10 (3)

Sunlight poured in from beyond the open window. It was a clear day with barely a speck of cloud in the sky. A gentle breeze rushed in through the wide-open frame. In a good mood thanks to the letter he had just received, Louis looked down below the window.

Below, in the noisy courtyard, people dressed in splendid clothes were lined up. The atmosphere was similar to that of a market square, and not only nobles had come; their servants, whom they had brought along, made it feel even more so. Even at this very moment they were quarreling among themselves.

Even among them, there were houses that were on good terms and houses that were not, so it was impossible for there to be no quarrels when they were forced to wait together in such a cramped space.

“Why are they like that down there?”

“They are nobles who have been saying since yesterday that they wished to have an audience with you, Duke Louis. They started gathering as soon as you arrived at dawn, and already this many have shown up. My, I only just checked as well. I never imagined every noble in this city would come.”

‘Seems the rumors arrived here a step ahead of me.’

It seemed word had spread among them about the way he restored discipline as he passed through the territories. Louis felt bothered as he watched the nobles buzzing like ants.

“Drive them all away.”

“…Y-yes? Will you not be doing the same work as before?”

“I have no intention of meeting them all like that. This time, it would be better to tighten the existing power holders instead. Summon them.”

“I will obey your order.”

Louis looked once more at the letter on the desk, then fell into thought.

‘Prince-King Orpendius, huh. At any rate, it seemed this matter had been completely buried with that.’

Rather than punish Louis, the Prince-King was all but hinting that he would quietly bury the matter as it was, so they should become close. There was no way Louis did not know that. Within the Duchy of Eron, the Prince-King’s power was not greater than that of the marquises united. Louis had not yet made any choice. He wanted to see things with his own eyes.

Louis wanted to know what kind of person Prince-King Orpendius really was, whether he had the mind and ambition to forge an alliance in the future. If, like Marquis Gangpireu’s son, he fell short of Louis’s standards, Louis would cast the Prince-King aside without the slightest hesitation.

Through war, Louis had matured, and his ambition had already stretched out without restraint to thoughts that went beyond all bounds. If only he could grow a little more, he was even considering the option of starting a rebellion. So for now, there was no need to decide in advance whom to take as an ally.

Louis had an army and monopolized the resources that could be divided between two factions, so he could achieve tremendous growth going forward. Although he had not yet put everything in proper order, the situation was as advantageous to Louis as it could possibly be. Louis could wield a special kind of magic in this world. Even when he had possessed only a single city, he had overturned his disadvantageous circumstances. All the more so now, when he held an overwhelming number of cities…

Louis watched the flock of birds flying past outside the window.

‘Overturning the country really is only a matter of time.’

Still, he had only just escaped being a minor faction, so there was no need to overreach. The fact that Prince-King Orpendius coveted him meant, in Louis’s judgment, that the other seven factions—the seven most powerful houses in the duchy—were also waiting for a chance to build ties with him.

‘If Prince-King Orpendius suits me, I will cooperate with him. If not, I can cooperate with attractive figures from other houses instead. In that case, I will overthrow the country together with them.’

It was the sort of talk that would make anyone faint if they heard it, and he could be branded a traitor at once and have his entire clan wiped out. But even if no one said it aloud, the other seven houses were surely thinking the same way. The world was not stabilized. Wars were frequent, and it was not strange for countries to be overturned in this age of chaos.

Louis opened the information window and checked the points he had secured. Thirty thousand points. The total points Louis had gained through the war were sixty thousand. After subtracting the points drained away by mana absorption, the points Louis could currently spend came to forty thousand.

Louis opened the information window again. What greeted him at once was a dominion that had expanded overwhelmingly. Louis, who had always seen only the single city of Proia, now saw that the number of cities spread out before him was eleven.

‘Phew, when did we grow this much? Amazing.’

The cities that could serve as the largest bridgeheads were the ducal city Pontina, Proia, Kayani, and Grad. Among them, the most developed city was, of course, the ducal city of Pontina.

In terms of finances, it might be somewhat lacking, but on the vast grasslands stretching out to either side, enormous quantities of food were being produced, and above all, based on that dense supply of food, it had the largest population. Given the terrain, most people were farmers, but considering that the size of a city was determined by its population, the core where Louis ought to remain was naturally this place.

The city where Louis was now staying was called Rabin. Rabin lay in the middle of a very rough terrain, and its leather industry was developed; hunting of deer, other wild animals, and monsters had flourished there. Naturally, at present, virtually all activity in the city had ground to a halt.

The problem was the state of resistance that would soon be applied after the city’s occupation. Not only here, but also the four cities recently taken from House Haidek were all in the same situation. The only solution was, of course, time. As time passed, they would gradually be assimilated into House Pontina.

The finances per turn were −3. However, the total amount of funds on hand was 1,100, because Louis had taken all the money that each city possessed. In that sense, laughably enough, his finances had grown tenfold instead. As long as you could win, war could show a rate of growth overwhelmingly greater than that of internal development. Once the four cities became active to some extent, turning the income per turn into a surplus would only be a matter of time.

‘Now the question is how to invest these points.’

Before setting out on the expedition against House Haidek, he had already ordered Colosseums to be built in the cities that had been advancing without pause—Kayani and Grad. But that was as far as it went. Colosseums required a great deal of money. Even just the maintenance costs demanded a constant supply of slaves, so the expense was considerable.

