Hello From The Neighboring Country

After finishing the carriage journey, I moved as if loosening up my body.

That said, I also had my dignity as the Overlord, so I did it only casually… I absolutely did not move like an old man.

Well, to begin with, I was zero years old… the world’s most underage person… around zero.

Mentally too… since I did not know the age of the guy I was based on, I could say I was zero years old.

Digression aside.

What jumped into my eyes immediately after I got off the carriage was the castle… it was a fine stone-built structure, but compared to Einheria Castle, it looked considerably compact.

The castle walls surrounding it were not very tall either, and I could tell that it was not a castle especially suited for defense.

Well, if things went according to plan, we would not be attacking this castle, so it did not really matter.

I shifted my gaze from that castle to Efaria in front of me and told her my thoughts on the carriage journey, and Efaria responded with a wry smile.

Despite having been shaken around in a carriage for several days to get here, her appearance was perfect, with not a single strand of hair or piece of clothing out of place, showing no trace of a long journey… had she kept her back straight and come all the way here without relaxing even inside the carriage?

Being the Holy King must be hard in many ways… she seemed to pay attention to even more things than the Overlord.

Behind that Efaria stood a person who looked to be in his thirties and an old man who seemed to be in his late fifties or sixties.

The person in his thirties was looking at me with a gentle smile, but the old man had his eyes wide open and his lips trembling… he was probably surprised, but… at a glance, his expression also looked like he was just about to vomit.

This old man must be the chancellor… he seemed to have richer expressions than I had heard.

“King of Einheria, I apologize when you must be tired, but may I introduce my trusted retainers?”

“No problem. I will be in your care for a while, so it would be good to at least hear their names first.”

When I said that, Efaria nodded and stood beside the chancellor.

“This is our country’s chancellor, Rigaro-Rangas. He is a veteran retainer who has served three generations of Holy Kings.”

“…It is an honor to meet you for the first time, Your Majesty. As Her Holy Majesty has just introduced, my name is Rigaro-Rangas. As chancellor, I have been supporting Her Holy Majesty’s reign.”

For an instant, perhaps wondering why he was being introduced before the regent, the chancellor sent a glance toward Efaria, but he quickly took the form of a courteous bow.

“Yes, I have heard of you. It seems you have been working quite hard. Since I am still young myself, I would like to hear various things from you.”

After lightly addressing the chancellor, I turned toward the regent.

“This is the regent, but… an introduction is unnecessary, is it not?”

As Efaria tried to introduce the regent next, I nodded with a smile.

“Yes, it has been a while, Guriel. Have you been well?”

“It has been some time, Your Majesty Fels. As always, Your Majesty is extraordinary.”

“I intend to be perfectly ordinary, though…?”

When I greeted the regent and held out my right hand, the regent took my hand with a gentle smile.

“Wh-!?”

Seeing us like that, the chancellor let out a voice despite himself.

Well, I understood how he felt.

It was no wonder he would be surprised when the king of a country whose name he had not heard at all until recently and the regent, who was his political enemy, acted so friendly with each other.

However, naturally… we were not actually lying.

Several weeks ago, Guriel, the regent, had used transfer from a city three days away from the royal capital and secretly come to Einheria.

At that time, while making the minimum arrangements, we had deepened our friendship as much as possible for this day… well, the time had honestly been too short, so there were limits in various ways, but what mattered was the fact that the regent of the Lufelon Holy Kingdom and the king of Einheria had already had a relationship before this.

That was why Efaria saying an introduction was unnecessary, my calling out to him with “it has been a while,” and Guriel speaking as if he had known me for some time were not lies at all.

Well, from the chancellor’s point of view, this must have come completely out of nowhere, and he would probably think that Einheria stood behind the regent faction.

“Then, Your Majesty Fels, you must be tired from the long journey, so allow me to guide you to your room.”

“Yes, that would help. A carriage journey I am not used to really is cramped in many ways.”

