The Game Begins
“Franz. There is money for you.”
One day, Father said it out of nowhere.
“Money?”
“Lord Henrik von Sepia has granted the Meyer family both coin and territory.”
“Well… he did order us to rise in rank, so a reward isn’t strange.”
“The territory will be absorbed into the house. The money, however, I have decided to hand over to you in full.”
That surprised me a little. I didn’t know Father well, but I had assumed a reward bestowed on the family would be spent at the family level.
“I can really use it however I want?”
“Of course. Wherever you wish—spend it freely.”
“If you insist…”
Asilia came forward and handed me a chest packed with gold coins. I nearly lost my balance under the weight of it, yet carried the gold back to my room with a quiet, swelling pride.
“Where am I supposed to spend all this gold…”
I counted the coins in the chest. Five hundred ducats. An enormous sum.
What should I do with it? I could buy pretzels for twenty years straight. Of course, if I actually did that, word would spread that I was an idiot. Nobles were sensitive about face.
“It’s too much to spend alone…”
Wait. Too much to spend alone? Then…
A short while later, I went to Lucill’s room.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Come in.”
At her word I opened the door. For once, Lucill was not reading. Instead—
Click-clack. Click-clack.
She was playing with a cube.
“What’s that? A toy?”
I asked as if I didn’t know. Lucill answered without looking up.
“It’s a cube. Helps with brainstorming. Good for when your mind wanders.”
Most people didn’t wander off while solving a cube, but never mind.
No sooner had she spoken than the scrambled colors snapped into uniform faces—the instant she decided the game was over.
Is there anything this kid can’t do?
Watching Lucill finish the cube in a blink, I sat down in mild disbelief.
“What is it?”
She set the solved cube on the table and took the chair across from me. I asked her,
“If you came into money, what would you spend it on first?”
“The family library.”
“Mm.”
“There are a lot of worn books. I’ve already made a list. I’d replace all of them with new ones first.”
“Then shall we?”
Lucill’s eyes went wide.
“Pardon?”
“The family’s old books. Let’s replace them with new ones.”
“…You came into money?”
“Yes. The lord granted it.”
“Directly to you, Brother?”
“No. To the house.”
“Then why is it in your hands?”
“Father seems to have given it to me as my reward for the campaign.”
“…”
Lucill lowered her head and began to think in earnest. That grave expression overwhelmed me for a moment. I had never seen her look like that. Even in the last battle she had been expressionless.
“What’s wrong?”
“Unfortunately, I’ll have to set aside the dream of a new library.”
“What? Why?”
“Brother—when do you want to inherit the headship?”
Suddenly we were talking about succession. How was I supposed to answer that? More to the point, why was she asking out of nowhere? Had Father put her up to it?
No. Lucill being Father’s plant was out of the question. She was entirely on my side. Maybe that was only what I wanted to believe—but I refused to believe my little sister would side with Father just to test me. So I answered honestly.
“The sooner the better, right?”
“Yes. I think so too. You’re capable, and a decent person in your own way.”
In my own way? Still, a compliment was a compliment. It felt good.
“So what does that have to do with anything?”
“If you use this money to replace the library’s contents, Father will delay handing you the headship for as long as he can.”
“What? Why?”
“Because this money was given to you in the first place to test how you spend it.”
Ah.
Only then did I feel the full weight of my own stupidity. The relief that the crisis had passed had left me soft; I had forgotten I was the eldest son of a noble house. That I was being tested—always, everywhere…
“If you spend this money for the Meyers, Father will give you a passing grade. But not for the family library. That wouldn’t be for the Meyers. That would be for Lucill.”
“Well… true.”
“Spend it on the library, and Father will decide you’re still far from ready for the headship and put it off as long as possible. He’ll push himself until his body gives out.”
“…I suppose he would.”
“So what will you do now?”
I looked up at an empty sky. All I saw was the ceiling. Still, it steadied me.
