Laying the Foundation (2)
The next day.
At the heart of the small castle standing in the center of Zeiland, Luna was introducing me to her subordinates.
"This is Swen. From today onward, he will serve as our army's strategist."
The two officers of the Luna Army regarded me with faintly complicated expressions.
Including myself, there were only four people belonging to this force.
One was an elderly man nearing seventy who handled political affairs — Cain Nerkis.
According to the lore, he was the man who had provided Luna with the capital she needed to raise an army and establish herself as a leader.
The other was the woman filling the general's position in Luna's army — Tifa.
A childhood friend of Luna's, she had thrown herself into the cause simply to help her friend. She was a somewhat one-dimensional character, but not the type to stab anyone in the back.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Cain Nerkis. Pay no mind to my age — treat me as you would anyone else. Ahem."
Cain was a white-haired man draped in a tattered robe. I shook the hand he offered, then extended my own toward Tifa beside him.
She seized my hand in her large grip, then tilted her head with a puzzled look.
"Name's Tifa. But Swen — you a woman or a man?"
"Pardon? Can't you tell just by looking? I'm a man."
"Then why's a guy got arms this white and skinny? Face is pretty too."
I never would have guessed it from the pixel-art sprites alone, but seeing her in the flesh, I could understand why she'd say something like that.
Her build was less that of a woman and more that of a warrior — solid, densely muscled. Her red hair was pulled up high for ease of movement, and the massive axe hanging at her back radiated a presence that made people instinctively shrink back.
She roughly pumped my arm a few more times, then grinned.
"Well, whatever. Looking forward to working with you, strategist buddy!"
Ugh. I already feel my energy getting drained.
We'd only exchanged greetings, and yet…
Was it because my Martial stat was low that my presence felt so weak? Something like that?
At any rate — these two were currently the only talents under the Lunarien Army.
Cain, high in Politics but mediocre in everything else. And Tifa, reasonably strong in Martial and Command, but not particularly bright.
That was the sum total of the Lunarien Army's talent pool.
Of course, both of them had enormous potential.
First, Cain. At a glance he looked like an ordinary old man content to while away his remaining years with idle pastimes — but in truth, his identity was that of the fallen emperor of the unified empire's younger brother, long rumored to be dead.
Driven to the brink of death by a power struggle, he had survived under a false name, scraping by until he sensed a faint possibility in Lunarien and began cooperating with her. That was the backstory.
In other words, this man was a blood relative of the Aingart family — the uncle of the infamous tyrant Serpina herself.
Later, just before dying of natural causes, he would reveal his true name and insert every descendant he had secretly left behind into the Lunarien Army. That list of descendants was nothing short of a dream team — SSS-tier characters, every last one of them — which made keeping him alive until his natural lifespan ran out more important than anything else.
Next was Tifa.
She looked like a brute, but she was one of the few special individuals on the continent capable of sensing the existence of mana.
This game, Garand Eternity Saga, was a freewheeling medieval-fantasy hybrid that never bothered much with historical accuracy — but even so, the profession of "mage" was not something that existed openly.
Cavalry beat archers, archers beat spearmen, spearmen beat cavalry. Combat ran on that extremely simple rock-paper-scissors mechanism. Being a classic game, it didn't have much depth beyond that either.
But that didn't mean magic itself was entirely absent.
A select few chosen individuals could sense the mana that existed across the continent and unleash miraculous attacks — bolts of lightning, meteors of flame, and the like.
Tifa was one of those people.
Her greatest distinction was that, despite being a combat-oriented general-type character, she could use magic. Every other mage in the game was an intelligence-type strategist character, and frankly, high intelligence suited the image of a mage better anyway.
In other words, her potential was to become the strongest general in practical terms — someone who could fight and cast magic both.
Of course, when exactly that ability would awaken had never been revealed. The community consensus boiled down to something like: "Just don't let Tifa die in the Lunarien Army, hang on somehow, and eventually she'll start using magic."
Given that the Lunarien Army's entire concept was that of a late-game powerhouse, it made sense that her only two subordinates shared a similar design philosophy.
Anyway.
Unless that late-game power could be unlocked right this moment, none of it was particularly useful information to me.
Left to the CPU in-game, the Luna Army would typically last about a year before a message popped up saying something like:
The Lunarien Army has vanished beyond the pages of history.
"Then let us begin this month's council. If anyone has thoughts on what we ought to do this month, speak freely. Should there be a duty you wish to take on, say so without hesitation."