When I sighed and placed a hand on my neck, Guriel laughed in amusement.

“Hahaha, I suppose the people of Einheria do not use carriages and the like.”

“We do use them for travel within towns, you know? It is only for a short time, and the roads are paved, so it did not bother me much.”

“Ah, Einheria’s paving technology is indeed splendid. I hear you are currently proceeding with road maintenance?”

“Kukuku… you are quite well-informed. Thanks to our territory increasing recently, the entire country is extremely busy paving roads.”

“As expected, Your Majesty’s bold policies are splendid. In our country, that is a part we cannot easily step into right away, so I can only envy you.”

“I think infrastructure maintenance is precisely the kind of project that a country should lead. The foundations that enrich the lives of the people are exactly what should be properly funded and tackled.”

“That is painful to hear. When it comes to projects related to roads, vested interests inevitably…”

While smiling wryly, Guriel glanced at the chancellor and dropped his shoulders.

“Is it not the duty of a ruler to skillfully arrange such matters? Is that not right, Chancellor…? Is Guriel perhaps a little too spineless as a regent?”

When I directed the conversation toward the chancellor, who had been standing still with a difficult expression, the chancellor immediately shook his head.

“No, the regent has been working very hard. Though he is still young, he has been firmly overseeing government affairs in place of His Holy Majesty.”

“Hmm… if the chancellor, who has devoted himself to the country for many years, says so, then that must be true. But still, would arranging those kinds of vested interests not be more suited to the chancellor, who has the wisdom of age?”

“Your Majesty Fels is as harsh as ever. I am working desperately even so, but…”

“Kukuku… for a ruler, results are everything. Well, regarding Einheria’s paving technology, we will dispatch technicians as agreed and properly convey the technology to your country.”

“I thank you, Your Majesty. Oh… my apologies. I have spoken at length. I shall guide you to your room. This way, please.”

“Mm… then, Chancellor, let us meet again later.”

“Please relax at your leisure, Your Majesty.”

Before following Guriel’s guidance, I called out once to the chancellor.

The chancellor had an extremely difficult expression… but perhaps this was his default face. From partway through, his expression had not changed at all.

“Regent, there is something I must discuss with you regarding this matter. Once you have guided the king of Einheria, come to my office.”

“Understood, Your Holy Majesty.”

Efaria called out to Guriel, and he began walking with me.

“King of Einheria, please rest until the sun sets. I shall prepare a dinner that will not lose to Einheria’s banquets.”

“I shall look forward to that.”

After answering Efaria, I sent one last glance toward the chancellor, subtle enough that he would not notice.

His expression still remained as difficult as ever, but judging from the veins bulging on the back of his hand… he seemed to be putting quite a lot of effort into maintaining that expression.

View of Rigaro-Rangas, Chancellor of the Lufelon Holy Kingdom

After quickly returning to my office, I firmly locked the door, then slammed my fist onto the desk with all my might.

“What in the world is going on?!”

Several months ago, the neighboring Lumoria Kingdom suddenly collapsed, and all of its territory came to call itself by the name Einheria.

The speed of that development was so extreme that I was very concerned about what was happening, but as my own long-prepared scheme was also approaching its final stage, I did not devote much attention to Einheria.

Of course, it was not as if I had completely ignored it… but that country’s counterintelligence was tremendous, and I felt that obtaining information would be difficult unless I took it seriously.

It should have been the same for the regent faction… that was exactly why they tried to approach Einheria under the pretext of sending an envoy and forming friendly relations in order to obtain even a little information, and I agreed to it as well.

However… that exchange between the regent and the king of Einheria looked like nothing other than an old friendship….

Was that acting…?

Even if he was one of the royal family, there was no way the king of one country could treat another country’s regent that casually at a first meeting.

If that was acting… then by appealing that he was close to the regent, Einheria was publicly showing that it had joined the regent faction… no, I could understand that much, but how?

