The First Ally
"Lucill, I'll be away for a while, and Father has already retired. While I'm gone, you're the head of the house."
Lucill bowed her head in silence.
"I'm leaving the family in your hands."
I rested a hand on her shoulder, then turned away. Well — even without me, Lucill would manage just fine. After all, in the original story she had been the greatest strategist of them all.
A few weeks later, I arrived at my destination: Kruzenstein Castle.
"Would you be Lord Franz?"
A handsome young man with tanned skin, standing just a touch shorter than me, called out. I recognized him at a glance.
"I'm Garcia Granada, your guide. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."
He bowed. Garcia Granada — Leona's childhood friend and one of her most loyal retainers.
Leona had two loyal subordinates she'd led around since childhood. Garcia was one of them.
That aside, Garcia was an exceptional talent. Administration, diplomacy, politics, combat, architecture, social maneuvering — there was nothing he couldn't do.
The catch was that while he could do a great many things well, none of them quite reached the first rank. He was a man of ambiguous mediocrity.
And the other notable detail…? In the original story, he had outlived every other retainer under Leona.
In more ways than one, he was a man of long lifespan — political and physical both. Someone like that was well worth keeping close.
"The pleasure is mine, Lord Garcia."
I returned the bow, and a flicker of surprise crossed his face.
"Your first impression is rather different from what I'd heard. Shall we, then?"
I climbed into the carriage Garcia had prepared, and we set off toward Kruzenstein Castle. Seated across from him, I asked:
"And what first impression had you been given of me?"
"That you were an extremely cold and ruthless man… a monster without a drop of blood or tears, according to the rumors."
"Ah."
I knew exactly how that rumor had spread. Word of what happened in the dungeons had gotten out.
But I wanted to call it a misunderstanding. Killing every last prisoner in those cells had been a purely political calculation — leftover remnants of the old faction would have done us no good. I had never been fond of murder for its own sake.
"Well, whether that first impression is true or not is neither here nor there. I volunteered for this guide assignment myself."
"Oh?"
"I am a Mediocre. I learn everything quickly, but I never climb to the highest level. So tell me — how is a Mediocre supposed to survive this merciless age of chaos?"
A dry chuckle escaped me. I knew this man's life well enough that the answer came easily.
"By choosing well."
Indeed. The man sitting across from me had always made the right choice. When Leona thrived, he stayed in her good graces and those of her inner circle. After she died, he wagged his tail for the next sovereign. When that sovereign began to crumble, he latched onto the one who would replace him and escaped unscathed. This man was an opportunist — an opportunist with an exceptional nose for the wind.
Garcia's eyes went wide.
"Remarkable. It's been some time since I met someone whose thinking aligns with mine."
"Yes. I'm the same type of person you are."
I, too, was an opportunist — the kind who would betray even his own lord.
"Well then, that makes things simple. The truth is, I possess a certain instinct. An instinct that tells me how to survive. And right now, that survival instinct is telling me to take your hand. That if I do, my lifespan will grow longer."
"Is that so?"
"It is. The fact is, Lady Leona has no strategist. Of course, her teacher Lord Rainbern currently fills that role — but Lord Rainbern is well past seventy. He can barely climb the castle steps, and he's of an age to be thinking about retirement. So the timing is ripe for Lady Leona to need a new strategist… and who might that be?"
"Surprisingly enough, you yourself?"
Garcia waved the suggestion away.
"Me? Out of the question. I could serve as someone's strategist, certainly — but not Lady Leona's. She is a special person. She sees places others do not. To be her strategist, you need a field of vision every bit as extraordinary as her own."
Meaning me, then. An overestimation, perhaps — but not an entirely wrong analysis. I had come here precisely to become Leona's strategist.
"Lord Franz. Lady Leona does not discriminate against surrendered generals, but not every member of the house shares that view. Your standing within the family is far from ideal at the moment. Lord Clemens, a fellow surrendered general, is one thing — but the other retainers do not look kindly on a strategist who betrayed his previous lord. Which means you need at least one ally. So what would you say to me becoming your first?"
In exchange for throwing his weight behind me, he wanted me to take his side in turn. Exactly the sort of proposal Garcia would make. And for me, it was a rather advantageous one as well.
I took Garcia's hand.
As we climbed toward the castle, Kruzenstein came into full view.
It lacked the defensive power of Torgenberg Castle. But it possessed an antique atmosphere and a beauty that was hard to name.
Following Garcia's lead, I arrived at the council chamber to find four people already present.
Leona. Clemens de Balboa, her right hand. Rainbern, her teacher and strategist. Hakon, her left hand. And then Garcia took his seat among them.
At Garcia's direction, I sat down beside him. Leona addressed me at once.
"Franz. You've come a long way. Well done."
"My lord."
"The five people in this room are, without exaggeration, the ones who lead this house. Our councils decide every major affair of the family. And do you understand what it means that you have been summoned here?"
"I couldn't say."
"Franz. It means you, too, now hold a position that decides the great and small affairs of this house. By my will alone."
