This Is the Ultimate Weapon of War

I hate romance fantasies.

From a distance they look like comedies. Up close, they're tragedies.

At a glance it seems as though the heroine is adored by a host of men, finds the truest love among them, and sails into a beautiful happy ending. Living it, I learned that in reality the arrangement creates a catastrophic number of problems.

The proof was the world of the romance fantasy novel into which I had been reincarnated.

What a load of bullshit.

I snorted at the letter from the imperial court.

This was tragedy, plain and simple.

Idiots who tore the pillars out from under their own territories to offer tribute just so they could claim one woman—and the fish-keeping bitch of a heroine who knew exactly what they wanted, pocketed every gift, never gave a firm answer, and left just enough hope dangling so she could keep stringing them along.

It was a detail the romance fantasy glossed over. Living it, I saw she was basically the same breed of woman as Daji, who ruined the Shang dynasty—only slightly less extreme.

Worse still, while the empire reeled from top to bottom because of Eleanor, the emperor and crown prince—who should have been restoring order and holding the center—were exactly the same.

At this rate the empire would collapse slowly, but with absolute certainty. It might not even be slow.

Whether they understood that or not, Father and Mother insisted they could not afford to lose. Convinced that squeezing the barren West like a dried squid would yield something, they went around harassing the demi-humans.

Screaming at people already treated worse than garbage and living under racial discrimination to hand over gems for a woman—what came back was rebellion.

Father and Mother died in the riot raised by demi-humans whose resentment had finally boiled over. At fourteen I found myself, quite unintentionally, succeeding them.

Of course I was sad. But looking at how they had treated the demi-humans, my parents were objectively deeply flawed people. I felt no urge to hate or resent the demi-humans for what had happened.

The truly ridiculous part was that even after the Western Archduke and his wife were killed, the empire made no effort to clean up the mess. They simply hounded me about when the gems for Eleanor would arrive. So I sent a long letter to the center.

I wrote at considerable length, but the point was simple.

These simps had gone mad tearing the pillars out of the nation just to lay them at the feet of a fish-keeping bitch.

The reply to that letter was the stripping of the Western Archduke title, the cessation of all support, the withdrawal of every personnel except me, and their reassignment elsewhere.

The people who were reassigned had the same racial prejudice baked into them as my parents, so that part did not particularly matter. What did matter was leaving a fourteen-year-old alone out here, stripping the archducal title, and hanging the empty shell of a rank—"Supreme Administrator of the Western Barbarians"—around my neck. It meant: go die quietly in the wasteland.

"These sons of bitches know the country's headed for ruin, yet they're so drunk on a woman they won't even listen—and they exile a man to the backwoods? They're telling me to drop dead out here, aren't they? Just wait. I'll claw my way through and make them pay for every second of it!"

When a ship is sinking, there are two things you can do.

1. If it is still salvageable and the captain has lost his mind, remove the captain and take the wheel yourself.

2. If it is going down past the point of recovery, abandon ship and get into a lifeboat at once.

As I saw it, the empire still had room to spare.

Even a rich man takes three years to go broke. This nation's power was overwhelming; resources and manpower overflowed. A year or two of thrashing about would not sink it.

But if the emperor, the crown prince, and the archdukes all kept losing their minds over a woman, the graph of national collapse would stop being a straight line and become an exponential curve.

Those people had colluded to isolate the West completely. Now I had to survive alone.

I had no intention of dying quietly. One way or another, I would survive in spectacular fashion—and I would have my revenge.

With that resolve, I began trying to speak with the demi-humans of the West.

"I am Isaac, only son of the former Archduke of the West! I sincerely apologize for the wrongs my parents committed! I do not regard you as savages. I regard you as legitimate citizens of the empire who have been denied your rights by racial bigots! Let us talk! Anyone—come forward and hear my sincerity! Understand my true desire to make the West so prosperous that those filthy imperial discriminators will not even dare look our way!"

At first not a single demi-human gave my words so much as a second of attention. They only sneered.

But I walked the entire West myself, requesting dialogue, abolishing every rotten policy that had accumulated, and genuinely treating them as equal citizens. Slowly, change appeared.

The extremely uncooperative, contrary demi-humans began, while still grumbling, to do as they were told. More time passed and they stopped voicing complaints at all. Still later, they began asking of their own accord whether help was needed.

As the sole remaining human in the West, I received their absolute support and smoothly enacted every policy I judged necessary.

Seven years of that work, backed by the demi-humans' support.

In those seven years I learned something important: the West had never actually been barren.

It was a treasure land hiding resources of unimaginable value.

It had only been known as barren because the demi-humans, who hated the empire, worked half-heartedly, concealed every truly important piece of information, and made sure that every imperial attempt at development drew nothing but dry wells.

They deliberately chose the worst scrap of land and pretended to develop it just to screw the empire over. Of course nothing ever came of it.

Once the demi-humans began supporting me in earnest, they unlocked their racial secrets and helped turn the so-called wasteland into a land flowing with milk and honey.

"The dwarves have discovered a vein containing a massive deposit of adamantium, Lord Isaac."

"Excellent. Send that district's dwarf village a shipment of high-quality southern black beer as a reward and tell them to hold a festival."

In the old days they would have sealed the entrance and kept quiet among themselves. Now they reported the find for my sake, and rewarding them in kind had become the natural law of the West.

Dwarves, elves, orcs, and beastfolk poured out every piece of golden information they possessed. The West that had once been called barren now held more resources than the rest of the empire combined.

With the money from selling those resources I developed the western lands on a massive scale and succeeded in linking countless railway lines that ran through to the North, the South, and the center of the empire.

The age when anyone could even joke that the West was barren was over. And once the West grew rich, every leech in existence came crawling to suck its blood.

