The noble private soldiers were less heavily armed than I’d expected. Forget plate armor—they weren’t even in chainmail. Most wore light armor made of thick leather. The truth is, outfitting men in heavy armor isn’t as easy as people think.

The idea that all nobles are wealthy is a misconception. Even back in my duchy knight days, court noble positions were so limited that I’d taken on grunt work from low-ranking bureaucrats just to earn copper coins.

Prince Louis’s faction was made up mostly of idle nobles who hadn’t even managed to secure court positions. The reason they’d gathered around Prince Louis was so that, in the event something happened to the crown prince, they could ride Louis’s coattails to power.

All they had to their names were their titles and bloodlines. Could men like that really afford to invest properly in a private force, which costs enormous sums to maintain? The quality of a noble’s soldiers’ equipment was, in effect, a measure of his wealth.

I myself paid considerable attention to the equipment of my own retainers. They used to be lightly armed like these men, but now they wore the tier just below full plate—gear worth about forty silver coins per man. Their weapons were of high quality too.

If these soldiers had been heavily armored, I would never have charged in. In films or comics, heavily armored soldiers get cut down like sheaves of straw, but face them in real life and a blade won’t even bite through.

You want me to charge headlong at men like that with just a single longsword?

That’s not bravery—that’s suicide.

When you see heavily armored soldiers, running away is the right answer.

That was why the technique of armored combat had been developed: gripping the longsword by the blade and beating at the enemy with the pommel like a blunt weapon. Fortunately, I had no need to use my longsword as a club here.

The soldiers who threw themselves forward to protect their master deserved credit for their loyalty.

But they had the misfortune of facing me.

The first soldier to charge in brought his sword down, and I deflected it sideways and hooked his leg, sending him sprawling. His weight had pitched forward and he couldn’t keep his balance. The fallen soldier was finished off by Anton’s blade.

For a knight, wrestling is the most fundamental skill of all.

And I made deliberate use of my opponents’ centers of gravity.

There’s nothing easier than dispatching an enemy who’s already on the ground.

Clang!

Next, I clashed against a soldier swinging a diagonal cut and forced his blade down toward my lower right. With his sword dragged low and his upper body completely exposed, I struck him across the face with the pommel.

Thwack!

"Gah!"

The two-strike combination of krumphau (hooking cut) into pommel strike was a chain I used quite often. The soldier dropped from the blow to his head. The third soldier came in much closer.

Krik!

In the bind with our blades locked together, the soldier pressed in tight to deny me distance, but I used the forward weight of his stance to yank him toward me and hook his leg out from under him.

"Lord, take him without pain!"

"Aaargh!"

Anton handled the rest. Unlike before, I’d internalized the most effective response to any swing’s arc, and I’d honed my Fühlen through countless real fights.

Clang!

Clang clang!

One soldier had latched onto Anton too. As Euz’s former messenger, Anton had kept up his cavalry training and accumulated experience that rivaled that of regular troops, so he wasn’t being pushed back by a mere private soldier.

And I was taking on two at once.

The fundamental rule of swordsmanship:

Cut them down before you’re surrounded.

When facing one enemy bringing a sword down on me and another thrusting at my gut at the same time, concentration was everything.

Reading their centers of gravity through Fühlen, I caught the diagonal cut from the first soldier and twisted my body sideways to slip past the thrust of the second.

The technique zwerchhau (cross cut) was the perfect counter to overhead and diagonal cuts.

I broke the flat of the diagonal-cutting soldier’s blade with my back edge, collapsing his stance, then lightly thrust the point of my sword into his throat. Drive it in too deep and it becomes hard to pull out.

At the same time, I brought my blade down on the unguarded back of the soldier who’d thrust at my belly.

Splat!

Scheitelhau (head cut) is fast enough to have earned the nickname "flash strike"—a technique that splits an enemy’s head with extraordinary speed. Just as two paths can converge into one, cutting two men in succession could flow as one continuous stroke.

"Ghhk! I don’t, I don’t want to, ghhk!"

The soldier with the sword wound in his throat thrashed in agony, blood spraying out.

I drove my longsword through his neck and ended his suffering in one stroke.

It was the only mercy I could grant him on the battlefield.

"..."

I’d seen that look of bitter regret in dying eyes more times than I could count.

But if I don’t kill the enemy, I’m the one who dies.

There’s a reason they say the only mercy in killing is to do it cleanly.

The private soldiers guarding Viscount Dumarck were overwhelmed by my momentum.

"Damn it! What are you doing? Repay the kindness that’s fed and clothed you! Stop him, now!"

Viscount Dumarck shoved the hesitating soldiers forward and fled to the second floor. The soldiers, steeling their resolve, charged at me. I understood their position. Which was why it was a pity.

I caught a downward strike with my back edge and rode the bind into a winding (rotating with blades joined) that brought me over the top to cut down into the soldier’s temple, dropping him. Then I deflected a thrust downward and immediately swept upward to slash the next man.

A soldier at close range I struck aside with a krumphau-style hook to the flat of his blade, then stepped forward and slashed his throat as I passed. The remaining soldiers shouted and rushed me too, but they still looked slow to my eyes.

German swordsmanship favored offense, transitioning from defense to attack with incredible speed. The basic attacks of these private soldiers were the overhead strike, the thrust, and the diagonal slash.

Simple, but the fastest and most powerful attacks.

And to counter all of them, a single stroke was enough.

"Argh!"

I punched my blade through a soldier’s throat and flung the slumping body aside.

Most of Dumarck’s private soldiers had been neutralized.

I had knocked some unconscious with the pommel, so I hadn’t killed every last one.

"Ugh, this can’t be! It was a trap!"

"Damn it, Dumarck! Running off alone like that!"

The nobles, seeing their soldiers slaughtered so easily without putting up a real fight, were seized with terror. They trembled at the betrayal of Viscount Dumarck, who had abandoned them and fled alone.

"I-I surrender!"

"Drop your weapon! Hey, you son of a bitch! I said drop it!"

"If they won’t drop their weapons, don’t bother—cut them down!"

"Aaargh!"

Things outside seemed nearly under control. Between Viktor’s ferocious shouting and the sounds of killing, the nobles swallowed hard and watched me anxiously. They had no soldiers left to protect them.

"Drop your weapons and I won’t be rough with you."

"Y-you lowborn bastard!"

"Your mouth still works, I see."

I closed the distance in a single stride and struck the noble across the face with my pommel. The blow was merciless enough to nearly cave in his nose. The noble screamed and wailed.

The other nobles, sick with fear at the sight, dropped the swords they held.

"W-we surrender!"

"Now, after all that?"

When I smiled and stepped toward them, the nobles backed away as though their knees had given out.

I reversed my grip on the longsword. The large, beautiful blunt instrument gleamed with a sinister sheen.

"Take a beating first."

Smack! Smack smack!

I started by striking with the pommel like an initiation rite, then stomped them mercilessly. Some seemed unable to believe what was happening to them. Of course you can’t, my lord noble.

A moment ago they’d been condemning the bastard child, and now they were getting clubbed by a longsword turned bludgeon, wielded by the very bastard who had appeared out of nowhere. Still, I didn’t beat them so badly that they’d die.

There was much to be extracted from them.

And once charges of treason were laid, the Grand Duke would handle their punishment himself.

The titles of these noble houses would all be reclaimed by the Grand Duke, and countless privileges would vanish like foam. As court nobles, they couldn’t even resist. A provincial prince would have raised a rebellion.

Politically, Prince Louis would take a major blow as well.