From a certain point on, Rowan started having black dreams every single night. That said, since there was no black door, there were no new abilities to gain. Whenever the black dream ca, Gulliver Alastor was always there.
He sotis gave pretty lousy answers to Rowan's questions, but he answered them all the sa. That was enough for Rowan to figure there were gaps to exploit, so Rowan put in the effort every ti. It wasn't reverence toward Gulliver: it was a connection between equals.
That was exactly why Rowan spoke casually to him. Rowan understood full well that formal speech would never put them on equal footing. Gulliver wasn't the type to hand over secret techniques just because soone asked nicely. His stubbornness had to be won through equality and genuine connection, not deference and respect.
That was Rowan's read on the situation.
Rowan talked about the plan, ntioning that a red-haired, green-eyed knight could be tracked down in the Central Empire.
The plan itself was pretty solid. Thanks to that, Rowan was able to receive knowledge passed down from Gulliver Alastor. There were tis, though, when Gulliver got irritable and refused to teach anything.
It was a sign that the undead knight's mind wasn't fully intact.
[There is a combat technique said to belong to the first-rate flow. Its foundational training is the realization of breath. This is called the Principle of Constant Victory: the absolute minimum standard required to reach the highest level of a warrior.]
The first-rate flow.
The Principle of Constant Victory.
It sounded like sothing straight out of a wuxia novel.
"Okay, so what exactly is it?"
[As long as sothing is human, or any living creature, for that matter, it breathes. Any creature with lungs can never be free from this flow. Everything ultimately cos down to breath.]
[When you exhale, your body cannot produce truly powerful force. On the other hand, when you inhale, the body naturally tenses up: you can't loosen it even if you try. Breathe consciously, and you'll see it crystal clear.]
Rowan took a long breath in and out. Sure enough, inhaling did seem to tense the body up a bit.
"But when you're throwing a heavy hit, don't you hold your breath anyway?"
[If you could fight your whole life without breathing, then yeah, there'd be no point in learning this.]
Rowan winced at Gulliver's jab and let out a dry cough.
"So how do you train it?"
[Nothing fancy. Just keep fighting real battles, keep sparring, until you can instinctively read your opponent's breath. That's how you learn it.]
'Seriously, that's it?'
This was a world with no scientific approach to physical training. On top of that, breath training wasn't called the Principle of Constant Victory for nothing: it was genuinely hard to master. Feeling your opponent's breath in the split-second chaos of a real exchange was basically impossible.
When you're pumped up or exhausted, your ears go deaf and all you can hear is your own heartbeat. When an enormous set of lungs and a relentlessly conditioned heart are pounding like crazy as your body moves violently, your ears plug up like you've climbed to the top of a mountain.
Rowan had experienced that more than a few tis. When the heart threatened to burst, the ears went dead. Maybe it was all the mountain climbing, but the pressure of the pounding heart traveled through the veins and hamred at the ears: that was the only way to describe it.
Combat was not simple enough to let you feel sothing that strange. Reading that expression on Rowan's face, Gulliver clicked his tongue.
[Tsk. Soone who wants to make it big with a sword, and you make that face even after I teach you the Principle of Constant Victory. Foolish.]
"Fine. So what actually happens once you get it?"
[Combat becos as easy as flipping your hand. The mont your opponent crosses blades with you, they won't be able to stand the helplessness. Of course, only soone with actual skill will even feel that helplessness.]
"What about soone with no skill at all?"
[Even with a big build, they won't last three exchanges.]
Rowan didn't look convinced. The sa Gulliver who talked such a big ga had still been defeated by Rowan. Sure, it was a group effort, but a win's a win. At that, Gulliver shook his head.
[When I woke up, I wasn't in my right mind. Back then, everything was... off.]
Rowan decided to dig deeper.
"How exactly do you use it?"
[When your opponent is exhaling, they can't generate strong force. So wherever you strike, you can break their guard, create openings, and even a blow to a vital point won't be sothing they can push through. But if they hold their breath and try to generate force without breathing, their breathing falls apart.]
