In a time when the world was stable and the country was already set up for success, he would have been called a good king without faults. However, in his time, the Demon Lord’s Domain appeared, and the threat of monsters threw the world into chaos.
The fires of war might not have spread to his country yet, but there was a food crisis and the economy was slowly inching toward collapse. The mediocre king could do nothing effective to deal with these issues.
Then, one day, there was a request from the great land in the west to carry out the hero summoning told of in this king’s kingdom. It was worded as a request, but he had virtually no option to refuse it. So the mediocre king carried out the hero summoning as requested.
That ritual succeeded when no one thought it would, bringing a young man from another world to the kingdom. The king struggled with the question of whether to turn the young man over to the great country in the west. This was because, if he lost this boy, he would be letting go of his key to negotiations with the great nation in the west.
The young man who was summoned told the struggling king this:
“If you mean to fight the demons, you should enrich the country and strengthen the military.”
…This story sounded familiar.
However, the developments from here on differed from the story I knew.
Hearing what the young man had to say, the king sensed the man had gifts he himself did not, and decided to appoint him to the post of prime minister. The young man responded to his expectations and worked desperately, carrying out various reforms. Thanks to that, the kingdom began to show signs of recovering from its food crisis and financial difficulties.
However, there were those who found the young man a nuisance.
It was the nobles of that country. Those without very good reputations themselves.
They had been angry when a youth they had never heard of before was chosen as the prime minister, but they were even more incensed when he began his reforms. The young man had rooted out corruption to find the funding he needed, carrying out reforms that cut into the wealth of the upper class.
They visited the king many times, trying to persuade him he was harming the country and should be removed from power.
However, the young man had an ally. The general of that country’s army.
The sober and honest General of the Army was able to accurately judge the young man’s talents and became his backer. However, the nobles of ill-repute were not amused by this development, only intensifying their slander against him.
Hearing their libelous words day in and day out, the king gradually became stricken with uncertainty.
It was true that the young man was gifted, but he had far too many enemies. The country might be split if things were left as they were.
With that in mind, the king made a decision that, in retrospect, he never should have.
The young man was removed from his post as prime minister.
Having been dismissed, the young man went to stay with the General of the Army at his castle. The king felt sorry for the young man, but this was to prevent the splitting of the country. Ultimately, it would be saving the young man’s life. That was how the king convinced himself.
However, that was not the end of it all.
The nobles of ill-repute were more persistent than the king had thought. No, if anything, considering their secret ties, it was best to read it as them not being able to leave the young man be. That year, the neighboring state which had a long-running enmity with the kingdom began deploying its forces along the border.
The General of the Army dispatched the troops under his command in the Army to intercept them, confronting those forces.
That was when it happened.
As if they had been waiting for this moment, the nobles’ forces rose up, attacking the city where the General of the Army’s castle was. When you consider the timing of it all, the nobles had probably been collaborating with the neighboring country.
Because the General of the Army’s land had once been the territory of the neighboring country, it had been easy for them to concoct the scheme. Then, the neighboring country moved to snuff out the young man who had the potential to become a serious threat to them.
The city containing the General of the Army’s castle was well-fortified, but the Army had been mostly dispatched to the border, leaving less than 500 troops in the garrison. The opposing force led by the nobles numbered 10,000.
The General of the Army remained in the city, and he managed a diligent defense, but… greatly outnumbered, the General of the Army was eventually struck down.
The city burned, and the young man disappeared like ashes among those flames. It was only a few days after the nobles had raised their troops, and the king was unable to do anything.
The Army, having lost their commander, was unable to maintain the battle line against the forces of the neighboring country and fled in defeat. The forces of the neighboring country joined up with the nobles, and together they used their momentum to advance on the royal capital.
The king hurriedly tried to bring together an armed force to meet them in battle, but… he couldn’t. In the end, he had left the young man and the General of the Army to die.
The soldiers of the Army rebelled against him and returned to their own lands, the units of the Air Force were few in number, and the Navy was far from the capital and preoccupied with defending their own domain.
His last resort was to recruit volunteer soldiers from among the common folk, but even that had failed.
The young man’s reforms had angered the nobility, but they had saved the people. To the people, the young man had been a savior who had come to them in their time of need, and they felt no kinship with the king who had stripped him of his post. Ultimately, like the young man before him, the king found himself encircled by an enemy that hopelessly outnumbered him. In time, he would be killed just like the young man. If there was one difference between them, it was that he lacked the General of the Army who had been willing to lay down his life.
At this point… what he faced could only be called karmic retribution.
He had brought it upon himself by believing the slanderous lies of those who would become his enemies, and stepping on those who truly cared for the country.
As I listened to Sir Albert’s story, I was at a loss for words.
He spoke of another present. When I had been summoned to this world, not knowing what the Empire truly wanted, I had talked about enriching the country and strengthening the army because I hadn’t wanted to be turned over to them before I’d known better. I’d thought I would be made to implement my ideas as one bureaucrat among many, and that I would be able to find the money to pay the war subsidies the Empire was requesting. However, because Sir Albert had given me the throne, I had ended up manning the helm of this country.
What would have happened if he hadn’t given me the throne back then?
If I had been operating not as the king, but as the prime minister… the future might have turned out exactly the way Sir Albert had described. The world Sir Albert spoke of gave me considerable room for thought, and it was so realistic that I couldn’t imagine it was a fabrication. I thought it was a fairly accurate simulation.
But in that case, there were things I didn’t understand. It was rude to say it like this, but Sir Albert didn’t seem like the kind of person who had that degree of foresight to me. I couldn’t see him simulating things so accurately.
“You speak as if you’ve seen it yourself,” I said.
“Because I did see it myself,” Albert said. “No… Rather, I was shown it.”