“Ah…! I–I’m sorry, sire!”
“‘Sire’…? Don’t tell me you’re the king?!” Halbert acted surprised long after he should have figured it out. He was the only one present who didn’t know by this point, so he seemed pretty slow-witted. Regardless, with him being menaced with a rapier, a claw hold, and a knife, we couldn’t have a calm discussion, so I had everyone stand down.
Fixing my gaze on the relieved Halbert, I asked him a question. “Now then, Halbert Magna, you were saying something about attacking me?”
“Th-That’s…” Halbert averted his eyes.
Oh, come on, was your determination that weak?
“Should I take that to be the will of the House of Magna as a whole?” I asked.
“Wha?! My old man’s got nothing to do with this!”
“Of course he does,” I said. “While I might be able to overlook a soldier who was just following orders, traitorous nobles must be tried under the law. They show a clear intent to rebel, after all. In those cases, the charge will be ‘treason against the state,’ you know… That’s a serious crime. At the very least, those within three degrees of consanguinity will be considered complicit in it.”
“Wha…?!” Halbert was at a loss for words. All I was doing was forcing him to face the facts, though.
“No… That’s too harsh…” Kaede tried to intervene, but I raised a hand to stop her.
“Now, let me just say, I’m not doing this because I hold a personal grudge against you,” I said. “That’s what the laws of this country dictate. Honestly, I know with long-lived races, it’s not unusual for them to have great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren around, but, even so, the range of people implicated in the crime is way too large. Personally, for a law like this which even punishes innocent young children, I’d like to reform it right away, but I have so many things to do that I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
He was speechless.
“Halbert Magna,” I said formally. “You were born into the House of Magna, a proper noble house. So, if you side with the Three Dukedoms, they rebel, and I win, all of your kin within three degrees of consanguinity will be executed. That’s what the law says, so there’s nothing I can do about it, right?”
It would be the law that judged him, not me. There would be no room for me to use my own discretion.
“Now, let’s consider what happens if the Three Dukedoms win,” I continued.
“Hey! Y-Yeah, that’s right! As long as we win, it’s all good!”
“In the event that happens, what will happen to her?” I placed a hand on Kaede’s shoulder.
Halbert was clearly shaken. “No, you wouldn’t dare take Kaede hostage!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do something like that. However, she’s a member of the Forbidden Army. If the Three Dukedoms rebel, she’ll be sent to the front on ‘our side.’ In other words, she would be your enemy.” Here, I looked closely at Kaede. “By the way, what is your relationship with Halbert?”
“W-We’re childhood friends.”
“Childhood friends… I see.”
From the way they’d been talking and acting, I had seen signs of their affection for each other, but… Well, there was no reason to point it out here.
“If you’re childhood friends, you must care more for one another than you would just any other person,” I said. “And? If you join the Three Dukedoms, what do you plan to do about her?”
“What do you mean, what will I do…? About what?”
“We’re imagining that the Three Dukedoms win. In that case, I may have been struck down, and you may even have been the one to take my severed head.”
“Hah! I’d be guaranteed a promotion, then!”
“…I suppose you would,” I said. “So, what of Kaede? A cute girl like her, in the losing army. When they find out, what will the soldiers of the winning side do…? As a soldier yourself, I think you can imagine, can’t you?”
When I pointed that out, Halbert visibly turned pale. Most likely, he was imagining “that sort” of scene. After the conclusion of a war, it wasn’t uncommon to see the defeated ravaged by the victors. Looting, arson, rape, slaughter… The madness of war was in that it allowed these acts of barbarity to happen.
Even so, Halbert raised his voice, as if trying to shake off his doubts. “Duke Carmine’s forces are well-organized! They would never do something so indecent!”
“I don’t know what the situation is within the army, but Duke Carmine has more than just the regular forces in his duchy,” I said. “There are also those I stripped of their rights or investigated for corruption. Those nobles who’ve raised the flag of rebellion against me. They have nothing to lose. If they lose, death for both them and their family line awaits. So they’ll throw away their personal assets, hiring a large number of Zemish mercenaries.”
The mercenary state, Zem.
West of Amidonia and north of Turgis, it was a medium-sized country, founded by the mercenary commander Zem, who had used his wits to destroy the country which had hired him and then build his own nation of mercenaries in its place. They had declared themselves to be “eternally neutral,” but their primary industry was dispatching mercenaries to other countries, so what that really meant was, “If requested, we will dispatch mercenaries to any country.” Their mercenaries were ridiculously strong, so most countries recognized that it was better to have them as an ally than an enemy, and so they had formed mercenary contracts with them.
“That’s absurd! There are Zemish mercenaries under contract with the Forbidden Army, too! If they send mercenaries to the Three Dukedoms, as well, they’ll be fighting against their own!”
“Oh, that won’t happen,” I assured him. “I terminated their employment contract with the Forbidden Army a while ago.”
Now seems like a good time, so let me talk about the military system of this country.
This kingdom had a total manpower of around 100,000 troops. They were divided like so:
40,000 in the army, led by Duke Georg Carmine.
10,000 in the navy, led by Duchess Excel Walter.
1,000 in the air force, led by Duke Castor Vargas.
(However, one wyvern knight was said to be equivalent to 100 soldiers from the army.)
Of these, only the air force had a knightly title bestowed on every one of its members (it was composed entirely of units of wyvern knights, i.e. “1 wyvern + 1 or 2 knights,” so that was obvious), but more than half of the army and navy were made up of career soldiers. They trained day and night in the three duchies, and they received a salary from the three duchies.
You could say that the right to self-rule and the tax exemption on the profits from their lands, along with the many other special rights given to the three duchies, were there to support these troops.
Now, the remaining troops, numbering a little over 40,000, belonged to the Forbidden Army, but they were further divided beyond that.
There were the Royal Guard, who reported directly to the king, and the career soldiers who were attached to the Forbidden Army. Then there were the noble estates (which had less rights than the three duchies) and their personal forces on top of that. Also, due to our contract with the mercenary state, Zem, there had been a unit of mercenaries under the command of the Forbidden Army, as well, but I had already terminated their employment.
The reason that the Forbidden Army was smaller than the forces of the three duchies had to do with the concept behind this country.
This country had originally been born through many races working together. As a result, a member of the race with the largest population, a human, became the king, but in order to protect the rights of the other races, the commanders of the army, navy, and air forces would be chosen from the other races.