EREMUS

Inside our army’s hideout, I finish reading Ducis’ report. Luna is beside me, her eyes still tracing the flowing script on the paper.

I should be feeling satisfied right now; the set-up stage has been completed and we can finally launch my plan.

In all respects, this is our victory.

But even though I have acknowledged that fact, I cannot stop the vexation from welling up inside me. It manifests itself in the form of me irritatedly tapping the side of my leg. Despite the fact that our set-up was a success, I still vastly miscalculated two incredibly vital predictions.

Prediction number one: I thought the defence force would decide to march all the way to Lorem forest, but instead, they will march to Talwar—a village only a day’s march away. This cuts down our allotted time for action significantly.

Prediction number two: I thought the king would agree to keep a measly 15,000 troops with him, but instead, he now has double that. The number of casualties we will suffer will be a tremendous jump from what we would have suffered if my prediction had been correct.

There is a bitter sting within me, taunting me for my failure. My pride has taken a huge blow from this “Lord Davis”. He managed to see through every single ploy I made. The only reason our set up still managed to succeed is due to our years of preparation, not my wit.

A whistle of appreciation from Luna snaps me out of my spiteful thoughts. She looks up at me with excited eyes,

“You got an entire country to attack so that you could use that opportunity to instigate your own coup d’état? How did you do that?”

I gaze at her earnest face and am hit with a terrible pang of guilt. My heart constricts in my chest and suddenly, I want to confess to the horrible act I committed last night—

I give myself a mental slap.

No, I must endure. Every single person that we can recruit is valuable, Luna is no exception to this—even if she will only come in useful later. I violently suppress the guilt inside me and lock my deed away in the darkest corner of my mind. Instead I focus on her question and raise my eyebrow, showing absolutely nothing of what I just felt on my face,

“Do you really think Ducis and I could convince an entire country to launch a full scale invasion from our position? Of course that’s not what happened.”

“Eh?” Luna scrunches up her brows in confusion, “Then did you guys do something to the messengers, or, you know, just send fake messengers of your own?”

I shake my head, “That’s impossible too. Messengers are vital in our military so only the most trustworthy of people are chosen, convincing them to betray their country is near impossible. They also have a secret code—which is different for each messenger—that they must provide the minister of information, and since this code is so vital to their trustworthiness, they’re also trained extensively against succumbing to torture.”

Luna’s eyes widen, “Oh! So you guys messed with the scouts!”

I shake my head again, “Scouts receive the same treatment as the messengers. The only difference is that they must provide their secret code to the messengers, who must then provide both, their own code and the scout’s code, to the minister of information.”

Luna looks significantly less enthusiastic with her next guess, “Eh… so I guess you messed with this “minister of information”?”

I give her a teasing smile and let her know, without words, that she is once again mistaken with her guess.

“…Just tell me,” she groans.

I let loose a small chuckle, “Very well. The most important thing to remember is that our goal is to get most of the king’s massive army to leave the capital. So, how do we do that? Well, if the king and capital were to suddenly be put in danger through the use of an invasion by a foreign army, the king will have no choice but to send his forces out to repel the attack; leaving us with a large opening.”

“I already knew that!” Luna complains, “Tell me how you actually got an army to reach this close!”

“I didn’t,” My amusement grows as I speak. Nothing trumps the sensation of revealing your brilliant plan to someone who has failed to work through it themselves, “Don’t forget, most of the villages in this country are under our control. I can simply order them to raise up fake Vincere flags and don Vincerian armour. Now instantly, we have a village conquered by those “damn Vincerians”.”

“Oh… OH! I see!” Luna exclaims excitedly. Suddenly, the excitement vanishes from her face and confusion returns, “But then what about Lorem forest? What happened there? In fact, why would you even want something to happen there?”

“Well, conquered villages just suddenly appearing out of nowhere is quite suspicious, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but isn’t that exactly what happened?”

“No, it’s not,” I tell her, “I told some of our soldiers to go around and plant enough fake flags inside Lorem forest so that the court would suspect that an army numbering at least 400,000 was lurking in there—as if the Conqueror somehow snuck in this giant army into our territory and our scouts were barely able to notice it in time. Then, the quick advance and conquering of all those villages makes a lot more sense and gives this attack a sense of realism.”

Luna blinks, she looks surprised and impressed, but there’s still a trace of confusion visible on her face,

“Wow… I didn’t really think of that…”

“You seem like you have another question,” I say, “Go on.”

Luna flushes a bit, “Well, it’s just that… I don’t get how you fed all this information to the scouts with such perfect precision… I mean, at least one scout would’ve noticed that the flags were fake, right?”

“Ah, of course you wouldn’t get it, you simply don’t have all the information,” I assure her, “A few months ago, Lord Wilhelm entered the king’s circle of most trusted allies and he just recently used that position to find out where all the Salvorian scouts are posted—in fact, I got the files containing that information from Ducis right before I met you. I simply used that knowledge to feed our enemies false information.”

“Woah, so that means you’ve completely tricked—like, everyone!” She exclaims excitedly, “That’s so cool!”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, a tiny smidgeon of my inner bitterness leaking into my voice, “Lord Davis managed to completely see through whatever trick I made. The only reason he’s still fooled is because I had years and years of preparation on my side. If we ever both tried to outwit each other with the same pieces and time, then he would surely win.”

“So?” Luna asks with a sort of innocent curiosity, “I mean, you’re still going to win in the end, aren’t you? Doesn’t that make you better?”

I blink.

…How simplistic. But I can’t say I despise that sort of logic.

No matter how much Lord Davis has seen through my ploys, it will still be my victory in the end. After all, ultimately, only the results matter.

“Thank you, Luna,” I thank her with a sincere smile.

Luna tilts her head curiously, not sure why I’m thanking her in the first place,

“You’re… welcome?”

Seeing such an innocent act from her, my guilt once again begins to resurface. Luna’s eyes flash into Rex’s dull lifeless blue for a second, and I feel my heart skip a beat. Thankfully, just at that moment, a messenger rushes into the cave,

“Sir, the sun has set completely!”

All thoughts of guilt fly out the window. All the emotions I had been feeling a second ago now feel as though I’d felt them a year ago. Right now, all there is inside me is a tense calm.

It’s time.