The White King Karl
I decided to leave the Imperial Palace before she could say anything more useless.
"Leaving already?"
"Yes. The Emperor's woman will now take her leave of the palace."
She'd called me her woman, so I threw it back at her with a little mockery.
"Honestly. Holding a grudge doesn't suit you. Ah, and you ought to prepare for that thing in the autumn as well."
"That thing in the autumn?"
What was she talking about?
"The Empire's Founding Festival. Well, they call it a Founding Festival, but it's still just the chieftains of those barbarian tribes descended from the nomads coming in to foster goodwill."
Ah. So the Empire's Founding Festival was already that close.
I only hoped a war wouldn't break out before then.
Frankly speaking, I didn't think that White King character would finish annexing everything and raise an army that quickly—but still.
"You mean I'm to be one of the representatives?"
At my question she grinned, then carefully opened her mouth.
"Well, you are my teacher, after all."
I wanted to desert on the spot. Seriously. Maybe later I'd grab her and launder my identity.
After the audience with the Emperor came Revia.
Revia. A name that stirred old memories.
"Ah. Hello. I am Revia, First Princess of the Eltia Kingdom."
Yes. I knew all about her, too.
"Revia. Hmm. Aren't you the war hero of your kingdom?"
"Ahaha. A war hero? Hardly."
Still, at that level, she absolutely was a war hero.
"Hmm. You say you want to get close to me?"
"Yes. To put it bluntly, that is correct."
"More precisely, you're looking for support, aren't you?"
The kingdom's succession would be decided soon enough.
That was why both the princess and the prince had come—to use the expansion of their territory all the way into the Demon Realm as a pretext for celebration, and to get in the Emperor's good graces while they were at it.
In the end, how they handled diplomacy with the Empire would decide the throne back home as well.
"Well. It's not that we have no such intentions at all, but as things stand, the next succession has already been decided in my favor."
"Of course. Between a princess who toured the entire country fighting on the front lines and a prince who just flips through books at home, which way popular sentiment will lean is as plain as day."
If you wrote the princess's story as a novel right now, calling it a happy ending already wouldn't be an overstatement.
The throne was all but locked down. What remained was polishing the people around her. Wanting good relations with the Empire's Ashtar family, the princess had come looking for me.
So this was how I ended up meeting this woman again, too.
Looking at her like this, the whole thing felt strangely moving all over again.
"Yes. The nobility have all already flocked to my side."
"What did His Majesty say? You had your audience before I did, didn't you?"
"Ah. Yes. He said he was sorry for putting an allied nation's envoy in such danger this time, and that he would consult with the Diet soon and compensate us fully."
The princess had been granted an audience with the Emperor before anyone else.
Naturally enough—she had originally come as an envoy, so an audience with the Emperor was only proper.
Still, with that Emperor, I'd half expected her to pull some bizarre stunt on the princess. Apparently not.
"If that was all you discussed with the Emperor, then you've effectively stamped your face into the Empire's memory. You shouldn't have any real problems."
"Yes."
So there was no issue, then? Even without real power, the Emperor's symbolic weight mattered. Fifteen hundred years of bloodline—and if you went further back, you could even connect it to the empress's house of the old Kart Kingdom. Getting her face known over there was better than getting it known with me.
As for me, I was bound to the Empire—just someone who jumped when the Emperor said jump.
"Well, you said you wanted to be close. But I'm the Saint. If you want to get close to Ashtar, you should be looking for my brother Lockton, or the Duke."
Coming to me felt a little off.
Strictly speaking, I didn't have that much power.
I had no intention of getting involved in politics.
I brought the cup of tea the princess had poured to my lips.
"Are you not one of the Empire's real power brokers?"
The tea I'd been drinking came dribbling straight back out of my mouth.
Fuck. What kind of bullshit was that?
"Where on earth did you hear that?"
"His Majesty himself bestowed a legendary office upon you. Taesa and Saint. You even led a war—and rumor has it you possess enough power and authority to half-kill a prince, his fiancée, and their retainers."
My teeth ground together.
The Emperor had probably given her a little tip about me. Unbelievable. That woman was truly incorrigible. In my next life, I sincerely hoped I would have no connection to the Empire at all.
"Fuck my life."
"Pardon?"
How was I supposed to not swear?
"It's nothing. I beat them because they deserved a beating. Anyway, I support Your Highness as well. From my position, a kingdom with the princess on the throne is far better than one with a prince who complains about the Empire."
From what I'd heard, the prince harbored grievances against the Empire.
If he had any conscience, he wouldn't declare war on the Empire even if he became king—no, without the Empire's help he wouldn't have the military for it anyway—but the problem was that if that bastard took the throne, anti-imperialists could nest there and dig in.
To prevent that alone, the princess becoming queen was the right call.
"I don't think this is something we can simply let pass."
"What is?"
What was the problem?
"The truth is, when the capital fell into chaos that day, I told my younger brother to go to Ashtar and request reinforcements. Just in case."
"Even if the Imperial Princess hadn't come, the capital wouldn't have been completely wrecked by the rebels anyway."
The Ashtar family kept a standing force near the capital, after all.
"That isn't the problem. My brother never even went to the Duke. He stopped halfway on the excuse that the carriage had broken down."
"You're saying that was deliberate?"
It certainly looked deliberate.
"Yes. Had the Imperial Princess not arrived, the damage would have been far greater."
"I understand. I'll speak to the Duke about this myself."
Once he heard, the Duke would throw his full support behind the princess.
