The next night, as the twin moons rose over the darkened horizon of the starry night, under the cone-shaped roof made from the finest silk and shiniest silver thread of the grand multi-room pavilion tent of white and purple, lay many fine pieces of furniture made of white royal ancient oak.
Princess Gloria was sitting alone on her small throne, her eyes closed like a monk in deep meditation, as she used her 'Farsight' ability to spy on her brother's troop movements.
Yet she couldn't follow every army all at once, since her ability had its own limit of mana requirement and she had only one pair of eyes, and worse still was that her brother's forces seemed to be numerous enough to be split into many different ginormous armies, which now readied themselves to march out in many different directions.
As she expected, clearly, his plan was to utilise his superior numbers of troops to conduct a frontline that stretched out so wide that she simply couldn't react fast enough nor far enough, to sow disorganisation amongst her supporters to cause them to collapse, one by one.
It's a solid strategy in theory, but if the method he wanted to use to win the war was sheer numbers, then she knew exactly how to defeat him. She just needed someone whose army could easily deal with waves upon waves of simple armed peasant.
She grinned like a fox, before opening her purple eyes which shone like brilliant amethyst gems and uttered only one word, 'Victor', as she then formulate another one of her ingenious plan.
-----
Under the night in which the sky is full of twinkling stars.
Amidst the field camp surrounding the great 'Spring Palace', Victor, aka myself, was walking down the dirt road which was surrounded by many luxurious tents of nobles who were her Highness Princess's supporters.
Even though it was night time, many nobles who were wholly wide awake still held their gazes at me with an unexplainable expression.
Some envious, some jealous, and some just are straight up hostile. Their faces were mostly those whom I could faintly recall from the past Soirée. It turned out those who were low-ranking nobles at that event ended up joining the Princess's side for whatever reason, maybe she promised them ranks or something.
But even so, they didn't seem to expect someone of such lowly status as me to get into such a favourable position with both Lady Valeria and Princess Gloria. After all, my small city was an underdeveloped backwater land compared to even other barons, or at least that's what they thought of my city before the reform.
After a while, I arrived at the Princess's magnificent field tent, guarded by knights in shining armour with flowy purple capes. And as I was about to get inside, halberds were crossed down in front of me by the guards, prompting me to gently ask for permission to enter.
The Princess shouted her permission, and the guards lifted up their halberds and opened a veiled entrance for me.
As I walked inside, the interior, which somehow felt both modest and grand at the same time, came into view. The white oak furniture, covered in cloth of purple and placed with many ornate silverwares, was all over the place. At the center of the room, the Princess was standing with a gentle smile on her face, beautiful and majestic, as expected from those with elven blood running through their royal veins.
Weirdly enough, compared to the woman I argued with last time at the 'Spring Palace', tonight she seemed like a completely different person.
"Welcome to my place, Lord Victor of Vindia." the Princess said with grace as she gestured for me to sit down on the chair placed near her.
I sat down with a smile, trying to look as friendly as possible.
"Drinks?" she asked, handing me a crystal goblet of amber-colored spirit.
"I'm sorry but I don't drink while on the job" I refused her with a graceful wave.
"It's an ancient elven drink called 'Ambrosia', I assure you it's good for your health." she persisted, constantly trying to place the glass of ambrosia into my hand.
Seeing that she really wanted me to try it, I got even more suspicious of her intention and refused her once more, now with a stern voice and tone.
Knowing that I wasn't going to drink it, she relented and pulled back her glass of 'Ambrosia', and drank it whole in one gulp. Her face went red in an instant, but her overall behavior didn't change at all.
"I called you here to give your army their first mission." she said as she pulled out a map of Middenland and pointed her finger down onto the area to the north of the capital.
I leaned in, eager to know where she would deploy me and my 'Grand Army', since the last time we met there wasn't anything of value that happened at all. Even worse, all the nobles seemed to take interest in me in all the wrong ways, thinking my rapid seizing of 'Vertenville' city was reckless and dangerous, even though my enemy was devil-worshipping heretics. They didn't seem to focus on the fact of how I conquered the well-fortified city in just one day and one night at all, maybe they were just that stupid.
"I want you to hold this position and be my reserve, while my army deals with the enemy." she said as she used her finger to draw a line at the northern side of the capital.
Hearing that, I stared at her in disbelief. Maybe she wanted to restrict my contribution to the overall war, thinking I was too dangerous, or she was confident in her own army's abilities so much that she thought her army could win alone without my help, which was highly unlikely since she seemed to be in demanding of my help since we first met. Only a small hiccup at 'Vertenville' wasn't going to break that, so I just asked.
"What's your plan? My highness." I asked, narrowing my eyes.
"You'll see, Lord Victor, you'll see." She stood up, waved me off to leave, and just cryptically blue-balled me without any solid answer.
I saw her off in confusion as she left the guest section of her pavilion and went into her bedroom.
She might not know this, but this was the kind of superior I hated the most in my past life, being cryptic and all just making her seem like someone I should rebel against and get rid of as soon as possible.
"There's human life on the line, you damn filthy fae!" I thought in my head, but my face was still smiling and waving her a warm goodbye. "Goodnight, your highness..." I spoke before I stood up and quickly left the tent, walking straight back to the carriage that took me off to my army HQ, far away from here.
This conversation should have been done in just 1 minute by reading the letter. I shouldn't have wasted my time coming here at all. Damn elves and their inefficiently usage of time!