"I honestly didn't think they'd be this brittle," Rei muttered.
From his vantage point at the Rebel Army Main Camp, he watched the Subjugation Army scramble to escape the field in a disorganized, headlong rush. Mercurio's other guards, who had been left behind with Rei to protect the prince, nodded in silent agreement.
"Fufu, I believe I mentioned this before, but that army was organized with the expectation that they would lose," Mercurio said, his eyes fixed on the distant figures of Vihera, Gurgast, Tilleul, and Theoreme's units as they harried the fleeing Imperial forces. Great clouds of dust rose as the enemy suffered massive casualties during their haphazard retreat. "The goal was likely to force us to reveal as much of our hand as possible."
Mercurio sighed softly. "Normally, if they had a unit of Death Troops prepared to fight to the last man to hold us back, the damage to a retreating army would be minimized. But unfortunately, it seems there was nothing to be done for a force that couldn't even achieve a unified will."
"Well, that's for sure," Rei agreed, and the others followed suit.
To be one of the Death Troops meant, quite literally, continuing the fight even at the cost of one's life. It was impossible to imagine such resolve existing within a Subjugation Army composed entirely of those the Empire considered incompetent.
(It might have been different if they had a commander with high leadership skills, but I heard their chain of command wasn't even clearly defined. Though, I suppose the units that fled at the first opportunity were the ones with the best eye for reading the battlefield.)
Rei kept these thoughts to himself. In reality, once the situation turned hopeless, soldiers began surrendering in droves. Seeing this, others followed suit, meaning the casualties weren't quite as high as Rei had initially anticipated. Common soldiers were generally treated as prisoners once they disarmed, spared from further slaughter.
However, that courtesy only extended to the commoners. The nobles were currently putting on unsightly scenes, throwing tantrums and shouting about mistreatment even as they were being hauled away.
"Wouldn't it be better to just finish them off?" Rei asked, watching the spectacle.
Mercurio responded with a strangely delighted smile. It was a pleasant expression, yet it carried a dark, malicious undercurrent. "I can't do something so wasteful. They will be quite useful to us as prisoners."
"Useful? How?" Rei tilted his head. To him, the captured nobles looked like nothing more than useless mouths to feed.
Mercurio's smile remained fixed. "First of all, we'll receive ransoms for them. More importantly, those negotiations should buy us a temporary stalemate with at least Big Brother Schuls and his Second Prince Faction."
"Would he really bother paying for people everyone calls incompetent? From what I've heard, the man is a realist—he uses the useful and ignores the rest."
Rei phrased it as hearsay, but he already took it as a foregone conclusion. After all, Schuls had gathered these "useless" people specifically to serve as disposable pawns to analyze the Rebel Army's strength, leading to the very carnage they were currently witnessing.
Mercurio seemed to understand Rei's point. He continued with a small smile. "I certainly don't think Big Brother Schuls himself would pay a ransom. But what about the noble houses themselves? Most of the men gathered for this army are heads of houses or heirs. There's no doubt that Big Brother intended to clear out the useless talent here and install competent people in their places afterward. But their families won't see it that way."
"Heads of houses and heirs, huh..." Rei muttered.
Across the field, a succession of men were being held at the points of longswords by Theoreme's soldiers. Some were screaming hysterically; others were trembling so violently they couldn't speak. Had even one of them remained dignified, they might have actually looked like nobles. As it stood, they were a pathetic sight.
(Well, I learned back in the Kingdom of Mireana that a lot of nobles are like that.)
Rei recalled the nobles he had encountered back home. There were certainly dignified men like Daskar, but there were also many who were so consumed by their sense of entitlement that they looked down on everyone else as mere dirt.
"No matter how much of a realist Big Brother Schuls is, he can't recklessly interfere while members of his own faction are negotiating ransoms with us," Mercurio explained. "If he did, the rest of his followers would worry that he wouldn't negotiate for them if they were ever caught. It breeds suspicion. Though, in truth, I suspect Big Brother would prefer we just finished them off. 'Don't turn them into prisoners and waste my time with negotiations'—I'd bet that's his honest feeling."
Mercurio remarked that it was a difficult situation, yet he was the one deliberately trapping his brother in it. Rei couldn't help but feel that Mercurio had a truly frightening side to him.
Karaza, who like Rei had seen no action today, spoke up to change the mood. "Putting that aside, I heard there were cavalrymen directly under His Highness Schuls on the field. Are we handling them? Lord Theoreme's units are targeting them as a priority, but they're still cavalry. It will be nearly impossible to take them all down. Wouldn't it be better to have Lord Rei go out? He has Seto, after all."
The atmosphere at the camp relaxed slightly at the suggestion, but Rei shook his head.
