Happy New Year.
At Lord Hobart’s command, reinforcements gathered from the surrounding lords.
With things having come to this, Lord Hobart had no choice but to protect himself by proclaiming his own righteousness, and loudly denounced the Saipole Group for their insolent act of assassination against the Imperial House.
I was honestly appalled that he thoroughly scoured the city of Hobart, drove out the Saipole Group, and then tried to pocket the assets they had so conveniently left behind.
And precisely because he had been so deeply in bed with them, he was able to crush the Saipole Group’s hideouts with pinpoint accuracy.
After that, a lord who had long maintained marital ties with the leader of the Saipole Group sheltered them and took a stance of resistance.
Out of fear for his own life, Lord Hobart squeezed that lord while surrounding and pressuring the territory where the Saipole Group was hiding together with the troops of the neighboring lords.
With the national army joining in as well, they finished containing them in about a month and succeeded in turning the Saipole Group into traitors to the nation.
“The Imperial Guard headed for the imperial capital just as planned, and it was all well and good that we made it back to the capital in two months... but I never thought they’d keep us from entering the palace.”
This was a military garrison in the imperial capital.
We had been allowed through the gates of the imperial capital, but if they were going to meekly let me return to the palace, they never would have sent me off to the hinterlands in the first place.
They kept us in the imperial capital under all sorts of pretexts.
There was a military garrison prepared near the palace as well, but they were obstructing even our transfer there.
“Absurd bastards. Do they think they can hide a rebellion at this point? Nothing will change even if they go crying to their families.”
It was a military garrison, and General Wageris was here—or rather, the pretext for detaining us was that our return had not yet been approved and our force had not been disbanded, so I had to act together with him.
The Imperial Guardsmen who had returned ahead of us had each been secured by their blood relatives, and outwardly, they were apparently claiming that General Wageris was tyrannical and that I was incompetent, so they would be made to die pointless deaths.
But behind the scenes, I imagine they must have told them that my attempted assassination had been exposed.
There was no movement to openly attack us.
“We haven’t just been waiting around either. We’ve already prepared a report and submitted it to the military. The fact that they’re still only keeping us here even after that makes me feel how slow the other side is to react to unforeseen circumstances.”
Of course, since we had already stated that it was a rebellion, we piled on petty offenses besides stealing alcohol, such as injuring noncombatant kitchen staff and eating without paying in the towns along the way.
Aside from all those accumulated minor crimes, I, of course, also agreed to accept punishment, and added in writing that they had not said a single word to us, their superiors.
“Um, was Wold really the right choice? Will he be able to inform His Majesty the Emperor?”
Celine asked anxiously.
Watchers from the ducal faction had been dispatched under the pretext of guarding me, to make sure I did not leave this place.
Because of that, I had Celine contact Wold in my place, and hand him a paper explaining our stance and carrying my message.
(I’ve already conveyed the details through the voice transmitter, and the real objective is to get Sephira safely to the palace...)
(I have returned.)
As I was thinking, the voice mingled into my thoughts.
It was Sephira, who had followed Wold after leaving Celine and should have headed to the palace.
From there, she gathered information and returned here alone.
(Then, first report... Terry and the others, I guess.)
(The paper bearing Master’s instructions was indeed handed to the emperor.)
(I sense a little malice there. Were Terry and the others well? What about Warnel? Fel? They’re at that age, so they must have grown taller, right?)
(Determined to be low-priority content. I will report the emperor’s movements.)
Sephira was cruel in her efficiency-first attitude.
I thought I had kept my face expressionless, but Wearerel, Helkof, and Ikuto were looking at me.
It seemed they had realized Sephira had returned.
“I’ve arranged things so that it will reach His Majesty, so it’s fine. And if he understands our intentions from the movements afterward, then His Majesty will act from there, so don’t panic.”
As I said that to Celine, I subtly conveyed to my aides that things were going well.
“Movements, you say, but all we’re doing is poking at Finance, aren’t we? What’s that going to do?”
General Wageris probably was no weakling when it came to war, and he was not some rigid fool incapable of making quick decisions.
He was more like a one-man leader who was simply unfamiliar with political maneuvering like laying groundwork and gathering votes.
“Finance drew His Majesty’s attention two years ago and had reforms put in. Even now, its factional strength isn’t that strong. They moved that office and committed the outrageous act of lumping together my budget, the army’s budget, and the Imperial Guard’s budget this time. Put another way, the place they laid hands on is an office His Majesty is capable of scouring.”
The army was pressuring that weakened Finance Ministry over dissatisfaction with the budget.
After all, the army had no intention of accepting having its budget unified with that of a separate department merely because they would act together from now on, so it moved after receiving General Wageris’s report.
“I thought the power-hungry officer General Wageris had in mind would interfere here.”
