We rushed to the spot, moving the sand and dirt aside. When we did, we found a little girl and a woman I assumed was her mother in a gap between the collapsed lumber. The mother was holding her girl tightly, trying to protect her. When Robthor saw them, he let out a breathless sigh. Clearly, they were his wife and daughter.
When we pulled them out, the woman had already expired.
Just as I was thinking all hope was lost… Aisha raised her voice. “Sire! The child is still breathing!”
“Get her to the relief team, immediately!” I shouted. “Don’t let her die!”
“Understood!”
After wrapping the child in a blanket and seeing her and Aisha off, I looked to Robthor, who was crying beside his wife’s body. I thought maybe I should let him be, but this man still had things he needed to protect. I couldn’t have him stopping here on me.
Placing a hand on his shoulder, I said quietly, “She protected your daughter to the very end.”
“…Yes…”
“Pull yourself together! It’s your turn to do it now!”
He seemed startled. “Yes… Yes…!”
Speaking through sobs, Robthor nodded again and again.
Some time after that, the second relief team that Liscia had gone back to call for arrived. With the search for all missing persons completed, the advance team was relieved of their duties.
For the reconstruction work, the more numerous and better-equipped second team would take over.
After offering one last silent prayer for the fallen, the advance team returned to the capital. The mud-covered and exhausted members of the advance team were packed into the container cars like frozen tuna about to be shipped out. Right about now, Hal was probably resting his head in Kaede’s lap and taking a good rest.
I was in a similar state myself, riding in the carriage with Liscia who had come to pick me up.
We had left Aisha behind in the village. With her homeland in that awful shape, there was no way she would have been able to focus on her duties. For the time being, I had told her to wait in the God-Protected Forest.
As I leaned against the window, dozing off…
“I wasn’t able to do anything this time,” Liscia said sadly.
“You went to call a relief party, didn’t you?” I asked. “Everyone worked their very hardest. Actually… if there’s anyone who was unable to do anything, it was me.”
“Hardly. I hear you were a great help out there,” Liscia tried to reassure me, but I shook my head.
“I’m the king. In times of crisis, giving commands in the field isn’t the king’s duty. A king’s duty is to prepare for a crisis before it happens. I… didn’t do enough of that.”
“That’s not…”
“I think the Forbidden Army worked well as a relief unit. Still, there were more places where I came up short. Means of communication, long-distance shipping, accumulation of aid supplies in each area, medical teams attached to the relief party, psychiatrists to treat patients with PTSD… I came up short on all of those things. Because I was so focused on the food crisis and the issue of the three dukes, I was lax in my preparations.”
I looked at my reflection in the window, covered in mud and wearing an expression of exhaustion.
Liscia was looking at me with concern, but I pretended not to notice.
Epilogue
The central city of the Carmine Duchy, Landel.
In the center of that central city, in the meeting room in Landel Castle, in the residing castle of Duke Georg Carmine, right now, the three dukes who controlled the land, sea, and air forces of this country had gathered.
First, at the head of the table was the lord of this castle, Georg Carmine.
This lion-faced beastman had a burly, muscular build that was apparent even through his military uniform. He had the appearance of a warrior who had weathered many battles. Beastmen were no longer-lived than humans, but even at the age of fifty, he showed no signs of decline. His very presence was enough to make the atmosphere tense.
Seated to Georg’s right was Admiral of the Navy, Excel Walter.
Wearing a kimono that was similar in style to the ones worn in Japan, she was a beautiful sea serpent woman with antlers poking through her blue hair. Sea serpents were a race that could live for over a thousand years, and she herself had already reached an age of more than five hundred, yet she still looked to be in no more than her mid-twenties. However, contrary to her appearance, her command showed all the experience that came with that age.
Sitting across from her was General of the Air Force, Castor Vargas.
He looked like a gallant young man, but the two oni-like horns that grew through his red hair, the membranous wings that grew from his back, and the lizard-like tail marked him as a half-dragon, a dragonewt. He was close to one hundred years old, but as a member of a race that lived to five hundred years, he was still treated as a youngster. He, too, looked like he was in a foul mood.
Looking at the other two, Excel sighed. “…I was under the impression that we were meeting here to avoid a needless conflict.”
“What, Duchess Excel, are you afraid of that whelp?” Castor took an aggressive tone with Excel. “Has the once-feared sea serpent Duchess Excel grown old?”
“Oh, me? And who was it who tried to seduce this old granny fifty years ago, hmm?” Excel asked.
“Urkh.”
“Also, when you address me, it’s not ‘Duchess Excel,’ it should be ‘Mother,’ shouldn’t it?”
“…Right.”
With that playful rebuttal, she deflated Castor.
In truth, Excel had been Castor’s first love. Perhaps because he had been unable to forget her even after his attempts failed magnificently, when he had later met Accela, her daughter who was closer to him in age, he had fallen in love with her at first sight and they had married. In short, Castor was Excel’s son-in-law. She was not someone he was in a position to argue with and win.
“Castor, do you still mean to oppose the king?” she asked.
“Of course! I don’t care if he’s a hero, or whatever else they want to call him, that fake king usurped the throne, forced Princess Liscia into a betrothal, and unjustly seized power in this country! How could I serve a guy like that?!”
“The only ones who tell it like that are the nobles being investigated for corruption,” she corrected him. “King Albert abdicated of his own will in favor of the man he felt would be a better successor. The king’s relationship with Princess Liscia is close, too.”
“I don’t know about that! He may just be making it look that way! If he wanted to rebuild this country, he could have done it as a vassal! Was there some problem with the former king’s reign?” he snapped.
Excel wisely said nothing.
There were no problems with it, but there were no good points to it, either, and that was a problem, thought Excel, but to say so would be too disrespectful to the former king, so she refrained.
Excel had found the speed with which Albert had abdicated dubious, but all signs since then had pointed to it being a wise decision. Excel didn’t remember Albert as a ruler who could make such a decision, but perhaps it merely meant he had grown as a person.
“Besides, we three dukes have protected this country for many long years. I can’t stand the way he’s belittling us!” the man snapped. “The letter he sent me as soon as the throne was abdicated to him was ‘Serve me, or not, make your choice,’ you know?”
“It was ‘If you will cooperate with my reforms, I will provide food aid and build roads for you’… Right?” she asked.
The three duchies had a lower population than the crown demesne, and because they had armies to supply, they had reserves, so the food crisis had not been felt as deeply in them. However, when the food crisis had hit, the three duchies had opened up their reserves and begun rationing, so all of the merchants who’d dealt in foodstuffs had gone bankrupt due to lack of demand. Next, because of the rise in unemployment, shops had gone out of business because their wares wouldn’t sell. Then, in a chain reaction, the craftspeople who had supplied them had gone under, as well.