Regarding The Four Countries Plus One

“For now, are things fine with the Holy Kingdom?”

“Yes. For the time being, Lord Fels’s power will not be needed. Those who came to observe that exercise are actively supporting the dismantling of the army.”

Today, we had gathered in the conference room for an important day of receiving various reports and deciding our future policies.

Right now, I was receiving a report from Kiriku about the recent exercise and the Lufelon Holy Kingdom, and it seemed that things were generally progressing without issue.

“We cannot let our guard down, but regarding the Lufelon Holy Kingdom, this means we have reached a stopping point.”

“Yes. The Kingdom of Sorakil will also be unable to make any moves against the Lufelon Holy Kingdom for the time being, so we can proceed with turning it into a vassal state.”

“What is happening with the Kingdom of Sorakil?”

“At present, the conflict over the next king seems to be intensifying. The direct reason they withdrew from the Lufelon Holy Kingdom was that they first recalled the agents they had sent to other countries in order to seize domestic power.”

“They abandoned a plot they had been carrying out for years so easily, just for a domestic power struggle?”

If that was true, it seemed like people with very little foresight were fighting over power…

Well, I did think that being able to cut their losses so cleanly after investing time and money was an impressive decisiveness.

“It seems that the current king was originally the one extending his hand toward the Lufelon Holy Kingdom… but at present, that country’s king is bedridden with illness, and his successors seem to be doing as they please.”

“A succession struggle, huh… Has the crown prince not been decided?”

If he was bedridden from illness, I thought he would have already designated the next king, such as a crown prince, so I asked Kiriku.

“In the Kingdom of Sorakil, they apparently deliberately do not decide on a crown prince. It is established that when the king abdicates or passes away, the person with the highest succession rank at that time inherits the throne.”

“…That is rather bloody.”

If they openly stated that whoever had the highest rank when the king died became king… then it was basically telling anyone who wanted to become king to make those above them abandon their succession rights or kill them.

If someone grew up in a country like that, it was no wonder they became royally crazy… Though I would not sympathize with them.

It seemed to live up to being called a country of intrigue… but blood feuds, huh… They were probably thin on familial affection, but I could hardly call it healthy.

“The one currently in the strongest position is the prince ranked first in succession, but the second- and fifth-ranked princes have joined hands to try to bring him down. The princess ranked third is taking a stance of noninterference in the succession conflict, but since she has not abandoned her succession rights, it does not seem that she lacks interest. The prince ranked fourth is apparently preparing to abandon his succession rights, but this prince is currently studying abroad in the Great Empire of the Central Plains.”

It sounded like the first and second ranks were fighting fiercely.

And from Kiriku’s explanation, the third-ranked princess had a somewhat sly feeling to her…

“The prince ranked sixth in succession is still very young, but in his case, his mother, the queen, is making moves to aim for the throne… However, her faction is quite weak in terms of power. I suspect she will make a poor move sooner or later and be crushed by one of the factions. And as for the prince ranked seventh, this is the person who was behind the deputy director of the Lufelon Holy Kingdom’s Intelligence Bureau.”

The child of the princess of the Lufelon Holy Kingdom… Efaria’s cousin, but someone I would prefer she had nothing to do with. I had heard his succession rank was low… Seventh, huh. It certainly was not high, but I did not feel it was absurdly low either.

Given the way the Kingdom of Sorakil worked, that was a position from which he could sufficiently aim for the throne.

That was likely why he had withdrawn from the Lufelon Holy Kingdom and gathered people for his own faction… But setting aside the deputy director, perhaps the chancellor had not been part of this prince’s faction. Seeing how easily he abandoned him made me think so.

“The seventh-ranked prince appears to have joined hands with the first-ranked prince. It feels like an alliance where both sides are completely intending to betray each other… Incidentally, the ones inciting the queen, mother of the sixth-ranked prince, are also agents of the seventh-ranked prince. Their purpose seems to be to make her explode and then eliminate her, but they also seem to expect her as a disposable pawn who might profitably damage the second-ranked prince’s faction if things go well.”

The Kingdom of Sorakil really was muddy and ugly…

I could not believe their retainers followed along with such a filthy blood feud.

“If the situation is like that, is the first-ranked prince not aiming to assassinate the king?”

“At present, it seems he will not assassinate the king. For those ranked second and below, it would be troublesome if the king died now, and for the first-ranked prince, he would want the king to die quickly, but if he used assassination, it would practically be admitting that it was his doing…”

So they did care about appearances like that… No, that was only natural, but… given my image of them, I had thought they were the type where anything went as long as they got away with it, so it was a little surprising.

