Genjitsushugisha no Oukokukaizouki - Volume 18 - Chapter 2.2

Around the same time, Fuuga was also ringing in the new year at Haan Castle...

Following his return from the Demon Lord’s Domain, he spent some time firming up things on the domestic front. The Demon Lord’s Domain was now fully liberated and under the Great Tiger Empire’s control, except for the city at the northern edge of the continent where the Seadians lived.

Anyone looking at the situation properly likely thought he’d been pushed into a bunch of wasteland. However, to many of his people, as well as the refugees who could finally return to their homelands, it seemed like a brilliant accomplishment. Even if the long, arduous work of rebuilding awaited these revelers, they would go about the task with glee. And those who would complain refrained from doing so. The strength of Fuuga’s charisma was overwhelming.

Troops were sent to his new lands and set to work ridding the continent of Landia of the remaining monsters. It was impossible to completely eliminate them, as dungeons still existed, but the number wouldn’t increase since Souma and Mao had closed the gate.

The domain of mankind would definitely expand farther. But simply hunting down monsters was of little interest to the planning trickery of Fuuga’s strategist Hashim, so the task was left to Shuukin and other competent retainers instead.

Fuuga, meanwhile, took this opportunity to have some long-awaited quality downtime with his wife, Mutsumi. On reflection, this might have been the most peaceful period of Fuuga’s life to this point. The time he’d lived through had been otherwise filled with violence.

However, peace was unfulfilling for the great man.

At night in his bedroom, Fuuga sat in a chair naked from the waist up as he polished his sword. His favored weapon was the Zanganto, a rock-rending blade that resembled the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. It was rare for him to draw this sword that hung at his hip, but in the long time he spent fighting, it still managed to get chipped here and there.

“You can’t sleep...?”

Fuuga turned towards the sudden voice. Mutsumi was sitting up in bed with a blanket wrapped around her and nothing underneath.

With a wry smile, he turned to her and said, “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No...I was just drifting off when I realized that my husband wasn’t beside me.”

“Yeah. I feel wide awake for some reason.”

Fuuga held his sword up to the moonlight shining through the window. The polished blade reflected his face and the scar given to him by Mutsumi’s brother Gauche.

He sighed. “When it’s too quiet, I just can’t settle down. I feel like I ought to be doing something, I guess.”

“Madam Lumiere would probably tell you to help her with internal affairs,” Mutsumi said.

Lumiere was likely working harder than anyone in order to make the expanded territories contribute to the Great Tiger Empire’s national power as soon as possible. Fuuga understood that, but while he wasn’t exactly ill-suited to domestic affairs, he didn’t find the work satisfying. Unlike Souma or Maria, he never worked overtime or slept in his governmental affairs office. That work fell to Lumiere and Kasen, who had been assigned to assist her.

“I’m grateful to them. Running around on the battlefield suits me better.”

“Even now that you’re an emperor, you’re still a warrior at heart, darling,” Mutsumi murmured, chuckling.

She wrapped the blanket around her naked body and rose from the bed. She approached Fuuga from behind and threw her arms around him.

“I know it’s hot in these parts, but the nights still get chilly,” she said, inviting Fuuga to join her inside the blanket. He didn’t really resist.

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“No, no. I can’t let my darling catch a cold when he wants to keep racing onward.”

Fuuga got a slightly troubled look on his face when she said this. “Even if the only place left for me to go...is towards the south?”

“I suppose...”

To the south of the Great Tiger Empire were the countries of the Maritime Alliance. Fuuga’s little sister, Yuriga, resided there, as did Mutsumi’s siblings—Ichiha, Nike, and Sami. Mutsumi understood this, of course. But still...she nuzzled up against Fuuga’s bearded cheek.

“If you say you will continue, I will come with you. Until I’ve seen what end your epic tale reaches.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He touched Mutsumi’s cheek, which was next to his face. The two spent some time holding one another close after that.

— 1st Month, 1554th Year, Continental Calendar —

And so the new year came. The people of the Great Tiger Empire met it with incredible elation. Basking in the glory that their emperor Fuuga Haan, the greatest man of this generation, had successfully liberated the Demon Lord’s Domain in the previous year, they looked forward to seeing what wonders this new year would bring.

“Can anyone halt our emperor’s march? Can any foe stop our emperor?” These song lyrics rang in the air as the people drank and partied.

There was a luxurious feast at Haan Castle too. Fuuga, who had complained about difficulty eating and drinking while on the throne, sat on a wide fancy carpet with Mutsumi and his retainers. He was at the head of the group, with the famous generals of the Great Tiger Empire sitting in lines on either side of him. The dignified scene looked like something out of a mandala, but not everyone was present.

“Oh, I don’t see young Kasen,” said Gaten, the most stylish man in the Great Tiger Empire and the Flag of the Tiger. Because Gaten was always teasing the youngest general, Kasen, the Crossbow of the Tiger, he was the first to note his absence.

Fuuga’s right-hand man, Shuukin, the Sword of the Tiger, smiled wryly and informed him, “Kasen is working with Madam Lumiere. He said, ‘If Madam Lumiere is working through New Year’s, then as her assistant, I can’t rest when she isn’t.’”

There was no time for the bureaucrats to rest on New Year’s. They were fighting as hard as they could to maintain their expanded lands, as the bureaucrats in Parnam had been a year after Souma was summoned. Hashim was also not attending the feast as he was busy hatching his next scheme.

