by Funa
“““...”””
If this girl claimed to be someone different from Kaoru, then they didn’t have any reason to take her back to Brancott with them. The viscount nor Balmore would be thrilled to hear they wanted to steal away a girl they’d only just met—a highly valuable girl at that.
There was nothing more for them to talk about. In low spirits, Fernand and the others put the Lyodart residence behind them...
“...Do you really think they’re sisters?” Allan asked.
“It doesn’t matter if that was her big sister, or just Kaoru herself...” Fabio responded, a sober expression on his face. “The only thing that is certain is she has no interest in Fernand or coming back to Brancott in the slightest.”
Despair clouded Fernand’s face at those words.
Allan and Fabio couldn’t help but wonder what could have been if they didn’t bring Fernand to the restaurant that day. If it had just been the two of them, and if they’d managed to get closer to her little by little, then... Alas, it was far too late to think about such trivialities now.
“Whew, thank goodness that’s over with! They shouldn’t come around bothering me anymore after all that!” Kaoru remarked, looking refreshed as she took a big stretch. Everyone else, on the other hand, didn’t look quite as renewed as her.
“So...would that person you mentioned actually happen to be your sister...?” Everyone already knew the answer, but Francette still thought she should ask, just in case.
“Of course not! C’mon, this is me we’re talking about! You already know me well enough, so you shouldn’t even need to ask that!”
Yeah, that figures... everyone thought.
Even if it were in jest, all those present had been cringing at Kaoru’s behavior toward the prince.
Chapter 9: War
At last, the potion selling business Kaoru had always wanted to start up had finally begun taking shape. As the effects of what her potions could do began spreading around the rumor mill, the market for them opened in a flash.
The Abili Trade Company acted as the seller, sending their main inventory to their branch stores in other towns and consigning smaller stock to local shops where Abili hadn’t operated.
Those who lived somewhere five or more days outside of the shipping territories would need to travel to a town close enough to get the potions before the expiration date kicked in. Considering this, however, it wasn’t all that much to ask to fix any injury or sickness that ailed them. They didn’t even have to go all the way to the capital. There were also express horses sent out every day to reach those too infirmed to move properly or who required immediate aid. They even traveled to those who lived in poorer areas, and the fastest horses could reach almost any destination around the country within four days.
As you can imagine, there were plenty of aristocrats, moneybags, government officials, and soldiers, who would be willing to fork over the cash to keep the horses running, just in case anything happened. If nothing did occur and they didn’t need such aid after all, they’d be able to sell off the extra potions for cheap to the public, since the potions would lose any effects the day after being delivered.
All deliveries made by express horse went through strict regulations: Could the person in question really not make it to one of the other towns selling potions? Was there any chance of them purely trying to sell off the potions to someone else?
If it were discovered the recipient was illegally reselling the potions or they were guilty of some other crime, the perpetrator’s family, relatives, even their friends and acquaintances, would lose the privilege of receiving potions. Such a ban would stay in effect for the perpetrator’s lifetime, which would usually result in the perpetrator being murdered by one of their relatives.
If it turned out to be a noble trying to twist the distribution of potions in their favor, they’d no longer receive shipments to the territories they controlled—also for the duration of their lifetime. Strangely enough, those types of nobles usually ended up dead after horrible accidents befell them or after succumbing to mysterious illness, which would be when their sons would take over as heads of the households.
It went without saying that the nobles who were more decent human beings and shared their potions with the masses experienced a boon of goodwill.
The amount of youths with promising futures that had been cruelly taken away due to minor negligences was dwindling. Soldiers could devote themselves fully to their training and duties without concern for injuries, leading to major improvements in their abilities and skills.
The people of the royal capital could all somewhat guess where the potions were coming from, but they didn’t dare pry into the matter. No one thought they could glean any benefit from trying to get involved. If they did and things went south, it could mean losing potions for good. Since they’d have to bear the entirety of the blame for such a grievous crime, they had a pretty good reason to keep to themselves—not to mention that they thought poking their noses where they didn’t belong would earn them a visit from the castle soldiers.
The amount of sick and injured in the Kingdom of Balmore gradually declined, while the birth rate was on the rise. With the previously sick and disabled able to return to work, the budget and personnel needed to run care facilities or provide medicine for individuals like them were on the decline as well.
However, Kaoru was sure to warn them that, should anything ever happen to her, they still needed to train people to become doctors or other medical staff that they couldn’t normally prepare right away. They had to keep improving their own medical techniques, and prepare a budget and other necessary arrangements should the worst come to pass. She had Roland make sure the king understood that, loud and clear.
Since the capital of Grua lay slightly farther to the east, it took about six days by cart for potions to reach the border between Brancott and Balmore, or around two to three days by express horse. Because Aras, the capital of Brancott, lay further to the west, potions could be delivered there if they sent a professional rider on horseback. That way, the Kingdom of Brancott was just barely able to receive the prosperity of potions as well.
