A man bound to ruin himself through gambling was sitting right next to me. He should have bet on Steinhof. What kind of confidence made him bet on Terese without Wilhelm? Had the high payout odds made him lose his mind? No wonder he kept losing money.

Now I understood what his wife was going through.

Michael’s love of gambling was a real problem.

"Wolf. Promise me you’ll never gamble. Please."

"Of course not. I’m lucky to have a living cautionary tale sitting right in front of me."

Unable to bear the awkward atmosphere, Michael fled, claiming he had to prepare for his match.

In the afternoon was the second-round second match between the War Minister’s family and Offenburg.

Whether or not I’d be joining the team competition depended entirely on this match.

"Hey, why aren’t you in this one? What’s the deal?"

I turned to find the cavalry commander. Beside him stood a black-haired noblewoman with a voluptuous figure. I didn’t recognize her, but Hilda did. Apparently she was a famous widow with three lovers and a reputation that wasn’t exactly sterling. And the way she was looking at me was anything but ordinary.

It was like watching a black widow eyeing her prey.

A black widow, huh? For courtesy’s sake, I exchanged greetings with her.

Lord have mercy—her disposition was lust (evil). I’d never met someone of this type before.

"What an honor to meet such a splendid knight. Hohoho."

"You flatter me, Lady Mühe."

She kept giving me flirtatious smiles, and I was on edge worrying it might irritate Hilda. The cavalry commander forcefully pulled her in by the waist as he spoke.

"Throwing looks at a young man right beside me? You only look at me."

"Hohoho, jealous, are we? Not an unpleasant feeling."

By this point I wanted to grab Hilda and get out of there.

But the cavalry commander didn’t seem inclined to let us go.

"You’re not bowing out because you spent everything you had in the individual competition, are you?"

"Don’t you worry. I plan to compete starting in the third round."

"Oh? Glad to hear it. I’d have been very disappointed if you’d sat it out."

The cavalry commander had accepted his loss in the individual competition, but he was confident the team competition would be different. The War Minister’s family was indeed a favorite, but the Beren Lance Cavalry was no pushover either.

Michael and Viscount Loewenbert appeared in their tournament heavy armor. The knights of the War Minister’s family and Offenburg lined up and went through the oath ceremony.

At least the Viscount was there, thank goodness. Michael was certainly a reliable commander, but he had moments where a few screws came loose, so I was grateful to have another commander on hand to keep things steady.

The strategies of the War Minister’s family and Offenburg were identical. Both ran a tactic of pinning down the enemy’s main force with the anvil and hammering them from behind, but anvil collided with anvil and hammer crashed into hammer in a fierce battle.

The first round went to the War Minister’s family, but in the second, Michael got unhorsed and they were quickly pushed back as Offenburg pulled off a comeback. The deciding round was fierce enough that both sides were whittled down to three on three.

"Hmph, without the War Minister, they’re just a rabble. Struggling against Offenburg of all opponents."

"Offenburg is the most powerful family in the north."

"They’re nothing but scarecrows who’ve never properly experienced a real war."

There went the cavalry commander, freely belittling the ruling family of the north.

While I was dealing with the cavalry commander, Hilda was handling Lady Mühe, and somehow beneath their smiling exchange there seemed to lurk a sharply honed blade. I was genuinely afraid to look in their direction.

Waaah!

In the end the War Minister’s family won, setting up a match in two days against the Beren Lance Cavalry, who had advanced on a bye. From where I sat, though, it was a victory in name only, and it was anyone’s guess whether they could beat the lance cavalry, who had rested up and watched from the comfort of the stands.

"Tell Michael that losing to the Beren Lance Cavalry isn’t a disgrace."

"I’m joining in the third round, you know. Do you really want me to lose and be humiliated?"

"Even with you in the lineup, I doubt the current War Minister’s family can beat us."

The cavalry commander seemed certain of victory.

Where on earth did that baseless confidence come from?

That just made him all the more satisfying to crush, didn’t it?

When the cavalry commander led Lady Mühe away, the noblewoman left me with one last flirtatious smile as a parting gift. Her voluptuous figure couldn’t be hidden even by her dress and was certainly striking, but I wasn’t about to fall for a temptation like that.

"Now I see why her reputation is so awful. Making a pass at a husband with his wife right beside him."

"That’s why noblewomen despise her. But it’s fine. I won."

"Hm? Won what? What are you talking about?"

Hilda just smiled and wouldn’t tell me.

Was there a world among noblewomen that I knew nothing about?

When Michael came back from his match, he sighed at the state of his lineup.

"Damn it, we’ve got two injured."

"You still have three reserves."

"The lance cavalry is up next. I’m worried about whether we’ll make it to the finals in one piece."

True enough. Going head-to-head with those brutes, who hit like charging battering rams, could get someone seriously hurt. So all the commanders gathered to put their heads together over how to handle the lance cavalry.

"Those lancer bastards only know one thing: charge. And they’re terrifyingly good at it."

They were the duchy’s best heavy cavalry, so naturally they were formidable on the charge. We concluded that the only way to stop the lance cavalry’s breakthrough, with the cavalry commander at its core, was to pack ourselves into a thick formation.

But I wanted something more proactive.

So I made a suggestion, and Michael and the Viscount thought it over carefully.

"Viscount, my brother-in-law’s tactic seems solid, doesn’t it?"

"I think so too, but can we actually stop the lance cavalry?"

"Holding the line is our specialty, after all. Let’s trust him."

In the end, my tactic was adopted.

It wasn’t anything ingenious. The plan was to exploit the cavalry commander’s tendency to charge like a wild boar. So during our day off, I drilled the tactic with the knights to get our timing in sync. Hilda told me to rest, but it was just rehearsal—we weren’t even hitting each other.

Thanks to plenty of rest before the third round, my body was in much better shape. I no longer needed painkillers to keep the pain manageable. As I entered the team melee field, I waved to Hilda, who was watching with worried eyes. She answered by tossing me a handkerchief and a flower.

"Michael, ready to eat dirt?"

"The one eating dirt all day will be you, not me."

The moment Cavalry Commander Pensler and Michael saw each other, they exchanged their version of friendly pleasantries. The lancers must have been itching for a fight, because their fierce will and rough disposition were on full display. Tense exchanges broke out everywhere.

"Bereit!"

I closed my visor and braced myself.

My heart began to beat a little faster.

"Anfang!"

At Michael and the Viscount’s command, the front line charged forward in formation. Right behind them rode myself and four others I was leading. As expected, all 15 Beren Lance Cavalry charged in a single line. True to form—charge, charge, and only charge was all those men knew.

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!

Through the Commander Scouter, I confirmed that the lance cavalry’s morale and combat power were significantly high. The numbers were higher than the War Minister’s family’s, meaning that if this dragged into a long battle, we could lose.

I let the gap between us and the front line widen a bit more. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

We’d slip out of the lance cavalry’s line of sight.

The reason for hanging back was simple.

Michael and the Viscount split into two squads and slammed into both wings of the charging Beren Lance Cavalry. As a result, the center opened up, leaving a clear path for the cavalry commander to barrel through. Like a funnel. The cavalry commander and the three lancers who passed through that opening seemed thrown off by the sudden tactical shift.

It was too early for them to be flustered.

The reason I had been hiding in the rear was precisely to ambush the cavalry commander when his flank was exposed. That was the crux of the tactic I had drawn up.

I had baited the cavalry commander, who knew nothing but charging, into a trap—and thankfully it worked.

Crack! Bang!

My lance struck the cavalry commander squarely in the torso.

Blindsided by an attack he never saw coming, the cavalry commander was unhorsed before he could so much as react.