“O-Oh, that’s a relief then...” Finally realizing that frightening possibility, Nozomu shuddered. As long as the troops holed up in the fort, they assumed they were safe and sound. If they were confronted with high-powered weaponry that completely shattered that assumption, however, there would be pandemonium among them. It turned out to be a massive stroke of good luck that they’d decided to pivot away from that plan at the very last moment.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A seemingly endless barrage of arrows continued to rain down upon Nozomu’s men. This was no time for any of them to be celebrating anything at all. The distance between them and the enemy allowed the troops enough time to block the arrows with their shields, to a degree, but it wasn’t a perfect defense by any means. The casualties would likely only increase with the passage of time.
“What the hell can I do?!” Nozomu was helplessly cornered. On top of that, he had to contend with his own bad habit of his mind going blank whenever he was at a disadvantage. Even if there was a way to turn the situation around, he couldn’t think of it.
“Shit, this all started because of my own selfishness, so I have to be the one to finish it! But how?!” He gritted his teeth in vexation. Why could he not be like his father? Why could he not do what his father had done? Why was he so powerless? Nozomu hated his useless self with every fiber of his being.
“Hm, I think you’ve got it a bit wrong,” Nozomu’s adviser Rungr said, putting a finger to his chin and cocking his head.
“Yep. You’re way off base,” Arness agreed with an emphatic nod.
“Huh? How so?” Nozomu asked, visibly confused.
“Remember what I said earlier? You’re the commander. Focus on that. We’ll take care of the rest.” There were no traces of doubt in Arness’s words. Nozomu was stunned at how he was able to remain so confident in such a desperate situation.
“You’ll take care of the rest? How do you plan to do that?” Nozomu asked.
“Ah, well, you know. I have something up my sleeve, though I’d really prefer not to use it.” Arness frowned in displeasure.
“Huh?! Well, we can’t afford to be choosy right now! What is it?!” Nozomu asked once more, almost overwhelmingly flustered by this point.
“For now, hold our defenses and buy time,” Arness replied.
“That’s it?!” Nozomu yelled in response.
“Yep. The enemy’s sure to run out of arrows sooner or later, so we just need to hold out till their supply’s exhausted,” Arness explained.
Nozomu merely pouted in response.
“If they charge at us after that, perfect! We can wipe them out with the pincer attack,” Arness continued. “If they decide to retreat instead, that’ll give us a chance to regroup so we can use our secret weapon.”
“We have a secret weapon?” Nozomu had no idea such a thing even existed. He was supposed to be the supreme commander, so why had no one told him? “If we’ve got something like that, then why didn’t you let me know earlier?!”
“Because I was hoping we wouldn’t have to use it,” Arness replied. “I’d wanted to keep it in our back pocket as insurance for if things really went south.”
“Well, now you’ve just got me intrigued! What the hell is it?!” Nozomu barked.
“Let’s save that conversation for later. Right now, we need to focus on getting through our current predicament,” Arness said, skirting around the subject as best he could.
“Fine, I guess.” Even as they spoke, Nozomu’s army was getting bombarded by the enemy. If they didn’t do something about that first, a secret weapon would be worthless.
“So, we just have to hold the line?” Nozomu asked.
“Precisely,” Arness replied.
“All units! Fortify your defenses! Remember, we’re up against cavalry. Do not throw caution to the wind and attempt to pursue them. I don’t want to lose anyone. Focus your efforts on enduring!” Nozomu’s raised voice rang out.
For a while after, the enemy’s barrages continued, until they quite abruptly came to a stop. They had likely exhausted their supply of arrows. Thus ended Nozomu’s first battle as a supreme commander. Frankly speaking, he was off to a rough start.
“Phew... Man, I can’t believe we managed to get through that.” Glaring at the enemy cavalry as they retreated, he grimaced and let out a sigh once they were all gone. For now, the threat had abated, but it was no cause for celebration. Once they resupplied their stock of arrows, they would undoubtedly be back with a vengeance.
Casualties on Nozomu’s side were still quite light, but the injury count and death toll would only increase if this battle dragged out. The stress on the troops would build up, and morale would plummet. In other words, Nozomu needed to take swift action.
“Right. Arness, what’s that secret weapon you mentioned?” Coming to a quick decision, Nozomu asked Arness about the thing he’d been on tenterhooks about during the whole battle.
“Ah, that? It’s nothing to be proud of, just to let you know.”
“Oh, enough dodging the question. How can I judge it when I don’t even know what it is?”
“I suppose so. Well, then...” With a truly reluctant expression, Arness began to explain the particulars of his secret weapon. As he talked, Nozomu’s eyes became wider and wider.
