The Captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin Arcs.
Though only in his late twenties, this excellent man was the captain of the Royal
Guard, charged with leading the 40,000-strong Forbidden Army in times of crisis.
Ever since the Kingdom's Forbidden Army and Army, Navy, and Air Force had
been dismantled and reorganized as the National Defense Force, he'd been seen as
the next in line to become Supreme Commander. He was currently training under
the current Supreme Commander, Excel, as her second-in-command.
He was a handsome man with straight blond hair who came from a good family.
He was also highly popular with the maids who worked in the castle. However,
despite all that, there were never any rumors of him becoming involved with a
woman, and he had once become troubled when weird rumors started to spread
that he might swing the other way.
Speaking of weird rumors about Ludwin, there was one more: the rumor that his
family finances were difficult.
That came from the fact that Ludwin, for some reason, was always eating at the
cafeteria for the maids and guards who worked at the castle, as if he were trying to
keep his expenses to a minimum. He came from a good family, held an important
position, and received a good salary, so it was hard to imagine; but from time to time
Ludwin was spotted eating the cheapest bun that the cafeteria offered.
In response to this, many theories were offered.
"He wants to share his men's joys and sorrows by eating the same things they
eat," or "By being frugal, he is preparing himself for a time of crisis" were some of
the more positive interpretations. But...
"Actually, maybe he's a penny-pinching miser," said some, and "Perhaps he has a
lover and a secret child, and all his money goes to them," gossiped others.
However, while there was no talk of Ludwin making ostentatious displays of
spending money, there was no sign of him saving it, either. So where was Ludwin's
salary going?
The answer to that question was something we would eventually find out.
◇ ◇ ◇
—Early in the 11th month, 1546th year, Continental Calendar — Royal Capital
Parnam
With autumn growing deeper, the days grew gradually colder.
With the post-war arrangements with the Principality of Amidonia concluded
and the corrupt nobles that had been working behind the scenes to hinder me
domestically swept aside, Elfrieden was enjoying a fleeting peace.
Because the internal threat of the corrupt nobles and the external threat of
Amidonia had both been taken care of at the same time, the people's opinion of
myself as king and Hakuya as the prime minister had improved. With the nobles
who had chosen not to take a side in the conflict with the three dukes now swearing
loyalty to me, I was able to quickly centralize power.
It was that sort of autumn afternoon where I could imagine my political reforms
would be moving forward in leaps and bounds.
Currently, I was in the governmental affairs office in Parnam, showing Liscia a
certain something. "Take a look at this. What do you think?"
"It's very... long, thin, and curved." With a curious look on her face, Liscia stared
intently at the thing I was showing her.
"Do you want to try it?" I asked.
"Can I? Well, then..."
Liscia's thin, white fingers reached for the rapier at her waist. Then, narrowing
her eyes, she drew her blade and swung it at the thing. In the next instant, there was
the screech of metal on metal and the tip of her rapier was cut off and fell to the
ground.
Liscia looked back and forth from the severed tip to her rapier, then cried out in
surprise, "M-My sword?!"
As Liscia lost her mind over what had happened, I let out a big sigh. "What're you
suddenly taking a swing at it for...?"
"Well, you asked if I wanted to test it!" she exclaimed.
"I meant for you to hold it, maybe take a few practice swings," I said. "I have no
idea why you suddenly tried slashing it..."
Liscia could be a bit of a meat head sometimes. Was it her teacher Georg's
influence?
"Besides, you must know what would happen when you swing two blades at each
other, right?" I asked.
Liscia's eyes wandered around the room awkwardly. "W-Well, you know... That's
a Nine-Headed Dragon katana, right? I was interested in its cutting edge, you could
say..."
"Honestly..."
The blade that had chopped Liscia's sword in two was a type of katana,
specifically a Nine-Headed Dragon katana, forged in the Nine-Headed Dragon
Archipelago Union, a maritime state that ruled the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago
to the east of Elfrieden.
It was single-edged, with a thin, narrow, curved blade. There was a blood groove
running between the blade ridge and back. That's enough detail to make it clear that,
for those in the know, it should have been apparent that the Nine-Headed Dragon
katana closely resembled a Japanese katana.
Unlike this country's swords, which were meant to chop through things (the
Western style), it was specially designed to cut by pushing or pulling. Exactly the
same as a Japanese katana. Maybe the manufacturing process was the same, too.
That Nine-Headed Dragon katana was out of its sheath and its blade was
exposed, sitting on top of a sword rack with its blade facing upwards. That was how
it had been when Liscia had taken a swing at it and lost.
Liscia was now staring intently at the Nine-Headed Dragon katana's blade. "It's
got an incredible cutting edge, huh."
