The Champion's Return

by Hyougetsu

  Why are you asking us for advice about your own sister? If anything, we should be going to you. Besides, taking care of stuff like this is part of your duties as emperor. You’re supposed to be the head of the Schwerin family. There was a lot more I wanted to complain about, but I held it in. Judging by Eleora’s expression, she was thinking the same. The two of us exchanged glances, then sighed simultaneously. Eleora turned back to Natalia with a resigned look.

  “Let him in.”

  “O-Okay.”

  A few seconds later, the new emperor walked into Eleora’s study.

  “I’m sorry for all the trouble my sister’s engagement has caused you all.” The first words out of the newly crowned emperor’s mouth were an apology. Eleora smiled sadly at him and shook her head.

  “Don’t worry about it. We know you’re the one who’s had it the worst because of her announcement.”

  “Yes, well...” Ashley sighed. “It seems Lord Bolshevik approached my sister while I was busy preparing for the coronation ceremony.”

  According to Ashley, Dillier was friends with a lot of noble ladies, and Lord Bolshevik had approached while she’d been attending a private party hosted by one of them. Since the rebellion was over, no one had objected to his presence there, and he’d easily won over Dillier.

  “Since she was little, my sister has always looked forward to getting married, but my father and uncle always kept her away from potential suitors.”

  Imperial princesses were valuable political tools, so it was hardly surprising that the late emperor and Lord Doneiks had wanted to save Dillier to secure the most advantageous alliance possible. Supposedly though, this had made her frustrated, since all of her friends were getting married before her. After hearing about her situation I asked, “So with her father and uncle out of the picture, she felt like she was finally free to pursue her dreams of marriage?”

  “So it seems. My sister is a patient woman, but her patience has been sorely tested these past few years.”

  Ashley understood how Dillier was feeling, which was why he’d been unwilling to stop her.

  “I did at least tell her to reconsider, but Lord Bolshevik is from a wealthy, prestigious family, so I didn’t have any real grounds to argue. And my sister told me if I kept opposing her wishes she’d go to a convent and become a nun, so...”

  Eleora replied coolly, “Then shouldn’t you have told her to be a nun?”

  “If she joined a convent right after my coronation, people would think I was behind it. I don’t want to cause a scene right after taking the throne.”

  So basically, we had a brother who wanted to resolve things peacefully and a sister who wanted to get married at all costs. Had Ashley known how dangerous Lord Bolshevik was ahead of time, he might have tried harder to stop Dillier’s marriage. But he hadn’t, and this was what we had to deal with.

  “I don’t know what I should do anymore...” The young emperor cradled his head in his hands.

  You know I’m your political enemy, right? Personally, I just wanted to put Eleora on the throne so I could get back to Meraldia, but I didn’t have anything against Ashley. In fact, if he was willing to leave Meraldia alone and treat Eleora nicely, I wouldn’t even mind helping him. Which was why I decided to show him some sympathy.

  “I understand how you feel, but the threat here isn’t your sister; it’s Lord Bolshevik.”

  “Lord Shallier? I’ve seen what a smooth talker he is, but...”

  It appeared Ashley had no idea what lay behind Lord Bolshevik’s mask. Honestly, I’d prefer to enlighten him, but there was no telling who might be eavesdropping. I decided to compromise by giving him a carefully worded warning.

  “Lord Bolshevik is more ambitious than he seems. If all he wanted was to save his own skin, he could have just stayed under Eleora’s protection and not made any waves.”

  “You do have a point.”

  “He’s quite unpredictable, so stay on your guard, Your Majesty.”

  I didn’t mean it as a threat, just a warning. Ashley gave me an odd look, then nodded.

  “I’ll be careful. I’m the last surviving male member of the royal family. I realize how much is riding on my shoulders.”

  “That’s not why you’re so important,” I replied, giving him a reassuring smile. “You are a compassionate emperor, and well-versed in agriculture. It would be a heavy blow to Rolmund and its people if the empire were to lose you.”

  I meant everything I said. Ashley looked shocked for a moment, but then he smiled. “Thank you. My day has been full of unpleasant surprises, so it heartens me to hear those words.”

