Chapter 35: Frontline Command Post

The time shifts back to early morning.

At the Lakeview Fortress, within the military camp on the front lines.

In the command center of the bastion.

Rien and Kecha, who had departed from Riverbend Town the previous night and ridden hard to return to the front, were currently presenting their report.

Aside from the Count and the officers Kana had met previously, the command room also held a noble man standing nearly 1.9 meters tall, clad in full plate armor with a stern expression.

There were patches of blood on his armor that had not been fully wiped away, indicating he had recently emerged from battle.

The Count was currently reading a letter in his hand.

It was the very letter Kana had written yesterday, which he had entrusted to Rien and his companion to deliver.

After reading the contents, the Count furrowed his brow but remained silent. He passed the letter to the others, allowing everyone present to read it.

As the others perused the letter, the Count turned to Rien and Kecha and asked, "What did my nephew do while in the small town? Did he commit any outrageous acts?"

Although the Count suspected his nephew had been feigning ignorance during his time in the royal capital, he remained wary of him. In these times, it was impossible to discern whether this Fourth Prince of the royal family was merely a probe or a contingency plan cast aside by the palace.

Given the urgency of the situation and the uncertainty of his intentions, the only choice had been to relegate him to the rear for surveillance.

"Your Highness the Prince behaved quite normally upon reaching the town—perhaps even a bit... unlike a noble," Rien replied.

Kecha added, "He first took a boat to the opposite bank to communicate with the murlocs there."

Before he could finish, the burly, bearded knight Udo, thinking he had misheard, interrupted hastily.

"You say the Prince... was communicating with murlocs? The same kind of murlocs I'm thinking of?"

Seeing the other lords display the same astonishment he once had, Kecha felt a slight smirk tug at the corner of his mouth.

He nodded. "Yes, he can indeed converse freely with the murlocs. Furthermore, there is a murloc prophet in their village. The prophet is the leader of the murlocs and is capable of speech, allowing us to communicate with them. Moreover, His Highness seems very knowledgeable about murlocs; they even asked for his assistance."

Silence descended upon the room once Kecha finished. This Prince had not only failed to match their previous impressions, he had completely shattered them.

The Count rubbed his temples. "Continue."

"The next day, there were deaths in the town, and a child was abducted. The people were killed by a type of large rat. His Highness identified them as ear-pierced rat-folk. The murlocs asked the Prince for help specifically to drive away these rat-folk. His Highness seemed to have a deep understanding of these creatures, even knowing how to fight them."

The two men wanted to explain what the rat-folk were, knowing how shocked they had been at the time. However, seeing the expressions of the lords before them, they realized these men were already aware of the creatures, so they suppressed the urge to explain and continued their narrative quietly.

During the recounting, the others interrupted from time to time to ask for details. Once the report was finished, the two were dismissed.

The command room fell into a quiet state after they left.

"It seems I must re-evaluate my useless nephew," the Count remarked.

The stern knight beside him placed Kana's letter on the table.

The Count looked at the others. "What do you make of this letter?"

The stern knight frowned and said, "What he said at the beginning is accurate enough, but the rest of his suggestions... heh." He let out a dry laugh to convey his opinion.

The Count looked at the others.

"Although his actions over the last few days have somewhat changed my perception of this Prince, when it comes to warfare, he is perhaps still a bit too green."

"Haha, indeed. Perhaps His Highness the Prince thinks war is just like what he reads in books."

"Many young commanders make this mistake; we should be understanding of the youth."

Seeing that everyone had reached a unanimous judgment, the Count turned back to the stern knight. "Echard, what are your thoughts on the proposals in this letter?"

Echard—Echard Klee—was the knight most highly valued by the Count. Aside from the Count himself, he held the highest rank and possessed the greatest combat prowess. He was also Blake’s father and was responsible for commanding and managing the majority of the Count's soldiers.

"Once these monsters have assembled their army, we will indeed be unable to stop them; in fact, we are already struggling as it is," Echard said, describing the current situation.

"However, his suggestion to build ships—I must say, while this Prince has some ideas and insight, he is still too naive. We have at most a month left; it is impossible to build ships in that time. As for his suggestion to build rafts, heh, he underestimates the lower reaches of the Wedel River."

These noble officers, possessing a certain level of status, were well aware of the scarcity of magic in their kingdom. Near the mountains where the lower Wedel River flowed, the magic was beginning to recover, but the area where the river passed to the right of the mountain range had never been developed and was teeming with magical beasts and various wild monsters.

The level of danger there was no less than traversing the entire kingdom, perhaps even more perilous.

As for the section of the lower river near the sea, the number of aquatic monsters was countless. For them, aquatic monsters were far more difficult to handle than those on land; they would rather walk across the land than attempt to traverse those waters by boat.

Not to mention using rafts—one slip and everyone would fall into the water, with no hope of survival. Such danger was simply not worth considering.

This was why everyone present treated Kana’s suggestion as a joke, assuming the Prince had made such a judgment out of ignorance of the local conditions.

"As for the Prince's claim that the gorge to the southwest is likely to be cut off by the enemy—it is a possibility, but a slim one. The Stonefist Legion of the Cohen Kingdom and a portion of our own troops are stationed there to safeguard our rear. Not to mention, it would be no easy feat to break through our front lines and pierce our retreat to surround us."

Echard’s analysis was clear and logical, consistent with their long-standing operations and preparations. It was far superior to Kana’s proposal.

Nevertheless, in their eyes, Kana’s image had shifted from a dissolute, potentially hostile figure to that of a young man with some education but very little practical experience.

Having said this, they treated the rest of the discussion as idle chatter.

Echard looked at the Count and asked, "Since the probability of him being an enemy has decreased, shouldn't Blake be transferred to the front line? Jonil is more than capable of watching over him; that old knight is cautious enough."

Hearing this, the Count looked at Echard’s stern expression and sighed with a touch of helplessness. Blake was the only heir to his most important subordinate and friend. As a former member of the royal family, the Count knew all too well how dangerous their resistance against the Bloodline was.

He did not want Echard’s only heir fighting on the front lines alongside his father. He believed Echard understood his intentions, yet Echard still wished for his child to fight on the front. Such rigid sternness made the Count feel helpless; Echard was simply too harsh on his own descendants.

"Very well, I will have him transferred."

Echard bowed respectfully in gratitude.