◇ ◇ ◇
The men were engulfed in a strange sense of elation, while the women were
frightened, and the elders who had experienced the days of war and chaos during
the reign of the king before Albert, the one called the Conqueror, worried that those
days might return.
However, Souma continued without wavering in the slightest.
"I am sure that the armies of Amidonia are watching this broadcast, as well. And
so, I will declare this. I am sending the forces gathered in the Carmine Duchy
westward. Their goal will be to capture the capital of the Principality, Van. While
you, the forces of the Principality, are wasting their time near Altomura, we will no
doubt be burning your houses to the ground."
And then Souma closed his speech with these words, which would no doubt be
used to represent this whole scene when it would be dramatized in later years.
"Hear me, Gaius! Now that you have laid a hand on my house, I will see that you
pay for it!"
◇ ◇ ◇
The Forbidden Army's palanquin-carrying wyverns for royal trips abroad (also
known as the "sitting room wyverns") were four wyverns that carried a gondola that
was as luxurious as a limousine. They served a role similar to that of an airship.
It had been one of these four wyverns that I'd loaned to Poncho when he'd gone
around gathering ingredients.
The inside of the gondola was spacious and luxuriously appointed. When money
had been tight at the beginning, I'd considered stripping out all the decorations and
selling them, but Marx, who had been Prime Minister at the time, had begged me,
"These serve as the face of our kingdom to the outside world. Please don't sell
them!" So I'd given up on the idea.
I was inside that gondola, having just finished with the declaration of war against
the Principality of Amidonia.
The jewel for the Jewel Voice Broadcast was sitting there right in front of me. As
spacious as the gondola was, we'd still had considerable trouble loading the jewel
into it. Because the jewel was just large enough that it would poke through the roof,
we had been forced to cut an opening in the top and lower it in through there.
Because of that, now that we were flying, the wind blew inside the gondola and
made it very cold. I just hoped my shivering legs didn't make it into the broadcast
during the declaration of war...
"You did a good job, Souma," Liscia said. "Come on, get in here."
Now that I had finished withstanding the cold long enough to declare war, Liscia
opened up the blanket she had curled around herself and let me in.
Two people wrapped in one blanket. Oh, how warm. I finally felt like I could rest
a little. I'd never been so grateful for the warmth of another person before.
"Ahh, that was so cold," I moaned. "If I'd known it was going to be so cold, I think
I'd have preferred to go by land."
"If you were going to load the jewel into some other vehicle, a horse-drawn
carriage wouldn't cut it," Liscia said. "And if you'd transported it by rhinosaurus,
wouldn't you have gotten motion sickness instead?"
"...They're both equally bad, huh," I muttered.
I had ridden with the rhinosauruses when we had gone to provide aid to the dark
elf village. It had been anything but a smooth ride.
Hal and the others are probably moving around with them, I thought. I need to find
a way to improve the experience, quick. They might go on strike if I don't.
As I was sitting there, wearily thinking about such things...
"H-Hmph... A little chill like this... is nothing..." Carla said, sitting across from us
and trying to put up a strong front even as she shivered.
This girl I had brought with us as a hostage against the Air Force may have been
wearing armor, but she didn't have a blanket to protect her from the cold. I had
offered to lend her one, but she had refused it, trying to act tough.
I thought she'd be fine, being a dragonewt, but... now that I think about it, they're
reptilian, aren't they?
"Do dragonewts have trouble adapting to the cold, like lizards?" I asked.
"Don't lump us together with lizards!" she cried. "Yes, it's true, we do have
trouble with the cold, but..."
"But you must fly at rather high altitudes in the Air Force, right?" I asked. "Isn't it
cold when you do that?"
"...We take the proper measures to protect against the cold," she said.
"Ah, yeah, I suppose you'd have to."
This sort of chill had to be an everyday occurrence for the Air Force, so they had
to have means of dealing with it.
When I put a spare blanket over her, Carla gave an awkward "...Hmph," and
wrapped it around herself as she sniffled.
Then...
"Honestly... How can you say 'You have laid a hand on my house, and I will see
that you pay for it'?" she burst out. "You were the ones who tempted the forces of
Amidonia to attack in the first place, weren't you, you bast... I mean, Your Majesty."
Carla turned and looked away.
"...You noticed that, huh."
"Now that I know the full picture, it wasn't hard," she said. "You used the unrest
inside the country to lure in the Amidonians, and now you're going to strike them,
right? Was Duke Carmine in on it, too?"
"...I guess you could say that you're half-right," I said. "What Georg did, he did
entirely on his own initiative. The target of the subjugation Hakuya and I had been
planning was the Principality of Amidonia from the very beginning."
While investigating the nobles' corruption, I had learned there was no small
number of nobles inside the kingdom who were working for the Principality of
Amidonia. Whether it was family ties, bribery, or the illegal diversion of supplies,
their connections took many forms, but the existence of those nobles was extremely
dangerous to this country. For instance, if Amidonia were to invade as it now was,
and if they were to stage a revolt all across the country, that could have proved to be
a fatal blow.
Because of that, Hakuya and I had thought of ways to solve the root of that
problem. And by "the root," of course, I meant the Principality of Amidonia itself.
"The Principality of Amidonia has been a constant threat to this country," I said.
"If we had left them to their own devices, I had little doubt that they would continue
to foment rebellion. If that had happened, many more people would have been hurt.
That's why Hakuya and I planned to use this opportunity to deal them a crushing
defeat and strip them of their influence. In order to do that, we used forged letters,
among other methods, to try to lure them into a trap, but..."
There, I stopped for a moment, scratching the back of my head.
