Glowing Blue Lake, Part 4
"What shatters a thick layer of ice—one that has frozen solid through a long winter, reaching all the way down to the depths beneath its mirror-smooth surface—is a crack no wider than a single strand of hair. Once that tiny fissure forms, the ice cannot withstand the warmth of spring. The moment it begins to melt, it buckles under its own weight, splitting and shattering along that hair-thin crack."
In the commander's tent, pitched safely behind a heavily fortified defensive line slightly to the rear of the temporarily quiet battlefield, the Duke spoke in a quiet, measured voice.
"Destroying a nation is no different. Our ducal house did nothing grand to bring this kingdom to its knees."
Did nothing grand? The nobles gathered in the tent, along with the commoners who had earned their command posts through sheer merit, looked at him with utter disbelief.
"All that is required is a small crack. The divide between social classes. The gap between the rich and the poor. Petty friction among the nobility. Compared to the massive entity that is a nation, these fissures are thinner than a strand of hair."
What the ducal house had done was simple.
"We merely tapped at those microscopic cracks, over and over. And whenever someone noticed the fissures and tried to patch them up, we tripped them up—just a tiny, tiny bit."
They had used the existence of the revolutionary army to fan the flames of public discontent. When well-meaning nobles stepped forward to quell the unrest, the Duke's faction subtly interfered, turning those noble efforts into fuel that only further enraged the populace.
Using the Duke's immense influence, they had quietly widened the wealth gap behind the scenes. Within the resulting economic divides, they established and nurtured 'vulnerable zones' with weak defenses. After years of slow, deliberate cultivation, these areas deteriorated into places that 'clearly needed fixing, yet were too much of a hassle for anyone to bother with,' ultimately being abandoned.
Leveraging his position as the sole Duke, he had stoked rivalries among the nobility with nothing more than a few whispered words or subtle gestures. The Duke possessed absolute power and authority, and the lesser nobles who wagged their tails in hopes of basking in his favor were hyper-sensitive to the slightest shift in his attitude. Through this, he goaded them into waging territorial wars against one another.
Thanks to these aristocrats, who gladly sacrificed the lives of commoners to soothe their own bruised pride, many minor noble houses were kept weak and unable to expand their influence. These impoverished, minor fiefdoms became blind spots of royal authority. Out of the royal family's sight, the Duke was able to stockpile vast amounts of supplies and amass troops. At the same time, by feeding sweet, empty promises to these desperate minor nobles, he easily secured the supply lines and military bases necessary for the coming war.
And the opening act was the revolutionary army. The reason he had used them to signal the start of the conflict was to detonate the citizens' long-brewing resentment, instantly crushing the morale of the entire royal army. And at the same time...
"The reason I destroyed the Academy is simple. I didn't just tear down a school." The Duke swirled his wine glass and smiled. "I shattered the very foundation the King built."
It was the royal family that had established the Academy.
"I tore down the wall between commoners and nobles."
Even though the Academy was located right in the heart of the royal capital, it had been cordoned off by high, thick walls, blatantly advertising itself as a 'different world.' Yet, those very walls dividing commoner from noble were smashed to pieces by the might of the revolutionary army—which, on the surface, was nothing more than a gathering of commoners. The nobles and royals, who once seemed to dwell in the high heavens, were forced to flee like pathetic dogs before the blades of mere peasants.
"I broke the authority of the royal family. And in doing so, I shattered the lofty prestige of both the nobility and the crown."
The destruction of a symbol. It carried immense weight. It allowed him to forge a brave army that would not flinch, even when facing lords and royalty. At the same time, it made far more nobles than expected realize that a war against the crown was actually winnable, prompting them to flock to the Duke's banner.
"After all, the King couldn't even protect his own children, let alone the Academy—a place that should have been the most heavily fortified stronghold in the kingdom after the royal palace itself, no?" The Duke chuckled, taking another pleasant sip from his glass.
With his face flushed bright red, the Duke looked thoroughly intoxicated, but the alcohol content of the wine in his glass was actually incredibly low. It was weaker than the cheap, flavorless beer the soldiers smuggled in among the supplies to drink behind their officers' backs. It was even weaker than the watered-down ale adventurers gulped down after a raid—the kind of crude, cheap swill that tasted like beast urine but was sold in massive quantities.
Yet, the Duke was so easily flushed that even this weak wine made him look drunk as he gleefully recounted the genesis of this war of founding. Of course, since everyone gathered here was a subordinate the Duke trusted above all others, there was no risk of these words leaking out, tarnishing his authority, or causing a rift within his army.
"Do you see? What has unfolded is a grand and glorious war of founding, but its beginning was incredibly trivial and insignificant."
Only someone with the Duke's immense power and authority could dismiss the secret, systematic dismantling of an entire nation as 'insignificant.' The listeners, however, remained silent. They knew that the moment they pointed out the absurdity of his claim, they would be subjected to the typical rambling of an old man complaining about how things were different in his day and how the youth of today had it too easy.
"Now then, what do you think is the point I am trying to make?"
"Are you warning us that we, too, could collapse from a single small crack, Your Grace?"
"Exactly." Delighted by the prompt and correct answer, the Duke nodded with a broad grin.
"By 'crack,' do you mean Prince Jordy?"
Prince Jordy's attempt to usurp the throne had triggered a brutal civil war within the capital between the Royalists and the Prince's faction. Though this chaos was unfolding entirely within the enemy's camp, the Duke seemed to view it as a potential 'crack' that could form within their own ranks.
