Record of Wortenia War: Volume 3

by Ryota Hori

  Judging from experience, Ryoma knew the two wouldn’t eat before he did.

  “We’ll have it ready in a moment.” Laura nodded happily at his words.

  “Now then. We’re short on time, so let’s talk over dinner.”

  The Malfist twins nodded at his suggestion, their gazes fixed on him. The two served as maids that waited on him, his bodyguards, and also his precious confidants. By sharing his thoughts with others, Ryoma deepened his own understanding, and it also served as a rehearsal for when he’d explain things to Princess Lupis and her entourage.

  What’s more, the most important part was that he confirmed his vocabulary wasn’t incomprehensible to others. Being the children of a house of high-ranking knights, the Malfist twins’ education was considered the top of what one would find in this world.

  But of course, that didn’t put them anywhere near the level of modern Japan’s education. From Ryoma’s perspective, they were on the level of a child on the upper years of grade school, not even reaching the levels of a middle-schooler no matter how favorably he tried to phrase things.

  But in this world of incessant warfare, their knowledge was considered extensive. After all, 90% of the population was illiterate to the point where they didn’t know how to write their own name. Reading books was a privilege out of the reach of anyone who wasn’t at least born to a family of knights.

  Those low education standards came across in one’s understanding of math, as well. Most merchants and peddlers in town were at best capable of addition and subtraction. Anyone capable of multiplication and division was looked upon quite highly and favorably. Meanwhile, most farmers couldn’t count higher than the number of fingers on their hands.

  But that was perhaps understandable. Most professions in this Earth were those of manual labor, and common sense dictated that anyone who had the leisure of time to study was to be sent out to work the fields and increase the year’s crops. Even children were considered precious laborers once they grew out of infancy.

  With this world being the way it is, people often didn’t understand what Ryoma was saying. Many people aspired to become mercenaries, but many among them started out being poor commoners. Ryoma didn’t understand how it worked, but upon being summoned to this world, he could understand their language and others understood what he said. He’d even become able to read books in German and Chinese.

  But even if he was able to hold an everyday conversation, whenever he tried to describe a concept that wasn’t familiar or didn’t exist in this world, people couldn’t understand him. Saying something like ‘let’s eat’ worked, since it wasn’t a concept or phrase that was exclusive to Japanese, but it did lose some of the meaning it had when he said it in its original language. It did, after all, have a nuance and cultural context that didn’t exist in other languages and societies.

  Without the proper context and background, the meaning of words can become skewed. And given the difference in average knowledge between a modern Japanese person and someone from this world, it would only make sense for there to be cases of miscommunication.

  This was why Ryoma decided to go through everything first with the Malfist sisters. That way, if the twins didn’t understand anything he said, he’d be able to recognize it, rephrase his words and explain things more plainly.

  Still, it was also true that the effort put into trying to get others to understand him also deepened his own understanding. And Ryoma found his discussions with the twins, who soaked up all the information like a sponge, to be enjoyable changes of pace.

  “You two know that General Albrecht joined forces with the nobles’ faction, correct?”

  The sisters nodded wordlessly in response to Ryoma’s question. This was what bothered Ryoma enough to miss out on the dinner party. Normally, this was sensitive information only select people would know, but it was exactly this kind of precious information that had a way of leaking out most easily.

  This piece of bad news had been brought to Ryoma’s attention this morning, and by sundown it had become an open secret known to everyone in the castle.

  Ryoma himself frowned upon classified information like this spreading out so easily, but since the individual sense of crisis of the people involved was so weak, there wasn’t much he could do about it. In the end, Ryoma Mikoshiba was an outsider summoned to this world. He wouldn’t be able to change this country’s way of being that quickly. All he could do was prioritize tackling the problem before his eyes.

  “Do you know the circumstances behind him doing that, then?”

  This time, the sisters shook their heads in denial. All the twins picked up from the palace’s lady attendants was the end result; General Albrecht had defected to the nobles’ faction. How it happened was still being kept under wraps, it seemed.

  “Right. Then... I’ll have to start explaining from there.”

  Sending the wine and meat in his mouth to his stomach, Ryoma began gravely telling them what happened. General Albrecht left the capital Pireas with the first knight order, under his command, under pretense of recovering the kingdom’s public order. That was four days ago.

  Ryoma wasn’t informed of that. If he was, Ryoma would likely have used any means at his disposal to sabotage Albrecht’s movements. Meltina told him later, informing him of how the general made a forceful suggestion to Princess Lupis.

  Recovering the country’s public order. It was just an excuse to mobilize the army, but the suggestion in and of itself was extremely valid.

  After all, following the nobles’ faction’s backing of Princess Radine, the political rivalry grew all the more intense, which naturally led to a worsening in Rhoadseria’s public safety.

  Attacks from bandits had become more frequent by the day, and the civilians were raising their voices in protest more and more. The cause for that was clear: both factions had recalled their knights and guards, which were usually in charge of maintaining the public order, from their stations. Both sides picked up the scent of the coming conflict and scrambled to gather forces in order to gain an advantage, but the end result was disastrous.

