Ill-Omened

Had I threatened him too much?

When he came into this command tent, he had seemed sharp and composed, but now he looked like he had aged ten years—like his soul had slipped out.

Well, but… the one who picked a war was… technically you, right? And your king sounded like the self-important type, too. And if we fought, I had no intention of losing.

Still… this all but confirmed the next war.

I had tried talking to help decide our future course, but all I learned was that war was unavoidable.

I also pointlessly picked a fight with the concept of royal authority, but I hated pompous people… and besides, it didn’t match my policy anyway.

Honestly, what I wanted from people outside my own crew was basically just: have kids and multiply.

I wanted them to live freely however they liked. If they lived where the mana collection device was, I’d be satisfied. Of course I’d crack down on crime, at least.

But still, because I got aggressive about royal authority back there, I think I managed to frame it as, “You’re the ones who started this,” in the end.

Probably.

No, I got carried away and said all sorts of things, but… how would I actually understand any of that? Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to important nobles at all. Halfway through, I started thinking, “Wait, what are we even talking about?”—and that was bad.

From here, I wanted to collect information in a more casual, small-talk kind of way… but was this guy okay?

He’d looked like his soul was about to fall out earlier, but now I was pretty sure it was completely gone. His eyes were vacant.

“Viscount. About how many people live in the Lumoria Kingdom?”

I hoped he could hear me…

“…Ah—yes… I believe there are over a million people within the kingdom…”

“Oh?”

That was information that almost made me grin—one million. That meant ten million mana stones. If I could take the entire Lumoria Kingdom…

That alone would buy me an easy life.

Wasn’t this basically the end? Didn’t this wrap up the story of Overlord Fels?

No need to search for goblins, and fairy-folk could become someone else’s problem.

Well, I owed Bangagonga a debt, so if I ran into any, I could help… but—no. Calm down.

The problem was how to place mana collection devices in the villages and cities under Lumoria’s control.

Even if I said I’d “take it all”…

How?

This wasn’t a game. I couldn’t just attack a village or city, defeat its defenders, and instantly “get” a base.

Like the last village, should I solve some problem in exchange for installing a mana collection device?

Not a bad idea, but it felt hard to pull off at city scale.

And it probably wasn’t as simple as “defeat the king and the country becomes mine,” either… so what did I do?

And before that, would the war with Lumoria escalate for real? I doubted villages and cities would accept demands from a country they were actively fighting…

But their communications seemed slow. If I did it quietly, could it work? With a barrier device included, it felt like “if you place it, you win”…

Hm? Wait. Maybe I should lean into the game logic.

For a village the size of this one, if I sent a thousand troops, I could force them to comply. Even for a large city—say, a hundred thousand people—if I sent twenty to thirty thousand troops, we could defeat the garrison and establish de facto control.

Then install the mana collection device… and leave city administration to whoever was already running it.

We weren’t oppressive rulers.

We wouldn’t impose heavy taxes, forced labor, conscription, enslave women and children… none of that. If anything, I wanted them to live healthy lives—and increase their population as much as possible.

At most, I’d want them to deliver a bit of local specialty goods… and even then, only enough for our consumption, so it wouldn’t be much. I could even pay for it.

As for currency in this world, I could just buy goods from the general store with mana stones and resell them. That would generate as much money as I wanted. Consumables would probably be best… but that could wreck the existing economy, so I’d need to consult someone knowledgeable.

And if they fell under our rule, I could abolish the taxes they’d been paying to Lumoria. For us, the “tax” was the mana and mana stones we obtained each month from residents.

We’d demand almost nothing else… wouldn’t that make us a pretty decent ruler, at least from the perspective of a city’s upper class?

Yeah. This felt workable.

At first, it would look like we were flexing military force—like black ships—but after that, I could probably enrich all sorts of places.

Of course, while I said we’d keep the existing administration, anyone practicing bad governance would have to be removed… hmm. Maybe we’d appoint our own local magistrate. They wouldn’t need to be permanently stationed, but we could do periodic… no, surprise inspections.

