episode_0009

There’s a saying that some people draw attention just by walking around.

Whether it’s their striking looks or attention-grabbing actions, it’s a cliché expression often slapped onto the most eye-catching person in a crowd.

At the very least, in today’s mock battle arena, the one drawing all eyes was undoubtedly her.

The Imperial Princess, Charlotte Laura von Ahenmetis.

The eldest daughter of the current Emperor and the younger sister of the Crown Prince.

Status, beauty, grace, intellect—she lacked nothing. One could say she was a woman blessed by the gods themselves.

Naturally, when such a princess appeared in the unlikely setting of a mock battle arena, there were always one or two who approached her.

Some came out of pure curiosity, while others harbored ulterior motives.

To their utterly mundane attention, she always responded with nothing more than a slight upturn of her lips.

“Nice to meet you. Since we’ve run into each other like this, how about a match?”

And the fate of the moths drawn to the honor of facing the princess in a mock battle was always the same.

“Gyaaaaah!!”

“Hwaaaaah!!”

Either getting surrounded by infantry and beaten to a pulp with maces at the last moment or being shattered into a disgraceful mess after receiving an “out-of-nowhere lance charge shock” from cavalry.

The victims ranged from lowerclassmen who had wandered in out of curiosity to upperclassmen who had already lost to her once. Even newly enrolled majors were no exception, all receiving the same farewell.

“That was a good match. I won, didn’t I?”

The only ones who didn’t get utterly crushed were the seniors.

After all, one or two years of experience couldn’t be ignored. They pushed her back with solid fundamentals or occasionally threw her off balance with cunning tactics.

Rumors even spread somewhere, leading one senior to practice handling centaurs just to challenge her.

But even they, once caught in the princess’s ghostly staggered reinforcements, would inevitably crumble under the hooves of the Empire’s heavy cavalry.

‘This method has its limits, after all.’

Lightly armored horse archers would inevitably collapse if pushed into close combat.

That’s how it was in the history books she’d read, and that’s what today’s lecture had confirmed.

Stay calm, hold the line, and wait for them to exhaust themselves—or corner them so they have nowhere to run.

‘The Conqueror supposedly built fortresses along every advance route, controlling their movements across entire plains to herd them in.’

So she wanted to test this countermeasure she’d internalized on the very person who had defeated her.

And she wanted to show everyone—show him—her victory over him.

‘Instead, he just showed me dwarves and then used the very tactic I was planning to use against me. Seriously?’

But not only did that man flee from a direct confrontation, he even beat her again.

Her match against Baron Hevel, the one who had defeated her last time, had gone like this:

By all rights, she should have been the one holding the line, while Baron Hevel pushed forward—only for him to fall into her counterattack.

But instead, she had been the one pushing forward, only to be countered.

Had he deliberately brought that tactic knowing this?

No, he didn’t seem the type. If he were, he wouldn’t have dared to ask for a lady’s handkerchief.

That part was frustrating.

‘If you’re going to make me lose like that, you should at least take responsibility and show me a more impressive way to do it!’

Of course, the match had been fun, but looking back, there were things that hadn’t gone as she’d expected.

Carrying this vague irritation, she spent hours accepting challenges from anyone who met her eyes.

“Want to go again?”

“N-no… I have an appointment… My deepest apologies, Your Highness!”

Eventually, even the last challenger fled in exhaustion, leaving the arena building—both upper and lower floors—completely empty.

Left with no choice, she pouted and muttered under her breath.

“……How boring.”

Some were skilled, others weren’t. But today, once again, no one showed her anything new.

And with that came the regret of wasted time.

‘Maybe I should’ve dragged Baron Hevel here after all.’

Part of her wanted to storm into his quarters right now, drag him out, and force him into endless matches until he spilled every last trick in his head.

She also wanted to defeat the one who had beaten her—by any means necessary.

‘But that man… I think he’s ignoring me.’

He might think he’s hiding it well, but there’s no way the Imperial Princess wouldn’t notice the look of dread in his eyes every time she made an offer.

She’d grown up surrounded by people far better at masking their expressions—did he really think she wouldn’t catch on?

She’d tried her best to be friendly, but he kept acting like this.

‘I, of all people, go out of my way to talk to him, and all I get are half-hearted answers and him scrambling to get away? Unbelievable.’

And from the princess’s perspective, there was another way she felt defeated—what had happened this morning.

‘How can you brush off my offer like that, then immediately accept someone else’s without hesitation…?’

Baron Hevel had tried to clumsily gloss over it, but anyone would’ve noticed.

No one had pressured them, yet suddenly, overnight, the professors unanimously agreed to accept a new student?

Even if she had personally persuaded each professor, it wouldn’t have happened this fast.

This had to be the work of an insider at the professor level, who had arranged everything in advance so the candidate only needed to stamp the paperwork.

And the conclusion was obvious: the one who had persuaded Baron Hevel wasn’t her, but that person.

Yet instead of showing any interest in her, he just gave her some stale excuse.

‘……Infuriating.’

How many humiliations had that man inflicted on her in less than a month?

‘How do I drag him out? Sweet-talking doesn’t seem to work.’

