CH 162

On the 1st day of Camp Training, the students gathered at the meet-up location and started walking outside the royal capital. Since it’s a gathering of all male students of all 3 grades, it’s a reasonable number of them. However, since it happens every year around this time, it’s not particularly surprising that the surroundings are watching over them warmly once more.

After lining up and doing marching drills on the main street, they exit the outer walls, and head to the nearby forest to the west. Even though dangerous beasts and monsters are regularly hunted in the vicinity of the royal capital, camping in the forest is dangerous because there are many blind spots. If it’s a regular soldier, they’ll probably have camp training deep in the woods, but if the school students get injured, it will become a big problem. Therefore, they set up a camp outside the forest. 1

“1st Year Students should dig up this side. 2nd Year students should start staking poles on that side.”

The students move as instructed. Of course, it is not the teacher who gives the instructions. Teachers are also following, but it is for grading and they do not give any instructions. They act as if there is no Royal Guard Division escorting them. All students must decide and act on their own.

There is no doubt that they must be the sons of high-ranking aristocrats to attend Berne Academy, but there is a big difference in the standings among them. The highest-ranking heir of a duchy and the lowest-ranking son of a county cannot be equal, and their roles are completely different.

For example, if you’re a duke’s son, you may be in charge of an army and take overall command. On the other hand, if he were a count’s son, you would command a unit and go to the front lines yourself. Each person has a different role to play, and different abilities are required. Not everyone needs the same set of skills.

The highest-ranked members of each Class 1 supervises the other students and manages their operations as a whole. The lower-ranked members of each Class 1 and the higher-ranked members of each Class 2 takes control of each specialized division and divides the labor according to the instructions passed down on them, and Class 2’s lower-ranked members takes charge of each unit in those divisions. Classes 3 and 4 of each year do the actual labor.

In this place, there are no working-class soldiers such as commoners and lowest-ranking nobles, but their hierarchy and division of roles are not different from how the army would work in war. However as the Academy students will become the officers of the future, they will not be able to give proper instructions unless they have experienced setting up a camp out in the field. That’s what the training is for.

“Ah~! Lucky~! Why did we have to dig holes…”

“Hear, hear, to that…? We’re not supposed to be digging, anyway… what we do in school is way harder.”

In addition to digging holes and erecting poles and setting up tents, the students of Classes 3 and 4 had to build defensive positions by digging dry moats and setting up fences, and even if they were simple.

The high-ranking students only step back and give simple instructions, and do not move their limbs to work. Compared to that, the lower-ranked students were full of dissatisfaction, as they were just being told they were moving too slow or doing it wrong.

In the first place, even if the Academy students were to appear on a battlefield in the future, it would be impossible for them to set up the camp themselves, even if they were the lowest ranked of Class 4. If they had so little numbers there was absolutely no one else, they would have been routed before they even set up camp.

That’s why they get so frustrated. They get irritated thinking that this kind of work must be done by a low-ranking, commoner soldier.

The training is to set up an actual camp and build defensive positions by yourself, so that when it comes time to give orders to their future subordinates, they will be able to give accurate instructions. There is no way that they can do that without having experienced the work themselves, and there is no doubt that the best way to develop human resources who can give accurate and efficient instructions is to put them in the positions they’re supposed to be instructing and supervising.

In fact, the lower-ranked students quickly was quickly realized that the higher-ranking students who were merely instructing were completely ignorant of the tasks they were ordering done. It’s easy to point out that they’ll be behind desks, dealing with military theory. However, even if you decide to supervise, the instructions from someone who’s never done the work won’t work.

The lower-class students doing the labor are realizing this by working under unreasonable instructions themselves. This is a good experience for them who will be the commanders in the future.

To begin with, all the materials for tents and defensive emplacements are delivered already, and all they had to do was dig a hole, hammer the poles in, and tie them up. If you actually wanted to set it up from scratch, you will have to carry the materials with you, cut down the surrounding trees to make space, and mow the grass to flatten it.