A broken breathing rhythm ant a massive loss of stamina. It was the sa difference as a runner who gasps frantically from the start versus one who controls their breath: the distance they can cover is worlds apart.
"Hm."
'The Principle of Constant Victory, huh.'
It reeked of wuxia, but theoretically it seed plausible. Still, it felt like sothing Rowan wouldn't actually be using for a long, long ti.
"Is there anything I can use right now? Like a secret technique?"
[I've got nothing to give you.]
"Why are you so dead-set on not giving anything? At least talk through it."
[You already have twelve secret techniques you took without permission.]
In the end, it always ca back to honor. Gulliver did not look kindly on Rowan for stealing the secret techniques of the friends who had carved them into his tomb to honor him.
"That was Rakson's doing. I didn't know."
[From the mont you found out, you should have stopped using them.]
To Rowan, that was straight-up nonsense. It was an argunt that would never et in the middle. Just then, thick smoke began to rise. Everything blurred until nothing could be made out, and Rowan sank into a deep sleep. The ti allotted to linger in the black dream had run out.
***
The subjugation operation kicked off with Rowan's report upon arriving at the Kingdom Camp. That didn't an all the troops moved at once.
The five-day route Rowan had mapped out was built purely for stealth. It threw logistics out the window: a route that had no business calling itself military strategy by any stretch of the imagination.
So preparation was necessary. Rowan had only planned for the securing of six high-ground positions, but Commander Gesilian, ard with the intel, designated three supply zones between those points.
In other words, the strategy was to establish three supply zones along the five-day route to stockpile provisions, secure the six high-ground positions with small forces, and move the main body of soldiers covertly all the way to where the Back-Door Gang was holed up.
The Tracking rcenary Group had their mission changed to patrol duty. They were tasked with patrolling the six high-ground positions Rowan had designated.
'Hmph. I figured they'd have us sitting on our hands.'
Orders were orders. They weren't going to rack up any official credit, but plenty of people would spread word about the Tracking rcenary Group. And when that ti ca...
'The group is going to take off.'
Ti kept on moving. Whatever was keeping the knight so busy, there wasn't even a whisper of a subjugation effort against the red-furred bear that had beco a hundred-beast. That was a lucky break for Rowan, and a disaster for the people living along Three River Valley.
Lightly armored soldiers in simple gear, carrying bows and daggers, concealed themselves among the high-ground positions. Not a single bandit in sight. This was a route Rowan had carved out over five days: not once had anyone spotted a bandit along it.
Holding the six positions in silence was honestly just pointless worrying. The Tracking rcenary Group on patrol was walking around at a leisurely pace. They trusted Dono the brown wolf's nose.
In the middle of all that mind-numbing boredom, what shone brightest was sparring.
Rowan wanted to work on the Principle of Constant Victory from what Gulliver had shared, and Doren and Espin, while solid at mountain terrain and ambushes, were thin on actual combat experience. It was a mutually beneficial arrangent.
"Espin! Drop that shield lower! You want a sword through your foot?!"
"Sorry!"
Espin yelped and yanked the foot back as Rowan jabbed repeatedly at the ground with a longsword. Espin was full of openings everywhere: every single day was nothing but growth. Sa went for Doren. Doren was better than Espin in so ways but worse in others.
Doren's sense of weapon range was terrible. It was enough to give people a heart attack. Sparring against the weaker mbers, Rowan was able to get a rough feel for the first-rate flow. And once again, Rowan was reminded that actually using it in a real fight was a completely different story.
D-Day arrived.
Commander Gesilian Faerun, leading a hundred soldiers, was moving single-file through the valley in a long line. The Tracking rcenary Group was nowhere to be seen: they were positioned on nearby ridges and high ground, covering the soldiers.
Rowan watched them and felt the heart jump.