“The first-ranked prince would likely like to have the seventh-ranked prince assassinate the king, but there is no way the seventh-ranked prince would accept that. That said, at present, the first-ranked prince is in the most advantageous position. It is said that the current king does not have long to live, so he can obtain the throne even by maintaining the current situation.”

“What the first-ranked prince is most wary of is losing his succession right due to his own assassination or a scandal.”

“Precisely.”

If the king were assassinated, the culprit would be practically certain, but there were plenty of people who wanted to kill the first-ranked prince…

No, really, what a troublesome country… If we ended up crushing them… it felt like it would become a route where every royal was killed… No, there was also the possibility that the third-ranked princess or the fourth-ranked prince who was trying to abandon his succession rights might be decent… but if they were the sort of people we could not control once we incorporated them, that would be no laughing matter.

“We will observe the Kingdom of Sorakil for a while.”

“I believe that is best.”

“What we should prioritize now is stabilizing the lands gained in the previous war and proceeding with the installation of mana collection devices. While watching the Kingdom of Sorakil’s movements, it would be better to act after the chaos spreads a little more. That is probably only a matter of time. If we move clumsily now, it may result in uniting the Kingdom of Sorakil.”

Well, even if they united, I was confident we could deal with them… Wait, come to think of it, the Kingdom of Sorakil had that rumored thing.

“How is the investigation into this so-called hero of the Kingdom of Sorakil?”

“It seems a being called a hero does indeed exist within the Kingdom of Sorakil, but apparently they are not in the royal capital and have maintained a stance of noninterference in the succession struggle.”

“A monster, as the people of this world unanimously call them… I would like to know their true ability sooner rather than later. Proceed with investigating the hero separately from monitoring the royal castle.”

“As you command.”

Well, even if someone was categorized as a hero, there would naturally be stronger and weaker ones among them… First, I wanted to know the standard level of strength that made someone worthy of being called a hero.

Kiriku and the others did not seem to consider it that important, but as we expanded our territory going forward, the existence most likely to become an obstacle was probably that of heroes.

If heroes were about as strong as that flying lizard, there would be no problem at all.

I supposed even that lizard could transform the battle situation if it appeared on the battlefield. It was simply an opponent that posed no problem to us.

If heroes were on the same level as that thing, there would be no problem in terms of combat power.

What would be troublesome was if they were equal to us or greater, but… if such beings existed, I thought this continent would already have been unified long ago.

No, no matter how strong an individual was, they could not defeat every enemy. If the front line expanded in a war between countries, it would naturally be impossible for one individual to handle everything, so I could not say that outright… Still, the enemies I currently had to be wary of were these so-called heroes, the current Demon King, and the Demon God that Fio had mentioned.

I wanted to investigate the combat strength of those sorts of people as quickly as possible, but it would probably still take time before we encountered people like the Demon King or the Demon God. The one I had to pay attention to most immediately was the hero.

“That is all regarding the Kingdom of Sorakil. Next, regarding the four countries annexed this time, the Kingdom of Est has already stabilized, and the selection of governors has also been completed. The installation of mana collection devices near the borders has also already been completed, and there are currently no issues.”

More than the fact that the Kingdom of Est had been annexed earliest, it felt like they had many people who were clean and decisive overall… Apart from the fact that all of them had far too much hatred toward the Duchy of Yuran, they were relatively easy to talk to.

Perhaps thanks to that, matters regarding governance after annexation were proceeding most peacefully there.

The former King of Est, who had been placed under house arrest as bait in a city near the Kingdom of Sorakil, seemed to be living fairly leisurely, and there did not seem to be any particular anti-Einheria forces gathering there.

From what I had heard before, the second prince of the Kingdom of Est, who had been at the top of the usable personnel list, was apparently working quite hard.

“In contrast to the Kingdom of Est, the selection of governors is not going very well in the Duchy of Yuran. Because there are very few usable personnel, because of their rivalry toward the Kingdom of Est, and because they believe the Kingdom of Sorakil stands behind them as their backer, they are extremely rebellious.”

“Even though they were thoroughly defeated by the army led by Kamila, they still cannot see reality?”

“Those who were on the battlefield are relatively obedient, but the high-ranking civil officials who merely gave orders from the rear are almost all rebellious. Even among those who show submission, it is clear they are waiting for reinforcements from the Kingdom of Sorakil, so they cannot be appointed as governors.”

“…Sending former nobles of the Kingdom of Est would likely cause problems. Should we appoint usable former nobles of the Lumoria Kingdom as governors?”

