Game Opportunity Becomes Reality Episode 49
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Game Opportunity Becomes Reality Episode 49
15. The Unfathomable Irregular (3)
If the opponent was a new Marquis, it was worth attempting.
The four Viscounts who received Adrian's domain war challenge took the situation that way.
But it didn't take long to realize this was a misconception.
That was because they only regarded Adrian as a new Marquis, without taking his abilities into account.
"Order for 8 Sky Fortresses, order for 400 units of Vanguard-exclusive equipment, order for 400 Vanguard-exclusive hoverboards, order for 8 50-crew Vanguard high-speed combat support ships, order for 100 teleport artifacts, order for 4,000 sets of knight-use effect armor, order for 4,000 knight-use effect swords, order for 20 500-crew medium transport ships...."
"D-Do you mean to say this is the list of military supplies that lad purchased while going around the capital in a single day?"
Adrian's actions burning through 70 trillion lutes in the capital alone in one day could not go unnoticed even by the most poorly informed provincial lords.
The four Viscounts, gathered in one place to prepare a response, could only swallow dryly one after another at the unexpected urgent news.
-Boom!
"That bastard is really serious about this! A damn war!"
They had briefly doubted whether Adrian would actually go through with the domain war, but at this point, the four could only wear grim expressions.
"Spending 70 trillion on weapons in a single day he's genuinely insane."
"It's actually 140 trillion. 70 trillion was paid upfront, and the rest was put on installments."
"Wasn't that about the entire national defense budget of our kingdom last year?"
Adrian Lawrence was completely different from any other noble they had ever faced.
He was an unpredictable figure, beyond all common sense.
The Viscounts had to wrack their brains, admitting they had taken this situation far too lightly.
"B-But no matter how many weapons he buys, if he has no one to use them, it's all for nothing."
"That's true."
Their judgment was perfectly reasonable.
After all, Adrian, still a new lord, wouldn't have proper knights yet.
Both the Force Spears the main armament of the Sky Fortresses and the Vanguard's force equipment required knights who could handle aura to operate.
Moreover, having knights alone wasn't the end of it.
Each Sky Fortress required a crew of 100, so finding the manpower to operate them was also a major challenge.
But Viscount Rognier, the only woman among the four Viscounts, let out a sigh and voiced her thoughts while looking at her comrades who shared the same fate.
"Is that really so?"
"Viscount Rognier?"
"Has anything gone the way we expected since this mess started?"
"...."
"The opponent is someone you can't measure with common sense. A Grand Mage of all things surely he knows all of this."
They wanted to argue, but they couldn't.
Everything they had predicted so far was nothing more than a wish that Adrian would amount to nothing.
In that sense, Viscount Rognier's words dragged them back to reality.
"So you're saying we should accept what's in front of us as it is."
"I think it's best to assume the worst-case scenario. We can't keep floundering forever."
And then.
As if supporting Viscount Rognier's claim, Viscount Parma's counselor cautiously interjected.
"Actually, before Marquis Lawrence was granted his Title, he posted a knight recruitment notice through his SNS. The post, saying he wanted to work together, drew no fewer than 4,000 domestic and foreign comments."
"That happened? Acting like a lord before even being granted his title, how arrogant."
"Even without the Title, he was the young lord of House Viscount Lawrence, so it's justifiable."
"Ha, so that means we've fallen into a trap he set? Did he happen to be recruiting Sky Fortress crew as well?"
"Not that, no. However, Marquis Lawrence did acquire one mage tower and one artifact workshop today, and it seems likely he could make use of the mages and technicians there...."
In the end, it meant Viscount Rognier's guess was right.
The Viscounts let out deep sighs.
With this, if a domain war broke out, they would likely be facing the maximum military force the Marquis's domain could hold.
"We have 4 Sky Fortresses; they'll have 6."
"Our side has 200 Vanguards, theirs will have 300."
"And above all, their leader is a Grand Mage. If things go well, they could even bring in his fiancée, an Aura Master."
"Could they also form an alliance with Count Klein's house and Viscount Lawrence's house and attack us?"
