“Have you finalized your decisions on color schemes, my beloved and newest daughter?”

Contradora, who sat next to me in her orcish form, laughed heartily (as she is wont to do) as she answered me.

“Indeed, I have, dearest Father. I have reviewed the entire scheme for the flight that you have issued, and I have selected what goes where for my allotment. Those pesky colors will not get the best of me!”

She laughed boisterously once more. Perhaps you had to be there, especially wherever she was while she reviewed the five colors I provided to her as she spent two hours deliberating over them to herself. But hey, she set a goal, she met a goal, and that is what we are all about around here.

“And how fares your training with Nanu?” I asked causally, even though the answer to this question held far more weight than mere color selection.

“She is thorough in her tutelage and in hammering out the many imperfections of my form and tactics,” she stated as levelly as she could, all hints of mirth gone from her voice.

My vision is all-encompassing, with my Skills providing me with the means to see everything around me, not just outwards from my person, but certainly from several layers around me where my visual perception can perceive the world from multiple angles. That being said, it did not escape my notice how dead behind the eyes that Contradora appeared when giving a neutral account.

“I understand all too well,” I commiserated as I patted her on the leg just above the knee. “She can be exceptionally thorough, especially if she spots a bad habit.”

We both sat there in silence for a moment, each of us reliving the horrors of Nanu’s appreciation for how dragons are very good at regenerating from wounds.

“Nanu, how goes training with Contradora?” I asked Nanu, who sat on the other side of me.

“Wonderful, my Emperor!” I could feel the smugness radiating off of her as she beamed me a winning smile. “It is a shame you are too big and strong to join us for training sessions. Perhaps we could combine our martial training with mortal weapons for some quality family time.”

I knew a trap when I smelled one, and this one stunk. While it is true that I can no longer spar with Nanu in my draconic form, I still continue my lessons with her for all manner of weapons in my mortal form. Although Nanu may be considered an overqualified librarian, she has centuries of training, practical experience, and academic knowledge. Since dragons don’t really get rusty with their practical skills, she remains the best combat instructor I have available to me by a mile.

“I would not want to divide your attention. It would also be troublesome to coordinate all our schedules. Perhaps some other time.”

I had learned more about deflection than those techniques used for mere blades. Fortunately, Nanu did not pursue the issue.

“Bonpricha, my penultimate adopted daughter and dear friend, how are preparations advancing for the warfare simulations?”

Bonpricha, who loomed right behind Contradora, leaned forward so that Contradora and I could hear her whisper into our ears.

“The simulations are complete. The apparatus to power it is complete. All that is left is the logistics of getting thousands of people hooked up to it at once. But worry not, for this one,” she continued as her hand fell onto the shoulders of Contradora, “will receive the best education in large-scale warfare that I can offer.”

Bonpricha had been the oldest and most powerful Empress of us dragons, with over two millenia of experience. She had not wasted her time in accumulating powerful artifacts, and she put centuries of planning into cheating the world to join my flight. While her Abilities are more limited as a Princess, she has more than enough means at her disposal to create fully simulated combat on a large scale, such that tens of thousands of participants could experience all the sensations of a real fight without consequence to their actual bodies. That last bit was the most salient part of the simulation, as pain and dismemberment were fully implemented.

“Just don’t break her, in mind, body, or spirit. I know you two like to tease, but Contradora is still only a handful of weeks old. This is all rather new to her.”

Nanu and Bonpricha at least had the decorum to appear properly chastised. I knew it was performative, but hopefully they would take a grain of my words to heart. Each of them had raised many dragons in their own time, so they should have sufficient expertise to push someone to his or her limits for optimal growth without causing long-term or permanent damage.

“Any bets on which teams down there will win?” I asked everyone.

That got all of them excited. For some reason, whether it be my own flight or my companions, gambling petty sums or favors over the outcomes of things we cannot control is a favorite pastime. In this particular instance, we were all in an observation tower over a training yard for the many soldiers that would one day be under Contradora’s command. Eight teams were taking turns in engaging one another, with there being about 500 physical troops for each team. This was an exercise more for the officers to give the correct orders in a timely manner and for the sergeants to be able to give directives to the rank and file.

The troops in each formation didn’t actually fight each other. They just held different flags to show different conditions, such as “engaging the enemy”, “taking heavy losses”, and “morale is getting low”. There were proctors with them that knew how each type of unit interacted with each other and kept track of their assigned unit for troops remaining and morale, both of which were displayed in quantifiable numbers on flags that updated in real time.

One could compare it to chess in a way, in that each troop type could move a certain way. Some were elites and could act on their own accord, others could only act with explicit orders. There were different methods of delivering orders, with some taking longer than others and some being capable of being intercepted. Troops could refuse suicidal orders or run away if their “morale” fell low enough, which was not an actual reflection of the real people down there who were perhaps a little bored.

