Chapter 101

Chapter 101. Multi Position

The seven-day series of banquets had finally reached its last day.

I was exhausted from attending banquets night after night, so I spent the daytime resting in my room at the inn.

As usual, I watered the bean sprouts while Pascal and Martin roasted black soybeans.

Then an inn employee came to us.

"You have a guest."

I had already greeted and chatted with most of the capital's nobles at the banquets.

Besides, I knew most nobles slept or rested during the daytime.

In other words, there shouldn't have been anyone coming specifically to visit me now.

"Who is it that you said 'has come'?"

The employee looked nervous.

Behind him appeared a tall woman with several attendants.

What the hell? Why is she here?

The tall woman stepped forward with an expressionless face.

"I am the mother of King Louis."

The Queen Mother.

The woman who effectively ruled as regent in place of the young king.

She stood at the center of power in this country and held considerable influence over the Mage Towers of the capital.

Appraisal.

[Sabine Chatillon de Franche, 33 years old]

[Daughter of the late Chancellor of Franche, Count Chatillon. Regent of the Kingdom of Franche. Serves Helios.]

Impressive.

Even the system recognized her as the regent.

Her level was also considerable from what I could sense.

She's above Gaston.

Probably around the level of Javier or Pope Catriel of the God of Abundance Church.

The Queen Mother noticed me lightly spreading my senses, yet showed no reaction.

Maybe she'd already experienced something similar through Gaston.

Or perhaps it was simply confidence.

Apart from two knights, most of her attendants were ordinary people.

Pascal and Martin immediately stood behind me.

I bowed.

"What brings Your Majesty to such a humble place?"

I hadn't even invited her to sit, but the Queen Mother casually took an empty chair anyway.

"I came to thank you."

"For what?"

"You gave my child an enjoyable time."

"It was useful for me too. His Majesty is remarkably well educated."

The pleasantries didn't last long.

One of her attendants handed me a sheet of paper.

It was covered in the names of nobles.

"What is this?"

"A joint petition. Those nobles want you appointed to the vanguard of the expedition to retake Liguria."

"Why are you showing it to me?"

"You should know who your enemies are before going into battle."

"So you don't intend to stop my appointment."

"I have no grounds to do so. It is an honorable duty."

Then she looked directly at me.

"If you wished it, I could make this disappear."

"And the price?"

"Swear loyalty to me and my son."

In other words, join the Royalist faction.

I had no intention of doing that.

"Then I'll go. Gladly. As you said, it's an honorable duty."

The Queen Mother looked surprised.

"The front line is no place for bravado. According to the information I have, you are neither a knight nor a mage."

"Your intelligence network is weak. I hear rumors say I'm rather good with a sword."

"Rumors are not information. On the other hand, the fact that you are not formally a knight is information."

The people in Franche who had actually seen my ability were mostly people who had sworn loyalty to me.

Even if stories had reached the capital, they had apparently been dismissed as political propaganda or exaggerated rumors.

The Queen Mother clicked her tongue.

"Count Marcel, do not be reckless. Even one loved by the gods has only a single life."

"Why are you so concerned about my life?"

I wasn't a Royalist.

Her brother, Court Count Chatillon, was even considering cutting my throat eventually.

Why would she care?

"Because your existence alone now forms a new political force."

"You're overestimating me. I'm merely the lord of some rural territories."

She raised one finger and waved it.

"The Noble faction is already being shaken because of you. That document is proof. I would prefer you to remain an old friend of Louis."

So the nobles had gone as far as jointly signing a petition just to keep me in check.

Don't tell me she deliberately arranged Louis's meeting with me to create this situation.

If so, I might as well squeeze every benefit I could from it.

"Then please do me one simple favor."

"What?"

"Manipulate public opinion so that I'm appointed both vanguard commander and overall commander of the Franche contingent. If I'm going anyway, I may as well have a flashy title."

"...You truly intend to go."

"Yes."

"Very well. That is simple enough. I'll arrange it immediately."

She stood and walked out.

Without even saying goodbye.

I stared at the back of the departing Queen Mother.

She wants to use me as a piece on the board.

That's fine. I'll use the board too.

Once she was gone, Martin looked deeply unhappy.

"My lord, this is dangerous. Why would you willingly go to a battlefield in another country?"

"You don't know real war yet, Martin. You've mostly fought small battles."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"If Raul heard you, he'd laugh. In a proper war, the commander is one of the safest people there."

"The commander?"

"Think about it. The Odoacer Empire is gathering a multinational army. They wouldn't be doing that unless they believed they could defend the area or retake it."

The capital nobles had little experience with large wars.

To them, simply hearing the word battlefield made it sound dangerous.

"The safest person in a war is often the commander. Sometimes safer than civilians. He's surrounded by armies."

"But you were nominated for the vanguard."

"In a multinational army, everyone fights over who gets the honor of being called the vanguard. And I'll only be the commander of the Franche contingent, not the entire allied army."

As long as I didn't personally run ahead of the battle line, I should be relatively safe.

Unless some Grand Master-level monster appeared.

Or someone fired long-range artillery.

"What is artillery?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

Martin looked suspicious, but I ignored him.

* * *

That evening, I attended the final banquet.

By then, the political atmosphere had already changed.

Nobles loudly praised me as the perfect choice to command Franche's reinforcements.

Thanks to the Queen Mother's work, I ended up receiving both titles I had asked for.

Vanguard.

And commander.

There was no grand departure ceremony.

The knights and nobles came from different territories, so everyone would depart individually and assemble later.

There was still roughly a month before the expeditionary army gathered.

