by Dojyomaru
“If there is no fear of betrayal, it is friendly enough.”
He said the most outrageous of things with a cool face. What he had said meant, basically, that he felt a relationship of control and subordination which allowed no room for complaint even if one nation was used like a tool and then thrown away still qualified as friendly, didn’t it? Sort of like the alliance between the Matsudaira and Oda clans when Nobunaga Oda had still been alive.
“So, which is the hostile one?” I asked. “Amidonia? Zem?”
“Not Zem. Certainly, that matter has worsened their impression of us, but not to the point where they would be considered hostile. That said, if Amidonia requested reinforcements from them, I have little doubt they would dispatch mercenaries on their behalf.”
“Amidonia, huh... If I recall, they sent us an ‘offer of assistance,’ right?”
“Yes. ‘The stability of our neighbor Elfrieden is directly tied to our own national defense. If a request is made, we will dispatch forces to help subdue the Three Dukedoms,’ is what they offered.”
“Ha ha ha ha... That’s pretty straightforward.”
It was plain to see that they wanted to take advantage of the discord between the Three Dukedoms and myself to expand their territory.
“It is. The Three Dukedoms have likely been told something similar.”
“‘Let us strike down the usurper Souma together,’ is it? Hard to laugh at that.”
Well, I could probably count on the Three Dukedoms to see through Amidonia’s scheme. They wouldn’t let foreigners run roughshod over this country just because they didn’t like me. Of course, Amidonia knew that too, so basically...
“By making offers of aid to both sides, they want to give themselves a cause to mobilize their troops,” I said.
“While seizing cities in the west, they’ll send reinforcements to the side that ‘won,’” he agreed. “Then, they’ll come up with some reason to assume de facto control of the cities they occupied, integrating them into their country. It’s an orthodox strategy, but an effective one, I would think.”
Well, yeah. There were many examples of it in my own world’s history. Like So’un Hojo with his “Borrow a deer hunting trail, steal a castle.” The simpler the strategy, perhaps the more likely people were to be deceived.
Amidonia was blatantly trying to deceive us, Zem was tilting towards hostility, and the Elfrieden Kingdom was unable to achieve national unity because of my conflict with the Three Dukedoms. Difficult problems to solve, all of them.
“However, this is all part of the scenario you wrote, isn’t it?” I asked, staring hard at Hakuya.
Hakuya remained unperturbed.
“Yes. At this moment, everything about the situation is shifting as it should,” he declared. That cool expression of his made me scratch my head vigorously.
“You... do realize, right?” I asked, referring to the number of people who would be sacrificed by Hakuya’s plan.
The scenario Hakuya had laid out would mean great losses for our foes, and great gains for our allies. It was true that I needed a move, no matter what it was, that would let this country rise to be a strong nation. However, to bring it to fruition, this country would also need to shed a fair amount of blood.
Despite that, Hakuya declared this without showing any guilt: “Yes. I believe we should take everything that this opportunity offers us.”
I was silent.
“Sire, you should understand, the result will save many of your countrymen.”
“...I know that. But, still, I’m only going to accept doing ‘this’ once.” I looked Hakuya straight in the eye. “A political thinker from my world, Machiavelli, wrote about it in The Prince. If a ruler does ‘this’ just once, and in doing so finishes everything, never doing it again, he will be regarded as a great ruler. On the other hand, should the one time he does ‘this’ fail to be decisive, he will sooner or later face his end as a tyrant.”
“...This Machiavelli had a terrifyingly realistic view of things.” Hakuya was slightly taken aback.
Yeah. That was why I liked him. I had been enthralled by the endless realism of Machiavelli, and reread The Prince many times. Though I had never expected the knowledge to come in handy like this someday.
“Regardless, I have deemed your plan to be an example of doing ‘that,’” I said. “So...”
—If we are to do it, let it be in one stroke.
Intermission 1: Serina and the Death Spirit Panic
Parnam Castle in the kingdom’s capital, Parnam.
You are already aware that this was the royal palace where the king resides, but, recently, there had been a ghost story making the rounds in the castle. This was how it went:
It happened one summer evening, in the witching hour, when even the grass and trees slumbered.
One of the castle’s live-in maids was sleeping in her room when she awakened due to the summer heat. She tried to go back to sleep, but just couldn’t seem to.
Accepting that she was going to have to stay awake, she decided to at least get herself something to drink and headed towards the cafeteria used by the guards and maids. Water was drawn from a nearby mountain for the castle’s cafeteria, and the maids were welcome to take a drink whenever they pleased.
Then it happened when the maid entered the cafeteria. She saw something that looked like a faint light by the kitchen oven. When she squinted, she could also see what seemed to be the outline of a person.
Oh... One of the cooks is still here. The maid was relieved to see another person. This being the royal palace, security was very tight. It wasn’t the sort of place intruders could get into.
That was why the maid thought it was simply one of the cooks still in the kitchen. When she approached, it appeared that the person was mixing something in a pot. The maid was about to call out to them, but the next moment, a chill ran down her spine...
