Chapter 100. Boy King
Guided by the royal servant, Martin and I headed toward the palace.
I wanted to bring my ghouls along as guards, but I was attracting far too much attention in the capital, so I had no choice but to leave them aboard Benedikta.
Our carriage moved slowly through the traffic.
"My lord, why do you think His Majesty summoned you?"
"No idea. He's a thirteen-year-old kid, so I can't even guess."
"Ahem, ahem."
The royal servant riding with us coughed.
Was he offended because I called his master a kid?
"Hey. It really was King Louis who called for me, right? Not Count Chatillon or Count Calais?"
The servant became flustered when the names of the king's maternal uncle and father-in-law came out of my mouth.
"It truly was His Majesty. He personally spoke Count Marcel's name and ordered me to bring you."
What is this about?
Was this going to turn into some novel cliché?
Become my right hand.
Or maybe,
Please protect me from the wolves surrounding me.
If rumors spread that he'd said something like that, either a third political faction would form around me...
Or someone would send assassins.
Probably assassins.
I wasn't a Sword Master.
There was a limit to how long I could endure repeated attacks.
I couldn't keep sleeping lightly forever while depending on Martin and the ghouls for protection.
Even if I combined the knights of all three of my counties, there were only around seventy.
That was about the size of the knight order of a single ordinary county.
I couldn't tie up busy knights just to guard me all day either.
If the assassins would just use poison, I could probably handle that.
While I worried, the carriage reached the king's residence.
We were guided toward the audience hall and waited briefly before another servant appeared.
"Please follow me quietly."
He led us into a hidden passage between the walls.
After passing through a complicated corridor like a maze, we reached a small reception room.
There were no windows.
Several candles and oil lamps lit the dark interior.
The smell of soot had nowhere to escape, leaving the air slightly acrid.
At a tea table in the middle of the room sat the very king I had seen at my investiture ceremony.
Alone.
Maybe because his mother, maternal uncle, and father-in-law weren't there, his expression looked much more relaxed and confident.
As I had been instructed, I gave him the proper greeting.
"I greet Louis de Franche, rightful King of Franche."
"Forgive me for summoning you without warning. I had tea prepared, so sit."
His voice was still thin and delicate.
As an old man, I almost want to smack him on the back and tell him to put some strength into his voice.
"What occasion made Your Majesty summon me so quietly?"
Technically, asking first was rude.
But I was no longer low enough in rank to care much about that.
Louis didn't seem bothered either.
He smiled.
"I wanted to meet the great inventor myself. I also wanted to hear about the many things you've introduced to the world. Are you disappointed that I called you here for something like this?"
So it was just the curiosity of a thirteen-year-old boy?
I decided to play along.
"Not at all. I also greatly enjoy bragging about myself."
"Ha ha ha! That's fortunate."
What followed was a long conversation about the goods produced in Marcel.
I had already told similar stories several times, so the explanations flowed naturally.
Louis listened with shining eyes.
"Oh? Then why did you not build the Royal Marcel factory in Berber? Surely they have abundant manpower and materials."
"Agricultural productivity in Marcel has improved explosively. The population is growing, but production in Ronalp and Dijon will also increase sharply in the future. We need to absorb the surplus labor that will continue appearing and put it to work in the cities."
With the introduction of guano, wheat yields per unit of land were rising quickly.
And in this world, where agriculture was the main industry, many territories were already struggling with excess agricultural production.
There was a limit to how much surplus wheat could be sold.
Exports to Catalonia only worked because of favorable geography and easy transportation.
Within a few years, farmers who gave up wheat farming would start appearing throughout the countryside.
There were also plenty of refugees migrating in from outside my territories.
And beginning five years from now, government-owned slaves would gradually become free citizens.
Not all of them would continue farming.
I planned to absorb those three groups into the cities as workers.
"What you're saying is..."
Louis looked thoughtful.
"I was taught to encourage farming and keep the granaries overflowing with wheat. Are you saying we should gather people in the cities and make things instead? Surely having excess people alone is not enough."
"The most important things are the technology to build industrial facilities for mass production, and a large market that can consume what those facilities produce. Trade between nations is already active, and there are plenty of colonies belonging to various countries, so there are many places to sell goods. As for the technology..."
Despite his age, Louis had received a good basic education.
Of course, my own knowledge was mostly surface-level too, so our levels matched surprisingly well.
We talked for quite a while.
Eventually the subject shifted from technology to power.
"Then surplus capital will become increasingly important. The merchant class will also gain influence. But is such a thing truly advantageous to me?"
"Strengthening royal authority requires weakening the authority of the nobility. And weakening the established ruling class requires the rise of a new class."
"Hmm. The rise of a new class. That sounds almost revolutionary. What should such a thing be called?"
A bourgeois revolution triggered by the Industrial Revolution?
It wasn't that dramatic yet.
Still, surprisingly many of the conditions for a revolution were already taking shape.
Religious power was weak as well.