If that happened, this wouldn't be a viable fight from the start.
If war broke out, it would be a one-sided massacre.
"This Domain War isn't between Marquis Lawrence's house and our four houses, is it? If that man drags in the surrounding domains, we can just scrape together allies as we please. Then it wouldn't be a Domain War but a civil war. And the royal family would never tolerate that."
"Do you think Marquis Lawrence would care about the royal family's reactions? He's the one who requested a Domain War right in front of His Majesty."
"Right, just like Marquis of Ereiven did to Marquis Lawrence, he could come at us with an 'attack first, think about the rest later' attitude."
"No, that's going too far. Even if he does something rash, if he can't clean up the aftermath, it'll only increase friction with the royal family. Even if he seems reckless, hasn't it been proven that everything he does is calculated? But clashing with His Majesty would be the worst move of all."
"I see."
"Either way, Marquis Lawrence probably thinks he can win with his own forces alone."
Even if an alliance is difficult, there's a high chance Arcia will participate alone in the capacity of his fiancée.
That was their final conclusion.
In other words, they had to face a greater number of Sky Fortresses and Vanguards by half, while also having to prepare against attacks from a Grand Mage and an Aura Master neither of which they had.
From here on, they just needed to build a response strategy based on that.
"...."
The heads of the four houses fell silent all at once.
"There's no way there's a countermeasure for an enemy like that, is there?"
"Ugh...."
The four of them had to let out groans simultaneously.
"What do we do when faced with a war we cannot win?"
1. Continue the war, plan carefully, and aim for one decisive strike.
2. Propose negotiation or a deal to prevent the war from happening.
3. Unconditional surrender.
Those were the only options they could come up with on the spot.
"Haah...."
Everyone clutched their heads.
Then, suddenly, a gleam of madness flashed through the eyes of Viscount Parma, who was hosting the meeting.
"Bring that bastard here!"
"Pardon?"
"I mean the one who caused all this!"
"Ah, you mean the young master. Understood."
Just as they were asking themselves, "Why must we suffer such humiliation?", they remembered that all of this was because of that young man.
* * *
Mediation requests were sent from the four viscount houses through the royal court.
The royal family also seemed to prefer resolving things with words rather than war, but I cleanly ignored their wishes.
If they didn't want war, what they should offer wasn't negotiations it was unconditional surrender.
"It's a hastily assembled force, but it's quite decent."
Lord's castle of Marinkov City, territory of Marquis Lawrence.
Watching the hastily assembled knight order from the castle observatory which felt more like a large resort than a castle I made that one remark.
"This isn't just decent. Assembling a knight order of this caliber in such a short time is a miracle. As expected of someone from the Riverdale school, Your Grace truly has remarkable insight."
"They're all people who came wanting to work with me. I'm lucky there are many who view me favorably."
Pesius who had become the temporary commander of Marquis Lawrence's knight order for this war, the former vice-commander of the Lawrence Knights, and the current Intelligence Chief gazed in admiration at the 300 Vanguard candidates undergoing power suit adaptation training.
I couldn't say I was 100% satisfied, but after carefully handpicking people, it turned out fairly presentable even as a hastily assembled knight order.
"Truly, my lord, you never cease to amaze people."
And standing beside Pesius, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, was a woman Baroness Helena, the security chief of Marinkov City, formerly a royal domain, and the commander of the dispatched knight order.
She was a high-ranking knight of the royal army, but she was obligated to serve me, the new lord, for the next two years.
It would've been nice if a seasoned figure like Baroness Helena could participate in the Domain War, but although her post was in Marinkov City within my territory, she belonged to the royal army and thus couldn't take part in the Domain War.
"Just a few days ago you brought in mass quantities of military supplies including Sky Fortresses and Vanguard equipment, and now you've even prepared knights in advance like this."
"Just lucky."
"How could this be luck? Isn't it all calculated underneath? Not a single thing you've done, my lord, has been without meaning."
That's overpraise.
I had sketched out a rough plan, but the fact that everything fell into place so perfectly that everyone marveled was thanks to a bit of luck being added on top.
