Command was a sensitive subject. Even brothers had to tread carefully around it, never mind two men who barely knew each other.

But Derek had overlooked one thing: in an age where knowledge itself was precious, military knowledge came with a high barrier to entry.

Count Perez's knightly order taught only the fundamentals. The knowledge military nobles passed down through their families was even less likely to be shared.

Newly risen nobles such as Baron Palmer could never truly establish themselves without generations of military service and the hard-won lessons paid for in blood.

Palmer had worked hard to recruit knights, but he had barely enough to keep his army functioning. Any attempt at more sophisticated tactics would have been little more than guesswork.

Having guessed what the legion's higher command had in mind, he had no confidence at all.

He was not arrogant enough to think war was merely a game of numbers, or that he was some military genius.

Far more likely, he was simply a fool.

So, after learning something of Derek's background, Palmer chose to trust him.

He had no better option.

Derek hesitated for only an instant before agreeing.

"Then thank you for giving me the opportunity."

He did not press his advantage, nor did he mock the baron.

In truth, a comrade with a clear understanding of his own limits was someone worth respecting—and worth keeping close.

Someone who knew nothing but insisted on pretending otherwise would only ruin things.

Derek took command of the Eighth Thousand of the First Legion without ceremony. Apart from Baron Palmer's personal hundred-man company, every unit came under his hand.

His method was simple and direct: he sent his own squires to temporarily take over infantry companies one by one.

Palmer could only envy him. Every one of Derek's squires was highly capable, clearly superior to the knights Palmer had recruited.

"Is this what military nobility is like?"

Palmer had drawn the wrong conclusion, of course.

But with it, the last scraps of doubt in his heart temporarily faded away.

The infantry camped outside the town had not been idle these past days. They had put together a few crude siege engines.

Once daylight came the next morning, Derek began assigning tasks.

He sent Adrian away with part of the force.

The remaining troops were divided into four groups, with elite soldiers interspersed among the ordinary men.

As both a commander of a thousand and the senior officer in this battle, Derek had the authority to minimize his own casualties.

Baron Palmer watched silently, hoping to learn something.

Messengers raced back and forth as orders divided the army into separate columns. Coordinating so many moving parts demanded genuine skill.

It sounded simple, but even getting a thousand men to form ranks was difficult. Doing so on a battlefield was another matter entirely.

Several hundred-man companies remained gathered around Derek as a reserve. The other three sides each received five such companies.

Only the northern side stood completely empty, without a single soldier in sight.

Around five hundred barbarians could not hold this small town forever.

The only question was how many casualties it would cost.

Derek did not try any tricks. He simply ordered a direct assault.

Spend lives to build momentum. Spend lives to buy time.

The attack came from three sides, with supervising troops standing behind the assault force, blades in hand.

Either die outside the walls, or die atop them.

The troops in the first wave were somewhat scattered, though they still maintained a basic order.

Derek showed no mercy. He used the Eighth Thousand as cannon fodder.

The officers around Baron Palmer wanted to object, but the baron stopped them.

If he had come to learn, then he had to pay tuition.

"Baron Palmer, the first wave is only to test where their defenses are concentrated. The elite infantry will handle the actual siege afterward."

On the battlefield, Derek's manner was much harder than it had been the previous day.

But his meaning was plain enough: the Eighth Thousand was cannon-fodder quality, so it had to be used as cannon fodder.

His own men would fight hard next, and their losses would not be light either.

It was not pleasant to hear.

"Roughly how long until we take it?" Palmer asked.

"That depends on the barbarians' will to fight. If it breaks easily, we will be inside before nightfall. If they hold firm, tomorrow will still be enough."

"That fast?"

Palmer found it hard to believe.

Derek did not explain. If he were willing to pay the price in casualties, they could take the town even faster.

War seemed complicated when discussed, but in truth it was simple enough.

Will to fight, numbers, training, morale—each could decide victory or defeat.

And the barbarians' numbers meant they could not endure for long.

There was a reason famous last stands by small forces were so rare.

Five hundred men could lose one or two hundred after several desperate assaults. The remainder would be doing well not to collapse outright.

Leaving them a way out would weaken their will to fight further still.

