“Hey! What the hell is this ridiculous order!? Explain yourself!”
General Wageris had come storming in shouting, just like every other day.
Maybe I’d gotten used to it lately, because I’d learned to tell the difference between his voice when he was truly angry and when he was just carried along by momentum.
For the record, right now he was truly angry.
Though, honestly, I felt like getting angry over this treatment myself.
“Wait a second. The regular dispatch only just reached me too. Is the content the same?”
In the previous regular dispatch, I’d heard up to the point where the tampering with the letters had been exposed.
But what actually arrived was an outrageous written order so absurd it made me suspect tampering all over again.
The order we received was to redeploy east from here.
In other words, since they valued our skill in resolving the armed unrest here so quickly, we were now to go all the way to the Ninohoto border and resolve the unrest there as well—an utterly ridiculous command.
“In short, Your Highness, they’re saying, ‘Don’t come back to the imperial capital. It’s too soon.’”
“Don’t screw with me! What happened to make it turn out like this!?”
General Wageris roared at Herkof, whose face looked like that of a wild beast.
Of course, Herkof was furious at the outrageous order too, so the two of them ended up growling at each other in mutual venting.
The tampering with the letters had been obvious enough for Terry to notice, and what we now knew was that it had likely been done sometime within the past few months.
And since this was an order my father would stop if he learned of it, the main point wasn’t the tampering itself, but preventing detailed information about us from reaching him.
It was a delaying tactic meant to buy time to issue this order.
“Lord Asha, there was another problem. Please look at these documents for the budget allocation accompanying the order for this new military action.”
What Wearerel handed me were the various complicated confirmation papers sent together with the written order.
“Huh? This combines the army’s budget, the Imperial Guard’s budget, and mine all into one?”
“That’s it! No, that’s part of it! In practice, it’s a massive budget cut! What do they mean, ‘more efficient use of military expenses’!?”
General Wageris had apparently already known, and his anger was plain to see.
As expected of a professional soldier, even though he’d gotten the documents at almost the same time as we had, he’d immediately found the problem and come here.
I hurriedly looked through all the papers and confirmed that the one I wanted wasn’t there.
“General Wageris, you can answer after you’ve calmed down a little. Celine, have you received any instructions on what to do with the lord here, the one we arrested on suspicion of assassination?”
I asked the familiar platoon leader who had come with him, but she shook her head.
“In this case, we would need a transport cage and soldiers in order to transfer custody of him. However, if even that has not been arranged, then despite being ordered to head to a new battlefield, we would have no choice but to allocate soldiers ourselves and send him off. Alternatively, we may have to give up on this arrest for now and be satisfied with filing a complaint by documents alone.”
“So in other words, we have no choice but to let the lord we captured run free.”
We couldn’t take him with us.
All we could do was hand him over for his crimes; we had no authority to drag him along to a battlefield.
This order seemed to be carrying plenty of other intentions behind its blatant message of don’t come back.
Maybe someone who would be splattered with mud if the lord was captured had pulled strings about him too.
And while they were at it, the Imperial Guard would also avoid punishment except for the ones already sent, because military action was to continue.
As for pacifying this place so quickly, thanks to the next order, there would be no particular reward for that either.
“Have you calmed down yet, General Wageris?”
“The hell...?”
His anger hadn’t subsided, but if he was at least listening, that was fine.
“I do think this is the result of a political struggle, but would something like this be accepted within the army?”
“Like hell it would! Even if it’s an order from above, the army is an apparatus of violence, which is exactly why management is important. Unless the situation is extremely urgent, combat actions beyond what was ordered are strictly forbidden! Redeploying through a huge march that only wastes troops is practically telling them to go die!”
“So that means someone pushed through something that deserves criticism even within the army.”
When I pointed that out, General Wageris and Celine fell into thought.
“The Imperial Guard would surely not want to redeploy in the first place, and with no route or anything else decided at present, I believe the objective is to keep us confined in this remote region.”
“Yeah, this sure doesn’t sound like an order from someone who actually intends to have us fight. In that case, it’s probably the work of someone who assumes there won’t be any real damage and wants to curry favor with the bigwigs.”
General Wageris muttered in response to Celine’s opinion, then snorted.
“...That bastard aiming for a minister’s post, huh.”
Apparently someone came to mind.
If it was someone power-hungry who wasn’t actually envisioning combat, then the budget cut was meant to slow our movements.
Here, where even resupply was uncertain, we couldn’t replace what we’d consumed unless we spent money.
As I thought, I reviewed the written order and documents again.