"We had swords like these in the country I came from, and when it came to
cutting power, they were top class," I said.
In one program I'd watched, I had even seen a katana cut through the stream of a
water cutter (a machine that used high pressure water to cut through things), after
all. They had to have some pretty impressive cutting power.
Liscia let out an impressed grunt. "That's really something. But what's a NineHeaded Dragon katana doing here?"
"It was a gift from Excel," I said. "It apparently came from a fishing ship from the
Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago that they seized."
"A fishing ship?"
"There've been a lot of them lately, I hear. Ships from the Nine-Headed Dragon
Archipelago that come into our waters to fish illegally."
In this world, there were large creatures called sea dragons (they looked like
monstrous plesiosauruses with goat horns) used to tug iron ships. Sea dragons were
relatively docile, but among the large sea creatures of this world, there were also
vicious and dangerous ones like the super-massive sharks called megalodons.
Because those sorts of dangerous sea creatures mainly lived in the deep sea, fishing
was, by necessity, restricted to the coastal waters of the continent and islands.
There were still enough fish to catch, so it wasn't much of a problem, but in
recent years, the number of ships from the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago coming
to fish in our waters had increased.
In this world, it was commonly accepted that fishing should be done in one's own
country's coastal waters or on the open sea (though that was, of course, dangerous),
and fishing in another country's coastal waters was considered illegal. Illegal fishing
ships could be seized or sunk without recourse. And yet, the number of illegal fishing
vessels entering our waters was on the rise.
Correlating with that, there had been an increase in the number of clashes
between fishermen.
"We've submitted a formal complaint to the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago
Union, but... there's been no reply," I said. "I have Excel's fleet out patrolling our
waters, but it doesn't seem to be having much of an effect."
"It's a maritime state you're dealing with, after all," said Liscia. "They have the
best shipbuilders and helmsmen in the world."
She was right. In the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, they trained other
creatures that could draw their ships in addition to the usual sea dragons. I had
heard they were incredibly fast. That, and because fishing ships were made of wood
and not loaded with cannons, they could move quickly. If they focused on trying to
escape, a military ship couldn't catch up to them.
"Even this ship they seized recently was only caught when they had the bad luck
to run aground," I added.
"Then why don't we chase after them with fast wooden ships of our own?" Liscia
asked.
"If we did that and they were armed, we'd take heavy losses, you know?"
"...You're right."
It hurt that, as the ones guarding, there was a bare minimum of equipment we
would need to get ready.
Liscia crossed her arms and thought deeply about it. "Still, it's a bit strange. It's
true that, if they make it to our coastal waters, they can fish here easily, but to get
here, they have to travel over the open sea where there are large sea creatures,
right? Why would they go through that risk to fish here illegally when there's the
chance they'll be caught?"
"Who knows..." I said. "There might be something going on in the archipelago,
and there's no way for us to find out what it is. We get barely any information on the
island countries."
Even if I had my clandestine operations unit, the Black Cats, infiltrate the country
to collect intelligence, the country was surrounded by the sea, making it hard to get
information out. Messenger kuis couldn't travel over large stretches of sea when
there was no place to rest, and a jewel for the Jewel Voice Broadcast would be large
enough that it would be difficult to sneak in. That, and there was the risk we'd lose it.
In the end, we'd have to resort to sending people over the sea to deliver the
information, but that would take days to arrive. Intel had to be fresh. Even if our
spies got their hands on important intel, it would be meaningless if there was no
way to communicate it back home immediately.
I had asked those who, like one of our top loreleis Nanna, had drifted here from
the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, but it turned out that, while all islands swore
loyalty to the Nine-Headed Dragon King, the living situation on each was different.
While I could gather fragmented pieces of information, it was hard to put together
any larger picture.
"I've gotta say, it's harder to deal with a country when you don't know what
they're thinking than it is to deal with one that's clearly hostile," I said. "I don't even
know if we should be getting ready to defend ourselves."
"That's true..."
Liscia and I both wracked our brains, but we came to no conclusion.
"Well, there's not much point in us thinking about it here," I said at last. "Getting
back to the topic of the Nine-Headed Dragon katana, the katanas from my world
were incredibly sharp, but they had the drawback that they couldn't stand up to
impacts and would break or warp easily," I said. "But in this world, there's
enchantment magic, right? That's how this katana is sturdy enough to stand up to
trading blows for a while."
"That would make it the best in its class as a sword blade, yeah," said Liscia. "But,
well... that's only for the blade itself."
"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked.
"We don't fight on the strength of our weapons alone. Everyone in this world can
use magic to a greater or lesser degree, and most of us use fire, water, earth, or wind
elemental magic. When it comes to a fight, we can wreathe our blades with those
elements, too."
Oh, I've seen that, I thought.