  The capital and other large provincial cities were seen by both the knights’ and nobles’ factions as strategically important and were garrisoned with troops, and so the deterioration of public order wasn’t as noticeable there. But on the other hand, villages and cities which didn’t have that sort of tactical value were left without any knights and guards, and thus their public order waned rapidly.

  In a way, that was unavoidable. Neither Princess Lupis nor Duke Gelhart had an endless supply of troops. If they were to get the upper hand on the opponent under limited conditions, abandoning areas with low strategic value was a necessary hand to play.

  Ryoma, of course, didn’t think this was ideal in the slightest. If anything, considering what was to come, he thought it was a terrible decision. Even if they were to win the war with the nobles’ faction, it was clear to him Princess Lupis’s rule would take a painful blow from this.

  But on the other hand, if they didn’t win the war now, there wouldn’t be much point in discussing Princess Lupis’s rule. It bothered Ryoma, but the reality of the matter was that there wasn’t much to be done.

  And General Albrecht made clever use of that to his advantage.

  “A kingdom only exists so long as its people do!”

  With that single sentence, he shook Princess Lupis’s heart, which was troubled by her subjects being in danger from the poor public order.

  And Ryoma himself agreed that those words were true. A country exists only by virtue of its people, and a ruler is judged by their ability to defend their subjects’ lives. Those words alone had unshakeable reason backing them.

  But would such an ambitious man, who had up until now stuck to his privileged position and looked down on the commoners, suddenly awaken to compassion toward the common man?

  The answer was a resounding “No.”

  The possibility wasn’t entirely nil, of course, but it w
as certainly close to zero. Had Ryoma or Helena been present there, they never would have taken Albrecht’s words at face value. If nothing else, they would have strictly forbidden General Albrecht from taking command the way he did.

  But Princess Lupis didn’t know that. No, perhaps she did, deep down; inexperienced as she was, she wasn’t a fool. But the end result was that Princess Lupis submitted to General Albrecht’s claim, likely out of genuine concern for Rhoadseria’s people.

  That was a splendid trait for a ruler to have. But in an ironic twist of fate, that kind wish pushed the throne a few steps away from Princess Lupis’s hands.

  “So in the end, she was duped by General Albrecht...”

  “That about sums it up, yeah.”

  The Malfist sisters silently shook their heads at his words. They had truly been rendered speechless. Albrecht may have been an ally to her, but he was likely to be an enemy later on. To so easily swallow such a suspicious excuse from that man made Princess Lupis’s judgment seem all too thoughtless.

  To begin with, there was no reason for a general to personally attend to the public order of provincial towns. If Lione were to hear of it, she’d likely be yelling out a few hundred curses over the matter.

  “So that’s what happened...” Having heard the details, Laura looked up at Ryoma with probing eyes. “However...”

  “What’s wrong? Is something bothering you?”

  Deftly picking up on the look in her eyes, Ryoma prompted her to go on with satisfaction. Most people would home in on General Albrecht’s double-crossing. And that was of course an important detail, but not many would notice the other doubt hidden behind that at this point.

  Of all the people serving as Rhoadseria’s brain right now, only a few, namely Helena Steiner and Count Bergstone, would realize. With that considered, the fact the Malfist sisters picked up on it was significant.

  “Yes. I was just wondering if what bothered you was General Albrecht’s defection to the nobles’ faction, or...”

  She cast a questioning look in his direction.

  “What about you, Sara?” Ignoring Laura’s query, Ryoma turned to Sara.

  “I believe you suspect General Albrecht’s actions may have been prompted by some third party’s machinations?”

  Ryoma nodded in satisfaction at her answer. Yes, it was this suspicion precisely that had kept Ryoma concerned for over half a day.

  Ryoma had no doubt in his mind that putting Helena Steiner to use was the right decision. However, he now realized that for the Kingdom of Rhoadseria, the Ivory Goddess of War was the equivalent of potent medicine. As powerfully effective as it was, consuming it in the wrong fashion could make it as lethal as poison.

  And Ryoma now saw that he had erred in his handling of the medicine named Helena Steiner.

  It was true that her return to service yielded immediate, satisfying results. In that regard, she was everything Ryoma hoped she would be. She swiftly contacted knights that once served with her and turned the younger knights over to Princess Lupis’s side in one fell swoop.

  Helena had a good grasp and understanding of the grudge and dissatisfaction that the knights felt toward General Albrecht, and in just half a month, half of the knights’ faction had turned over to Helena’s favor.

  There was a great deal of anger towards General Albrecht, which had built up over many years of his control. Helena’s return to active service allowed those knights to find an outlet for their frustrations, who flocked to gather under her banner. More and more were joining by the day.

  Eventually, the only ones who would remain by General Albrecht’s side would be the order of 2,500 knights he captained, manned by his proteges, and a handful of other knights he had scattered across the other orders. It was a decline one would never believe possible for a man burning with ambition, who until just recently had served as the head of one of Rhoadseria’s leading factions with a standing army of six orders of knights, making up 15,000 men.

