Volume 3 - CH 6

Act 3-6: The Right Way to Use Information 1

A few weeks later, I had a discussion with Rose in the mansion. The topic was the plan to gather citizens, but the discussion turned out to be fruitless. I mean, we met a deadlock.

Nevertheless, with some information from Mujina, I found the solution to this problem, a unique solution tailored for this East End territory. It’s just my guess, but the solution I came up with might be the real reason the king appointed that territory to Rose. That king and the prime minister duo are truly old raccoons to entrust such a duty to someone as young as Rose.

While doing so, those two might have also wanted to increase the base under the kingdom’s control. To be honest, they are the last kind of people that I wanted to get close with.

「Kai, do you have any idea about how to do this?」

「Uh~m, nope!」

This is a test for Rose. She won’t grow if she can’t even find a solution to this problem by herself.

Moreover, she can solve this problem as long as she has the information about her territory. Information gathering is the basic amongst the basics in every field. There is a saying that information is, in a sense, more valuable than the treasure itself.

This was a fact I found after risking my life daily when exploring that easy dungeon. Thus, I have to make Rose realize this herself.

「I see…」

Rose stood up from her chair.

「I’ll take a rest for now.」

She went up to the second floor, albeit with slumped shoulders. Anna chased after her in a hurry.

「Shifu, when will you tell the princess about THAT matter?」

After Rose’s figure vanished, Zack, who had been eating in silence until now, stopped his hands and asked me that question.

The matter he was talking about was a certain matter about a chivalrous thief who was active in the centre of the east side, named Wind Cat.

The thief was famous for attacking slave merchants or corrupt merchants who were in cahoots with one of the worst feudal lords in the Amelia kingdom, Count Ketzer Ksar, and distributing their spoils to poor people. Wind Cat had become a local hero for the citizens oppressed by the tyranny of Count Ketzer.

According to Mujina’s information, although this chivalrous thief’s stronghold was somewhere in East End, Count Ketzer had already located it. The Count was currently recruiting more soldiers to raid Wind Cat’s base and eradicate them in one clean swoop.

Everything I knew up to this point was nothing more than hearsay. Well, only a fool would believe her information if it was something already known.

Therefore, I had to check the accuracy of her information. So, I released the subordinates in my subjugation picture book who specialized in gathering information and spying. The result of that investigation confirmed that Mujina’s information was accurate and reliable.

Since her information was accurate, I deemed that Mujina was a trustworthy and reliable information broker.

「About that, I absolutely won’t tell her.」

It would be troublesome if I have to keep babysitting Rose, after all. She has to arrive at the answer by herself based on the clues I provided to her. I would keep my silence until she arrives at the answer by herself.

「A~h, as I expected! If things keep going on like this, the princess won’t notice the problem at all.」

Zack let out a remark that looked like putting a carriage before the horse.

「Why do you think so? According to Mujina, her information about Wind Cat is widely spread over here, so we just need to take them in as our citizens. There’s no problem with that, is there?」

The current Rose doesn’t have the knowledge to do that yet. So it would be correct to say that after she realizes what to do, it would be time for me to put my plan into motion.

「That’s exactly the problem. In the first place, there isn’t a normal person who will think about recruiting a band of famous thieves as citizens.」

「U~hm.」

Sure enough, as a fellow oddball, Zack did have a point in his argument. A pure idealist like Rose would never come up with a plan to recruit underworld people at this point in her life.  And I did realize that I’m even starting to forget that she is a PRINCESS.

「Uhm, you have a point. Okay then, I’ll give a few hints to her.」

What Rose lacks the most right now is awareness about the importance of information. This is something she has to realize as the lord of her territory.

Fortunately, I have a lot of books in my collection that can teach her about that. I guess this is the best chance to have Rose read the introduction of the topic that even the current her can understand.

I stood up from my chair and went up to the second floor, to Rose’s room.