Primera and her vice-captain were able to hold their own against the king’s guard, but the rest of the brigade were only a little better than average knights. That said, their coordination and strength had clearly improved since the last time I had seen them. But even so, it wasn’t enough to beat someone like Chaos.
“So you’re saying we shouldn’t form the special liaison squad?”
“No, I’m not saying that. With enough training, their survival chances should go up significantly. But they need to be taught that fighting should be their last resort. Their priority has to be retreating or surviving.”
Even as I said it, I didn’t really believe that most of the fourth brigade could hold their own in a fight. There were too many nobles among them—their skills were worse than other brigades, but their pride was far stronger.
“I see... What kind of training do you think they need?” Duke Sanga asked.
“Building stamina and then focusing on physical strength,” I answered right away.
Ideally, they would build up enough endurance and speed to outrun a monster outright, but that was wishful thinking. At the very least, they needed to be able to scatter and retreat with minimal casualties.
“It might sound cold, but I think they need to train for scenarios where sacrificing someone is part of the strategy,” I said.
“Yes, that’s probably necessary... So what do you think it would take for them to actually win a fight?”
I figured that Duke Sanga was asking how they could win without using decoys, but the answer was a lot simpler than that.
“You’d need three people in a group. One whose skills surpass Amur’s, a royal guard, and someone as good at magic as Eliza,” I said. “With that formation, your odds would go way up.”
That was the team that had almost defeated Chaos, after all. The reason they had lost that day had come down to carelessness and not knowing what they were up against. If Duke Sanga could form a team that outperformed those three, victory was definitely possible. That being said, Amur was one of the best frontline fighters in the entire kingdom. And when it came to knights, the royal guard was the cream of the crop. As for Eliza, she was also a gifted magic user. It wouldn’t be easy to come up with a trio like that, even if you were handpicking them from the royal guard or other knights’ brigades across the capital. Basically, expecting it from the fourth brigade just wasn’t happening.
“Hm, well, that’s not very realistic for us,” Duke Sanga replied. “We might be able to form a few teams like that if we scraped together knights from across the duchy and picked only the best of the best, but there’s no guarantee we’d have enough to make a full unit. And it’d seriously weaken the defenses in other regions if I had to pull them from their usual posts...”
“Your only other option is to just keep throwing in more people. But the higher the head count, the harder it will be to coordinate them, and the speed needed for the liaison squad drops off,” I countered. “So maybe two or three trios moving as a unit could do the job.”
“Nine people? Well, with enough training, they could pull off the coordination necessary. But it wouldn’t be enough.”
And having nine people on each squad meant you’d quickly run out of available liaison teams.
“We could make up the numbers with golems. Oh, actually, House Sanga has been working on securing mages capable of producing golems for the past few years. We’re finally starting to get enough together,” he said.
Maybe he thought I’d assume he was implying he’d want to use my golems, so he had made sure to tell me he had his own supply.
“It’s not cheap using them as expendable fighters, but it’s still better than losing lives,” he added.
He probably didn’t want to treat golems like throwaways, but when a noble died, their family would start a commotion. Sometimes, it could lead to a full-on rebellion. It was better to lose a golem than deal with all that. The duke told me all that with a sigh.
“Well, if we don’t want to burn through our golem budget, I guess we’ll just have to make Primera and the others train harder. Primera! Get your brigade back on its feet! They can’t keep embarrassing themselves in front of the king’s guard and the capital knights!” Duke Sanga barked orders at the knights still slumped on the ground.
Less than half of them reacted right away. Fewer than twenty moved.
“I-I’m sorry, Duke Sanga! Fourth brigade, form up!” Primera frantically issued an order. The knights who’d already gotten up helped the others to their feet, and they managed to line up...though their formation was a little lopsided.
“Salute His Majesty!” Primera and her brigade saluted the king, who returned the gesture with a small wave. “At ease! Salute Duke Sanga and Master Tenma Otori!”
They turned to salute the duke and me. Duke Sanga also responded with a wave, but I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just nodded to them.
With that, Primera led the brigade off to the side to take a break.
“Duke Sanga, I’m sorry for putting you in such a tough spot,” the king said.
“It’s all right. I’m sure it was a valuable experience for them. Even as knights from a noble house, they rarely get the chance to come to the castle, let alone draw their swords in front of the king. They’ll be proud of this day,” the duke said.
The king nodded in response. That much, at least, was all part of the plan. But from here on out, things the king hadn’t been briefed on were going to happen.
Prince Caesar stepped forward. “May I have a moment, Your Majesty?”
Queen Maria and Prince Lyle were behind him. Prince Lyle didn’t seem to know what was happening because he seemed like business as usual.
Although this wasn’t part of the plan, the king didn’t seem to suspect anything was out of the ordinary. He followed Prince Caesar and Queen Maria to a spot out of my view.
“I apologize for leaving you both hanging like that,” Prince Caesar said when he returned alone. “His Majesty and the minister of the military had an urgent matter to attend to.”
This was all for show for the people around us, of course.
“Still, at this rate, any incident is going to cause serious casualties among the liaison squads,” he said.
“Yes, that’s what Tenma and I were just discussing,” the duke replied. “Given the current situation, our only options are increasing squad sizes or using golems as expendables.”
“I see. That’s rough... Well, it might be good to have them train at the castle once in a while. It’d be a healthy competition for both sides. It might be worth letting other nobles send their knights to join in as well...” Prince Caesar said. He muttered that he’d suggest it to Prince Lyle later and then walked off in the direction the king had gone.
“Honestly, I doubt that’ll happen. The reformists won’t want to expose their strength, and even if they do send some, they’d probably be mid-level knights at best,” Duke Sanga said.
The duke had only brought the fourth brigade from Gunjo City, and that brigade had only been seen as dead weight not too long ago. No one would care if their true abilities were exposed.
“Still, it works out well for us. It’ll make it easier to get our own knights involved. Hopefully they can sharpen up before the other nobles join in, but, well, I’m not going to hold my breath,” he added.
He had meant two things by that. First of all, he was saying that it would take time for the fourth brigade to get stronger, and secondly, if Marquis Sammons heard about it, he’d immediately jump at the chance to get his people involved.
“If Marquis Sammons gets wind of this liaison squad idea, I bet he’ll form his own version right away.”
I’d assumed this world didn’t have dedicated messenger units, but apparently, they had at one time. But these days, the role was usually filled by whatever knight happened to be available. It was terribly inefficient.
“They used to exist, but they couldn’t really be counted on in a fight. Plus, they required a ton of horses. They mostly got phased out in the name of cost cutting. Adventurers take care of simple communications now. It’s cheaper that way,” the duke explained.
I thought of Ted when he mentioned that. Adventurers who used their followers to carry messages like he did might seem pricey, but since they provided their own transportation, you didn’t need to budget for horses, stables, feed, or any of that. Some of them were even faster than knights on horseback. And if something happened along the way, you didn’t need to worry about replacing your own people or paying death benefits.
Sure, there was always the risk of a message being intercepted, but that was easy enough to avoid by not giving out sensitive information to adventurers. The benefits of this system far outweighed the risks.
“Between the wyvern mess in Margrave Haust’s domain and the invasion scare from the empire and this monster incident, I have a feeling the day we’ll need our own specialized liaison squad will come soon. So it’ll still be worth it if it costs a little extra.”