)"I am very sorry, Sir."
In a tent at the corner of the Imperial Knight Order main campground, Jade van Cliffdorf sifted through paperwork. Upon hearing a familiar voice behind him, he looked up.
The owner of the voice was the middle-aged knight who had been a close confidant of the Cliffdorf Marquisate. He should have been carrying out a top-secret mission.
"Claus. Did something happen?"
The sky was growing dark.
The knights and soldiers were busy with preparations for the next day"s expedition and the night watch.
The aged knight — Claus was given a separate mission because it would have been risky if anybody had questioned him. However, if he had returned to the camp, a problem must have come up.
"I am very sorry. I have lost all of the knights Your Lordship had entrusted to me with."
Upon hearing Claus"s apology, Jade"s face hardened for a moment.
"What happened?"
"Mavis the Brave Count Elstead"s militia got in the way. The prisoners have also been freed."
"What a failure."
"I can only apologize. I deserve to be punished."
"We will get back at them next time. Did you make sure it was actually the Brave?"
"Yes."
"Then that is fine. Did they discover the origin of the dead knights?"
"Their ident.i.ties are impossible to establish."
"Erase all those who have been captured. Seal the lips of anybody who could shed information on the knights" origins. Use any means necessary."
Claus"s presence melted away.
Jade tossed the doc.u.ments he had been reading onto his desk.
"I had heard that Mavis the Brave and Prince Alfred had a marriage interview at the royal villa, but this must mean that there is a connection between Count Elstead and Prince Alfred."
General Feyl and the other top officers leading the advance party were expendables to the Cliffdorf Faction.
Most of the knights weren"t even in the employ of the Cliffdorfs.
A small player in the Cliffdorf Faction, General Feyl happily moved according to Jade"s wishes.
He did not even suspect that he was being fed false information, and attacked an army of three thousand Petersian soldiers.
He was outnumbered six to one.
The advance party would fight in vain, then be annihilated before the main army arrived.
Feyl retreated, and had barely set foot into the main army"s camp before being apprehended.
Feyl was to take responsibility for the crushing defeat the army suffered.
`Royce van Elstead, and Kelvin Warner…`
They had both been Commander Zaunas"s aides.
Jade"s father, Welt van Cliffdorf, was on the verge of consolidating his power over the army when Zaunas disturbed his plan.
Through their significant achievements during the war against the Demon Lord, they had been promoted to the rank of General. However, it was only nominal, and they were left to stagnate in managerial positions. Then, when the coup occurred, they were both demoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
Furthermore, he had actually placed them in the advance party to eliminate them.
"No way, could they have made use of his demotion?"
They must have been acting as the proxies of Prince Alfred, who was skilled in bureaucratic politics.
It was unlikely that Wynn Byrd became Royce"s subordinate by chance.
Escorting the civilians in the rear of the army was the perfect justification to avoid fighting the enemy.
Royce had summoned his territory"s knights without permission, but he could just insist that he was protecting his territory to avoid any repercussions. Due to Elstead"s army acting as a diversion, the Petersian army would be unable to destroy the advance party.
"I must rely on Father to act."
He had tried to prevent Royce from acting in his territory by occupying him with a meaningless bureaucratic job, but Royce immediately became a threat once he left the Capital.
Jade took a pen and began writing a letter to his father at the Imperial Knight Order Headquarters.
An incident arose from that single adventurer"s report.
The Kingdom of Petersia denied the Remulshil Empire"s claims that Petersian soldiers were invading the empire while disguised as bandits, and instead claimed that Imperial Soldiers had ambushed their army while their army was carrying out military exercises.
Those who knew the truth kept their mouths shut, and the tensions between the Remulshil Empire and Petersia Kingdom increased.