The Unpredictable Irregular (3)
Adrian Lawrence looked at the four barons who had applied for a territory war against him. If they were his opponents, they were worth testing.
The four barons had accepted the situation calmly.
But it would not take long for them to realize it was a misunderstanding.
It was because they saw Adrian only as the new duke and never considered the power he truly held.
“Activate eight Sky Fortresses. Order 400 Vanguard-exclusive equipment. Order 400 Vanguard-exclusive hoverboards. Order eight 50-person Vanguard high-speed combat support ships. Order 100 teleport artifacts. Order 4000 effect armors for use with mechs. Order 4000 effect swords for use with mechs. Order 20 medium transport ships for 500 people…”
“Th-this really is the list of military supplies the bastard purchased in the capital today?”
Even a low-information local lord would not miss the fact that Adrian had spent 70 trillion routes in military supplies in just one day in the capital.
The four barons who had gathered in one place to prepare a response all swallowed dry saliva at the unexpected news.
*Kwaang!*
“The bastard really intends to do it! He’s going to start a damn war!”
Adrian had been suspected of claiming a territory war, but now everyone could read the exhaustion on their faces.
“A million weapons bought in one day? He really is insane.”
“Precisely 140 trillion. The first 70 trillion was prepaid, and the rest was arranged on installments.”
“Wasn’t the total defense budget of our entire kingdom around that amount last year?”
Adrian Lawrence was nothing like the other nobles they had faced before.
He was an unpredictable figure who operated beyond common sense.
The barons had to rack their brains for why they had underestimated this situation.
“But no matter how many weapons are purchased, if there is no one to use them, it is all for nothing, isn’t it?”
“That is true.”
Their judgment was extremely rational.
There would be no proper knights yet for the new lord Adrian.
Even the main weapons of the Sky Fortress, the Force Armor and Force Swords, required knights who could handle Aura to operate.
Moreover, having knights was not the end.
A single Sky Fortress required up to 100 crew members, so securing personnel to operate them would be another enormous task.
But among the four barons, only Lady Ronia, the sole female baron, let out a long sigh while looking at her colleagues who shared the same fate.
“Is that really the case?”
“Baron Ronia?”
“Was there even one thing that went according to our expectations during this mess?”
“….”
“Opponents are people you cannot apply common sense to. A Grand Magus or something, how could he not know such things?”
They wanted to object, but they could not.
All the predictions they had made so far were nothing more than hopes that Adrian would turn out to be ordinary.
In that sense, Baron Ronia’s words pulled them back to reality.
“We should simply accept what we see as it is.”
“Considering the worst possible outcome seems better. We cannot just keep wavering forever.”
At that moment, as if supporting Baron Ronia’s claim, the advisor from the Farnma Marquisate cautiously interjected.
“Actually, before Lord Lawrence received his title, there was an online job posting for knights via his diary (SNS). The post attracted over four thousand comments from domestic and foreign applicants who wanted to work together.”
“Such a thing happened? Acting like a lord even before receiving the title so arrogantly.”
“Even without the title, he was a viscount, so it is not unreasonable.”
“Ha, so we have fallen into his trap? Did he also recruit Sky Fortress crew members?”
“It was not that. However, Lord Lawrence acquired one magic tower and one artifact production company today, so we might be able to make use of the mages and technicians here…”
In the end, Baron Ronia’s speculation was correct.
The barons all let out deep sighs.
If a territory war broke out, they would face the maximum power the new duke’s territory could muster.
“We have four Sky Fortresses on this side, while they have six.”
“The number of Vanguards is 200 on our side and 300 on theirs.”
“And most importantly, their leader is a Grand Magus. If things go well, he might even recruit his fiancée, an Aura Master.”
“Could the Clearback Count’s family and the Lawrence viscount’s family also form an alliance and attack us on their side?”
If that were the case, this would not be a battle that could even be called possible from the start.
A one-sided slaughter would occur if war broke out.
“This territory war was not between the Lawrence duke’s family and our four houses. If the bastard draws in surrounding territories, we should gather all our allies as well. Then it will not be a territory war but a civil war. The royal family will never tolerate that.”
