Chapter Five: The Urgent Report, the Scheme, and the King’s Madness

In Barbosse’s office, the minister and a number of nobles were chuckling to themselves.

“Everything is proceeding without a hitch, Your Excellency.”

Barbosse calmly nodded in response. The castle was currently in turmoil after losing all communication with the expedition that had been dispatched to the border. However, Barbosse was already aware that the expedition had been ambushed, the army was in disarray, and the Seventh Prince had gone missing. He had learned this from his privately employed troops, who had informed him of Herscherik’s plummet into the flooded river—and the fact that the little prince had no chance of making it out alive.

I’m finally rid of him... Barbosse smirked. Because of that pesky youngest prince, Barbosse had been at risk of losing all of the power he’d spent so long obtaining. At the beginning of spring, he had employed the Church in an attempt to assassinate the prince, but it had ended in failure at the very last minute. He had also failed at using his own daughter to bring the prince to heel.

So Barbosse had fallen back on a somewhat more aggressive strategy—forcing Herscherik out of the capital and having him killed somewhere that could not be directly connected to the minister himself. He had recently learned that the imperial army was conveniently planning an attack along the border, so Barbosse had decided to exploit the empire’s plot. He struck a deal with imperial nobles who wished to curry favor with the emperor, leaking information on Gracis’s army. He had also secretly threatened the Principality of Parche to ensure that they did not interfere with his plans. Barbosse had made full use of any and all connections he had to ensure that Herscherik was eliminated cleanly.

The empire had then launched their invasion as planned, forcing Gracis to dispatch an expedition to ward them off. All Barbosse needed at that point was to force Herscherik to join the expedition as the king’s proxy, under the pretext of raising morale. He had already made preparations to quell any opposition to his plan. To ensure that the expedition did not stray from its planned route, he had also planted a general loyal to him in the vanguard—and to make matters as foolproof as possible, he had even sent his own private troops along.

The only real issue with the plan was the possibility of losing territory along the imperial border. However, if that were to happen, that territory could be easily regained—be it through battle or brokering a political marriage with the emperor. The Gracis family were all of unparalleled beauty. It would be a waste not to make use of them for diplomacy.

I can deal with the territory problem later, Barbosse had decided, sparing no thought for the citizens living in the area. To Barbosse, the royal family, the nobles, and the commoners—everyone other than himself—were nothing but pawns, and there were only three kinds: exploitable pawns, disposable pawns, and those that needed to be removed from the board.

Everything had gone according to plan. However, the office door was flung open with great force, interrupting the minister’s thoughts.

“Minister Barbosse!”

“What is the meaning of this?!”

The person responsible for the noise was the castle’s head of security, a member of the constabulary.

“I-I’m terribly sorry, Your Excellency, but...” The head of security faltered at the sound of Barbosse’s angry voice, but still he continued. “Your Excellency, the situation is getting out of hand! Please, tell us what to do! The people of the town are protesting by the castle gate!”

“The masses?” Barbosse answered after a short pause; he had not prepared for such an incident. While it was not unheard of for people outside the capital to swarm the house of a local lord with some petition, Barbosse had never in his entire career seen the people attempt to storm the castle itself.

“They’re all shouting about the safety of Prince Herscherik and the expedition... We don’t know what to do... Please, give us an order!” As soon as the soldier had uttered his request, the room fell silent.

The guard on duty that day cursed his bad luck.

Every day since the expedition had set off, a few townspeople had stopped by to ask about them and the prince in particular, he had been informed. The superiors’ orders were to shoo them off as inoffensively as possible. He had not foreseen anything like this happening while he was on duty.

“Calm down! Please calm down, everyone!” He was as polite as he could be, careful not to anger anyone, raising his voice as much as he could to address everyone present. However, the people took no note of his efforts, as they continued to shout at the unfortunate guard blocking their way.

“How can you ask us to be calm?!”

“Is it true that the expedition was wiped out?!”

“Where is Ryoko? Where is Prince Herscherik?!”

“Tell us what became of the prince!”