  But General Albrecht wasn’t the only one to be confused by this sudden change. He was likely shocked to see his faction being eaten into so quickly on account of Helena Steiner’s sudden return to action, but Ryoma was just as surprised.

  Ryoma only planned to remove General Albrecht after they’d taken care of the nobles’ faction. But with his faction being devoured like that, General Albrecht wouldn’t sit idly by and continue to support Princess Lupis. Knowing his personality, the man would without a doubt try to turn things around.

  They should have put General Albrecht down by force before he made any suspicious movements. Just as Ryoma intended proposing to change Princess Lupis’s current plans, this whole affair unfolded.

  “Right, it’s a bit too unnatural... General Hodram Albrecht is being backed into a corner, that much is for sure. He’d want reinforcements... This much I still follow. But what I don’t understand is why Duke Gelhart would accept that, and I can’t imagine that nasty general bowing to his political opponent.”

  Their first meeting in the audience chamber surfaced in Ryoma’s mind. He could remember his eyes, full of lust and ambition, and the cold gaze he directed at Ryoma the first time he saw him, which seemed to positively scream, ‘you lowly peasant!’

  He was haughty, bigoted and merciless against his foes. And most of all, his pride was overwhelming. And it was fact that his relations with Duke Gelhart were terrible from years of opposition on the political field.

  It wasn’t uncommon for the army to be in opposition to the government, but even regardless of that, the two harbored dangerous animosity towards one another.

  So between their existing relationship and General Albrecht’s personality, it was hard to imagine him easily electing to side with Duke Gelhart, even if he was aware of how threatened his position as general was. This was why Ryoma willingly ignored the possibility of General Albrecht joining forces with the nobles’ faction up until now.

  “True... But isn’t it possible Duke Gelhart was the one who proposed their joining forces this time?” Sara asked, understanding what Ryoma’s doubts on the matter were. This was actually the crux of the answer Ryoma had spent so long thinking over.

  “Yeah, that’s about right. Frankly speaking, I can’t see it happening any other way. But the question then becomes, who was it that convinced Duke Gelhart to do that?”

  If there was no chance of General Albrecht swallowing his pride and asking to join forces with Duke Gelhart, it stood to reason that it was the nobles’ faction which stepped forward and proposed it.

  They were, after all, the side that held power through political means. They were adept at those kinds of dodgy dealings, but since both sides here had conflicting interests, it would take time for them to smooth over those differences, and it was an issue where they couldn’t quite put aside their biases.

  In which case, for them to cooperate, they needed someone graced with high intelligence, patience and transcendent negotiation skills. This wasn’t a feat some greedy noble would be capable of. If the nobles’ faction had had someone like this on their side, Duke Gelhart would not have gone to the trouble of backing Princess Radine as a banner. He would have just integrated Princess Lupis, who was the first in line to the throne as it were, into the nobles’ faction.

  Which meant this series of movements by Duke Gelhart was orchestrated by the wisdom of some other third party. By someone who didn’t want to see Rhoadseria stabilized...

  “I see... But in that case... Is this some ploy by the neighboring countries?”

  “Yeah...” Ryoma nodded slowly. “That’s what worries me the most. I hope I’m just overthinking things, but...”

  He didn’t have any evidence to support the theory. This was nothing more than his intuition whispering in his ear. However, despite Helena once marching Rhoadseria’s armies in its defense, the two countries had fallen into opposition over taxation as of late. The relations couldn’t be called strained to the point of snapping, but one couldn’t afford to be too optimist
ic.

  Likewise, Rhoadseria’s relationship with the Kingdom of Myest wasn’t particularly bad, but one couldn’t call it good, either. The three eastern countries once stood in a united front to repel the Empire of O’ltormea, but that wasn’t to say the relations between the three were all that friendly.

  And Rhoadseria’s relation with the southern countries was even worse than the ones it had with Xarooda and Myest. Any country could make an attempt on Rhoadseria’s land at any moment and Ryoma wouldn’t be surprised.

  “In the end, we just don’t have any information on the other countries...” Ryoma unintentionally let his frustrations let slip from his lips. “Not in this country, anyway...”

  Ryoma couldn’t quite judge whether this was a problem unique to this country or to this world as a whole, but he was far too lacking in information regarding the other countries’ movements. Ryoma could only come up with two ways of gaining intel on other countries on the fly.

  One was to pay people who travel across the countries frequently, such as mercenaries and merchants, for information. But any information he’d get from them may not be as recent and up to date as it should be, and it might not be the sort of information he needed to begin with. After all, those people’s job wasn’t to ferry information.

  The other was for Ryoma to hire people who would gather information directly for him. In other words, to form an intelligence network. But that would require large amounts of time and funds, and most important of all, depended on him finding reliable people.

  Information was precious, and mistaking false information for true could be a lethal mistake. That sort of organization only becomes truly meaningful after years of work have been put into it, and it wasn’t something that could be established and put into use at a moment’s notice.

  The Malfist sisters properly understood the reasons for Ryoma’s frustration. Having acted alongside Ryoma for months, they’d experienced full well the importance of preparation and information.