I know the grassland tribes very well.
The reason I can say that with such confidence is exceedingly simple.
Memories and experiences from my past life. And the certainty about this world that came from them.
“You know them very well. As far as this elder brother knows, you’ve had no point of contact with the grassland tribes.”
“Must one experience everything firsthand to know it?”
“Are you saying you studied the grassland tribes?”
The Fifth Prince refuted my words in a tone that said he found it hard to believe.
Our family had been fairly prominent even in the days of Condor.
And I, born from such a family, had studied the grassland tribes?
It was the same as saying a young master had learned how to wash dishes.
In other words, the Fifth Prince’s reaction was by no means exaggerated.
“I am not foolish enough to lie in front of Your Highness.”
“Of course not. If you were that lacking, neither I nor His Majesty the Emperor nor the Chancellor would have taken an interest in you. But it truly is hard to believe that you studied the grassland tribes. Most young nobles are completely intoxicated by the position they stand in.”
“Even though it wasn’t a position they climbed to themselves. As if they did climb there themselves?”
When I gave a scathing critique of those brats, the Fifth Prince burst into hearty laughter.
They were the type the Fifth Prince hated most. Those who had high positions without any ability.
From his perspective, having come this far by ability alone, they must be utterly detestable.
Though he had the Founding Emperor as his father, his life could not have been easy.
Rather, he had worked even harder so as not to be eclipsed by such a father’s radiance.
That was likely the greatest weapon that had made the Fifth Prince who he was today.
“If you hold such firm conviction, then saying more would be meaningless. But be sure you understand this. Failure in the east will not simply be a failure as an envoy. It may become a self-inflicted move that blocks your path in the future.”
“Will His Majesty the Emperor not step in for me?”
“Are you asking when you already know? If I must answer, His Majesty, too, will eventually agree with those around him who say you must be held responsible. This is something you volunteered to do, is it not?”
I might lose the hard-won position of Executive Director.
The Fifth Prince tried to persuade me one last time, asking if I was truly fine with that.
Was he worried about me? Or was he worried about the position of Executive Director?
If someone who supported the Eighth Prince sat there, it would be rather troublesome.
“If there is anything this elder brother can help with, say so. I will see what I can do.”
“I am grateful for the thought alone. But this is a task His Majesty the Emperor entrusted to me, so I believe it is right that I accomplish it myself.”
“If you were merely foolishly upright, I would click my tongue. But with a clever fellow like you, there must be a reason. Very well. This elder brother will say no more on that matter.”
Now then. If we stayed together too long, we would only draw suspicious eyes upon each other.
Saying we should quickly go our separate ways, the Fifth Prince moved first.
The catch was that we had no choice but to walk together until the point where we parted.
“Listen, brother.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“I told you, you may call me elder brother.”
“I will consider it slowly.”
Even if I answered that I absolutely could not, it did not seem like he would listen.
So when I replied as if I might do so later, the Fifth Prince smiled.
“I did not know it when I first saw you, but the more I deal with you, the more I like you. Have you truly no thought of joining me? If it were you and me, I feel we would encounter some rather amusing things.”
“If you are referring to the formation training, though I have never served in the military, I will do my utmost not to cause trouble.”
The Founding Emperor had entrusted the princes born of his first wife with formation training.
The catch was that it had originally been something he intended to give to the Seventh and Eighth Princes.
But those two had never once set foot on a battlefield.
It made no sense for such young masters to lead formation training.
In the end, this training came to be handled by the princes led by the Second Prince.
‘What’s funny is that the purpose of this formation training was originally to keep the princes born of the first wife in check. In an emergency, it was meant to put the army under the command of the Seventh Prince, the Eighth Prince’s older brother.’
Training led by the very people they were supposed to be checking. Did that even make sense?
From the Chancellor’s perspective, it must have been enough to make him burst with frustration, but there was nothing to be done.
They were only twelve. Ten. What could children do properly?
It was not as if they had swept across battlefields since boyhood like the Second Prince.