Everyone from elders with hunched backs all the way down to small children could be seen in the crowd. Even though it was still working hours, the people of the town, men and women alike, were charging the main gate of the castle.

“We’re, uh... We’re currently trying to assess the situation, and...” The guard would normally simply wave his lance about to disperse the crowd, but this time around there were so many people that he had started to fear for his own safety, so he’d decided to act humble instead. However, this attitude of his only served to irritate the people further.

“Send soldiers to confirm right away! Hurry, before it’s too late!”

“Exactly! Besides, Prince Herscherik is still just a child! What are you thinking, sending a little boy like him to the battlefield?!”

“Yeah, exactly!”

The children in the crowd started shouting in agreement, and the situation grew even more chaotic. Just as the guard started to fear that the crowd would force themselves through the gate, someone came to his rescue.

“Silence!”

The crowd fell speechless as their gazes turned toward the source of the roar. Sitting upon his horse, his flaming hair fluttering together with the horse’s mane, was a former general who even now looked as muscular and mighty as the day he retired. Known as the Blazing General on the battlefield and feared by his enemies, this man was Marquis Roland Aldis.

“Sir Aldis!”

“Citizens, what is all this commotion?” Roland asked, gallantly dismounting his horse as the crowd desperately flung themselves toward him.

“Sir Aldis, is it true that you have lost contact with the expedition—that they’ve been defeated?!”

“Where exactly did you hear that?” Roland asked the crowd. He himself had learned from his sons that they had lost contact with the expedition, but there was supposed to be a gag order in place to prevent panic.

The people responded to Roland’s firm question without hesitation.

“I heard a rumor that some soldiers were talking about it at a pub...” It appeared that someone from the army had gotten drunk and let it slip that they couldn’t get in touch with the expedition, and the information had then spread like a wildfire until practically everyone in the capital had heard about it. The people had then rushed to the castle in order to verify the rumor.

I’ll have to go clean up my old home later, Roland thought as a desperate woman approached him.

“I... I heard everyone who took part in the expedition died... My son is among them!”

“And apparently Prince Herscherik is missing too?!”

“I have family near the border!”

As everyone tried to shout over each other, Roland raised both hands and waited for the crowd to go quiet. After hearing their shouting calm down, he opened his mouth again.

“First, I ask you to understand that I cannot at present share any details concerning this matter, as we do not wish to invite unnecessary confusion based on uncertain information,” he said to a now silent crowd. Being the head of a reputable house that had produced a long line of knights, no one dared object to his words, especially as the people were aware of his achievements as a general. “As the head of the Aldis family, I ask you all to withdraw for the day.”

Concerned expressions still showing on their faces, the people of the crowd reluctantly nodded their heads.

“However, I can say this much,” Roland continued in a confident voice. “My son is the prince’s knight of service. There is no chance whatsoever of any harm coming to the prince while he is with him. I cannot imagine an army led by such a prince losing, either.”

The people looked at each other after hearing the Blazing General speak. However, even in the face of Roland’s confidence, the crowd was still unable to wipe their concern off their faces.

Barbosse watched Roland pacify the crowd from a nearby window. While he could not hear anything from outside, he could more or less imagine what the crowd was saying from the look of the situation, as well as visualize Roland’s replies. He furrowed his brow.

“Why...” He did not complete his sentence out loud.

He couldn’t understand why the prince was so beloved by the people. To Barbosse, everything could be understood in terms of advantage or disadvantage. Was the prince really such an advantage to them? Was it because he was royalty? But the people wouldn’t have known that the boy they knew from town was a royal prior to the departure ceremony. Of all the royal family, the king and the crown prince Marx should have been far more familiar to the masses.

Normally there was an invisible but impenetrable wall between the royal family and the people. You could see them, but you could not touch them—that was the nature of the relationship between royalty and the people they ruled. But that prince was different. To him, there was no difference between him and the people—and if he did encounter any kind of barrier between them, he would destroy it himself as he walked among the masses.

When Barbosse had first heard the report of Herscherik’s movements, he could not believe his own ears. The young prince had been sneaking into the castle town, he was told, with the citizens accepting him as though he was one of their own children.

It didn’t make any sense. The young prince possessed a personality, intelligence, courage, and above all a strange ability to charm the people around him that belied his age. Why had the people taken so strongly to him?

“Your Excellency...” A single noble spoke up in the quiet room, but he received no answer.

A grim mood permeated the king’s office. The only sounds that could be heard in the room were the king’s fountain pen scratching across paper and an occasional sigh. His face was pale, and he was evidently distressed. The officials assisting him would regularly glance his way, fearing that the king might collapse sooner or later. However, the king simply continued to go over the paperwork in front of him, paying the others no heed. Every so often he would stop writing and freeze for a moment, only to suddenly come to his senses again and resume his task.

After having let out more sighs than one could count, Solye Gracis put his fountain pen down and rubbed his forehead. He had a terrible headache after being unable to sleep properly for the past two nights. The reason for his insomnia was that they had lost contact with the military expedition led by Herscherik.

Before then, they’d had regular contact with the army through the use of magical communication items. But two days ago the army had suddenly stopped responding. Solye had requested that soldiers be dispatched from the border fort, which was still contactable, to the location where the expedition was expected to be three days prior to arriving, but the request had been denied by an official high up in National Defense.

“It would be a terrible idea to divide the army stationed at the border fort now,” the official had claimed. “As the weather is usually poor this time of year, perhaps the unusually large amounts of Floating Magic in the air is simply interfering with communication. Alternatively, the items could have broken down in some way.”

Unlike the magical items installed in forts and the like, those used for communication while on the march were portable and lightweight, but at the same time sensitive to the weather and surrounding Floating Magic. In addition, they were delicate machines, and if one were to break down during a march, it would be impossible for a Spellcaster to repair it on site.

“We might hear from them tomorrow. At the very least we should hear something from the fort in three days,” the official persuaded Solye, who had nothing to say in response.

However, there was no word from the expedition on the day after, or the day after that. According to schedule they ought to be arriving at the border fort the next day, where they would be able to use the communication items installed there to contact the castle, Solye told himself in an attempt to banish his feelings of worry. However, crushing any hopes Solye still had, an official from National Defense entered his office.

As the official finished giving his report, a pile of paperwork fell to the floor. The officials of the room quickly glanced toward the papers on the ground, but then turned their attention to the master of the room, Solye. The king was staring at the official who had just given the report, unmoving. His heart raced, a chill ran down his spine, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

“Is... Is that true?” he spoke in a hoarse voice. Solye put his hands on his desk and slowly stood up, his long, silver hair falling around his shoulders. The official gulped in response before continuing.

“The expedition of twenty thousand has fallen prey to an ambush and command has broken down. We have been informed that Prince Herscherik is missing.” Those were the contents of the report that they had received from the border fort moments ago.

The official continued to explain the current situation, but Solye felt as though the man’s voice was somehow distant. He could hear him speaking, but he was unable to process the meaning. Solye’s mouth opened slightly and he seemed to say something, but the official was unable to hear him.

“Your Majesty?”

“...get...”

However, still unable to make out what he was saying, the official asked him again.

“Your Majesty, I’m terribly sorry, but could you repeat—”

“Get out. All of you.” Solye’s voice was cold, unimaginable coming from the king, usually so warm and smiling. He stared the official down with eyes seemingly devoid of emotion, causing him and the other officials to flee the office immediately.

As he heard the sound of the door shutting in the now otherwise empty room, Solye repeated the report he had just received in his head. After falling prey to an ambush, General Seghin had taken his two thousand cavalrymen and rushed through the night to the border fortress. The general had initially been bewildered, unable to clearly articulate what had happened, but after being calmed down somewhat he had explained that the expedition had been ambushed by the Atrad empire.

They had immediately attempted to dispatch soldiers to verify the state of the expedition when, as if they had waited for this moment, the empire’s reinforcements had appeared along the border, a hundred thousand strong. They had received no prior word of the reinforcements from their spy stationed within the empire. Coming face-to-face with a large imperial army, the fort had been unable to dispatch any soldiers to the site of the ambush.

An ambush within the kingdom’s own borders, the unforeseen reinforcements, movements that seemed to suggest they knew Gracis’s plans... Solye could not imagine that these were mere coincidences.

Could it be that information about us was being leaked the entire time, while our intelligence about the empire was false? Was this all a set-up? That was the only possible conclusion Solye could arrive at. Everything had all been planned somehow from the very start.

Solye’s mind went to one, and only one, person.

Barbosse... He must have...! The minister had been aiming for Herscherik’s life from the start. Unable to make his move within the castle, he engineered a situation that not even a member of the royal family could escape and sent Herscherik along with the army.

The disputed territory along the border constantly saw conflicts with the empire. Barbosse must have leaked information on his own country’s army and promised the imperials territory in return for having them assassinate Herscherik... No, this was Barbosse, after all. To ensure that Herscherik was eliminated, he had likely also sent his own men to do the job.

Herscherik... Solye could picture the youngest prince’s smile clearly. It reminded him of his favorite queen that he had loved so well.

“He’ll be with you, even when I’m gone,” she had said, before entrusting him with her child as she departed for the Garden Above.

“I was wrong...” Solye muttered in a tone bereft of his usual warmth. “I’ve been wrong all along...”

Why had he decided to stay a king? He had lost his daughter, his pride, and the woman he loved more than anything else in the world... And now, he had suffered yet another loss.

Why had he tried to endure it all? The grief, the frustration, the anger, the loss...

“It’s not too late...” Solye’s emerald eyes gleamed with madness as he turned them to a sword resting in the corner of the room. Almost as if being drawn in by the blade, Solye walked toward it with unsteady steps, trampling over the documents on the floor. He slowly reached out toward the sword and unsheathed it.

The blade was silvery and narrow. He kept it for his own protection, but he had never once used it. As he swung the sword he could hear the sound of the blade slicing through the air, and, satisfied that it was still in good condition, he sheathed it again. Then, he started reciting an incantation, converting his Magic to the element of wind, and constructed an investigation spell.

But before Solye had a chance to release his spell, the door leading to the hallway was flung open. The noise distracted him, and his spell failed, releasing a burst of wind into the room which whirled all the discarded papers up into the air.

The person who opened the door must have been running. Short of breath, he watched the documents dance in the wind with a bewildered look on his face as he searched for the room’s owner.

“Father, where are... Father?!” The person—none other than Marx—finally found the man he was looking for amidst the dancing paperwork, but quickly grew wide-eyed at the sight of what he was holding. In his father’s hand was a sword.

Even since Marx was born, it had been exceedingly rare for him to spot his father holding a weapon. At most, he might hold a ceremonial sword for ceremonies, but Marx had never seen him actually unsheath one.

“Is that you, Marx?” His father’s words sounded unimaginably cold.

Solye usually spoke kindly, even to his servants. When speaking to his family, his voice would turn even softer. Now, however, he sounded like a completely different person. Marx could feel the air in the room grow tense.

“Father, what are you...” Marx was unable to complete his sentence. Solye’s gaze, even colder than his voice, had left him stunned.

Marx reflexively moved his hand toward the hilt of his sword, but caught himself just before he touched it and clenched his fist. He realized that he had actually felt intimidated by his father.

I can’t believe I was intimidated... That I was afraid of my own father...

Marx then remembered a comment he had once heard. Compared to his deceased older brother, his father was less skilled both with the sword and with magic. However, that was only in comparison to his brother. From what Marx had heard, his father was an equal match for royal guards with the sword and for powerful Spellcasters with magic. To possess one skill or the other was hardly unheard of, but possessing both at once was exceptional.

“I will take care of the problem at its root,” Solye quietly spoke to Marx, who still stood silent. His expression was a far cry from the usual gentle and kind king.

“Father, please calm down.” Marx pushed himself to speak as calmly as possible.

The “root of the problem” could only refer to Volf Barbosse, Marx thought, before quickly reevaluating his assumption. To his father, the root of the problem included not only Barbosse, but also everyone in the castle loyal to the minister.

“I have had enough of having people taken from me, leaving nothing but regret. If I have to suffer through this, I might as well just...”

“Father!”

Madness gleaming in his eyes, Solye spoke to Marx. Why had he endured all this regret? When he first lost his daughter, instead of caving in to the minister’s threats, he should simply have killed him right there and then. He should have cut down anyone that stood in his way. Then he would never have had to spend every day of his life in fear. And he would never have lost Herscherik.

Marx was paralyzed before his father, who was still holding his sword. Marx himself detested Barbosse just as much as Solye. When he’d heard about the ambush and the fate of the expedition, the first person to come to mind was that man—the one who had planned it all. He was also filled with a deep sense of regret.

I’m always the last to know... Both when he had lost his friendship with Octavian and when he had found out the truth about his country, he always seemed to be a step behind everyone around him. And this time, if only he had refused to let Herscherik go, maybe this whole ordeal could have been prevented.

I can’t afford to remain ignorant any longer. If Father is to brandish his sword, then I too shall share in his dishonor. Marx steeled his resolve.

Fortunately, he had a number of brilliant younger brothers. They would be fine without him, he concluded.

“Father...” Filled with resolve, Marx spoke his father’s name.

Suddenly, Marx felt a hand come to rest on his tense shoulder. He turned behind to find the king’s own butler of service, Rook, who stepped into the office and stopped in front of the prince.

“Your Majesty... No, Solye.”

“Rook...” Solye hesitated for a moment before replying to his friend, his gaze averted. “Don’t stop me, Rook. I...”

“As a butler of service, I would never betray my master, no matter what,” Rook spoke, interrupting Solye. “However, I was entrusted with your safety by a close friend.”

This was a promise Rook had made with the woman who had been the king’s favorite queen. The very thing she’d feared had finally happened.

“Solye is a gentle king. However, the moment he truly experiences fear and despair, he will no longer be able to remain a king.”

Just as she had said, Solye was on his way to losing his place as a king.

“Protect Solye for me... Stop him, if it comes to that.”

Rook closed his eyes for a moment. He then opened them again and looked straight into his friend’s eyes.

“If the man she loved is about to stray from his path, I needed to stop him. Remember—why did you endure it all this time? You wanted to protect everyone, didn’t you? Do you want everything you’ve done until now to go to waste?”

However, Solye remained motionless as the air between the king and his best friend grew even tenser. Then, as if to shatter that tension, yet another person appeared.

“Excuse me.”

“Will...?” Marx spoke the name of the man who had just appeared. It was the Second Prince, William.

William shut his lips tight for a moment at the sight of the messy scene that was the king’s office, before muttering, “I see...” He then looked at the three motionless figures in the office in turn and let out a heavy sigh.

“Father, Brother—and Master Rook as well—please calm down,” he spoke with an utterly exasperated tone. However, this was only a bad habit of William’s, and not at all an attempt to mock them. As the muscles on the beautiful face he had inherited from his parents never saw any use outside of his work, he always looked like he was in a bad mood, to the extent that people rarely noticed when he was actually in a good one.

“Hersch told me that if it ever came to this, I had to be sure to stop all of you.”

“What...?” Marx said, surprised, and William continued.

“Hersch gave me a message to relay to you all. ‘In the event that I go missing, don’t do anything rash until my body has been found,’ he said.”

“You mean to say Hersch saw all this coming? And why did he tell you, of all people?” Of the two of them, Marx had been close to Herscherik for longer than William had; feeling left out, Marx asked William to clarify the situation. William shrugged his shoulders as he answered.

“Hersch explained that too. He said, ‘If I tell Father, he’ll stop me from going, and Mark tends to become too emotional and easy to read. But you, Will—you seem like you’d be able to keep a level head no matter what.’ Therefore, until you’ve all calmed down, I’m not letting you take one step outside this room,” William declared, before turning to his unmoving father. “Father, if you do something rash now, you might get in the way of what Herscherik is trying to achieve. Please, be patient.”

“William... Do you actually know what Herscherik is trying to do?”

“No, he wouldn’t tell me.” Herscherik had remained tight-lipped. The only thing he would say was that William had to interfere if worse came to worst.

William looked straight at his father, who had fallen silent upon hearing what William had to say.

“If you still insist on taking drastic measures with your sword, you will have to cut me down first. I refuse to step aside.”

“William...”

“If Herscherik truly does not return, neither you nor Marx will have to worry about a thing, as I will take care of matters myself. I’ll ruthlessly cut them all down on your behalf,” William spoke, a quiet resolve visible deep within his blue eyes.

Solye looked down at his sword for a moment, before shaking his head. Rook moved closer, slowly taking the sword out of Solye’s hands; the king then collapsed into his chair like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut.

Suddenly, a woman’s voice could be heard in the room.

“Your Majesty...”

“Perla...?” Solye looked toward the source of the voice to find a woman he did not expect to see here. Just like Marx’s, her hair looked as if it had been formed by melting down the finest rubies, with eyes akin to polished gems of the same hue. Tall and with a well-proportioned figure, even though she was closer to forty, she was still as beautiful as she had been in her twenties. She was the First Queen of Gracis, Perla.

“Your Majesty, I must apologize,” Perla spoke after closing the door, hanging her head. “Barbosse forced me to do it. He said that if I did not include a secret message along with my letter to the principality, Your Majesty and Marx, along with the other queens and their children, would suffer the same fate as my daughter.”

Perla still remembered the grief she had felt as if it had happened yesterday. One day, her daughter had only just learned to stand while holding onto something; the next, all that remained was a cold body. So Perla had included the minister’s message along with her own. She had not known the contents, but after hearing about the empire’s ambush, she had concluded that the message Barbosse had forced her to send had been the cause. The minister had talked with the empire and the principality in secret and invited the enemy into his own country.

Though Gracis and Parche may have had an amicable relationship, they were far from equals. Gracis was far more powerful. If the minister, the de facto leader of the country, threatened them, Parche had no choice but to comply.

Is he willing to sacrifice even his own country?! Solye was furious both with the minister and with himself for being unable to stop him. However, his first order of business was the queen in front of him, who was trembling in fear. She had been grief-stricken just like him, but he had been too preoccupied with himself to notice.

Solye walked up to Perla and embraced her.

“I have caused you pain. Forgive me, Perla,” Solye whispered into her ear, apologizing from the bottom of his heart. Marx and William awkwardly averted their gazes at the sight.

Hearing Solye’s apology, tears started to run down Perla’s cheeks.

“No, not at all! You misunderstand, Your Majesty!”

No one had expected what came out of Perla’s mouth next.

“I was planning to turn the minister down. I swore I would never help the monster who killed my daughter. And to take revenge for her!” But just as she had resolved to slice off that man’s head, Herscherik’s butler of service had shown up. Appearing outside her room with no forewarning, he had come with a message from Herscherik: “Please trust me.”

“Because of that, I decided to do as the minister said. But I never expected that he would go missing!”

Solye supported Perla as she collapsed in tears, helping her to a chair before kneeling down in front of her, holding her hand. Meanwhile, the queen simply continued apologizing.

The two princes, hearing the queen’s words, looked at each other and both sighed heavily.

“So that’s why...” Marx muttered.

During the council where it had been decided that Herscherik would serve as the king’s proxy, Marx had thought that something had seemed strange about Herscherik. He had shown off his men of service to everyone in the room, almost as if he had been emphasizing the strength he could bring to bear. Although, as the strength of men of service belongs to their master, it would hardly be wrong to call it the prince’s own strength.

But normally, Herscherik never ordered his men to accompany him unless there was a need for it, never treating them as though he owned them. In other words, Herscherik must have had a reason for showing them off as he did. He had wanted to provoke the minister and draw his full attention. It had all been part of his plan.

“Well, he’s getting a smack on the head when he gets back.” The younger brother nodded in agreement to his older brother’s proposition. The worry and uneasiness that had been building inside them had vanished.

An officer from the ambush unit was giving a report at the Atrad army’s headquarters. Sitting in the middle was a man in his forties with eyes and hair the color of fallen leaves. He was a noble of the tenth rank and the supreme commander for the Gracis invasion—Dick Eol Lynx of the Atrad imperial army.

“We’ve received word from the ambush unit that they will be moving into their position by tomorrow morning, as planned!”

Dick nodded, seemingly satisfied with the awaited report.

“Great. Tell each unit to start preparing. We begin the siege tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir!”

The soldiers exited the tent, followed by the staff members who were charged with relaying the orders to each unit. Dick, left behind in the tent, took a glass of liquor offered by his attendant and downed it in one gulp.

This has all gone even better than expected.

When the emperor commanded an attack on Gracis, a secret message had arrived. A particular Gracis noble had sent it by way of a merchant—the two countries may have been enemies, but it was not as if they had no relationship at all. You never knew when a contact in the enemy country might be of use, Dick thought.

The secret message was a request to assassinate, or possibly take prisoner, a member of the royal family. Dick had at first considered that it might be a trap, but a report from a spy he had stationed in the kingdom had lent credence to the message. The report said that Minister Barbosse viewed the Seventh Prince as a threat. Dick surmised that the secret letter had actually come from the minister himself.

Ultimately, he had decided to accept the offer. As the supreme commander of the army, he would use any means at his disposal to ensure their victory.

So this Gracis minister wants to rid himself of the Seventh Prince so badly that he would be willing to sacrifice territory for it... He had heard that the Seventh Prince was the king’s favorite son. Selling his own country just to kill a single child... The kingdom won’t last long at this rate.

However, that was of no concern to Dick. All he cared about was making use of the information he had been given to seize territory from the kingdom. There was no need for compassion on the battlefield.

With this, I should be able to gain His Imperial Majesty’s trust, and in turn improve my standing in the country further.

The goal of this invasion was to demonstrate the new emperor’s power to the neighboring countries. Defeat was not an option. If he emerged victorious from this battle, his social standing would be assured.

Meanwhile, in a council room in the fort located along the border with the Atrad empire, a badly wounded soldier appeared, supported on both sides, before the generals tasked with guarding the border. He was the only man who had managed to make it to the border fort on his own, all the way from the expedition that they had lost contact with three days prior.

“I have a report to make...” the man spoke feebly. His military-issue armor was missing pieces, and he had a bandage wrapped around his head that covered half of his face. “The army has been nearly wiped out... I...”

The man then fell to his knees; the only reason he did not collapse completely to the ground was the two soldiers supporting him. No wonder, as he was nearly at his limit. He’d only made it this far thanks to his skill as a horseman.

“That’s enough. You did well to get here. For now, just rest,” the veteran general in charge of the fort said as he gave the soldier a solemn nod. His name was Ivan Barthold, a count and a general. He had stood on many a battlefield, where his sturdy and steady style of fighting reflected his personality, and had driven away countless enemy assaults. If the Blazing General was a sword, Barthold was a shield that protected the country.

Barthold next directed his gaze at the pale man sitting on a chair in a corner of the room.

“General Seghin, do you have anything to add?”

“I-I...” Teodor was unable to muster another word.

Teodor had escaped to the border fort the day before. He had arrived along with two thousand cavalrymen, having sprinted nonstop, day and night. Shortly after that, the imperial army’s reinforcements had arrived and taken up position on the plain outside the fort, along the border. The royal army stationed in the fort had been unable to make a single move.

“The leader of the first division abandons his army, flees to save his own hide, and now refuses to even speak... Have some shame,” Barthold said in disgust, as he let out a deep sigh. Currently, though, there was a more important matter to attend to than the pale-faced youngster in front of him. “I’ll leave holding you accountable for later. Right now we need to figure out how to deal with the imperial army.”

A war council began, and the wounded soldier exited the room together with the two men supporting him. No one in the room noticed that he was smiling.