The real difference is that there is no concept of taking turns. The officers can dispatch orders as fast as they can speak or write. Couriers run around to deliver them, or flags at the command center are used to relay orders to specific units. There are, of course, Abilities that can help make it faster and easier, such as any manner of telepathic mediums, but this exercise focuses on the inherent chaos of battle and remaining cool under pressure. As such, there are restrictions emplaced to ensure that the fundamental purpose of the training is achieved.

It is a battle of positioning, being responsive to true threats, and of taking initiative. There is a balance between delegation and assuming command of key units. Some units are more valuable or expendable than others, and exchanging them in an advantageous way is paramount to victory. For instance, taking out the enemy’s [Artillery Mages] is a valuable way to help prevent your own troops from being decimated. Some troops perform better against others in a complicated scheme of roshambo, so the commanders must be mindful of it.

With all that considered, we were now engrossed in the match of Blue vs Yellow. Yellow had fewer troops who were more exhausted, but they held a fortified position. The skirmish had only started ten minutes ago, and already, things were heating up. While real battles could last for hours, this exercise had an accelerated pace to keep the pressure up.

Naturally, Nanu and Bonpricha waited for their student, Contradora, to answer first. The student in question had her brow furrowed in concentration and her fingers steepled in something akin to the same, as fingers sometimes do whatever tics and habits make them do. Either way, Contradora gave a serious assessment before she answered.

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“Yellow is under siege, so it would make sense to be reactionary, as the onus to attack is on Blue. However, Yellow is timid and fails to anticipate where and how Blue will strike. Conversely, Blue is not doing as good of a job of sending the right troop types against Yellow’s, resulting in unnecessary losses. While Blue is appropriately bold, the commander is also reckless, perhaps with more of a desire to prove himself than to conserve the lives of his men. He may suffer too much morale loss despite his troops still being alive, and the battle will end unfavorably for him.

“Neither side is doing a particularly good job of cycling out their troops to give them time to recover. If anything, it almost seems to be an accident when they do that. Blue in particular has fresh troops waiting for a chance to attack while his troops that are engaging the enemy are becoming exhausted. As the attacker, he had the luxury of choosing some of the troop types he could use for this battle, and now he lacks enough artillery to be decisive and to force his opponent to sally out. As such, he did not properly prepare for the siege.

“The real winner will be the Empire, in that these two commanders will learn some harsh truths about their expertise in warfare. Better that it happens here than on the field of a real war. However, to be precise to the skirmish at hand, I think Blue will barely win.”

Bonpricha and Nanu gave me neutral looks, which was as charitable as they could be. In short, there was nothing wrong with Contradora’s assessment of the skirmish, but it missed the exercise as a whole. Credit where it is due, there was the implicit expectation that she explain her reasoning, and she passed that with flying colors. Seeing above and beyond the base requirements is a core tenant to how dragons teach one another, which can sometimes lead to curious and unexpected outcomes, especially when some people cannot see the forest for the trees or focus on some minor aspect of a lesson.

“Two minor favors say that Red will occupy this fortified position by the end of the skirmish,” supplied Nanu with as much mercy as she could muster for her young student. “I agree that Blue will defeat Yellow, but in the larger picture, Red absolutely crushed Green in a previous skirmish. There is no rule that says that Red cannot decide to attack the ‘winner’ of this skirmish. Blue, being far more exhausted than how Yellow was at the start of this skirmish, will be unable to hold on to the prize, and Blue would be lucky to flee in time to avoid complete annihilation.”

Bonpricha remained silent, her lack of a wager proof enough that she agreed with Nanu, and betting on the same outcome was too wimpy to be befitting a dragon. However, she needed some sort of answer, which only put more pressure on me, as the last to wager, to find some unique response.

“One lesser favor says that Yellow has already formed an alliance with Green, and that Green’s real army will come to the defense of Yellow to try to stop Red. We have no way of knowing the true strength of each team’s forces, and that applies as much to us as them. Some teams are intentionally larger than others, and we must keep that in mind. I think Green intentionally lost to Red earlier with a small detachment in order to both embolden Red into advancing towards Yellow and to provide Red with enough time to do it before the skirmish between Blue and Yellow is declared finalized by their official proctor.

“My dear student,” she stated with some measure of warmth towards Contradora that implied sympathy, “the real war is often won outside of the battlefield. Secret deals and ruses are all fair here. You must learn to see beyond a mere battle and to the larger picture. Consider the motives and desires of each commander as a person, and not just those of their factions or kings.”

Nanu and Bonpricha had been almost brutal by some standards, especially considering how young Contradora is, but dragons don’t hold back or sugarcoat things when teaching their young. Veribly, their own reasoning was devoid of direct insult or belittlement, but they all but slapped Contradora in the face for her honest lack of foresight. However, we have to consider the stakes here. We are training a King, not a mere commander of 500 men or 1,000 men. It is imperative that she becomes competent quickly, otherwise her generals will lose faith in her when she takes command of my military. The generals have decades or centuries of experience, and they also will not go easy on Contradora. It is better that she learns to deal with criticism and failure sooner rather than later, as resiliency and restraint against lashing out are key traits of a good commander.

