Proving the Slaves' Qualifications
As soon as the carriage door opened, a harsh wave of dust laced with the acrid stench of sweat slammed into me. The Arzen family’s training grounds felt eerily empty for their size. Barely a hundred knights were drilling, and even after accounting for those pulled away for public security and magic-stone mine patrols, the number was pitifully low for a ducal house. It stood as a lonely testament that the family’s power had yet to recover.
The knight commander approached with heavy strides. Exhaustion lay thick in his eyes.
“The training instructors are already prepared, then.”
He scanned the combat slaves lined up behind me in their dark navy uniforms.
“No reason to drag it out.”
“True. I’ve already seen what they can do.”
The commander nodded, yet his brow remained furrowed, unable to hide his discomfort. His gaze drifted toward the knights still training on the field. Some had witnessed the combat slaves’ performance during the orc extermination at the magic-stone mine, but accepting instruction from them in actual combat was an entirely different matter. To the knights who formed the empire’s backbone, the idea that slaves—treated as little more than livestock, not merely lower in status—would stand as their teachers was an unbearable humiliation. Especially in a group like House Arzen, where manpower shortages had only sharpened each man’s pride.
“I did warn them about the training instructors beforehand… but the resistance is stronger than expected. We’ve been treating every knight like a precious gem because we’re so short on numbers, and now their arrogance pierces the heavens. They’re all bristling, saying, ‘How can a slave who got lucky with a few sword swings presume to teach a knight?’”
I spoke quietly, as if the situation had been entirely predictable.
“Among the knights here, who holds the most influence and is also the most opposed to this arrangement?”
The commander’s eyebrows twitched. He seemed to guess my intentions and hesitated for a moment with a lukewarm expression, but eventually pointed toward a heavily scarred man leading a brutal spar in one corner.
“The vice-commander. His skill is one thing, but his personality is rigid as iron. He’s been protesting the loudest that we must protect the family’s honor even in the middle of this manpower crisis.”
I offered the commander a generous smile.
“Halt the knights’ training for a moment. Make space for me to address them directly.”
At the commander’s signal, a strange silence fell over the once-noisy grounds. More than a hundred pairs of eyes stabbed toward me and the slaves at my back like arrows. At their center, one man’s gaze burned with displeasure that looked ready to explode.
I walked smoothly to the center of the training field. The five instructor slaves following me radiated disciplined pressure; not a single button on their uniforms was out of place.
After offering the knight commander a courteous greeting, I turned to the hundred-odd knights.
“First, I must thank the knight commander for arranging this opportunity to speak with the esteemed knights of House Arzen.”
My voice—soft yet refined—settled over the field. The instant the killing intent in their eyes shifted to confusion, I continued calmly.
“You are knights who stake your lives for the glory of House Arzen. I have not the slightest desire to diminish that honor. The sole reason I sent these men here is to make Arzen’s blades sharper, so that you never lose another precious comrade. They are simply the most sophisticated tool I possess—and the optimal instrument to elevate your combat effectiveness in the shortest time.”
“Smooth talk.”
A gravelly voice sliced through mine. The man who had been glaring with open disgust—the vice-commander of the Arzen knight order. He drove his sweat-soaked sword into the ground and stepped forward with arrogant poise.
“Are you saying that simply because our skills are decent, we must bow our heads before these rootless slave bastards? Setting aside the question of strength, this is an insult to a knight’s pride.”
His mocking, informal tone drew murmurs of agreement from the surrounding knights.
I stared at him without flinching, then countered with a faint smile.
“Vice-commander, you misunderstand the essence of learning. Does reading an enemy’s sword path on the battlefield and studying their irregular movements equate to bowing your head to that enemy? Of course not. It is analysis for the sake of victory. Treating these men as instructors does not mean revering slaves. It means extracting the information and efficiency they carry. A knight’s pride is not preserved through ignorance—it is proven through overwhelming strength.”
“Sophistry! I will never accept this!”
The vice-commander snorted, still defiant.
Someone was watching this scene from outside the training field—the second-floor terrace of the main building. Vivian observed with calm, steady eyes. I could have borrowed her authority to force the knights to their knees, but that would have been a mistake. Training begun without genuine desire would only erode their efficiency, and that would depreciate the value of an expensive product. These arrogant prides had to be trampled and rebuilt using nothing but raw ability.
“Very well. Though Duchess Vivian has surely issued strict orders, I will not rely on her authority. Instead, I offer two proposals.”
I looked the vice-commander straight in the eye and declared firmly.
“First, we will conduct a one-week demonstration training period. If you determine that their methods or results do not contribute to your growth, I will personally request contract termination from the duchess and remove them. Second…”
I pointed to one of the instructor slaves behind me.
“Right here and now, defeat one of my instructors using the sparring format you are most confident in. If you land even a single valid hit, I will withdraw immediately without any further discussion. How does that sound?”
Sharp tension crackled across the training ground. The vice-commander gave a derisive snort and gripped his sword hilt.
“I admit the combat slaves have decent talent with a blade. But discussing instructor qualifications through word games is pointless. A knight isn’t defined by strength alone. Assessing an opponent’s armament, calculating the limits of its weight and reach, then building tactics around those factors—that belongs to the realm of strategy. How could slaves born in the gutter possibly understand that depth?”
His words rested on the firm conviction that the slaves’ intellect lay far beneath the knights’.
I met that arrogant certainty head-on.
“Excellent. If martial prowess is a matter of talent and therefore irrelevant, let us compete purely on theory and analysis. Shall we run virtual battles covering every possible scenario? If their logic shows even the slightest deficiency, I will nullify the contract.”
