Ignition
Two months had passed since the Empire's mercy began to take full effect beyond the eastern border.
Burkhai, which had been teetering on the very edge of collapse, had finally found its footing.
That is not to say it had regained anything like its former glory. It meant only that the kingdom, once gasping for air, could now barely keep itself fed.
The rulers of Burkhai had yet to recover their old strength. The unprecedented catastrophe had shown no mercy to the powerful. If anything, they had climbed over their own subjects' backs to survive it. Having already lost the people's hearts through the war, the great flood had dealt them the killing blow.
Under such circumstances, the royal house should have been shaken, and the nobles should have been scheming behind its back. In a crisis like this, the surest way out is to pin the blame on the man at the very top. And the man at the top, nine times out of ten, means the king. Do that, and the nobles below escape the kingdom's fury entirely.
Indeed, there had been kings of old kingdoms who fell exactly that way. Sometimes the entire royal line was replaced, and the country itself remade. Burkhai had even lost the war, so the possibility was more than real.
But nothing of the sort happened in Burkhai. The nobles, far from turning, swore their loyalty to the crown and poured their strength into stabilizing the nation, just as the king did.
Had the nobles, bound together by pure devotion, resolved to overcome this unprecedented calamity? Don't be absurd. Only recently they had been scrambling to abandon a sinking ship.
There was one reason, and one reason only, for the nobles' behavior: the Empire.
'I thought the Empire would sweep the royal house aside. It didn't.'
'They're elevating it instead. The Crown Princess holds audience with the crown prince once every three days. They say it's to overcome the unprecedented disaster, but what that signals is plain as day.'
'It means support for the present royal house of Burkhai — a message to us nobles, and to Porland and Kaden. The Empire is declaring, loudly and clearly, that it will not treat Burkhai as an enemy.'
The Empire had no intention of installing a new, more agreeable royal house in the east. Why bother? There was no reason to earn the resentment of the Burkhai people, and the present dynasty, if it had any sense, already knew that joining hands with the Empire was the right move.
Toppling the existing royal house would be a tremendous loss of legitimacy. So the Empire maintained it — even restored a portion of the authority the crown had lost, authority it could not refuse. In exchange, one hand was left hanging. Should the king ever let go, everything he had clawed back would slip away with it.
And this arrangement delivered an unmistakable message to Porland and Kaden as well: the Empire would not shatter the existing order and erect puppet regimes. Your autonomy is guaranteed. Your independence is guaranteed. We will not touch you. But keep to the line. Sow chaos, and you will be punished without mercy.
The Burkhai royal house, of course, read all of this perfectly well. There was a trace of bitterness in the realization — but in truth, it felt more like relief. If the Empire had so much as thought differently, they would already have plummeted off the cliff's edge.
To claim their pride was unscathed would be a lie. But they had no intention of letting that pride tighten the noose around their own necks. Above all — were their people, not so long ago teetering between life and death, not reclaiming their lives right now?
Once Burkhai had roughly settled, the Crown Princess began extending support to Porland and Kaden as well. She herself remained fixed at her residence in Burkhai, refusing to budge — reassuring the still-anxious Burkhai people with her presence alone, while at the same time showing the two kingdoms that so long as they kept to the line, they could stand with the Empire.
"Your Highness. This is the report from the Ministry of Special Affairs, along with the letters sent by the nobles cooperating with the Empire."
"At last, what I've been waiting for. Good. Now then — I do wonder whether the two accounts agree."
The nobles cooperating with the Empire would naturally write only favorable things. On rare occasions one of them was scrupulously objective, but their numbers were far too small to make a meaningful comparison. So the verification always relied on the Ministry of Special Affairs — the agency that assumed the worst every single time, and viewed everything with a critical eye.
The Ministry of Special Affairs. Among the Empire's institutions, it served as the final bulwark whenever intelligence had to be assembled and cross-checked. It left every possibility open, investigated with utter thoroughness, and confirmed every negative angle as well. That was precisely why its credibility in situations like this one was so exceptionally high.
[ All the people of Burkhai now sing the praises of the Empire by name, and... ]
[ Those who lost sons, husbands, and fathers in the war — yet even they, deeply moved that their surviving families were delivered by the Empire's hand, have... ]
[ Among the nobility, voices have lately been raised calling for the borders to be opened entirely to the Empire... ]
As expected, the Burkhai nobles were reporting nothing but good news, every last one of them.
Not that it was a lie — any investigation on this end would reveal the truth of it soon enough. But there was always the chance they were concealing unfavorable sentiment and reporting only the positive.
'And next comes the Ministry of Special Affairs report, if I recall.'
