“Pffff! Ha ha ha! I can see it.” Felicia burst out laughing. “I can see that tail wagging back and forth!”
He looked over and saw that the golden-haired beauty, completely unconcerned with who might be watching, was doubled over and clutching her stomach. Her shoulders were quaking and she was even scraping her nails along the inner wall of the carriage. No matter how you looked at it she was laughing too much, making a huge scene.
Yuuto lamented that, if only Felicia didn’t have moments like these, she would be a perfect combination of beauty and competence. But now she would be of no use until her laughing fits subsided.
“Uhm, what on Earth is Felicia—” Sigrún began.
“Leave her be. In life, there are some things that are best left a mystery.”
“Ah! I see! If you say so, Father, then it must be meaningful!”
“No, really, it’s not that big of a deal.” Yuuto dejectedly dropped his shoulders.
Felicia had her own quirks to be sure, but Sigrún’s blind acceptance of Yuuto and anything he said also worried him.
If one were to describe Sigrún in simplest terms, it would probably be as a dedicated warrior. Though she had natural talent and had been given the title of Mánagarmr at such a young age, she seemed ignorant of worldly affairs, her life having been focused exclusively on the martial arts.
That was likely why she would only open her heart to those who showed strength and those whom she respected.
Actually, during the first six months or so after Yuuto had come to this world, Sigrún had treated him like the soldiers back there, as no more than a rock on the side of the road. In spite of the astounding way they had first met, back then she hadn’t even bothered to remember his name.
With her knee on the ground, that same girl now showed that she acknowledged Yuuto as her master and was eager to serve him.
“It’s rather ironic,” Yuuto muttered in self-deprecation.
In the two years — just two years — since Yuuto had arrived, so many things had changed in rapid succession. The world around him, and Yuuto himself.
He had been fair-skinned when he’d arrived, but his skin had since been tinged by the sun; his slender build hadn’t changed, but his muscles had been toned considerably. He had grown quite a bit taller. And, he had also learned a great deal of the skills necessary in order to get by in this world.
Yuuto had survived numerous bloody battles. He was no longer some child wandering lost and afraid through this world. Including the branches of the clan, he now held the lives and futures of tens of thousands of members of the Wolf Clan in his hands, as their sovereign patriarch.
“Oh, this is no time to be getting caught up in sentimentality,” he said. “Rún, what of the imprisoned sovereign of the Horn Clan?”
Sigrún, who had shown her more puppy-like side while being petted by Yuuto, instantly snapped back into her more dignified demeanor. Though Yuuto had fewer chances to see it for himself these days, this image was the one that came to mind for most members of the Wolf Clan when you mentioned Sigrún.
“Sir. As I wanted to confirm your safety first, Father, I left her in the custody of some nearby soldiers. They should be on their way by chariot as we speak.”
“I see... well then, I wonder what we should do with her.” For no particular reason, Yuuto looked to the sky.
The setting sun had begun to dye the western sky crimson. The cries of the crows lured in by all the blood had become loud and grating.
On his mind at that moment was, naturally, what he should do with the enemy sovereign. He glanced over at Felicia, who had finally managed to suppress her laughter.
“Will she seriously accept my Chalice?” he asked.
“It is difficult to say,” she told him. “I have heard that Lady Linnea, the sovereign of the Horn Clan, is exceedingly proud. She may likely prefer an honorable death to a life stained with disgrace.”
“In which case, having her die on us would be problematic.” Yuuto heaved a sigh of frustration.
In the world of Yggdrasil, the sovereign served as “parent” to all members of their clan, and the clan members served in the roles of either “children” or “younger siblings,” organizing the clan in something of a pseudo-family structure.
Through the ritual of “the Chalice of Allegiance,” a sovereign and their children and siblings would establish a firm bond similar to a ceremony traditionally held at Shinto weddings and Yakuza initiations. The sovereign would provide for his children and younger siblings with care and affection, and in return, they would show their sovereign the deference and respect due to a parent or an elder sibling. These pseudo-familial relationships born of the Chalice were given more importance than actual familial relationships.
In other words, if their sovereign were killed, the members of the Horn Clan would likely never forgive the Wolf Clan, would lose themselves in hatred, and would seek vengeance for their slain parent.
“The enemy’s second-in-command was not supposed to participate in this battle, correct?” Yuuto asked Felicia.
“Correct. Apparently, due to an order to stay behind to guard their clan’s capital.”
“I met the Horn Clan’s second-in-command once, while accompanying your predecessor,” Sigrún put in. “I can confirm the second-in-command was not participating in this battle.”
Amid the chaos of the battlefield, the spread of misinformation was common. But with Sigrún having taken command of the front lines, Yuuto could trust her words above any others’.
“Which means part of the chain of command is still intact. This has become rather troublesome.” Yuuto scratched his head.
While the second-in-command was treated more like the head of the children and siblings, they were still the family’s number two. In the event that the unthinkable should befall the sovereign, they were next in line of succession.
And in the clan’s tradition, that successor would have been chosen for second-in-command not through blood relationships, but by virtue of strength and ability. The new ruler would doubtless be a competent opponent as well.
“If we kill her, it becomes a case of number fourteen of the Thirty-Six Strategems: ‘Borrow the corpse, revive the soul.’ It will only renew their army’s morale. In that case, we have no need to provide them with a just cause.” Yuuto took his cherished smartphone from his pocket and held down the power button, turning the phone on.
Thanks to the miniature solar battery Yuuto had started carrying after learning his lesson back during a severe earthquake, he had been able to keep using his smartphone during the two years since his arrival in this new world.
But it was still a miniature battery. Even if he kept it out in the sun all day, he could only keep the power on for approximately thirty minutes at a time. It was such a minuscule amount of time. So he’d vowed to only use the phone in times of absolute greatest need.
After some time, the home screen appeared, and he tapped the “Hindle” icon. On the next screen appeared the famous “Fuurinkazan” banner popularized by Takeda Shingen, which denoted the e-book version of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a Chinese classic that was still heavily revered in the 21st century. It was something Yuuto had downloaded after becoming sovereign, and he had lost count of how many times he reread it.
“This... really is cheating,” he murmured. “My smartphone has so much to offer.”
If Yuuto were to take to the front lines, he would be no match for even a novice soldier. There was so much in this world he was inexperienced with; he couldn’t even read and write their language well yet.
In all honesty, to describe him with the word “useless” would be an understatement.
But there was the one thing only Yuuto could do, the one weapon only he possessed: knowledge from the 21st century.
Granted, he was still a student. The knowledge and skills he possessed had their limits. For example, if he wanted to build a computer from scratch here, it would be essentially impossible.
Still, in this world where civilization had yet to flourish, there were still countless things he could create even without any special skills or knowledge.
In this battle, for example, they’d used longspear-style weapons. If it hadn’t been for a certain popular historical strategy game he’d played, there was no doubt Yuuto would have never come up with the idea for the longspear.