Evade The Hero and Flee!

Chapter 305

Side Story – Memories of a Certain Princess (56)

After defeating all the enemy troops except General Laiasha’s, we quickly reorganized the troops and prepared to leave.  

“What if he doesn’t come?”

“Our opponent is General Laiasha. The one who nonchalantly does things that no sane person would do! That’s exactly why we adore him so much.”

While gathering this and that baggage, Ast spoke loudly.

“Hey, that’s expensive stuff! Be careful packing it!”  

“Yes, senior!”

Does Ast know? That the existence he is exploiting right now is a dragon?

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

No matter how good his acting was, I couldn’t exactly say it was fascinating to see a dragon obediently following human commands.

“I’ve gathered everything we need to take now. I should leave a few military secrets here and there, killing two birds with one stone.”

“Alright….”

He scattered documents stamped with the imperial seal that contained completely unnecessary information here and there.  

And to make it look like things were accidentally dropped in a hurry to move, he scattered some unimportant official documents on top of them. Then he started waiting.

“Hmm… I kind of want to sneakily drop one or two important pieces of information too….”

“No matter what the operation is, you can’t divulge military secrets.”

“Is that so…?”

Looking disappointed, Ast quickly dashed out and came back holding a sheet of paper.

“Your Highness, would you stamp your seal on this please?”

“…I have a bad feeling about this. Is it just my imagination?”

“It’s your imagination.”

“No. It’s definitely not just my imagination.”  

I swiftly snatched the paper Ast was holding.

“This is…”

Though there’s a variety of content written, to summarize,

“We’re planning to attack the enemy in three days? With the target location and everything written out… We didn’t have a plan like this before, did we?”

“No. I just made it up now.”  

“I see. The ink hasn’t even dried yet.”

“Yes.”

I frowned looking at the quite neat handwriting.

“You want me to stamp my seal on this?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“If it’s impossible to leak real battle plans, shouldn’t we just make up plans to leak instead?”

“I wonder how you end up with that kind of conclusion…”

What Ast was suggesting was a very simple action.

Divulging pre-planned operations to General Laiasha would be illegal. However, divulging plans made up on the spot right here and now that were never pre-planned would not be against the law.

Well, of course it wouldn’t be illegal.  

“You want to plot an operation without reporting it to the military at all?”

“Yes.”

“You know that the moment the military finds out, it’ll be great disciplinary fodder, right?”

Except for special cases, all operations must be reported to the military by law. It was to prevent various things from happening in advance.

For example, Special Forces Unit A heads out to attack the enemy. 

Then, Special Forces Unit B, also heading toward enemy territory to ambush them, discovers Unit A and mistakes them for the enemy.

In the end, our own allies ended up fighting each other.

Since they wore nondescript black clothing on a night without even moonlight in order to surprise attack the enemy, they didn’t realize the others were allies and it happened.

It was a foolish thing, but it was something that actually occurred in the past in a certain country.

That’s why those of a certain rank and position needed to be aware of allied operations within a certain territory.  

And reporting operations to the military was necessary to coordinate that.

Of course, it was also to help allied spies hidden among enemy ranks survive to the maximum extent possible, and for the military to judge the danger of operations.

To restrain them from undertaking overly dangerous actions or those that violate common sense and ethics, which could invite international condemnation.  

“Hmmm… What level of disciplinary action would it be?”

“Considering your accomplishments so far, it probably wouldn’t warrant execution, but you’d likely be stripped of your peerage.”

That’s why carrying out operations without reporting to the military constituted grounds for severe punishment.

However… The problem was that it didn’t apply any disciplinary action Ast would care about.

“Let’s do it right away!”

“Oh boy….”

For a commoner who didn’t originally have any title, receiving a knighthood was an extremely honorable thing.  

They say countless people receive titles every year, but this is the Empire. 

It had vast territory with a vast population inhabiting it.

While the sheer numbers may seem high, proportionally speaking, only an extremely small number of people could receive knighthoods.  

If one became a baron, it would be such tremendous glory that a nearby lord would congratulate you. And for a commoner-born to receive a peerage would be an impossible feat except by rendering distinguished military service in the armed forces.   

Moreover, all of that only applied to the individual themselves.   

In Ast’s case, he held the rank of a hereditary peerage with the permission to establish his own noble house.   

He could pass on the title to his descendants.  

For a commoner, that was close to impossible.  

Wealth, power, honor.  

It was a glorious feat for a commoner to gain all three.  

“Well, that’s easy for you to say.”  

He’d give it all up so easily. No, judging by his expression, it looked like he wished someone would take it away.

When I reluctantly took out my seal and stamped the document before passing it back, Ast handed the paper to someone else.

“Maref, adjust the temperature properly and dry this well.”

“Understood, senior.”

Using fire and wind magic exquisitely, he created a hot wind to dry the ink.   

…A dragon did it.  

“It’s done, senior.”  

“Thanks.”   

“Not at all.”

The so-called origin and conclusion of all magic, a dragon, used magic just to dry some ink.  

It’s nonsense, but that nonsense was becoming reality next to Ast.

After confirming the ink had dried properly, Ast squeezed the document he’d just written in among the other papers and smiled satisfiedly looking over the chaotic room.   

-That man seems crazy.

Seeing his state, the dragon shuddered.  

From observing Ast’s various actions up close all this time, he realized,

Just what kind of lunatic acts Ast was likely to commit.   

But,  

-Isn’t this about the same as usual?