“Will Lord Lawrence care about the royal family’s gaze? He is the one who submitted an application for territory war right in front of the King.”
“Yes, just as Raven Marquess did to Lord Lawrence, he might say to attack first and worry about the aftermath later.”
“No, that seems too far. Even if we strike first, if there is no follow-up, the friction with the royal family will only increase. The fact that the bastard’s every move is calculated has already been revealed. But friction with the King is the worst of the worst.”
“Indeed.”
“Anyway, Lord Lawrence probably thinks he can win with his own power alone.”
Even if an alliance was difficult, there was a high chance that his fiancée Arsia would participate alone as his fiancée.
This was the final conclusion they had reached.
In other words, they would have to fight against more Sky Fortresses and Vanguards, and they would also have to prepare for attacks from the Grand Magus and Aura Master they did not have.
From now on, they would have to formulate a response strategy based on this.
“…”
The lords of the four houses fell silent at the same time.
“There is no way to deal with such an enemy, is there?”
“Ugh…”
The four of them let out groaning sounds at the same time.
“What should we do when facing a war we cannot win?”
1. Continue the war, plan a strategy and aim for a decisive blow.
2. Propose negotiation or trade to prevent the war from breaking out.
3. Unconditional surrender.
These were the only opinions they could offer at the moment.
“Haa…”
Everyone was racking their brains.
Suddenly, the eyes of Farnma Marquisate’s host, who was providing the meeting place, flashed with madness.
“Bring that bastard here!”
“What?”
“The cause of all this!”
“Ah, you mean young master’s words. Understood.”
When they were questioning why they had to endure such humiliation, they remembered that everything had stemmed from that son.
* * *
Through the royal family, mediation requests came from the four baronial houses.
The royal family also seemed to prefer that this be resolved through words rather than war if possible, but I completely ignored their wishes.
If they truly hated war, what they should have done was not to propose negotiation but to surrender unconditionally.
“Although hastily assembled, it is quite decent.”
From the lord’s residence in Marin Kopp city, the headquarters of the Lawrence duke’s territory.
I watched the hastily assembled knight corps from the lord’s residence observation deck, which looked more like a large resort moved in place.
“One word: it is decent.”
“It is not just decent. Assembling a force of this size in such a short time is a miracle. Just as Reverend Reverbail always has, your Excellency seems to possess extraordinary insight.”
“Everyone came here saying they wanted to work with me. It is fortunate that there are many people who look favorably upon us.”
From the Lawrence knight corps, the full former commander and current intelligence chief Pessius, who was temporarily leading the Lawrence knight corps for this war, looked at the 300 Vanguard candidates undergoing Force Armor adaptation training and let out a sigh of admiration.
It was not 100% to his liking, but after carefully selecting and recruiting people, the hastily assembled knight corps looked surprisingly presentable.
“You really make people surprised many times, my lord.”
Beside me stood Pessius, and there was a woman whose eyes sparkled brightly.
She was Helena, the baroness who was the security chief of Marin Kopp city, formerly under royal jurisdiction, and the commander of the dispatched knight corps.
She was a high-ranking knight belonging to the royal army, but she would have to serve me as an obligation for the next two years as the new lord.
It would have been nice if an experienced person like Baroness Helena had joined the territory war, but her workplace was Marin Kopp city in my territory, and since she belonged to the royal army, she could not participate in the territory war.
“Recently you brought in a large amount of military supplies including Sky Fortresses and Vanguard equipment, and you have already prepared the knights. How is this luck?”
“Luck?”
“How can this be luck? Everything was calculated beneath the surface, was it not? There was not a single meaningless action from your Excellency’s side.”
“Flattery.”
I had roughly drawn up a plan, but the fact that the situation fit perfectly was truly a bit of luck added on top.
Actually, the knight recruitment advertisement was posted from the Lawrence viscount’s territory to weed out allies from Anna and Cedric.
However, more than I expected, people showed interest in switching jobs.
Thanks to recalling that I could mobilize such reserve knights when facing past grudges, I was able to apply for a territory war at the victory celebration.
