Chapter 22
Chapter 22
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 22
Chapter Title: Restore the Territory (1)
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Right after my meeting with the Crown Prince concluded, I headed straight back to the VIP quarters that His Imperial Majesty the Emperor had prepared for me.
The next day, just as we'd planned in advance with the Crown Prince, I sent the Emperor an apology letter brimming with heartfelt regret. It explained how the exhaustion accumulated from the war, combined with the overwhelming honor of receiving a medal directly from His Imperial Majesty, had left me so deeply moved that a fever surged through my body, preventing me from attending the ball.
In response, the Emperor—who clearly knew all about my private meeting with the Crown Prince and my decision to side with him—replied as follows:
'I was planning to introduce you at a gathering with both the Crown Prince and Major General Stefan present and to share the full details of your heroic exploits. I'm truly disappointed that it didn't work out. All of us, myself included, wish for your swift recovery, so please focus on resting and get well soon. With that in mind, I've sent you 1,000 gold along with a few tonics to bolster your vitality. Hurry and recover so you can serve the Empire once more.'
If he had truly believed I was ill, he would have dispatched a skilled physician. This was essentially payment for my alignment with the 'Crown Prince faction,' disguised under the pretext of recovery funds.
Some of the nobles even offered kind suggestions like, 'Being alone when you're sick must be lonely—why not take a wife, or perhaps hire a maid to tend to you at night?'
From this situation, they interpreted my 'illness' as a declaration that, while I wasn't truly sick, I hadn't yet decided which political faction to join.
As an exceptional talent like me was always welcome, they were signaling: if you ever want to make a connection, just say the word.
They'd provide not only money but also a virtuous wife and beautiful maids, expressing their desire for someone as capable as me to work for them.
Since I had unintentionally fallen 'officially ill' right before the ball and all the nobles' social gatherings—which I had essentially organized—I had no choice but to stay confined to my room while in the capital.
During that time, in this world without games or TV to stave off boredom, I delved into my memories, pulling out the original story's plotlines and knowledge that could be useful for the new territory I'd be assigned to and the upcoming war. I organized them one by one.
In the process, I successfully obtained the Crown Prince's promise to send me the mage Teresa Greenwood, whom I wanted to recruit, and he agreed readily.
Sergeant Schmidt, who had followed me since my days as student platoon leader, was promoted to officer and assigned as the battalion's chief warrant officer.
Additionally, around twenty men from Jaeger Company, who had earned their discharge through merits from the recent battle, chose to reenlist as non-commissioned officers and follow me.
It would have been ideal if some of the officers had come along too, but the other officers had already been reassigned to other fronts before my proposal, in exchange for accelerated promotions from lieutenant to captain.
It was regrettable not to bring the officers, but I was able to recruit these veterans from my first battlefield, the Rhineland Front, as NCOs.
Even with just this group, my battalion wouldn't lack non-commissioned officers. As for the new officers I'd meet, if I trained them properly, I could mold the battalion into an elite unit in short order.
Once all preparations were complete, I set off for the new territory with the soldiers from Jaeger Company who had volunteered to remain under my command.
With renewed resolve and high hopes, I arrived at Bruno Castle in the new territory, only to find its condition far more dismal than I'd imagined.
I knew that to prove my abilities, I'd need to perform the feat of reviving a territory that seemed beyond salvation.
No matter how much I'd led the Rhineland Front to victory...
The imperial family and other nobles wouldn't simply hand over prime land with something like, 'Oh, the hero who secured victory on the Rhineland Front? Here's the best territory from my holdings—take it.'
This was likely the best the Crown Prince could do: granting me a barren territory whose revival depended on the lord's capabilities.
"Administrator Brandt! No matter how I look at it, this is unacceptable. How did the previous lord mismanage things so badly that the territory is in this state? It's hard to believe people are even living here."
The villagers couldn't afford bread made from proper wheat flour; they subsisted on porridge mixed from wheat and bran. Even the children rose at dawn and toiled in the fields or begged until sunset just to survive in these dire conditions.
