Chapter 305
Chapter 305
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 305
Chapter Title: War of the Puppets (2)
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Robert was greeting the morning as peacefully as ever.
The early dawn at Golden Harbor gleamed like topaz, and Robert savored a sip of black tea while basking in the gradually brightening sunlight from his window.
He shifted the ink-stained quill over the desk, neatly arrayed with countless intelligence reports, documents, and summaries.
Killing someone, destroying a family, framing the innocent—all unfolded beneath the utterly emotionless, clerical stroke of his pen.
He loved this work.
The moment of cradling the empire's entirety in one hand amid the morning's hush—that was the pinnacle of happiness in his life.
“Your Highness!!”
-Bang!
He was in the midst of carefully perusing the next report, poised to add his signature, when the door shattered open like kindling.
His chamberlain burst in.
Robert tilted his head ever so slightly and regarded him.
“Our court etiquette does include a custom called knocking.”
“I-I apologize, my lord. But…….”
“What is it?”
“Urgent dispatch from the Kirzhat front. From the garrison at…….”
“Sir Pellonso Rockefeller, no doubt.”
“Yes. A report from Sir Rockefeller.”
Robert brushed away his irritation and accepted the document.
His chamberlain, Viscount Drubure, could be rash at times, but he was not one to lose his composure easily.
And Rockefeller was an elite Gray Circle operative among the Iron Sides.
A flurry of details raced through his mind.
Sharza Port. Al Mukapa.
No pushover, but his lackeys were petty local yokels.
A drowsy trade hub exporting dates and palm oil, tucked at the farthest rear of Kirzhat.
Its sole merit lay in its proximity to Kirzhat's capital, Al Zahra—close enough to track satellite city logistics and divine the sultan's policy shifts.
‘War……?’
Truth be told, Kirzhat's heartlands served as the empire's absolute frontline for intelligence assets.
Deployment to an enemy core that could—and had—openly defied the empire carried profound implications.
An urgent missive from an agent embedded there implied war.
Or turmoil rivaling Kirzhat's collapse.
The sultan's demise.
Those were the likeliest scenarios.
Yet as Robert scanned the report, he swept away every prior assumption.
The words scrawled there were utterly unforeseen.
“Unification of the Elven Three Kingdoms……?”
Robert set down his teacup with a clatter, startling even himself with the edge in his voice.
The shocking revelation had shattered his focus.
“From here on, the seas all fall into their grasp. A nightmare.”
“And…….”
“Lord Cerned was there, you say. Of course…… yes, a man like that would.
We can tack the unification of the Elven Three Kingdoms onto his ledger of triumphs.
An epic saga is brewing.”
“But why…… why do it, Your Highness?
An elven royal alliance spells nothing but harm for the empire.
Even…….”
“Precisely. Even for humanity at large, no boon.”
No matter how amicable the power, this birthed an overwhelming colossus poised to seize and rattle every ocean.
A superpower where the slightest diplomatic spat could choke off maritime trade entirely.
When one realm must tiptoe around another's whims, it's vassalage by another name.
And this intelligence foretold humanity's sea trade lifelines shackled in such servitude.
“What could he be plotting? Why unite them…….”
His track record bespoke near-pure altruism.
For humanity's greater cause.
Hence Robert's respect.
The man never chased personal gain amid his feats.
A saint's worldview, through and through.
Radical strides, occasionally veering sinister—yet outcomes ever righteous.
Robert had harbored no doubts of his true sainthood in the Holy Pantheon, even before the church's formal canonization.
Thus, some deeper motive surely underpinned this gambit.
But what?
Wasn't it a stroke dooming all human civilization to peril?
“One moment. To the Pale Horse Nation's plains?
Requested troops from the sultan? As the emperor's envoy?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Haha…… damnation.”
Lightning insight scorched Robert's thoughts.
Their paradigms diverged.
No—their very caliber differed!
Yes.
This man battled for ‘humanity's greater good.’ Always!
In Fairn Kingdom, for the crown.
In House Dain, for its endurance.
Across the wastes, for its nomads……!
An exquisitely neutral lens—untethered to any nation or faction.
Purely humanity's welfare, deftly sidestepping the tide!
“He's…… gearing for war……!
Preemptively consolidating sea power?!”
“Y-Yes……?”
“Emperor's envoy? Nonsense!
He was never the empire's vassal from the start.
His moves aren't for the empire.
Can you even fathom the horizon he surveys?”
“W-What do you…….”
“Behold! For the empire, elven unity is calamity.
But for humanity writ large……?
Envision it as one vast realm.
Elven dynastic fusion becomes a boon.”
“How does elven naval hegemony aid continental civilization?
I fail to…….”
“Infuriating!”
Thirst clawed Robert's throat.
He sipped his black tea and pressed on.
“Regard the empire as a provincial city.
Kirzhat likewise!
Recent wars have soured ties to the brink.
