CH 114

I took a deep breath to calm myself. I had another problem to fix before I could focus on the defense battle. I would ask the kingdom’s help via the Grand Duke to solve this problem. It wouldn’t be fair if I was the only one who had a hard time, right?

“…Other than that, I would like to borrow some people.”

“People?”

The Grand Duke answered me with an amused look. This guy, was he actually playing with me?

“As I do not have enough experience to be a governor, I want to ask for an assistant.”

Actually, there was another reason why I asked for an assistant. No local officials would listen to a leader who was just a student who hadn’t even graduated. If I were a local official, I also wouldn’t. Even the officials appointed by the royal family who were ordered to assist me would most likely do their job half-heartedly.

So, I had to create an image that someone who was more senior than me was monitoring the work of the local officials behind the scene.

“I don’t think my subordinates will be the best choice to be your assistant… Alright. I’ll find someone else for you.”

After all, the Grand Duke was a member of a military faction, so for a governor assistant a.k.a someone to rein the local officials, a person from the civil faction would be better.

“Please do so. Also, I would like to borrow some people who could act as military instructors. It would be fine even if these people are already retired.”

“Hmm… I see what you’re planning.”

The value of a soldier in the medieval period was different compared to the value of a soldier in the modern period. The Medieval period was a time where the agricultural revolution was still ongoing and of course, the industrial revolution hadn’t started yet. I mean, even shoes here were still handmade. The population in the medieval period was not large, so it was a time where the army would have a harder time replenishing their soldiers. Even maintaining the equipment which would be used in war was hard work.

The reason it was common to capture your opponent and get ransom money from them instead of killing them in a war between countries was because human resources were scarce. So all countries had a tacit understanding that it was better to resolve the individual battle with money rather than with lives. For the countries, this method might even be better than some bad peace treaty.

What was required of the soldiers in this medieval era was ‘understanding the order’ and ‘choose the best method to execute that order on the spot’. An army that would blindly follow their commander’s order was just a second-rate army.

But as someone who was still a student, I didn’t have any confidence to be able to even train a second-rate army. Forcing myself to do what I couldn’t do would not end well and frankly, I also didn’t have any time to train an army.

Since I couldn’t do it, I just had to throw the responsibility of training the army for this defense battle to others. In a defense battle, training soldiers was more important than training knights and the person in front of me was the former commander of the Capital Defense Army. He probably had the most experience in training soldiers for defense battles than anyone else in this country.

“I understand. I’ll find some people for you.”

“Thank you very much.”

I needed to look at the state of Anheim first before I could ask for various other supplies that I would need for the defense battle, so I wouldn’t ask for the supplies here. Rather, I thought asking for people who could precisely grasp what supplies Anheim was currently lacking was more important, so I would ask the Grand Duke to just prepare some more people for me. Lastly, there were also a few things that I needed to tell the Grand Duke.

“I also have a few other favors that I would like to ask Your Excellency.”

“What is it?”

“First, please strengthen the defense of the capital.”

While I would be gone, I hoped the kingdom could strengthen the defense of the capital. Actually, the proposal about the creation of new equipment  and the road maintenance was all in preparation for an attack on the capital. If the road was in a good condition, the evacuation of the citizens and the movement of the army inside of the capital would be more smooth in case of emergency.

But maybe it would be more efficient if I didn’t submit any proposal and just explained what I wanted.

“Why do you ask that?”

“My first reason is because the purpose of the devils infiltrating the capital is still unknown.”

Even now I still didn’t know why the devils infiltrated the capital. It was possible that they wanted His Majesty’s life but it was also possible that they had a completely different objective. I didn’t have enough information to guess the reason. In the current state of events, I felt I could no longer tell myself that the infiltration event was merely part of the game scenario.

“There must be an important reason why the devil would go to such a length to even infiltrate the capital. As such, I think it will be unlikely for them to give up because they failed once.”

“Hmm… I see.”

“It might be too hasty for me to say this. But, since the devils failed to attack the capital from the inside, they will most likely try to attack it from the outside now. As Your Excellency knows, the demon army has always relied on their superior number and superior individual strength so it was quite possible for the commander of the demon army to think that attacking the capital from the outside was a plausible choice.”

“So you’re saying that there’s a chance that the demon army will attack us once again. That makes sense.”