These were guys who normally did nothing but shoot the breeze and talk about won, but watching a full hundred march in a single line: it was sothing else. More than anything, it had that heavy dieval atmosphere to it. It looked like a scene straight out of a movie.
"Pretty incredible, right?"
Doren picked up on Espin's comnt.
"A hundred people. A hundred. That's insane."
Rowan had seen crowds way bigger than this, so what got the heart going was the scene itself: the atmosphere of it. Espin and Doren, on the other hand, were just floored by the sheer number.
Hearing that, Rowan found the thoughts drifting to military strength in this world. It was a country riddled with problems from every direction: the kind of place that made you wonder if the concept of a strong and prosperous nation even existed here.
'They can't mobilize large forces.'
Maybe that was exactly why knight-class fighters had developed the way they did. When it ca to hunting monsters, maybe they'd decided it made more sense to cultivate the sa kind of monsters rather than throwing ordinary soldiers at them. And if magic items were thrown into that mix, it was like putting wings on a tiger.
Espin broke Rowan out of those thoughts.
"Shouldn't we be heading out now too?"
When Rowan's pushback reached Commander Gesilian through Ulas, Ulas had already been pulled back out of the Tracking rcenary Group. It was a blatant move. Gesilian probably wanted to humiliate Rowan with it, but Rowan was unfazed.
It wasn't worth getting worked up over.
"Let's move."
The sun was soaking everything in the colors of dusk. Just over that hill was the valley leading to the cave entrance where the Back-Door Gang was hiding. They were bound to run into sentries. Given the movent speed of soldiers in breastplates and full kit, the Tracking rcenary Group needed to strike first.
'Honestly, I'd love to bill them extra for this.'
Scouting the Back-Door Gang, mapping the route, with a lot of help from Ulas, running patrol, and now leading the initial entry: the Tracking rcenary Group was being squeezed for every drop. Annoying as it was, Commander Gesilian had a sharp eye for people's capabilities.
It was a world where death was everywhere and human life ca cheap. Rowan wasn't getting paid anywhere near what Rowan wanted. In the modern world, where soone who commits fifteen counts of sexual assault can still walk free thanks to a very well-developed sense of human rights, it was only natural to get paid big for work that put your life on the line.
But not here. If you died, that was your problem. Regular soldiers had it a bit different, but for rcenaries, that was just the deal.
Without Rowan in the picture, a job like this would've been wrapped up for two silver coins. Risking your life for enough money to feed a middle-class household for two months. Rowan had to make peace with what was already paid.
Taking out the sentries was a walk in the park. The Back-Door Gang was the kind of outfit that couldn't care less if a few of their own got picked off: not their problem.
"Heh heh heh! Dumbass. You're gonna end up giving the shirt off your back tonight."
A card slapped down on the table, face-up, and a bandit's hand reached toward the pile of copper coins in the center. That sa hand started trembling. So did the other two.
A thud, then the sound of coins scattering and rolling everywhere.
"Huh?"
The one bandit keeping watch off to the side heard the noise and turned around. He'd been on lookout while the others played cards. Not for free, though: he was getting paid a decent cut.
"Holy—"
Three bandits sat there, shaking like leaves, unable to make a sound. Each one had an arrow buried in their throat. Didn't go all the way through, but that was more than enough. Targeting the throats of three guys who couldn't move their necks wasn't exactly hard.
Rowan had taken two shots, and Doren had landed one.
"Gck!"
When the last one spun around, Dono the brown wolf launched onto him and latched onto the back of his neck. It was over in an instant: the bandit didn't even get a chance to resist. The Tracking rcenary Group cleaned up the scene and took both cave entrances.
The main force arrived, and Commander Gesilian wore a satisfied look. But those eyes were lit up with sothing hungry for battle glory: sharp and ugly.
"Man, woman, child: doesn't matter! Anyone who resists, kill them! These are people who fed off the backs of the innocent and grabbed for everything that wasn't theirs!"
"YEAAAAHHHH!!!!"
They split into two groups and stord into the cave.
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