“Hmph. Even he’s started getting glared at by the others for going too far. We got back too quickly, so there was no chance for him to make any achievements or anything.”
If the budget allocation had been changed and no problems had arisen, they could have forced it through as an achievement, but we returned after using hardly any of that budget.
On the contrary, we pushed the confusion caused by that budget to the forefront when we returned.
We had purchased the new weapons acquired by a minor lord with the budget that had been lumped together, and had the Imperial Guard carry them.
“From the military’s point of view, it’s clear that nobles outside the armed forces interfered. They can’t stay silent here.”
Helkof, a former soldier, said it was a turf war.
There were people of noble birth among the soldiers too, so complaints from military personnel would reach the palace.
From all directions, regardless of faction.
A faction’s strength lay in numbers.
Conversely, those numbers could also become its undoing.
“General Wageris, if you put sand in a bag and swing it around, it would hurt as an attack, wouldn’t it? Then, if you take that sand out of the bag and scatter it, it becomes difficult to put every grain back without missing any. From the perspective of the one holding the bag called a faction, the sand won’t stay together right now, and they have to divide their attention to keep it from spilling.”
The more complaints there were, the more troublesome it became.
In other words, the larger the faction, the more people there were to complain, and the higher the possibility that there were people connected to them in the Imperial Guard.
Was it the Imperial Guardsmen who had fled to them, the army pressing them from below, the nobles crying out to protect themselves, or the emperor resisting them?
They could not make a move that would satisfy them all, and now that we had already returned, they could not take much time to coordinate.
Into that, I would cast a stone.
“You look like you’ve still got something else up your sleeve.”
Was it showing on my face enough for General Wageris to tell?
“Here, I’ll send a letter saying the Imperial Guard did nothing wrong.”
“Huh?”
“We’ve already sent the matter of the rebellion to the imperial capital as an established offense. So I’ll tell them that all of the Imperial Guard’s actions this time were because the budget allocations were changed, sudden orders came in, and interference was inserted into our operations midway.”
With comrades already being treated as criminals, the Imperial Guard would lose its escape route if it denied that.
For now, they could still make the excuse that the rebellion had been coerced by those sent ahead.
They would have no choice but to jump at it, so they would reverse their previous statements, saying that they had simply been at cross-purposes with General Wageris and me, and become our allies.
If that happened, their intentions would diverge from whoever had planted those Imperial Guardsmen.
From the perspective of those holding the faction together, it would not merely fail to cohere; it would become an even more headache-inducing internal split.
And once the issue of the Imperial Guard settled down, the nobles who wanted to protect themselves would find a target in Finance, while within the military there was already someone being pressured from below.
“Well, the rest will come down to the flow of events.”
The memo I gave Wold was only for outward appearances; the actual instructions had been conveyed through the voice transmitter.
(During the criminal guild incident, the dukes snatched up the empty seats from under us, but this time I hope His Majesty manages to place our own people there.)
(After hearing Master’s intentions, personnel have already been secured. It will be a relative of someone who is always present during audiences with Master.)
Apparently it was a relative of the bob-cut, but they said he was a sixth son, so maybe an elder brother?
“...I’m absolutely never letting my son serve at court.”
General Wageris muttered that.
Come to think of it, his father-in-law was His Majesty’s wardrobe attendant and served at court.
Maybe there had been talk of finding employment through that route.
People like me were special cases, but even so, I had no right to interfere with a parent’s policy.
“General Wageris, isn’t your family worried that you haven’t come home for so long?”
“While I was gone, my son turned down my father-in-law’s invitation and took a commission in the army, so I’m fine on that end.”
As expected of General Wageris’s son, he seemed to have decisiveness.
After hearing such things, around ten days passed.
On the day the path to a resolution became clear, an order to return immediately came from Father.
“You have overcome a difficult situation, helped the suffering people, and returned admirably.”
The palace’s main gate was thrown wide open, and the emperor, who had already been waiting outside, called out those words to the arriving army.
Beside the emperor was the imperial consort.
On his other side stood the second prince, the third prince, the fourth prince, and the first imperial princess held in her nursemaid’s arms, the entire imperial family lined up in full force.
“Go on. You’re the army’s representative, aren’t you?”
Saying that, General Wageris pushed me out in front of Father.
I had thought General Wageris would serve as the representative, just like when we set out, so I had not thought of anything. What should I do?
When our eyes met, Father and Her Highness the Consort smiled with only their eyes.
Terry and the twins seemed nervous, and as for me, putting everything else aside, I told my family the first thing I wanted to tell them.
“I’m home.”
The moment I put those words into speech, it seemed I had been tense somewhere too, for the strength left my body and a smile naturally rose to my lips.
Regular update
Next: A Year’s Changes 1