Moment

The skill of Count Tristan was so impressive that someone like me, who had only studied a little imperial governance, could never hope to match it.

To make Wenti independent, two major things were required.

Those two were obtaining royal authorization from the king and creating a situation that would prevent nearby lords, beginning with House Conrad, from attacking.

To achieve these two goals, I planned to rely on two advantages: my relationship with the elves and Dark Elves, who had currently severed ties with the kingdom, allowing me to act as an intermediary with them, and the fact that I could supply fruits of a quality high enough to be distributed regularly within the kingdom as luxury goods as well as food.

But the count said that was still not enough, and he created something that could only be described as a “Conrad encirclement.”

At present, the Conrad territory was in a situation where it had to divide its forces between two factions: the small and medium nobles in the south and Marquis Magrad in the west.

The count took notice of this.

“If we create a situation where House Conrad loses if it makes a reckless move, that will be enough.”

So first we built relationships with the great nobles of the kingdom, beginning with Marquis Magrad, by offering regular food assistance.

After that, we followed the step of requesting permission from the king.

Once that happened, it would be difficult for the king to refuse, since the great nobles already supported it.

And just like that, we obtained permission for independence from the king.

Next, Count Tristan and Marquis Magrad held a meeting and agreed to restrain the Duke of Conrad. Naturally, I was allowed to attend that meeting as well.

Needless to say, during that meeting the count played the card of my skill.

As a result, House Conrad ended up surrounded by potential enemies on three sides, and if they tried to confront me, they would effectively be surrounded on all four sides.

Furthermore, if our territory began transporting food and potentially selling fruits that could be converted into weapons, such as Element Fruits, my father could not act rashly.

Still, these measures were not meant to become actual tools of war.

They were intended only as a threat.

Frankly, they were a bit too intense and dangerous.

So I decided to send my father a letter along with a small amount of fruit.

I wanted to show him, through both words and physical examples, what would happen if he attacked my territory.

The reply I received was filled with bitterness, but it ultimately stated that under the current circumstances he had no choice but to recognize the independence of Wenti.

At that point, I could finally relax.

Meeting various nobles had been exhausting, but I thought that now I could finally return to my normal life and take a breather… when something unbelievable happened.

—To my shock, Ashid came to Wenti with a group of his personal subordinates!

When I heard that, I instinctively shouted, “Wait, why!?”

Apparently Ashid could not accept that I had been granted territory and had gone on a rampage by himself.

To be honest, I’m not very good with Ashid.

I still remember the look on his face when he inherited his aptitude, but even before that he had always treated me like an enemy. With hostility directed at me constantly, there was no way I could ever like him.

That foolish younger brother never listens to anyone, and once he decides something, he refuses to change his thinking even if he is clearly wrong.

But if he came here with hostility, then of course we had to fight back.

However, this was not just a problem between Ashid and me.

Both of us now held positions of authority.

Ashid was the heir of House Conrad, and I was the lord of Wenti and head of House Adastria.

To prevent the situation from worsening unnecessarily, I moved quickly to manage things.

Naturally, since I could freely move using teleportation, I received information through the count’s spies about where Ashid and his group were, and while preparing countermeasures I also communicated with the ducal house.

I did not reveal my trump card of Tree-to-Tree Teleportation and instead communicated through letters, but my father’s response was somewhat surprising.

“This incident of Ashid’s rampage is due to my own failure. If possible, I ask for your forgiveness.”

It seemed my father intended to properly train Ashid.

For now, Ashid was the only one who had inherited the aptitude of Great Magus.

There was no guarantee that another Great Magus would appear in the Rite of Blessing, so it made sense that he would choose to nurture Ashid despite his flaws.

I couldn’t help feeling conflicted about it, but now I hoped Ashid would do his best, so I decided to do everything I could as well.

Honestly, taking care of a troublesome younger brother like this was exhausting.

I decided to use Ashid’s attack as a model case for the kind of war I had previously anticipated.

When we fought the Gigafauna, the combined power of the Dark Wood Golems, the Tree Guardian Beasts, and the overwhelming number of Element Fruits ended the battle almost instantly.

This time, I wanted to measure Wenti’s actual combat strength when using Wood Golems, Tree Guardian Beasts, and Element Fruits by using Ashid and his men as a testing stone (for reference, I deliberately avoided using the Dark Wood Golems’ Black Projectiles this time, since their power is too high when used in concentrated volleys).

The results were excellent.

The combination of Wood Golems and the surprise attacks made possible by the small size of the Tree Guardian Beasts worked perfectly, just as I had planned.

Recently the Sandstorm members had become even better at concealing their presence, and their Element Fruit attacks were also very effective.

I had not prepared a huge number of them, but Ashid’s subordinates were defeated one after another without much trouble, so from a military standpoint there seemed to be no problem.

Apparently even against human opponents, they could handle things just fine on their own.

There were clearly some aptitude users with extremely fast sword techniques, but even they eventually fell to the saturation attacks.

If another territory attacked us, it seemed we would be able to handle it without difficulty.

Oh, and of course I made sure to take precautions so no one would die by accident.

For example, I layered healing from Holy Wood Golems and applied Peach ointment to them.

But as expected, Ashid alone managed to completely block the attacks of the Wood Golems and Tree Guardian Beasts.

Not only that, he even used light magic to heal the others.

A holder of the Great Magus aptitude was no joke.

After repeated attacks, only Ashid remained.

“Hiding behind women and beating people with underhanded tricks… that’s exactly what I hate about you!”

“Then you can relax.”

I nodded to Aira and Nadja standing beside me before stepping forward.

The moment I took that step, memories flashed through my mind.

“Idiot.”

The face Ashid made when he inherited Great Magus and mocked me.

The moment I was pushed aside and he became the heir…

Since he had treated me badly, it was only natural, but the memories that surfaced were all unpleasant ones.

But I had to break away from those memories.

Surely this moment right now was when I needed to change.

“I’ll handle things from here. Let’s settle this one-on-one, Ashid.”

“You bastard… don’t talk down to me!”

Ashid raised his hand toward me.

I used Harvest Bag and created a wall with a large number of Wood Golems—.