Balmore had long since established strong ties with the Kingdom of Aseed to the south so they could stand in solidarity against the militaristic Aligot Empire that lay to the west of the two countries. Because they had the good fortune of sharing their northern and southern borders with each other, Aseed was also able to receive the blessing of potions.
The northernmost parts of Balmore faced the ocean, which stretched all the way from the northeast of the country to the center of the northern border.
To the northwest lay the Holy Land of Rueda, a country roughly one-tenth of the size of Balmore. It was a religious country formed long ago around the area the Goddess Celestine had descended from on high to save the people. Though it was a small country, other countries still paid their due respects to Rueda.
But with the goddess not showing herself over the past fifty-three years, the number of pilgrimages had declined, which meant the amount of offerings the country received had drastically fallen as well. Fishing was the only industry available to them outside their religious influence, and they were slowly losing power as a country.
With rumors spreading about the “miracles of the Goddess” happening in Balmore, Rueda gave the order to have the angel bringing about those miracles brought before them. However, the archbishop of the main temple in the capital replied that they couldn’t do so because she wasn’t of the same faith as them, while the only response they received from the king was how they couldn’t comply because Balmore kept religious and governmental affairs separate.
Then came the circulation of the healing potions. After sending their own people to investigate, it was deemed that it was as if the distributors had bottled a fragment of miracle prowess from the Goddess herself. And the source of those potions: the Kingdom of Balmore.
Rueda believed it was the only place that should be ble
ssed with miracles. At this rate, Balmore would steal away their “holy land” title.
With the sense of impending danger weighing all the more heavy on the top brass of Rueda, the country began concocting a variety of schemes to deal with the situation unfolding before them.
At the very edge of the peninsula, which was home to all these countries, was the Aligot Empire, a country that focused its efforts on strengthening its military might. It shared its borders with the Holy Land of Rueda in the north, the Kingdom of Aseed in the south, and even the Kingdom of Balmore along its central borders. Steep mountains stood between it and the other countries, however, which meant the only way to travel by cart was along the northern coastline to Rueda, or the southern one to Aseed. If anyone from Aligot wanted to head directly to Balmore, they would have to traverse the treacherous mountains on foot without even the aid of horses to get them through.
Aligot didn’t have much in the way of industry going for it, and the three countries that bordered the empire were able to extract the same resources from the oceans and mountains. This was why the other three countries didn’t feel like they had to force themselves to trade with Aligot, or set their sights on trying to claim their land for themselves.
But the same couldn’t be said of the Aligot Empire. To accommodate the growth of its own country, it needed to keep expanding toward the main portion of the peninsula. If it couldn’t gain any new territory from across the mountain range, it wouldn’t be able to meet the needs of its country with what it produced on its own. That was why it poured so much of its national spending into developing its military.
A country that barely saw trade and concentrated all its resources to strengthen its military... The only choice available was to put that military might to use, and soon.
It was then that the Kingdom of Balmore began saturating the market with potions. By some cruel twist of fate, the potions would only work within five days of making them. Even if the empire tried importing them via Rueda, the potions wouldn’t make it to Aligot before their expiration date was up.
That meant they couldn’t be used for war!
But if the potions couldn’t be delivered within five days, then Aligot needed to make its own potions. That way it could use all the potions it wanted to conduct its military campaigns. It would force the other countries to surrender to its overwhelming military might, and it would finally be able to expand into the main continent!
To make that happen, Aligot had to bring down the Kingdom of Balmore and obtain the secret of making those potions for itself.
Thus marked the beginning of the Aligot Empire putting its plans into action...
“So that makes five, then...”
“Indeed. That would make three incidents from Rueda, and two from Aligot thus far,” the prime minister said, recapping the current state of affairs to the king while Roland stood at Serge’s side.
“Requests to be put into contact with Kaoru, invitations for her to go to their country, and even attempted kidnappings...”
“Fortunately for us, the spies Miss Kaoru has been turning in to us have spoken of everything they know. Since we’ve already captured those responsible for sending reports back detailing the events after making contact with her, I would think the countries that sent them shouldn’t have received any information about her.”
“But there must be other spies out there besides the group trying to contact Kaoru directly and the team supporting them. Even if they don’t report back on what happened after making contact with her, they should already know about Kaoru herself. She’s fairly well known around the capital, after all...”
“I know we expected Aligot to make their move soon, but I never thought Rueda would resort to taking extreme measures like this as well...” Roland spoke up, adding to the discussion. “Are they not afraid of rousing the Goddess’s anger, or having divine punishment dropped on their heads? Even if they did capture Kaoru, they must have known it’d be practically impossible to force her to do as they wished.”