The first leeches to attach themselves were, of course, the empire's worthless nobles—the same people who had completely abandoned the West, practiced open discrimination against demi-humans, and never invested a single coin.

"So you mean to say that all that adamantium, mithril, mandrake and the rest produced in the West will be put up for open bidding exactly as if they were foreign goods? Against fellow subjects of the empire? The savages produce filthy things, yet we are willing to buy them within the homeland—and instead of gratitude for your motherland's generosity—"

"That's enough."

I raised a hand, cutting off Leon, Archduke Harth of the South's closest aide, and fixed him with a steady look.

"Lord Leon. I am warning you here and now: choose your words with care from this moment on. 'Savages'? That kind of uneducated expression belongs in the First Era… They are simply of a different race. They are residents of the West with clear ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rights. Use that slur against our people one more time and I will not let it pass. Remember that."

"What… Haa. Fine. Understood. Very well. Those 'demi-human' goods are things people shy away from the moment they learn of their origin. Even if… they happen to be somewhat rare. Goods that have passed through demi-human hands are lucky to fetch thirty percent of market price. We are offering to buy such things at half price, and this is how you respond?"

Buy them? My ass.

They knew perfectly well that whether demi-human hands had touched the goods or not, the goods themselves were unchanged.

The moment they heard rare minerals and herbs were pouring out of the West, they wanted the profits—but they did not want to pay full price, so they tried to knock it down by half. Did they take me for an idiot?

"I told you to choose your words carefully. Are you 'doing us a favor by buying,' or are you 'purchasing because you need them'? Does the quality drop simply because demi-humans mined it? The motherland's generosity? Has the empire ever treated the West as part of the same country? The demi-humans of the West are confined here and forbidden even to enter the rest of the empire. Is that the same country?"

"Are you criticizing imperial policy?"

"Wrong things deserve criticism—just as I am criticizing the nonsense of claiming you are 'doing us a favor by buying.' The South is not 'pity-buying unnecessary goods.' You are purchasing because you need them, are you not? Then follow market logic. Nations lining up to buy western goods already stretch out the door, and countries willing to pay premiums are underfoot. If you need them, compete fairly in the bidding like everyone else. Be grateful we are not charging above market rate."

Leon slammed the desk and shot to his feet.

"There is no talking to you. A little money in an abandoned backwater and you think you are some kind of king? If the West continues like this, the South will not sit idle!"

"Did ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I say I was harming the South? I only said that if the South needs something, it should enter the open bidding like anyone else and purchase fairly. Exactly which part of that fails to make sense?"

"I have heard the West's position. I will convey it to His Grace. Whatever happens from now on, understand clearly that the responsibility will lie with the West."

Leon left after venting his temper.

A short while later the door to my office opened again and a pretty elf woman entered.

My secretary, Lumina.

The reason I insisted on an elf secretary was simple: orcs and dwarves had hands too large and rough for paperwork and note-taking, and the beastfolk kept knocking documents over with shed fur or the habitual flick of a tail.

Lumina, dressed in a clean, elegant modern suit, glanced briefly in the direction Leon had gone and asked,

"Lord Isaac, what did the South say?"

"What do you think? A mosquito latches onto a person for only one reason. According to them, they would specially buy the goods that had passed through 'savage' hands at half price, so just hand them over."

At the word "savage," Lumina's expression turned openly disgusted.

"They still use language that belongs in the First Era…"

In this world, the First Era was regarded as a primitive age in the distant past—an age without magic or aura, when people simply fought sword against sword and relied on sheer numbers.

Saying something was "First Era behavior" meant it was the kind of outdated, uneducated nonsense only a complete rube would still do.

"And the Second Era is so different? As far as I can see, the only real difference between the First Era and the current Second Era is magic and aura. Everywhere except the West, people still open their mouths and out come 'savages, savages'… Tch."

"But you are different, Lord Isaac. We are more than satisfied simply to have someone like you as the West's supreme administrator."

"I'm glad you're my secretary too, Lumina."

Lumina, inspired by me, had come of her own free will five years ago saying she wanted to work for my sake. Thanks to her sharp mind and considerable talent, my workload had become far more manageable. The only real flaw was that she nagged a little too much.

"The South is promising retaliation. For now we have no choice but to wait and see what form that retaliation takes. They have to draw their sword first if we are to have any justification for acting ourselves."

What the South's retaliation looked like became clear about two weeks later.

"Lord Isaac. The South has once again deployed knights on the pretext that railway tolls were not paid. They beat Western residents, arrested them, and detained them. They also seized every scrap of cargo from the trains, claiming confiscation. This is already the fifth time."

I frowned at Lumina's report.

The West had no ports and no large ships. To send goods to other countries, every shipment had to travel by rail through the South. And the South had simply blocked the way.

Refuse the tolls and the entire flow of Western goods would be cut off.

"Inside the empire, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠any region other than the center arbitrarily imposing additional railway tolls is clearly illegal. Yet they slapped absurd tolls on every train leaving the West, and now their so-called knights are openly playing bandit."

"Shall I send a letter of protest?"

"How many letters of protest have we already sent? These people never send a single reply. There are no more protest letters to write. We still have to sell the goods, so from now on pay the tolls."

"We're going to bow to the South?"

For an instant, despair flickered across Lumina's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠face.

I immediately shook my head.

"Not a chance. Kneeling right now is only so we can build momentum. Lumina. Take this blueprint. You and I are going to visit the dwarves."

Lumina accepted the blueprint, studied it for a moment, and asked,

"Isn't this a train? But this enormous long thing mounted on top of it… what is this?"

"Ah, you don't know. That is the object that will announce the beginning of the Third Era. Its name is…"

"…?"

Lumina tilted her head.

I told her the magnificent name of the thing.

"Gustav."