CH prologue 2

First Run, Destruction

“For the time being, let’s see…….I have never done this before but let’s bring this up to the royal palace.”

Klein said that in his usual tone.

This kingdom prohibits its aristocrats from fighting each other without any sound reason.

Since the Asgard house has never done anything to the Marquis, Klein was certain that the law of the kingdom is on their side.

“That’s right, we need to give them a reply first. That will surely buy us some time for our appeal.”

Even if he gathers allies to fight off the Marquis, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Rather than that, if the royal palace gets angry at the Marquis, he would have no choice but to withdraw his soldiers.

It’s a very normal course of action based on common sense.

“……Um, Klein-sama.”

Klein has chosen a normal and sensible response.

However, the face of his head butler is still pale.

“Don’t worry about it. Justice is on our side. We will surely win this in the court.”

“That’s not it, sir. How do I say this……”

Klein is also a relatively prestigious noble from a venerable house.

He has a reasonably high level of education.

And he’s now making use of all his legal knowledge.

His next step should be to consider how he can appeal to the royal palace——

On the other hand, his head butler simply points to the mountain in the west.

“Is that–, not an army, sir?”

“Ha?”

When Klein turned around a beat later, what he found was a large army marching down the mountain.

It’s clear that they are marching straight toward the city.

“Klein-samaaaaaaa!! Bad news, sir!”

Hans, the captain of his guard, rushed into the garden.

He kneels down in front of Klein and immediately relays a despairing report.

“We are under attack, sir! They have already set off the smoke signal to notify the beginning of war——according to the reports, their army numbered 30,000 strong, sir!”

“Haa!? Thi, Thirty thousand!?”

They did not have any intention to perform a skirmish with them from the start. They are coming in with the intention to wipe out his territory.

The number of soldiers already relay such intentions to Klein.

No matter how he thinks about it, an army of that scale is an overkill to be put against a mere viscount house.

Even if he gathers every soldier in his territory, he would only have around 2,000 or 3,000 at most.

“They are doing a surprise war!?”

“…..unfortunately.”

Normally, discussions would be held in advance in case of war.

Where will the battlefield be?

When will the war start?

Is there any agreement to be made?

There should be a certain amount of script for something like this.

After all, if nobles of the same country fight each other seriously it would not be a funny matter to the nation as a whole either. That’s why most of the time such wars would be fought in skirmishes.

Even the citizens would have time to escape beforehand——-that should have been the case.

However, not nearly enough time has passed since he received the declaration of war.

“If we are being reasonable here then it should be the case where the messenger was late to arrive right?”

“Ugh, no, sir. If they have this much preparation then I think that this is intentional.”

Klein and his subordinates were conversing about such a thing but the enemy has already made their move.

“It’s impossible to defend against an attack of this scale, my lord! Please evacuate immediately!”

“A messenger—–no, it would be useless to send one huh…….do I really have no choice but to escape?”

Now that the other side has already mobilized their military, there is no longer any room for negotiation.

Judging that, Klein ran toward the stable to find his horse.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, damn it!”

Marquis Laguna ignores the rules of war and illegally attacks his territory.

Without a reasonable cause, even high-ranking aristocratic houses can be crushed for sending their troops into an ally’s territory.

However, if all the victims are dead, cases like this will not be deeply pursued.

[We’ve sent a war notice to them but they did not prepare their defense so we went a little overboard].

Such an excuse would be made by the aggressor.

If their opponent is no longer around to fight for themselves, the matter would conclude with the aggressor side paying a fine to the royal palace.

——Dead men tell no tales.

To bring that situation to reality, the Marquis need to at least wipe out every single one of Klein’s citizens in the city.

Klein has already expected the situation to develop toward that direction but–

“Is this……even allowed?”

While they were stunned by the Marquis’s action, the enemy army rushed toward them like an avalanche.

In no time, the peaceful city was overrun and swallowed whole.

Kingdom Calendar Year 503, March 30th

The Asgard territory was destroyed by a surprise war.

TLN: Marquis Laguna accrued 150 grievances for declaring a surprise wa