A Lecture on Running a Legion

The full set of equipment and everything else I was to receive would apparently be transported separately through official channels.

Aidi, owing to her work, ended up staying behind for a while.

And so, to head back to Golen Village, a carriage bound for [White Beach] was prepared for us.

Haku-san and Rokuko rode in the same carriage, while I alone was shunted off into a separate one.

I was the only one getting a lecture on operating an army. Rather than waste the trip, the plan was to get it done on the ride home, so a petite female knight sat waiting for me.

"First Chivalric Order deputy captain, MeiruMail. I serve as Sally-sama's adjutant. A pleasure to be working with you."

"Ah, hey."

With that, Meiru-san saluted. She was a Living Armor as well, and apparently she knew about my situation as a Dungeon Master, too.

"Right then, shall we get straight into the lecture?"

"Ah, yes. Please do."

And so, just as she'd said, the lecture began right away inside the carriage.

"To begin with, you don't need all that many knights. Even the First Chivalric Order, the pride of the Empire, has only about two hundred knights."

"Is that so."

"Having been granted ten thousand sets of equipment, spares included, you're likely expected to field a legion on the order of four to six thousand strong in an emergency… and that number counts the troops of Tsuia and Pavera combined. Each of those keeps a standing force of fifty to a hundred knights, five hundred soldiers, and two thousand militia or so, I'd say."

In that case, the number we'd need to raise ourselves really isn't much at all. Or rather, couldn't Tsuia and Pavera cover it on their own?

"… Come to think of it, at first it was thirty thousand sets of equipment, you know? Just how many people was that supposed to be for, I wonder."

When I asked that, Meiru-san put a hand to her chin with a "hmm" and answered.

"… Thirty thousand sets of equipment would put it at around three thousand soldiers and twelve thousand militia. That's armament on the level of the Imperial Capital, enough to build a fort."

With the rapid base-construction technique developed recently, you could throw together a base capable of garrisoning soldiers, so perhaps she'd simply wanted a large-scale military base near PrincessRokuko. Or so she said.

… There's a forest near Golen Village too, so building materials wouldn't be a problem. If that's the case, it's a very Haku-san sort of reason, and one I can accept.

Still, it's plainly excessive force, and even with three thousand soldiers, the militia would fall overwhelmingly short.

For starters, Karisoto District has only barely reached the level of a town, so if we tried to muster twelve thousand people, the place would be left a hollow shell.

"There's a way to pad out the troop numbers for that. The hint lies in what you're slated to receive from Haku-sama: a 'full set of equipment,' full-body armor and weapons with a magic stone attached."

"… Ah. Don't tell me… Living Armor?"

"Yes. You call up the soul of the dead with [Summon Soul] and turn it into a Living Armor, using the armor and magic stone as a medium. It's a common technique in modern warfare."

Right. This world has magic. So you just use magic to pad out your soldiers.

Since [Summon Soul] only summons a soul, it consumes overwhelmingly less mana than other summoning-type spells like [Summon Gargoyle], and because it uses armor and a magic stone as its medium, it's easier to maintain than [Create Golem].

A single Orc-class magic stone keeps one running for three months, and within a dungeon's domain that stretches even longer.

However, the souls summoned by [Summon Soul] have no personal memories or ego, so even made into Living Armor they can only move about as well as a golem, amounting to no more than militia level.

"Is it really that common?"

"Yes. In fact, we of the Raverio Empire used this very technique several centuries ago to explosively boost our troop numbers and expand our territory. Since we did it on such a grand scale, the information naturally leaked, and it spread to every nation. These days, the only ones actually using real commoners for their militia are the Demonlands and backwater countries."

"I see."

In other words, in war 'the number of suits of full-body armor' equals 'the number of troops,' so when a war breaks out, you end up needing vast amounts of iron to make full-body armor.

And I can get that endlessly out of a dungeon.