-That’s the bigger problem!

He had a point.  

But compared to what we have to deal with, the enemy will have it worse.

That was probably the case, 

“Now, I think it’s time to fry.”

I don’t know why, but Ast has never failed when he smiles like that.

#71 Their Situation: The Situation of a Certain Knight

“I’m sorry.” 

I still can’t forget the sight of my dying lord with a grim face.

“I’m really sorry, but… May I ask just one favor?”

Not just one.

Two, three… Ten. No, a hundred.

If it was something my lord said, I was confident I could keep every promise. We were all people who had been saved by our lord.  

So I hoped he would get up from his seat and continue to lead us.

So that… I would continue to carry out any order.

“Although he is a useless son… He is my only son.”

What my lord worried about in the end was his child.

Born as the only legal heir of the Marquis Laiasha family, an existence that must carry on the family line.

As he monopolized all the family’s love as their one and only child, he grew up arrogantly.  

My lord worried and worried again about his son.

“No matter how useless he is… He’s my only child.”

He realized too late, but my lord did his best to educate his son.

But the result was failure.  

Not listening to others, arrogant, surrounding himself only with flatterers rather than talented people.

No outstanding talent yet no will to learn, while believing himself to be the best with no grounds.

The garbage of the Marquis Laiasha.  

That’s what people called the only successor of General Laiasha.

“He will succeed the Laiasha family… He will protect the Laiasha family.”  

That was the worrying part.  

My lord worried about his child and the Laiasha family until his dying breath.

“If you don’t have talent you can make an effort, if you don’t have ability you can gain it by learning.”

It was something my lord said frequently since I was very young.

Make up for lack of talent with effort.  

Make up for lack of ability by learning.

Since all people are imperfect beings, we must complete our lacking parts with effort and learning.

Following his words, all the vassals, knights and soldiers under my lord made efforts to learn.  

And so we became one of the finest troops in the Merdeah Kingdom.

“But my son makes no effort despite having no talent. He makes no effort despite having no ability.”  

It was all my fault.

Lamenting so, my lord left us his final words.  

“But… From now on, he is the owner of the Laiasha family. So please… Help him.”

Leaving those words, my lord fell asleep as if dead.  

And three days later, my lord passed away. He left peacefully in his sleep.

After my lord passed away, the Laiasha Marquis fell into disarray. 

It was full of swindlers and scoundrels, and people who bought positions with money appeared.

Many people shed tears seeing the once brilliant Laiasha family fall into a garbage dump.

But remembering my lord’s final request, we made efforts to fulfill it as much as possible.  

In that process, many were dismissed from the Laiasha family and expelled.  

And their places were filled by scoundrels and villains.

As time passed, hope seemed nowhere to be seen.  

Then war broke out. A very big war that shook the continent.  

And our Merdeah Kingdom faced the only two empires on the continent.  

Naturally, as a family with military power, the Laiasha Marquis had to participate in the war.

I felt uneasy.  

During my lord’s time we were an undefeated troop, but with the command under my lord’s son, I felt we would become a troop that only knew defeat.  

And my expectations were correct.  

We were defeated. Defeated and defeated again.

I would have acknowledged it if the enemy had an excellent strategist.  

I would have understood if the enemy outnumbered us.

But the enemy was weak.  

Their general was average, they were fewer than us, and our training was rather superior.  

Yet we still lost.  

With ridiculous charges, taking ridiculous damage, we were defeated.

It was such a huge blow to our pride.  

A troop from the militaristic Merdeah Kingdom that never knew defeat was suffering consecutive defeats.  

What kind of rumors must be circulating in the kingdom?

How far would the once honorable Laiasha family fall?

Eventually, some who followed my lord stepped up and conveyed that we would only lose if we continued acting like this.  

But the reply was an abusive remark, ‘It’s all because you guys are incompetent’.  

And after that, the few who spoke up were dismissed.

During wartime, several veteran commanders were dismissed.  

While the official reason was taking responsibility for the defeats, everyone in the military knew. They weren’t dismissed for being responsible for defeat.  

They were just dismissed for provoking the mood of Marquis Laiasha.

It was natural for troop morale to hit rock bottom.  

We entered another battle in that condition.  

A situation where defeat was certain.

Troop morale was on the floor, the plan was reckless.  

Eventually we were surrounded by imperial troops, and barely managed to escape with the help of allied troops.

Even after sacrificing tens of thousands of our troops to escape, Marquis Laiasha still couldn’t come to his senses.  

Now was the chance. We had to go on the offensive.  

It was nonsense.  

If we marched out now, everyone would die.  

I was convinced of that.

However….  

“Huh?”  

Watching the escaping enemy forces in bewilderment, I couldn’t help but feel astonished.

Moreover,  

“There is enemy intelligence here!”

“Here too!”

“Things they failed to dispose of properly here too!”

Things that seemed like they tried to burn but failed to dispose of properly were discovered.  

Among them was information about attacking our forces.

Suspicious. Very suspicious.   

But we couldn’t help but report what was discovered.

We retrieved all the materials and sent them to the military, and with that they were able to thwart the enemy’s ambush.  

And this was just the beginning.  

“Attack!”  

“Run away!”

The undefeated empire began fleeing from Marquis Laiasha’s attack.  

The one who succeeded in the first counterattack on the empire.  

It was the moment when evaluations of Marquis Laiasha in the Merdeah Kingdom began rising sharply.

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