The crooked merchants' fate was a minor prelude to the war. Their presence might not have seemed significant, but they could have seriously held Chris back.
Fortunately, before the war officially began, the army's reliable internal review system and the Tax Bureau's tax officials had eliminated these hidden dangers.
This allowed Chris to lead the First Legion out of the capital and set off for the front without worrying about trouble behind him... He would not be able to preside over this year's Harvest Festival.
This battle mattered-so much that Chris could not sit comfortably in the rear and wait for the fighting to begin.
Aside from logistical considerations, there was another reason: in the entire Kingdom of Bagnia, no one besides Chris himself could serve as marshal and command an army.
Marquis Dirac Siso could not. He came from the old nobility, and even if he had the ability to command an army, Chris could not entrust one to him. This was not a matter of trust, but politics.
Neither could Isaac, the utterly loyal man who had followed Chris from the Bohemian Empire to the Kingdom of Bagnia and now served as commander-in-chief of the Military Affairs Department.
First, he lacked the ability to command at that level. Previously a low-ranking Bohemian officer, Isaac had never received any formal military education. He had relied solely on his own talent to learn how to command small units in battle.
Second, Isaac, whose title read "commander-in-chief of the Military Affairs Department" but whose actual job was chief instructor, lacked the prestige to command an army. Chris had once tried putting him in charge of a fifteen-hundred-man legion, and even that had stumbled along under his leadership.
Giving him an entire army would be as good as sending Isaac to his