Issue orders once a month; subordinates carry them out over the course of that month. The system was identical to Garand Eternity Saga.
At Sovereign Luna's words, Cain slowly raised his hand.
"My lord. I believe it would be wise, this time, to invest funds in the marketplace for the sake of commercial development."
Commercial development, huh.
When you first started the game, basic capital was naturally scarce. There were only two ways to make money: explore the surrounding areas, or invest in commerce to increase the monthly tax revenue.
In that sense, Cain's proposal was perfectly reasonable. Repeated exploration rarely yielded cash, and with a high-Politics character available, spinning up commerce would produce decent results.
"…Swen. What do you think?"
Luna fell into thought for a moment, then turned to me with the question.
I had asked two things of her: that she treat me as a subordinate whenever possible, and that she consult me on virtually every matter of any significance.
The first was fine enough — but the second was critical. To put my Intelligence 100 brain to use, I needed to receive questions in some form.
And the answer came quickly.
Assigning Cain to commerce will produce reasonably solid results.
But.
Let me think about how I used to play the Lunarien Army.
Truthfully, Luna wasn't a sovereign I'd played all that often. After succeeding with the late-game powerhouse concept exactly once, I'd found it boring and never touched her again. Before the power spike, the game was hard enough to make you clutch your head — after it, everything became far too easy.
So I couldn't treat my play experience as absolute gospel. But using it as a reference point? That seemed fine enough.
"…My lord. May I offer an opinion?"
"Speak."
"Rather than commerce, I believe it would be better to order Lord Cain to fortify and repair the castle walls in preparation for enemy attack."
"…?"
Cain looked at me with clear bewilderment.
"See here, Swen, was it? I'm flattered by the overestimation, but… repairing castle walls requires someone who can personally lead the soldiers from the front. Do you really think the able-bodied men doing the work would happily follow an old man like me?"
Hearing Cain's words, I could sense how the game's actual command system translated into reality.
In this game, repairing walls well required high Martial. Conversely, producing results in commerce required high Politics.
It was an extremely simple mechanism where outcomes were determined purely by the relevant stat numbers — so I'd never once thought about how those numbers actually applied on a work site.
Cain's low Martial meant he couldn't produce good results, and the in-world justification was apparently something plausible like: because he lacks physical strength, the workers don't follow his orders well.
Still, I can't just grow commerce for no reason.
There was only one reason I'd ordered the repairs.
This city was destined to be taken no matter what.
No matter how desperately we conscripted, trained, and developed commerce with this talent pool, this city — Zeiland — was fated to fall to the nearby Brans Army.
Lin Brans, sovereign of the Brans Army, was quite the expansionist. That much was as good as predetermined.
In that case, rather than foolishly developing the marketplace and handing over a highly developed city — it was far wiser to shore up the walls, put on a show of holding out, and buy time to escape.
This wasn't delusion. It was the exact same exploit I'd used when I actually played as Lunarien.
If a great power was nearby, run as far as you could. When you reached a region with so little merit that the great power wouldn't bother looking at it, dig in and hold on somehow.
Since the game applied different modifiers every time and the positions of nations and quality of territories weren't fixed, it couldn't serve as an absolute strategy guide — but the basic operational principles never changed.
Luna seemed not entirely convinced by my recommendation to have Cain repair the walls, but she eventually nodded.
"…Very well. Then what of Tifa?"
"Me? Just give me whatever. I'll do anything. Want me to go fix walls with the old man?"
"Swen. I ask you — what duty would be best for Tifa?"
Well, I could just tell her to repair the walls together like she said. A full-speed retreat was already a locked-in future, after all.
Still, since I'd been asked, I ought to check.
What should I assign Tifa?
Once again, my Intelligence 100 brain derived the most perfect conclusion with remarkable speed.
Commerce.
"…???"
What?
Commerce?
No matter how many times I ran it through, the conclusion was always the same.
Tifa must be assigned a commerce-related duty.
…Huh.
No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't understand it. But I trusted my Intelligence stat.
In this game, Intelligence 100 only ever spoke the truth. And as long as this place was the world inside the game, that condition was absolute.
"…Swen?"
"Ah — forgive me. I was thinking."
I met Luna's, Cain's, and Tifa's eyes in turn… then spoke in a tone of absolute gravity, making it clear this was no joke.
"Lady Tifa — I would ask that you devote yourself to commerce and develop the marketplace."