The army spent about a month making preparations.
And then, with the villagers who had been united under Karu reluctant to see us go, we descended the mountain.
We returned to the plains and headed east—outwardly, it was a movement suited to a transfer from one battlefield to another.
Using resupply and rest as our pretext, we advanced closer to the imperial capital and made for Hobart, the largest city in the surrounding region.
“I never thought they’d move exactly the way we wanted them to. General Wagelis, what on earth did you put into their heads?”
For safety reasons, I asked while sticking close to General Wagelis’s side.
The official story went like this.
When we caught the assassins who had targeted me, we discovered that the minor lord who held Karu had been threatened into aiding them.
Just as we were about to investigate, we received orders to move to another front, making further questioning difficult.
With no other choice, we transported the captured minor lord and assassins to Hobart, the largest city in the area, and stopped there to entrust their subsequent handling to the authorities.
“Nothing much. Some of the assassins just happened to escape during the commotion while we were transporting them.”
General Wagelis said it with a wicked look on his face, but that, too, was part of the official story.
Because we had fed them all sorts of information before letting them escape.
We knew the other side were members of the Saipol Group, and we had also confirmed that their client was Idan, acting out of misplaced resentment.
We let them go knowing full well that Hobart’s lord was deeply entangled with the Saipol Group.
There was only one reason for that.
“Honestly, I can’t believe they attacked us inside Hobart exactly as planned.”
“We made them think they had no choice but to save face by taking a swing at us.”
No wonder I could hear curses and abuse from all around us.
Right now, we were in a state that made it look as though our small party had been attacked and was fleeing.
Wearerel, Herkof, and Ikuto, the close aides, were engaging the enemies around us, while Sephira was also reporting the positions of enemies hidden in the city’s blind spots.
“I see it! That’s the Hobart lord’s manor!”
Celine, who was moving ahead while protecting us, raised her voice.
Of course, we weren’t merely being attacked, and because we had set this up, we had preparations in place.
The soldiers we had sent ahead into the city were joining up with us one after another, and this arrangement, too, had been handled by General Wagelis, who was still commanding them even now as our defenses grew thicker by the moment.
Without stopping, we forced our way into the Hobart lord’s manor.
(Sephira, where is our target?)
(Already located. I will begin guiding you.)
The manor fell into confusion at the sudden arrival of the national army, but we did not stop.
General Wagelis, who had quietly focused on command until now, stepped in front of me once we found our destination and flung the door open with enough force to break it down.
“Hobart’s lord! If you don’t want to get hurt, stay still!”
At General Wagelis’s roar, a plump, middle-aged man stiffened.
At the same time, Ikuto dashed past General Wagelis’s side.
Then he dragged to the floor a sharp-eyed man who had been about to head into another room.
Following Sephira’s voiceless instructions, Ikuto roughly yanked at the sharp-eyed man’s jacket.
On the inside of the jacket, embroidery of the mark indicating membership in the Saipol Group was clearly visible.
“W-what is the meaning of this!?”
The Hobart lord somehow managed to raise an angry voice, the flesh of his cheeks trembling, but Herkof approached him with an intimidating air.
“The First Prince and the national army come to your city, and you don’t even greet them—you just sit here lording it over everyone. Must be nice, being so important.”
At the interrogation, the Hobart lord’s eyes darted about.
His gaze moved from Herkof to General Wagelis in his military uniform, and then to me, the out-of-place child.
Since he was deeply involved with the Saipol Group, he should have known we were going to be attacked in the city.
In fact, the member who was just here talking to him may have been discussing exactly that.
For the Hobart lord, it was a matter of responsibility, but his relationship with them was such that he could not tell them to stop.
And if he wanted to lighten that responsibility even a little, he needed the excuse that he had been absent and therefore unable to respond.
At the same time, he would send only some other person in charge, and if a problem arose, cut that person loose while keeping himself safely out of harm’s way.
“Thanks to that, we were able to flee here, but what will you do now? The area around us is surely already surrounded by the Saipol Group. This manor—your manor, as the lord of this city.”
Wearerel spoke slowly, as if driving the point home, threatening him with the fact that he could no longer pretend not to know.
This was the plan of estrangement I had devised.
We deliberately let them escape to heighten their caution and maneuver the Saipol Group into making the first move.
Then we dragged in the Hobart lord, who was trying to feign ignorance.
“We’ve got testimony from the minor lord on our side. And letters as evidence.”
“We have heard that the Saipol Group is acting at the request of a man named Idan.”
Herkof and Wearerel were, of course, playing the north wind and the sun as they cornered him.
That said, Herkof threatened him by making it clear there was no escape, while Wearerel whispered that, since there was no escape, there were other scapegoats available.
