In the main chambers of the commander, Kasto was looking over the war efforts and noticed something worrying. Despite all his and his group's efforts, they were losing ground. As the lone commander near the border working for the youngest princess, he was running out of room and resources.
Fighting against any other faction within Frigus was already a death sentence for him, yet now The Holy Kingdom was also breathing down his neck.
It hadn't grown to the point of no return, but Kasto was slowly reaching his wit's end. It wasn't about how to turn around the tides of war, or the food and water for the commoners, it wasn't even about the logistics. What he had a drastic shortage of, were men, personnel, human resources. Anyone capable enough to fight in the war.
Taking the country as a whole, there was an overabundance of people that could aid him, yet without the country going into full scale war, he didn't have the tools to conscript more people. Besides that, they were the smallest faction with a focus on the poor and those of lower standing.
In fact, they only had a single Rank 4 general willing to aid them, but that was merely because he didn't want to aid the other two Royal candidates. The other groups had a couple of Rank 4 mages, each one capable of decimating them with ease. The reasons why Kasto had so much trouble gathering willing souls were diverse.
The pay was low, the recognition limited, and the risk high. Working for the other factions resulted in the opposite. Kasto could only try to attract as many promising mages as he possibly could, with an emphasis on mages. Plenty of normal humans came by to enlist in the military, but they were useless on the battlefield.
Giving out desk jobs wasn't something Kasto liked to do since it only created more work for him in the long run. What he needed were mages. "Is there a competition or tournament anytime soon?"
One of his tactics was going to schools and academies to try to find mages who were in a lesser position and needed help. Lucas was one of those examples, but due to Asta, he wasn't even able to get his hands on him.
"I'm afraid most schools aren't organizing anything soon."
"Can't we do it ourselves?", it was a desperate attempt, but it was all he could do. Besides the guards of the Princess, he had a little pool of known mages he could bring in.
"Considering the costs, we would be able to set something up with the current funds if I request a small budget increase. Though, timing wise, I don't think it'll be fast enough."
Kasto balled his fists. A silent complaint against the heavens for making it so unfair. Against higher standing nobles, they could do little but exactly that, complain.
"What's the latest casualty report."
"Seven missions have passed, 4 succeeded, 3 failed, casualties are around 194 Rank 1 mages, 17 Rank 2 mages.", Cal tried to keep his voice neutral as he read the numbers off the paper. While a passing grade, the results were exceedingly terrible.
"We also have a message from the advisor from the Princess, she would like to meet you in person."
Cal realized he was rubbing salt into their wounds, but he couldn't ignore an appeal from so high up.
"Organize it, minimize the personnel guarding the headquarters, lower the guards from the nearby villages, and try to give them a suitable training.", while the headquarters was basically a big mansion, it still held a lot of important intel. Lowering their security came at a big risk.
Sadly, Kasto had to figure out a way to fill some of the gaps in their army, but Cal's face didn't portray a strong willingness to fulfill those orders.
"We've already done that, sir. Any less, and we might as well leave the villages unguarded."
"Then we won't have any protectors!"
"Are you certain?", the tone of his voice was apprehensive, as if he knew what was going to happen next. Pulling out all the people that were protecting the villagers, the common folk, might result in disastrous consequences. They stood for the people, but weren't protecting them. It would put their beliefs on the scale.
"What else can we do Cal!? How do you expect me to fight a war without any men?", Kasto almost got up from his seat as he stared at advisor.
Suddenly, a knock came from the door. Kasto wasn't in the mood for anything but a good smoke, but realized work came first. Opening the door, Cal was surprised to see who the visitor was since they never bothered to announce their presence before storming in.
"Good afternoon, Commander Kasto," Asta was all smiles as he stepped inside, alone.
"Where's your boyfriend, thought you two always stayed together?", Kasto wasn't in the mood to deal with either Lucas's or Asta's trickery.
"I'm here to take on our following two missions. Lucas gave me his approval to stand in as his proxy as well."
"Why come to me to get your missions? I already told you to ask Cal.", Kasto frowned hearing what Asta came here for.
"Well, he's here, isn't he? We would like to apply for mission #13 and #9 on the low rank mission board," never lowering his smile, he handed over two mission slips to Cal, who promptly read them over before nodding.
"According to your deal, you won't receive any points from this mission. Both missions require you to go to the central area of Frigus and retrieve valuable herbs that will aid us in the creation of healing potions."
Hearing Cal matter-of-factly state the missions' contents, Kasto quickly realized what he was doing. But before he could even react, Asta had pulled out two tiny bags. "Here are the required herbs. Since you don't need to give us any points, we would like to look apply for the next missions as well."
"Damn you," Kasto frowned as those missions already gave little to no points and could've been easily completed beforehand. 'I should've stated that only the big missions wouldn't give any points.'
Asta didn't respond to Kasto as he pulled out a bunch of mission slips, "We would like to apply for all of these please."
"Uhm..?", Cal couldn't even look through them all before coming to the conclusion this was simply too many. Kasto gestured to Cal to come closer.
Laying all the mission slips out on his desk, Kasto effortlessly found a pattern. After studying the map so many times, he recognized the names of locations and outposts almost instantly.