Yet to forge bonds, fling wide trade lanes, dispatch aid at need—a bridge is vital.
One wholly detached from either.”
“The elves, you mean?”
“Elves bow to neither empire nor Kirzhat.
Their unification? Preemptive groundwork, harmonizing that bridge.
Fragmented crowns clashing at sea?
The cities' amity stays forever unborn.”
“Why such vast exchanges with Kirzhat, of all places?”
“The Pale Horse Nation.”
Robert rose, shrugging on his coat and seizing his cane.
“Summon the carriage!”
“To where?”
“Paltennoia! His Imperial Majesty awaits.”
A Kirzhat-Levainteur Empire pact?
Only a titanic foe could demand it.
In this climate, naught but the Pale Horse Nation's horde—forewarned by Fernandez himself.
No vague prophecy or conjecture.
Such grand maneuvers meant intel beyond Robert's grasp lay in his hands—
‘Rene Philippa conceded as much and dispatched Fernandez?’
An Iron Side intelligence rout imperiled Robert's standing irreparably.
And prior……
‘Empire alone can't match it—that's the premise driving him!’
Pale Horse plains operatives vanished.
Inward caravans severed wholesale.
Petty nuisances, ordinarily ignored.
Bandit infighting, most like.
Yet assembled—mundane shards and shocks alike—the silhouette sharpened crystalline.
The ‘saint’ he revered envisioned war.
And his visions of war had never faltered.
Hundreds of horse routing an elector's host.
Late Duke Carbellier's host harrying the imperial legions entire.
Minimal arms, maximal victory—his hallmark.
Such a soul summoning two empires' might?
What adversary loomed?
* * *
“Mercy…… have mercy. Please…….”
“Amusing.”
-Shing.
Late summer's verdant steppe was gone.
Blood. Blood blanketed everywhere.
Warriors retched at its splatter upon green blades.
Spilling blood in death profanes.
Even as doom nears.
Not felled mid-battle as warrior, but postwar captive? Nearer cardinal sin.
Heavens bar the way.
Life soaks soil; ancestors avert gaze.
Eagles claim war-dead.
Crows perch on captives. Centipedes, ants, carrion grubs, maggots feast.
No such end. Profane.
The warrior heaved blood.
A chill-gleaming spear tip descended upon him.
“Did your ensnared slaves plead likewise?
Freed them all, your tribe doubles today.”
“Death…… even death, not spilling blood!”
“Your wish, granted.
You there! Does he merit honor?”
Sun-backed astride his mount, the man wheeled and bellowed.
Roars answered.
-Yes!
“All these! Worthy?”
-Yes!!
“Ancestors approve? Prove it. To every one!”
“W-Wait! Every……?”
Pallor seized the man's face.
Jaw shuddering, he craned up.
Sun-shadowed visage bared grinning white fangs.
“By hoary rite, mercy to your kin.”
“Me alone…… my life enough!”
“Truly?”
Clop. Horse advanced one pace.
Towering black steed reared hoof upon his breast.
Choking, the man flailed, gasping.
“How profound the scar this brands on you all. Tradition. Tradition. Ancestors' dignity demands it.”
“Y-You…… fiend……!”
“Bags for those wheel-high! As craved—no blood flows plainward today!”
-Yes!!
The cry thundered plain-wide.
Continent's ‘civilized’ patrons once fueled their neighbor-raids—this ‘final’ tribe crumbled.
Plains tribes? Innumerable. Warriors? Beyond count. History tallied none.
Tens of thousands of gers, adrift.
Yet one man's tally rang true: 280,400 souls.
Fighters—horseborne bow-drawers, spear-hurlers, elder to child—150,000 strong.
Reins from birth. Hunt-trailing toddle. Lives forged in strife; their blades scarred civilizations indelibly.
-Clop, clop.
Sun-defying, his steed pressed.
Severing blood-drenched battle-plain. Clop, clop. Mounts trailed.
Screams, roars, oaths, pleas dogged his shade.
Wind stirred. Blood-reek birthed fervor's blaze. Hearts thundered; sleepless frames brimmed anew. His warriors too.
Shamans decried: no ancestral grace. Darker hands.
Brazen seers bagged, hooves pulverized.
Wind-borne, he laughed galloping. Clop, clop. Wails thinned, moans hushed. Trailing breaths thrilled warrior-hot, hoofbeats drummed sole.
“Whither?”
“Wind's path!”
“Its terminus—then?”
“Wheel reverse!”
Sundering world, recrossing—twice-unparalleled scar entire. Roaring, laughter erupted.
-Kagan! Kagan! Kagan!
-Amar Kagan, Yeke Tetai Ulus!!
-Ryuryuwingarya, Uryuya (Foals, charge)!!
Late summer. Pale Horse Nation crowns unified dynasty—news dawdles to empire's core.
Then, Amar Kagan's hosts engulfed every border-city.
Empire, great wilds, Kirzhat—all flat-footed.
Karadskar's great northmarch dawned.