“Perhaps they only think of Miss Kaoru as a girl who can make potions?” the prime minister suggested.
““Huh...?”” Serge and Roland exchanged glances.
“At any rate, we can assume the empire will begin their invasion soon enough. Now it’s only a matter of whether they will occupy Aseed before leading an assault on our country, forcing their way through Aseed to attack us directly, or if they will pass through Rueda to get to us, since the Holy Land is neutral territory...”
“But Rueda would never allow Aligot’s armies to pass through, correct? Their neutrality wouldn’t allow such a thing.”
“The question then is if a country backed into a corner would actually respect something like that.”
“You’re right...”
“At any rate, we need to send a messenger to Rueda to warn them of Aligot’s plans, and to request that they contact us should anything happen. Let’s dispatch guards from our own country there as well. After that, all that’s left would be for us to increase our defenses so that the soldiers are ready to move out at any time.”
“Right, that’s just about all we can do...” Roland agreed.
At that very moment, the sound of frantic footsteps rapidly drew closer toward them...
Potion sales were booming. Kaoru didn’t really want to become filthy rich off the potion business, but it was true that the more money she had meant the more things she could do.
The first thing Kaoru did was rent a nice house with a garden on the edge of the commoner’s district. It was a bit worn down, but still a fairly large place—large enough that she had all the members of the Eyes of the Goddess stay there as well.
After getting them all proper sets of nice clothes to wear, she did her best getting them some normal work: waiting jobs at restaurants, doing odd jobs for people about town, working food carts in the plaza... There were all sorts of jobs they could do that made it easier to gather information.
The food carts did a roaring trade selling the pseudo-takoyaki, taiyaki, and udon Kaoru had come up with. Kaoru’s friends at the workshop had made the molds for the takoyaki and taiyaki, and she’d made sure to pay them for the job of course.
Besides the potion business, Kaoru was also continuing to distribute her magical cure-all “tears of the goddess” in secret...but to be honest, it was a pretty public secret at this point. Everyone always had the same reaction when she showed up wearing her mask: They would act surprised for her and exclaim things like, “Wh-Who are you?!” always making sure to say things like, “I don’t know who you are, but thank you!” when she left.
Much to Emile’s (and everyone else’s) shock, Kaoru was actually under the impression no one knew it was her. But no one was going to be fooled by just a mask, and that went double if they already knew her. That kind of stuff only happened in the magical girl shows Kaoru watched as a kid in her world.
That was how Kaoru had earned the gratitude and goodwill of the people, assuring that no noble or anyone from the temple would be able to lay a finger on her without some sort of retribution. Kaoru’s place in the kingdom was all but guaranteed.
Every once in a while she’d have to deal with strange people trying to get close to her, but they would always spill their guts and reveal their true plans after drinking some of the tea she served them. That was when she’d give a signal to the plainclothes guards (probably assigned to watch over her) who would come take them away.
Kaoru had no interest whatsoever in getting involved with any militaristic countries, much less any religious states. But, unbeknownst to her, the situation between these countries was changing far more rapidly than she could have ever possibly imagined.
“Your Majesty, the empire has made their move!” the soldier exclaimed as he burst into the room.
“What?! Where are they invading from, Rueda or Aseed?!”
“Th-They...” The soldier hesitated slightly before answering the king. “They came through the moun
tains! They’re advancing directly on Balmore!”
“““Oh, no...”””
Disbelief escaped the lips of the king and his ministers. Had heavily armed soldiers actually made it through such a foreboding path through the mountains? How would they receive any supplies if not even wagons could traverse the treacherous path? The questions were endless, but there was no use worrying about them now if they had already made it over the mountains.
“What are their forces like?”
“Approximately 30,000, sir. It appears just under 10,000 of them are transportation personnel, and half of them are retreating back through the mountains. The remaining 5,000 are said to be dragging carts they’ve assembled after crossing the mountain range.”
“So they sent back the people they didn’t need after they finished carrying the weapons and disassembled carts... That means we must be looking at around 20,000 soldiers and 5,000 transport troops...”
They immediately launched into an emergency meeting to decide how to handle the sudden developments before them. Though the Kingdom of Balmore stretched from east to west, the royal capital of Grua lay more on the eastern side. Aligot was invading through the western edge of the country, the farthest spot from the capital. There was still plenty of time, but the longer they took to respond, the greater the damage the western towns would receive. With the invading forces lacking supplies, it was expected that ransacking and commandeering goods would be that much more ruthless as a result.
Balmore had 40,000 soldiers and 4,000 support troops available for its counterattack. Since the conflict was happening inside the kingdom, Balmore held the advantage when it came to supplying its troops. They could actually use horses, unlike their enemy, and in terms of pure military strength, they had double the soldiers of the Aligot forces, all of whom were ready to deploy almost immediately.