This time, my role required me to stay in the background. When I consider what will happen to Carla and Castor after the war, I’d like to accomplish as much as I can… but if I stand out too much, it will only harm His Majesty’s impression of me.
She sighed internally, but Excel wasn’t the sort to let it show. “Now then, let’s leave the rest to our young king and his friends while we head south as planned.”
As she said that, Excel’s thoughts turned to the other young one.
In the twilight, with the moon hidden behind the clouds, the forces of the principality were running with torches in hand.
The horde of 30,000 men carrying torches moved like a snake slithering across the ground. From a distance, it must have seemed like a fantastical sight. However, for the men themselves, they were just being forced to run while covered in sweat and dirt.
Towards the front of that line of troops, the Prince of Amidonia, Gaius VIII, was in the center of the cavalry unit that was leading the way. Surrounded by five bodyguards who each carried a torch, he was driving his horse onward like a man possessed.
His expression was grim. All of this was the fault of that young king.
That king had baited Gaius and his men by using the lands they’d lost, the fertile grain-producing region. That had exposed the capital Van, their soft flank which would normally have been protected by hard armor. Elfrieden had then taken their chance to stab at it.
Georg Carmine had been blocking the route to the capital, but he had capitulated a mere two days after the ultimatum. Now Gaius had heard that Souma’s forces, the Forbidden Army and Army, were advancing on Van with a force 55,000 men strong.
Van had been built to block incursions from the Kingdom and to give them a foothold to serve as a front-line base in any invasion of Elfrieden. Because of that, there were no fortresses between the Elfrieden Kingdom’s army and Van.
Due to how passive the former king, Albert, had been, Gaius had let his guard down. He had grown prideful, taking the Elfrieden Kingdom lightly in the belief that they lacked the courage to invade another country.
Now that it had come this far, Gaius realized he’d been tricked by Souma and Georg.
Too much scheming can spell the end of a schemer. All too often, a schemer forgets that he, too, may fall victim to the schemes of another. That was what had happened to Gaius.
This is terrible! To think that that nation of weaklings, Elfrieden, could make me taste such hardship! Gaius thought bitterly.
As he made his horse race along, he cursed his own carelessness.
When they’d found themselves on the receiving end of the Elfrieden’s expansionism two generations ago, the King of Amidonia had lost half of his lands and died in despair. To ensure they never forgot that mortifying defeat, Gaius’s father had renamed the country from the Kingdom of Amidonia to the Principality of Amidonia. It had been a show of determination, as the man had felt that they couldn’t call themselves a kingdom with half of their lands stolen from them.
He’d named himself the Sovereign Prince, and from then on, Amidonia had made the restoration of its lost lands a national policy, always watching closely for any chance to realize that goal.
When the King of Elfrieden from two generations ago had died, Albert had taken the throne. (Or, more accurately, he had married the former king’s daughter, who had inherited the right of succession.) When he did, Amidonia had taken advantage of his passiveness to extend a scheming hand to Elfrieden’s nobles and support the growth of dissident groups within the kingdom.
That had continued even after Gaius’s father had died and Gaius had taken the throne as Gaius VIII.
The majority of those nobles had been crushed by Georg and Excel, but the remaining nobles who had been in on the scheme had gone underground, slowly exhausting the kingdom. That was good.
Albert hadn’t had much potential as a king, but the difference in strength between the kingdom and principality had still been great.
Being the less powerful nation, Amidonia had only been able to wait patiently for their opportunity to come.
And then, at last, the chance they had long waited for had arrived. The Demon Realm had appeared, and the food crisis and financial crisis it had caused had exhausted the kingdom. Then, with the sudden change of rulers, the three dukes who were supposed to protect the kingdom had rebelled against the new king.
The principality had gathered their strength for a renewed attack. Right now, they knew, the kingdom wouldn’t be able to move freely. The time had come at last for the Principality of Amidonia to realize her dream… Yes, that was what Gaius had been convinced of.
However, on closer inspection, had that really been the case? Was it not the Principality of Amidonia that was being driven into a corner now?
If we lose Van now, Amidonia will never recover, Gaius thought frantically. I couldn’t face the ghosts of my ancestors if I let that happen!
Gaius VIII’s face was distorted with frustration.
However, that hasn’t happened yet! We’re not finished yet! Van is a solid fortress. I’ve left it in the hands of 5,000 elite troops. Even if the enemy come in great numbers, they should be able to hold out for two or three days. If we can reach Van in that time, then catch the kingdom’s forces in a surprise pincer attack with the troops inside the castle, we’ll have a chance of victory!
That was what Gaius thought to try to encourage himself. But, as he was thinking that…
“Father!” Julius brought his horse up alongside Gaius. “We’re advancing too quickly! At this rate we won’t only leave the wagons behind, we’ll start to see our infantry dropping off, as well! I suggest that we lessen the pace slightly, and…”
“Silence!” Gaius bellowed. He completely disregarded Julius’s advice by shouting his son down. “If Van falls, we will never rise again! No matter what, we must arrive at Van before it falls! Then we will catch the kingdom’s forces in a pincer attack with the soldiers in the castle!”
A Gaius ranted, Julius felt slightly uneasy. It seemed to him that, right now, Gaius was too fixated on the capital, and he was getting a little too worked up.
“Father, even if we did lose Van, our army would still be intact,” Julius said. “Could we not enter another secure city and seek help from the Empire? Unlike the Elfrieden Kingdom, we’ve signed the Mankind Declaration, after all.”
The Declaration of Mankind’s Common Front Against the Demon Race (also known as the Mankind Declaration) was a policy that had been proposed by the largest, most powerful empire on the continent, the Gran Chaos Empire, in order to resist the advance of the demons.
First, the acquisition of territory by force between the nations of mankind would be deemed inadmissible.
Second, the right of all peoples to equality and self-determination would be respected.
Third, countries that were distant from the Demon Lord’s Domain would provide support to those nations which were adjacent to it and were acting as a defensive wall.
These were the three main articles of the Mankind Declaration.
Amidonia had signed the Mankind Declaration, but even after Souma had taken the throne, Elfrieden had not. Because of that, if Amidonia approached the Empire saying their land had been seized, as the leading power behind the Mankind Declaration and therefore Amidonia’s ally, the Empire would likely push Elfrieden to return the seized lands. (Though the territory lost before the Mankind Declaration wouldn’t be affected.)