The word of Erwin Smith 's death spreads like wildfire. At first, it 's met with slight scepticism and disbelief.

Surely someone like Erwin Smith wouldn 't fall like this. He 's led armies with worse odds in tougher situations.

But as it turns out, a human life is fragile, and survival is a gamble akin to the toss of dice.

The Varsikovian army stagnates soon after. Where they started strong and quickly pushed their way to control most of East Novaryn, their advance has slowed considerably as a direct result of Erwin 's death.

As it turns out, a lot of their success was not thanks to raw numbers but Erwin 's knack for war strategy. Something Sirius, regrettably, always lacked.

He had to take over so quickly he had no time to learn and despite the commanding officers of the Novarynian army trying to help him, the decisions he ultimately ended up making weren 't very sound.