A Man Caught In A Whirlpool Of Desire (10)

After the battlefield had been cleared, I could only scratch my head as I looked at the beastkin who had captured the several hundred barely left alive and dragged them before me.

Moreover, Duke Balsen was among them as well.

“You look as if you have suffered serious mental strain…?”

“W-what… are you… planning… to do with me?”

“Everyone is dead, and you still want to live?”

His neatly arranged hair was a mess, and dried blood could be seen crystallizing all over his body. Not only that, his complexion was pale and his lips were blue. Duke Balsen looked like he might faint from shock or suffer cardiac arrest if I lightly tapped him once near the heart.

He must have come here certain of victory. Three hundred thousand was not just a problem for a viscounty. If used properly, it meant an incredible army that could wage war against most weaker kingdoms…

And that had been annihilated in a single day, before even half a day had passed. He had surely left some troops in the rear, but by now, most of those troops were undoubtedly being massacred by the whale beastkin.

“Now then, Duke Balsen. Let me ask you a question. From what I heard, were you not supposed to go to the Ishtain Domain?”

“….W-what do you want to know? If it is something I know, I will t-tell you anything… And if it is w-war reparations! I-I will somehow, with all my strength, pay as much as you want. J-just spare me!”

“I don’t need money. I have no intention of killing you. You are so much of an idiot that I cannot even feel any value in you as a prisoner.”

Duke Balsen’s face turned red, as if his pride had been wounded. Perhaps inside, he was thinking all sorts of things while focusing only on returning alive.

Whether revenge or anything else, he would think he had to survive first.

“You must be frustrated, right? The feeling of being helplessly defeated by a domain you thought was insignificant must be miserable. But if that was your best, I think I will be a little disappointed.”

“What… are you trying to… say?”

“I will give you a chance. I will spare your life two more times, so… try whatever crippled nonsense or desperate struggle you can. I am generous to idiots like you. And on your way back, I will make sure you can go with them so that you will not be inconvenienced.”

I said that while pointing at the soldiers who were still alive.

“I do not expect much from you, but I would like you to make things a little more entertaining for me. I want so badly to see you despair and see you collapse in frustration.”

“W-why… exactly are you… doing this to me?”

To be honest, I held no particular grudge. It was simply that I had been able to win the battle easily thanks to an incompetent man, so if they came again next time, I wanted Balsen to come again too.

“If war breaks out, I simply want to win. I feel as though I could win no matter what methods you used to attack me. Show me the height of incompetence. So that I can gnaw away at the Empire.”

Duke Balsen trembled with rage. I gestured to him as he shook as if he might leap at me at any moment, then looked around and repeatedly calmed himself down.

“Go. Go and… do what you are good at. Escort Duke Balsen outside the domain!”

At my words, I saw several beastkin who had been suppressing laughter grab Duke Balsen from both sides and drag him away.

He looked as if he had something to say, but I had no particular desire to converse with him. Once Duke Balsen had gone farther away, I had the surviving soldiers follow behind him as well, and once the humans had disappeared like that, I spoke to those around me.

“Everyone, we won.”

“It is a great victory!”

Only then did the beastkin cheer. After this, they would have to suffer all sorts of hardships as they cleaned up the battlefield, but for now, I simply watched them cheer, drunk on joy.

The news that struck the continent was the rumor of “the Empire’s crushing defeat,” but at first, many did not believe it. That was because they had never even imagined the Empire could be defeated.

It was a shocking conclusion for those who had merely hoped various supplies would be provided a little more stably than before, as well as those who had been thinking about the profits they could gain from Ingrad.

Moreover, with the additional information that the situation on the Ishtain Domain front was changing so rapidly that the outcome could not be known, the evaluations of Ingrad and the Ishtain Region began to change.

Separate from that, however, Duke Balsen, who had fled in a hurry, joined the Ishtain occupation army and returned to the position of commander-in-chief. In order to somehow make up for his mistake and achieve merit, he even drew on his private financial resources to begin aiding the Imperial Army, and thanks to that, cracks gradually began to appear in the firm defenses of the Ishtain Region.

The one hundred thousand mercenaries hired with the funds Duke Balsen mobilized began shaking various regions that had maintained balance with the Imperial Army until then from within, and thanks to that, the Imperial Army secured two domains and was able to sound the trumpet of advance.

Meanwhile, at that same time, separate from the progress of the war, the Ingrad Domain army was racking its brains over postwar handling.

“Phew, dealing with all these corpses is a job in itself.”

“Even if the leather cannot be used, they said all the metal will be stripped off and recycled, did they not?”

“That is right. Do you know how expensive iron is these days?”

The Ingrad residents were moving corpses and the like with cloth wrapped around their mouths, and because of possible contingencies, the temperature in the area had been lowered below freezing while they worked.

“But will this really stop plague from spreading?”

“According to the lord, germs? Anyway, he said it would make it difficult for things like disease-causing bugs and rats to act, and since it would slow the rotting of corpses, it would at least make things a little easier.”

“Amazing. They said maintaining this temperature requires an incredibly expensive magic tool, right?”

“From what I heard, it costs several thousand great gold coins. There probably is no lord anywhere in this world who would spend something like that so freely just to save our lives.”

