How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 4

by Dojyomaru

  Genia was cheerfully explaining in a singsong tone, but... I dunno. The materials from monsters and mysterious parts from the dungeons were giving me nothing but a bad feeling.

  Liscia was still gaping, and Ludwin looked like he might faint.

  I asked Genia, “This thing won’t go on a rampage, right?”

  “Ahaha,” she laughed. “There’s no way it’d do that.”

  Then Genia approached Mechadra, touching the underside of its foot lightly.

  “I mean, it doesn’t even move.”

  “Huh? It doesn’t?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” she said. “I think the outer frame is pretty well complete, but it lacks the all important control system to send orders to all the parts. The way it is... it’s just a glorified scarecrow.”

  What are you, the “I’m gonna kill you nooooow!!” guy...? I thought, making a reference no one was going to get.

  I saw the situation now. She had made a mechanical dragon, and that was all well and good, but the program and circuits to operate it didn’t exist. It was apparently something she had built to study the workings of living creatures’ joints, and she had never intended for it to move. But, well, much as that should have been a given with the level of technology in this world, when Genia was involved, my sense for that was numbed, you know.

  Genia was moving one of Mechadra’s foot talon parts up and down with one hand. “Look, it moves smoothly like this. Even without power, you can make it move.”

  “Yeah, that’s amazing,” I said. “It’s amazing, but... what did you go and make this thing for...?”

  I clutched my head in my hands. I figured this was probably gonna get me in trouble with the Star Dragon Mountain Range.

  With ancient humans, sure, maybe we’d put them on display in a museum. But if you started embedding one in a machine, people would start to draw the line. It could be taken as profaning the bodies of the dead, after all. If they found out that one of their kind’s bodies was being used like this, the dragons might come to attack.

  ...When I get back, I’ll write a letter of apology to the Star Dragon Mountain Range, I thought. Depending on their response, we’ll dismantle the thing and either bury it or send it back to them.

  As I was swearing that to myself, Genia’s words, “The way it is... It’s just a glorified scarecrow,” came back to me.

  A scarecrow... A doll put up to protect the fields... A doll?! Don’t tell me...

  I tried touching the tip of the Mechadra’s toe. Then, using Living Poltergeists, I transferred one of my consciousnesses into it. When I did, with a great sound of metal creaking... Mechadra began to move.

  Whoa?! I managed to control it?!

  “Hold on, Your Majesty?! Did you do something?!” Genia exclaimed. Even she had to be surprised by this turn of events.

  As I looked up at Mechadra spreading its arms like a monster from a kaiju movie, then start doing radio calisthenics, I held my head in my hands.

  Seriously, what was I going to do with this thing? Might the ability to move an iron dragon be seen as a threat by other countries?

  “But even if you can move the iron dragon, will it be any use in battle?” Liscia asked.

  I snapped back to my senses. Now that she mentioned it, if all it could do was move around, an iron dragon wasn’t going to be much of an asset in battle. With its big, bulky body, it would make a prime target. If the wyvern cavalry focused their aerial bombardment and dragon breath on it, it would be blown to pieces in no time.

  “Is Mechadra armed?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” Genia said. “Even I’m not so whimsical that I’d install armaments on something I never even considered moving.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past you...” I murmured.

  If that was the case, it really was useless. The best thing I could think to do with it was set it up somewhere like the Odaiba G*ndam and use it to attract tourists. It was likely to make other countries cautious of us, but it had absolutely no use. It was the absolute worst. Talk about a white elephant.

  In conclusion, all information regarding Mechadra was declared top secret, and until I received a response from the Star Dragon Mountain Range, it was to be kept sealed. Would it ever eventually see the light of day?

  As for Genia, who had produced the dangerous thing, we had her move to a lab built especially for her close to the capital. Even now, she was working on research and development there. As soon as the country began supplying her with most of the funding for her research, it only spurred her to work harder.

  ...I think I’ll send Ludwin some stomach medicine sometime soon.

  Chapter 2: A Story of Using Shrimp as Bait to Catch Sea Bream, but Instead Catching a Shark

  —Late in the 11th month, 1546th year, Continental Calendar — Royal Capital Parnam

  It had been close to a month since the war with Amidonia had come to a close.

  On this day when we began to feel the onset of winter, I was in the room with the jewel for the Jewel Voice Broadcast, facing a simple receiver with a certain person’s image projected on it.

  My partner was a single woman. Her well-balanced figure was wrapped in a pure white dress, and her light, wavy blond hair was beautiful.

  I was acquainted with her younger sister, but she left a very different impression on me. While there was a resemblance in the contours of their faces, when this woman blinked, there was something childlike about her large eyes, making her appear to be the younger of the two. Even though I had been told she was supposed to be a year older than me. She was a very beautiful person.

  I thought that, having been surrounded by Liscia, Aisha, and Juna, all beautiful in their own different ways, I had developed a discerning taste, but at a single glance, I had been struck by how beautiful this woman was.

  The beauty opened her mouth. “Greetings, Sir Souma. I am Maria Euphoria.”