Nor had they passed the formal civil service examination at seventeen like the Fifth Prince.
“Formation training. Yes. There was that as well. But this elder brother would like to see you for much longer than that.”
“…”
I had avoided it as much as possible, but the Fifth Prince simply threw a straight ball.
He was asking me to support him. It meant he had intentions toward the Crown Prince’s seat.
I had not expected him to reveal that so openly in front of me.
At this time, it was something he had to hide as much as possible, even in front of his subordinates.
Words spoken by a person were bound to leak somewhere.
There was no way someone as thorough as the Fifth Prince would have forgotten that.
The Fifth Prince himself, and no one else, was extending his hand to me.
In terms of ability, he was a man who absolutely ought to become Crown Prince.
The Fifth Prince himself also clearly had intentions toward the Crown Prince’s seat. Toward the throne.
And this was a world that followed the historical grounding of an author from Earth.
If things flowed without any variables, the future would be exactly as I knew it.
At this point, I could think this was enough and take the bait.
But if I did, I would earn this perfect human being’s disappointment.
In this world, even the slightest sense of need became a weakness.
Right now, I had many things I needed, so much so that I had even volunteered for the envoy mission.
And that had not even begun yet. The work of the Executive Bureau was the same.
Joining hands here would be a poor move. I absolutely could not do that.
“…Your Highness.”
“Speak, brother.”
“I have not yet shown you anything.”
“You have shown me nothing?”
“Yes. If you would be so gracious, until I have shown you myself… It may be an arrogant thing to say, but I would like you to grant me a period of grace to delay my answer to Your Highness’s question.”
This was the best answer I could give the Fifth Prince for now.
And if it was the Fifth Prince, he would have grasped the true meaning of my words.
“…Listen, brother.”
“Please speak.”
“This may sound a little strange, but… have you perhaps lied about your age?”
“Your Highness?”
“I heard you are only in your twenties now. But the way you think and speak is not at all something of that age. Rather than a younger brother, you feel more like an elder brother.”
He was quite sharp. In truth, if I combined my age from my previous life and this one, I would easily be over fifty.
But even if I rambled about past lives and the like, I would only be dragged away for the crime of mocking the imperial family.
For now, I simply had to manage my expression. And make the person I was shine even more.
“I am satisfied with being the younger brother.”
“Oh?”
It meant that I was taking his proposal very positively.
As if he had read my thoughts, the Fifth Prince smiled in satisfaction.
“Let us part here. Hurry back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I enjoyed our conversation. Thanks to you, I was able to learn more about His Majesty the Emperor and your father.”
“I, too, enjoyed learning about His Majesty the Emperor and my father in their younger days.”
We had merely shared stories about each other’s parents.
To each other. And toward those who might possibly be listening.
After aligning our words that way, we turned toward the places each of us had to go.
*
One week later. The Empire’s official envoy delegation departed for the east.
Only after receiving a send-off from none other than the Founding Emperor himself.
The head of the delegation was Ethan Montebello. There were also other figures from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ethan promised that he would certainly bring back good news.
The Founding Emperor patted the shoulder of the young founding contributor, saying he looked forward to his performance.
“…”
The Fifth Prince, Ishmael, quietly watched that sight.
There had once been a time when his father had patted his shoulder like that.
He had been only seventeen. At that age, he had become an administrative official through ability.
Even the Condor administration, filled with all kinds of corruption and graft, had acknowledged him.
They had said they could not push out someone who had received such overwhelmingly high marks.
Of course, he had not been there long, but he had certainly proven his ability.
However, various incidents during the founding of the Empire had twisted the relationship between father and son.
The decisive one was, of course, when he cut down his former teacher and the Founding Emperor’s comrade.
That man had wanted to accomplish every reform within Condor’s framework.
By contrast, the Chancellor and Ishmael had concluded that it should be done in a new country.
In the end, the conflict between the two factions reached its peak and fell into crisis.
At the worst moment, Ishmael made a choice. He would willingly become the villain.
For his father. For his uncle, the current Chancellor. And for the future.