I felt a bit suspicious since the Grand Duke accepted my reasoning way too easily. Maybe, the kingdom’s upper echelons or the king’s closest people already knew the devil’s aim in attacking the capital, whatever it was an object or a person.

At least it seemed like the Grand Duke and the kingdom were already aware of the possibility of a second attack on the capital, although I didn’t know why. It was probably a state secret so I wouldn’t pry. It was a state secret so important that the kingdom didn’t even tell the hero in the game. I didn’t want to get involved with it.

“Please also take care of Mazell’s family.”

“That goes without saying.”

Well, the kingdom would take care of Mazell’s family even without my words. After all, if something happened to Mazell’s family, the kingdom wouldn’t be able to face Mazell and the kingdom’s reputation would also take a hit.

“I will submit the official proposal document at a later date. Also, If Your Excellency has time, I would like to consult about something else later.”

“Alright. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

I’ll be looking forward to it, he said, did he think this was a ‘fun holiday’ or something!? Even though I was fighting my stomach ache here. Urgh… the meat made me feel nauseous.

After lunch ended, I went around the palace to give my greeting. I still needed to visit the Adventurer Guild, Mercenary Guild, and old man Bert to thank them, but that had to wait until I finished all my work in the palace. I really hoped I had another body right now.

The former Marquisate Knap was divided in 3 areas and a governor was appointed for each area. The divide was made based on the 3 towns in the marquisate. Anheim, where I was appointed as a governor, was located closest to the border with the former Triot region.

Of the remaining two, the central town area was assigned to Viscount Grellman. In the Veritza Fortress battle, the Viscount was Count Shandel’s aide and the count was His Highness’s close aide.

In short, the viscount was someone from the Crown Prince’s faction so if I think positively, he was my supporter. He could also be someone who was ordered to monitor me… Ah, no, let’s just think positively.  Argh…My stomach was hurting again.

The last area was assigned to Baron Zabel, a person I didn’t know. I had to quickly finish my work and greet the two of them today.

For now, I wanted to know more about Anheim, so I asked for the official documents regarding it and got a thick book in return. Ah, I missed the paper in my previous life. I mean, lamb parchment and demon parchment were heavy. The difference of weight between the paper in my previous life and the parchments here was nothing much when I only had to hold one of them, but there were tons of them in this book so it was really heavy compared to books made by normal paper in my previous life.

Incidentally, the official document was written in a pretty interesting way in this world. First, prepare a large sheet of paper then fold it into two.

The content of the official document would be written two times, once for each side of the fold. Then both sides of the fold would be signed by the person responsible for creating the document and if necessary, they would be signed by witnesses too. After that, the two sides would be cut creating two documents with the exact same content. One would be the original document, while the other would be the copy.

The cut would be made crooked on purpose. In case the document was needed as evidence in the courtroom, the copy and the original would be matched first. If the cut didn’t match with each other, then the document would be considered a fake document. The concept was the same as tally.

(T/N: Tally here is referring to a piece of wood with notches to indicate the amount that was owed/paid. The tally will be split into two with the debtor and the creditor each holding one piece.)

If this was a life simulation game, I would be able to move to the Anheim with just a single click of button, but this was a reality, so that would be impossible. Plus, the one who was having the most difficulty right now was probably the people of Marquis Knap who had to move out of Anheim. They needed to make a list of things that they should bring when they move out and the things they should leave in Anheim.

Because Anheim was now a region directly under the control of the royal family, a slightest mistake in stuff like how many arrows was in Anheim, how much of it would remain in the Anheim, and how much would moved to the new places would be considered ‘deceiving the royal family’ so the Knap house must be extra careful.

Foods, medicine, weapons, and all other supplies like candles used in the governor’s mansion, tools for the town walls’ construction, all of these items needed to be checked and listed. Considering that, I would most likely leave the capital in about 10 days.

So at this point, rather than remembering all the documents about Anheim, it would be better for me to sort which documents I would leave a copy of in the capital. I mean, I didn’t know what would be left in Anheim after the people of Knap house left, so I couldn’t make a list of what else I should buy for Anheim.

Really, how did things become like this?

As I was skimming through the documents while complaining, a strange record suddenly caught my eyes. This… I could use it. I still have some time before I leave for Anheim, so let’s prepare.