This is a place where the regular soldiers and the Guard Divisions have already made arrangements in advance, so most of the chores are no longer necessary. After all, it is a practice to give the students a taste of the atmosphere, close to an actual camp site but far from real military training or military action.

And unlike the students of Class 3 and 4’s assumptions, it’s not that their supervisors and commanders are incompetent. They’re allowed to think independently and give instructions in their words, then learn from their mistakes.

Commanders and supervisors who don’t know the field can’t act well, giving instructions based on back-line desk theory. In the beginning, they will be frantic and try to give detailed instructions. Their subordinates will start to think they don’t know what they’re talking about.

However, the 1st year commanders start to flounder, the 3rd year student take turns giving them precise instructions. As they were taught by their seniors last year and the year before last, this time the upperclassmen will teach the new students.

A person in a higher rank does not need to give detailed instructions on the actual site. Read the whole flow and decide where and how many people and supplies should be dedicated and what should be prioritized. If there is a delay, it is enough to allocate more hands, finish the other tasks first and let the now-free soldiers do the rest, or just take the lead themselves. In response to the instructions, the person in charge of the worker units rush and move hands.

Each person should play their role, and that is why their positions and roles are divided. There is no need to try to supervise or think beyond your role.

They understood the role of command when they saw the new students getting frustrated and trying to give detailed instructions to the laborers on the ground and failing, but now they’re seeing the upperclassmen taking over whole operation with only simple instructions. So the cycle continues, and they finish the 1st day after a few hours of setting up camp.

“Huh…!? Your Highness Ludwig! What are you doing?!”

“I’m also participating in the camp training. Of course I have to work as well!” Ludwig said.

The new students were surprised to see that even Crown Prince Ludwig was participating in the cooking, when the tent-raising students finished by sunset and were about to start cooking, too.

“Prince Ludwig, I’ve finished cutting this one.”

“You as well, Lord Rutger…?!”

They were even more surprised when the person cutting ingredients turned around and showed his face. Not just the Crown Prince, but the Prime Minister’s Heir were working at the field kitchen.

“My fiancée is good at cooking,” Ludwig said. “I got a little interested in cooking myself when I saw her making various dishes. So please, leave the cooking to me.”

“Huh!? Your Highness has a fiancé…!?”

It is true that Ludwig’s cooking skills are quite good. Naturally, he could not be compared to a professional chef, but he was so skilled that he could not be thought of as a member of the royal family who had no need for such skills. But that was not the surprise for the surroundings.

Officially, Ludwig has neither a fiancé nor prospective list of them. However, the young man himself said as much now. How could they not be surprised? If it’s true, then now have to think about what they’ll do in the future. Even if they were still children, such plans and deliberations were not outside the reach of high-ranking aristocrats’ children.

The problem is, who is it? Is it someone who’s been rumored for a long time? Or is it another candidate whose name has never been mentioned before? To whose faction does she belong to? Regardless, they need to gather information and think about how they’ll act in the future.

“Could it be the daughter of House Bayen, after all?”

Originally, Helene of the Bayen Duchy was said to be the most promising fiancée candidate. If you think about it logically, there is a high possibility that this fiancee is Helene. The adults were most likely to answer it was her, to begin with, and the children who follow all available evidence come to the same conclusion.

“Come to think of it, it was also House Bayen’s evening party where Prince Ludwig and Prince Rutger attended together, which was rare…”

You can hear people saying, “I see.” and “Oh, that’s right.” It’s just a high-ranking noble’s evening party, there’s no duty for the royal family to show up. There’s no need for all of them to show and they could just show their faces as part of official duties. In fact, if a high-ranking aristocrat held an evening party and wanted to have someone from the royal family attend it, then they’d usually only manage one member. It is truly rare for Ludwig and a relative of the royal family, Rutger, to be attending together if it wasn’t some incredibly important event or person hosting it.