It was to remove a competitor in broad daylight and collapse the entire structure.
Thanks to that, the dissolution of Condor and the construction of a new Empire proceeded without obstruction.
But in exchange, Ishmael lost the hearts of his father and the Chancellor.
‘If asked whether I regret it, absolutely not. Even if I returned to that time, I would act the same way.’
Politics was the act of making a lotus bloom from a muddy pit. There was nothing clean or noble about it.
If one feared seeing blood, one would ultimately be swallowed by that very blood.
By removing a single person, had everything not flowed properly in the end?
His father. His uncle. In the end, thanks to him, they had been able to become Emperor and Chancellor.
“Your Highness the Fifth Prince.”
Was it said that even a beast appeared when spoken of? Ishmael smiled bitterly.
Then he spoke to the one standing behind him, once a comrade and now an enemy.
“Uncle.”
“In a public setting, you should call me by my title.”
“Is it not all right when only you and I are here?”
At Ishmael’s words, the Chancellor, Cheriot, gave a bitter smile.
Before the founding, they had been a nephew and uncle who could trust each other.
It was truly regrettable that they had ended up parting ways like this.
But he would not try to turn it back. He would not.
That was what politics was. Parents. Children. Family. Comrades.
If they became enemies, it was only natural to cut them down willingly.
“There will soon be a large-scale reorganization of the military.”
“Is that so?”
“Those who once followed His Majesty will likely all become loyal troops of the Empire now.”
The princes had accomplished many deeds, yet in practice had received nothing.
It meant they were to surrender even the private soldiers they had barely managed to maintain.
Ishmael smiled. Anger was a mistake only novices made.
“Uncle. I suddenly find myself thinking of the past. Back then, everything I did with you was enjoyable.”
Why did you keep trying to keep him in check? Why were you pushing him like this?
If this continued, they would ultimately have no choice but to point swords at each other.
Did he truly want that, and was he driving him to the edge of the cliff to the very end?
“I was the same. When I think of those days, a smile comes to me on its own. But I am a man loyal to His Majesty the Emperor. I have too much to do to merely long for the joy of those days.”
I know. It is unfortunate. Perhaps it is the wrong path.
But I will not stop. Because affection has no place in this.
“Uncle. Using the affection from back then as the price, I will ask a sincere question. What is truly the reason you are doing this? Why are you supporting the Eighth Prince, rather than my older brothers? Not even the Seventh Prince, at the very least, but the Eighth?”
“I have already given you my answer, Your Highness. Because His Majesty the Emperor desires His Highness the Eighth Prince.”
“Is that the only reason you support the Eighth Prince, Uncle?”
The Chancellor merely nodded instead of answering.
Because he knew this was not the only reason.
The true reason the Founding Emperor and the Chancellor himself were backing the Eighth Prince.
‘His Majesty wants someone who has not stained his hands with blood. It is the lifelong wish, the unattainable thirst, of one who has stained his hands with blood all his life. If Your Highness the Fifth Prince had not committed that deed that day, perhaps the Crown Prince’s seat might have gone to you, my nephew.’
‘I see. It means I have stained my hands with too much blood. Perhaps that is why Father was so happy when I first began as an official. But, Uncle. In this era, where is it possible not to stain one’s hands with blood?’
One wanted to be accepted, and one wanted him to step back.
The final negotiation between the two ended that emptily.
*
Two months. That was the time it took for the Empire’s envoy delegation to reach the eastern border.
During that time, I scattered the things I had prepared in advance all along the road.
Scattering money directly would be a problem, but daily necessities were not.
Under the pretext that this was the will of the imperial family, I handed them out generously again and again.
It was a strange structure where I paid the money, and the imperial family received the credit.
The escort soldiers accompanying us looked as if they wondered what in the world I was doing.
‘Don’t try to understand. This is all a desperate struggle to avoid a purge.’
Around the time the purse I had brought stuffed full had grown thin, we crossed the eastern border.
And a few weeks after that. At last, we came face to face with the Urut tribe of the grasslands.