Oh? I was starting to feel like this could really work. Good, good. Let’s move forward with this policy.

“Viscount. You were the lord of this region… Yōntsu Territory, right?”

“Y-yes…”

He’d been crisp at first, but now he was stumbling over his words.

Still, he was answering, so I might as well ask what I wanted.

“How many people live in Yōntsu Territory?”

“…W-what do you intend to do with my people…?”

“It’s not as dramatic as you think. You attacked us, so you were prepared to be attacked in return, weren’t you? For now, I’ll send some troops to your base… your territorial capital, was it?”

“W-wait! Nearly all the soldiers I can move, I brought to this battle. In Yōntsu Territory—including the territorial capital—there are only guard units to defend the towns! We no longer have… any strength to resist… Einheria! I don’t care what happens to me! So please… please… show mercy!”

“There’s no need to worry, Viscount. I am not one who oppresses the people. If you join under my banner peacefully, there will be no needless conflict. And yes—Viscount—I have no intention of cutting off your head.”

“W-what!? You would spare me…? Why would you…?”

“Hm? Is that strange?”

Was it? Did I need to kill him?

If he’d been an overall commander, he likely had ability. Game-wise, since he was a lord, he probably had high politics.

Anyway, in Nobunaga’s Ambition, I avoided executing enemy officers when I could. I usually took them prisoner and either recruited them or let them go. Well, if a daimyo refused to submit, I’d execute him… but a castle lord? I wanted those.

If I let him go, I could always capture him again later.

Sure, executing powerful officers to reduce the enemy’s strength was a strategy too… but it felt like a waste. If someone had good stats, I wanted to recruit them.

Still… in Sword and Legions, route splits depended on actions, and the result of my “regretfully executed” choices was… me, now.

“To end a war… is it not customary to strike down the bannerhead?”

“Perhaps. But if I kill you, what do I gain? I don’t yet know what kind of man you are… but I can learn that later. If I kill you now, then even if a day comes when I want your help, I’ll have no way to make use of it.”

“…You would elevate me…?”

“That depends on you. Forcing obedience is meaningless. If you don’t see benefit in serving me, you’ll betray me soon enough.”

“Even if I submit in public, you cannot say I will not obey outwardly while plotting rebellion within.”

Yeah. That was the scariest part.

Unlike a game, loyalty wasn’t a visible number… if it were, everything would be so much easier.

Personally, just like the city policy I’d been thinking about, I believed the best approach was to make it so submission was more beneficial than resistance…

But plenty of people prioritized emotions over profit and loss. I had to be careful with those types.

Still, as for this viscount…

“Viscount. The fact that you can even say that out loud means that once you swear fealty, you will not betray it. Until you swear, though, you look like the type who’d keep resisting even when you know you can’t win.”

From our earlier talk, he seemed like the type to devote loyalty to king and country. And—now that I started this conversation, it felt like he was regaining energy… maybe even looking a little younger.

“I am not so virtuous. For my people’s sake, I am willing to abase myself before overwhelming power and wag my tail.”

“And you don’t consider us overwhelming power? No matter how I look at you, you don’t seem very abased.”

The viscount recovered his spirit and sent me a challenging look, so I asked calmly, with the confidence of the stronger party.

“Indeed, the Einherian army’s strength was overwhelming. No matter if we fought one hundred times or one thousand times, Yōntsu’s soldiers would not obtain victory.”

“Hm… and?”

He looked ready to say “but,” so I prompted him.

“But…”

There it was. This was kind of satisfying.

“It seems to me that the Einherian army has a fatal weakness.”

A weakness… what was it?

My heart pounded.

Bad tactics…? No, this time couldn’t be helped, right? Jōsen had performed beyond expectations, and it turned into pure power-of-justice.

“It is logistics.”

…Logistics.

He’d said “fatal,” so I’d braced myself, but… heh. That couldn’t be a problem for us.