If Living Armor will do for militia, then you can preserve national strength without mobilizing farmers and the like. And their rations are just a magic stone. They don't go looting on their own, either. It's nothing but upsides, and thinking about it rationally, there's no reason not to adopt it.

(*Except for the Demonlands, that is.)

"You likely won't need it, Kehma-sama, but just in case, the batch Haku-sama is preparing includes around a hundred [Summon Soul] scrolls as well. Please have whichever knights you like make use of them."

"Ah, yes."

… And so.

For someone dungeon-affiliated like me or Haku-san, not only can we get our hands on as many [Summon Soul] scrolls as we please, we can use DP to turn the armor into 'proper Living Armor,' which means that so long as we spend DP, we can bring them up to soldier, or even knight, level.

In other words, against the militia-padding technique via [Summon Soul] that's leaked out to every nation, we hold an overwhelming advantage.

This… it honestly seems like they leaked it on purpose.

"Living Armor are also called ghost-soldiers, but classification-wise they're a type of militia, and the usual way to refer to them is 'militia' as well. By convention."

"By convention."

"Yes. It makes for a better impression in the international community that way."

Even in death they remain our people, so there's no problem mobilizing them… that sort of thing? Talk about a sweatshop… wait. Are the ones [Summon Soul] calls up actually mostly animal spirits? Well, there are probably more animal deaths than human ones, after all…

Calling them militia pads out the populace and makes it look like national strength, I suppose.

"In any case. You can set the militia aside for now, but… I'd recommend that you, too, Kehma-sama, assemble at least as many soldiers as Tsuia and Pavera: five hundred or more."

"… The reason?"

"It means you'll need the strength to put down those Tsuia and Pavera troops I mentioned, should they rise in revolt."

"Ah, that kind of thing. I see."

Right, so once you're the one on top, you have to stay wary of rebellion. … And here I'd be perfectly happy as a mere figurehead, yet it seems I can't afford to say that anymore. What a pain.

"For now, if you have a town watch, you may as well take them on as soldiers just as they are. Here, too, it's quantity over quality. In war they'll be about as useless as the militia anyway. On the battlefield, 'one powerful individual' beats 'a thousand ordinary soldiers.'"

Right. Because this world has magic and skills, the gap in combat strength between individuals is severe, and people who are genuinely a match for a thousand do actually turn up here and there. Wataru, for instance.

… Operating at the unit level seems like it'd be difficult, huh.

"Soldiers, militia, and the like, once you put them on the battlefield, serve at best to wear down the 'powerful ones.' They're mere meat-shieldsmeat. … That said, in peacetime soldiers can be put to use maintaining public order through patrols, gatekeeping, scouting, and so on. They aren't combat strength, but they are support. If your opponent has five hundred, you ought to have five hundred ready to counter them."

It means that with the same number of pieces, you can mount a defense that matches your opponent's attack in number.

"Also, when it comes to operating a legion, the way of thinking, the order of it, is a little different. First, you gather numbers. From there, you sort them into corps by grouping together the ones similar in type and ability. The knights of the Imperial Capital are divided up this way too, and there are a fair number of chivalric orders."

"If their strength is uniform, it'd make them a bit easier to operate."

For this reason, 'knight' runs the whole gamut, with the top and bottom ranks utterly beyond comparison, and apparently there even existed chivalric orders that were essentially dumping grounds for washouts, not even issued [Summon Soul].

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It was all stuff I could nod along to.

"… What sort of level is the First Chivalric Order, the very cream of the crop?"

"All two hundred would easily be ace-class fighting strength anywhere else. Even the hero Wataru would only just barely crack the top ten in our order… though that's leaving equipment out of it."

So there are at least ten of Wataru's caliber… the Empire's finest unit, all right.

At any rate, if all I need is to gather five hundred, it seems I can manage that.

In our case, worst comes to worst, it'd be fine for all of them to be Living Armor, after all.