The silence inside the carriage continued as the carriage rolled down the road smoothly.
Rene, or rather, Bellerose, sat directly across from me in a calm yet professional manner. They had closed their eyes, as if taking a quick nap while sitting completely upright.
They hadn't uttered a single syllable since we crossed into the lower district, keeping their breathing so perfectly regulated it was almost creepy.
I held the heavy bag of romance novels tight against my lap, staring out the window just to look at something. The bustling, chaotic noises of the common market outside felt slightly muffled, probably because they were mostly blocked out by the thick walls of our portable bunker.
Those walls didn’t do much against my ears, however. I could still hear some dude yelling how their apples were half off just for today.
Meanwhile, my other half was dealing with an entirely different kind of pressure.
“And with that, you are presented with a decision to make.”
The instructor’s booming voice echoed off the walls of the room. I shifted my focus back onto Carine as I sat up straight. A blank sheet of parchment lay before the other students and me.
The instructor paced the front of the room as he continued.
“You have received guaranteed intel that your vanguard troop is marching directly into an enemy ambush. If you send word to retreat, you save their lives, but potentially drag the conflict out for months. However, if you order them to push forward anyway, they have the potential to break the enemy line. The vanguard will suffer severe casualties, but you will win the war right then and there.”
He stopped pacing, his sharp eyes scanning the room. “You have ten minutes. Write down your decision and, more importantly, the rationale behind your ethics. Begin.”
Ten minutes seems like a lot of time, no?
A collective rustle filled the classroom as my peers began scribbling down their answers and thoughts.
I looked down at my own paper. This is the type of question with no objective answer, so I couldn’t rely on my internal library to find the perfect answer like usual. But Carine’s ears were attentive enough to notice that the instructor never said the option was limited to retreat or push forward. And so, I began writing my answer.
If I were given intel that my troop would be ambushed soon, but knew that pushing them would win the war, my first priority wouldn't be choosing between the sacrifice or the retreat.
If I knew the ambush was coming, I wouldn’t just blindly march into it or just accept the loss. I would use that intel to my advantage and force the enemy to fight on my terms. If victory must be achieved, my first step would be to analyze the exact nature of the ambush.
A fleet of archers? A cavalry charge? A flanking maneuver? I would adjust the vanguard’s formation, consider backup troops, or other options, depending on the intel, and attempt to turn the enemy’s tactics against them.
In short, just by having that enemy intel and knowing it is genuine intel, our troops are given a massive advantage, and an ambush would no longer be an ambush.
Finishing up, I placed the paper before me and let the ink gently dry. With quite a few minutes still left on the clock, I leaned back and subtly glanced to my side to see how my friends were handling the question.
To my right sat Lionne. Despite her usually bubbly, cheerful socialite energy, I was reminded once again that she indeed was a fellow student of Honors.
She, too, chose a third option. It was a fairly economical-minded option, and I’m no instructor, but I believe it was a good answer… though she was in the middle of writing it.
If I had to summarize her answer so far, it would boil down to toying with the enemies. Feigning a charge, or a commitment to push forward, all to keep the enemy ambush party active and waste supplies, waiting for a troop that had long changed course.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
All of a sudden, her technical win during the spar in the combat class last week made sense. She was always this sly, wasn’t she?
But when I turned my gaze to the left, toward Eve... my eyes widened slightly.
Eve was the one I knew who excelled in her written exam, with a solid forty-one out of fifty points. I expected her to provide an excellent answer as well. But her parchment didn’t provide what I expected.
Even though she was still in the middle of writing, the core of her answer was already clear.
Push forward.
Let those troops know that the only way to win is if they keep pushing forward. Let them know that prolonging the war would cause countless more deaths. Let them know the truth about an ambush, and command them to break the line with all their might.
…You okay, bud?
A small shiver ran through my spine. It was a ruthless, unyielding perspective. But I couldn’t help but find some sort of logic behind it, as much as I hated it.
If given that intel, knowing the fate of countless lives in the army rests on you breaking through, despite the losses, quite a few would be willing to be martyrs.
If these are graded, Eve would probably be rated as an effective commander with that answer…
Or maybe not.
I mean, would I be willing to walk into my death if it meant the safety of countless others?
I... don't know.
Before I could ponder Eve's answer any further, the carriage on Feyt's side came to a complete, smooth stop. The steady clatter of horse hooves faded away.
Across from me, Rene finally moved. Their sharp eyes snapped directly onto mine, which nearly startled me.
“We have arrived, Sir Feyt,” Rene said softly. They rose from their seat with professional grace, their hand reaching for the carriage door handle. “Remember my warning. From this moment on, you and Her Highness are simply two friends meeting in a tavern.”
“Of course,” I said, adjusting my grip on the bag of novels. “I’ll be extra careful.”
Rene opened the heavy door and descended. I followed suit, stepping out into the thick, humid air of the lower district. What awaited me was the restaurant.
It looked cozy. Not fancy. A weathered wooden sign swung gently in the breeze, the sound of the customers inside echoing, and the faint scent of roasted meat and toasted bread drifted through the air. A perfect place for “friends” to meet up.
Following Rene’s lead, I entered the building with them. The interior wasn’t packed with customers. Out of all the tables, only around four were populated. And judging from the way they conversed, only two tables were occupied by real customers.
The others must be the personal guards Rene was talking about. Four in total, with two at each table, trying their best to blend in with the real customers.
Rene turned their head back to me without slowing their pace.
“Your eyes,” Rene said in a low breath. “Avert them.”
I immediately snapped my gaze forward under Rene’s instruction. “Y-Yes! Sorry…”
We continued walking until we reached the stairs for the upper floors. We passed by a golden sign with the words “Business Area” etched into it.
As we reached the upper halls and continued our short walk, Rene asked.
“You immediately noticed the guards,” they said without looking back. “What gave them away?”
“Uhh…” I blinked a few times. “I mean, the real customers were talking, right? As for your guards… they were just… talking nonsense, I guess? They were even saying stuff like, ‘we laugh now’. It kinda stood out.”
To be fair, the only reason it stood out to me was because of my ears. I doubt the customers beside them even noticed what they were talking about.
Rene didn’t slow their pace, nor did they offer a direct response. But then, I distinctly heard a low, irritated mutter under their breath.
“Years of training, huh? What a load of…”
My feet froze for a second.
Did… did I just get those guards fired?
Before I could dwell on the sudden guilt, we reached a pair of heavy double doors at the end of the hall.
“Monica awaits ahead,” Rene said, turning around with a sudden, blindingly cheerful smile. The transition was so seamless it was terrifying. “She has been waiting for you for quite some time, Sir Feyt.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “Thank you, Bellerose.”
Rene stepped aside, gesturing toward the entrance. Clutching the heavy bag of romance novels tightly against my chest, I took a step forward and steeled myself.
The hidden message Munith had buried in those pages echoed once more in my mind.
That message was decoded from several lines that the characters in the story had said in that foreign language. Carine's eyes could read it well enough, and it was also enough for me to notice that if I strung together some of them, especially the words written in slightly bolder fonts... a message came through.
“Come alone, chosen one, and let us share the symbols of the past.”
When I first decoded it, I was caught completely off-guard. I was the one looking for answers, yet without even knowing my true intentions, she had dangled the prize right in front of me and demanded I come to her alone. In other words, it was an ambush.
Subtly, I reached up and clutched the necklace Fray had given me beneath my clothes. If it truly possessed some kind of power as she proclaimed… I silently prayed it would protect me if things decided to go south.
Time to see if I can turn this ambush into a victory, or see if I'm the one getting played.