“Where the nation of Einheria lies, I regretfully do not know… but you are surely an expeditionary force. If so, your resources must be limited—have I said something strange?”

The viscount frowned. Well, I couldn’t hold back the grin.

“No, nothing strange. Supplies and resupply are a burden for any army. And fatigue and injury are unavoidable for human beings. Food, arms, consumables… you must have struggled a great deal in preparing for this battle.”

“This war took place within Lumoria. I will not claim logistics are effortless, but our supply lines are strong. No matter how invincible an army may be, people cannot fight without food and water.”

“…That is true.”

…My own people didn’t know that, though.

I glanced at Lynferia, standing beside me as my guard, and she smoothly looked away.

Good. At least she was self-aware.

“But, Viscount. It has already been a month since our first encounter. Do we look like we are suffering from shortages?”

“T-that is…”

His gaze flicked around the tent, toward those of us present.

My people maintained a cleanliness that hardly belonged on a battlefield.

Even Jōsen, who had been fighting until just now, looked the same—which I still didn’t really accept—but everyone looked spotless and in excellent health. It was good I’d ordered them to eat properly.

“I will not say shortages are impossible, but… for a few years, we will have no problem at all. Starving us out will not work. A war of attrition is exactly what we want.”

“…No… that can’t be…”

“In the first place, we are not an expeditionary force. Our home base is not far. It should be closer to this battlefield than your territorial capital is.”

I didn’t know the exact distance, but it was probably over thirty kilometers. The nearest town was supposed to be around twelve.

“…Your home base…? That is not that village, I assume… is it in the southern forest?”

“No, not the forest. To the west of here, there is a plain—”

“!?”

The viscount sprang to his feet, his face draining of color.

Lynferia and the others reacted for a split second, but reading my intent, they didn’t try to restrain him.

“The western plain… you built a base in the lair of the Ground Dragon!?”

“The lair of the Ground Dragon? There’s a dragon there?”

A dragon…

In Sword and Legions, if you went into dungeons, there were plenty, but in most games dragons were powerful enemies. Judging from his reaction, this world was no exception—apparently something untouchable.

“That place is not merely feared by Lumoria—neighboring nations all agreed it is forbidden ground! In the past, we attempted to develop it and sent people in multiple times. But each time, not only were the settlers destroyed—many regions of Lumoria, and sometimes even neighboring countries, suffered Ground Dragon attacks!”

So this was what Kiriku had meant in that earlier meeting by “ill-omened.” I was glad it wasn’t a curse… though a dragon was scary enough.

“How strong is this Ground Dragon?”

“The records say… that in a single day and night, countless towns and villages were destroyed.”

“Hm… is it an unusually fast dragon? Or do dragons travel in packs?”

“Dragons forming packs… should be impossible. At least, the records speak of a single dragon.”

“One dragon is not reason enough to hand over that entire plain. And we’ve lived there for a month already and haven’t been attacked. There’s no problem.”

“What are you saying!? The Ground Dragon is not a superstition—it is a real threat! You said earlier you would not let the people suffer, did you not!? The damage from that dragon is not comparable to one war or two!”

The viscount was fired up… well, if a dragon rampaged, Yōntsu would be hit first, so I couldn’t blame him.

“Calm yourself, Viscount. If the Lumoria Kingdom… no, if Yōntsu Territory is attacked by that dragon, it will come to us first—because we’re the ones actually building a castle there. If so, there’s no problem. If it shows itself, we’ll just kill it.”

“W-what are you saying…? A Ground Dragon!? It is not like ordinary monsters! It is not something humans can oppose! You could call it a natural disaster!”

“You’re oddly informed. Have you seen it?”

“…Not with my own eyes. But because of Yōntsu’s location, many oral traditions and records remain. What happened to those who tried to settle there… and to build a castle, of all things… a castle?”

The viscount blinked, confused by his own words. His expression was strangely boyish.

He aged and de-aged constantly—what a busy man.