Lost in thoughts of revenge, the princess’s mind was now entirely consumed by the idea of crushing him.

That’s when it happened.

“So if we do it like that…, uh.”

“Hm? Your Highness…?”

The very man who had caused her frustration—along with his lord—appeared before her eyes, as if fate itself were playing a joke.

“……What brings you here?”

Not that I could ask that.

When I ran into the princess wandering alone in the deserted academy arena, I had to bite back the urge to scream.

Because for a second, I thought she was a ghost.

No, more importantly—why was she alone?

“I came to have a mock battle with Baron Hevel. Call it practice preparation.”

“……I see.”

‘……Why do I feel cold?’

It was spring in Schponheim—far from the Siberian high’s cruel tricks—so why did I suddenly feel a late frost? No one could say.

Or rather, maybe my plans had just gone awry…?

“Mind if I watch?”

“I don’t mind, but…”

Of course, our Margrave would only refuse if it involved crime, insult, or dishonor. And if the higher-ups allowed it, the lower-ups had no right to object.

“It won’t be very entertaining.”

“That’s fine. Everyone else disappeared, so I was getting bored anyway.”

“……You really don’t know where they all went? Why is there no one even on the lower floors…?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

The princess answered dismissively and casually took a seat, as if daring me to say something. I found her attitude odd but soon led the Margrave to our positions.

“Then… shall we test what I explained on the way here?”

“Yes, let’s!”

The Margrave replied enthusiastically. Soon, our consciousnesses were pulled into the simulation screen, arriving at a battlefield where two roughly assembled armies faced off.

The troop composition was identical—both sides had 2,000 soldiers: imperial infantry, cavalry, and archers.

‘Alright, let’s get straight to it. What was the concept I explained earlier?’

‘Reserves.’

‘Right. Ideally, you’d deploy every unit in the perfect position. If 2,000 could attack 1,000 at once, the battle would end immediately. But reality doesn’t work that way.’

There’s something called Lanchester’s laws.

Strip away the complex math, and it boils down to this: when more of your troops are engaged in combat than the enemy’s, you fight more efficiently.

Simpler still, it’s just a formalized way of saying that ganging up on the enemy more often gives you an advantage.

If you could always maximize this, victory would be guaranteed—but terrain, weapons, and countless other factors make that impossible.

Hence, the concept of reserves.

Units held back from the initial fighting, ready to intervene as reinforcements when needed.

‘A commander without reserves is but a spectator to the great drama of battle.’

As Frederick the Great—whose words are often quoted when explaining this—put it, reserves are like a general’s extra cards in battle.

But no amount of explanation can substitute for firsthand experience.

‘Alright, let’s say my troops and Your Excellency’s are clashing like this.’

I sent one infantry unit forward to engage the Margrave’s infantry in close combat.

Soon, well-equipped soldiers with swords and shields were brawling.

‘If this drags on, the side with higher skill and a wider formation—letting more soldiers fight at once—will win.’

‘Naturally.’

My infantry were lined up eight per row, while the Margrave’s had twelve.

So, by simple math, the first row would be twelve against eight.

Of course, formations break down over time, scrambling those ratios.

‘So would I just sit back and do nothing?’

‘Of course not. You’d send reinforcements.’

‘Correct. But if every unit is already fighting somewhere… what then? You’d have no reinforcements to send.’

Next, I sent my two remaining infantry units to engage the Margrave’s other two.

Now the infantry were all busy wrestling, trading insults with the enemies in front of them.

‘Right. You can’t just pull units out of an ongoing fight.’

‘It’s not impossible, but if I order a unit already in combat to reinforce another, the enemy unit it was fighting won’t just stand still.’

To demonstrate, I pulled one unit back to support a losing fight. The Margrave’s unit followed, encircling mine instead.

‘Ah! Now your reinforcing unit is trapped between my forces at a disadvantage.’

‘And without reserves, I’m stuck in this losing position. If I’d started with the advantage, maybe it wouldn’t matter.’

Honestly, the only reason I understood reserves so well was, unsurprisingly, thanks to that game.

If you play a faction with strong baseline troops, you can just throw them at the enemy one by one and win—no need for reserves.

But weaker factions need to pin down enemy units and then disrupt them with fast reserves.

Otherwise, you might as well just pray over a bowl of water.

In campaigns where heavy infantry factions dominate, reserves are hard to come by. There’s even a famous anecdote about two heavy infantry armies still fighting after their players took a lunch break.

‘In the end, even the hammer-and-anvil tactic is about reserves. The cavalry acting as the hammer are the reserves.’

‘But reserves mean holding back troops, no? The question is how much to hold back…’

‘It varies, but I’d say one unit out of three. With two, you can roughly match three units if you stretch your lines.’

As we discussed, I explained the concepts that had been unclear to him before…

‘You’re explaining this in more detail than I expected.’

Suddenly, an outside voice interrupted our session.

Normally, external comms were reserved for emergencies—using them for personal chatter was considered poor form.

But the one who barged in was none other than our disgruntled spectator, the princess.

‘I’m joining too. No hogging the fun.’

And with that, she dropped her bombshell.