And when I saw that this was all that had arrived with the dispatch, something felt off.
(The letter forgery should have been exposed. And yet His Majesty hasn’t sent me anything?)
(Considering his disposition and actions, I infer a high probability that he would send written words of concern for my master.)
If Sephira’s prediction was the same as mine, then there had to be some intention behind not sending anything openly.
“Wearerel, have Nomariola help too and inspect the packages sent to me.”
“...Understood.”
As a result, Nomariola found a letter tucked between clothes that had been sent to me.
“I knew it. It’s from His Majesty.”
“Come on, the emperor sending a secret letter?”
General Wageris sounded呆れ, but since we’d already reported the tampering and communication disruptions, he said nothing more.
Still, he was probably appalled by the state of the palace, where even the emperor apparently didn’t believe a letter would reach his son unless he did something like this.
I hurriedly read through the letter.
“Hmm, I understand the general circumstances now. His Majesty was apparently planning to call me back in about a year. But that leaked, and they made the first move so I wouldn’t be able to return within a year.”
Because it had been hidden in a small space, it was written concisely.
But from the way the ink had bled, I could tell he had been pressing down hard with the pen, unable to contain his anger.
“What the hell is going on that the emperor has to feel so cornered?”
“Ah, yeah. When he tried to use strong authority, he was attacked for being tyrannical, and then the faction of Duke Lukaios shot him in the back too, so he withdrew it. Then they attacked him again, saying his judgment was poor and caused confusion, and while he was busy doing unnecessary damage control, the army apparently went and created this order.”
I could imagine the hardships my father was going through, fighting alone against the factions.
But that was what those people were like. They wanted to move the country to suit themselves. That was what nobles were.
And what’s more, Duke Lukaios, who should have been part of the ruling faction this time, had turned against him.
It looked like standing entirely on his own as emperor was still difficult.
“Ah.”
I noticed the words written in the margin near the end and gave a wry smile.
There were my father’s resolve and encouragement.
“He says to find some reason, any reason, and come back to the imperial capital. Once I return, he’ll make it possible to force through my repatriation.”
In other words, on the surface there was an order for us to march east, but the emperor was ordering me to return.
If asked which one was official, it would be the military order with the written document, but...
“I’ll obey my father. What will you do, General Wageris?”
“The hell kind of question is that? His Imperial Majesty, obviously. Go east? Are they idiots?”
He could have phrased it a little better... Well, never mind.
It meant he was someone I didn’t have to worry about plotting behind the scenes.
“Now then, in that case we need an excuse. Since they’ve issued a budget, even just going back and forth over how insufficient it is will take time. That would be playing right into their hands.”
“From a marching perspective, returning to the imperial capital gives us more room to force things than heading east, but what are you going to do?”
Rebel Imperial Guards, a lord suspected of assassination, the Saipol group of the criminal guild, and Idan with his misplaced grudge.
Problems were piled high, and on top of that came the impossible task from the imperial capital to pacify the eastern unrest.
In this situation, I would do the thinking, and General Wageris would carry it out.
We both understood that, if anything, it was easier that way.
“First, we need a plan for military action. We have to decide the route for going east. Movement under that pretext should be permitted, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then we organize an advance detachment. On top of that, we create a situation where returning to the imperial capital to reorganize is faster, or where we have to return immediately to report. That should be allowed as an on-site judgment, right?”
This time, General Wageris thought over my words.
“I’m curious about this ‘create a situation’ part, but since you said first, that means there’s more after that, right? Still, if it’s something big enough that going back would be faster, it won’t be simple, and it’ll involve rough work.”
I nodded and quickly explained what we would do.
“You really do come up with things... But this isn’t about whether it’ll work, it’s about whether we can make it work. We’ll select the advance detachment and choose the places to probe. I’ll give the orders on when to move them.”
Since it concerned the field, I’d leave that part to him.
“And anyway, you’ve thought of at least one clincher, haven’t you?”
“Yes. We’ll sow discord and draw the enemy in. After that, we’ll let former allies deal with each other while we head for the imperial capital.”
Taking the opponent’s move and turning it back on them was the only way I could fight, since I was always forced to react after the fact.
Even so, I was surprised by General Wageris’s immediate decision, given that it meant he would be throwing himself into danger.
His back as he left looked almost brimming with motivation.
“I think I made a pretty unreasonable demand, though?”
“Maybe that power-hungry guy inside the army is the same one who stationed Rock here.”
In response to my doubt, Herkof gave me that guess.
Regular Update
Next: Eastern Armed Unrest 4