“It was common in the past for a famed warrior to be considered more than just the person they are. Some played that angle on purpose, claimed to be a descendant of the deities themselves, for example, and the likes. Such mythical propaganda often helped boost morale for their side, so most nations tolerated and even encouraged the practice.

Sometimes though, some of them fell for their own propaganda and started to believe in their own greatness too much, all too often just to be brought down and reminded that they were just a person in the hard way.” - From a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Professor of Socioeconomy at the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 572 FP.

Throughout her entire life, Astra had always seen her mighty mother as a pillar of strength for the family to lean on.

As such, it was quite a great shock for her to witness that indomitable mother of hers in a clear position of weakness during the fifth day of the exhibition against Levain’s forces. Her mother had arrived just before noon, walking slowly to the venue with dispirited steps, one hand periodically clutched against her forehead as if she was feeling a terrible headache.

Her father had remained close to her mother all that while, sometimes supporting her from the side, at other times helping to ply her with hot cups of sweetened tea to help deal with her suffering. From time to time, Astra also noticed her mother looking at the mercenaries gathered near the Levain Council’s seats across the venue from them and glaring at the mercenary Captain’s wife in particular.

She and her brother Scipius had retired for the night long before their parents returned the night before, so they had missed the small commotion when Tasha helped bring the completely drunk Lady Marshal to the Caroman encampment. They only heard of the story from their father shortly after he arrived for that day’s exhibition, as those lower in rank were too afraid to gossip about the Marshals.

After she had heard of the explanation, Astra couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed at the whole story, yet some of her worries also flew away at the same time. It was perhaps somewhat juvenile to be annoyed at another because they drank you under the table, as the mercenary Captain’s wife had apparently done to her mother, yet at the same time, it was sort of an understandable and very human feeling.

Doubly so when the woman in question looked pretty relaxed in her seat instead of suffering from a hangover just as bad as her mother was feeling at the moment.

The fifth day’s exhibition was another closely fought one, with both matches somehow ending in draws. It was something that made many of the Caroman generals take notice. If a militia force could be trained to the point that they were able to match their veteran soldiers in a mere couple of years, that meant one of two things.

Either the training methods used by the Levain soldiers were absurdly effective and that they should adopt the same methods for their own people, or that the Caroman methods of training their soldiers were outdated and they needed to adapt to the changing circumstances or be left behind. Their soldiers were acknowledged as elites by their neighbors, but most of those neighbors also used similar training practices from the old Empire’s days… except for Levain.

At the banquet held after the exhibitions, some of those worried generals had a lengthy discourse with several of the officers from Levain. Before long, some of them called both Marshals – her mother had at least mostly shook off the hangover by then – and the mercenaries to the discussion. Some of them directly asked what made it possible for the Levain Militia to achieve such a level of skill within so short a time.

The mercenary Captain had a very blunt answer to their question.

“The crux of the problem is that most everyone we saw so far still fought as if you’re fighting a petty squabble between nobles of the same nation,” said Reinhardt openly to answer their question. “It really shows when you fight big battles. All of you fight it out like war is a game, in some way. You expect to be treated nicely when you surrender and get ransomed after a while. That likely comes from the mindset of the nobles in charge, I guess.”

“The folks here in Levain on the other hand, are mostly what those nobles would call peasants. Most of the council lacked that noble mindset too,” he continues his explanation calmly. “We simply taught the militia how to fight like their lives depended on it, because for them there are none of the luxuries like ransom that the nobles would expect to be granted to them after a losing battle. We taught them to do whatever it takes to win and stay alive. I’m certain you all have heard what we did to the Southern Coalition’s army just months ago, no?”

“We have, yes,” said General Ignatius, one of the most trusted subordinates of Astra’s father. She and Scipius were present as well, listening to the discussion intently. “That had been a subject of quite a few disagreements amongst ourselves. Some of us considered it a brilliant, if brutal move to make, while others decried it for various reasons.”

“When it comes to battle, the winners get to write the history books to their likings,” noted Reinhardt with a shake of his head. “An army can try to uphold its chivalry or morals or any other such thing they want and stick to it, but when they lose, all they’ll be immortalized as would be rebels or traitors or the like. Those values they try to uphold would just be mocked or twisted to be turned into lessons of why they lost.”

“I have no such grand visions or values. Neither do my men. We are mercenaries, and our services are simply bought and paid for. We do not fight out of patriotism, or morals, or chivalry, or righteousness and the likes. We just fight for coins, and aren’t ashamed to be honest about it,” he continued. “For us, the end does often justify the means, even when it was something others decried for various reasons. The militia, we taught the same way.”