“But do you think Lady Helene can cook?”

“Hmm…”

“Good point.” and “I hadn’t though about that.” echoed… then everyone groaned again. They can’t imagine that Helene von Bayen would cook. Even if she complains to the cooks, she is unlikely to cook herself. If that’s the case, it’s likely to be another candidate…

“Suppose it’s the daughter of House Greif?”

“You’re right… she almost lives in the royal castle…”

Everyone makes various predictions, such as the daughter of an influential high-ranking aristocrat, or a lady who Ludwig was close to, it’s a surprisingly deep conversation.

In the end, Ludwig himself didn’t mention his partner’s name, and while the people around him were just busy with predictions and never came to a solid guess. Regardless, they all came to one solid goal:

During this camp training, they have to guess who Ludwig’s fiancée and ask him to confirm.

If you think about it like modern Japanese students, it may be similar to how everyone wants to tease and gossip about crushes and about who likes whom. But there are fatal differences. This is important information that could affect the future for high-ranking nobles. The weight is different from the past-times and amusements of Japanese students.

Knowing that information will help you with your next move. Is it better to get close to Ludwig’s fiancée now and get to know her better? Is it better to be hostile and crush them? No matter what kind of response you take, you can’t think about what to do if you don’t even know your opponent. Those who know will have an overwhelming advantage, and those who do not will be overwhelmingly disadvantaged. They’ll have to risk their futures and their family’s fortunes to find out.

And Ludwig and Rutger, unaware that this was even happening, were demonstrating their culinary skills that they hoped to hone and use to serve Flora a personally-cooked meal someday.

Th 2nd Day of Camp Training. The 1st Day was filled with just setting up the campsite, but from today, they have to split up and do their tasks. They also vary greatly depending on their position and grade. Chores such as simple hunting are for the future front-line commanders like Classes 3 and 4. There are various other chores for those who take overall command from the rear. Their performance determines their grades.

They had to talk about their future plans, but the discussion was not progressing at all. The reason being…

“Hence,

“That’s why Class 4 will be going into the… pupuh…! Into the forest… buhah! I can’t do it!”

“Do-Don’t laugh… upupuh.”

Everyone was thinking of having a serious discussion, but why do they laugh when something catches their eye? It’s the strange knight of the Royal Guard Division who hadn’t been here till yesterday, and who was such an odd sight indeed.

He’s not that tall, and you don’t feel like his limbs are particularly thick. Even so, he’s a bizarrely fat knight wearing gigantic armor as he patrols. His appearance is strange, but the way he moves is also entertaining, and you can’t help but laugh.

Have you ever seen someone wear a cardboard box larger than their body? If you wear a hard, stiff object on your torso that reaches past the joints of your limbs, your shoulders and hips will not move freely, resulting in awkward motions. And that is exactly what happened to that Knight of the Royal Guard.

Since the shoulders are held down by the armor, his arms can hardly move back and forth, and the chest plate stretches below the waist, so the legs cannot be lifted to walk. It’s funny and silly to see him walking with both hands and feet of the same side in front. Almost everyone laughed at him, wondering if he was really a knight.

Also, since he is wearing a helmet that completely covers his face, they don’t know what’s underneath. It also invites speculation. The other knights haven’t covered their faces with their helmets yet, so why is that knight hiding his face?

There are those who say that he has a face that doesn’t deserve to be seen, and there are those who say that he hides his face because it’s pretty and doesn’t match his body, and with that he can’t be mocked for the dissonance.

But what was most incomprehensible was that such a strange knight was guarding Ludwig and Rutger’s squad. Originally, the escorts attached to these two should be the most elite. No matter how safe the camp training was and there were other Royal Guards around, they still couldn’t understand why the team with this clumsy fatso was an escort of His Royal Highness and His Lordship’s team.

Even so, the students can’t interfere with the Royal Guard Division, so they watch in silence, but they can’t help but laugh. The 2nd Day was about to begin.