Chapter Chapter 75.1: Side Story 5 (2/2)

“Yes yes, Sir Reia.”

I smiled at Sir Reia who as looking excited despite doing nothing.

Fine, the beings called protagonists always had stand-ins.

And then they acted as stand-ins for said stand-ins and that was how they improved themselves.

Take one of the legends of stand-in matches, the master of bottom dealing, the people that only those who saw that pharaoh’s bloodstained board game knew about, the ghost that was in some respects better suited for summer ghost specials, all their stand-ins got stronger on their own.

One of them beat the pharaoh that he was standing in for, and another got creamed in the land of his past life, but he still got pretty strong.(1)

“We can win this time as well, right?”

Although of course I knew hoping for that kind of growth from Sir Reia was pointless!

“Yes, Sir Reia. If we work together, we can fight any enemy.”

“Then let’s begin!”

Her Highness and Sir Reia stared each other down from opposite ends of the strategy chess board.

Although I couldn’t experience it for myself, if you injected magic power, then you would not be able to see one another’s units, and the units would move like in augmented reality.

Put simply, it was basically AR St**Craft!(2)

“Sir Ast, how are we going to organize our units?”

Sir Reia looked straight ahead and whimpered as she asked me.

Normally I would think about it a bit, but right now I’m hungry.

And so I want to end this as quickly as possible and go eat.

“Set all available units as knights.”

“Eh? All knights against Her Highness, that’s impossible.”

Looking at a shocked Sir Reia, I said imposingly.

“It’s alright. I have a plan.”

That plan being to have all my units charge in and get annihilated as quickly as possible so we can hurry up and go eat the chef’s greatest masterpiece yet!

“Really? I trust you, Sir Ast.”

Oi, if you trust me that easily then you’ll leave a mark on the thing called my conscience, miss knight.

“We’ve started. Commands.”

“All units charge in the shortest route possible. Continuously.”

“Sir Ast?”

I could clearly see Sir Reia’s surprised face.

Attack is the greatest defence! Is what you’d expect Her Highness to say but she surprisingly likes to use defensive tactics quite often.

And she’s especially the type to prepare against these sorts of blatant baits.

Against Her Highness, who prefers to play the long game and slowly choke her enemies out, a direct charge of the knights is nothing short of suicide.

“it’s alright. Everything is part of my plan. Like you said earlier, all you have to do is trust me.”

“I trust you, Sir Ast.”

It feels like I can already see the image of Sir Reia charging at me once the game is over already.

But my hunger takes priority right now.

“Charge, charge, charge, charge!”

“I understand!”

Despite my ordering to continue charging, Sir Reia doesn’t doubt me a bit and continues ordering her units to charge.

Around about now my knight units and Her Highness’s should have met up and getting slaughtered.

“Hm?”

But something’s not right.

Although I, who wasn’t affected at all by the magic couldn’t hear Her Highness, but I could see her face.

I named it half map-hack mode.

With this there were a few times where I made some key decisions by looking at Her Highness’s expressions…

But… why is her face not looking so good.

“Could it be, we’re actually winning?”

I turned my head slightly to look at Sir Reia and boy did she look excited.

I did nothing but charge with my knight brigade, but to think we’d actually win!

“We won, that’s Sir Ast for you!”

And a short while later, Reia looked at me with such sparkling eyes it was almost awkward, and Her Highness was biting down on her lower lip as she glared at me.

“So that’s how you’re going to play?”

Your Highness? All I did was charge in like an idiot.

And what do you mean that’s how I’m going to play? All I wanted was to eat lunch!

“Again.”

“Your Highness, we really should be heading off to eat lunch…”

“Quiet. This time, start with a division.”

“The scale has gotten bigger too?!”

“Alright, Your Highness! I’ll take that challenge!”

“The one who’s actually playing is me, why is Sir Reia the one shouting so confidently?”

“Alright then, begin!”

“Your Highness, too?”

Reia who shouted so confidently and as if she got fired up over it, Her Highness was making a serious face.

This isn’t good.

It seems like she’ll keep on playing until she wins.

With the thought that I might not be able to eat lunch, my already hungry stomach complained even harder.

“Another all-in with knights, all units charge!”

“Yes, since it’s Sir Ast saying it I’ll trust you!”

The exact same charge of the knight brigade as before.

There’s no way that Her Highness would fall for the same trick twice!

“Uggghhh… Again!”

And my faith activated a trap card!

Looking at her annihilated base, Her Highness even gnawed on her lip as she glared at me and shouted that.

“Charge, charge! All units charge, idiot!”

“Yep! Understood, Sir Ast!”

And another knight brigade charge in the next game as well!

If she even loses to this then, then Her Highness will have gotten triple bunker rushed(3) to be Kong…(4) er, Her Highness will have suffered three consecutive losses.

Surely Her Highness the imperial princess that is famous for being talented as hell wouldn’t lose to the same build, and to the same bullshit cheese strat!

“Gggghhh… So you’re going to keep on doing this, Ast?”

And just as the elders said, that ‘surely’ ended up biting me in the ass.

Sir Reia was taunting Her Highness looking as happy as she oculd be, and accepting those taunts and glaring at me, was Her Highness.

In that case, I need to stop using the charge strat, and use a different plan instead!

“Again, again, again!”

And so the games went on until my 30% win rate rose to nearly 50%.

And so, I shed some tears because I could not eat lunch, and the chef that created his life’s work and was waiting for us to taste it also ended up shedding tears as well.