Even a Mosquito Is Meat

"But... Commander Bache, that's not what I meant... I meant, could we reduce the number of rangers we send out? That way, we could keep our losses to a minimum. When we win a great victory, His Majesty the King and all the great nobles will be happier!"

"Ais, you're a steward from a marquis family, yet you've never heard this principle? As the saying goes, you can't catch a Blood Wolf without sacrificing a child. If we stop sending large numbers of rangers and extraordinary knights, then what if they grow suspicious? Wouldn't all our previous planning go down the drain?"

"Besides, at their current rate of advance, those rangers will certainly enter our ambush zone this afternoon. So what if we lose a thousand rangers, as long as we can wipe out those noble heirs?"

That was right. The addition of extraordinary knights to the rangers this time was no accident, but a plan the Northern Principality had plotted for a long time.

First, they had used the cover of night to send additional extraordinary knights and trick the Onyx Principality.

And that was only the beginning. What they truly wanted was to use this to provoke the Onyx Principality, forcing them to respond by dispatching a large number of extraordinary knights.

Originally, Bache and the others had intended to lure out a few minor noble lords, or perhaps the enemy's extraordinary knight corps.

Yet they had never expected to draw in a whole group of noble heirs. This had absolutely exceeded Bache and the others' expectations.

If this scheme proceeded as planned and they could sweep up all the enemy noble heirs in one net, it would mean that the Onyx Principality would lose its next generation of outstanding successors.

Without outstanding successors in the next generation,