Breaking Through the Encirclement
"Kaint."
"Yes, sir!"
"Take ten men and move along this route."
"Understood!"
The soldier called Kaint took the map and peeled away from the unit. This was the fifth group to split off. They had started with twenty; sometimes Rai sent only five. The numbers changed every time. But one fact never changed: every time a group left, the main force shrank. Compared to the beginning, the unit had dwindled to a conspicuous fraction of itself.
The northeast is open this time.
The shrinking numbers worried her, but Philia could feel the encirclement loosening with every group Rai sent out. Capturing the enemy commander was how you scored points, so the academy students couldn't dismiss the possibility that Rai was among the detachments, and they kept peeling off troops to chase them. Once might have been fine. Repeating it over and over was sowing confusion even among the students who had formed the net. Their units were starting to mill about in restless agitation.
But why?
Just splitting forces to chase the detachments shouldn't have shaken them this badly. The main force was still shrinking, after all. If the units dogging their heels were willing to eat the losses and attack, Rai's unit would collapse before long. Philia didn't know how skilled a commander he was, but if even three units piled on—or more, once reinforcements arrived—they could take him. His numbers were small. Charging in on sheer mass would win it. The detachments were already being pursued, so crushing the main body quickly would seal the victory.
And yet not a single academy student attacked Rai first.
As Philia puzzled over this, Rai changed the direction of the march and glanced at her.
"What's got you so curious?"
"Why aren't they attacking?"
"Tactics have to stay fluid. They change with the situation. So, as your instructor, let me ask you a few questions. What's the situation right now? And don't give me the obvious answers—we're surrounded, the numbers are lopsided, that sort of thing. There's always something unusual on a battlefield. An epidemic. A flood. Betrayal. A wounded commander. So what's the unusual something here?"
He posed the question to the two who had come along as adjutants. Philia thought it over. Abigail pretended not to care, but she was listening, turning it over in silence.
"The encirclement has gotten thin?"
"No, no. That's a result of me using the unusual something. You described the outcome."
Rai shook his head at Philia's answer and looked at Abigail.
"...The forest?"
"...How long are you going to stay this dense? Forests becoming battlefields is common. Sure, the fact that we can run around like this because the battlefield is a forest is true enough, but it's not unusual enough to count."
After scolding Abigail, he waited a moment, looking at the two of them, but neither opened their mouth. He glanced at a signal flare rising in the distance, checked the map in his hand, then changed the unit's direction again as they moved.
"Alright. First one. This isn't a single army."
As Rai started to explain, Dudley, who had been watching from a distance, drifted closer to listen. Hana, who'd only recently joined the staff, tugged at him not to get too close—which made her look more like his senior than the other way around. But Dudley, who harbored a deep admiration for great generals and ingenious tactics, his eyes sparkling, dragged Hana along with him as he closed in.
"Fourteen units in total. In national terms, that's a coalition of fourteen countries."
"Why a coalition? Same academy students, same objective, same enemy."
"Because each of them puts their own interests first. You think catching me is the end of the exercise?"
Philia thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. The exercise was about running your own unit and defeating other units. The goal wasn't to defeat Rai's unit, so even if he were eliminated, the exercise would continue.
"But if they catch Instructor Rai's unit, everyone gets a perfect score. There's no reason to keep training after that."
"Is that really true? That's where the second unusual factor comes in. That, right there."
Rai pointed at Dudley. Dudley, who had been pretending not to listen while edging closer, looked around in a fluster when he was called out.
"The second is that this exercise is being shown to the public."
More precisely, he was pointing at the familiar perched on Dudley's shoulder.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Come on. There's something every Imperial soldier wants, isn't there? Something more precious than a number on a score sheet."
Philia's expression hardened at Rai's words, thick with mockery.
"Honor..."
"That's right. Lords, instructors, ordinary citizens—everyone's watching. Naturally you'd want to make a name for yourself, wouldn't you? After catching me, you need to stand out the most. And what's the most important thing for that?"
"An intact force."
Philia answered immediately. The exercise wouldn't end just because they caught Rai. If this had been a normal drill, they might have caught him and then just killed time until it was over. But now everyone was watching. Catching Rai wouldn't bring any honor. It wouldn't be beating an instructor so much as a mob piling onto one person. That left only one path: fighting the remaining academy students to prove your own ability.
"These brats actually think they're going to catch me. Pisses me off."
Philia, watching Rai's back as he walked along with an easy laugh, seemed to realize something. She checked the map, then the surrounding units.
"That's why we came near Fureiman's unit?"
"Good, good. Sharp insight. That's a pass."
