Soroka Fortress (2)
Soroka Fortress (2)
Although we were bewildered by the neighboring kingdom's prince appearing so suddenly, we greeted the two of them as well.
"I am Aisha de Carlos. It is a pleasure to meet you, Count Bador."
"I am Benjamin."
"I am Alex."
The routine introductions, starting with the Princess, came to an abrupt halt when it was Glan's turn.
"..."
In the end, he finished his greeting with a silent bow.
Everyone stared at Glan, dumbfounded, but he kept his eyes fixed on the floor, avoiding their gazes.
It was an absurd sight, but it also looked just like a rebellious teenage boy defying his father—a sight I had often seen in my past life.
While everyone else was taken aback, seeing this kind of behavior for the first time in this world actually made me feel strangely nostalgic.
The stern-faced Count sighed as he looked at his son.
Even a renowned general was, in the end, just a father.
The Count's sigh changed the atmosphere in the room.
Thanks to that, the sharp tension of sizing each other up faded, leaving only a few people feeling slightly awkward.
"Please wait just a moment. I must finish my discussion with Prince Max first..."
With the atmosphere slightly more relaxed, the Count asked the Princess to bear with him.
"Then, we shall wait outside."
"No, that is not necessary. Please take a seat over there and wait for a moment."
At the Princess's words, the Count pointed to a sofa on one side of his office.
Though it was meant as a waiting area, the sofa was still inside the office, even if it was tucked away in a corner.
The Count's words meant that he wanted us to listen in as well.
I had wondered why he had called us into his office while a prince from a neighboring kingdom was visiting, but it seemed the Count wanted the Princess to hear their conversation.
We sat on the sofa and looked straight ahead.
Though we kept our ears perked up, we pretended not to listen. It was a blatant act, but also a matter of noble etiquette.
Perhaps this had been arranged beforehand, since Prince Max didn't seem to mind our presence either.
"I would like you to tell me once more."
"Understood. Not long ago, there was a great disturbance in the Seal Grounds."
At the mention of the Seal Grounds, the Princess and I both flinched.
Why was a prince from a neighboring kingdom talking about the 'Seal Grounds'?
"A King-grade Monster went on a rampage, and the monsters' boundary collapsed."
Could it be? The Princess shot me a sidelong glance.
I felt incredibly guilty, but it wasn't as if there were only one King-grade Monster... It could have been a different Monster King.
"The monsters have escaped the Seal Grounds, and most of them are moving west through the Northern Mountain Range. Already, the territories near our kingdom's mountains are suffering severe damage."
No way. No way.
I kept repeating it like a spell, but to no avail. That was definitely the work of that tattered Monster King.
To think that my fight with the Monster King would cause damage to a country neighboring the Seal Grounds...
This was completely unexpected.
But even so, there was nothing I could do about it.
It wasn't as if I had directly caused the damage. If I worried about the aftermath of every single thing I did, I wouldn't be able to do anything.
Once I came to that conclusion, another question naturally arose.
What did the damage to their territories have to do with the Prince coming all the way here?
My question was answered at once by the Prince's next words.
"Soon, the monsters will arrive here at Soroka Fortress. They will likely pass through the valley in front of the fortress and continue heading west."
Senior Benjamin muttered in a low voice.
"We've arrived at a fucking terrible time."
I thought the same.
I didn't know whether this was my own karma too, but in any case, we seemed to have arrived at this fortress at a very bad time.
"I ask that you do your best not to block the monsters. If you block them here, they will spill over into our kingdom."
We stared at the Prince in shock.
Soroka Fortress was located at the southern entrance to a long, narrow valley that cut through the Northern Mountain Range.
At the opposite entrance stood an imperial fortress.
Until now, the two fortresses had patrolled the valley, preventing monsters from the Seal Grounds from advancing farther west.
But now, he was asking them to simply let the monsters cross the valley?
The west side of the valley was, of course, where our kingdom lay.
Just as the Prince had said, if they blocked the monsters in this valley, the creatures, unable to move any farther, would have no choice but to pour into the territories of the Epirus Kingdom.
But if they simply let them pass, wouldn't our own kingdom's territories suffer the damage?