“Heh heh heh...”
...because the person let out a creepy laugh.
The maid felt something abnormal in that laughter, and, despite herself, looked into the pot the person was stirring. In the pot, floating in its oily mud-like brew, there were several bones, bones, bonesbonesbonesbonesbonesbonesbones....
There, the maid lost consciousness.
“...So, there you have it. A necromancer appeared in the castle, and may have been trying to summon something. Everyone’s been talking about it! What do you think, Head Maid?” one of the coworkers of the maid who had collapsed asked Serina.
Serina didn’t let her usual beautiful poker face slip. “...I see. And what happened to this maid?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Did it not turn into something like, ‘Stop! You’re going to do perverse things to me, aren’t you?! Like in shunga prints!’?”
“No?! Instead of tearing off her clothes, actually, they laid a cloak over top of her, and she was discovered sleeping there by the cooking staff the next morning.”
“Well, that’s bor— I mean, good.”
“Did you just start to say ‘boring’?!”
Serina let the maid’s question pass with a vague smile.
Serina was the personal attendant of this country’s princess, Liscia, as well as being capable enough to be placed in charge as the head of all the maids in the castle, but there were issues with her personality. She was a bit of a sadist.
What was more, when it came to cute girls, she always wanted to “buwwy” them. Not “bully,” “buwwy.” To toy with them a bit psychologically, nothing insidious; she just liked to do things like make them wear risqué outfits to stir up their sense of shame a little. That her number one target at the moment was her own master Liscia made it all the more incredible.
Still, a necromancer, is it...? she wondered.
At her base, Serina was a woman who was good at her job. If ghost stories were spreading in a castle that had been left in her care, she wasn’t so irresponsible that she could ignore them.
The witc
hing hour, is it...? They say late nights are the enemy of your skin, but... While thinking many thoughts that called for a witty retort, Serina let out a sigh.
—Then, in the witching hour...
Lantern in hand, Serina headed towards the cafeteria. She walked with such a bold stride that you would never imagine she was walking around a castle in the middle of the night. Soon, she arrived in front of the cafeteria.
It’s a little late to think about it now, but... If this necromancer doesn’t appear tonight, I wonder just how many nights I will to have to stay up late...
With a little sigh, Serina stepped into the cafeteria. Fortunately for Serina’s beautiful face, she soon spotted the person in question.
Near the oven in the kitchen there was a light, and by it, someone was doing something. Serina approached silently, peeking into the pot over that person’s shoulder. Inside the pot was an oily burbling liquid and a large number of bones floating in it.
“Heh heh heh... Soon... Soon it will be complete...”
The person stirred the pot, letting out little laughs like that as they did. It was a sight that would have caused other maids to faint, but the capable Serina was able to identify the bones for exactly what they were.
Those aren’t human bones. They’re from a giant boar, perhaps? I see a number of bird and large fish bones mixed in, as well. Also, while it looks unappetizing, that muddy liquid has a tantalizing smell.
Serina resolved herself, and tapped the person on the shoulder. “What are you doing there?”
“Wah?!”
She must have startled the person, because the big round body leapt into the air. When they turned around, she was able to see their face clearly.
“M-Madam Serina?! What are you doing here?!”
“I ought to ask you the same, Sir Poncho.”
Stirring the pot was the man who had received the name of the food evangelist “Ishizuka” from Souma the other day, and who had been appointed as Minister of State for the Food Crisis, Poncho Ishizuka Panacotta.
“What, pray tell, are you doing in the cafeteria at this hour?” she demanded.
“Th-This is... Well...” Poncho flailed his arms about anxiously. He was entirely too suspicious.
Serina was about to press him further, when...
“...What’re you two doing?”
Caught by surprise, she turned around, and there stood King Souma Kazuya.
“There were ghost stories like that going around?” he said. “Liscia is going to get mad at me again...”
After Souma heard about the rumors from Serina, he stood there scratching his head.
“In the end, what was it you were doing, sire?” she asked.
“Oh, well... we were making exactly what you see here,” he said. There were three bowls sitting on the table Souma pointed to. “In the world I come from, it’s called ramen.”
“Ramen... is it?”
As Souma had said, the three bowls were filled with ramen. What was more, it was the oily kind made with seafood and pork bones. Souma offhandedly thrust his chopsticks into a bowl and began slurping the noodles noisily.
“Yep... The soup is almost perfect. But since we’re using gelin udon, it’s a little bland.”
“There’s no helping that. Right now, wheat is precious, yes.”
“All the more reason to resolve the food crisis quickly...”
While watching Souma and Poncho talk, Serina tried her own ramen. Wrapping the noodles around her fork like pasta, she put them into her mouth.
When she did, the rich, savory flavor of the seafood and pork bone broth surged forward. It was thick, rich, and it had punch, yet the taste of the vegetables had melted into the broth, keeping it from being too rich. What a complex flavor this was. It was greasy, yet her instincts demanded another mouthful.
Souma and Poncho watched Serina, smiling.
