Laying the Foundation (5)
"Come on! Take as much as you need — don't hold back!"
"Grab some bread! There's still plenty left!"
Every coin from the chest had gone toward rebuilding the village the typhoon had wrecked. Roughly half of that sum had been spent on food alone, and under Kane's direction the soldiers on labor detail were out in force, handing provisions to the townsfolk.
Luna had given the order, but the ones standing at the front of the relief effort were Kane and me — and of the two of us, Kane was the one working the front lines, helping people face to face. Whether he liked it or not, he was stamping his name firmly into the villagers' memory with this.
"Thank you so much…"
"We're so grateful, sir."
"We won't forget your kindness, sir."
Kane answered the woman who swore she would never forget his grace with a gentle, fatherly smile.
"All of this is Lady Lunarien's gift. Remember that, if you would."
"Ah… yes! We will never forget the grace of the Lunarien Army."
Well, scattering free food around would certainly lift the city's opinion of the Lunarien Army — but…
Is this really the right call?
That was my honest feeling. We were going to abandon this castle anyway. What good was raising public sentiment for a place we meant to leave behind? With that money we could have hired a mercenary company on the spot. Even ten thousand soldiers total would have been enough, with some desperate improvisation, to hold the walls — and then we might not have had to abandon the city at all. We could have made it a real base.
True, better public sentiment meant order restored, and order meant commerce and farming recovering side by side, and growth meant a larger population and more men eligible for conscription — but that path required far too much time. And no matter how I turned it over, I could not picture a fragile force like the Lunarien Army being granted a long stretch of peaceful years in the middle of this chaos.
Still. My Intelligence of 100 had concluded that this was the correct move, so it had to be correct.
"A word, Strategist."
"What is it?"
Kane, who had been working the relief lines with the soldiers, found a free moment and came over to me.
"I was told it was our lord's will to give all that money away. Is that right?"
"Yes. We found it in this village, so returning it to the village — something along those lines."
"I see. Hmm."
Kane cleared his throat a few times for no particular reason, then looked me straight in the eye.
"Come to think of it, Strategist — you didn't oppose it? Our lord deciding to hand out every last coin. The intent is fine, of course, but as you well know, our army is hardly flush with funds. Doing something like this when we don't even have money for immediate needs… under ordinary circumstances I'd expect a strategist to push back."
The look in his eyes as he asked was remarkably sharp. Not the dull, half-interested gaze he usually wore, but the eyes of a lion in its prime.
I answered with a faint smile.
"Do I strike you as a man without blood or tears, Lord Kane?"
"No, nothing like that. You're the strategist our lord brought in herself, so I assume you're exceptional. I'm simply… curious why you didn't try to stop her and let it go through."
The way he kept circling the point made it feel as though there was something else he truly wanted to ask. I couldn't shake the sense that I was being tested.
Kane was… not a bad man. Was he probing the measure of the person I was?
I kept my tone as breezy as I could manage.
"To be honest, I did consider stopping her. But our lord's resolve seemed firmer than I had ever seen it. A strategist must offer counsel when counsel is needed — but there are also times when he must stand behind his lord's will and push it forward, don't you think?"
The real reason I didn't stop her is that my Intelligence of 100 concluded that scattering the money was the right move. But I can't say that outright. So I attach a plausible reason instead. I still don't know the true reason myself — so this is the best I can do. From here on out, I'll keep attaching plausible reasons and living by them.
"I see."
Kane nodded.
"Well, I intend to follow your lead, Swen. That sum never would have come into our hands if you hadn't sent Miss Tifa to the market, after all."
"You're too kind."
"Things seem to be wrapping up on this end… I'll handle the report. You go rest a while."
"Then I'll leave it to you."
I accepted the kindness. My low Martial strength had already left me drained from hauling sacks of flour.
I leaned against the castle wall and looked up at the sky. It was a piercing blue — so blue that for a moment I almost believed this peace could last forever.
As if.
I might need to start steeling myself soon.
I watched the drifting clouds and savored a very brief peace.
After that, the days settled into quiet internal administration. Kane's recommended assignment was Commerce; Tifa's was Training. Whenever my mind recommended those two, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Kane, with his high Politics, handled commerce; Tifa, with her high Martial, handled training. Continuous absurd strokes of luck would have been strange in their own right.
During that stretch, instead of scouting, I followed Luna around and helped her rebuild the village. Yes — Lunarien Iniang, for all that she was the leader, was out in person doing hard physical labor, going wherever she was needed. Leaving everything on her shoulders alone didn't sit right with me, so once I learned what she was doing, I started tagging along. That was the present situation.
"Take heart. Our army will do everything in our power to restore this village to its former vitality."
"Oh my, thank you so much. Thank you so much, my lady…"
Perhaps it was the effect of the money we had scattered not long ago. The people of Zeiland came up to greet us wherever we went, and they welcomed Luna — who was helping with every odd job imaginable — with open warmth.
Public sentiment was a blade. In an age of chaos, the person who ruled you could change from one day to the next. That genuine gratitude we were seeing now was a reaction we never would have gotten if we had merely gone around saying we would "try our best."