"It would be nice, but I didn't bring Seto with me today. Do you expect me to just run them down? ...Actually, that's not impossible."
Rei paused to consider the idea. Given his speed while clad in the Overlord's Armor, he could easily catch up to a horse. The problem was his lack of control. He might be thrown about by the armor's power and fail to slay the targets, while simultaneously revealing to the Imperial side that a massive outlier like himself was backing the rebels.
"I'd prefer you didn't do that," Mercurio said. "As a military force, you are our trump card—our 'one-hit-reversal.' I don't want to risk you being discovered unless we're truly desperate. Besides, you haven't mastered that Overlord's Armor yet, have you?"
Rei gave a small shrug in response to Mercurio's pointed question.
"Furthermore, we need the enemy to be aware of our strength only to a certain extent," Mercurio added. "It's a delicate balance, but I trust Theoreme and Big Sister to handle the adjustments."
In the distance, Vihera was riding alongside a fleeing cavalryman. She reached out and lightly touched his armor. Despite the seemingly gentle contact, the cavalryman collapsed instantly, his consciousness severed. The Magic Impact Palm allowed her to deliver a shock of magic power through armor without the need for large, swinging motions. It was a swifter, more efficient blow than any longsword or spear.
(Compared to the Overlord's Armor, which I can't even steer, that looks incredibly convenient.)
Rei knew instinctively that the skill only looked easy because of Vihera's immense technique. It was a handy trick, but even so, it felt a step or two below the version of Overlord's Armor that Noise had displayed.
"In the current situation, as long as it's not someone as conspicuous as Rei, it should be fine to participate," Mercurio told his other guards. "Rei is enough to protect me here, so I'd like you all to join the hunt. To be honest, I don't care for such one-sided battles, but we must reduce the enemy's strength as much as possible while we have the chance."
Karaza and the other noble guards looked at each other. It was a rare opportunity to experience the atmosphere of a real battlefield with minimal risk, which would be invaluable for the conflicts to come. Still, they hesitated to leave the prince with only one protector.
"Don't worry," Rei muttered, cutting through their indecision.
"Lord Rei?"
"I'm here. That alone is enough to keep him safe from almost anything. Unless an outlier like Noise shows up, of course."
Rei wore a smile that was the very definition of fearless. Karaza and the others found themselves convinced instantly. They felt that as long as Rei was here, no harm could possibly come to the figurehead of the Rebel Army.
"Besides... well, never mind. Anyway, you'll be seeing plenty of combat starting tomorrow. Better to get your feet wet now than when your life is truly on the line."
"Um, it's not as if we're raw recruits in our first battle," one of the nobles near Karaza muttered.
Rei simply shrugged. To a man who had survived countless slaughters in the less than two years since arriving in Elgin, the "experience" of these men was negligible.
(Though, if one of them turns out to be a legendary hero or something, I'll take it back.)
Rei pushed the thought aside. "Besides, I'm not the only one staying behind."
"You're not the only one? What do you mean?"
Rei glanced at Mercurio, who gave a slight, silent shake of his head. Understanding that the prince didn't want the secret of the hidden soldiers revealed yet, Rei dodged the question. Still, his eyes lingered on the ground for a moment, sensing the presence of those lurking beneath the earth.
(Mole-type Beast Soldiers, right?)
"Well, you'll find out eventually. More importantly, just go. I've got things covered here."
"Yes, we'll leave it to you."
The guards could hardly disobey when Mercurio added his own nod of approval. In the end, they decided to leave a few men from each unit behind as a formality before heading out. Rei watched the nobles depart, then turned back to the battlefield. The "hunt" was already drawing to a close.
"I hope those guys make it in time to actually do something," Rei murmured.
Mercurio smiled. "It would be best if they did, but even if they don't, the experience is what matters. ...More importantly, thank you for keeping quiet." Mercurio lightly tapped the ground with his foot.
Rei grinned, knowing he meant the Beast Soldiers. He had a long and bloody history with such creatures, but he knew better than anyone just how effective they were as a military force. He had learned that the hard way.
"Um, what was that about?" one of the remaining soldiers asked, curious about the cryptic exchange.
Rei and Mercurio shared an ambiguous look. Realizing that pushing for an answer might be useless—or perhaps even dangerous—the soldier quickly looked away, forcing an awkward smile.
"Oh, Karaza and the others have reached the front. Faster than I expected."
Rei's observation made everyone relax, and they turned their attention back to the victorious field.
The battle between the Subjugation Army and the Rebel Army ended in an overwhelming triumph for the rebels. It was a result Schuls had anticipated, but he had suffered one major miscalculation: of the elite cavalrymen directly under his command, only a single rider survived. Upon hearing the report, Schuls slammed his fist onto his desk in a fit of pure, unbridled rage.