“The higher the value something is, the less there will be in a war-torn land. People will scramble in order to capture or eliminate these high-value things, be they objects or people, and attrition would ensure that they become rare over time.” - Saying attributed to Gregorian Aurelius Secundus, famed general and later Second Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

If there was one thing Reinhardt was glad about the situation he faced at the moment, it was that the Free Lances were employed there only after a good two decades of messy civil war in the region.

The continuous conflicts meant that all the present nations that stood in the former Clangeddin Empire’s territory were softened up and had lost a lot of their strongest assets from the Empire’s glory days. Veteran soldiers were a relative rarity, and most of those that did exist would have five to ten years of experience in general, with those from the Imperial days being rare.

Similarly, elites were in short supply because in the early days of the civil war, when the fighting was at its most furious, every side lost many of their elites and while they trained more in the years since, the quality of those elite troops still suffered in general. This was most prominent when it came to war mages, which were already relatively rare even prior to the civil war.

As it was, war mages were quickly marked as a high-value asset by whichever forces had some at the time, which naturally provoked their enemies to do their damndest to kill off said mages to deny their use. As a result, the only nation that still had cadres of war mages out of the many offshoot nations was Sevras-Galastine, the two halves of which maintained an alliance early on even prior to their merging and thus faced fewer difficult battles over the years.

For the rest, at most they managed to save up a few such mages who they kept as part of their personal retinue as bodyguards. There were simply too few surviving war mages to be organized into the usual cadres otherwise. Levain had none, while Caroma had a few but they remained in the Republic as they were only committed on the defense. Out of the foes the Free Lances faced in the region so far, only the noble from the Southern region had a small retinue, but those died with him.

Fortune was in their favor though, as it turned out that the Marquis of Podovniy had few such mages as well. While the man did keep an elite unit as bodyguards around his position, Reinhardt’s mercenaries still managed to break through those elites without too much difficulty. It would have been a different story if they were supported by a mage cadre, but the Marquis clearly didn’t have one.

The Podovnian Elites were good soldiers, and given Podovniy’s proximity with Boroes to the east, they were better equipped and prepared for fighting against therians than most. That said, however, even in Boroes it was rare for many therians to reach Mischka’s size and bulk. Mischka’s family were descendants of immigrants from Elmaiya to the south that settled in Knallzog, not from Boroes, so the Podovnians were not used to her kind in particular.

She was larger, more powerful, and wore heavier armor than what they were prepared to face and that threw them off. Their spears – ones with long, narrow points meant to pierce through tough hide, deep into a large creature’s body and hit internal organs – bent when faced with the armor Mischka wore, while her blade swept people aside and left those that were not killed on the spot dying.

It was partly due to a difference in expectations.

While Boroes styled itself a nation, in reality it was more of an alliance of multiple tribes, which often did not get along with each other. Due to the poor conditions of the region, warriors from there were rarely able to afford good quality weapons and armor, and thus had a greater reliance on their individual prowess and physicality.

Mischka and her people, on the other hand, were a trained, disciplined unit with strong cohesion that was equipped with some of the best armor around made by a master blacksmith, fitted perfectly to their physique. It was a far cry to even draw a comparison between her platoon and the typical band of Boroesian raiders the Podovnians often had to deal with.

As Mischka’s handful of troops – the majority of her troops were helping shore up the sides, after all – pushed into the enemy elites, Reinhardt also made use of the last surprise he kept in store. He led the charge himself from Mischka’s left, while on the right, Nicole’s and Fatimah’s platoons, which had been hidden in the center of their formation until then, similarly rushed forward and helped keep the way clear.

Even as they pushed ahead, Elfriede and her people slipped behind Mischka’s troops and followed their wake. They would be responsible for the final stretch and taking down the targets, which was why they had saved up their energy and not fought much along the way. As Mischka and her troops were physically much larger, they were also hidden from sight behind them, at least from the front.

Theirs was the most dangerous task and the heaviest responsibility, as they would have to deal with whatever personal guards – likely the best of the bunch – the Marquis of Podovniy kept close to him and did so all on their own, with minimal support. As always, they were also on a time limit as well, as if they took too long then their target would likely either get away or get themselves some help.

Not to mention that the rest of the unit would likely falter under the continued pressure of the far more numerous enemies all around them, but at least Elfriede and her unit was used to being placed in such a situation. From there it was all a matter of skill and luck that would decide who walked away triumphant.