“We may be somewhat short on numbers.”

Former Lumoria territory was also fairly large, and the talented personnel had already been appointed…

“In that case, we need to appoint people with high administrative ability, regardless of whether they are nobles…”

Because there were almost no schools or systems for appointing commoners, finding talented people was quite difficult…

We had been troubled by shortages of diplomats and development-related personnel, and now governors were also in short supply…

“The former Kingdom of Largray is also short of governors. As for that region, a coup occurred due to corruption in the upper ranks… so while governance itself is not a problem, the shortage of personnel cannot be denied.”

A coup, huh… Kiriku had thrown a large number of trainee diplomats into the Kingdom of Largray and destroyed it without war…

Well, it was because the people’s dissatisfaction had already built up that something like a coup occurred… but the one who led it was Kiriku.

The rebellion broke out under the banner of liberation from oppression, but naturally, the Kingdom of Largray moved to suppress it… In a world like this, naturally, what occurred there was armed conflict… and by causing those conflicts to break out all over the country, he turned it into a nationwide revolutionary movement… Some nobles even turned to the rebel army’s side… and the Kingdom of Largray fell into complete chaos.

Then, at just the right time, Einheria dispatched an army to save the oppressed people of the Kingdom of Largray. While providing humanitarian support, they helped the people escape from the cruel royal army and protected them inside Einheria… While carrying out such activities, they established contact with the leaders of the revolutionary army.

By persuading the revolutionary army, which was worried about the country, that the ones they truly had to save were the oppressed people, they helped the revolution succeed, then brought the revolutionary leaders to the negotiating table.

Once negotiations began, the rest was Kiriku’s domain… From before the negotiations even started, Einheria had protected the people of the Kingdom of Largray even more generously than the revolutionary army had, gaining overwhelming support.

After that, just as Kiriku had initially requested, once I led the army into Largray’s royal capital… exactly as Kiriku had said, that alone resulted in the Kingdom of Largray being annexed by Einheria.

To summarize it briefly, while it was simple enough, the villainous feeling showed itself here and there, but from Einheria’s perspective, one could say that we annexed the Kingdom of Largray in a generally peaceful manner.

Basically, there had been no one in the revolutionary army who excelled at governing, and it was only natural to entrust governance to Einheria, which had supported them in order to save the people.

“For the former Kingdom of Largray, it would be best to send whoever can be spared from the Kingdom of Est. For the former Duchy of Yuran, would it not be best to dispatch personnel from the Kingdom of Fregis? I received a report that governance of the Kingdom of Fregis is going smoothly.”

“Yes. Like the Kingdom of Est, the Kingdom of Fregis has accepted our governance… but there is also a slight issue there.”

“Hmm?”

Huh? I remembered there being no particular problems with Fregis, but was I wrong?

“My apologies. There are no problems with governance, and there are no issues with sending personnel to the Duchy of Yuran. However, the former King of Fregis has been saying something somewhat troublesome…”

“Tell me.”

“In truth, the former King of Fregis is requesting an audience with Lord Fels.”

“Oh? I do not mind.”

It was true that I had never met the leaders of the Kingdom of Fregis or the Duchy of Yuran. The leader of the Duchy of Yuran was apparently already set to be executed, but if I remembered correctly, arrangements had been made to appoint the King of Fregis to a post… I did not think there was any problem with meeting him.

In fact, as the King of Einheria, should I not show my face to the former king?

“The former King of Fregis is a somewhat unusual person, so I was concerned that he might displease Lord Fels…”

An unusual person… When Kiriku described someone that way, it made me more curious instead.

“I do not mind speaking with him, but what kind of person is he?”

“At first glance, he seems like a rough type, but in truth, he is calculating. However, his calculations are intuitive, or rather, he suddenly reaches conclusions, so those around him cannot read the process that led to them. He gives the impression of being bold and broad-minded, and since his retainers and people hold him in very high regard, executing him would likely make things troublesome afterward.”

“I see…”

Was he the type who laughed with a “Gahaha”?

From Kiriku’s perspective, it seemed like executing him would be troublesome, but he was also uneasy about letting him meet me.

Still, an intuitive type, huh… I did not remember seeing many of that type since coming to this world… but it seemed better to meet him.

If he disliked me, I felt like he might easily start a rebellion, but if that happened, we would just crush him thoroughly.

Well, it seemed he was very popular with the people, so killing him would likely become troublesome… but if he did raise the banner of rebellion, I felt we could manage by defeating him repeatedly without killing the king.