Rai praised her without looking back. At the start, he had asked about the academy students' personalities. Then he had planted flags on certain units. The area they were in now was near the students who hadn't gotten flags. And those students' evaluations, in Abigail's words: opportunists, talentless idiots chasing pipe dreams, and greedy pig bastards.
Philia thought Abigail's assessments were too harsh, but she couldn't deny those tendencies existed, if you wanted to put it unkindly. Fureiman was uncannily good at looking out for himself. Zeppelin was the type who showed off too much. Triola, who'd earned the "greedy pig bastard" rating, had a reputation for being a bit selfish thanks to her greed. If Rai's prediction was right, they were all the sort who'd think about what came after and conserve their own troops.
"So that's why you asked about their personalities. But for personality to decide the direction of a war to this extent..."
Philia couldn't quite finish the sentence. It was too different from what she'd been taught. For someone who had only ever learned tactics that killed personal emotion in pursuit of precision, a battlefield that flipped based on personality alone was hard to grasp. She knew well that in the early Era of Strife, commanders had often fallen into traps or been defeated because of their personalities. But as time passed and the art of war advanced, dozens of adjutants and staff officers had put their heads together to craft tactics, straining to anticipate countless situations. What, then, was the point of a command staff that wracked their brains to control the battlefield even while soldiers were clashing?
"This is why rookies don't cut it."
Abigail sneered, and Philia glared at her, scowling. As the atmosphere turned ugly again, Rai spoke while watching a signal flare.
"You're both half right and half wrong. Two idiots fighting each other doesn't change the fact that they're both idiots."
"The reason personality bleeds into tactics is that the forces are too small. The more troops you have, the more you need precise tactics. The fewer you have, the closer it gets to mercenary work than tactics, so the commander's personality comes through that much thicker. Abigail talks a big game, but she's only ever experienced small-scale fights like this. Right?"
Rai's words had hit the mark. Abigail shut her mouth and looked away.
"Philia, don't only think about huge battles either. Even if things go well for you, it'll be at least another ten years before you're running a large unit. Until then you'll be in charge of small ones. You going to whine that they won't listen?"
"No."
Philia answered shortly and looked away. Watching Rai shut them both up so easily, Dudley nodded vigorously. Hana, looking thoroughly creeped out as Dudley grew more and more infatuated with Rai—insisting that instructors who'd been in the field really were different—forcibly dragged him away, begging him to please just keep his distance.
"Pizalan. Lancour. Beugelin. Picot..."
More soldiers' names came from Rai's mouth. These weren't veterans this time. Philia's expression soured as she watched him endlessly call out names, spotting among them the faces of soldiers who'd been showing off their strength.
Don't tell me he remembers all their names?
Even if they'd gotten friendly, it had only been a short time sharing a round of beer. And yet he remembered every single soldier's name.
"And last, Abigail."
When her name was called, Abigail scowled at him, but Rai handed her a map as if it were nothing.
"I don't have to tell you what to do, right?"
"You're using me as a discard too?"
"A discard?"
Rai tilted his head at Abigail's words. Nobody was saying it out loud, but if this weren't an exercise—if it were real—this was a tactic that would have drawn a lot of complaints. He was splitting off troops to save his own skin. Since they didn't know where the commander was, the enemy had no choice but to chase the split-off forces. The main body would be safe, but the detached groups were small. The moment they were caught, annihilation was inevitable.
Rai stood still for a moment, as if he hadn't quite understood, then chuckled.
"Ah, that's how it looked? Guess I'm not a very trustworthy commander, then. Think whatever you want. Take the troops and either desert or follow my orders. Your call."
He passed the map to Abigail, who was still standing there. After glancing at him for a moment, she clicked her tongue, checked the map, and led her troops away from the unit.
This time it was fifty people—a large number. With this, the main force had definitely shrunk. But a bait of fifty would definitely catch the other academy students' attention.
Philia steeled her loosened nerves. Unlike the soldiers who'd become temporary adjutants, she had been thinking of herself as a commander-class adjutant, assuming somewhere that she'd never be split off from the unit. The next name called could be her own. Unable to predict what she'd feel if it actually happened, she bit her lip and gathered herself.
"What's with the grave look? We're not going to lose. Let's go on the counterattack."
Philia, who'd been thinking that losing wasn't the problem, widened her eyes at Rai's suggestion that they hit back. He was going to fight with this force? Rai smiled at the doubt in her eyes.
"It'd piss me off if I were the only one being unfair."
Philia had no idea why, of all words, he'd chosen unfair. She followed him in silence.
Eisen brooded over the news that yet more troops had peeled off from Rai's unit. He'd already sent fifty of his own after a group trying to break through in this direction. The other academy students were spreading their forces thin to maintain the encirclement, so pulling his own unit had seemed like the right call.
