Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Himanshu02A month had passed since the issue of deploying troops to the western front, where various interests were intertwined, was settled.

Like usual, Eurius was watching the training of the knights from early in the morning.

‘Now it feels like a real knight order. The only thing left is to show some results.’

Clang! Clang!

“I’ve told you before, but your footwork is slow! Focus on practicing your steps!”

The training in the practice field was fierce.

And among the knights, it was already a well-known story, but it was also the day when Eurius would make his official announcement.

“Gather! After today’s training, there will be a message from His Highness the First Prince as promised.”

Soon, about a hundred knights lined up orderly in front of the practice field.

Eurius opened his mouth with a smile on his face.

“I think many of you already know, but I have some news to tell our knight order, so I called you.”

He declared in a quiet but powerful tone.

“It seems that our knight order is finally taking shape, so I decided to enter our knight order in the group tournament of the royal martial arts tournament this time!”

Whisper whisper

It was a fact that many people already knew, but there was still a murmur among the knights.

“A prime tournament might be worth a try, but isn’t a horseback spear tournament or a regular tournament too hard?”

“Maybe he’s taking us for the purpose of gaining experience.”

“Anyway, we have a chance to test our training results!”

The knight order had been repeating training and training since its establishment.

In fact, since the royal martial arts tournament was one of the best festivals in the continent, their expressions could not help but be bright.

‘The reaction is not so bad. This should be enough to expect something.’

Eurius smiled inwardly, but opened his mouth again with a seemingly stern expression.

“You may all have different thoughts, but what kind of results do you expect from this martial arts tournament?”

“…?”

This was something that even the captains and above-level knights, including Heinz, could not easily answer.

Objectively speaking, the current strength of the knight order was not weak.

But this martial arts tournament was a group tournament as its name suggests, and it was not easy to get good results with just a few knights’ skills.

“I’ll be blunt!”

Eurius uttered a shocking statement here.

“Our knight order will aim for overall victory in this martial arts tournament. I hope you all do your best!”

“…!”

Most of the knights had lost their words.

They were objectively not a weak knight order, but no matter how they thought about it, they did not have enough power to win.

But looking at Eurius’s expression, it didn’t seem like a joke at all.

With that said, that day’s assembly was over. Most of the knights dispersed with an expression of not knowing what to do.

“I think it’s a bit too much for them.”

As the captain, only Heinz quietly came to Eurius and expressed his concern. But he smiled quietly and asked Heinz.

“Then what do you think is the limit realistically?”

Heinz had something in mind, so he opened his mouth without hesitation.

“The horseback spear tournament would be at best in the upper middle rank. And if it’s prime, we might be able to aim for first place. But if overall victory is our goal, then we have to worry about the regular tournament.”

Heinz’s thoughts were rational. The royal martial arts tournament group tournament scored comprehensively on the basis of three matches.

The first was the horseback spear tournament.

Most knights practiced swords, but spears were useful when charging on horseback or breaking through enemy lines, so they had to have at least some skills.The horseback spear tournament was literally a match where they formed a formation with spears and fought against other knight orders.

This was not only important for individual skills, but also for how well they assisted each other among knights. Therefore, knight orders with a long history of battling together had a much greater advantage than the quality of knights.

The second was the prime tournament.

This was literally no different from a group duel as one would normally think.

They chose three skilled people from each knight order and gave victory to whoever had more wins.

Eurius’s knight order had excellent skills among the top-ranked knights. Just Beatrice and Heinz alone could easily take two wins.

The problem was the third regular tournament.

This system was a device to prevent certain knight orders from getting good results in the martial arts tournament with just two or three outstanding knights.

The condition was that knights who were already famous in the continent or who held a certain position in the knight order could not participate.

Of course, it was impossible to have good skills even for ordinary knights unless they had a decent talent pool.

“Hmm, then what do you expect the overall results to be?”

“Honestly, we need some luck with the draw. Except for the Golden Lion Knight Order, we have a good chance of winning the regular tournament because we can deploy the elites from the north.”

“Is the problem still the Grand Duke’s knight order?”

“Yes. If we don’t meet them early, we might be able to aim for second place overall if we’re lucky.”

In fact, that alone was an unbelievable result for a knight order that was half a year old. But Eurius wanted to break the Grand Duke’s nose with this opportunity.

‘Besides, there’s no way that old man won’t interfere with this opportunity.’

The Grand Duke was not someone who would leave his knight order alone as it rose. He would try to defeat his knight order thoroughly, either openly or secretly, to break his momentum.

It didn’t matter whether it was second or third place.

The fact that he lost to the Grand Duke’s knight order itself would dampen the morale of the imperial faction.

The Emperor also trusted Eurius, but he was worried about it on one hand.

The record of the martial arts tournament was a double-edged sword.

***

“Did you call me?”

The Grand Duke summoned the shadows again for the first time in a long time since the northern war.

“Some of you will have to go to the royal martial arts tournament that will be held this time.”

Dmitri and the others looked puzzled.

Didn’t the Grand Duke already have an official direct knight order, the Golden Lion Knight Order?