Would a fortress of the Carlos Kingdom really stand by and allow that?
It was an absurd proposition.
"What kind of nonsense is..."
Senior Benjamin started to say something, but I grabbed his shoulder and shook my head.
I felt the same way, but the conversation wasn't over yet.
Even the Princess was listening quietly, so it wasn't our place to speak up first.
Besides, though the country was in a mess, there was no way the Count would accept a proposal like that.
But the Count's response defied my expectations.
"Very well. But since the Empire is watching and the Princess is also here, we cannot leave it completely wide open."
It wasn't merely a little different from what I expected.
No matter how I looked at it, this response was practically treason.
The Prince nodded with a satisfied expression.
"Then, as before, we will compensate you with food and other supplies."
Don't tell me this wasn't even the first time?
Receiving compensation from another country to let monsters head straight into their own kingdom.
This was an act for which he wouldn't be able to complain, even if his head were chopped off right this instant.
I immediately spread out my senses and mana.
Still, neither my mana nor my senses picked up anything.
There were no armed knights, nor any soldiers waiting for orders.
After bringing up such a shocking matter, why was he leaving himself so defenseless? What on earth was he thinking?
Not only Benjamin, but the Princess's expression was dead serious as well.
The Princess looked as if she were about to order his immediate execution.
Yet she remained silent until the very end.
Glan, sitting next to her, also had a grim expression.
But he didn't look surprised.
It seemed he had known about this for a long time.
Was that why he had been so rebellious toward his father?
I felt terrible for having thought of him as nothing more than a rebellious teenager.
"Will you be alright?"
The Prince, who was getting to his feet, looked at our expressions and spoke to the Count.
The Count shook his head, and after bowing to us, the Prince left the room.
It felt as if I'd just watched a comedy show. A rather unpleasant one, at that.
After the Prince left, Princess Aisha spoke up.
"I would like an explanation."
It was still a young voice, but one that could not be easily dismissed.
The Count seemed slightly surprised as well.
"Please, come this way."
The Count beckoned us over.
Seeing how calm he was, I let the mana I'd been gathering settle back down.
The Count's skills seemed more formidable than I had heard, but without any backup forces, I could handle him easily.
"I apologize for startling you. I brought you here because I thought showing you directly would be better than giving you a tedious, pathetic explanation."
At the Count's apology, the Princess spoke.
"Then, it is now time for that explanation."
"Yes, I shall explain how things came to be this way."
The Count calmly laid out his story.
"For a long time, Soroka Fortress has protected the Carlos Kingdom as its gatekeeper. I, too, have defended the Kingdom here for decades."
The Count's words were no lie.
He had fought against monsters and the Empire for a long time to protect the Kingdom.
Many respected his achievements, and no one in the Kingdom had ever doubted his loyalty.
"The problem began after His Majesty collapsed."
A sigh escaped me at the Count's words. In the end, this matter, too, was because of the King's collapse.
This isn't even the England of my past life, but...
At this rate, I felt as if I would end up hearing that every single incident in this world had been caused by the collapsed King.
"After the King collapsed, the support coming to this fortress gradually dwindled, and now it has stopped completely."
"What? That can't be!"
Benjamin's jaw dropped.
"Unless the administration has gone completely mad, there is no way they would cut off support!"
But the Count shook his head.
"Whether it was the First Prince's doing, the Second Prince's, or perhaps a mutual agreement between the two, the fact remains that there is no support."
At the Count's words, the Princess bit down hard on her lower lip.
For whatever reason, this was not pleasant news for the Princess to hear.
Still, she continued to listen to the Count in silence.
The Count kept speaking as he watched the Princess's expression.
"This fortress exists to block the enemy."
Everyone knew that this place, which had originally been nothing but a lone fortress, had grown into a fortress city as people gathered around it.
"As you must have seen on your way here, there is no land nearby suitable for farming. On top of that, because of the monsters in those mountains, we cannot chop wood or mine ore."
The Count's calm expression twisted slightly. He seemed to be remembering the hardships he had endured.
"We tried selling monster corpses and increasing trade with the Epirus Kingdom, but it was impossible to feed all the residents of the territory and maintain the soldiers."
