Suddenly, the receiver in the middle of the field began displaying an image.
The people thought they would see the uniform-clad image of that young king, but contrary to their expectations, they saw a beautiful woman with dark brown hair and elven features sitting in a chair. She rested her crossed arms on the long table in front of her, and, for some reason, the broadcast showed her not straight-on, but from an angle to her left. Naturally, this meant that her head was turned at an angle.
Her pose, which was like that of the Mona Lisa, brought out her alluring beauty and was especially effective at capturing the hearts of the men of Van. It felt to them as if they were sitting at a bar and this woman, who had been sitting next to them, had turned to them to talk. Now she spoke.
“Good evening, everyone. I am Chris Tachyon.”
“This is News Elfrieden. In this information program, we will be bringing the latest news from Elfrieden and its surrounding countries to you, the people. Now, for our first story…”
Chris began reading her script in the impromptu news studio that had been set up in Van Castle’s governmental affairs office. I call it a news studio, but we had really just gotten together a long table and a chair. Still, with the other furnishings already in place, it looked the part.
Aisha and I were watching Chris from the corner of the room where we wouldn’t be picked up by the jewel.
Aisha pulled on my sleeve. “Um… Why is Chris being broadcast at an angle?”
“Uhh… Stylistic beauty?” I said.
I remembered a female newscaster from my world who had delivered the news in this position, so I had tried to include it. However, during rehearsal, Chris had complained to me, saying, “I feel like I’m going to get a kink in my neck,” so this was probably going to be the first and last time we would shoot the program from an angle.
The news Chris was reading out now was a report on the events of the war up to this point.
She explained in a neutral tone that, as a punitive action against Gaius VIII and his son Julius, who had taken advantage of instability in the kingdom to invade, King Souma of Elfrieden had launched a counter-invasion and struck down Gaius VIII.
Aisha tilted her head to the side in confusion. “Wouldn’t it have been better to deliver this information in a speech of your own, sire? You might have been able to raise your profile in this country, like you did with that program on ingredient gathering.”
“The situation is different this time,” I said. “We aren’t only broadcasting to the occupied territories around Van, we’re broadcasting to the rest of Amidonia, as well. No matter what the king of an enemy state says, the people of the principality aren’t going to listen to a word of it. It’s better that they hear it from a third party.”
Though, when I had discussed the script for this news with Hakuya, there had been the idea of using, “For all of us, His Majesty, our Dear King…” and exaggerating the details, but it had made me sound like some tin-pot dictator, so I’d rejected it.
Well, anyway, as we were talking, Chris continued reading out the news with those smooth reading skills and pleasant voice of hers that had come with Juna’s seal of approval. “The armies of the kingdom are presently occupying the capital of the principality, Van, but hostilities have, for the moment, ceased. In regards to this state of affairs, His Majesty, King Souma of Elfrieden, has released the following statement:
“‘This has been a war of subjugation against Gaius VIII, who invaded my country. It is not my wish to spread the fires of war further or to harm the citizens of the principality. We will provide support to the people living in the area around Van to allow them to get on with their lives. Furthermore, as Van has been annexed as a territory of the kingdom, I promise that the same food aid and infrastructure spending will be carried out here.’
“In advance of that, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Mr. Poncho Ishizuka Panacotta, will be distributing foodstuffs in Van starting tomorrow. He asks that everyone in Van invite their family and neighbors to come with them.”
“How dare they do this?!”
In a city close to Van, the crown prince of Amidonia, Julius Amidonia, shouted out angrily.
Having escaped from the earlier battle, Julius was in a city near Van, waiting with the remnants of the principality’s forces for the Gran Chaos Empire’s armies to arrive. Julius smashed the receiver with a swing of his sword, then immediately gave an order to his subordinates.
“Dispatch messages to every city with orders not to watch this ridiculous broadcast.”
“““Yes, sir!”””
His subordinates all ran off to dispatch the messengers at once. Once he saw that they had all left, Julius turned to glare in the direction of Van. He hopes to win over not just the people of Van, but of all Amidonia, with his honeyed words, does he? I must not let him!
Julius firmed up his resolve.
Still, even though he’d dispatched messengers, it wasn’t as if they could reach every city instantly. Furthermore, with his defeat in battle, Julius had lost much of his influence and so his orders were only carried out in the city he was presently in and those which were very close to it.
In other words, most of the cities in Amidonia were watching Souma’s broadcast.
The reactions of the Amidonian citizens who saw it could be broadly divided into two categories.
First, there were the people in Van, who were relieved to hear that they would not be conscripted and sent to fight on the front lines, or to have it demanded that they turn over their assets, wives, or daughters.
In the cities and farming villages outside of Van, what caught the people’s attention was not the death of Gaius VIII, or Souma’s righteous cause, it was the fact that those areas which had become a territory of the kingdom of Elfrieden would receive the same support as cities within the kingdom.
Of course, the people of Amidonia scarcely believed these words. After all, they were the words of the enemy king. Everyone thought he was simply trying to buy their loyalty.
…However, it was also true that Souma’s words deeply ate into the hearts of the Amidonian people, who were currently struggling through an even deeper food crisis than the one in the kingdom. The harsher their current situation, the more deeply the words ate into them.
“…And so, at present, medicine in our country is…”
It had been about ten minutes or so since the beginning of Chris’s informational program.
The section she was reading out now was the last piece of information to be disseminated. Once this information program was over, the music program would begin at last.
As she stood at my side, visibly anxious, Aisha grabbed my arm. Today, Aisha wasn’t dressed in her usual light armor; instead, she wore a cocktail dress. I myself was wearing a tuxedo.
Aisha turned to me with a look in her eyes like an abandoned puppy dog. “Wh-What do I do, sire? I can’t stop shaking.”
“Just calm down, okay?” I said. “This is your second time on the broadcast, isn’t it?”
“Last time, I was all right because I just had to eat…”
It had been decided that I would be the host for the music program with Aisha as my assistant.
I, of course, hadn’t planned on being the host of a music program, but Poncho, who I had intended to push the job off onto, was busy with distributing food, and Hakuya had refused because it didn’t suit him.
It was my first time, too, so if my partner Aisha was going to be petrified with stage fright, that was a problem.