  The emperor got to his feet, and so did we. He bowed the same way he’d bowed to us back when he was just a prince and said his farewells.

  “I may have to return for more advice regarding this incident. But until then, goodbye.”

  After he left, Eleora sighed, “You sure know how to flatter people when they’re at their most vulnerable.”

  “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

  “That’s why it’s so effective.”

  Eleora sat back down on her sofa and muttered, “I don’t mind letting Ashley rule, but I have no intention of giving the throne to Dillier or Lord Bolshevik. We need a plan to remove them from power.”

  “Yeah. Let’s see what we can come up with.”

  Afterward, Eleora and I saw to it that the capital’s security was strengthened. She’d been making steady progress through the ranks, and after Ashley’s coronation ceremony, she’d been promoted to Mage General. She had full authority over all the Mage Corps within the empire now.

  “Mage Corps are best suited to urban warfare, so I have a good excuse to bring my own troops here. I can say they’re here to guard the city.”

  “In that case, me and my werewolves will focus on covert ops. The enemy’s got werewolves on their side too; we’re the only ones capable of opposing them.”

  While we were worried about the present, most of Rolmund’s nobles were only thinking about what would happen after Dillier’s wedding.

  “Do they all believe no one would dare assassinate the emperor or something?” Parker muttered, confused. We were holding a strategy meeting, so of course he was present, too.

  Borsche turned to the skeleton and replied, “Of course they do. Even if Emperor Ashley is successfully assassinated, that won’t mean Dillier will immediately become empress. It’s a well-known fact that she lacks the ability to lead, so there’ll likely be another civil war.”

  Eleora and her younger sister Sophie still had the right to inherit the throne, and there were quite a few other distant relatives of the emperor who technically were in the line of succession.

  Borsche added, “Lord Bolshevik lacks the strength to prevent a civil war, or win one if he chooses to back Dillier. All of the nobles with land bordering him are his enemy. He knows better than anyone that assassinating the emperor would be an utterly foolish move.”

  All the nobles in Rolmund knew this, so none of them thought Lord Bolshevik would risk assassinating the emperor. But Mao, who was checking over samples of ore he was planning to sell, muttered, “However, if you consider the fact that he’s a heretic, it doesn’t seem so foolish. After all, the emperor is a symbol of Sonnenlicht power.”

  Natalia, who was the daughter of a Sonnenlicht bishop, frowned. “You...have a point.” I nibbled on a raisin and nodded in agreement.

  “If you’re not part of the Sonnenlicht Order, you have no reason to care about what happens to the empire. In fact, you would want to spark a civil war in the hopes that it’d get so big the empire gets torn apart.”

  A civil war between Sternenfeuer and Sonnenlicht followers would mean people wouldn’t listen to the mediating authority of the Sonnenlicht Order either. We needed to make sure we could end any potential civil war without a bloodbath before trying to challenge Lord Bolshevik. Otherwise, the war could potentially drag on for decades. Unfortunately, we had no idea what Lord Bolshevik’s
next move might be, so all we could do was stay on our guard.

  “Ryucco, how goes the Blast Rifle remodeling?”

  “I finished doing all the werewolves’ guns. Here’s the report.”

  Ryucco, who was eating a few raisins himself while sitting on Natalia’s lap, dumped a folder onto the table.

  “I gave each rifle a serial number. You can find blueprints and manuals corresponding to each serial number in the report. Everything’s there. I made a copy of the whole thing to give to Jerrick too, so you better be grateful.”

  “Yeah, thanks. That’ll be a huge help.”

  “Heh, don’t mention it.” Ryucco grinned and scratched his ears. “But I didn’t think you’d ask me to upgrade the Rolmund soldiers’ Blast Canes too. You sure you want me to? It means we’ll be giving demon army tech to outsiders, you know?”

  I shrugged and replied, “Might as well. They’re allies.”