“I have an idea.”
It wasn’t really mine, but people say history has no copyright, don’t they? I intended to steal an idea from history.
The next day, a merchant called at Meyer Castle.
“Thank you for your patronage.”
What the merchant left behind was a thousand pikes, along with bows, ordinary spears, halberds, and other arms.
Yes. My five hundred ducats had been converted into weapons.
I had summoned the merchant under exclusive contract with the house and bought arms in bulk—pikes at the center of it.
“Pikes…?”
Lucill looked startled.
“That’s right. Pikes. What do you think?”
“Pikes appear mainly in the histories of the ancient empire. Back then, most infantry were pikemen, apparently.”
“Right?”
“But pikes in an age like this… people will think you’ve gone mad for ancient imperial history.”
I gave a short laugh.
Pikemen were certainly a troop type from antiquity. But—
“In about two years, you’ll understand what I’m thinking.”
They would raise their heads again in the Renaissance era.
Because of nothing other than the arrival of the musket.
The house soldiers drilled by thrashing one another with pikes whose tips had been packed with cotton instead of blades.
A thousand pikes, purchased on a sudden whim by the family heir. Noble society reacted with lines like, “Pikemen from a thousand years ago, showing up here?” and “He calls himself a strategist, but all that reading has him over-immersed in ancient history.”
Even the head of house, Georg Meyer—our father—watched with a touch of worry in his eyes. But the pikes were already bought, and this was the opinion of the next head who had earned merit in battle, so the mood was to follow along for now.
“I hear there’s a famous mercenary company in the western mountains of the Empire that uses pikemen.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Did you borrow the idea from them?”
“That’s part of it. But I have something else in mind as well.”
“And what is that?”
“You’ll find out in two years.”
“Two years…?”
He looked puzzled.
Of course he would. He had no way of knowing that from two years on, the pike would become the mainstay of the battlefield.
Either way, the training of pikemen proceeded steadily. The drill rate was not bad.
Two years passed. Lucill turned thirteen. I turned nineteen.
And the long-awaited day arrived.
“Three, two, one.”
The clock struck midnight. The date turned over. Today was the day.
“Leona’s coming-of-age ceremony.”
The day the first scenario of Arcadia Tactics began. The twenty-sixth of January, year 547. The coming-of-age of the game’s protagonist, Leona von Kruzenstein.
Arcadia Tactics was a game with a thousand characters. But the protagonist was fixed. Leona von Kruzenstein—everyone’s first character, and the only one available the moment you started.
Leona von Kruzenstein. Sound familiar? She was the heir of the Kruzenstein family we had gone to war with not long ago.
And today was the day that heir came of age—and the period when the game began.
“The game has started.”
From this point on, every piece of information was in my hands.
My era was coming.
Three days later.
The Meyer family was holding a party.
“Peace should hold for a while now.”
“Indeed, my lord.”
Father was smiling for the first time in ages, and the retainers’ mood had loosened considerably as well.
It was only natural. The Kruzenstein family—rivals of House Sepia—had fractured as of three days prior.
“To think the White Lion of Kruzenstein would do such a thing!”
Father laughed in high spirits.
“Blinded by love for his wife and children, no doubt.”
The retainers laughed just as freely.
They had every reason to. An enemy’s blunder was an ally’s gain.
On the twenty-sixth of January, 547—the coming-of-age and investiture of Leona von Kruzenstein, heir of House Kruzenstein. As the eldest daughter, Leona von Kruzenstein ought to have inherited every domain. Instead, the head of Kruzenstein had split the house evenly between Leona von Kruzenstein and her younger sibling, Clozel von Kruzenstein.
Split it evenly—and expect them to rule evenly? Of course they would fight each other to the death for the whole.
Civil war would break out in House Kruzenstein before long. Believing that, the people of House Meyer decided to enjoy a stretch of peace.
Without knowing what kind of person Leona von Kruzenstein truly was.