The Lunarien Army Reveals Itself to the Continent Once More (2)
If she added just one more presence into the equation, everything Lunarien was doing suddenly made perfect sense.
Not Tifa, not Cain, not any of the other officers who followed her… but if some other figure clung to her side like a ghost, then hatching a scheme this thoroughly sinister would hardly be surprising.
I underestimated her.
From the start, the plan to use Mets to goad her—and eliminate her if that failed—had been built on the assumption that Lunarien was fundamentally the same kind of person as Karelia.
Karelia, even while being wronged, would cling to good faith until the bitter end. Vanessa had expected Luna to behave the same way, and so she had believed that even if Mets ultimately betrayed them, Luna would still stubbornly shoulder her duties to the end.
Having thought that far, Vanessa closed her eyes and emptied her mind completely.
None of that matters right now.
Whatever kind of person Luna was, and whoever stood at her side—in a situation that had already come to this, such questions were irrelevant.
What mattered was that she had seized Teppelo Castle, an extremely useful piece of land.
And that every last scrap of war materiel the Karelia army had stockpiled over so long a time had been stolen from them.
The situation had grown extremely unfavorable, yet a fundamental difference in scale still remained.
In the end, the enemy had taken only a single territory. The Ohana army was a lingering concern, but the Roland and Hesna forces to the north would be too busy checking one another and clashing with the central continent to pay this front any real attention.
As expected, the only option here is additional conscription—and a swift response.
Because she had applied military law so strictly and fretted over the people's morale, she had never forced her own opinion through—and the young male population still available for conscription now felt like a wellspring of life itself.
As for resources, if the worst came to pass…
We may have to seize them by force.
Until now, the Karelia army had always purchased its military provisions with tax revenue.
No—not only the Karelia army. Most nations procured supplies that way.
Of course they could plunder their own territories, but once the people's goodwill was shattered that way, they would not be building a unified nation—they would be scrambling to put down internal rebellions.
Even so, that was still better than the nation collapsing because there was no grain left to feed the soldiers.
Once the situation settles and Lady Karelia takes the throne, popular sentiment will naturally stabilize again. It's only one territory… just one territory.
Having ordered her thoughts that far, Vanessa turned to her lord—who still knelt on the floor—and spoke in a grave tone.
"My lord. We may have to take a longer road. We may have to bend our principles. Will that be acceptable?"
"Bend our principles? What do you mean by that…?"
"I will proceed with additional conscription. Fortunately, we still have thirty thousand troops remaining after setting aside the minimum needed to hold the castle—but in the worst case, we cannot rule out the possibility that the Lunarien army will strike a temporary ceasefire with the Ohana forces and send some ninety thousand men our way all at once. To prepare for that, we must field a far more overwhelming force."
"……"
Even that figure of thirty thousand was a force Vanessa had barely managed to hold back by insisting that "at least thirty thousand should be kept in reserve."
With things as they were, even Karelia could no longer refute her words.
"And… at the same time as we conscript troops, I believe a decision must be made in order to replenish our war supplies."
"A decision…?"
"Yes."
Karelia stared blankly into Vanessa's eyes—then the blood drained from her face as she spoke the word aloud.
"Surely… you aren't suggesting we plunder our own people?"
"……"
Vanessa said nothing, but silence was as good as confirmation.
It was the most realistic—and the only—way to fill their war stores.
And the moment she heard Karelia's words, Vanessa already knew what would come next. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Then she remembered why she had chosen to follow Karelia in the first place.
In Vanessa's eyes, Karelia was a being far too radiant to survive this age of chaos.
She genuinely cared for her people. She never did what was wrong, even when no one was watching. Not once had a lie ever left her lips.
She treasured every single soldier and every single commoner as equals, and she was a warm soul who could truly empathize with the pain of the weak.
Vanessa herself had fallen for that character—had wanted to live in a world where this woman became the unifying sovereign—and had devoted everything to that single end.
But.
"That… is out of the question."
The very upright nature she had fallen for—
"No matter what happens, I will not arbitrarily seize the property of my people. Conscription may be unavoidable… but plunder—even if a blade is at my throat—I will never do it!"
—was already beginning to drag the Karelia army straight into the abyss.
Karelia merely stationed what troops she could gather along the border—she made no move to strike first.
More precisely, she could not move first.
With most of the grain and supplies that had been available for a campaign now in Luna's hands, freely deploying a large army was simply too great a burden.
Her plan to make use of the Ohana army—without quite "using" them—also aligned almost exactly with Violet's predictions.