A ripple of unease spread through the knights. The vice-commander smiled as though the contract would soon be canceled. Having personally established the family’s weapon systems and tactical manuals, he believed my proposal was suicidal. But he didn’t know. The knowledge the original Victor had drilled into his combat slaves bordered on madness. Victor possessed profound insight into military science and had mercilessly hammered into their minds the theory of analyzing an opponent’s armament and center of gravity to find the optimal killing path. The slaves he had trained were living weapons and walking encyclopedias of warfare.
“Fine. No reason to refuse. Who will step forward?”
I indicated one of the combat slaves standing at the rear. The slave walked forward silently and offered the vice-commander a precise salute. A virtual battle premised on Arzen family standard equipment began at once.
The vice-commander recited a meticulous attack sequence based on the defensive rating of the knights’ breastplates and the reach of their longswords.
“The Arzen breastplate is designed with the chest plate offset to the left to preserve right-shoulder mobility. If I retreat half a step, angle my sword diagonally to restrict your range, deflect your thrust using the plate’s slope, then close one and a half steps to cut your nape—how will your light armament respond before my blade finds you first?”
His voice carried the confidence of a man who knew his equipment perfectly.
Yet the combat slave’s reply was mechanically precise.
“Your assessment is textbook, Vice-commander. However, the Arzen standard breastplate, while granting mobility, exposes the seam beneath the right armpit by approximately one finger’s width more than usual. I will use the momentum of my half-step advance to strike that seam with the pommel rather than the blade. The instant the impact dulls your right arm’s mobility, I will close another half step and drive a dagger through the helmet’s vision slit. Consequently, the equipment’s own advantage becomes your fatal diagonal line.”
The vice-commander’s face stiffened. Flustered, he unleashed a barrage of irregular maneuvers using his shield’s angles, but the instructor slave dismantled every variable without a moment’s hesitation.
“In that situation, it would have been more efficient to drop the blade low using the longsword’s weight, retreat half a step, and target the ankle. The Arzen knight order’s standard longsword has its center of gravity near the hilt, making it ideal for low parries. Yet you insisted on a frontal contest relying solely on armor defense. The next defensive sequence has already been neutralized.”
Thick beads of sweat formed on the vice-commander’s forehead. He was witnessing the complete dismantling of the family’s weapons and techniques he believed he knew best, stripped naked before Victor’s ruthless pragmatism and analysis.
A stunned silence fell among the watching knights. The very slaves they had scorned were now butchering House Arzen’s entire armament system through theory alone.
My eyes met Vivian’s on the second-floor terrace. A shy smile curved her lips.
“Well, Vice-commander? Do you still consider their instruction meaningless?”
Without even thinking to wipe his damp forehead, the vice-commander glared with trembling eyes at the terrain map laid out on the training ground a few steps away. Pride deeply cracked, he still drew a ragged breath and lifted his head as though he could not yield.
“A true training instructor must understand the weight of command. Prove that as well.”
His eyes flashed, as if he had found his final stronghold. For a man who had personally revised the Arzen knight order’s tactical manual, the operation of elite small units was a field in which he yielded to no one.
I shifted my gaze lazily.
“Very well. Will you continue with the same opponent, or would you prefer to test another?”
The vice-commander’s eyes swept across the remaining four slaves. After a brief pause, he pointed to the man at the very end of the line—the smallest in stature and, by his standards, the least imposing.
“That one. I need to see if his mouth works as well as the last bastard’s.”
It was a cowardly choice, but I did not intervene. The designated instructor slave stepped forward silently and faced the vice-commander. His gaze was even calmer and more eerily blank than the previous slave’s.
“I will learn from the vice-commander’s insight regarding formation tactics.”
Once again the virtual battle opened over the terrain map on the training ground. The scenario he presented was a large-scale monster encounter in the rugged northern canyons of Arzen territory.
“Individual combat can perhaps be dismissed with clever words. War is different. Let us assume our knight order encounters three hundred orcs led by a chieftain in the northern canyon. With our inferior numbers, how do we avoid being crushed by their sheer mass? That will be the topic.”
The vice-commander laid out a wedge-shaped breakthrough formation designed to overcome numerical disadvantage, emphasizing the knight order’s classic tactic of splitting the monster tide in two.
“We pierce the enemy center at the sharpest angle, use the flanks as living walls to hold position, and disperse their numbers. In the narrow pass we tear apart the momentum of three hundred orcs and take the chieftain’s head—Arzen’s perfect wedge. How do you intend to stop this flawless formation?”
This time he spoke with absolute certainty of victory.
Yet the combat slave answered without even glancing at the map, his tone utterly indifferent.
“Your wedge formation possesses excellent penetrating power, Vice-commander, but you have overlooked the orcs’ physiological traits. In a narrow canyon, accumulating orc corpses will obstruct our knights’ movement. The vanguard will eventually become mired in the corpse pile, and the chieftain will not miss that momentary paralysis. The head of the wedge will be shattered.”
“I anticipated that! The rear will clear the corpses and provide immediate—”
The combat slave continued without a flicker of doubt.
“The critical error occurs in the instant before reinforcements arrive, when the vanguard’s flank becomes exposed. We would instead choose a ‘diagonal encirclement net.’ By yielding the front at an angle, we lure the orcs deep into the canyon. The moment the chieftain believes it has seized the advantage and commits fully, we use the cliffs’ elevation differential to sever the formation’s waist. While they collapse under one another’s weight, we deploy our elite few to seize the chieftain in a single strike.”
The vice-commander’s face flushed crimson, close to bursting. Just as he opened his mouth again, unable to contain his rage, a heavy hand settled on his shoulder. The knight commander.
“Vice-commander. That’s enough. Their ability has been sufficiently proven.”