We came charging out of the hills ready to punch through any resistance and force our way into the enemy camp to wreak havoc. Instead, we found ourselves jogging across the valley floor towards the camp without facing the least resistance. The silence was eerie, and part of me started to worry that we had fallen into some sort of trap, that we were charging at a prepared decoy.

Fortunately, all of the mystery of the situation was dispelled as we came closer to the campfires. Soldiers that should have been on patrol or at least on alert were instead drinking and gambling together with their fellows. As we drew closer, I could hear the sounds of boisterous revelry. It seemed our opponents were having their victory celebration a little early.

Katsuie didn't hesitate to ruin their party. "Attack!"

I swept forward with the rest of the squad. The men sitting around the campfire were half armored at best and armed with little more than steak knives. I picked out the man directly ahead of me and brought my sword around, magical edge in place. It passed through his neck with no more resistance than a scarecrow’s.

I kept moving, not letting myself dwell on what I was doing. The man next to my first target was beginning to stand, made awkward by surprise or drink. I only had to take a moment to adjust my aim before sweeping his head from his shoulders.

I took another step forward, looking for a target, but found that only my allies were still on their feet. I paused and took a look around. As I watched, the few ongoing scuffles on the ground ended with the death of the surprised and unprepared enemy soldiers.

We had cleared everybody from the campfire in less time than it took to tell the tale. I was startled that a life and death fight could begin and end so quickly.

Katsuie, of course, kept his focus on our objective. "Assemble! Keep moving!"

I rejoined the line, moving together with the rest of the squad. I couldn't help but smile with relief. It was easier than I had expected to fall into the rhythm of the battlefield. Move forward, keep an ear out for orders, and kill the men who were trying to kill me.

In a way, the simplicity of it was appealing.

I was against the use of violence as a matter of principle, of course, but I made an exception in the case of self-defense. In this situation, considering that an entire army had marched into our land, this attack was simply a vigorous form of self-defense. I had my principles, but I didn't require a victim to wait until a knife was actually at her throat before she could fight back.

I kept moving. The enemy soldiers weren’t just sitting around their campfires, now. The ruckus from our assault had sent a wave of alarm through the camp. It didn't seem like the people we were up against knew exactly what was going on, but they knew that something dangerous was happening.

Not that it mattered much. These soldiers were still disorganized, fighting as individuals instead of an organized force. What's more, we hadn't run up against any sword saints. Cutting down non-magical soldiers was just a matter of batting aside their initial attack, taking a step forward, and then taking their head off with the backswing. I fell into the rhythm of combat, moving forward at a steady pace.

It wasn't until there was a brief lull in the fighting that I realized that my comrades were nowhere to be seen. I'd had my mana out around me to keep track of the battlefield, but my focus had been on perceiving potential threats to my own well being. I hadn't been paying any particular attention to where everybody else was going, and at some point I had become separated from the rest of my squad.

I took a look around using my non-magical senses. I was standing in a small empty area, surrounded by enemy corpses. I could hear fighting still going on behind me, but I seemed to be the only member of Lord Ota's army in the general vicinity.

The enemy soldiers in front of me were all running away. I couldn't blame them for choosing the logical course of action upon finding themselves outclassed by a sword saint, but it didn't speak well of their discipline or morale. No wonder Lord Ota had felt confident ordering this attack.

I turned and started to walk towards the sound of fighting, intending to link back up with allied troops, if not my own squad. My first step hit the ground with a wet squelch, bringing my attention to the fact that my feet were soaked through. I looked down and frowned. My sandals were ruined, covered in blood and gore.

If I hadn't imbued my kimono with magic, causing blood and gore to slide right off the white fabric, it would no doubt be stained beyond repair as well. I'd have to remember to use magic to preserve my footwear in the future.

I shook the thought aside and resumed my walk, ignoring the minor discomfort and striding forward at a good clip. It didn't take too long to reach the fighting, which by a stroke of luck did involve my own squad. They had been unfortunate enough to run into a small team of sword saints. Fortunately, judging from the way the fight was going as I arrived, the enemy swordsmen weren't very well trained.

To be honest, Lord Ota's sword saints weren't exactly putting on a clinic of excellent swordsmanship themselves. Katsuie was standing back, watching calmly with one hand on his own sword as the two small groups flailed at each other, neither side managing to land a telling blow.

It seemed that he was allowing the new and untested sword saints to show what they could do. Well, I was sorry to interrupt his little test, but I was a newbie too. I needed to take every chance available to show off.

Accordingly, I didn't slow down as I approached their ongoing battle. Attacking people in the back wasn't very nice, but keeping aware of your surroundings was a soldier's duty. It wasn't my fault if the enemy soldiers weren't very good at their jobs.

To be fair, even if they had noticed my approach, there wasn't much they could have done, facing an enemy from the front while I was attacking from the back. None of them had even bothered to imbue any magical reinforcement into their armor, allowing me to slash through with ease. I cut down the enemy swordsmen one by one, and within moments our squad were the only ones standing.

I stepped forward and offered Katsuie a bow, though I kept it shallow enough that I could glance up and see his reaction. He studied me with an unreadable expression on his face. I did my best not to preen. He nodded, once, then turned to the rest of the men.

"Don't just stand there, keep moving!"