  The magic crests and circuits Ryucco used were more complicated than normal, and imbued with his specialty, spatial magic. It’d take another master of spatial magic to even analyze his upgrades. Eleora was a destruction mage, so she wouldn’t be able to do it. There were a surprising number of benefits to making specialized weapons that couldn’t be mass-produced.

  We often held meetings like this so everyone could remain up to date on what everyone else was up to and what they’d discovered. Usually, we’d all eat dinner or have tea together once the meetings were over. As a result, all of Eleora’s trusted aides and all of my men had grown quite close to each other.

  At first, I’d intended to keep these meetings brief, but everyone seemed to have so much fun talking that I let them drag on longer and longer. Of course, I was the Demon Lord’s vice-commander. When there was important work to be done, that took priority over chatting. In order to make sure Rolmund found the demon army indispensable, I first needed to make sure the empire didn’t get torn apart in a civil war.

  For the moment, it appeared as though Lord Bolshevik was doing most of his plotting within the capital, so I had most of my werewolves keep an eye on the city.

  “Find out anything new?” I asked Mary, who was disguised as a stall owner near Schwerin’s north gate. Technically Schwerin had multiple north gates, of which this was just one.

  Mary smiled and replied, “Well, I’ve found out people really love bread. This stuff sells like crazy. Probably because it lasts a while, and it doesn’t need to be cooked to eat.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  I’d posted a number of my werewolves at various points around the northern perimeter of the city to keep tabs on everyone who came in and out of the capital from that direction. But Mary, who’d originally owned our village’s general store, had gotten really into her cover of being a bread seller and didn’t seem to be doing too much actual observation. Thanks to that, no one suspected her of being a spy, but that wouldn’t matter if she wasn’t doing her job. Fortunately, Monza, who was acting as Mary’s assistant, was doing her job.

  “I heard that there’s a bunch of pilgrims coming from the north recently.”

  “Who’d you hear that from?”

  “One of the gate guards.”

  In that case, I could trust that information. Pilgrims were welcome anywhere within the empire, and no one asked for their identification papers, so spies and bandits often posed as pilgrims to move around freely. Even the Hero Draulight had posed as a pilgrim when he’d been gathering his followers to escape. Pilgrims were the classic disguise in Rolmund. Everyone knew that of course, but no gate guard could legally question them. Plus, since most travelers were pilgrims, it was unrealistic to screen them all anyway.

  “Pilgrims, huh?”

  I flung my cape back with a flourish and walked up to one of the guards lowering the portcullis. Schwerin, like every other city, closed its gates at sunset. The gate guards were surprised to see a foreign noble approaching them, but they had enough presence of mind to salute anyway.

  “Y-You’re the lord of Crimson Snow Keep!”

  That was the moniker my enemies had given me, though I didn’t really care what these guys called me. I gave the guards a small bow, then said, “Good work, men. Have you noticed anything strange here recently?”

  “No, sir! There’s been no suspicious activity!”

  They responded briskly, and in a way that made it clear they hadn’t been slacking on the job. Impressed, I took out a bottle of wine I’d bought off Mary’s stall earlier.

  “The situation in the north is still volatile. I realize you all must be exhausted, keeping a constant eye out for danger. Take this as a token of my appreciation.”

  “W-We couldn’t possibly accept such a gift...”

  Like all loyal Rolmund soldiers, the guard I was talking to politely refused my gift, but it was obvious from the way he kept glancing at the wine bottle that he actually wanted it.

  “Now that His Majesty Ashley has ascended the throne, the capital’s defense is more important than ever. This bottle of wine is a reward you’ve earned for keeping the city safe.”

  “Yes, sir! In that case, I shall gratefully accept!”

  He probably didn’t want to look impolite by refusing a foreign noble’s gift. Hesitantly, the guard took the bottle of wine. Once he’d accepted my gift I took another step forward and asked conversationally, “By the way, I’ve heard we’ve been getting a lot of pilgrims coming from the north recently.”

  “Oh, yes. We have.”

  The guard smiled cordially at me. I could tell from his body language that he was quite fond of alcohol.

  “Would you happen to know why we’re getting so many pilgrims these days?” I asked.