"At pretty much exactly the same time, Georg was coming up with a completely
separate plan of his own," I said. "By deliberately taking a rebellious stance against
me, he gathered the corrupt nobles around himself. Then he planned to launch a
rebellion and lose, so that they'd all be captured along with him. That was his plan,
you see."
"You... weren't informed about it, either, were you?" Carla asked, her eyes
widening as she did.
I nodded quietly in response.
Liscia looked downwards, looking pained by this.
"We were told of Georg's plan much later," I said. "Once things had progressed to
the point that no one could pull back. He must have thought we'd stop him if he
revealed the plan to us. As a matter of fact, if I had been told from the beginning, I
think I would have. This sort of... self-sacrificing plan... I wouldn't have wanted to
accept it."
"I see. In a way, what my father said was right," Carla murmured, her shoulders
slumping.
"What Castor said?" I asked.
"The day before you issued your ultimatum, my father said something. 'I just
can't imagine that Duke Carmine would be driven mad by ambition.'"
Come to think of it... Castor had said something like that when I'd issued my
ultimatum, too. He'd said, "I can't imagine Duke Carmine would oppose you without
good reason."
...He'd been right. There had been nothing wrong about what he'd said. Castor
was prone to hasty decisions, but perhaps he had instinctively grasped the true
nature of the situation.
"Why...?" Carla asked regretfully after a moment's silence, still averting her eyes.
"Why didn't he tell my father in advance? If he had just done that..."
"...The more people who knew the secret, the greater the risk of the plan leaking
out," I explained. "He couldn't afford that. That and, if Castor had known, he
absolutely would have tried to stop him, wouldn't he?"
"That's..." Carla fell silent.
I clenched my fists tightly under the blanket. "We've already spent a lot, including
Georg's life, in order to make this plan happen," I said. "Now that we can't turn back,
we need to ensure it succeeds. If we don't, we'll have spent all of that in vain. That
was why I had hoped Castor would choose to side with us of his own free will. Excel
and I both kept trying to persuade him to. And yet... Castor said he would die for his
friendship, then sided with Georg."
I ground my teeth in frustration. Why had things gone so poorly?
Everyone had just done as they'd pleased for their own arbitrary reasons. By the
time I'd realized it, I was dancing along to a script I didn't even know the author of. I
no longer knew whether my role on the stage of this world was that of a king, or of a
jester.
Carla hung her head, unable to say anything. Liscia seemed to want to say
something to her, but held herself back.
As I watched the two of them, I let out a small sigh. It really is... an unpleasant role.
Having to be king.
◇ ◇ ◇
"Their goal will be to capture the capital of the Principality, Van."
When they'd heard Souma declare this, the 30,000 Amidonian soldiers laying
siege to Altomura beat a hasty retreat.
From on top of the wall, Admiral of the Navy Excel Walter and Lord of Altomura
Weist Garreau looked out as the setting sun shone down on the fences and banners
that had once surrounded the camps they had left behind.
When Weist turned to the side, there he saw Excel's face in profile, the setting
sun lending it a bewitching beauty.
"...Is it okay not to attack them?" Weist asked, as if trying to cover up the fact he
had nearly been entranced by her beauty.
A pursuit battle would be a chance to inflict considerable damage on the enemy.
However, Excel silently shook her head. "There were wyvern cavalry in their rear
guard. If a force without wyvern cavalry like ours were to leave the castle and give
pursuit, we would suffer a punishing counterattack. Gaius VIII... As you would expect
from the man who's been sharpening his fangs and preparing to strike our country
for so long, he gives sound commands. Though I doubt that will be enough to let him
escape from the palm of His Majesty's hand."
When Excel said that and closed her eyes, Weist opened his eyes wide. For Excel,
who treated everyone she met like children, had there ever been a person she'd held
in such high esteem before?
"Is His Majesty that resourceful?" Weist asked.
"I think when it comes to plain resourcefulness, he's not that impressive," said
Excel. "It is rather that, for every scenario he encounters, he comes up with a plan
that seems like a prepared answer. Almost like he already knows a similar battle."
"Hm? What do you mean?" Weist asked.
"...Just maybe, His Majesty comes from a world far worse than this one. A vortex
of scheming and trickery."
Weist shuddered at Excel's words.
He had heard that Souma was a hero summoned from another world. What if he
assumed that this other world had seen the fall of many more countries, and
experienced turbulent times that had brought the deaths of many more people?
If, by some chance, that world were to connect with this one, could the people of
this world possibly fight back against the people of that one?
From the image he had seen, that young man didn't look especially suited to
fighting, yet he could still come up with such well-developed plans.
Of course, it was probably about as likely to happen as the sky falling...
"That... is dreadful to think of, yes," said Weist.
"Yes, it really is. ...Now then," Excel said, clapping her hands as if to signify a
change of mood. "Do you suppose our work is done here?"
"...I know it's a little late to ask now, Duchess Excel, but rather than just buy time,
couldn't you have easily run off the forces of the principality with your magic?"
When Weist pointed that out, Excel chuckled. "Oh, my. You can't rely on this old
woman forever, you know. I think it's an elder's duty to watch over the young ones
when they're trying so hard."
"Indeed..."
Weist wasn't quite sure what to say to that, but contrary to Excel's cheerful
expression, she was feeling irritated inside.
This time, my role required me to stay in the background. When I consider what will
happen to Carla and Castor after the war, I'd like to accomplish as much as I can... but
if I stand out too much, it will only harm His Majesty's impression of me.
She sighed internally, but Excel wasn't the sort to let it show. "Now then, let's
leave the rest to our young king and his friends while we head south as planned."
As she said that, Excel's thoughts turned to the other young one.