pulling back his opinion so easily was unexpected.
-I found out later, but apparently in the Urgalia Empire, there’s an unwritten rule that when the Emperor brings up the founding Emperor’s name, nobody is allowed to argue against the Emperor’s opinion.
Apparently in the Takeda family during the Warring States period, there was a similar unwritten rule, when the head of the family said “Witness my flag and shield4” at a council, no further opinions were allowed. Probably something like that.
And why do I know about that? Because back when I was a salaryman, I read a few business books like “Business Success Secrets Learned from Takeda Shingen!”
Setting aside my lopsided reading history, I really wished from the bottom of my heart later that they’d told me about that unwritten rule beforehand.
Anyway, that’s how the Urgalian army finished all its preparations and got moving.
What would come of it, at this point, I had no way of predicting at all.
Trivia:
- The forty-year friendship between humans and tree people wasn’t born from goodwill but from sheer necessity, a mutual enemy in the Urgalia Empire forced them together.
- General Oswald’s scar running diagonally from his right eye to his right cheek hints at a past battle where he narrowly escaped death, marking him as a survivor of brutal warfare.
- The narrator’s habit of referencing business books from his salaryman days, like Sun Tzu and Takeda Shingen, shows how he copes with a world he doesn’t truly belong to, using modern knowledge as a crutch.
Translation Notes:
1 ↩ A race of tree people living in the Rug Sea of Trees. The name carries a non-human nuance that distinguishes them from ordinary humans, emphasizing their separate culture and biology.
2 ↩ A vast forest spanning multiple provinces within the Kingdom of Selseta. The name suggests an endless, almost ocean-like expanse of trees, evoking both beauty and danger.
3 ↩ An ancient Chinese military treatise referenced by the narrator. The mention highlights his modern-world knowledge bleeding into a fantasy setting, a common trope in isekai stories.
4 ↩ A historical command from the Takeda family during Japan’s Warring States period. When spoken by the clan head, it silenced all debate, similar to the unwritten rule in the Urgalia Empire regarding the founding Emperor’s name.