In truth, the knight order recruitment notice had been posted with the intention of weeding out Anna and Cedric's people from the Viscounty of Lawrence.
It just so happened that far more people than expected had applied to transfer.
It was because I recalled, the moment I faced that old grudge, that I could mobilize those reserve knights that's how I was able to apply for the Domain War at the victory commemoration ceremony.
But to those who didn't know, all my actions seemed impulsive, yet since everything was prepared for, they assumed it was all calculated from start to finish.
Since they were kindly thinking well of me and I saw no need to over-explain, I cleared my throat and changed the subject as Baroness Helena and Pesius beside me looked on with sparkling eyes, marveling at me.
"What do you two think? Can they be deployed into the Domain War right away?"
"Yes, my lord. Thanks to you selecting experienced hires so well, there seems to be no problem."
"I share the same opinion."
I looked up at the sky, watching the two of them nod their heads vigorously.
And then I saw six alien black dots floating high above in the sky.
Those were the Sky Fortresses of my House of Marquis Lawrence, delivered to my territory the very day after purchase.
[Metal Fortress 1st Generation]
[Metal Fortress 2nd Generation]
[Metal Fortress 2nd Generation]
[Metal Fortress 2.5th Generation]
[Metal Fortress 2.5th Generation]
[Metal Fortress 3rd Generation]
The Sky Fortresses the King had bestowed with such pride turned out to be secondhand 1st-generation units used by the royal army.
What's more, they were the same model as the one I had self-destructed in our Viscounty of Lawrence, so for some reason they rubbed me the wrong way.
'If you're going to give them anyway, give the latest models. Giving me a discontinued model they don't even sell anymore.'
Well, even secondhand, Sky Fortresses don't depreciate much, so I supposed I should be grateful to get even those for free, but sitting among the shiny new ones, they somehow looked even more worn.
They had clearly been repainted before being sent, and there were no major performance issues, but once I started seeing them in a bad light, they kept nagging at me.
Since they were gifts from the King, I couldn't just dispose of them freely I'd have to use them for a few years and then, once they'd faded from people's memories, sell them cheap to a mid-sized territory I'd befriended.
Lowering my gaze next, I took in Marinkov, the central city of the Marquisate of Lawrence, visible below the observation deck.
'It's really big. By size alone, isn't it bigger than Seoul?'
Marinkov, a metropolis with a residential population of 5.2 million, was grander than Arenth of the Viscounty of Lawrence in every way.
Despite being too vast to take in at a single glance, there were dozens of skyscrapers over 100 floors visible right away, and the traffic of flying cars the symbol of wealth was considerable as well.
Furthermore, with one mid-sized city of a million people and two small cities of three to five hundred thousand as satellite cities, it was one of the top ten megacities in the Kingdom of Rhinehearts.
'At this scale, wouldn't even the King have been reluctant to give it away?'
It struck me anew, but looking down at the giant city, I finally felt the reality of becoming a great lord.
I smiled pleasantly and spoke.
"If there are no problems, we should get moving soon."
"Pardon?"
The meaning was the opposite of the refreshing words I had spoken.
To the two of them, who momentarily tilted their heads in confusion, I answered simply.
"We march."
"Wh-when do you mean to march?"
"Finish preparations within three hours, split the army into four, and march. We'll trap them in their territories so they can't join forces. Then the main force including Arcia and myself will conquer one territory each."
The two of them swallowed dryly.
I knew why they were flustered.
Even if there were no problems right now, my army was a hastily assembled force barely three days old, and we hadn't even received royal approval for the Domain War yet.
"But the royal "
"It's just a matter of sooner or later they'll approve it anyway. Until then, we'll use training as an excuse. It's a common pretext, isn't it?"
On Earth or in Rondel, moving an army and calling it training was the universal rule.
'Alright, onward march.'
This time, I wouldn't just give orders from a safe place I would join the battle directly alongside Arcia and show off our strength without reserve.
In the early days of taking power, isn't it the leader who leads from the front who wins over his subordinates' hearts?