That meant I could return to Marcel and load my own knights aboard Benedikta.

* * *

Several days later, I returned to Marcel.

Fortunately, nobody in Le Capital had tried to kill me.

I reached home safely.

Then Yasmin Fatima, who apparently intended to kill me by raising my blood pressure instead, was still there to greet me.

"...Aren't you going home?"

"Why do you keep telling me to leave? You did that last time too."

This girl.

It might make me look stingy, but I had to say it.

"Because your food expenses are high."

Yasmin's face turned bright red.

"I, I don't eat that much!"

"You only eat expensive things. If you're willing to live on rye bread and oat porridge, you can stay."

"I'll eat it. Fine, I'll eat it."

Good.

Enjoy all the cheap, healthy grains you want.

"But seriously, why are you still here?"

Food expenses aside, Prince Omar's presence made me nervous.

He was the illegitimate son of the King of Berber.

If Yasmin found out and Fatima sent assassins, it would become a headache.

"I told you I researched coffee. I called the researchers here."

Yasmin was going to handle coffee cultivation and primary processing.

I would receive the cleaned beans and handle distribution, product development, and sales.

Naturally, product research fell under my area, so she had apparently summoned her researchers.

A few days later, a ship carrying the coffee researchers entered port.

After all their equipment was moved into the newly prepared laboratory, Yasmin introduced both the researchers and their machines.

"This is a kiln for roasting coffee beans. Turning this handle mixes the beans so they roast evenly. That one is a bean grinder, and the machine at the end removes oil from the coffee. Some people dislike the oily flavor, so we made it."

I couldn't hide my admiration for Fatima's technology.

Because they had a culture of enjoying many varieties of tea, coming up with the machines themselves probably wasn't difficult.

But their ability to cast precise parts surprised me.

Their gears were especially impressive.

"This is incredible. It's almost beautiful."

"..."

Yasmin looked at me like I was some kind of pervert while I stroked a gear.

"I want to meet the craftsman who made this."

"He's the researcher standing over there."

A rough-faced elf was standing nearby, looking blankly at us.

"Could I borrow that craftsman for another project?"

Yasmin's expression immediately hardened.

"If it isn't related to coffee, that's a breach of our agreement."

"It'll be good for everyone. Good for me, good for you, and good for that craftsman."

Yasmin frowned, but I was already lost in a happy fantasy.

What I wanted to build was an ironworks and a smelting facility.

The craftsmen in Marcel lacked the technology to even construct a proper blast furnace.

Ironmaking technology was practically a state secret in this world.

Because of that, skilled ironworkers did not even have freedom of movement.

But if I brought together the craftsmen Louis had promised to send from Le Capital and the craftsmen Yasmin had brought from Alexandria...

Surely they'd manage to build something.

Witch Winnie and the alchemists had created useful things whenever I squeezed them hard enough.

If I explained the basic concept properly, these craftsmen would find a way.

Especially in a world with convenient things like magic.

A high-efficiency furnace should be possible.

I'll squeeze them day and night.

Grind, engineers, grind.

I could almost hear the cries of engineers from somewhere.

My new position was the boss of a black company.

* * *

Around that time, the envoy Chloe had sent to the Duke of Veneto returned.

It was Berix, the knight from Corse.

He brought back a letter from the Duke.

Since I had simply told him to go meet the Duke without giving him any message, Berix looked confused.

"My lord, I did go and return, but I'm not sure whether I accomplished what you wanted."

"The Duke of Veneto only had one thing to tell me."

I opened the letter.

There was a short sentence inside.

[The rabbit is eaten by the snake.]

Diego understood before the others.

"That old fable?"

"Looks like it."

In the story, a rabbit and a deer competed to become king of the forest.

They agreed to settle the matter fairly through a race.

But when a snake appeared, the deer kicked the rabbit down and escaped.

The snake ate the rabbit.

The deer became king.

The lesson was simple.

There was only one winner.

The process didn't matter.

The Duke had understood my silent question.

I had warned him about the orcs.

He had known what was coming.

And he'd still done nothing.

"Pascal, whose turn is it to become the next Odoacer emperor?"

"The order is easy to remember. Puglia, Toscana, Campania, Liguria, Veneto. The current emperor is from Campania, so Liguria should be next."

The five great families had rotated the imperial throne for around one hundred and seventy years.

But now Liguria had practically vanished from the map.

That meant the next emperor would most likely come from Veneto.

"The Duke of Veneto wanted the imperial throne next."

Martin frowned.

"So he knew Liguria would be destroyed and simply watched?"

"Looks that way."

"But if the imperial throne rotates anyway, what changes if his turn comes once earlier?"

"Either the Veneto family intends to keep the throne after taking it, or they intend to break apart the imperial system itself."

One hundred and seventy years ago, the five families had possessed roughly equal strength.

Now Veneto had grown far beyond the others.

International trade, arts, culture, and technology had brought the territory into a golden age.

Of course ambition would follow.

Martin's expression darkened.

"Then do you intend to cut ties with the treacherous Veneto family?"

"Martin, my choices are either to become the companion of Young Lord Vincent, the next emperor, or to blind myself."

There was no option called cutting ties.

Still, Martin was a man of upright character.

I gave him something that would sit better with him.

"Instead, we'll put effort into accepting Ligurian refugees who lost their homes. Prepare properly. A lot of people may come to Marcel."

Martin's face finally brightened.

I felt sympathy for them too.

That decision wasn't difficult.

"Chloe, send a reply to the Duke of Veneto."

"What should I write?"

"Vincent's friend."

My position in the Empire had now become simple.

Friend of the next emperor.