There was no need to explain all of that to Palmer in detail.

Derek took up a position on a slight rise, where he could see the battlefield clearly.

Cannon fodder was not without value. At the cost of several dozen casualties, the first wave successfully tested the enemy's strength.

"Competent enough."

The barbarian commander had some ability, but not much.

He had distributed his troops evenly everywhere; there were even men at the northern gate.

Derek would have adapted to the situation rather than clinging to such a rigid arrangement.

Since the enemy had chosen otherwise, applying pressure became much easier.

"Increase the pressure on the east side."

The messengers waved their signal flags, and the elite hundred-man companies waiting to the rear moved out at once.

These units had been rebuilt around the core of Derek's old troops after joining the Tenth Thousand. Compared to their allies, they could truly be called elite.

And they had not spent these past days doing nothing. Their training had already shown some effect.

Seeing movement, Baron Palmer opened his eyes wide. He wanted to know whether these infantrymen who looked so elite were the real thing or merely for show.

They did not disappoint him.

Although the elite company set off later, it overtook the others in one charge and scaled the low wooden wall.

The barbarian commander was startled enough to personally rush forward and supervise the defense.

There was no need. The gap between the two sides was not so great that the town would fall in one rush.

Derek ordered the other two fronts to increase their pressure as well.

The barbarians' rhythm of battle was visibly thrown into confusion.

All day long, Derek directed the attacks without pause.

Wave after wave crashed forward like the tide, never allowing the barbarians a chance to rest.

By the time night fell, barbarian casualties had become astonishing.

"The battle will probably end tonight," Derek suddenly said.

Baron Palmer did not understand.

To him, the barbarians still seemed determined. Even their heavy losses had not made them retreat.

But in Derek's eyes, barbarians might be fierce, yet morale had nothing to do with ferocity.

...

It was difficult to see during the heat of battle, but once they stopped to count their losses, the desire to flee would surely take root.

Why was he so certain?

Because he had seen the probing at the northern gate.

There was no need for grand calculations. Their intention to run could not be concealed.

And night was the best time for it.

The barbarians wanted to leave, and Derek pretended not to notice. He withdrew his men as usual, had them eat, and let them rest.

Large troop movements were difficult to hide. If the enemy spotted any weakness, it could set off a chain of complications, so it was better to act exactly as normal.

The barbarians were indeed watching the camp outside the town.

After a day of fighting, they had lost more than two hundred men. Even though the enemy had suffered nearly twice as many casualties, the barbarians could not accept it.

It meant that the enemy could simply pile up bodies until they killed them all.

They did not know whether Locke's officers cared about the lives of their common soldiers, but they knew their own lives were worth a great deal.

Torchlight reached only a small patch of ground. A group of better-dressed barbarians hid in the shadows.

Before long, a rope dangling from the wooden wall shook, and a barbarian soldier climbed up it.

The lesser chiefs nearby immediately crowded around him.

"Well?"

"The Locke men outside have made no movement at all," the scout confirmed.

Every barbarian looked toward the chief at the center.

The situation was clear. None of them wanted to die here.

Unlike the wretched rank-and-file barbarians, these lesser chiefs lived quite comfortably.

They had also taken plenty of loot on this expedition. Very few still wanted to risk their lives.

The chief's expression shifted beneath the dim firelight. He could sense what his men were thinking, and more importantly, he had no wish to fight the Locke men to the bitter end either.

"We leave quietly. Everyone takes their valuables, but abandon anything bulky."

The chief had at least a little common sense. They were fleeing now, not marching home in victory.

Making a disturbance or hauling too much baggage would both be courting death.

Thus, the remaining two or three hundred barbarians quickly packed up their wealth and slipped out through the undefended northern gate.

They had scouted that road several times during the day. There had truly been no ambush.

"These Locke men do not want to fight us to the death either, or they would not have left us a way out."

The barbarian chief believed he had seen through the Locke men's intentions.

Five or six hundred barbarian warriors defending a town could inflict losses two or even three times their own number.

Better for everyone to understand each other than fight to the death.

They would earn the same credit for recovering lost land either way.

The barbarians made their escape smoothly.

