The Empire's Shield
The air began to grow cold. And then came the white refuse falling from the sky. The barren, frozen shield of the empire. The North was drawing near.
“Adjutant. Aren’t you cold?”
Outside the passenger window of the truck I sat in, the Adjutant’s large, fluffy tail swayed gently.
“How do you think I feel, sir?”
“You look freezing.”
“Still, thanks to Your Excellency’s coat, it isn’t so bad. I can manage.”
The cargo bed behind us carried no soldiers. Instead, it was packed full of sacks of wheat meant to feed the North. As expected, the beastmen had climbed atop the truck’s roof and settled there. We had no need to worry about combat effectiveness lost to the cold. My men possessed an extraordinary resistance to it, even if they couldn’t handle heat nearly as well. Beastmen naturally ran hot. Thanks to that, they could endure temperatures that would kill an ordinary human while wearing nothing more than a coat with basic insulation.
“We’re almost there. Just hold on a little longer.”
In the distance, a massive wall rose high into the sky, and before it sprawled a fortress city and its surrounding villages. The main stage of The Northern Grand Duke’s Contract Bride, also known as the empire’s shield. The fortress city of Pandril. From now on, this would be the domain I governed.
“Halt! Stop right there!”
Soldiers guarding the territory blocked the lead truck. Thick fur coats. Large-caliber rifles suited for hunting magical beasts. They looked every bit the men who defended the North. I ordered the truck stopped and stepped out. The moment they saw me, the soldiers’ eyes widened.
“Lord Volka?”
“It’s Duke Volka. The Emperor himself appointed me. Will you open the gates?”
“O-of course! My apologies!”
The gates to Pandril swung open. Rather than climbing back into the truck, I gestured for the brigade to enter the fortress city.
“Adjutant! Take command of the men and head for the ducal residence! Distribute the food and feed the hungry first!”
“Understood.”
After giving the order, I began walking at a leisurely pace behind the trucks, as if strolling through Pandril. Of course, I wasn’t actually sightseeing. I needed to assess the current state of the fortress city.
‘I expected as much… but this is worse than I imagined.’
The northerners’ faces were grim. Their clothes were ragged, and exhaustion and illness clung to them. Roads were damaged, houses and buildings stood broken. Worst of all, filth that looked like monster blood lay frozen on the ground, untouched and uncleaned. The city had been reduced to little more than a crumbling shell, its only remaining function the defense of the Demon Realm. That was the true state of Pandril.
‘Something’s wrong. This isn’t normal.’
In the original novel I had read, the North had never looked like this. It had been a harsh land, yes, but Pandril had been a tightly knit city backed by formidable military strength and steady imperial support. I clearly remembered the scenes that had thrilled countless readers: the cold-hearted northern grand duke finally opening his heart to the female lead during her debut in northern high society. In other words, this had once been a city where balls, social dances, and salon parties were everyday occurrences.
‘Even if the original had a few historical inaccuracies, the female lead wasn’t some cancer-inducing idiot. She clearly brought all sorts of advancements to the North, didn’t she?’
In the original, the female lead had of course been a Korean reincarnator. I recalled episodes where she used her foreknowledge to establish a massive trading company and generate enormous profits, or where she brought in dwarf artisans to improve steelworking and military technology while building factories. Of course, being a romance novel, those developments had taken a backseat to the budding romance with the male lead, but still—the northern grand duke and his wife had been the ones pushing the North forward, not running it into the ground. Even after ten years of grueling war, this level of collapse felt excessive. They say even a ruined rich family lasts three generations, don’t they? It looked as though everything the original protagonists had built had been squandered before even one generation had passed.
‘I need to find out. Where exactly did things break?’
While I was turning these thoughts over in my head, voices called out.
“Lord Volka?”
“Good heavens! It’s Lord Volka!”
Northerners recognized me and offered greetings. In the original, Volka Adrakin had been a piece of trash—vile in both character and conduct. Almost no one had liked him. But I was a different man now. I was a war hero. For ten long years, the empire had aggressively promoted me and the Hellhound Brigade, using our impossible achievements to ease the war-weariness of its people. As a result, my popularity in the North had risen considerably. In a city where defending the Demon Realm was everything, a capable commander was always beloved.
The problem was that most of those who greeted me so warmly looked half-starved, their cheekbones sharp. They had clearly been given just enough to survive.
“Hey, you there. How long has the child gone without food?”
I approached a young woman holding a child’s hand and asked. She flinched. My fearsome appearance had clearly frightened her, but she soon answered carefully.
“We can barely manage one meal a day. The food at home ran out…”
My brow furrowed sharply. The child burst into tears at the sight, and the woman quickly scooped the boy up, apologizing. I waved a hand to show it was fine, then looked at the other northerners who had gathered around me. They all seemed to be in similar straits. Forget reconstruction. First, they needed to be fed.
‘Crat. I need to meet that man first.’
Crat Marquis. The right hand of the grand duke. In the original, he had been a capable commander and—
‘Take your hands off my bride! Before twenty thousand knights tear your domain apart!’