  She was Empress of the Gran Chaos Empire.

  “Greetings to you, too, Madam Maria,” I said. “I am Souma Kazuya.”

  The heads of the largest nations in the west and the east were meeting for the first time. Normally it would be a time for handshakes, but that wasn’t possible through the Jewel Voice Broadcast’s screen.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you like this, Madam Maria,” I said formally. “I’ve always wanted to be able to speak with you at length.”

  “I feel the same,” she said. “We’ve heard of your great ability here in the Empire, too.”

  “It’s not my ability... I’m helped by my capable subordinates.”

  “That’s very humble of you to say, but talented retainers gather under a great ruler.”

  We kept up with the polite talk for a while. While discussing nothing of importance, I tried to get a feel for Maria. But her smiling face was a thing of childish innocence; so brilliant that I almost felt guilty for trying to read into it. Though, at the same time, I also thought this:

  There was no way a girl who was only pure and innocent could rule a vast Empire.

  “May I ask a question, Sir Souma?” Maria asked.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “What are your thoughts about what happened in Amidonia over the past month?”

  Maria’s eyes narrowed as she said that. That alone was enough to completely change the aura around her. She appeared to be smiling, but looked angry in spite of that.

  Not that I could blame her. From the Empire’s perspective, what I’d done was close to a betrayal.

  “When Jeanne delivered me her report on the negotiations, I thought we had found ourselves a reliable ally in the east,” Maria said. “Was I mistaken in that?”

  “...No. We still view ourselves as sworn friends of the Empire. This may sound like an excuse, but this result was unexpected for us, too.”

  “It wasn’t arranged by the kingdom, you mean?” she asked.

  I nodded and scratched my head. “I won’t deny that I was plotting something, but I never intended for it to
go this far. Honestly, it’s turned into an ongoing headache for me.”

  Maria’s anger seemed to subside, for the moment at least. “Can you explain it in detail for me?

  “Of course,” I said. “According to our agents in the principality...”

  ◇　◇　◇

  One month earlier, when Van was returned to Amidonia...

  Julius took back the capital of the principality, Van, and the area around it by borrowing the influence of the Gran Chaos Empire. He returned to Van to succeed his father, Gaius VIII, as the Sovereign Prince of Amidonia.

  The first thing that Julius’s close retainers thought to do after he became the new sovereign was to remove any traces of Elfrieden’s influence.

  “There’s been an appalling degradation of public morals in Van,” one of them said stiffly.

  “Indeed,” another agreed. “The austere atmosphere from Lord Gaius’s lifetime is the most appropriate for our principality. We should clamp down on this.”

  “Why not begin by dismantling the shanty town that’s built up around the Jewel Voice Broadcast plaza?”

  Julius listened in silence, his eyes closed, as his retainers pushed him to return the city to its former state. That man’s words flashed through his mind now.

  “If the people were choking under the yoke of our oppression, do you think they would want to make their roofs and walls more colorful?”

  Those were the words that Souma Kazuya had said the other day.

  “If a ruler is oppressive, the people will try to act in a way that doesn’t stand out. That’s because, if they were to catch his eye by doing something showy, there’d be no telling what kind of disaster might befall them. So the more oppressed the people, the less you will hear them complain. They don’t show their feelings or attitudes, keeping their true feelings bottled up deep inside their hearts.”

  Why... Why am I remembering his words now...? The words of his hated enemy had stabbed into Julius’s chest.

  “Now, tell me, what color were the colors of Van like when you and your father were here?” Souma had asked.

  Shut up! Julius snapped internally. I don’t need you to tell me. Our Princely House has always thought of the people...

  “Have we, really?”

  Huh?!

  That last voice wasn’t Souma. It had been his own voice.

  ...Is that how it’s been? his own voice continued.

  It was a simple matter. It wasn’t that Souma’s words had been echoing in his mind, it was that Julius had been asking himself about them. About whether his decisions were right or not.

  Julius had been the crown prince until just the other day, and Gaius VIII had been the one to make all the important decisions on matters of the state. From Julius’s perspective, he had only been following Gaius’s orders.

  However, now that he sat on the throne as Prince, he would be forced to make decisions that would decide the fate of the nation by himself. Julius had, for the first time, been let out from under the yoke of his father, and he was starting to seek diverse information.

  Julius shared Gaius’s ideological focus on the military, but he wasn’t as impulsive as his father; he was the clever sort who could think deeply. He would make decisions after considering the various circumstances he found himself in. On that point, he was closer to his younger sister Roroa than he was to Gaius.

  Roroa, huh... I wonder where she is and what she’s doing now... he pondered. Where was his sister, who had evaporated along with a select group of bureaucrats before Elfrieden had occupied the city?

  When he caught himself thinking that, Julius couldn’t help but mock himself a little. They had never gotten along, and he was wary that she would become his political opponent. It was a little late to be worrying for her safety now.

  “Your Highness!” a retainer cried, interrupting his thoughts.

  Brought back to his senses, Julius made a heavy decision. “Very well. We must remove the kingdom’s influence.”