Conversations like this were taking place everywhere. Most of them did not understand a lord who so lavishly spent enormous sums without holding back for the sake of his residents, but they were also grateful.

Because of that, the domain residents were taking care to collect blades, iron fittings, and the like on their own. It was a kind of repayment.

Moreover, the domain residents mobilized right now were being paid a fairly large amount while working.

In other words, they were being treated so well that there was no room for any complaint. That was not all. The beastkin and soldiers of the domain were also scattered in various places and mobilized for the work of incinerating the massive number of casualties from this battle, and the interesting point was that the fact that there were no beastkin corpses anywhere was leaving quite a deep impression on the working domain residents.

Various words were also being exchanged among the leadership as they watched the work proceed like that.

“The lord’s thoughts are truly difficult to keep up with.”

At Wijel’s words, Gamung, who was beside him, nodded.

“When he said he would mobilize the domain residents, I could not understand it… but all of it must have been intentional, right?”

“He said it was necessary to give them faith. He said we had to make them realize how powerful a force we possessed by actually showing them the brutal scars of war.”

“I wondered whether this was so important… but that profound meaning is indeed the vessel of a divine messenger.”

“I never imagined that not a single person would die.”

At Wijel’s words, Gamung also nodded. This had been a war fought against three hundred thousand. Even though there were units, including guerrilla units, that had to face the enemy directly, not a single death had occurred.

Though the wounded numbered in the thousands, he thought the mere fact that there were no dead was already an enormous military achievement.

“Perhaps we are standing at the site where new history is being written.”

Wijel agreed with Gamung’s words. And as he looked at the worksite that had continued for a week, Wijel began to feel that it was gradually becoming tedious and thought about the radical actions his lord had shown in this war.

‘Was he an outstanding strategist… or if not that, was it the power of advanced technology…?’

He could not know what the main cause was, but one thing was certain. Had the foresight of Goddess Artemisia, who had chosen the master of Ingrad, called the divine messenger, not been a decision that had seen all of this in advance?

A smile formed on Wijel’s lips for no reason.

Meanwhile, Matilda was looking at the Seven Great Merchant Companies of the continent, including the Dust of Sands Trading Company, whom she had urgently called in.

“The reason I invited all of you here was because there was an order from the lord.”

“I came because I was told there was something you urgently wished to request… but where is the lord…?”

It was Hilde Bare of the Golden Leaf Trading Company, whose tone implied, Why did someone like you come out instead? Matilda looked at her and opened her mouth.

“The lord is not idle. All of you should know that, so I will omit the formalities and get to the point. First, there was a request from the lord.”

“What kind of request is it?”

At Idlen’s question, Matilda took out documents one by one and distributed them, and all the officials of the Seven Great Merchant Companies who received those documents looked at Matilda with astonished expressions.

“This is a decision he made because he believed that war with the Empire is war, but the Demon Tribe pushing in also cannot be ignored. He requested that the goods we have prepared be delivered to the front line against the Demon Tribe.”

“You are saying… this entire incredible list… will be provided free of charge?”

Matilda looked around at the merchants’ eyes, which were staring as if they were seeing an insane act, and spoke.

“It is not to the point of being unreasonable. However, he said that if the front line against the Demon Tribe collapses now, civil war will not be the issue. He judged that it could lead to a crisis for the Central Continent itself, so active aid must be provided.”

At those words, the merchants’ expressions changed in various ways. Some carefully read down the documents to determine what scheme might be hidden there, while some looked astonished, yet there were also those who looked half proud.

It was Idlen, and she asked.

“This must be a decision he made after careful consideration, correct?”

“As far as I know, this was a decision he had already made before the war with the Empire broke out. The lord said he was not a philanthropist, but he judged that for this Ingrad to survive, the peace of the continent was also important. Please understand his broad intention and participate in transporting the goods. We are not asking you to do it for free. At the very bottom, there is also a section regarding freight charges, so I would be grateful if you looked at that and made your decision.”

And the merchants were astonished once again as they saw the amount written at the very bottom.

“Good heavens… great gold coins… one hundred thousand…?”

“That is correct. The scale of the aid that will go into this shipment is roughly three million great gold coins’ worth of goods. That is why we need the strength of all of you, who have the credit and scale to handle this. Please help us.”

At the moment Matilda politely bowed her head and made the request, the first to express willingness to join was, as expected, the Dust of Sands Trading Company, and the one that declared its intention to participate after them was the Golden Leaf Trading Company.

In the end, all Seven Great Merchant Companies accepted, and a large-scale movement was about to take place.

At this, Matilda recognized that it had been resolved well and began making other preparations. That was because this preparation was literally a foundation stone for the future.

To put it bluntly, they were goods being sent to all nations at war with the Demon Tribe, including the Empire, but this itself could be called a blatant showpiece shipment headed to the front line. If the Empire touched this, it would also become a problem, and if the Imperial Army that received this distribution pointed its blade at Ingrad, that too would become a problem.

As a result, though it cost a lot of money, it could be seen as an act of using money to prevent the Imperial Army in a certain region from moving.

‘It is a trap. A trap the Empire cannot help but fall into, even while knowing it.’

This was the judgment Matilda could make.