“Whoa... We had that option all along?” Frankly, it was a completely unfair method. A total cheat. To be honest, he doubted whether his father Yuuto would even let him have the throne if he heard that Nozomu had used such a ploy. In the worst case, he might declare Nozomu unfit to be reginarch and maybe even disown him. That said, it was more than enough to win this war—of that, Nozomu was certain. And right now, that was all he needed. There was just one problem...
“Is it even doable...?” It was going to be incredibly difficult to carry out. By Nozomu’s estimation, nearly impossible.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll manage. If we couldn’t, I wouldn’t have even brought it up,” Arness replied.
“R-Right.” Nozomu nodded. He was so blown away by what he’d heard that he could only muster that much of a response. No, he wasn’t just impressed—he was astonished. Arness had considered every single possibility and even come up with backup plans for his backup plans, just like he’d heard his father Yuuto had done back in Yggdrasil. It was something that was far easier said than done—at least, it’d be an impossible feat for someone like Nozomu.
“You really are amazing, Arness.”
“Nah, not really.”
“You’re far more suited to be king than some average loser like me.” With a deflated expression, Nozomu spoke as though he’d lost all motivation. At this point, he had no choice but to admit it—in this war so far, all he’d done was get tossed around by every new development. The one at the center of the operation, the strategist and the executor, had been none other than Arness. Nozomu had only been a mere decoration, a figurehead that could do nothing but get in everyone’s way. The pride that Nozomu had built up over the past five years had long since been torn to shreds. What little remained was in tatters.
“Me, king? No way. I wouldn’t be good at it at all.”
“In what way?! I don’t know anyone smarter or cleverer than you! You’d be fantastic at it!”
“Well, I will admit that the cogs in my brain spin a bit faster than most, but that’s not enough to be a king. The quality that a king needs most, I happen to lack.”
“And what would that be?” Nozomu had no idea what he meant whatsoever. Physical ability, maybe? Arness came up a bit short in that department, that much was true. But it wasn’t like he was sickly—in fact, he was the very picture of health. A lack of athleticism wouldn’t bar him from becoming a king.
Seeing that Nozomu was clueless, Arness forced a grin. “What I lack, Big Bro, is popularity. I have a tendency to say whatever comes to my mind, which doesn’t exactly win people over.”
“Th-That’s not...” He was about to say it wasn’t true, but he stopped himself midsentence. Arness was courteous and friendly enough on the surface, but it was superficial, something he put on for appearance’s sake. Perhaps a capable person like Arness simply didn’t realize how the incapable felt. Even though he didn’t intend to come across that way, he often ended up giving others the impression that he was looking down on them for being less intelligent. Nozomu himself had felt like that with Arness more than a few times, and it had indeed irritated him.
“Heh heh. I know myself better than anyone else, Big Bro. Sure, I may have inherited the talent for scheming and strategy from our parents, but I don’t have their compassion, so I can never be as popular.” Arness had a faraway look in his eye as he criticized himself. “If I was king, my siblings would surely forsake me. Right, Big Bro Rungr? Big Sis Wiz?” His self-deprecating smile became a mischievous grin as he turned his gaze toward the two of them. Rungr and Wiz both nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“Frankly, I’d rather die than be under your rule,” Rungr responded.
“No big sister alive wants to serve their little brother,” Wiz added.
“And there you have it,” Arness said with a shrug that was meant to suggest the matter was settled. Of course, Nozomu still had reservations.
“That’s just because they’re older than you,” Nozomu rebutted.
“No, Sigurd, Saya, and Clea would undoubtedly forsake me as well.” Saya was Ingrid’s daughter, and Clea was Albertina’s. Though both were still young girls, they’d already displayed talent, clearly inherited from their mothers, so impressive that many highly anticipated seeing where the future would take them. “Simply put, I don’t have the ability to keep our brothers and sisters together. Perhaps my rule would even culminate in a bloodbath between us all. You’re the only one who can unite us, Nozomu.”
“That’s right. It has to be you, Big Brother.” Rungr agreed. Nozomu glanced over at Wiz, but she too was nodding in approval.
“That can’t be...can it?” Nozomu asked doubtfully, apparently the only one unable to acknowledge it.
“Yes, it can. And it is,” Arness replied matter-of-factly. “Sure, you may be pretty average overall, but that just makes us want to help you more. It’s like, ‘If I don’t stick with this guy, he might get into trouble,’ or something like that.”
“Oh yeah, that totally makes me feel better,” Nozomu said sarcastically. In fact, it made him wonder if deep down, his siblings actually thought he was unreliable, or that he couldn’t be trusted. Those thoughts depressed him even further.