Oh, that was what he meant.
“We’ll only take Van,” I said. “We won’t go any further than that.”
“Really? I think it’s best to take out your enemies when you can…” Liscia expressed her doubts, but I told her it was fine.
“No matter how much we expand our territory, no matter how many cities we take, when the Empire steps in, we’ll lose it all,” I said. “The only thing left in the end will be all the lives we wasted.”
When I said that, the room froze.
Liscia hesitantly asked, “Is the Empire… going to be coming?”
“They almost certainly will, is my and Hakuya’s reading of the situation. A signatory of the Mankind Declaration, Amidonia, had its border changed through military force. There’s no way the leader of that pact won’t show up.”
We had violated one of the three articles of the Declaration of Mankind’s Common Front Against the Demon Race (also known as the Mankind Declaration), which stated that “the acquisition of territory by force between the nations of mankind would be deemed inadmissible,” so as the leader of that treaty, the Empire would have to act on behalf of Amidonia. They would probably start by negotiating, but they wouldn’t hesitate to intervene militarily if it came down to it.
Incidentally, the difference in power between Elfrieden and the Empire was about as big as the gap between modern day Japan and America.
“But the principality attacked us,” Liscia protested. “Why would we be the ones blamed for it?”
“That’s just how international treaties work,” I said. “Amidonia will probably claim ‘It’s Elfrieden’s fault for not signing the declaration,’ I’m sure.”
“Urkh… If this was going to happen, maybe we should have signed the Mankind Declaration, too…” she said. “Wait, huh? Come to think of it, why didn’t you sign it, Souma? You knew this would happen if we fought Amidonia without signing it, right?”
When Liscia pointed that out, I scratched the back of my head and laughed. “Because we can’t sign it. There’s a pitfall in that declaration.”
“A pitfall?” she asked.
“Yeah. Maybe the Empire doesn’t realize it?”
Had they not noticed, or had they noticed and just chosen to turn a blind eye? Either way, that hole was a dangerous one that could cause the collapse of the Empire. I couldn’t sign a faulty declaration like that.
I stood up, then turned and said to everyone there, “Well, I guess we should take care of the post-war clean up until the Empire does something.”
— This is where my work as king really begins.
Prologue to the Post-war Period
The Gran Chaos Empire was in the west of the continent.
On this continent, if you excluded the Demon Lord’s Domain, this state had the largest territory. When it came to population, war potential, technology, and even the quality of life for its people, it was a great empire to which no other country could compare.
Even the Elfrieden Kingdom, which had the second-largest territory on the continent, was insignificant compared to the Empire. If the kingdom wanted to compete with the Empire, even after annexing Amidonia, they would still need to double their strength.
In fact, that calculation only worked if they were fighting the Empire alone. If they made enemies of the Empire’s allied countries, too, there would be no room left for them on the continent.
About the only area where the kingdom could compete with the Empire was in how far back their histories went. The Empire was younger than the kingdom, though only by a little.
It had happened towards the end of the Chaotic Period. There had been conflict between the many diverse races of the continent, and many countries had suddenly risen to power. Unlike Elfrieden, which was founded by the coming together of many races, the Chaos Kingdom of the time was ruled by a single king. He centralized power, concentrating it in the hands of the human race, and created what might be called a dictatorship.
Especially in troubled times, centralized states are more powerful. This is because the decisions made by a single individual are immediately reflected, so they can make swift decisions and act immediately. By the time the Chaotic Period was drawing to an end, the Chaos Kingdom stood head and shoulders above the other nations on the continent. However, at that point, it was just one power among many. The people back then would never have thought it would become the sort of massive empire it was today.
The biggest revolution came around one hundred years ago, with the birth of a heroic individual in the Chaos Kingdom.
Manas Chaos.
The person who would later come to be known as Emperor Chaos.
Manas was born as the second son of the King of Chaos, but he inherited the throne when his father and elder brother perished in the war with the Euphoria Kingdom, a country which existed in the northwest of the continent. When Manas took the throne, those around him naturally expected a war of revenge against the Euphoria Kingdom.
However, Manas not only didn’t launch a war for revenge, he also took the King of Euphoria’s daughter as his wife, forming a marital bond between the two countries. What was more, he went as far as renaming himself Manas Euphoria, so those in the Euphoria Kingdom let down their guards.
There was some resistance to this in the Chaos Kingdom, but Manas was a military genius and suppressed all of the dissenters.
As a military genius, Manas understood. Right now, the gap in power between the Euphoria Kingdom and his own wasn’t that large. If they were to fight in these circumstances, the war would be drawn out and it would only succeed in exhausting the country.
His plan was to first use the King of Euphoria, absorb the smaller countries around them, and then, once the difference in power between them was overwhelmingly in his favor, he would try to swallow the Euphoria Kingdom again.
In fact, Manas did absorb the smaller countries, and then, when the difference in power between them was great enough, he invaded the Euphoria Kingdom, his wife’s home, and destroyed it.
However, perhaps out of some small feeling of regret, even after he destroyed the Euphoria Kingdom, he didn’t return to his former name of Chaos and continued to use the Euphoria name. Even now, the imperial family of the Gran Chaos Empire used the Euphoria name.
Even after destroying the Euphoria Kingdom, Manas continued with his wars of invasion, and before he knew it, his country had become a large nation controlling the west of the continent. This was when the Chaos Kingdom renamed itself the Gran Chaos Empire.
The appearance of this massive country was a cause of great concern even to countries that didn’t neighbor it.
This happened some decades later, but in the Elfrieden Kingdom, the reason that the king who was Souma’s predecessor’s predecessor had taken the path of expansionism was out of fear over the existence of the Empire.
The world had already been transitioning towards an atmosphere of cooperation then, but he must have wanted to strengthen his own country before the threat that was the Empire closed in on him. However, lacking the genius of Manas, when that former King of Elfrieden had seized half of Amidonia, his followers who were unhappy about the exhaustion of the country that had come from his excessive expansion assassinated him.
After that, the kingdom saw a succession war between his relatives (the three dukes of the time didn’t want to get involved, so they secluded themselves in their duchies) which led to the near-elimination of the royal line.
In the end, the young girl who would later become Liscia’s mother survived the troubles, inherited the throne, and managed to make things settle down in the kingdom by taking Albert as her husband.