When Father Collapsed
A letter arrived saying Father had collapsed. I dropped it the moment I finished reading.
"A carriage. No—a horse."
Not a carriage. In a situation like this, a carriage would only make me late.
"Bring me a horse! My horse!"
I shouted at the knights. Asilia opened the door and stepped inside.
"What is the matter, my lord?"
"Father has collapsed! I have to return to the castle at once! Bring me my horse!"
"Th-this is terrible! Prepare a horse!"
Asilia took charge at once and began arranging for a mount. The servants and soldiers looked as though lightning had struck them in the middle of the night.
After a stretch of frantic activity among the household staff and knights, a horse was somehow made ready in the dead of night.
"M-my lord. The hour is late. As you well know, riding through the mountains at night is extremely dangerous…"
The knights tried to stop me. I brushed them aside.
"Shut your mouth! Father has collapsed! I will not sit here and do nothing!"
My voice must have carried too far, because servants and soldiers came pouring out from inside the castle. But it was not only servants and soldiers who appeared.
"Brother!"
A voice called from somewhere behind me. I turned, and there stood Lucill.
"Lucill?"
"Where are you going?"
"Father has collapsed. You know as well as I do how frail our family is. I have to go right now."
"Please don't go."
"What are you talking about? Father has collapsed!"
"Having both the current family head and the next family head return to the castle at the same time is dangerous. If the two of you die in one place, who fills that vacuum of power?"
"What? Who would kill Father and me at the same time?"
Lucill did not answer. She simply looked at me—with an expression that asked whether I truly did not understand. And before long, I did.
My lord…
Henrik von Setia. The man who had clawed his way up to a ducal seat through countless betrayals. For a man like that, nothing would be strange if he did it to consolidate his own power.
"Then what am I supposed to do? Father has collapsed."
He was not my real father—but he had treated me as though he were. I could not pretend I did not know when he had fallen.
"I'll go."
"What? You?"
"Yes. If I go, nothing will happen. Even if someone kills the current family head or his daughter while the next family head is still alive, there would be no benefit in it."
"Ah…"
"Get down."
Lucill quietly held out her hand. I had no choice but to take it.
"Asilia, a carriage."
"Yes."
After Lucill left, I could only stare blankly after her retreating figure.
Two weeks later, Lucill returned—bringing Father with her.
Throughout that time she had continuously sent me letters describing Father's condition and the atmosphere at Torgenberg Castle, so as not to leave me fretting. Thanks to those letters, I was far less anxious than I might have been.
When Father came home, I asked him,
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine. I've rested so much I'm actually restless."
"What did they say the diagnosis was?"
"Overwork, apparently. Everything that built up from my youth finally caught up with me."
"Ah…"
That made perfect sense. Father had single-handedly managed every affair of the family, great and small.
"Get plenty of rest. Otherwise…"
He did not finish the sentence. But I could guess what he would have said next.
After we had walked a while, Father suddenly asked,
"Son."
"Yes, Father."
"If you become the lord, will you be able to do well?"
"…"
Was it that bad? Father's condition—was he so unwell that he was already thinking about transferring the family headship?
"I've been educated for that purpose all this time. I'm confident."
It would be better for me to inherit the headship sooner rather than later. That way Father could rest easy.
"In that case…"
"Yes."
"It's nothing. You'll do well."
What had Father been about to say?
I still did not know—but I wanted to do whatever I could for him.
Henrik von Setia provided Leona's faction with large quantities of gold coin and military supplies, exactly as planned.
Upon learning of this, Clozel von Kruzenstein sent an official declaration of war to the Setia family.
Yet Clozel never once led an army to invade Setia. That was only natural—to Clozel's north stood Henrik von Setia, and to his south stood Leona von Kruzenstein.
Strike north, and the south attacks. Strike south, and the north attacks. Caught in a pincer like the classic feint of sounding east while striking west, Clozel could neither advance nor retreat; he could only be dragged along.
Meanwhile, while Leona dealt with Clozel, the Setia family saw no war at all, and so peace continued. Peace brought by a rival's civil war. Our storehouses filled with gold and provisions, and those gold and provisions would one day become military supplies and strengthen our forces.
Meanwhile, my father, Georg von Meyer, retired. As a result, I naturally became the family head.
But there were still many ways in which the family could not yet be considered truly mine. There were still more vassals loyal to Father than to me. If Father and I ever disagreed on some major matter, Father's opinion would carry the greater weight.
In this game, Arcadia Tactics, it was common for a retired former family head to reign like a retired emperor. So in practical terms, not much had changed yet. I had simply received the title of family head a little early.
For that reason I was careful in my conduct at all times and in all places, never treating my vassals roughly, always acting with caution.
Three years of that life passed. I, who had been nineteen, turned twenty-two, and Lucill completed her coming-of-age ceremony and turned sixteen.
Lucill had reached marriageable age, but I had no intention of marrying her off. I did not want to watch a child bear a child—and more importantly, she herself had said she would never marry in her life.
At sixteen, Lucill was strikingly beautiful. When she walked down a street, most men turned to look at least once.
But Lucill herself had not changed much. She had grown considerably taller and her appearance had become much more mature, yet her behavior was exactly the same as before.
"I present myself before the Family Head."
Lucill would occasionally tease me like this. Even though I had told her that when we were alone she should call me Brother, not Family Head, she deliberately used the formal title just to put me in an awkward position.
"Lucill. I told you not to do that when we're alone. So—what is it?"
"A report from the informant we dispatched to Torgenberg Castle."
If Lucill had come to deliver it in person, it had to be fairly important intelligence.
"What is it?"
"It seems Lord Henrik's illness has taken a considerable turn for the worse. He coughs frequently whenever he attends to state affairs, and his appearance has grown quite gaunt, apparently."
It was coming. In truth, Henrik would die before long. In the original history, though it varied from playthrough to playthrough, he generally died around this time.
"Hmm… Is that so?"
The reason he still could not transfer the family headship to his children the way Father had was probably because both his sons—Andeln von Setia and Adel von Setia—were unreliable. With no trustworthy heir, he could not entrust the succession, and so continued to handle state affairs himself.
"It would be wise to pay careful attention."
"Yes. There's no telling how the political situation will develop."
"I'll secure more informants."
"I'll leave that to you, little sister."
Lucill bowed and left. What she was worried about was probably a civil war breaking out over the succession. If that happened, our side would have no choice but to take part as well.
Of course, a civil war would break out. But the reason was a little different from what everyone expected.
Imperial Year 547, the sixteenth of April. Civil war broke out.
The trigger was none other than an assassination attempt by Andeln von Setia, the eldest son of the Setia family. Andeln led a band of knights loyal to him in an attempt to kill Henrik. But Henrik, with physical abilities that belied his age of over sixty, leapt from a balcony and somehow survived with nothing more than a sprained ankle.
Because of this incident, Andeln fled the castle, formed a rebel army, and—with four major families answering his call—swelled to a force of roughly twenty thousand.
In contrast, almost no nobles took Henrik's side. That was only natural: the fact that Henrik's health had deteriorated significantly had already become a quiet rumor among the nobility.
The setting sun and the rising sun. Which hand to take was obvious to anyone's eyes. Most of the vassals sided with Andeln.
Only then did Henrik realize he had lived his life wrong. Had he lived a life full of loyalty and good faith, his vassals would have kept faith with him until death. But Henrik had been a base opportunist from childhood to the present day, and that history of his had become retribution—no one took his side.
I was an opportunist, so my subordinates could only be opportunists as well.
In the midst of that, a single noble appeared before Henrik's eyes.
It was none other than Franz Meyer.