"My lord. That's enough for today."
Seeing the sky darken, I stepped closer to Luna.
"But… we still haven't covered that alley over there."
"This is enough. You'll be walking the territory again tomorrow, helping people, won't you? You should rest properly at night."
"…You have a point. I'll follow your advice."
Luna was not the stubborn type. For the most part, she listened to everything I said. Even her wish to give the entire contents of the chest to the villagers — if I, as her strategist, had told her not to, she probably would have held back.
Following my counsel without fail had been one of the conditions she set when she recruited me… but she was still the lord, and I was still only one subordinate among many, strategist or not. If she had dug in her heels, I would not have been able to force the issue.
Looked at that way, this was the measure of her capacity as a ruler.
Her capacity. The phrase sparked a sudden curiosity, and I put a question to her.
"My lord. There's something I'd like to ask."
"What is it?"
"I know the broad strokes, but now that I'm serving you properly, I'd like to hear the full story. How did you come to raise an army in the first place?"
"…"
Luna considered for a moment after hearing me, then lifted her gaze to the darkening sky.
"I… lost my only family — my older sister — to the wars."
Her story. Lunarien Iniang's story. The reason a late-blooming concept lord of a minor power raised her banner — something the game never properly explained. Here, existing not as a game character but as a real person in this world, she began to tell it.
"Five years ago, the emperor died without naming a successor, and as the decaying empire collapsed, countless lords took up arms. The nobles who administered their territories all declared independence, and in that process… truly, so many people died. My sister was one of them."
"What work was your sister involved in?"
"…"
Luna stared at the sky in silence for a long while — then turned to me with a smile that carried a touch of sadness.
"Ahaha. I don't usually tell this to just anyone… but with you, Swen, I feel like it's all right. Strange, isn't it?"
I didn't answer. I simply focused on her voice.
"My sister was… the unofficial concubine of Algot von Aingart, the emperor's eldest son."
"Algot von Aingart, the eldest — you don't mean…?"
She nodded slowly.
"Serpina von Aingart's… older brother. My sister's birth was too low for her to be brought into the imperial family. She simply received Algot's favor. Even as a child, I could see that the two of them truly loved each other."
A common enough romance. But the detail that her sister had ties to the imperial house added a layer of credibility to the question of why Kane — himself of imperial blood — had chosen to hide his identity and enter Lunarien's service of all places. In the game, the only information available was something like "he trusted Lunarien's purity and placed himself under her protection."
Once again, I felt how real this world was.
"And then…"
"You don't need to say more."
Serpina von Aingart. Among so many members of the imperial line, she was neither the eldest child nor even male — so how had she become the most powerful warlord on the continent, wielding such vast influence?
Because she had purged every one of her brothers and sisters.
The Bloody Sovereign. The Tyrant. It was widely known that the only Aingart blood still flowing on the continent ran in her veins alone.
In truth, that wasn't entirely accurate — but still.
"So in the end… it's vengeance? For your sister?"
"I suppose so. It may well be vengeance."
She smiled bitterly, seeming ready to admit it cleanly — then lifted her head and met my eyes.
"But I want to end this war with my own hands. I want to build the nation I envision… and establish a system so that this kind of blood-soaked intrigue never happens again within a single family. I want to bring peace to the continent and honor my sister's spirit. If it were only about revenge, the faster path would be to serve under someone else. …But I don't want to take the easy road."
This young woman has her share of complicated circumstances too.
I nodded.
"I understand. Thank you for telling me."
"Not at all. It's you, Swen — not just anyone."
"What makes me so special?"
Luna smiled at my blunt reply.
"Because, as I said, you were the first person to join our army. Not a single other soul accepted my offer."
…
I turned my gaze away from her.
"You will become the unifier of this continent."
"…Will I? Can I really become the unifier?"
Since the question had come around again, I ran it through my mind once more. The result was the same.
Yes. You. You are the one who will unify this continent. Even I can hardly believe it.
No matter how many times I reconsidered it, the conclusion never changed. She — Lunarien Iniang — was the one who would unify this continent.
I spoke with absolute conviction.
"Who am I? The strategist of the Lunarien Army, am I not? Trust my word."
"Heh."
It had only been about a month and a half since we met. Not that long — but perhaps because we were essentially founding members of a minor power, spending every day together had left me oddly fond of her. We were around the same age, too.
"The wind's getting cold. Shall we head in?"
"Gladly."
And just as we were about to head home without a second thought—
"My lord!!!"
From the far side, a soldier came sprinting toward us — or more precisely, toward Luna — in a full panic.
"…What is it?"
Luna snapped into leader mode at once. I studied the soldier's gear. The plain silver armor was the same as any other soldier's… but the red band on his right arm was a uniform I had seen before.
This man… was a messenger, wasn't he?
Damn.
In this game, a messenger appeared at only one kind of moment.
Namely—
"Word has come that the Brans Army is marching on Zeiland with roughly eight thousand soldiers!"
—when someone had just initiated hostilities.