But now they said fifty were on the move. Fortunately it wasn't this way—but if Rai was with that group, the problem got a lot bigger. He was an instructor who taught tactics and came from the field. Fifty troops with him weren't just fifty. If Rai was with them, they might punch through the encirclement and get away. Everyone was watching, so it was unlikely—but if they broke through and just ran in a straight line until the exercise ended, the academy students would be left looking like dogs that had chased a chicken only to watch it fly away.
Keeping Rai's insane behavior in mind, Eisen couldn't shake his unease and went to Bella, who was commanding another unit.
"Could you move your unit toward Schultz?"
"Then the encirclement breaks."
"I'll cover the area you were holding."
"You sure? If Raikkang's main force heads that way, the damage won't be light."
When Bella worried, Eisen smiled and shook his head. The target right now was Rai, not anyone else. What he had to do was pin Rai down properly and hold the encirclement until the other units arrived.
"Yeah. If Instructor Rai comes, I'll hold him somehow."
"If you're going to sacrifice yourself, that's great for everyone else, but even good deeds have a limit."
"I said it's fine. Catching the instructor comes first."
Bella looked at Eisen—answering with a gentle smile—with a queasy expression, then led her unit toward Schultz's. With Schultz and Bella's units there, even if Rai was with them, fifty troops wouldn't punch through easily.
Bella had been worried, but Eisen had his own thinking. A small river ran ahead. A knight could jump it in one go, but this was tactical training, and anyone who'd entered as a commander or adjutant was forbidden from fighting. Naturally they'd have to fight with soldiers alone, and it wouldn't be easy for soldiers to cross the river to attack. Eisen figured that if he pulled the encirclement in and held the line with the river between them, even a tactical genius wouldn't be able to do more than get his feet stuck.
He informed the other academy students of his movement path, then moved his unit quickly. The unit ran for a good while and managed to reach the river first. The soldiers, looking a bit tired, murmured at the sight of the cool water. Eisen was about to get them in order when he sensed a presence and turned around.
Rai was on the other side.
Eisen reacted as if drawing a sword and fired a signal flare into the sky. Rai, who hadn't shown his face until now, was here. At the signal that they'd found him, the other units would start flooding in. All Eisen had to do was diligently keep Rai's unit at bay with the river between them.
Looking at Rai, who was watching him calmly, and Philia, whose expression was one of dismay, Eisen thought he'd seized the initiative. If they just faced off across the river, the academy students on the far side would arrive and fight Rai, and if things went well he could even preserve his troops.
Rai, watching Eisen who'd already started thinking about what came after, led his troops upstream. Eisen moved his unit to match Rai's, which was advancing slowly, perhaps looking for an easy place to ford. They weren't fighting, but the tension kept climbing. Even as an instructor, there didn't seem to be an easy way to attack an enemy across a river. Rai's unit just kept pacing along the bank, offering no answer, and time passed.
Signal flares were going up from all directions. Units were getting closer. Eisen was smiling, thinking he'd won, when Rai pointed a finger at him.
"Watch out. There's a monster."
Eisen stared, not understanding, when screams rose from the soldiers behind him.
"Kill them all!!"
Eisen's unit, defenseless from staring at the river, was attacked from behind. Startled by an assault from a direction that should have been impossible, Eisen spun around and saw Abigail, red hair streaming, radiating killing intent. She wasn't attacking herself, but her eyes were savage, and she was shouting from the very front. The soldiers who'd followed her swung their unsharpened weapons with gusto, dropping Eisen's men.
"Why...?"
Eisen turned back toward the river and only then realized Abigail, whom Rai had taken as an adjutant, hadn't been there. And Rai's unit had their bows drawn. The arrows had no heads, but being hit still counted as death. Eisen shouted in horror.
"Shields to the front!"
But his front wasn't the soldiers' front. Their front was Abigail's ambush, not Rai's side. The uncontrolled soldiers took arrows unprotected and were marked dead. Half kept shooting, half started fording the river, but Eisen's unit, plunged into chaos, could do nothing.
"Hey—thanks for the hard work."
Having forded safely, Rai strolled through the wrecked battlefield at his leisure, even greeting Eisen cheerfully, then went on his way. Philia passed by with a look of sympathy, and Eisen shouted, trying to rally his soldiers, but it wasn't working. Rai's unit, attacking from front and rear, didn't take Eisen even though they had the chance, and vanished into the forest.
Eisen could only stare blankly as Rai left. It wasn't that he hadn't done anything, but the unit in chaos couldn't hear his orders, and the handful of nearby soldiers who could understand him didn't dare give chase.
The other academy students arrived late, but all they could see was Eisen's half-destroyed unit.