That a house as loyal to the Empire as Ashtar hadn't known about this was a serious matter. Strictly speaking, the prince had no formal obligation to report it—but from an emotional standpoint, Ashtar would never look kindly on him after this.
Over a single private grudge against the Empire, he'd just sabotaged an already unfavorable succession race.
That idiot bastard.
The southern continent.
Waaaaaaaaah!
The thunderous roar of an army bearing red banners rolled across the vast plain.
At last, the white-clad host led by King Karl of the Atlan Kingdom had shattered the coalition of the southern petty states and brought them beneath his feet.
"Congratulations, Your Majesty. With this, you have secured undisputed dominion over the southern continent. Now this nation could stand against Pastia at the least—no, even against the Eltia Kingdom, which has fought the Demon King himself—and still win."
At his strategist's congratulations, a smile of victory spread across the White King's lips.
The southern petty-state coalition had declared its intent to surrender, which meant that, for all practical purposes, the coalition too had come under Atlan's heel. They had gained the sea as well. What more needed to be said?
"We're far from finished. We will gather still more of these small states beneath Atlan's banner and forge them into a single nation—a great one."
Until recently Atlan had been a weak minor kingdom, but everything had changed since he took the throne.
The interior had been sufficiently consolidated. Had they lost their wars of conquest it would have been another matter, but continuous victory and territorial expansion had greatly built up their national power.
Before long, they would become a nation mighty enough for even the Empire—the continental hegemon—to take notice.
"As is only proper, Your Majesty."
"And someday, I wish to surpass the Empire itself. Not long ago, they even entered the Demon Realm and carved out a domain there, did they not?"
For any conquering monarch, there was a dream one longed to achieve at least once: the conquest of the Empire.
Defeating the Empire and becoming the master of the continent. Any ruler worthy of being called a great sovereign had, at least once, dreamed such a dream.
Now he wanted to set his sights there as well.
"Yet for all its vast power, it is a nation run by corrupt nobles and an incompetent imperial house. Is it any wonder anti-imperialists have arisen?"
How could he not know that?
"Which is why, someday, I will surpass the Empire and gather into my embrace all the people who suffer under it."
For that reason, he absolutely had to enter the Empire and draw them all into his arms.
He would purge the corrupt nobles, cast out the incompetent imperial house, and found a new unified state—the Atlan Empire—himself.
As he thought this, he surveyed his victorious soldiers—and a man in a black robe caught his eye.
The man approached at just that moment.
"And what if that day were to come sooner?"
"Hmm? And you are? Judging by your attire, a mage."
Someone he'd never seen before. Who was this?
"I come from the Eastern Merchants' Alliance. I have a proposal of some urgency for Your Majesty."
"The Merchants' Alliance, is it. Very well. Let's hear it."
"Your Majesty. Is this wise?"
"If it's the Merchants' Alliance, it's fine. There's a saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is there not?"
The Merchants' Alliance had long suffered economic losses at the Empire's hands.
In that case, a conversation was worth having.
Karl ushered the mage from the Merchants' Alliance into his tent.
"We have a mage organization we have cultivated over the years. We will place them at your disposal."
"A mage organization?"
Mages were among the more difficult professions to train.
The Magic Towers within the Empire raised professional mages, but elsewhere formal education was hard to come by.
If one learned at all, it was by taking a mage as a master, being born into a mage family—or teaching oneself.
It wasn't that the Atlan Kingdom's army had no mages, but they were only a handful of adventurers hired as mercenaries.
To think the Merchants' Alliance had managed such a thing. How much money had they poured into it?
"Yes. However, they are not particularly skilled in combat."
"Then what are they? Do you mean mages who cannot cast battle magic?"
Then what was the point? They might as well not exist.
What was the meaning of a mage who couldn't use magic?
"Instead, they are mages for war."
"Mages for war?"
"Yes. They can cast magic that amplifies a person's strength."
Magic that amplified a person's strength?
"Amplifying a person's strength… Isn't there already a drug for that?"
He'd heard that drug was bad for the body. And magic could do the same?
"You must not equate drugs with magic."
"Strengthening power, you say. By how much?"
Depending on that standard of enhancement, the course of a war could change.
"Think of it as threefold. Three times the strength of an adult man."
"Threefold? Then—"
If that were so, conquest would become far easier.
They might even be able to achieve total subjugation without spilling much blood.
Above all, the combat power of the kingdom's infantry-centered army would improve dramatically.
It would be almost like fielding cavalry, wouldn't it?
"Yes. Each and every soldier of Atlan's infantry-centered army will possess fighting power no less than a cavalryman's."
"That would make them strong—but are there side effects?"
Getting stronger was meaningless if there were side effects.
Usually, abilities like that came with a price, didn't they?
"You will know that Battle Mages reinforce their bodies. It is the same principle. Only we would bestow it upon Your Majesty's army."
He had heard of that.
Among mages, there were those who fought using physical reinforcement and the attributes of mana. They were said to clash bare-handed even with the warriors of the North or the Holy Knights of the Church.
In other words, they could arm the Atlan Kingdom's army with something like that?
"It sounds wonderful when you put it that way. But few among our soldiers can handle mana. And you claim this is still possible?"
He was far too ignorant when it came to mages.
But if what this man from the Merchants' Alliance said was true, it would also help in an assault on the Empire.
"Yes. They may not be able to wield mana, but that does not mean there is no mana in their bodies."
"This conversation is going to take a while."
It seemed the discussion was going to run rather long.