In such a horrific environment, when famine struck, villages sold pretty young girls to nobles as maids or to brothels to cut down on mouths to feed.
They barely scraped by the year on the meager grain received in return—a place devoid of any hope.
In a feudal society where military, administration, and justice all fell under the lord's purview, such a territory naturally had defenses in utter disarray as well...
The administrator, who had arrived around the same time as me, gave a wry smile as he stood before me.
"At least, being on the front lines means we receive military funding, so the fortress facilities are in place, and we have sufficient weaponry, right?"
His words made my insides boil with rage, but I couldn't bring myself to berate or strike my subordinate administrator.
He had only arrived a week before me, leaving him no time for anything beyond surveying the local situation and preparing a report for me.
Damn it—if he'd been here as administrator for one or two years and still said something like that, I would have beaten him while calling him out for talking nonsense.
Instead, I redirected my surging anger toward the previous lord, who had ruined the territory and was now rotting in an imperial prison, and tried to shift the mood.
"I was stunned to see not even a single mage company on the front lines. At least the bows, arrows, spears, swords, and castle are intact. If the military facilities were a mess too, I'd have tracked down that previous lord bastard and killed him on the spot."
I say it again and again, but this is no joke.
If I ever got the chance, I had every intention of personally executing the lord and sending him to the next world.
"I agree. Just twenty years ago, this front-line territory was so prosperous that serfs from neighboring lands would sneak over... How did it devolve into this nightmare?"
"That's why the bastard lost his noble title for botching a territory where you rarely see families of four or more in a generation. Ha... If he's sentenced to death, I'll volunteer as the executioner to clean up the shit he so splendidly left behind."
This was sincere.
It wasn't public knowledge yet, but having read the original novel, I knew.
Within a year at the earliest, or two at the latest, the Reich Empire would invade Checovia.
And the Crown Prince would use the territories near Bruno Castle, under my command, as key supply hubs.
Then, if I lived up to expectations in the Checovia invasion and racked up impressive achievements, he would elevate my status in recognition of both reviving a dying territory and my wartime exploits, granting me greater power.
At the same time, the Crown Prince would earn acclaim for his imperial virtue of placing the right talents in the right places and supporting them, outshining his rivals.
"From now on, let's think about ways to rebuild the territory."
"Yes, understood."
"From what I've heard, the food shortages here aren't due to the front-line location or lack of arable land, but the lord's ruthless exploitation. Were the soldiers involved in that too?"
"The records indicate that the soldiers under the lord participated to some extent. There are rumors that Major Pulse, who was stationed here, received massive bribes."
Typically, a corrupt lord in a territory this size would collude with either the military or the local elites to exploit the people.
You might wonder why not make everyone complicit to sustain the graft longer.
But there's only so much to go around. Even if soldiers, local elites, and the lord all fed from the trough, bellies wouldn't fill on the front lines in a barony-sized scrap of land.
Moreover, in places with little to plunder, the so-called local elites were hardly power players—just respected village heads or hunters with no real influence.
The lord must have known that and latched onto the centrally dispatched army...
Damn it, in a mess like this, I couldn't even pull off the 'new lord executes corrupt elites and reforms bad practices' show.
The military's image would be in the gutter too, so the soldiers wouldn't listen well to me, their new battalion commander.
In such cases, the best approach was to tame the elites with the gold I'd received and put them to use.
"This is the worst. How on earth are we supposed to..."
About thirty minutes into my silent pondering, a pretty decent alternative popped into my head.
"The people consider food as precious as the heavens. Meaning whoever fills their bellies is the greatest, no matter who they are. Handing out food for free won't work, but... we can come up with something using the local elites."
And with that, I immediately instructed the administrator Brandt before me.
"No time to waste—gather all the local elites at once. Skip the 'welcome the new lord' feast or celebrations. Just prepare plenty of stew with chicken in it."