To Destroy the Cluiston Family (2)
After the lords had all departed, only a handful of people remained in the command tent. Ristein spoke with a worried look in his eyes. “It is heartening that morale has risen, yet the problems we must solve remain unchanged. If we march on Harmel Castle, Your Grace will ultimately lose your territory.”
“I know. I am also well aware that the soldiers who follow me may lose the families they left behind in their hometowns.”
Haida and Evynee were serving drinks to those still present. I clinked glasses with Ristein, then turned to toast Madame Marte seated beside me.
“Your Grace made the right choice. In my view, there was no other way.”
“Thank you, my lady.”
Dana, claiming she felt unwell, had retired to her quarters with the maids. I continued exchanging opinions with those who remained. Princess Irene, though yawning, stubbornly clung to the seat beside me she had worked so hard to secure, while Olmati spat as he spoke without pause, eagerly reporting which lords had shown discontent or clapped less enthusiastically during the meeting.
Ristein’s questions continued. “What do you intend to do about the families of the retainers and soldiers left in Lanchester?”
“I plan to send a letter to Kelly at Sky Chamber instructing her to bring any residents who wish to relocate here as refugees.”
“So you are abandoning Lanchester entirely.”
I answered with a hardened expression. “With plunder and slaughter already planned for my territory, I believe this is the best course. However…” I added weakly, almost to myself, “perhaps I am a strange lord for thinking this way.”
The Cluiston family, driven into a corner, was attempting to use the Metis and Herrera families to escape their crisis. They were surely waiting for me to turn my army around. But their scheme was flawed. No—the plan itself was sound, yet they had simply chosen the wrong opponent. Would someone who had abandoned his homeland on Earth, where his parents still lived, truly find it difficult to forsake a territory he had only recently been granted? Letting go of Lanchester was remarkably easy. If I lost Lanchester, I could simply drive out the Cluiston family and seize Harmel instead. Though I could never admit it to my retainers and subordinates, the real reason I insisted on marching to Harmel Castle stemmed from a nomadic outlook shaped by experience: if you lose the place you live, you simply settle somewhere else.
It was an uncomfortable truth for the lords of Lanchester, but their lord—Hyun-woo Kang Richard—felt no attachment to Lanchester whatsoever. And above all else, the most important thing was in Harmel Castle: Sohee, which Unia possessed. I had to retrieve Sohee no matter what.
I cannot lose Sohee. She is more precious to me than an entire territory.
I gave Olmati his orders. “Send a pigeon to Rüzen in the rear. Tell him to cease guarding the supply route and return to the main force immediately. Once Rüzen joins us, we will mobilize the entire army to assault Harmel Castle. Let us surrender Lanchester and seize Harmel instead.”
The next day, as dawn broke and the world gradually brightened, the soldiers busied themselves dismantling the tents after their early breakfast. Of everyone who had risen, only Dana remained asleep, lost in a deep slumber.
“Dana?”
“Mmm… yes…?”
When I shook her awake, she rubbed her sleepy eyes and looked up at me from the bed. “Did I sleep a lot?”
I shook my head lightly before asking, “Are you feeling unwell anywhere?”
She had always slept deeply, yet during the campaign she had risen at the same hour every day without fail. But she had complained of feeling unwell since last night, and seeing her wake so late this morning made me oddly concerned.
“I don’t know. I’ve been feeling nauseous since last night.”
“Nauseous…?”
For a moment I furrowed my brow, frantically sifting through my meager medical knowledge to diagnose her. The only symptom that came to mind upon hearing “nauseous” was one possibility.
“Could it be…!”
A bright smile spread across my face before I even realized it. “W-wait here! I’ll go fetch Grace right away!”
“What is it? Is it a bad illness?”
“N-no! It’s a good thing! It might be a good thing, so just wait a moment!”
I rushed off and brought back the priestess Grace. After sending all the maids out of the quarters, Grace undressed Dana and carefully examined her belly. She pressed her ear to Dana’s lower abdomen for a long while before her eyes suddenly lit up.