A trace of exhaustion seeped into his words.
"Yes, so I made a deal. Our military force has already been reduced by more than half. Even if we committed every last soldier we had, we could not stop the monsters from passing through this time."
A sigh escaped me before I could help it.
The conflict between the two princes was ruining the entire country.
With things like this everywhere we went, it felt as if the country would collapse before the civil war could even officially begin.
"To maintain our remaining forces, we have no choice but to let many of the monsters pass. Though I have done my best, in the end, that amounts to letting the monsters through, just as the Prince requested."
The Count's lengthy explanation came to an end.
No one could utter a single word.
The Princess, too, stared down at the table, lost in thought for a long while, before raising her head to ask the Count.
"Does the Prince of Epirus also know what you have just told us?"
Unlike before, the Princess's tone was cautious.
"Prince Max knows as well. He was pushed aside by the Crown Prince and ended up with this duty, so he only needs to show his royal family that he is doing his best."
I'd thought only our country was a total shitshow, but the Epirus Kingdom was no better.
The neighboring kingdom's prince and the Count of Soroka Fortress had joined hands simply to survive.
In reality, nothing had changed, but it was an excellent transaction: one side obtained food and supplies, while the other achieved the result of carrying out the royal family's orders.
This transaction, of course, had to remain a secret from everyone.
The Princess spoke again.
"Did you reveal this to me because you needed a member of the royal family to testify on your behalf if a problem arises?"
"Well, who knows."
The Count gave an ambiguous reply to the Princess's question.
"Or perhaps you're suggesting that you wish to join hands with me? No, that would be an unreasonable proposition for someone as young and powerless as myself."
As the Princess shook her head, the corners of the Count's mouth curled upward.
"You are even more intelligent than the rumors suggested."
Looking at the Count's expression, I thought I understood why he had revealed this truth to the Princess.
He was testing her.
He was trying to determine how he should treat the young princess and how much he could trust her.
"I was thinking of somewhere in between your first and second suggestions."
And it seemed the test results weren't bad.
But what gave him the confidence to test the Princess?
Even if she was rumored to be smart, she was still just a young princess.
"And you must be Alex, the son of Duke Gracia."
The Count knew about me, too.
Mana rose from the Count's body and swept over me.
I had concealed my mana to hide my true strength, but after hearing the Count's words, it felt as if my efforts had been in vain.
The Count knew about me.
And he knew me quite accurately, at that.
I recalled the chief butler I had seen in the capital before our departure.
He had said he was going to meet the Queen.
What the chief butler had done was ultimately the work of Duke Gracia.
Could it be assumed, then, that the Queen and Duke Gracia had joined hands?
And what about the change in the Princess?
Was the Princess's side making some moves as well?
And it seemed the Gracia Ducal House was dipping its toes into it, too.
Since the Princess herself didn't seem to know much, it must have been the Queen's doing.
At this rate, I would have no choice but to borrow the power of the Celine Cult.
Since I had made the request when we set out, I wondered if I would receive it by the time we returned.
As I continued thinking, the question I'd wondered about earlier came back to me.
I asked the Count.
"May I ask you one thing?"
The Count looked at me with a puzzled expression. Taking that as permission, I asked my question.
"Why is it that only the countries south of the Northern Mountain Range suffer damage? I don't believe I've ever heard of the Empire suffering any damage..."
"That is for the same reason the Epirus Kingdom suffers damage because of our fortress. In the end, it is because the Empire is strong."
It meant that because the Empire's army and knights were stronger, the monsters headed south toward the weaker kingdoms.
"And now that our fortress has weakened, the damage is even greater..."
He meant that because the gap between the fortresses blocking the valley had widened, the damage to the Carlos Kingdom in the south had grown even more severe.
At the Count's words, I lightly stroked my chest.
I could feel the artifact pouch containing the swords.
"Then, if the Empire weakens, the monsters will head north. And if we punch a hole in the northern fortress, the monsters will swarm in that direction."
The Count looked bewildered by my words, but I stood up from my seat.
Before the monsters swarmed in, there was plenty of work to be done.