  “Yeah. They couldn’t travel during the rebellion, so everyone who wanted to make a pilgrimage is coming now. Besides, we always get most of our pilgrims right after the snow melts. It’s the best time to travel.”

  I see. So it’s not necessarily unnatural. But just as I thought that the guard cocked his head and said, “Oh, but there is something strange about this year’s pilgrims...”

  “And what’s that?”

  “It’s not that suspicious or anything, I just thought it was strange. Normally, it’s our job to direct pilgrims to the inns run by the churches here, and whenever one of those inns gets full, the churches let us know.”

  There were multiple church-run inns throughout the city, so it made sense to efficiently distribute pilgrims among them.

  “But even though we’ve been getting a ton of pilgrims this year, there haven’t been too many inns filling up. Of course there’s plenty of pilgrims who stay with their relatives or at inns not run by the church, so that’s not too surprising.”

  “I see.”

  So there were a lot of pilgrims coming into the city, but they weren’t going to Sonnenlicht-run inns. That was only suspicious if you knew what I did. I chatted with the soldier for just a bit longer, then left. It wouldn’t do to get in the way of his work. When I returned to Mary’s stall, I found Mao talking to her with a bag of flour slung over his shoulder.

  “Here’s the four bags of flour you ordered. Is that everything?”

  “Yeah, thanks. Bread’s a hot commodity, and I sold out today too. I’ll need to bake extra for tomorrow.”

  Mary was treating this like a real business, rather than just a cover. I really wanted to give her a stern warning to do her job properly. But while she was technically my subordinate, she’d taken care of me when I was a kid, so it was hard to give her orders. Besides, Monza was working here too. Though she looked bored as she managed the money, her eyes were darting back and forth, following the people passing in front of her. She was looking at them like a hunter stalking its prey.

  After dropping off the last bag of flour, Mao walked over to me and whispered, “I looked over the records you asked me to. Lord Doneiks had indeed sent a shipment of weapons and armor to Lord Bolshevik some years past.”

  “What kind of armor and weapons
, and how much of each?”

  “Steel helmets, bucklers, shortswords, boots, etc. Most of it was helmets, of which he gave twenty thousand.”

  That sounded like a normal enough transaction. Lord Bolshevik had ordered a bunch of equipment for his pikemen from Lord Doneiks. It made sense that he’d prioritized helmets too. Since helmets not only protected a soldier’s most vital body part, they also provided a sense of security for the wearer and made them look intimidating to their enemies.

  The only thing abnormal about the record was the amount. Lord Bolshevik possessed only 6,000 pikemen. He had no need for 20,000 helmets, unless his soldiers all had three heads. But I didn’t even know of any demons who were three-headed. It wasn’t as if you needed a bunch of spare helmets either; they weren’t the piece of equipment most likely to break. This was definitely worth investigating.

  Rolmund might have been an expansive empire, but no single noble had an army numbering in the tens of thousands. Even Lord Kastoniev, the undisputed lord of East Rolmund, had only 3,000 troops. The fact that Lord Bolshevik had requested 20,000 helmets was clearly suspicious. He must have known that too, which was why he’d asked Lord Doneiks to procure them in secret.

  I think I know what he’s planning. He wasn’t going to try and assassinate the emperor; he was going to stage a full-blown coup d’état. Lord Bolshevik was getting ready for an all-out war with the Sonnenlicht Order. The question was, where was he getting his soldiers from, and what was his strategy? I had a hunch I knew the answer to both, but I didn’t have any definitive proof. Right now I needed to focus on gathering intel.

  “Mao, we need to get back to Eleora’s manor right now and get in touch with Bishop Zanawah as fast as possible.”

  “As you wish.”

  The situation was probably even worse than I thought. Mao and I hurried through the streets of Schwerin as night descended upon the capital.

  The sun had fully set by the time we reached Eleora’s mansion, and we lost no time in sending word to Zanawah. He must have deduced our business with him was top secret, since instead of inviting us over, he came to Eleora’s manor himself. However, he brought along with him the keeper of rites, Cardinal Kushmer. She was the same cardinal who’d presided over Ashley’s coronation.