“I was wondering if we might be able to use the bones and vegetable scraps we would otherwise throw away to make a soup, you see,” Souma said. “I had Poncho studying it. He did it late at night like this, so we wouldn’t disturb the cooks.”
“Oh, it was a lot of hard work, yes,” Poncho said. “It was a dish I had never eaten for myself, after all.”
“I see... so this was the truth behind the necromancer, then,” Serina said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Still, this is delicious. ...Sir Poncho?”
“Y-Yes. What is it?”
“Could I trouble you to teach me how to make this soup?”
“Of course you can, yes.”
It seemed that Serina, too, had been charmed by the magic of this oily soup.
After that, a ghost story spread saying that there were two necromancers.
At almost the same time, Serina, whose skin had become oddly smooth (an effect of the collagen?) said, “Sir Poncho, about the bones you use in that soup, why not burn and crush them to powder before putting them in?”
“Th-That makes sense! I’m impressed, Serina! You look at things differently, yes!”
“Tonight... If you have the chance to try it, let me taste some.”
“Of course I will, yes.”
When the maids saw the two of them speaking intimately like this, their imaginations ran wild, but that is a story for another time.
Chapter 4: A Day Off in Parnam
It was a few weeks after the first episode of The King’s Brillunch had been broadcast.
That day, a petition was delivered to Prime Minister Hakuya Kwonmin.
The personnel department had been the ones to organize it, but it included names from the royal guard, the maid force, and every other group within the palace. Marx, who was now the chamberlain, and Ludwin, the head of the royal guard, had put their names on it, as well.
Wondering what it could be, Hakuya quickly perused the contents to find...
“...Ah, I see.”
Hakuya agreed with the petition despite himself.
◇ ◇ ◇
“So, there you have it. I will be insisting you take time off, sire,” Hakuya said.
“There I have what, exactly?” I asked. “I still can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on.”
While I had been working in the governmental affairs office, Hakuya had suddenly come in and said, “Take time off.” Then he’d casually dropped the bundle of papers he was holding onto the desk I’d been working at.
“This is a petition I received from the personnel department,” he informed me. “According to it, ‘When those at the top do not rest, those below them find it difficult to take time off.’ You will find Sir Marx and Ludwin’s names on here, and I, your humble servant, have added my own name, as well.”
Ah... Now that he mentions it, I haven’t taken time off since being summoned here, have I? I thought.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t resting at all. Recently, now that I had gotten used to using Living Poltergeists, I’d sometimes left the paperwork to my ability and gone to do things like make dolls in Liscia’s room. If I let part of my mind work while part of it rested, I could work 24/7 without feeling the slightest bit exhausted. However, according to Hakuya, it seemed that wasn’t the issue here.
“Even if you are resting, you are always in the palace, correct?” he asked me.
“Yeah, just in case anything happens.”
“I am telling you that it does not look like you are resting when you do that. And, because it does not look like you are resting, everyone else finds it difficult to rest themselves. Please, understand that.”
“That’s easy for you to say...” I said.
“Normally, I would want you to take a large block of days off to rest,” he said, “but...”
“Do we have that kind of time?” I asked.
“We do not.”
“I figured...”
As a matter of fact, there was a mountain of things that needed doing. Expanding and strengthening the military, meeting with VIPs, creating documents for external use, pushing forward all sorts
of reforms... the list could go on forever. Even Aisha’s request that I go to the God-Protected Forest as soon as possible was on hold at this point. Though I had at least told them how periodic thinning worked. In this country beset by internal and external issues, there was no time we could afford to waste.
“However, if this lowers morale, and as a result work efficiency, I believe your hard work may be self-defeating,” Hakuya explained.
“Well, what do you want me to do, then?” I asked.
“Somehow, I will find time to give you a day off,” he said. “Why not use it for an outing somewhere?”
An outing, huh...
“Since I don’t get many days off, what if I said I want to use it to lie around in my room?” I asked.
“That request is rejected. I must ask you to take your vacation in a way that your subjects can see you enjoying it.”
“...You still call that a vacation?”
In my opinion, it’s only a day off if you’re able to do what you want with it. I gave Hakuya a meaningful glance to try to convey that, but it was met with utter indifference.
“Is this not the perfect opportunity? You can use the time to see the castle town with Princess Liscia.”
“You’re sending me out on a date?” I asked.
“You two are betrothed, so please go out and show the people how close you are.”
“Oh, come on, now this is just turning into part of my official duties,” I protested.
Do you want us to do stuff like they do on the Imperial Family Album TV show?
“...And what’ll we do about guarding me?” I added.
“Is that not what you have Aisha for?” he responded.
“First you tell me to go on a date, now you’re telling me to bring another woman along?!”
“Why, it will be like having a flower in each hand,” Hakuya commented. “I am most jealous.”
“You don’t mean that...”
Sigh... Well, it’s definitely some long awaited time to rest. I guess I can enjoy it with the mindset that I’m going out to have fun with friends. I can go around to all the places in the capital I’ve been interested in. Let’s see... checking out that singing cafe that Juna works at might be nice.