But to outsiders, my every action looked impulsive. Since everything was prepared in advance, they assumed it was all calculated.
Feeling the need to explain in detail the favor I was showing them, I cleared my throat while looking at Baroness Helena and Pessius, who were staring at me in wonder.
“What do you think? Can they be deployed directly into the territory war?”
“Yes, thanks to your Excellency’s careful selection of personnel, it seems there are no problems.”
“I agree.”
I nodded my head vigorously at the two of them and looked up at the sky.
Six distinct black dots were floating high in the sky.
They were the Sky Fortresses of my Lawrence duke’s territory, delivered to the territory the very next day after the purchase.
[Metal Fortress Generation 1]
[Metal Fortress Generation 2]
[Metal Fortress Generation 2]
[Metal Fortress Generation 2.5]
[Metal Fortress Generation 2.5]
[Metal Fortress Generation 3]
The Sky Fortresses bestowed by the King with his own hands turned out to be used models from the royal army, second-hand items from Generation 1.
Moreover, they were the same models as the ones I had self-destructed in the Lawrence viscount’s territory, which made them feel strangely uncomfortable.
“If I were to give them away, I should have given the latest models. Why give these discontinued models that are no longer being sold?”
Well, even if Sky Fortresses were second-hand, depreciation was not that severe, so maybe it was a bargain, but placed among the shiny new ones, they felt noticeably outdated.
The paint had even been freshly applied, and there was no problem with performance, but once they appeared inferior, they stuck in my eyes.
I could not dispose of them as I wished because they were royal gifts, and eventually I would have to sell them cheaply to friendly small and medium nobles after a few years of use, once they were forgotten in people’s minds.
I then lowered my gaze and focused on Marin Kopp, the central city of the Lawrence duke’s territory visible from the observation deck.
“It is really big. Is it larger than Seoul in scale?”
Marin Kopp, a metropolis with a resident population of 5.2 million, was bigger than Arensi in the Lawrence viscount’s territory in every way.
Despite being a scale that could not be taken in at a glance, there were dozens of buildings over 100 stories tall, and the traffic of flying cars, which could be called the symbol of wealth, was quite heavy.
In addition, it included one medium city with a population of 1 million and two small cities with 300,000 to 500,000 people as satellite cities, making it one of the largest cities in the Lheinhatz Kingdom, ranked within the top five.
“Wouldn’t the King have found it hard to part with something of this caliber?”
Newly realizing that I had become a great lord by looking down at the massive city, I smiled pleasantly and said.
“If there are no problems, I suppose we should start moving soon.”
“What?”
The words were cheerful, but their meaning was the opposite.
I simply answered the two people who were tilting their heads in confusion without understanding the implication at first.
“Advance.”
“Eh, when exactly are we advancing?”
“Prepare everything within three hours and divide the army into four groups to advance. We will lock the bastard inside the territory so he cannot combine forces. And one main force including me and Arsia will capture the territory.”
The two swallowed hard.
They understood why they were panicking.
Even if there were no immediate problems, my army was only three days old, hastily assembled soldiers, and we had not yet received royal permission for the territory war.
“But the royal family’s…”
“It is merely the difference between fast and slow. The permission will be granted anyway. We can use training as an excuse until then. It is a very common excuse, is it not?”
Moving armies and making excuses about training was a national custom, whether on Earth or in Rondel.
“All right, advance.”
This time, instead of giving orders from a safe place, I would personally enter combat together with Arsia and extract all my military strength without reservation.
In the early days of rule, the leader who could capture the hearts of subordinates would be the one leading everyone from the front.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[EVENT: TERRITORY WAR DECLARED - LAURENCE DUKE’S TERRITORY VS. FOUR BARONAL HOUSES]
[LOCATION: MARIN KOPP CITY, LHEINHATZ KINGDOM]
[REWARD: 500,000 ROUTES, 10,000 EXP]
[WARNING: OPPONENTS POSSESS 6 SKY FORTRESSES AND 300 VANGUARDS. GRAND MAGUS AND AURA MASTER CONFIRMED. PREPARE FOR UNPREDICTABLE IRREGULAR ATTACKS.]