In that moment, I watched the others' reactions. One person maintained a complete blank — no reaction, no emotion, no expression. One nodded. Two wore looks of clear displeasure.
Split down the middle, it seemed — those who favored me and those who did not. And one who intended to remain strictly neutral.
"I am most humbled."
"In truth, we were already in session before you arrived."
"Is that so?"
"So tell me — what conclusion do you think we reached?"
Every gaze in the room fixed on Leona. Not on me. What was I supposed to do when she asked for a conclusion without even telling me the agenda? But I wasn't particularly flustered. What Leona would have been deliberating was obvious.
"Enthronement."
The word sent a shock through the entire room. And rightly so — it was the exact answer. Even Leona looked mildly surprised. She hadn't expected me to get it. Then she laughed, clearly delighted.
"Hahaha! You see? Didn't I tell you? Franz Meyer is a genius! Are you all convinced now?"
"Your Highness didn't tip him off beforehand, did you?"
"Hah! Hakon! Do you not trust me? I've told plenty of lies to amuse you all, but I do not lie in council."
Hakon shut his mouth. It was an irrefutable truth. Leona was a tyrant who treated her close companions lightly — but when it came to council, she was deadly serious.
"Yes. Enthronement. From this moment on, we will find the Crown Prince's younger sister, install her as the new Emperor, and make her ours."
The Crown Prince's younger sister. That was the agenda of this meeting. To understand the matter properly required a fuller account of the story — for on this continent there had once existed a vast empire called the Arcadia Empire.
And yet the age had descended into chaos all the same, much as the fall of Qin had given rise to the Chu-Han Contention, or the fall of Han had birthed the Three Kingdoms. The Arcadia Empire, too, had collapsed.
The late Emperor Philippe von Arcadia had fretted well into his years over the absence of an heir.
And yet, for all that fretting, he had always wanted to hand the imperial throne to someone else. Because just as Adel von Setia loved flying kites, Emperor Philippe adored gardening and the tea ceremony with a passion.
I just want things settled so I can stop drowning in state affairs and enjoy my hobbies. That was Philippe's thinking. And so he designated his younger brother as heir, intending to pass the throne when the moment and the mood were right.
Then, out of nowhere, a child appeared. For a man who had believed himself sterile, it was a staggering development.
His wife hounded him to name their son the next emperor, and Philippe had no choice but to strip the succession from his brother and give it to his son instead.
His brother refused. Having already been promised the throne, he would not stand for it being snatched away — even if a son had been born, had the promise not already been made? He raised an army. More than two hundred thousand joined the rebellion.
The faction supporting the emperor's son raised an army of equal size, and the two forces spent so long staring each other down in the capital that the city was sacked and left in ruins. That was how this game began.
Forty-six years passed with no successor formally installed. And then the late emperor's grandson took it upon himself to ascend as Crown Prince.
That Crown Prince was murdered — by House Ambrosia, the hegemon of the central regions. From Ambrosia's perspective, an empty imperial throne made it far easier to manipulate the affairs of state as they pleased.
So what had the Crown Prince been counting on, forcing his own accession knowing full well he might be killed? The answer was simple. He was a Sword Master.
Trained by the strongest Sword Master in the world and the second strongest alike, he had risen to the rank of Sword Master himself. He had absolute confidence in his overwhelming martial power, and believed he could survive any assault on the strength of his blade alone.
It was a catastrophic miscalculation. House Ambrosia first sent a massive army. The Crown Prince planted hundreds of famous swords into the floor of the imperial hall and cut down enemy after enemy, drawing a fresh blade each time one shattered, carving through hundreds of soldiers single-handedly. That much went well enough — but House Ambrosia did not stop there. Concluding that close combat would never work, they simply brought up cannons and reduced the imperial palace to rubble.
The Crown Prince was buried beneath the ruins, vanishing without a trace left to find. That was the story so far.
And it was the Crown Prince's surviving younger sister that Leona had been deliberating over.
"The Crown Prince's sister is every bit as ambitious as he was. She may lack power of her own, but she fully intends to gather a faction and become the next emperor. So we will find her, enthrone her, become the hegemon of the central regions, raise a new imperial house — and become the single force that holds that house in the palm of its hand."
Just as Cao Cao had done when he installed Emperor Xian.
And so the answer was enthronement. Install the imperial princess as the new emperor. That was the correct answer.
"Now then — regarding the enthronement. The imperial princess is currently under the protection of House Sthenia in the north. But House Sthenia has no particular interest in founding a new imperial line. We should send someone to extract her from them in secret. Does anyone have a suitable candidate?"
No one answered. To make a favorable impression on an imperial princess, one needed to come from a distinguished house and be well-versed in imperial etiquette — and of those present, none were both highborn and fluent in court protocol.
In that moment, Franz Meyer raised his hand.
"I know the right person."
A candidate of such pedigree that even an emperor would acknowledge it. Well-versed in etiquette. A woman, like the princess herself. And one whose house had similarly fallen — someone who could even inspire a sense of shared fate.
The perfect candidate among perfect candidates.
I knew just such a person.