“It is very faint, but I sense a new quality of mana. This is unmistakably the sign of pregnancy.”
“Pregnancy? Then… she is with child?”
“Yes. Congratulations, Your Grace.”
“Oh, how can this be…!”
I gazed at Dana with joyful eyes. Lying in bed, she shyly smiled while lightly covering her face with the blanket. The sight was unbearably lovely and beautiful. I was tearfully grateful that she was carrying my child.
“Dana!”
Unable to contain my surging emotions, I embraced her tightly in front of Grace and showered her lips with deep kisses. “I hope our baby is a boy.”
“I don’t care whether it is a son or a daughter. I will love our child dearly even if it is a girl. More than anything, I want Dana to stay healthy and give birth safely.”
“No. I will definitely bear a son who will become the heir to the family.”
“You adorable stubborn girl.”
I lightly pinched her cheek and laughed brightly. Dana was a great source of strength to me. Because she was here, I did not fear our current desperate situation.
I will lead this war to victory and protect both Dana and the child in her womb.
Richard’s army advanced with terrifying momentum. They encountered enemies lying in ambush within the forests along the way, but because the commander leading the troops was a former trapper, these proved no great obstacle. All the hidden traps were discovered in advance, and the concealed ambushers had their heads severed before they could even lift a finger. Even as the Metis and Herrera families stirred up trouble in the rear, the fierce advance of Richard’s forces—who seemed to know only the Cluiston family—startled Eidan and his retainers. Realizing their scheme had failed, they were seized by fear.
“Lord Eidan, Richard’s army is currently crossing the Tadilac Plains. They will appear before us in three hours.”
The retainers wore grim expressions. “Because Lord Eidan’s wisdom failed to buy us time, the soldiers inside the castle number fewer than two hundred. The moment the castle is surrounded, we will have to fight with fewer than two hundred men against more than four hundred.”
“What on earth is he thinking…?” Eidan muttered, lost in deep thought. He could not fathom Lord Richard’s intentions.
“In any reasonable world, what lord would refuse to rescue his territory when it is in crisis? Isn’t that right, everyone?”
The retainers all shook their heads in unison.
“Lord Richard must be a warmonger.”
“They say he was a mercenary, so he probably only knows how to brawl.”
“Perhaps the words ‘people’ and ‘rule’ simply do not exist in his head.”
“Schemes don’t work on an uneducated mercenary, it seems.”
“His brain must be made of bricks.”
They were all busy slandering Lord Richard as if venting their frustrations. Amid the clamor, one remark caught Eidan’s ear.
“He is simply different from us at the root. Since he was not born a noble, his way of thinking is different.”
The word “root” made Eidan’s eyes flash. “That’s it!”
He struck the table. “So that was it!”
“Have you thought of something?”
“I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“I was shortsighted. I have been misjudging Lord Richard all this time. That was my greatest error.”
Eidan sighed and wiped his face. “I was under the grand delusion that he was the same sort of person as us. Lord Richard is someone with no attachment to Lanchester. He is a foreigner born on another continent. Unlike us, he did not inherit his territory from generations of ancestors, so he has no legacy to preserve or ancestral spirits to honor. Nor does he have family, relatives, or acquaintances spread across the land of Lanchester. There is nothing he must protect. If he takes something, that place becomes his home. From the very beginning, he was a man who thought completely differently from us.”
“That is no different from what savages would do.”
“Then the fact that he is coming here is proof that he has abandoned Lanchester?”
Eidan nodded with an unbearably heavy expression. “Lord Richard intends to seize our Harmel no matter what. He will launch an all-out assault, staking everything he has.”
“In the end, we are the only ones who will suffer while the territories of the Metis and Herrera families simply grow larger.”
“If the lords had gathered even a little sooner, we might have stood a chance. Damn it all!”
One retainer exploded in frustration. “We need to think of another way. There must be something…”
After sending his retainers away, Eidan fell into deep contemplation. Suddenly, Unia’s face came to mind.
“Has Lady Unia returned safely to Lord Richard? If only we could negotiate a peace treaty through her…”