—the commander of the Iron Blood Knights, the very man famous for the notorious historical inaccuracy of leading twenty thousand knights. If anyone knew why the city had fallen into such ruin, and why my brother and the original protagonists had died, it would be him.
***
“B-bread!”
“Dear God, how long has it been!”
Food always lifted people’s spirits. Hundreds of tons of wheat, hauled in hundreds of trucks, spread throughout the city. The mills worked frantically to grind the grain into flour, and the bakeries baked bread like madmen to distribute to the citizens. Hundreds of tons of wheat sounded like a mountain of food, but given Pandril’s population, it would only keep them alive for a few days. Still, those few days were exactly what the North needed right now.
“Thank you, Lord Volka. Thank you so much…”
While I directed my brigade members as they hauled wheat to the mills and distributed bread and food to the people, northerners frequently approached me and bowed their heads. Of course, despite their gratitude, they still flinched when I reached out to clap their shoulders—my face and size tended to have that effect.
“Eat well and rest. You are the pillars of the North. You must not break.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you.”
I tried my best to reassure them with a friendly smile.
“Colonel, the child over there looks like he’s about to piss himself. We’ll handle the streets, so why don’t you head inside?”
The Adjutant was right. My smile was a killer’s smile. People were terrified of it.
“Go find out why the city has fallen into this mess. A military city ending up like this can’t be normal.”
Once again, the Adjutant was right. I left the streets to my subordinates and entered the ducal residence.
“Chief Steward.”
“Yes, Your Grace. How may I serve you?”
“I’ll be in the Sword Room.”
The Sword Room. Where all the northern nobles gathered for meetings. It was also the place where my brother, the original northern grand duke, had commanded the North with his charisma. Declaring I would wait there meant I wanted every remaining noble in the North summoned immediately.
“I’ll inform them at once.”
The Chief Steward disappeared, and I began walking through the ruined ducal residence. The vast garden, once kept at a perfect temperature by magic and filled with blooming roses, now lay desolate and broken. The interior was no better. Cleaning had clearly been neglected; the halls were cluttered, and not a single maid or steward was in sight.
‘What in the world happened here?’
I sighed inwardly as I entered the Sword Room. Even if the original had been riddled with inaccuracies, the emotional bond between the male and female leads had been delicate and beautiful enough to move even a male reader like me. The North, harsh though it was, had felt like a single living organism, tightly bound together. Whatever had gone wrong, uncovering it was now my task.
The Sword Room lived up to its name, adorned with countless longswords and daggers. I took the highest seat and waited. Before long, the doors opened and the northern nobles began filing in. Every face was gaunt and exhausted. They hadn’t even had time to change into proper attire; they wore dirty military uniforms. And there were so few of them.
“I distinctly said I would be waiting in the Sword Room.”
“We heard. And these are all the nobles left in the North.”
The assembled nobles barely filled half the chairs.
“Sit.”
They took their seats. Silence settled over the room. I pulled the appointment letter the Emperor had given me from my coat and held it out for them to see.
“As of today, I am the Grand Duke of the North. His Majesty himself issued the order.”
“Congratulations, Your Grace.”
There was no resistance. No reaction at all. Only Crat Marquis, seated to my right, muttered a single weary word.
“I want a situation report. The current state of the North—troop numbers, the condition of our defenses. Crat Marquis, you would know best.”
Crat Marquis stared at me blankly for a moment before slowly opening his mouth to speak. He never got the chance. A frantic knock sounded, and a knight burst in, shouting.
“Monsters! They’re swarming the weak point!”
“Damn it all!”
The nobles leapt to their feet, but I was faster.
“Crat Marquis. How many knights remain?”
“Two hundred, at most!”
“And the northern army?”
“Only two divisions left.”
“This is bad. Artillery’s still intact, I assume?”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
I activated my magic—Transmission. I could feel the positions of all five thousand brigade members currently distributing supplies. They would now share my words, my voice, my thoughts.
“Tell me the location of the weak point, Crat Marquis.”
“It’s along the third road. A large hole was blown open during the battle with the Kramkin Principality, and repairs have never been completed.”
“I see it.”
“Pardon?”
“Don’t worry, Crat Marquis. From now on, I’ll show you exactly how we fought for the past ten years.”
My men moved. I silently relayed my thoughts to the brigade, and after ten years of fighting together, they responded like a single living organism, flowing toward the breach in the wall. My vision split into hundreds of streams. Wolf beastmen racing along the ramparts. Fox beastmen mounting machine guns in the gaps of the broken barrier. Bear beastmen lifting weapons that roared with familiar noise.
The next moment, the monsters’ screams began.
Before long, a radio transmission reached Crat Marquis.
“They’re winning! The beastmen! The Hellhound Brigade is grinding the monsters to dust!”
“Truly?”
Up to that point, the Marquis’s expression had remained relatively calm. But the next report wiped that away.
“They’re using chainsaws! They’re grinding the monsters apart with chainsaws! They’re fighting brilliantly! Monsters, the lot of them, Marquis!”
“Chainsaws?!”
The Marquis’s face twisted in disbelief. What was so surprising? He would be seeing this sight often from now on.