  “““Yes, sir!”””

  Their orders received, the retainers saluted him and then left the governmental affairs office.

  In the end, Julius decided to have the many changes brought about under the kingdom’s rule struck down and destroyed so that the principality could return to its former state. Wiping out the legacy of the previous administration for the benefit of the new one... That should have been the right course of action. You might think there were quieter ways to have done it, but none of those were available to Julius.

  Right now, before anything else, I need to regain my authority as the sovereign prince, he thought.

  Transfers of power should be carried out while the former ruler is still alive and with a suitable guardian in place. When that isn’t done, vassals will belittle the new ruler for his youth. The more strongly authoritarian a country is, the more important this process of firming up support becomes. However, Gaius had died in the war, and so Julius had been forced to become prince without being able to first solidify his position. That was why he first sought to centralize power around himself. For that, he needed to wipe Elfrieden’s value of tolerance for diversity from Van.

  “Yes... even if I am called an oppressor for it,” Julius whispered, wearing an expression that showed his tragic determination.

  First, Julius issued an order banning anyone from watching the Jewel Voice Broadcast throughout Amidonia.

  With Amidonia’s broadcast jewel being kept by the kingdom, the only broadcasts the people could view would be coming out of the kingdom. Naturally, the stalls that had been set up in Van for the people who watched the Jewel Voice Broadcast were forcibly removed. This was easier than expected, because the merchants had mysteriously vanished when Julius returned to power, so it was just a matter of dismantling their abandoned stalls.

  How must the people of Van have viewed Julius as he tore down the stalls in the plaza that had already become their marketplace?

  Furthermore, as Souma had anticipated, Julius and his people demolished the bridges that bore his name and the names of his followers. It was inevitable that he would have to demolish any bridges that were along the route the kingdom had used to invade, but it was pure folly to destroy the other bridges “because they were built by the kingdom.” Breaks in the transportation network can be a matter of life and death for people.

  Other than that, he didn’t distribute food the way the kingdom had, and clamped down hard on breaches of public morals. In particular, he banned women from dressing up, banned the art movements that had infested Van... and many more things. He even went as far as having houses with images of loreleis on them razed.

  The people of Van, who were now having the freedoms they had been given removed, said:

  “It was better under King Souma.”

  “We didn’t have to go through this pain and suffering when we were a territory of the kingdom.”

  “We were able to feed the children properly.”

  “Why does Lord Julius care less about his own people than a foreign king did?”

  “Do you think His Majesty King Souma will come back to occupy Van again?”

  And they turned a resentful eye toward the castle in Van.

  Some of the things they were resentful over weren’t Julius’s fault. For starters, there was a difference in the size of the Elfrieden Kingdom and the Principality of Amidonia’s territory and economy. If you asked whether the principality would be capable of providing the same level of aid the kingdom had been, the answer would be no. However, the common people didn’t know that. Ultimately, the more Julius tried to wipe the kingdom’s influence from Van, the more the people’s hearts shifted away from him.

  Now, as for how the areas other than Van felt, things weren’t going well for him there, either. Because, as already noted, the sudden death of Gaius meant that the transfer of power hadn’t been handled properly, and Julius was being taken lightly by the lords of Amidonia.

  This came in two forms.

&
nbsp; The first was: Who cares about the Princely House? why should I have to bow my head to that whelp? The kind that looked down on him.

  The second was: That youngster is unreliable! I need to defend myself! The kind that couldn’t be bothered to deal with him.

  The majority of the nobles and knights who held land in Amidonia fell into the latter category.

  To begin with, in a country under the feudal system, fealty was sworn to the liege in exchange for guarantees on land and property. If the liege lacked the power to provide those, the vassals would have to defend their land and property themselves. They would come to act not for their liege’s benefit, but their own.

  Souma had told Julius, “Those who acquire a principality with difficulty will keep it with ease. Those who acquire a principality without difficulty will find it difficult to keep,” paraphrasing the words of Machiavelli. As might be expected, Julius, who had used the influence of the Empire to regain Van with ease, was finding it difficult to rule.

  There were some stories that seemed emblematic of the crumbling of his power base, too.

  As mentioned already, Julius issued an order banning people from watching the Jewel Voice Broadcast, but this order was only followed in the areas close to Van. Everywhere else, people apparently said, “Who cares what some order from the capital says?” and kept on watching.

  When trust in the center is shaken like that, each city starts to gather soldiers and mercenaries of their own. If you consider that, at this time, the kingdom was abolishing the armies of the nobles and the three dukes, creating one unified National Defense Force, then this was a move in the opposite direction.

  Every petty lord raising his own army was something Julius shouldn’t have been able to tolerate, but if he censured them for it, there was the risk that the lords would band together and revolt against him.

  However, looking at the end result, this was a chance to let the pus out. Machiavelli would have pointed out that this was precisely the time when cruelty should have been used. Even if it resulted in a revolt, he could eliminate hostile forces and intimidate those who were hesitant to commit to him into falling in line.