Prosnaq's Eastern Advance (5)
“A warning? A warning?!”
It seemed her pride as Empress had taken a direct hit. Artraia rose from her seat without the slightest regard for the way her enormous chest heaved, and unleashed her fury.
“How dare they—not content with insulting the last survivor of a race, they openly judge our Empire as inferior to themselves?!”
“…”
So it wasn’t merely her dignity as Empress that was wounded; she was genuinely worried about the Empire’s prestige. How a woman of such fine character could have emerged from under that garbage of a Predecessor Emperor remained one of life’s great mysteries.
But if I simply let her continue like this, she might well reverse the decision to stay out of the war that I had worked so hard to secure.
“I’ll declare war on Prosnaq this instant!”
No— I only thought it, and she’s actually about to do it.
Faced with Artraia turning imagination into reality, I hurriedly moved to stop our Empress’s rampage.
“Artraia, how about calming down a little first?”
“…Nnnngh!!”
Fortunately she accepted my words. With a sound that suited her cute face far better than her violent figure, she flopped back onto her sofa.
“Face reality. We’ve already paid Prosnaq a heavy price.”
“I know that, but…”
Even so, she made no effort to hide the way her insides were still boiling. I sighed inwardly.
Is this what youth looks like…?
The words of a certain blond man in sunglasses floated unbidden through my mind as I pulled up the confidential intelligence I had extracted from my network inside Prosnaq and showed it to her.
“And more importantly… with our fleet’s technology, we simply cannot fight Prosnaq’s fleets.”
Countless classified files appeared via the terminal’s hologram—especially fragmentary data on the latest weapons and technologies installed on Prosnaq vessels. Even if Artraia was no military expert, the material was enough to give her a clear, if simplified, picture.
“Where did you even get all this?”
“You know how it is. A whole lot of friends scattered across the galaxy managed to pull it out one way or another.”
“…Huuuuuh.”
Confronted with the cold truth, Artraia could only let out a long sigh that seemed to rise from the depths of her lungs. She maintained that silence even after Riel returned from escorting Gaia and poured fresh tea.
“Om-nyom-nyom.”
“Om-nyom-nyom-nyom.”
“…Huuuh.”
Only after the two of us—Dumb and Dumber—had started on the tea and snacks did she finally break the long silence and speak.
“According to the League’s official technological rankings, our tech level and Prosnaq’s should be equal.”
Guessing she had been stewing over that very point, I finished the snack in my mouth and answered.
“Well, of course. Those rankings only look at raw numbers.”
“…Huh?”
“You seem to have forgotten—unlike us, Prosnaq’s technological development has been concentrated purely on combat, weapons, and the military-industrial complex.”
As I spoke I manipulated the terminal, displaying a simple chart of our own technological progress.
“As you can see, we’ve grown broadly across every field—weapons, yes, but also social infrastructure, food production, and so on…”
A gesture flipped the display to Prosnaq’s technological profile.
“…Overwhelming.”
“Exactly. Prosnaq has been sharpening its blade for this war for over a decade.”
Prosnaq lagged behind us in other fields, yet in military technology—especially warships—they were more than twice as advanced. The fact was laid out with merciless clarity.
Perhaps that undeniable reality had battered her.
“Urgh.”
Artraia pressed her fingers to her temples as if they were throbbing, clearly struggling to keep her temper in check.
But then—
“Whether it’s the Kerzin or Prosnaq, every last one of them dares to treat our Empire like some inferior—”
Uh-oh.
With one insult to the Empire following another, Artraia’s patience seemed to have reached its limit. That kind of blackening, however, was the absolute worst possible move.
Has she been dealing with a lot of irritating things lately?
Apparently the stress relief of meeting Gaia hadn’t been enough. Still, had there really been that many trials of an Empress’s patience?
Come to think of it… yeah, there have.
When I actually stopped to count, the disasters that had piled up in the last year—no, not even half a year—were staggering.
Rare resources nearly exhausted because of the Predecessor Emperor, a rebellion nearly sparked because of the Predecessor Emperor, an entire year’s budget nearly blown because of the Predecessor Emperor…
Every single one of them seemed to share the same root cause—and now we had a war on top of it. Catastrophes that normally happened once a year at most had all detonated within six months.
Yeah… fair enough.
I almost felt proud of Artraia for having held out this long.
“That damned piece of trash… that trash, the Kerzin, Prosnaq…”
Of course, admiration didn’t mean I could leave an Empress who was blackening and ready to thrash both sides to her own devices.
“Artraia.”
“Ngggggggh…”
“Artraia.”
“Nnnngh… what—mmph?!”
I called out to the Empress who was grinding her teeth, and the moment she answered I stuffed a snack straight into her mouth, cutting off the Emperor’s descent into madness.
“Calm down. Doing that won’t solve anything.”
—…munch munch.
Forcing something large into her small mouth had transformed the usually dignified Artraia into something resembling a hamster with its cheeks stuffed full of food. Watching her struggle to chew the oversized snack was…
“Mmph…”
By my standards, it was an extremely funny face. I had to fight with everything I had to keep the laughter from bursting out.
After a short while, Artraia’s rage had subsided somewhat.
“…Still, being angry is being angry.”
“Of course it is.”
Since her fury hadn’t completely vanished, I added one more line.
“So just wait a little longer.”
“Wait? For what?”
“This war won’t last that long.”
“…Hmm?”
“This is only my personal assessment, but… I think Prosnaq has a high chance of winning this war.”
At my words Artraia looked relatively unimpressed, yet curiosity still colored her expression.
“Which means you have logic and evidence to back that opinion, right?”
“Uh… well, yeah?”
The moment she heard my answer, a bright smile bloomed across her face.
“Perfect. Then next time, you can be the one to answer, Arto.”
“…What?”
“Good luck.”
“What?”
Unfortunately, it didn’t take me long to understand what she had meant.
“The Minister of the Executive Ministry’s actions were nothing short of an abuse of authority!”
“Above all, his pro-Prosnaq behavior! Calling him a traitor to the nation would not be an exaggeration!”
So that’s what this was.
As if to prove that Artraia was no ordinary Empress… even the high ministers and those who opposed the decision couldn’t bring themselves to attack the Empress’s opinion directly. Instead they poured every ounce of their energy into attacking me—the one who had supposedly led her to that decision.
Of course I pushed back with my own logic and evidence, defending myself as best I could…
“Even so, calling the Minister of the Executive Ministry a traitor is going too far, isn’t it?”
“Well said. The very reason the abuse of authority occurred was because the parties involved had already betrayed or corrupted the Empire.”
…and plenty of people stepped up to shield me, proving that everything I had done until now hadn’t been for nothing.
“Silence, you pro-Prosnaq bastards!”
“Pro-Prosnaq? Your own faction caused the problem in the first place!”
“Did you just finish talking?!”
“I did!”
On days when it wasn’t a formal imperial audience but an ordinary council meeting, the chamber would erupt into the kind of free-for-all brawl you’d expect to see only in a democratic nation.
“…Who do you think will win this time?”
“That Goroti-born councilor who just received a noble title looks pretty strong. I’ll put a vote on him.”
“I’m betting on the councilor from Zeltec.”
Or perhaps it was simply high nobles treating the whole thing like a colosseum spectacle, with the lower nobles playing along.
Yet even while all of this was happening, time continued to flow—and flow. The war reports pouring in through the Galactic League and my intelligence network grew clearer with every passing day, crystallizing into a single undeniable fact.
Just as I had said: Prosnaq was, against all odds, dragging a 1-to-3 disadvantage toward victory.