Only the next day, when the townspeople found that the barbarians were gone, did they send someone out to contact Derek and the others.

After a careful search, Derek and Baron Palmer entered the town.

"Impressive. You left one side unattacked just to force the barbarians to flee that way? But what if they had not run?" Palmer seemed to have grasped it.

In a good mood, Derek gave him a brief explanation. "War is not fixed. It depends on your objective and the price you can afford to pay. In this case, there were really only two and a half possible outcomes."

"Two and a half? Please, explain."

"First, the barbarians hold the town. Then there is nothing to say—we fight it out. Leaving one side open still lowers the morale of the common barbarians somewhat and reduces our losses a little.

"Second, the barbarians flee. I already sent men to wait for them at a distance. If they leave at night, they should be meeting the barbarians about now. If the barbarians break and flee during the fighting, my men will already be heading back and will run straight into them."

There was one more point Derek did not mention: with pursuers behind them, the barbarians would only die in greater numbers.

The theory was simple enough to state, but its actual use depended on the circumstances.

This was Derek's first time putting it into practice properly. So far, the results looked good.

It was a legacy from his previous life. The Ferreira family's inheritance leaned more toward the military system and unspoken rules of this world.

But to Baron Palmer, it looked almost miraculous.

"Knight Derek, you truly are remarkable. I am certain you will become famous throughout the nations one day."

Derek smiled, neither modest nor self-satisfied.

"And about now, they should have met them."

...

Adrian and a group of men had squatted in the wilderness all night. They slept in crude bedrolls and ate hard rations washed down with cold water.

Even in the army, that counted as poor treatment.

"Captain, do you think the barbarians will really run?"

The infantry banner captain beside him spat out a mouthful of crumbs. The taste and quality of the rations were beyond description.

"Whether they do or not, we carry out our orders. The rest is not for us to consider."

Adrian had doubts of his own. But according to Derek's instructions, they would certainly encounter the barbarians today.

The only difference was when.

If they met them in the morning, the barbarians would have their greatest numbers.

If they met them later, the fight would be easier.

Either way, it would not be difficult.

They had prepared an ambush, and whether the barbarians were burdened with loot or fleeing in disarray, they would have little will to resist.

No sooner had he finished speaking than a soldier covered in leaves came running over.

"Captain! They're coming. The barbarians are coming!"

The stragglers tossed aside anything unnecessary and snatched up their weapons.

Adrian rose as well, his eyes bright.

"Looks like they fled through the night. They have not rested once along the way."

He judged by his own experience. The day before, he had marched most of the day before settling here. The barbarians could not move any faster than he could, so they must have walked through half the night.

A group of barbarians carrying loot, marching all night, and not even on guard—what fighting strength could they possibly have left?

Just as Adrian expected, the barbarian formation had long since fallen apart.

They were scattered all along the road. Some inevitably lagged behind, and over time the fastest and slowest could end up several miles apart.

Any remaining vigilance had worn away with the passing hours as well.

Who would have imagined the Locke men would set an ambush so far away?

"Chief... Baron, we have been running all night. Let us find somewhere to rest up ahead?"

The barbarian chiefs at the front had the only few horses, and they were hauling a great deal of loot.

Ordinary barbarians carried less loot and had been forbidden to bring packhorses or baggage. They were less burdened, but still could not match the pursuing cavalry's speed.

Unfair?

Those rules were for ordinary barbarians. As the men who made the rules, how could the chiefs be bound by them themselves?

They could not make too much noise, but a few horses were manageable.

And with so much of their own loot, how could they bear to abandon it all?

After running all night like that, men and horses alike were nearing their limit.

Hearing this, the barbarian chief stopped and caught his breath.

Since the horses were all carrying valuables, he had been traveling on foot as well, and he was already exhausted.

Looking at the distance, the Locke men had probably only just discovered that he had fled.

Even cavalry would need two hours to catch them, right?

"Then rest for a while. Gather the tribesmen too. If Locke cavalry comes after us, we will make them regret it."

The chief found a place to sit. Just as he was about to call for food, he heard the terrified cry of one of his men.

"The... the... the Locke men are here!"