I was a little disappointed to be put right back to work without so much as a word of praise, but I reminded myself that I was playing the long game. It didn't matter so much whether I got a pat on the head right after doing something impressive. The important thing was to show my good side to Katsuie so that he would put in a good word for me with Lord Ota as someone who could be trusted. In that sense, every enemy soldier I killed today was an investment in my future.

Katsuie kept us focused and urged us to push forward aggressively, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find enemy soldiers to fight. The rest of Lord Ota's army had fallen on the camp from all directions. The result was utter chaos. Most of the invading soldiers that we ran into were running around trying to find out what was going on, still barely ready for a fight.

We kept moving forward. The tents around us were growing, and their placement seemed more orderly, although the overall effect was ruined somewhat by the number of panicking soldiers running this way and that. We found a knot of soldiers making a stand, but our newbie sword saints were able to cut them down before I could even get in there to rack up a few more credits.

When the last enemy fell, it left an open path to the fanciest tent that I’d seen so far. It was more than a story tall, big enough to house a whole squad of soldiers. I looked to Katsuie, wondering if we should go inside to check for enemy soldiers, but the choice was taken from me when the tent flap was thrown open and a striking figure strode out.

He wasn't anybody I recognized, of course, but the way he carried himself told me that he was a cut above the soldiers that we had been facing so far. Not to mention that he was actually wearing proper armor and wielding a proper sword. He was glaring around the melee as though all the chaos was a personal slight.

"I said you could drink, not that you could get drunk!" he barked out. "Hansuke, help me sort these idiots out!"

He had turned back to the tent in order to give his orders, but he turned back quickly when one of our newbies stepped forward and tried to strike him down. He intercepted the attack with his own sword before kicking him back. Another of our sword saints came at him from the side, but he was interrupted by the arrival of another combatant, presumably Hansuke, from within the tent.

These two were the best fighters we had run into by far. Even starting out off guard, they quickly gained the upper hand and began driving our sword saints back. Fortunately, neither one of them could hold a candle to Katsuie. Of course, I wasn't going to laze around and force him to do the work, not when I was still trying to make a good first impression.

The fight against Hansuke was going quite poorly for our swordsman. I stepped in to knock an attack aside that would have left him badly wounded. Hansuke looked at me in surprise for only an instant before coming at me with a straight stab. However, while he was more skilled than the other soldiers I had been fighting, he still hadn't bothered to contest my magical domain. I was able to read his intentions like a book.

With an advantage in information and an advantage in speed, it was easy to sidestep at the last possible moment. His eyes widened in surprise before my counterattack struck home, slashing through his armor to open up his torso. I reached out and shoved him to the side as I passed by. He crashed to the ground behind me as I sliced toward the man who had first come out of the tent.

Just as he had done before, he reacted to the attack without even looking, shoving his overmatched opponent away before parrying my strike. He was the first opponent I had met on this battlefield who was at least making an effort to spread his mana in the space around him. Now that I was within arm's reach I could feel an area two or three feet around that he was warding off from my own influence.

He tried to reverse the direction of his sword and cut me down after knocking my blade aside, but I was able to step back away from his reach. When he stepped forward, I focused on pushing more of my mana in his direction, encroaching on his area of control. He hesitated, and I took advantage of that to surge forward, stabbing at his neck.

His eyes widened and he shifted to the side, but not quickly enough to completely avoid me. The magic enhanced tip of my blade cut through the light armor guarding his throat, just managing to nick his skin. Vivid droplets of blood stood out as they spattered down on his chest armor. He backpedaled, trying to get away, but I wasn't going to let this opportunity slip through my fingers. I drew on my magic to quicken my steps and darted forward. He got his sword in between us but I was able to press my own sword against his and then put my shoulder into a heavy push while hooking a foot behind his ankle.

He fell backwards when I shoved him, his hands reaching out to the sides as he caught his fall. I didn't hesitate, taking a step forward and plunging my sword straight down through his neck, falling to a knee as I followed through, sinking the point of my sword deep into the ground below. I paused for a moment to catch my breath, sensing through my mana that nobody around me was moving to attack. A moment later, I looked up to find that I was surrounded by friendly soldiers, all staring at me.

Suddenly, a blue box appeared in my vision. It was just as well that I was already staring back, wide-eyed, at the people around me, so my expression didn't change much at the sudden interruption.

[Congratulations on completing the achievement "Reaper of Daimyo: First Blood"

Reward: 3 attribute points, 1 perk point, +1 infamy.

Collect your reward now!]

Of course, the reward collection was greyed out. That was to be expected. What was more alarming was the name of the achievement. The man that I'd killed was the enemy daimyo? In a country that believed in the divine right to rule? Lord Ota hadn't struck me as a man who was too particular about who killed whom, but I didn't want to sully my reputation by trampling over social taboos.

Katsuie clapped his hands together, making himself the focus of attention. "Keep moving, everyone. We still have work to do!"

Thank goodness I was working with such an unflappable professional. I formed up in a line with everybody else, discreetly dismissing the dialog box once I had the chance. If he was going to chew me out for killing somebody I should have captured, at least he'd be doing it in private.

As it turned out, that was the final bout of real resistance that we faced. The rest of the battle was basically moving forward and convincing people to run away. The only times we had to fight were after people ran into us out of what seemed like confusion rather than aggression.

It was a strange way to end a battle that had begun with such a huge numerical disparity stacked up against us. It just went to show the importance of good leadership. There was a reason that Lord Ota was one of the foremost daimyo in Yashima and his opponent was lying dead on the battlefield.