“Haha!” Contadora laughed after she considered the answers of her teachers. “It seems I have much to learn, but I find myself with no shortage of premium tutelage from dutiful and competent instructors.”

She is learning well. Distracting dragons with a bit of flattery usually works. While Nanu and Bonpricha are old enough to not fall for it, they throw Contradora a bone by still preening at the praise. It is a good idea to reinforce good behavior now; we can work on subtlety later.

“But what of you, Father? Who do you think will win?”

All eyes fell to me, and suddenly I was on the spot to come up with a good answer. Nabonidus, out of the spirit of fairness, had not been helping me by divining the future. He was also spread pretty thin, so wasting his energy on something trivial like this would irritate even him, and he is one of my best friends and greatest supporters.

I, like Nanu, Bonpricha, and most dragons of significant [Age], have multiple minds to think with. Seeing as how I was the one who put forth the wager, I naturally had been paying attention to every last detail that I could from the very start, all without cheating. However, Nanu and Bonpricha knew me and dragons in general well enough to have foreseen that a wager would be made, so they probably had put plans into motion the instant I made the suggestion that we review the troops today during their exercise. This would naturally entail a “shadow war” of sorts as our own agents went about sabotaging the efforts of everyone else to gather intel or to sway the outcome, but that is a whole different lesson for Contradora. Baby steps, and all that.

All that being said, I would like to think that my own agents did a good job in stifling the efforts of Nanu and Bonpricha, but maybe that is what they want me to think. It is all a game of smoke and mirrors, classic misdirection, and backroom deals to win future wagers and my approval and affection. I, being a good sport, gracefully admit defeat when I do lose, and I even look forward to it, as I would grow bored if I always won.

I think they will find my assessment to be a little out of the box.

“Black team is going to win. I wager a moderate favor and,” I fish around in the physical pockets of my pants for dramatic effect as I withdraw some stuff from my pocket dimension, “20 gold and this coupon for ‘Cafa Blanca’, which is a café in one of my cities.”

Seriously, these cities were taking waaay too long to vote on their official names. Referring to them by number felt a little cold. So many names were jokes or puns, and, while I could appreciate them on a personal level, I could not ultimately accept such names for cities of my empire.

“Black has not fielded many forces, and they lost all of their engagements. Each team has some sort of hidden advantage over the other. I think Black invested heavily in assassins and bribing the proctors. They will wait until all the teams exhaust one another and then strike everyone down at once. They do field the minimal number of troops required for each engagement so far, but they only field cheap chaff. They are either playing the long game or their commander is grossly incompetent.”

The trickiest part of this is that Bonpricha especially is old and wise enough to have predicted this, so there is a strong possibility that she left this avenue for wagering available to me. She does seem to enjoy owing me favors and “favors”, so this could be part of a master plan to win some future wager that she has been planning for months now.

“That is dastardly, dishonorable, and underhanded,” bellowed Contradora with an expression of disapproval and rage on her face. “I hope to wager on that next time,” she continued before she continued to laugh heartily while slapping me on the back.

The fact that my chair had a back of its own to support and protect mine didn’t even matter. She certainly inherited some of my mastery to warp and twist space. However, even in mortal form, I retain much of my strength, mass, and prowess as a dragon, so I was not injured by her display of jovial comradery.

Everything proceeded as we had wagered. Yellow was all but defeated when Red showed up to take them both out. Green showed up to surprise Red and to save Yellow, but ultimately failed, with Red going on to occupy the fort. Contradora won her bet because Blue did practically defeat Yellow. Bonpricha won her wager because Green did come to the aid of Yellow, and she never stated that Green would be successful in saving Yellow. Nanu won because Red defeated everyone to occupy the field.

And I won because Black came out of nowhere to assassinate officers and commanders, all while the proctors ruled in their favor time after time. Even from here, we could hear the bellyaching that followed such blatant corruption. It was all actually within the rules of the war games, so it wasn’t that the officials were truly corrupt. Well, it is possible that Black actually bribed the officials outside of the exercise, but that is a different matter.

I was left wondering if Nanu and Bonpricha had planned their wagers and then found a way to tie it to the lesson, or if it were the other way around. It felt too neat that everyone won what they wagered on, which may be part of the meta lesson that Contradora may not understand if explained to her directly, but the seed of that idea has been planted. Anything they do tends to serve multiple purposes, and I am delightfully forced to do so in turn if I am to keep up. Such is the life of dragons, for it is all plans within machinations within schemes, with a few ploys sprinkled in here and there.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep