Behind the Scenes I

Behind the Scenes I

 

“AND THAT CONCLUDES my report.”

“Thank you.”

The king of Salutania watched the official who had just given his report leave and waited until his office door closed before he heaved a sigh. The prime minister, who was with him, also wore a dark expression. The atmosphere in the room weighed on them both.

The king picked up one of the documents on his desk. “There’s been no change in the countryside?”

“Correct. Rather, with the situation in the capital settling down, the number of petitions continues to increase.”

“I see.”

Following Sei’s annihilation of the black swamp that had appeared in the western forest, there had been a

significant decrease in the local monster population. In fact, their numbers had returned to what was considered tolerably normal.

Thus far, wanting to be cautious with Sei’s safety, the king and his prime minister had done their best to keep circumspect about the Saint. But the relative absence of monsters near the capital was too significant a change to deny.

The nobles had already talked amongst themselves about the successful summoning of the Saint from another world, and now they would inevitably whisper of her most recent deeds.

Even the nobles who had previously kept silent were beginning to act. These lords, who presided over the countryside, had shown understanding for the palace’s inability to send knights to help them. However, with the capital now stabilized, their appeals for aid were growing more frequent and fervent, claiming they were nearing their limits and begging for assistance.

The king and other officials understood the dangers of the situation, and they were indeed planning to call on the knights in short order. That wasn’t the issue. The problem was the Saint.

Some of the lords had taken to loudly insisting that their domain was in greater peril than any other, and these lords also demanded that the palace send the Saint herself to their territory.

“I know we predicted this would happen, but we simply can’t answer every one of these requests,” the king said.

“Assuming that we consider dispatching the Saint at a later date, when it’s safe, all we can do for now is prioritize sending the knights to each domain in turn based on the gravity of the situation.”

“You speak truth. In which case, Klausner’s has the greatest need, wouldn’t you say?”

A pile of petitions from every territory sat upon the king’s desk. Every petition had been exhaustively investigated by bureaucrats before making its way there, and all these were from domains that likely possessed a black swamp similar to the one encountered in the western forest.

At the top of the stack loomed the petition from Klausner’s Domain, known for its medicinal herbs. Its crisis had been determined to be most dire, hence its place on the top.

The king looked over the document in one hand with the other on his chin. “The monsters certainly are a problem there, but the bigger problem is the trouble they’re having with cultivation.”

“Is that why there was a decrease in shipments to the capital?”

“It appears so.”

The king handed the document over to the prime minister, who sighed heavily upon reading it.

The petition from Klausner’s Domain reported that the increase in monsters was impacting their harvest. The company of mercenaries Klausner employed was no longer able to keep them at bay.

If Klausner’s Domain had been anything other than the lead exporter of medicinal herbs, it likely wouldn’t have been labeled a priority. However, due to this status, their troubles meant a key military resource was under threat, especially as some of the herbs they cultivated couldn’t be sourced elsewhere.

It went without saying that the Lord Klausner himself was well aware of his domain’s precious resources. While he wasn’t alone in employing a mercenary company, his company was far stronger than those found elsewhere. The maintenance of such an excellent company required significant funds, and it was well known that Lord Klausner paid that handsome sum himself in order to avoid depending on the palace.

The fact that Lord Klausner was demanding knightly support despite his capable mercenaries meant the situation was grim indeed. It went without saying that the officials were uniformly alarmed.

“This is troubling, to say the least. Do we expect to see impact in the market?” the king asked.

“We temporarily halted deliveries to the palace, and I ordered some staff to secure stock for the market, but I fear it’s likely we already have.”

According to Klausner’s petition, the harvest was half what it had been the previous year. Recent years had seen a gradual decline in the harvest, but this sudden drop was decidedly abnormal.

As the lord of a land whose main export was herbs, Lord Klausner likely felt an intense sense of impending crisis. No wonder that had spurred his decision to send the petition.

The king rested his elbows on his desk and folded his hands together. He dropped his gaze, mulling the situation over for a moment before finally murmuring, “Because of the monsters…”

He was thinking of the swamp they had discovered in the western forest—the swamp Sei had eliminated with her mysterious powers, which they suspected had been created from miasma.

Two facts undergirded this hypothesis. The first was that monsters had emerged from the swamp, and it was known that monsters were borne from a certain density of miasma. Knight Commander Hawke of the Third Order and his knights, who had accompanied Sei on this expedition, had furthermore reported that the miasma grew denser the closer they drew to the swamp.

The second reason was that while they had no way to tell how long the swamp had been in the forest, the clear decrease in the monster population coincided with its elimination. Scouts sent to monitor the area where the swamp had been also reported that the miasma was gradually thinning.

They referred to the phenomenon as a “swamp” because of its muddy, black appearance, but in his report, Grand Magus Yuri Drewes had suggested it might be more accurately thought of as a spring from which the miasma gushed forth.

Based on the situation described in Klausner’s petition, it was possible a similar swamp had appeared in his domain. That meant there was just one real solution to this problem.

The king wasn’t the only one who had come to this conclusion. Studying his king’s expression, the prime minister said, “We may need to ask the Saint to go now.”

The king nodded slowly. They had reached no official conclusion, but despite the fact that they had identified a solution for their problem, the king and prime minister were weighed down by the same heavy mood. They continued to discuss as they sent out a summons.

Thirty minutes later, Knight Commander Albert Hawke and Grand Magus Yuri Drewes were summoned to the king’s office. They took their seats as the prime minister explained their intention to dispatch the Third Order to Klausner’s Domain.

Both must have predicted this outcome, as neither showed any reaction to this declaration. However, one of Albert’s eyebrows twitched when the prime minister implied the existence of another miasma swamp.

Despite the flicker in Albert’s expression, Yuri’s usual smile remained plastered on his face as he asked, “Will you be sending Lady Sei as well, then?”

“That is correct. She is the only one capable of cleansing the miasma.”

The prime minister’s words were liable to wound Yuri’s pride, as he was a master of magic, but Yuri’s expression remained unchanged as he replied with a simple, “Indeed.”

Rather, the prime minister was the one whose expression changed when he heard what Yuri had to say next: “However, she herself does not yet possess complete mastery over that power.”

“She can’t yet use it at will?”

“To put it more precisely, she has been unable to summon it again.”

Yuri had submitted an initial report on Sei’s lingering inability to call forth those powers. He also had yet to deliver a happy update on the matter, despite the hope that she would manage to sort it out. The prime minister’s expression darkened as he realized the situation hadn’t changed.

“Since Lady Sei is unable to properly use her powers, would it not be premature to send her to the countryside?” Albert asked in a somewhat stony tone.

Sei hadn’t been hurt back in the western forest, but she had been far too close to danger for Albert’s comfort—in fact, he was paralyzed with fear by the thought of sending her back into any such situation and loathed the idea of her being exposed to those dangers again.

Not to mention, the Third Order was unfamiliar with the geography of Klausner’s Domain, and they wouldn’t know precisely what to expect until they got there. It could very well be an even more perilous situation than they had faced in the western forest. In his heart of hearts, Albert had hoped Sei would never be required to go to such a place.

Seeing Albert’s worry for Sei, the prime minister touched his chin as he sank into thought. Even if there was a miasma swamp in Klausner’s Domain, sending Sei wouldn’t solve anything if she couldn’t cast the magic. If sending her would do nothing about the miasma, then it might be better to prioritize her safety and keep her at the palace where they could keep an eye on her.

However, the situation wasn’t so simple. While the nobility allied with the palace during national crises, they had their own factions and were far from a monolith. Some nobles cared more for their own interests than those of the kingdom as a whole and, at times, would defy the will of the palace.

Now that the capital was no longer in crisis, if the palace didn’t actively support the country nobility, that same nobility was likely to start openly criticizing the government. Furthermore, if the palace proved unwilling to send help when it was most needed, those who had been on the royal family’s side would likely rescind future support.

Sending the knights to assist the nobles would likely be enough to appease some of them. Their help might only be a stopgap, but it would nevertheless lead to an overall decrease in the local monster population. However, the houses less inclined to look favorably on the palace wouldn’t be satisfied with a temporary solution.

The question, in this case, was whether the nobility was already aware of the Saint’s particular ability to defeat monsters.

The prime minister obviously wished that the knights alone could solve the problem, but even their work would take time to accomplish, and no matter how many monsters they slew, they couldn’t resolve the likely matter of the multiple swamps. For those, they needed the Saint.

If they could be more certain in their ability to deploy the Saint’s powers, then it went without saying that not only would this problem be solved, it would be solved quickly. The events in the western forest were solid proof of that.

However…

The prime minister looked back up and broke the silence. “No, I think she must go.”

“Even though she cannot yet call on her powers?” Albert asked.

“It’s no longer a matter of whether she can.”

Albert gave the prime minister a stern look as the prime minister explained his reasoning. “What’s important is that she, the Saint herself, shows her support by her presence. If we fail to send her merely because her control of her power is incomplete, the lords of each region will grow agitated.”

Albert furrowed his brow. “So you say, but if she can’t cleanse the miasma, how can it really make a difference whether she goes or not?”

“What we know is that she has been unable to use her power since her return to the palace. However…what if the issue is that she hasn’t been driven by necessity?”

Albert grew silent.

There were still far too many things that they didn’t know about Sei’s powers and far too few that they did.

Worse, the prime minister might very well be right. Albert had also entertained the possibility that Sei couldn’t use her purification magic in the palace because, simply put, she had nothing to purify.

Admittedly, there was also the incident of her herb enhancement at the research institute to factor in, but the prime minister was willing to believe that, in that event, Sei might have used a different power than the one she had deployed against the miasma.

In the end, it still wasn’t clear what the Saint needed in order to trigger her powers.

The prime minister recognized that sending Sei anywhere was a gamble, as they had no guarantee she would be able to use her purifying powers once she reached Klausner’s Domain. Despite that, when considering all the factors at play, they had no choice but to send her.

While Albert understood the needs of the situation, he railed against the notion of sending Sei into the field without greater mastery of her gifts. Without her purifying power, the monsters would linger and in great numbers, even with his knights on hand to handle things. Albert predicted it would take a great deal of time before they could get things under control again, which would surely lead to more criticism from the nobles—especially if they knew the Saint had been present but had done nothing.

It wasn’t so much criticism toward the Third Order Albert was worried about, though—he was sure Sei would receive the brunt of it.

His mind reeled, summoning a litany of terrible happenstances one after another, leaving him deeply apprehensive about bringing Sei to Klausner’s Domain under these far from perfect conditions.

Albert was about to protest further when the king, who had been silent up until then, finally spoke. “We shall send Lady Sei to Klausner’s Domain.”

It was the voice of utter authority.

Albert doubted he would win against the king. He clenched his fist and swallowed the words he had been about to say.

The king’s decision was the final say at this juncture. Albert resolved himself to return later to make his appeals—he would come with support, and he wouldn’t back down.

For the time being, he left the king’s office alongside Yuri.