A few days later...
Laura’s and Tom’s skills had improved, and I got a good thrill out of it, so our personal preparations were perfect.
Nia had sorted out all of the things that we would be moving with without a hitch. Go Nia.
I’d also finished everything I needed to do to hand over command of the Special Battalion, and I’d gotten a number of instructions from His Highness Prince Alphonse.
“I’ve had communications personnel stationed there, so make good use of them,” said Prince Alphonse. “I also have a letter for Count Farlon, the brigade commander. Give it to him.”
“What is it? Did you get ahold of his weakness or something?” I asked skeptically.
“What are you talking about, Ark? I’m a member of the royal family. There’s no need for me to go out of my way to get someone’s weaknesses. My letter might just include something that will make him more than happy to listen to my request, though.”
“Urk. That sounds fishy. I mean, I’ll deliver it, but still.”
We might’ve bantered like usual too.
By the way, Count Farlon was a count palatine without any of his own territory and one of the most distinguished bigwigs in the Royal Order of Knights, which was the backbone of the Royal Army. Since he owned no territory, he had no motivation to expand his holdings, and there was no sign of him acting as a hound for a higher-ranking noble like a marquis or something.
“I see, so he’s the ideal person to send to command a brigade in an unstable border territory. The reason the Order of Knights sent someone of a higher rank than me must have been because they want to keep the brigade independent.”
“Probably. You were quite the hot topic of conversation after the war, after all.”
“It isn’t like I wanted to be...”
I gave an exaggerated sigh at His Highness’s teasing tone.
The relationship between the Royal Order of Knights and the Special Battalion was a bit of a pain in the ass.
As you might guess from the name, the Royal Order of Knights was an order of knights created by the kingdom, under the command of the kingdom, or rather His Majesty the King. Normally, they would be the country’s main source of fighting power. But with His Majesty having barely any hand in politics at the moment, all of their combat capabilities were currently being wasted. They needed orders from the king to be dispatched in times of emergency, but the king wasn’t in any position where he could make those orders.
Currently, in order to take any action, the knight commander would need to make an inquiry to His Highness Prince Artur, the second prince and current proxy for the king. Prince Artur would then need to check with His Majesty the King before getting the highest ranks of nobles to come to a consensus so that the knights could get their marching orders. This, of course, created a huge barrier to their ability to respond to any issues in a timely manner. The reason why Brigandia had struggled at the beginning of the war with Sylvario was because the Order of Knights was stuck like that.
As an aside, Count Barracuda was not a member of the Royal Order of Knights. He instead led a personal independent force of knights from his county, which allowed him to go wild on the battlefield.
And so, since the Royal Order of Knights was stymied by bureaucracy and were essentially useless for Prince Alphonse’s plans, the Special Battalion was made under His Highness’s direct command. And unlike the Order of Knights, which prized discipline and tradition, the members of the Special Battalion were given discretionary power on the battlefield to make flexible decisions on the fly, and they didn’t really give much importance to noble rank. The biggest examples of this were my appointment as a special diplomatic envoy and the common-born Gale being able to rise to become platoon commander and later company commander.
All of this led to the Order of Knights viewing the Special Battalion as a bunch of wild newbies while we thought of them as hardheaded, idealistic royalist lapdogs, making the relationship between us all a bit awkward. What’s worse, the knights weren’t amused by the fact that the Special Battalion and I had done so well during the war. Even though we were just doing our jobs.
“You don’t think he’ll go crazy trying to distinguish himself, do you?” I asked hesitantly, thinking about everything up until then.
“I don’t think so. While he can make decisions on the spot to fight in the case of Sylvario attacking, he would need my brother’s permission as His Majesty’s proxy to attack them,” His Highness answered, with a wonderful smile befitting his nickname of “the Smiling Iceberg.”
“Your Highness, may I have a look at this letter? I’m really worried about what you’ve written now.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t write anything that would rile the count up. In fact, I just told him some things to convince him that helping us would be to his benefit.”
“Your words might say that, but it’s for that very reason I’m worried you’ll rile him up.”
His Highness had a knack for rubbing people and their pride the wrong way, and having seen a number of people dig their own graves because of that, I couldn’t be confident in his reassurances. But at the same time, I trusted that he wouldn’t do anything to paint me into a corner. Whatever the case was, there was nothing I could do but deliver the letter as ordered, so I had to suck it up.
His Highness gave me a reassuring smile (that did nothing to reassure me). “Anyway, we aren’t in a situation where starting internal conflict would do any good.”
“Ahhh, you mean with Sylvario recruiting mercenaries?”
“Yep, that. Do they not have any idea that every single thing they do is getting leaked to us?”
“If they know and they’re doing it anyway, then they’re either incredibly self-confident or have no idea how important intelligence is. Either way, it’s obvious they haven’t learned their lesson.”