In truth, anyone who could think even a little would recognize that it was the best option available right now.
Frankly, from Vanessa's perspective, facing Ohana was almost a relief compared to Lunarien—they were hardly a threatening force to begin with.
A few days later.
Additional conscription was carried out within the Karelia army.
Every able-bodied man had already been swept up in earlier drafts, so this time they took even those poorly suited for war—boys who had not yet shed the look of children, old men too frail to properly swing a sword—and pressed them all into service as soldiers of Karelia.
Naturally, discontent spread among the people—but without somehow matching the enemy's numbers, they would be at a long-term disadvantage. There was no other choice.
The problem was that Karelia truly refused to plunder resources.
They had scraped together the troops, but if they could not feed them, the men were useless.
The harvest that would yield anything resembling military grain was still a long way off, and with no additional means of supply, the Karelia army found itself unable to do anything at all.
All the more so when they could not even properly deploy the forces they already had.
There is a saying for this.
If you are going to do something, do it thoroughly and without hesitation; if you are not going to do it, do not even lift a finger.
Unfortunately, Karelia was managing neither.
True to her principles, she refused to plunder—yet she had still employed Vanessa and carried out forced conscription.
A half-measure situation like this could hardly work in the Karelia army's favor.
And in these circumstances, Vanessa could not bring herself to press her lord any further.
If she truly forced the issue with full force, the carefully cultivated image of "Sovereign Karelia" that she had so desperately built would shatter—reduced to a ruler unilaterally manipulated by a single strategist.
Karelia was a gentle soul. If Vanessa truly pushed hard enough, she would eventually give in.
Karelia herself well knew that her absolute authority had been forged through Vanessa's ruthless purging of the ranks—so if Vanessa demanded it with the air of a life-or-death struggle, she would probably yield.
Vanessa thought and thought for hours, searching for any way to break this deadlock.
There was exactly one solution that would let her force her will through without damaging Karelia's prestige.
…My life.
In the end, she would take everything upon herself and die.
Then they could carry out forced conscription, plunder, and perhaps even more—while still preserving Karelia's standing.
She remembered the day she first met Karelia with perfect clarity.
She had been certain that only this woman could heal a continent shattered by the tyranny of the Aingart imperial house.
A human being, once born, would eventually die and vanish. If the Karelia army fell, she would clearly lose all reason to keep living.
If she was going to throw her life away anyway… better to spend it as efficiently as possible.
That was what Vanessa sincerely believed.
Yes.
If, as the religious folk of the continent's prosperous age had so desperately cried out, a "god" truly existed—
And if that god looked with pity upon Lady Karelia, who, though unsuited to this age of chaos, still sought to achieve a greater cause for the sake of all—
Then surely a path would open to break this deadlock. That was what she had thought.
But.
*
"What… did you just say?"
A few days later.
In the audience chamber she had been summoned to, Vanessa stood pale as a sheet while Karelia let out a deep sigh and spoke.
"You remember him as well, I trust? The man called Cain… it seems he is, in fact, a member of the imperial family."
"That…!"
"Kyle von Aingart. That is his true name."
A member of the imperial house—thought to have been wiped out save for Serpina—had appeared.
That alone would hold enormous meaning for the people across the continent who still harbored nostalgia for the prosperous days of the empire.
And of all people—
That figure turned out to be the old man who had been constantly attending Luna at her side.
How could this be possible?
She felt like prey that had wandered into a rigged game.
It was as if the gods… were smiling not upon her lord, Lady Karelia—
"And he declared before everyone, they say. That he recognizes Lunarien as the next emperor who will lead the continent."
—but upon the one called Lunarien.
Vanessa nearly felt the strength leave her body for the first time, and barely managed to hold herself upright.
No… calm down first.
But.
"Vanessa…"
"…Yes."
"I did not summon you merely… to deliver that news alone."
Vanessa noticed that her lord's voice was trembling with an unnatural intensity, and she looked at her.
…Those green eyes were quivering.
Like someone who had realized that something which absolutely must never happen… had happened.
"…Answer me honestly, Vanessa. Is there… something I still do not know… something more that remains?"
—Ah.
The moment she heard those words, Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut.
"At the same place where Kyle spoke those words, Mets—who betrayed us—added something of his own, they say."
Karelia's face had gone deathly pale as she put the question to Vanessa once more.
"Is what he said… true?"
"……"
Little by little, yet with absolute certainty—
Everything Karelia had built over so long a time… began to crumble like a castle of sand.