Judging that it would be better to reabsorb the captured soldiers, he had not yet thrown them into the Colosseum. They would once again swear loyalty to House Pontina after undergoing intense obedience training. Naturally, the places where they were to be stationed had also been set in the lower cities, so that they would not even think of starting a rebellion.

The satisfaction value was also at an average level of Dissatisfied 3. The other four cities as well would soon enter a state of famine if food was not supplied in time. A tremendous amount of food had been consumed in the war. One fortunate point was that, because Louis had won a lightning-fast, crushing victory, a considerable surplus of food remained, so the situation would not plummet to a critical level right away.

Even so, the most positive gain from this war was the securing of massive iron ore. To the single mine in the Pontina domain, they had added two more mines that had belonged to House Haidek, so the Pontina domain now possessed three mines in total.

They had always been short of iron inside the domain and had had to buy it from outside, but now the advantage was that they could cover things to some extent on their own. The salt and salt-flat business coming from the port city Kayani had now been activated as well. There were four businesses in total operated in Louis’s domain: sugar, salt flats, dyes, and hunting-leather.

Originally, there had been only three, but thanks to absorbing House Haidek’s city Rabin without shedding blood, they had taken over the leather-industry facilities without destroying them, so once the mood of the city calmed down to some extent, they could be brought back to life.

At this point, House Pontina truly was no longer a minor faction. It could be regarded as a powerhouse that possessed tremendous resources.

The Duchy of Eron’s greatest commercial city, Beiherobo. The owner of this city, whose population was also quite large, was House Batenberg. Among the seven “stars,” the largest factions in the Duchy of Eron, they proudly held one seat, and they possessed the most financially prosperous city in the duchy. Serving as a bridgehead where three countries met and connecting directly to the capital via the Rhine River, they had piled up wealth through enormous geographic advantages, and the Batenberg family, which had ruled here for a long time, also possessed a natural talent for handling money.

The head of the house here was Batenberg Maximilian. His title was marquis. In the first place, the position of duke was, in truth, a special rank held only by the king and the exceptional House Pontina, so the final step at which an individual could rise in the Duchy of Eron was limited to the rank of marquis.

His city had no such thing as night. Just as it boasted the largest scale of commerce, it also had the most flourishing nightlife in the Duchy of Eron. Nobles who wanted to indulge themselves in debauchery even came here as tourists, and its fame had spread to foreign lands. Not only were lights lit in every house, but thanks to glow-lamps imported at a high price from the Mage Tower, the city was always shining.

At its very center, in a mansion so lavish that it seemed finer than anything the king owned, lived House Batenberg.

The third son of House Batenberg, Batenberg Blancfor, finally heard the rumor that was currently sweeping through the Duchy of Eron. It was about Pontina Louis.

“So how did it turn out?”

The one explaining before him was a traveling merchant who journeyed all across the Duchy of Eron. Having heard some time ago that a succession war would break out in House Pontina, he had been doing business in Pontina territory and then fled to a nearby area.

“It was Pontina Louis who brought the succession war to an end. At the still youthful age of just coming of age, on an unfavorable front, he subdued his second brother, Pontina Pierre, who possessed abundant funds, and rumor has it that the latter was driven into a corner and took his own life. Marquis Gangpireu, who defeated Pontina Fred…”

“Wait.”

Beside Batenberg Blancfor, the foreign beauties were constantly trying to attract Deni’s attention. However, Deni jerked his chin at them. It meant, Get lost. When the beauties scurried away, Deni continued speaking.

“You’re telling me Pontina Fred lost? That terrifying monster?”

“Yes. It seems Marquis Haidek Gangpireu had been preparing for war for ten years. He lost his life to a dagger honed as sharp as a razor.”

“That can’t be. He’s not the sort of man to die so meaninglessly…”

“The rumor goes that Marquis Gangpireu possessed a Sword Expert of an incredible level. Of course, that was said to have been top secret.”

“Damn those rumors, rumors—what is it that you actually know for sure?”

“…If you glare at me like that, this humble one will have no choice but to take his leave.”

“You little bastard. Fine. Really, it’s my fault for asking so much of a mere drifter like you. Our house needs to set up an intelligence unit too, but Father keeps watching everything so closely… Anyway, go on with the next part.”

The merchant coughed a few times, then went on.

“We do not know the true identity of that warrior, but for now, it is said that he was captured by Pontina Louis. However, because Pontina Louis’s personality is extremely fearsome, the prevailing view is that he has already been tortured to the extreme and killed…”

“Wait, what do you mean? That Pontina Louis is fearsome?”

“Ah, I skipped the order of events. Allow me to start again from the beginning. After subduing his second brother, Pontina Pierre, Pontina Louis moved north. Marquis Gangpireu had already killed Pontina Fred. After that, the two clashed. There, not only did Marquis Gangpireu suffer a crushing defeat, but he was said to have been beheaded by Pontina Louis. Furthermore, Duke Pontina Louis then continued his advance and conquered Ohus, the city at the heart of House Haidek.”

“…My word. That stronghold…”

“Apparently, because most of the army had collapsed to the point of near-annihilation, there were effectively no troops left. But even just by utterly defeating Marquis Gangpireu… people are already calling him the Incarnation of War.”