05. I'll Have to Teach Him a Lesson.
“Do you have any idea who I am?!”
“Let go of me! I swear I'll snap that bastard's neck!”
Shouts echoed across the training grounds of the North.
Yet the number of soldiers and knights who paid the commotion any mind was remarkably small.
It was, after all, an everyday occurrence.
So common, in fact, that the soldiers and knights garrisoned in the North had taken to using those very screams as a way to keep track of the passing days.
Hopeless degenerates from every corner of the empire were funneled into this place.
Gathered here against their will, each for their own reasons, their grievances had no outlet — and so their fury had nowhere to go but at each other's throats.
Two thugs from some nameless barony seized each other by the collar and began rolling around the training grounds.
Having only ever thrown punches within the safety of their own family estates, neither of them could manage even a proper stance, flailing at each other with sloppy, undisciplined swings.
But to the watching knights, that only made it better entertainment.
Fights between bottom-feeders were always the funniest kind.
Asilie threaded her way through the knot of knights who were snickering at the two thugs' bloody brawl, exhaling a small breath as she walked.
“Break it up — just make sure neither of them gets seriously hurt.”
“At once, Your Highness the Grand Duchess.”
She couldn't simply leave them be, after all. If she did, their families would never stay quiet about it.
There was, of course, the option of crushing them under the authority of the Grand Duchy, but every complaint from petty houses like those added up, and could delay the supply shipments even further.
Besides, once families sent their sons here like this, they had no choice but to send supplies along with them, whether they liked it or not.
Asilie lowered her head and quickened her pace.
She had no intention of standing around watching their ugly squabble any longer. The knights and soldiers could blow off steam watching this sort of thing, but Asilie wasn't built that way.
If anything, the state of the supplies was already making her head throb.
'I could make do with the escort knights that came attached to the new personnel, but…'
The supply shipment this time had been pitifully small.
Perhaps only the degenerates their families had properly given up on had been sent, but the amount of supplies that arrived fell far short of what the escort knights accompanying them required.
The food and clothing supplied by the military were cheap dregs — and catering to the spiteful sensibilities of nobles who wouldn't so much as touch such things demanded even more supplies still.
'What a headache.'
Outwardly, she showed no crack — but Asilie was still young.
Too young, at least, to command the entirety of the North on her own. She had been muddling through up to now, but the later and thinner the supplies came, the deeper her anxiety dug in.
'No.'
But such thoughts lasted only a moment.
Head bowed, Asilie walked on at a slow, deliberate pace, shaking off the dread.
She was a member of the Grand Ducal house that ruled the North. This was no time for her to be mouthing such weak-willed words.
She could not afford to show weakness to anyone.
The heavy burden resting on her shoulders was not something she could hand off to another.
So absorbed in that thought as she walked, Asilie was forced to a stop when something caught her eye.
“Y-Your Highness!”
“……What is it?”
A vast line of wagons, and the considerable cargo loaded aboard them.
The situation looked anything but ordinary at a glance, and as Asilie frowned and questioned him, a soldier came sprinting up, gasping for breath, and blurted out his report.
“S-Supplies… supplies from the Imperial Palace have arrived!”
“……Supplies?”
The imperial court had sent supplies.
“Did they send a full year's worth at once?”
Supplies arrived on a fixed cycle, and a shipment of this size could easily pass for an entire year's allotment.
As she murmured in a dazed voice, Asilie's expression sharpened the moment she spotted the knight standing at the head of the supply column.
“I greet the commander of the North, Her Highness the Grand Duchess.”
“Welcome. What is the meaning of this sudden arrival?”
“This is the supply sent by Her Highness the First Princess.”
“……The Princess?”
At the knight's words, Asilie's face twisted into something almost grotesque.
Not the imperial court — the Princess herself had personally sent supplies?
The Princess had never once spared the North so much as a glance. What wind on earth had blown her way?
Unable to make sense of the situation, Asilie pressed the question, and the knight, still impeccably formal, continued.
“There was a message from Her Highness the Princess.”
“Speak it.”
"To you who bear the burden of the empire's front lines, I extend boundless gratitude and praise for your service, and send the supplies necessary to maintain the front."