“How much time do you think those thugs outside are going to give you to agonize over this? Can’t you hear it? It’s already a festival out there. Imagine them surging in here. They won’t bother telling friend from foe.”
“Surely protecting yourself comes first. Or do you have some reason to show consideration to people who won’t even protect you? Driving criminals out of the city is only natural for a lord. You would be praised for it, not blamed.”
Ikuto, who did not speak, kept the Saipol Group member pinned down so he could not interrupt.
A lord who had allied himself with the Saipol Group out of greed would move for nothing but profit and self-preservation.
So we wanted to stir up his sense of crisis, make him thoroughly afraid, and have the lord himself sever that dangerous relationship.
Even so, the Hobart lord tried to dodge the answer in a futile struggle.
Then General Wagelis, who had been watching in silence, strode right up to the lord.
“Which are you—the enemy of the nation, or the enemy of a criminal syndicate!?”
He thrust an inescapable choice before him and threatened to attack him along with them.
“I-I would never defy the nation, of course…!”
“Then hurry up and send out your soldiers as the lord! The enemy’s already got your manor surrounded!”
Naturally, even the Saipol Group had not gone so far as to force their way into the lord’s manor and add to their crimes.
Even so, the Hobart lord was under pressure not only from the national army, but from the Saipol Group as well.
By now, he must have felt as though enemies surrounded him on every side.
In the midst of that, he turned his eyes to me, perhaps thinking that because I was a child—but too bad for him.
“If you don’t hurry, they’ll silence you along with us. I’m sure they already have someone in mind to become the next master of this manor. You have until sunset. If you don’t drive every last member of the Saipol Group out of the city and close the gates by then, you might not survive the night.”
I implied that, if anyone was going to be silenced first, it would be the Hobart lord.
In that instant, apparently reminded of something, the flesh of the lord’s cheeks twitched and quivered.
“I-I know nothing! This was something the Saipol Group did on their own! Until now, I only dealt with them because I had no choice, for the sake of protecting the city!”
“Yes, yes, that’s right. In that case, the Saipol Group truly must not be allowed to remain in this city. If you tell us where and how many of their members are here, the national army will lend you its aid. Of course, we’ll also have to make sure that Idan, the man who committed this wrongdoing, is firmly secured so that everyone can understand what happened, won’t we?”
When I smiled at him, the lord nodded so vigorously it was almost amusing.
As for the member, even if he wanted to interrupt, Ikuto had a knee planted on his chest and seemed barely able to breathe.
And so, surrounded by soldiers, the Hobart lord hurriedly moved his troops to protect himself.
The sight of the soldiers gathering and moving immediately at the lord’s command gave the impression that they had been prepared from the beginning.
“From the start, they were probably planning to make a big show of moving after I was killed and pretend to search for the culprit. To show that they were doing their jobs.”
“…Is the palace really such a den of devils?”
In a room of the lord’s manor that had been checked to ensure there was no danger, General Wagelis asked something strange as I explained.
“Just when I thought Your Highness didn’t understand the subtleties of moving other people, what was that just now?”
“No, I really don’t understand. Honestly, I thought it was amazing how you hid soldiers throughout the city and had them assemble.”
My final push against the Hobart lord had merely been a matter of choosing my words after watching Herkof and Wearerel shake him up.
“Driving the Saipol Group out of Hobart is important, but we still haven’t achieved our goal. Even I understand that it’s too early to relax.”
“Yeah, the real point comes now… The Imperial Guards can be moved at any time.”
To create a pretext for returning to the imperial capital from here, we would use the Imperial Guards who had, in effect, been let off without charge.
General Wagelis had threatened them as well, so they had no desire to go to a battlefield where they might be sent to the front lines.
Thus, using the excuse of a manpower shortage, we had supplied them with arms and equipment and made them stand by outside Hobart.
And what would happen then? Without getting involved in the fighting, they would flee back to their base, the imperial capital, in an attempt to protect themselves.
The issue there would be the budget that had been lumped together despite them belonging to a different organization.
When we were supposedly headed for the battlefield, running off with weapons, horses, and food would be a major problem.
If we were to carry out the order to head east, we could not ignore the Imperial Guards who had taken military equipment and begun acting separately.
Using that excuse, we would return and join forces with my father, the emperor, to oppose them.
“Now then, we have let the Saipol Group member escape. With this, the other side should also understand that the Hobart lord has turned against them.”
Ikuto reported that he had deliberately released the member he had captured, allowing the information to leak.
With this, the Hobart lord’s path of retreat was further closed off.
Since he had committed so many misdeeds up until now, I intended to have him struggle this time in the fight against evil.
Since his life would be targeted, I hoped he would resist desperately and bring down the Saipol Group.
Regular update
Next: Eastern Military Disturbance 5