"Going after all the eastern and western outposts? What dribble have you brought to my desk?", Kasto was seriously annoyed seeing these two mages so casually asking for all the missions related to the western and eastern camps. It was ridiculous, he felt as if they were spitting in his face.
Asta, on the other hand, stayed calm as he simply kept his smile up, waiting for approval.
"Will you give us permission to tackle these missions and give out the rewards stated on these papers?"
Kasto felt his stomach twist seeing the grin on Asta's face. He fully realized that his own trap wasn't even a trap for these men, not even a roadblock. He wanted to sigh, but he was too angry to do so, "Fine, just get out of my office.", trying his best to stay calm, Asta walked away with approval for all the missions he requested.
"Sir, I don't know if those men are fools or if they're just trying to trick someone. But considering they have a Rank 3 with them, it should be fine, no?"
Back when they hired Asta, he performed a ton of tasks perfectly, but he never chose a mission that would expose himself to the enemy army. So they weren't able to perfectly assess his strength, but purely based on his arrays and tactics, he was a genius.
"They are taking the eastern and western camps, castles, any and all outposts. This would mean they have to split up. There's no direct way to go from one end to the other without crossing the main forces of the Prince up north. I can't figure it out."
There were rumors that the Royal Guard from the elder prince were capable of creating a special instrument that was capable of making someone cross a large distance in a mere instance, but nothing concrete was ever made public.
Shaking his head, Kasto waved the thought aside since those two, or if they're speaking the truth, three mages, wouldn't be able to stand up against the entire Royal Guard, 'No way in hell.'
Right as he thought so, he heard a knock on his door. "Come in."
The head of logistics walked in and placed a document on Kasto's desk with a satisfied look on his face. "Here, I finished up what you requested. I also sent him to the prison like you asked. Though I'm a bit surprised you've already got him so reigned in. He's a lot more obedient compared to before.", the man had a big smile on his face as he was able to check off a bunch of tasks on his list.
Kasto stared wide-eyed at him as a small moment of silence appeared. Cal quickly caught on and felt his mouth slightly gape. They stood there for a moment, as the gears in everyone's heads slowly started to turn.
The commander hadn't left his office in quite some time, and Cal never made or delivered any orders. In fact, the orders that had to be distributed were still laying in his drawer, but those weren't even finalized yet.
Any orders that were given out, at least Cal should've been able to remember, yet nothing came up in his mind.
Hurriedly grabbing the paper, Kasto read through the entire thing as Cal quickly joined him behind his desk to read through them. It looked almost exactly like the orders Kasto wrote out for others. Even his signature was magnificently forged. Each line, the internal references to locations, the names of people, all of them were perfect.
"Haha- HAHAHa!", the other two men stared at Kasto's crazed laughter. The head of logistics was well aware of what was written down on the pages, but it looked like basic orders that he had received dozens of.
"Those bastards," Kasto didn't even seem angry anymore as a smile blossomed on his face. To play him so well, what else could he do? The orders were almost exactly like he wrote them, even containing his writing style. As a commander who had the view of the bigger picture, he almost instantly figured out what the orders were meant to do.
They were about moving weapons and certain items to certain locations as well as sending intel forward to certain outposts. They went both west and east.
To so easily take advantage of their system, internal communication network and even supplies. They were stealing from their own pockets, and even giving them approval to do so! Not that Kasto actually gave any kind of authority, but that mattered little for them.
"Worst part is, we can't prove it, can we?", handing over the paper to Cal, he quickly went through it and found nothing standing out. It looked like an official document no matter how you looked at it.
Seeing Cal's face turn from pensive to a mix of acceptance and remorse. Like Kasto said, there was no concrete way to prove it besides the testimony of the head of logistics, which was most likely enough if they bought the courts. But they were mercenaries who went so far as to forge orders, they would easily run away from the royalty.
Still, it was better to think things through. Letting them go without repercussion would only show how lacking they were as an army and machine.
"We should improve our integrity, like a unique code or something per order in order to guarantee security," Cal felt a sigh coming up as Kasto held his head in his hands.
"They got us good."
The head of logistics stood in silence as he noticed that all the tasks he performed for that man weren't actually orders from his boss. "I know this might not be the right time, but I can't exactly reverse those actions."
"It's fine," Kasto waved it away. "It's a pretty big cost, but I'll give them a month. If they succeed in whatever gamble they're going for, I'll support it, even. No, actually, I won't, but I'll be more lenient."
"How did they even replicate it?", Cal asked himself. At no point did they give one of them direct orders to replicate or learn from.
The three of them stood there, thinking about the possibilities until Kasto threw out a possibility. "Those two walk in whenever it suits them, why would they hold themselves back from rummaging through the place when we're not here?"
Realizing they've been had, they could only hope that whatever they were planning, it would turn out for the better.
"Cal, prepare a suit against them, when they're back, I want them behind bars. I know that's probably not going to work, but bring in everything we got on this.", Kasto seemed to be resolute on his decision.
Seeing Cal not answer immediately, Kasto explained, "If we get them charged with forgery or some other crime, we don't have to pay them."
Hearing such a simpleminded thought come out of their commander's mouth, both subordinates should've been shocked, instead they both nodded in unison. Thinking that was a great way to save on costs.