No matter that Asilie was the commander of the North — this was a member of the Imperial Family.
As Asilie placed her hand over her left breast, above the crest of the empire emblazoned there, the knight spoke on in a reverent posture.
"These supplies were selected and dispatched at the request of Lord Allen Devert, heir of Count Devert, bound for the front lines. May the gods grant blessings upon the eternity of the empire and upon the road ahead of you all."
“……Devert? Was the Count's heir here?”
“He was not.”
Asilie simply could not comprehend the Princess's message.
This was no scheduled shipment — it was the Princess's personal contribution to the North, and it had supposedly been arranged at the request of the Devert heir, who wasn't even present?
'……What in the world is this?'
Could the world be playing a trick on her?
But Asilie shook off the thought, drawing a long, deep breath.
“Adjutant.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“See to the organization of the supplies. With this much volume coming in, sort it thoroughly so that nothing goes unrecorded, and arrange quarters for the Imperial Knights.”
“Understood.”
“You've had a long journey. Go inside and rest well.”
“Thank you for your consideration.”
She didn't know the reason, but supplies had arrived, and that alone was cause for hope.
The matter of the Devert heir and the Princess could be investigated in due time.
Just as Asilie, having thus organized the situation in her mind, narrowed her eyes and surveyed the long procession of incoming cargo—
Thud. Thud.
A single horse was walking calmly into the fortress, straight through the middle of the supply column.
No escort, no accompanying wagons — a man riding a black steed passed through the gates without the slightest hesitation.
“……Who is that?”
At a glance.
He was no ordinary man.
His posture in the saddle, the air about him — all of it.
Slowly entering through the gate amid the bellowing of thugs and the frantic bustle of soldiers, he glanced around and drew back the hood of his cloak. Blond hair caught the northern sunlight and gleamed, and as his cool, deep blue eyes swept the surroundings, they found Asilie — standing still and watching him — and he broke into a broad smile.
“Finally here.”
Allen Devert brushed the snow from his shoulder and vaulted lightly down from the black horse.
Landing gracefully on the ground, he patted the horse's flank a few times and then walked slowly toward her.
Asilie watched him approach, her expression hardening.
She had never seen that face before. And yet no one had moved to stop him.
In a way, it made sense. Allen was walking far too calmly, and the surroundings were in such an uproar that no one thought to question his presence.
On top of that, a natural, imposing pressure radiated from his body, pressing down on everything around him.
An aura that made approach difficult — and so, without quite realizing it, everyone kept their distance from him.
Everyone except Asilie, standing at the end of his path.
“A pleasure, Commander.”
“Who might you be?”
Arriving before her, Allen answered her question with a natural salute, one hand placed over his left breast.
“Allen Devert, heir of the House of Devert — recently enlisted in the North of my own volition.”
Graceful in his movements, with a voice as smooth as butter on the tongue.
“I received no such report.”
But Asilie's reply remained cold.
She had seen far too many of his kind here before.
Men who, unwilling to come to the North, dragged their feet and showed up later than everyone else — then lied to her about having volunteered, all glitter and no substance.
These people almost always had one purpose.
Pretending to serve the North was merely a show — a performance staged to win the heart of Asilie, the daughter of the Grand Ducal house and its next ruler. There was never just one or two of them.
And the majority of such men fled the North at the earliest opportunity, running as if from a fire.
All polish on the surface, hollow within — surviving in this brutal North was simply beyond them.
Perhaps sensing the weight of her gaze, Allen merely shrugged and calmly drew a letter from inside his coat.
“Signed directly by the Imperial Palace. See for yourself.”
“……”
Asilie unfolded the documents he handed over.
Sealed with the imperial crest, the papers confirmed that Allen Devert had been officially posted to the Northern front.
“……Welcome to the North, then.”
Still unconvinced, Asilie nonetheless opened her mouth slowly and offered her words of welcome.
To her, the most troublesome sort was never these vulgar brawlers.
It was the kind who fawned at her side from morning to night, desperately trying to win her favor.
They never retreated easily.
Even so, there was nothing she could do about it.
She could not drive him out on mere suspicion alone.
But if.
If he showed even the slightest sign of playing games—
'I'll have to teach him a proper lesson.'
The North was not a place that forgave.