A Man Caught In A Whirlpool Of Desire (9)

Duke Balsen was out of his mind.

That was because the attack that had suddenly begun had no special sound, and had come flying from places he truly could not even have imagined.

“Th, the trees!!”

At the shouts of the knights who were forming a wall of shields around Duke Balsen, he could only look around frantically, and when he turned his head and examined the surrounding trees, he saw that they had truly installed something like footholds on the trees, climbed onto them, and were aiming at this side while holding something with a peculiar shape.

But it did not take long for him to realize that those things fired something.

Holes began being punched all over the bodies of the knights wearing shields and iron plate armor, and they began collapsing. On top of that, screams burst out from everywhere.

The place where Duke Balsen was located was not the only one being attacked, and as if the entire long bridge was within the attack range, Duke Balsen felt as though he would lose his senses while watching the soldiers spraying blood and miserably collapsing.

“Wh, where are the mages!! Mages!!”

But at that moment, several mages who had been using magic fell over limply, and he saw that those who should have been giving orders to the soldiers were also dying in vain.

It felt as if something was deliberately targeting only them, and that was when it happened.

“Keheok?!”

He heard Marquis Islant Bransch scream right beside him, so he hurriedly turned his head and saw him toppling over as if collapsing, with a hole pierced right through the center of his forehead.

He was horrified and looked at his condition, but the problem was that the back of his head had been blown out mercilessly, leaving him in such a gruesome state that recovery seemed impossible.

“My, my goodness!”

He was horrified by the fact that whatever had flown in created such terrible wounds, and had to lie flat on the ground. In time with that situation, the knights and soldiers around him began covering Duke Balsen’s prone back and gushing hot blood.

Duke Balsen experienced the feeling of all the blood in his body cooling along with the feeling of that hot blood turning cold.

Meanwhile, the Ingrad Domain Army, which was greatly praising Duke Balsen’s actions, began indiscriminate attacks as if nothing stood in their way now, and several quick-witted soldiers sought a way to survive by jumping off the Sky Bridge, but there was no way their situation would change either.

That was because the guerrilla units were spread widely beneath the bridge as well.

A helpless calamity was taking place, and the Ingrad Domain Army was doing its best with the thought that hesitation would get allies killed.

Meanwhile, Volv, who was pushing into the rest stop and fortress and tearing apart the soldiers and knights guarding it, was clicking his tongue at the weakness of humans.

“War does not suit such worthless things.”

Even while saying that, he was crushing soldiers without rest, and Oliver, who was nearby, asked him a question.

“They said we had to keep that guy called Balsen or whatever alive. Is it all right to just kill like this?”

“First of all, if it is him, I do not think he is in this fortress.”

“Why?”

“Human noble bastards carry flags that symbolize themselves. But no matter where you look, you do not see any flags, do you?”

“Ha, I see. As expected, Volv, who has much worldly experience, is wise.”

“I am saying that if you only ignorantly hone your force like you, it does not help us beastkin at all. So study.”

“Volv can do the thinking. I will use strength.”

Oliver said that and charged forward, ignorantly pushing soldiers away. In truth, Oliver, Volv, and Herman could be called the three strongest of the whale beastkin, but if one had to choose the strongest among them, it seemed Oliver might be the strongest.

But Volv thought. He had recently come to keenly realize that force alone was not everything in the world…

‘The divine messenger does not use force… but he has the wisdom to draw out all of these situations. I too will follow his example.’

Volv vowed to follow the example of the divine messenger who had impressed him, and the Imperial Army was helplessly having the fortress occupied by the whale beastkin surging in like a rush.

It was the first step of the ironclad giant corps, which would be named the worst army in history.

Thanks to Hare, I could understand that all the operations were proceeding smoothly, but amid that, I could only click my tongue as I confirmed Duke Balsen was buried under a pile of corpses.

“With him like that, he will be too scared to come back, will he not?”

At my words, Hare nodded as if she had a similar thought.

“There is no way around it… Tsk, do we just have to hope he is stupid enough to come again…?”

I scratched my head for no reason and examined the other situations on the battlefield, but I could not help but click my tongue again at the fact that quite a lot of people were jumping down.

“They cannot survive by doing that…”

“Those jumping down must be that desperate, so they are trying to survive somehow.”

“It is unfortunate, but… I have no intention of taking prisoners.”

“But why do you truly not intend to take prisoners?”

It was something I had said in advance. To deal with them all… It was a cruel order, but in truth, I had no intention of housing prisoners, and if we failed to properly treat prisoners, the gazes sent by the continent would not be easy to handle.

“It is because of continental law. Prisoners must be treated like ordinary commoners, and if we cannot follow that, we will instead earn public outrage from those around us. Moreover, there is also a high risk that information will spread. Except for the approximate information currently known, I intend to keep almost everything secret.”