The Crown Princess drew a brief breath and went through the contents one by one. If she was honest, she was nervous. She had already spent nearly three months here. A great deal of time — and far more resources than time — had been consumed. If nothing had come of it all, she would not have known where to hide her face before the Emperor and his ministers.
[ Special Affairs agents within Burkhai: 182 personnel. All returned; detailed report follows. ]
[ Confirmed: anti-Empire sentiment has largely dissipated. ]
[ Nearly one year has elapsed since the conclusion of the eastern campaign; the unprecedented great flood is assessed to have had a decisive influence thereafter. ]
"...Good."
Yes. At last — at long last — things had taken exactly the shape the Empire had wanted.
Not submission extracted by a disparity of power or the shame of a lost war, but a bowing of the head that rose up from the heart, freely given.
Someday, someone would inevitably rise against this order. Others would join them, and great turmoil might follow. But at that very moment, the people who had won their peace by leaning on the Empire would rise up in its defense. Legitimacy, in the end, rests upon the hearts of the people — and so the Empire would always hold the higher ground.
That was what the Empire wanted. What the Emperor wanted. What the Crown Princess wanted. Not an order pressed into existence by imperial force, but an order propped up by their own hands — so that whoever defied it would be cast out not by the Empire, but by their own countrymen.
"Your Highness."
And just when that alone was cause enough for joy —
"Word has arrived from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."
— something arrived that would delight her far more.
"Armed clashes have broken out between Novogord and Artria."
*
While the continent's east was gradually steadying under the Empire's care, the continent's north was sinking ever deeper into a whirlpool of chaos.
"Damn the demons! We bowed, we yielded, we did everything short of groveling — and this is how they repay us! May heaven strike them down! Is it nothing to trample a man's heart like this?!"
"Filthy Artrians! Smiling to our faces while hiding daggers behind their backs! Why do they keep crossing into Novogord's territorial waters and plundering our catches without a shred of shame?! Hand over those thieves at once!!"
It had not begun this way. Quite the opposite — the mood had been decidedly friendly. Artria kept extending its hand toward Novogord, and Novogord wavered in response. And amid that hesitation, the sharper minds on both sides had begun quietly sketching out a new future together.
Then, at some point, all of it changed. No — all of it vanished. Artria and Novogord had long rubbed against each other over territorial waters. But while each side was exercising every restraint for the sake of better relations, a single piece of news began spreading between the two kingdoms like fog.
[ Illegal Artrian fishing boats have evaded the Novogord navy and fled. ]
[ They didn't flee — they disguised themselves as ordinary fishermen, deceived the demons, and while their guard was down, used force to inflict damage before slipping away. ]
At first it was talk of the sort of incidents that happen anywhere. Nothing new, and most people shrugged it off. But Novogord — or, to put it precisely, the council where the moderates held power — or, more precisely still, those among them who had been receiving advice from someone — had no intention of letting the matter slide.
The story swelled. Flesh gathered on the bones, and episodes that had never existed were stitched in. Simple illegal fishing stretched into coastline surveying and mapmaking. At last came the claim that the fishermen had set out from the very beginning with the Novogord navy in their sights.
Artria — or, to put it precisely, Dedorant — strained to contain the situation.
Novogord was the only power in the north capable of stirring up the Empire's northern flank. Draw them in, and a two-front war could be forced upon the Empire. Raise Benito as well, and the nightmare of a three-front war might be delivered in full. The linchpin of so vital a plan could not be lost.
"The demons of Novogord are fabricating all of it!"
"We have always kept to the agreed line! Illegal fishing — us?!"
"We have never surveyed a coastline or drawn a map in our lives! This is nothing but demon lies, every word of it!"
But despite Dedorant's efforts, the mood within Artria grew uglier by the day. Dedorant had no real point of contact with Novogord, but Artria had clashed with it every few years for as long as anyone could remember. Their relations were not at rock bottom, but they could hardly be called good — and with Novogord taking that kind of tone, the people of Artria were hardly going to sit still.
At the start, it was merely each nation's public opinion squared off in a contest of pride. Given a little more time, it might well have died down as if nothing had happened. But as if that were not to be allowed, firewood kept pouring in from somewhere, again and again.
Artria smiles to your face while plotting behind your back. The whole affair was a stage play staged by Novogord itself. Every remark was chosen with surgical precision to jab the other side exactly where it hurt most. The two kingdoms boiled, and boiled again, until at last they stood one step from open eruption —
"Everything Artria claims is a lie! They are masters of scheming behind the scenes! Sources report that they intend to ask Novogord to shake the Empire's northern border on their behalf!!"
And then, a bomb enormous enough to upend the political situation of both nations in a single stroke came falling down.