“To be precise, you’ll have to temporarily join the Golden Lion Knight Order.”

“Ah!”

They exclaimed only then.

They realized the Grand Duke’s intention.

“First of all, Dmitri! I trust that you won’t fail this time.”

“Thank you for giving me another chance!”

The Grand Duke also named a few shadow-level captains.

‘I didn’t really want to use this kind of trick against the young first prince, but I have to be prepared for any case.’

He smiled triumphantly.

He had eyes and ears.

He thought he knew enough that some of the knights in the First Emperor’s knight order had formidable skills, even though most of them looked like a bunch of riffraffs to him.

‘He probably wants to score well in the horseback spear tournament and then aim for overall victory by winning both the prime and regular tournaments… But I can’t let him have either of them.’

The highlight of the royal martial arts tournament was of course the prime tournament, where the best knights clashed.

The score of the horseback spear tournament was not that high.

In fact, the Grand Duke was not very worried about the prime either.

He trusted the Golden Lion Knight Order as much as the shadows.

The reason he summoned the shadows was entirely to secure a sure victory in the regular tournament.

The knights trained by the shadows naturally had no reputation.

He could temporarily join them to the Golden Lion Knight Order and disguise them as ordinary knights and send them to the tournament without any problem.

The Grand Duke thought he highly valued Eurius.

He expected that he might face him in the final if he was lucky with the draw.

But as far as he thought, there was almost no chance of losing in the tournament if he slightly hurt his pride and did this much.

The shadow-level captains were all skilled enough to be captains or vice-captains in any knight order.

‘It wouldn’t be bad to step on the First Prince’s knight order once with this opportunity.’

It would be quite a sight to see his face and the faces of his subordinates and that damned First Prince, who would lose overwhelmingly to them in the martial arts tournament, which was almost their first career since they made their knight order.

***A week after Eurius’s shocking declaration of aiming for overall victory!

Finally, the list of participants for the knight order’s tournament was announced.

“Think of it as gaining experience and don’t feel pressured in the horseback spear tournament. But the knights who participate in the tournament will have special training separately!”

The knights looked at the list posted in the middle of the practice field with curious eyes.

[Prime Tournament Participants List]

Beatrice Dios

Heinz Brewing

…

There was no need to look at this much.

As expected, the knights from first to tenth place according to the existing ranking participated.

They had to play three matches, but they had to have a total of ten people because of the knights’ stamina or injury problems.

But when they saw the list of regular tournament participants, their eyes widened.

[Regular Tournament Participants List]

Bernard Cain

…

Eurius von Sharnos

The person written at the end of the list was surprisingly Eurius himself.

The lower down on the list, the more likely they were to be candidates with little chance of participating, but it was quite surprising that he himself participated in the tournament like an ordinary knight.

“Cain is a skilled guy, but is he saying that His highness himself is participating?”

“There’s no big problem with the rules, but…”

“Maybe he’s leading by example to boost our morale?”

The new knights all tilted their heads, but those who followed him from the north nodded as if they understood.

‘Indeed… If His highness goes out himself, maybe we can hope for victory’

Very few people knew Eurius’s true nature yet.

What was known externally about his achievements in the north was his ability as a commander.

The training of captain-level knights was also done without showing it to ordinary knights, so new knights did not know much about Eurius’s level as a warrior except Cain.

Of course, those who knew his skills exactly were all on his side.

“The regular tournament is 3:3 anyway, right? We just need to get two wins. We have one person who can guarantee us almost one win.”

Heinz smirked.

“I’m talking about Captain Cain. Judging by how fast his skills are growing now, if he improves a little more in the remaining time, he’ll be able to compete with any captain-level knight from the Golden Lion Knight Order.”

And he didn’t stop him when Eurius said he would go out himself.

He also lost quite a few knights who had shared hardships with him in the north.

It was a bit unfair, but it was the Grand Duke who made a move first.

“If His highness goes out himself, we might be able to aim for overall victory.”

‘There’s another benefit to that.’

Eurius smiled inwardly.

Of course, this was the case when the martial arts tournament went normally.

He had a lot of things to do to crush the Grand Duke’s tricks, if any.

Whisper whisper.

“You may all have a lot of questions, but for now, trust me and follow me.”

At Eurius’s words, the new knights also became serious again.

In fact, it had been half a year, but he was a fair and exemplary superior to them.

‘Anyway, it wasn’t a knight order that we had high expectations for at first. If His Majesty says so, we just have to follow him.’

After that, the knight order’s training changed to special training for the martial arts tournament.

“Ordinary knights, focus on the horseback spear tournament training for now. If you don’t score well there, overall victory is impossible.”

Of course, one person was an exception among the ordinary knights.

Eurius smiled and pointed him out.

“Captain Cain, you will have to extend your special training time for a while.”

“Yes…”

It was a pity for him, but he had high expectations for him in the regular tournament, so it was inevitable.

‘Is there about two months left?’

That’s how the royal martial arts tournament, which would be full of talk and trouble this year, was approaching.