Both of them turned to look at him at his unexpected words.
“Miss Sashalia, you will take command of our forces.”
“Hwah?!” Sashalia lost her balance, and the housewives around her hurried to hold her steady. “Wh-Wh-Wh-What are you saying?! I’m not like you, Sir Gaius—I’ve never even commanded a small force, let alone an entire army!”
“Neither had I, until the first time I did. But I was a failure at the Knights Academy; you were salutatorian. You’re much better equipped for this than me. And you’ve memorized all the military history documents in the archives, haven’t you? That’s more than enough of a foundation.”
“U-Umm, but... I-I only memorized them! Memorizing and theorizing are nothing like real battle! Even I’m aware of that!”
Gaius knew how much work Sashalia had done, no matter how hard she tried to hide it, much like her sword training during their days in the Knight Order. Her face was bright red and she was waving her arms in front of her, somehow staying upright thanks to the earnest support of the wives.
“Of course. But you’re also aware that all of my command experience was on the front line with a sword in my hand. I mostly fought under the orders of a general or the king. So I have no experience commanding an entire force from afar. Actually... This is a strategy no one’s ever used before. As the one who came up with it, you’re naturally the most qualified person to implement it. Out of everyone in the world.”
The kobolds and Darke all nodded in agreement and looked toward Sashalia. She looked away with a groan.
“It has to be you, Miss Sashalia.”
“But Sir Gaius...”
“I was always this close to failing out of the Knights Academy... Actually, maybe they just let me graduate because we were in the middle of the war at the time... The princess and the king were always calling me a dunce... and it’s true. I was one. I caused you a lot of trouble when we were in the Order, too.”
“That’s not true...”
“But even so—Or maybe because of that?—I’m confident in my ability to judge people.”
“Are you...? You didn’t even realize how badly the blacksmith in Ryburgh was misunderstanding you!” Sashalia grumbled, lips pursed.
“A-Ahaha. I didn’t? I didn’t, did I...?”
As Gaius smiled awkwardly and scratched his head, Darke pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.
“Say! If ye don’t wanna do it, how ’bout me? How’s ’at sound, old man?” Emon interrupted, waving one hand in the air enthusiastically and pointing the other one at himself.
“Hmm. The Great Strategist Dwaemon, eh?”
At this, the kobolds turned to the young dwarf, reacting with very different murmurings of surprise than how they’d responded before.
Emon’s words had become the spark for an outpouring of emotion from someone else, however.
“Gyaaaah! No! No way! Ahh, damn it!” Sashalia panicked, floundered, and then shouted as if all her thoughts were bursting out at once. “Fine! I’ll do it! I’ll do it, okay?!”
The kobolds all around shared their mutual approval of her decision. “All right! You’re in charge, Sashalia!”
“Yes, I think this is for the best~”
“I agree, I agree!”
“I don’t disagree!”
After her explanation of spirit-speak tactics, Sashalia had gained the respect and support of all the men. Gaius himself had asked her to accept the position, and none of the kobolds could possibly object to their king. They all knew how she had put her life on the line fighting to protect their women and children, and how badly she’d been hurt doing so. Their trust, friendship, and respect for her was already unshakable. The delicate half-elf was no longer a mere visitor. She was Sashalia Denan, comrade in arms to the kobolds.
Among all this celebration, Emon alone looked slightly dejected, until...
“I’m impressed, Emon!”
...Hopping Rabbit, the elder’s granddaughter who had been helping out Sashalia before, walked over to him. She gave the failed would-be tactician a deeply respectful look.
“Why’s that?”
“You got Sashalia to agree to do it by purposely suggesting the worst possible alternative! This must be a traditional dwarven negotiating strategy! I really am impressed! You’re amazing, Emon!”
“Whaaat...?”
“What did I say...? Why are you upset?”
The dwarf slumped his shoulders while Sashalia shouted to the celebrating crowd, “I’m gonna work you like mules, okay?! You’d better be ready! Graaah!”
Darke whispered in some of the kobolds’ ears and they responded with, “Yes, ma’am!” and “Aye-aye, ma’am!”
Gaius watched the scene fondly, then said to Sashalia, “We’re counting on you, General,” which caused her to jump and freeze.
“Sir Gaius? What did you just...? Why?” The half-elf turned to him jerkily, like an ill-fitted door.
With a smile only the Kobold King could make, he looked at her kindly (kindly for him, at least) and replied, “You are now the military commander of the Kobold Kingdom. It’s only natural that you should be a ‘General,’ isn’t it?”
“True, true,” Darke agreed with a laugh like a croaking frog.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait! Please, stop that! I couldn’t possibly!” The newly-appointed military commander tried to resist her new title, flustered, but all the fluff balls around her accepted it wholeheartedly.
“What the heck...”
“...That’s cool.”
“General! General!”
“Yay, General!”
“Ooh, General, you’re so dreamy!”
“Good luck being General, Sashalia!”
“Woohoo!”
“Nooooo!”
...This was how the Kobold Kingdom gained a new defensive strategy, as well as a military commander.
＊
After obtaining a king in Gaius and a general in Sashalia, the kobolds went to work in a truly astounding way. Under Sashalia’s command, they rapidly constructed a base of operations and began to formulate a defensive strategy.
They had always been a diligent and earnest bunch, but with the morale afforded to them by their new leadership, it seemed they were starting to develop beyond the states they had been in before, both mentally and physically. When she was alive, Fog had often objected to comparisons of her people to dogs, but when the fabled origin of their species was taken into account, it started to make sense that they had wolf- or dog-like sociableness and loyalty to their leader.
Sashalia was surprised to see the kobolds’ physical builds improving in such a short time. When she brought this up to the village elder, the old man theorized, “Well, kobolds are half-descended from gods, so our whole race shares a spiritual bond. Perhaps if the group flourishes in their minds, it reflects in their bodies as well, I suppose?” Apparently, even he was not entirely sure.
Regardless, the psychological and physiological benefits of Gaius’s enthronement and Sashalia’s installation at her new post on the entire community of kobolds could not be denied.
＊
“...Now this is unexpected,” Gaius muttered, impressed.
In his hand he held a rope woven from black linden fibers. In front of him was a tree-eating lizard, its eyes covered thoroughly with a thick cloth, plodding slowly along like a cow.
“These guys get real docile as soon as you cover their eyes. Maybe they think it’s nighttime so they get sleepy or something. They’re almost never active at night,” said Rain Grass. The flax-colored kobold hunter sat atop the lizard and spoke as if letting Gaius in on a secret. “So if you put a bunch of bewitching herbs on a tree and get ’em all loopy with them, you can put something over their eyes and then do whatever you want with ’em. When a lizard got too close to our old village, we used to hunt them like this and then dump them somewhere far away.”
“I see. I have to say, I wasn’t expecting it to be so easy.”
“Well, I make it sound easier than it is. They change their territories all the time, and it takes some practice to figure out what kinda trees they’ll go for. You gotta use a lot of herbs, too. Plus, you know, they will wake up and attack if you accidentally stick ’em with a spear, so you gotta be careful hunting them.”
“Ah, so that’s why.” He’d seen White Fog pierce a vital blood vessel on a tree-eating lizard in one blow before. Mastering that skill had likely been necessary for situations like this.