“It will become known anyway, though?”

“That is true. But the later it becomes known, the safer we become. We may be able to widen the gap with latecomers by that much as well.”

“In that case, could you not have dealt with everyone from the beginning?”

“As I said earlier, it is because of the watchful eyes attached by the Empire. They must have been watching the war situation from atop the Ingrad Wall. The weapons we used will also have their information taken by them, and they will immediately try to imitate them. If that happens, what result will follow next?”

“….War will begin again… Is that it?”

“No, it is not such a simple reason. If the Empire gains ‘power,’ what happens will not be simple. Among them, the biggest reason is that wars of aggression may break out. And they will begin using it in the war against the Demon Tribe as well, bringing about rapid changes. The war is already serious, but it will become even more serious.”

To be honest, it was no different from me having already sown the seed of change. It was something I had worried about. It was something I had deliberated over two or three times while thinking of making firearms, and in the end, I had prepared while considering the possibility that it would return to us as a boomerang and seeking a way to push forward.

And we were developing it in the form of drawing up and maintaining advantageous strategies that only we could use.

“To be honest, I am someone who opposes wars of aggression. I do not mind a defensive fight, but I am not someone who wants to fight for the sake of taking things.”

“Because there will be sacrifices?”

“Correct. Too many people will die. But more than that, what worries me is the part where I may be unable to bear it when a single bullet I fired comes back to me.”

I thought it would definitely have no choice but to come back. That was why I was trying to stop information from leaking as much as possible.

“What do you think humans will think if three hundred thousand die in a single day?”

“Fear?”

“No, they will be drawn to the ‘new weapon’ that can kill three hundred thousand in a single day. So they will use various methods to pressure us or try to steal information. That is why I asked Linda to move public opinion a little.”

“But will the circumstances truly turn favorable with just those few things?”

Demina and Hare both looked at me as if asking whether that was truly the case, and to be honest, I did not know either. However, I judged that it would be better than doing nothing.

To be precise, it was correct to see it as a kind of muddying the waters. The people of this world were in a state where they depended on “rumors” as a form of reaching the truth anyway.

So I had chosen to expand the stage by inflating rumors in advance so that the truth could feel like a lie, and lies could feel like the truth.

Only then would those who wanted to know the truth experience confusion in catching accurate information, arrive at distorted information, and allow the truth to be hidden. And for a while, we planned to continue a closed-off course of action.

We would refuse almost all external visitors to make them impatient and restless, and we intended to block people from entering except when our side went outside.

We were already preparing for that in advance through Matilda, and if this battle concluded, we intended to continue practical control work while cleaning up the battlefield.

“You can think of us as standing at a crossroads of choices.”

“What choices?”

“Lose everything, or have everything.”

“That is extreme…”

I agreed with Demina’s words and spoke.

“Because the situation has proceeded in a way that leaves no choice but to be so. But I think I am proceeding in the direction of having everything. For now, you can think that the world has become unable to take us lightly.”

“What will the Empire do?”
The Empire would also be unable to think lightly of us. To be precise, whether or not they could imitate the power we used would be the key, and if they tried to imitate us, they would feel fear toward the “financial power” the Black Gold Merchant Company must be earning.

That was the rumor I had spread for that purpose.

The funds needed to manufacture one explosive bomb were an amount even the Empire would have no choice but to feel burdened by.

Even if they squeezed the lords and pressed the central nobles to scrape up all their funds, I thought they would be able to make only hundreds or thousands at most.

To put it bluntly, it was an explosive that cost two thousand large gold coins even in a state where we could procure the materials cheaply.

No matter how large the Empire’s scale was, money could not be rotting away unused, and a great deal of funds would be used to allow the gigantic organism called the Empire to move.

Therefore, its surplus funds would be relatively lacking.

But what about our domain?

First, it was small. And it could be self-sufficient. We had the sea as well, and if necessary, we could secure food from the sea in a hurry. That was not all.

Since we had the Forest of the Demon Dragon, the people of the world did not fail to know that it was easy to secure most plants.

The advantages of the beastkin were revealed here. Moreover, I also intended to spread rumors about the ordinary funds earned by the Black Gold Merchant Company.

We planned to announce roughly between two million and five million, and I could expect that amount to be similar to the scale at which the Empire would push itself to imitate explosives.

But unlike the Empire, we were in a good situation. That was because the domain was relatively small. Since I could handle most of the parts that needed to be maintained and the maintenance itself alone, it would be good to think that there were almost no resources consumed on our own.

If one did not know the circumstances of this domain, one might look down on it easily, but I thought the Empire, especially the Imperial Family, knew our domain’s circumstances thoroughly. That was because Princess Riana had come and gone frequently, carrying various information.

In many ways, they could not think lightly of our domain. I expected that part to buy us time.