A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1448 - 1448: Furthering Competition - Part 8

"Right-most cavalry unit to the thirty-first square," Oliver said, pointing to one of the hundred labelled squares available on the battleboard.

That move came with a wave of murmurs from the crowd. Even the peasantry were beginning to understand the simpler options. It didn't take a genius to see the mistake that Oliver had made. It was as blatant as they came. Against Bookthorne's threat of an arrow bombardment, Oliver had made no moves as far as defence. He'd left his pieces, with no recourse, to bear the brunt of the attack, seemingly without reason.

Oliver looked at the man across from him, seeing his frown. The minutes ticked by, as the man thought on the position, as if looking for the vein of cunning that he supposed Oliver to have laid, in making such a sacrifice. No one parted with their men so blatantly without good reason, after all.

'But I sort of have,' Oliver said, finding that, already he was enjoying himself. The enemy had made no response as of yet, but it was already a far more exciting position than the direction that they were heading in. The flow of battle that had seemed as certain as a hero's destiny was brought into a sudden bit of overwhelming chaos – exactly where Oliver fancied that it should be.

Eventually, Timmus Bookthorne gave his move, and the arrow bombardment began. The men officiating the match rolled the dice, and then called out the numbers for the benefit of the crowd, before seeing the results of them enforced.

For the three units that were being attacked belonging to Oliver, the results weren't altogether bad, as far as he was concerned. He'd only lost a single spear unit, despite everything.

He dared not look in the direction of the crowd. He feared to see Blackwell's disappointed face, or that of Skullic's and Volguard's.

'Concentrate,' he told himself. 'The fun will be drained out of it if we let them distract us.'

It was a mighty difficult thing to do. With thousands watching, it seemed like everyone had an opinion. Suggestions on the next move were grumbled through the crowd, as people argued with each other, and Oliver had to do his best to block them out, and not let them influence him.

"Oliver! Oliver, look!" Claudia said, directing Oliver's gaze to the next piece for him. He'd always thought her to be the more mature of the two, out of her and Ingolsol, but her sense of fun, at times, was even better than Nila's. She'd enjoyed those nights that Oliver had spent teasing the woman nearest to him as much as he had.

It was strange to think that one could grow closer to a Fragment, but Oliver supposed that he might have. He thought he might have at least discovered a slightly different side to Claudia, in the same way that he'd been forced to discover another side to Ingolsol, that still eternally terrified him.

"Tsch, make your move, fool," Ingolsol said, his tone withdrawn, not understanding the fun they were having. But somehow, Oliver felt he knew that the Dark God was content in just watching them.

"You're going to make me move even more recklessly, Claudia," Oliver murmured back, but it was the same move that had caught his eye as well. Seeing the fun that would follow it, he was powerless to resist. With an extreme amount of daring, he once more risked humiliation in front of the crowd, and once more did he ignore the plight of his men, leaving them in full risk of arrow fire.

The reward for that which he had ignored, and the men that he had sacrificed, if anyone had asked, seemed to be minimal. He made no direct attacking moves. No direct defensive move. He instead made a move that was so dry that it couldn't be categorized. It was hard to see the merits in it at all.

"Left-most cavalry unit to square 13," Oliver said, beginning to move his other calvary unit behind the main body of his army. It didn't make the slightest lick of sense, but Oliver grinned, knowing that it didn't need to. As long as it was fun, he figured, there ought to be something. With Claudia so involved, he dared to hope that it was not a mere embarrassing defeat that he was speeding himself towards. At the very least, he hoped he would buy himself an exciting battle.

This time, Bookthorne didn't think for nearly as long. With an annoyed expression, he gave the order for his archers to fire again, and this time the dice were rolled, claiming two more units of Oliver's.

The noises from the crowd directed Oliver's way weren't exactly complementary ones. They were groans, for the most part, accusing him of not taking it seriously, and Oliver knew that they wouldn't be wrong in that. But they weren't entirely right either. He was taking victory as seriously as he could, it was only a ridiculous route that he chose to get there, one that he believed in more than his conventional methods, even if didn't know them to be solid in their entirety.

Claudia was giddy, seeing the enemy follow through the way that he had. "Look, Oliver! He allows it!" She said.

Naturally, Oliver saw it too. He'd given his sacrifices, but there was nothing compelling Bookhorne to take them, other than the prospect of an easy advantage. And by all accounts, that was what he had indeed achieved. Even Oliver did not exactly know what the follow up moves were yet.

He did, however, know that the battlefield refused to flow in a straight line. The moment of excessive advantage – or the moment right after securing it – was when the position was at its most volatile. When there was the most opportunity. All the battles that Oliver had fought, against opponents of equal skill, required an equal amount of give and take. He couldn't just straightforwardly overwhelm. He had to create the opening, and to do that, he had to allow the enemy to come forward.

This little method that he'd chosen, he'd supposed it to be an imitation of that. Or at least, that was how he rationalized it to himself, when he saw it work continually against Nila. Though, an easier rationalization would have been that Nila was simply a new player, and any method, no matter how effective, would have been easy enough to secure victory against her with.