Even if they had heard things from our envoy, it was difficult to imagine that they could have held a detailed exchange without meeting face-to-face….

However, since the envoy was dispatched, the regent had left the royal capital only once… and that was for an inspection of a city three days away one way.

After the regent entered that city, it was certain that he did not leave the city except when returning to the royal capital, and judging by the timing, the king of Einheria should have been traveling within Einheria.

They absolutely could not have met… if the two of them could have met, then it would have had to be before the envoy was sent.

In other words, that would mean the regent knew about the country called Einheria even before sending the envoy… but that was strange.

I had seen with my own eyes that the regent was genuinely confused by the collapse of the Lumoria Kingdom and the emergence of the country called Einheria.

Only at that time, we set aside the boundaries of factions and schemes and seriously discussed how to deal with Einheria. If all of that had been the regent’s acting, then the regent was a far more cunning fox than I had imagined….

Of course, I did not underestimate the regent… no, the bloodline of the Holy King’s house.

The previous generation, the generation before that, and the current generation as well… the Holy Kings were extremely capable, and they had enough ability to be worthy of the name of wise rulers.

If I had truly been a citizen of the Lufelon Holy Kingdom, I would likely have offered them my loyalty and worked with every fiber of my being.

The people of the Holy King’s house possessed that much ability and charm… there was no way I could underestimate them.

However, precisely because of that… I carefully prepared the stage and surely advanced my scheme.

Just a little more. Just a little more, and the future of the Holy Kingdom would be in my hands.

At this point, there was no way a country that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere could interfere… that was what I had thought, but… when that king showed himself, an emotion I had not felt for many years passed through my chest.

…Had I made some fatal mistake?

The king of Einheria spoke to the regent with a casual attitude that did not seem like a king’s, but his overwhelming presence was unmistakably that of a king… no, even I, who had seen the successive Holy Kings and many other kings, might never have felt such an aura before.

But… somewhere, I felt as though I had sensed an aura like that… no, a fear like that before….

No, that did not matter right now.

I realized that the Holy King girl had escaped the royal capital and placed herself under Einheria’s protection some time after the envoy had departed.

Taking that as my chance, I advanced a plan to seize the Holy Kingdom all at once, but I could not kill the crucial double.

If the Holy King had escaped the country, I could have slaughtered the double as the real Holy King and seized real power… but perhaps the regent faction had noticed that aim as well, because they protected the double with even greater security than the Holy King herself.

Damn it!

Was this the price of neglecting information about other countries because matters within the Holy Kingdom were approaching their climax? Or had I meant to warn myself not to underestimate them, yet still underestimated the little girl and the Holy King somewhere in my heart?

The Holy King’s return and the visit of another country’s king… I had thought it would be merely an envoy, but a king had come personally?

I needed to mobilize every intelligence agent to investigate what that king and the regent were plotting and devise countermeasures… but the security along the way had also been perfect… would it be difficult to obtain information from the king of Einheria?

As a last resort, there was also the option of eliminating the regent first….

No, that would not do… if I was going to kill someone, it had to be the Holy King first… however, an assassination in this situation, with another country’s king present… no, as long as I had not grasped the relationship between the regent and the king of Einheria, taking action would be premature.

If Einheria intervened clumsily, it would settle matters by force before the distant Kingdom of Sorakil could act.

Calm down… they had completely taken the initiative, but the board had not been overturned.

First, information.

I would gather information while watching how the other side moved… if possible, I wanted to blunt their opening move, but… yes, nothing had changed from before.

I would remove obstacles and turn even accidents into nourishment for the next step.

That was how I had come this far… I must have been growing impatient because the final stage was near.

Impatience was forbidden… I only needed to remain calm and proceed as I had until now.

The instant I thought that and calmed down, I remembered one thing.

“I see… the fear I felt toward that king of Einheria. Perhaps it was similar to what I felt from the hero I once saw.”