"The civil war is dragging on for too long," the Duke said. His face was still flushed from the wine, but his eyes were sharp enough to pierce through any illusion.
"When a civil war drags on like this and the lull in our own campaign grows longer, tension inevitably slackens. Combined with the memory of our unstoppable march to this point, our men will begin to underestimate the royal army."
A crack. The crack the Duke spoke of was none other than the creeping complacency taking root throughout his army.
"Some nobles who have had no chance to distinguish themselves in this war will likely try to exploit this lull, pulling foolish stunts just to claim some glory."
"Indeed..." The Duke stared quietly into the distance.
"Send couriers on our swiftest, sturdiest horses to every corner of our territory. Order the army to reorganize and stay alert."
"Understood, Your Grace!"
The civil war was dragging on far too long... Should it really be taking this long? A seed of doubt planted itself in his mind, accompanied by a creeping sense of unease. The Duke's instinct as a born commander was sensing a subtle shift in the tides of war.
What if—just what if—the King or the Prince had already brought the civil war to an end, but were still putting on a show of fighting?
What could they possibly gain from that? What benefit would the King derive? What would the Prince stand to gain?
...
He had a premonition that once this brief respite ended, the entire landscape of the war would be violently upended. Ominous dark clouds were beginning to gather over the kingdom's sky.
"Is there a Lord Rotin here? Lord Rotin! Are you here? Lord Rotin! A letter has arrived for you!"
Clutching a letter that had traveled through multiple nations by various means, crossing treacherous terrains with great difficulty to finally reach its destination, a courier searched for his target inside a tavern packed with rough, rowdy sailors.
"What's that bastard babbling about? What language is that?"
"Hell if I know. Do you? Hey!"
"..."
"This guy's completely wasted."
"There's probably a wallet in his back pocket. Let's use that to pay for our drinks."
"I don't really feel like groping another man's ass."
"We can just slice the pocket open with a knife."
In a corner of the tavern, where men of every race from every sea and nation mingled, a sun-bronzed hand shot up like a fish leaping out of a chaotic ocean.
The owner of the hand spoke in the same foreign tongue as the courier waving the letter. "Hey, over here! I'm right here."
"Lord Rotin! Here is your letter."
The man who stood up possessed a rugged, muscular build that stood in stark contrast to his smooth, strikingly elegant face. Having been arm-wrestling the man opposite him while enjoying a mug of rum just moments ago, he took the letter and handed his half-empty mug to the exhausted courier as a trade.
"Ah, thank you. Good work. Why don't you have a drink before you head out?"
"No, thank you. I must return immediately. Do you have a reply you wish to send back?"
"Hmm." Rotin pulled a sharp knife from his pocket, slit the envelope open, and scanned the contents. Nodding to himself, he took a blank sheet of paper and a writing board from the courier.
"Hey, barkeep! I need to write something. Do you have a quill and some ink?"
He made the request in a highly fluent dialect of the western region of this country, perfectly mimicking the local accent. Unfortunately, Rotin had lost his own quill and inkwell in a drinking bet just a few days prior.
"Hahaha! If you're looking for stuff like that, pass by the tavern run by that idiot one-eyed bastard, keep walking past the brothel run by the redhead who's as wild in bed as her hair, and walk for about ten minutes. You'll find a bookstore. That's the only place in this town that makes a living off paper and ink."
"Thanks for the tip. Here, keep the rest of this as a tip."
Rotin casually tossed the remaining rum to the tavern keeper and led the courier outside.
The moment they stepped out, a newly arrived patron shouted.
"Barkeep! Get me a drink first!"
"Here you go. Poured it in advance, knowing you'd show up."
"Oh, great service! Wait... is it just me, or is this cup a bit light?"
"Stop talking nonsense and pay up."
Rotin headed to the place the barkeep had described, rented a quill and ink, and penned his reply. Afterward, he walked down to the docks. He looked out at the sea, churning violently under a fierce gale, and smiled as his ship creaked loudly, sounding as if it might break apart at any moment.
"Excellent. Before the weather clears, I'll need to hire a butler and a maid."
Watching the white foam kicked up by waves that surged high into the air before crashing back down to shatter against the sea, Rotin pressed a kiss to the name of a woman written in the letter from his father.
"I am on my way to escort my beloved. I can't very well bring only filthy, ignorant sailors along."
The name of his 'beloved' was smudged by a kiss smelling of rum and greasy meat, but it remained legible. Of course, to the locals of this region, written in a language from a land so far away, it would be entirely unreadable.
Where his lips had touched, the name 'Monia' was written, accompanied by a long string of honorifics and the eight-word surname of the ducal house.
"Ah, my beloved Monia. It has been ten years since I last laid eyes on you."
Back when Rotin was still a teenager, she had been breathtaking. She was as noble and beautiful as a solitary flower blooming atop a sheer cliff, yet so delicate she seemed as if she might crumble at the slightest touch.
In those days, he hadn't dared to approach her, intimidated by her status as the Duke's daughter. But the image of her beauty, seared into his mind back then, had never left him for a single moment.
"You must have grown even more beautiful. On that island of harsh, unforgiving nature, you must be trembling in fear, waiting desperately for someone to rescue you."
I am coming for you now.
"U-Um, the wind... it feels a bit strong, doesn't it?"
"Uh, yeah. I guess so."
"S-So... excuse me."
On their fourth night at the Glowing Blue Lake, Monia used the excuse of a non-existent breeze to press not just her face, but her entire body flush against Chester's.
"Ehehe."
"Why... why are you laughing?"
"Just because."