“Hard work, isn’t it?” Gaten grunted with a shrug. “The strategies of Sir Hashim and the policies of Madam Lumiere are what’s supporting everything now. I bow my head to them. Especially Madam Lumiere, who is laying strong groundwork for us despite being a newcomer, and Kasen, who helps the genius with her work.”

“Yeah. They’re going to be indispensable to the Great Tiger Empire from here on,” Shuukin asserted. “Capable warriors can be replaced. They’re likely more important than we are.”

“Hmm. If it comes to it, I’ll have to defend them with my life.” As he imagined himself dying for Kasen, Gaten chuckled. “I guess that’s not a bad way to go.”

It went against his sense of dandyism to risk his life for another man, but seeing the shocked look on Kasen’s face as the life drained away from him wasn’t a terrible proposition.

“Hey! Lord Shuukin! This dish is delicious too!” a young girl interjected, poking her head out from Shuukin’s shadow. It was Elulu, daughter of Garula Garlan, from the Spirit Kingdom of Garlan.

Looking at the flawless smile on her face as she heaped a bunch of food on her plate, Shuukin was both charmed and disappointed by how incredibly laid-back she was. Elulu didn’t seem intimidated, even while sitting among the filthy men who made up Fuuga’s retainers.

“You have delicacies from all over, right? That’s the Great Tiger Empire for you. Food as diverse as your lands are vast. And it’s all delicious.”

“Elulu...maybe settle down a little?” Shuukin said with a sigh. “I only let you come along because you wouldn’t hear otherwise, so try to behave a little, please.”

“Okaaay.”

It was hard to tell if she got the message or not from her response.

Thanks to Elulu’s attachment to Shuukin as well as her connections with the independent government of the Father Island of the Spirit Kingdom, she had been given control of the northwest of the Great Tiger Empire. It wasn’t just that the Father Island was effectively under her control; she also traded with the Mother Island, which was heading down the path towards liberalization.

The way she ruled might appear feeble to Fuuga or Hashim, but as an island nation, if the two islands of the Spirit Kingdom were to join the Maritime Alliance, it would put the Great Tiger Empire’s entire coastline under their control. It would be the same if the Great Tiger Empire attempted to suppress them by force. Without the ability to control the seas, should the Maritime Alliance cut off their access to the sea, the Haan landing party would be easy to starve.

If that were to happen, then using Elulu’s friendship with Shuukin to keep them close would be the better choice. This way, the islands would be preserved as an independent country which Souma couldn’t easily lay a hand on. Essentially, the closeness between Shuukin and Elulu was the best thing either nation could ask for.

Because of their relationship, Shuukin had told Elulu he would be going to Haan Castle for New Year’s, but she had stubbornly insisted on going too.

“I want to see more of the world. Our country became isolationist because of the differences and competition between the different races, but times have changed.”

Souma of the Kingdom of Friedonia believed in meritocracy and hired people without regard to race or nationality, so the other nations of the Maritime Alliance were influenced to do the same. Old hostilities between different races had died down as a result. This sentiment was shared in the Great Tiger Empire, which was held together by Fuuga’s overwhelming charisma. There might be clashes between nations or ideologies, but interracial strife had essentially vanished.

“During the Magic Bug Disease Incident, my home country finally realized they couldn’t keep shutting themselves away. I want to see more of the world. I believe that will be best for the high elf people.”

Elulu spoke seriously about her country, impressing Shuukin and Gaten with her thoughtfulness. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she was still a princess.

“Besides, there’s all this tasty food out in the wide, wide world. I’d be missing out if I didn’t know,” she said, tossing a fruit into her mouth, stem and all.

“You just ruined it, Elulu.”

Shuukin clutched his head over how little Elulu had changed, while Gaten laughed at how the famous Sword of the Tiger was being run around at her mercy.

While other people celebrated the new year, Lumiere, who’d become the top bureaucrat in the Great Tiger Empire, was dealing with a murderously heavy workload alongside her bureaucrats.

They’d arranged for people to be positioned throughout the new lands that had once been the Demon Lord’s Domain. They were aiming to connect the lands with roads for the shipping of supplies. These roads would also be used to travel between them to eliminate any monsters and secure the land’s safety.

She was putting everything she’d learned while serving under Maria in the Gran Chaos Empire to good use. Maria had been partially influenced by the way Souma ruled, so it was fair to say that Lumiere was able to rule in a way that was a hybrid of the Kingdom of Friedonia and the Gran Chaos Empire.

Lord Fuuga is considering a conflict with the Maritime Alliance. If I don’t solidify the country at least somewhat before he moves...then there won’t be any point in my being here.

Lumiere had abandoned Maria to join Fuuga because she rejected Maria’s stance that it would take a long time to change the world peacefully. Instead, she felt that if there was a way to solve a problem, it should be done immediately, even if it was a violent solution. As a result, the threat that the Demon Lord’s Domain had posed to mankind had been resolved. However, Lumiere also understood that because Fuuga had solved the issue so quickly, he couldn’t stop here. The speed with which the country had been built made it brittle. They always needed an enemy to unite them; otherwise, they’d be at risk of falling apart in no time.

I’m sure Lady Maria would’ve hated this... If we had the means to stop once the problem was resolved, we wouldn’t have started to begin with, even if we had the power to deal with the problem itself.

It wasn’t as if Lumiere hadn’t understood Maria’s ideals before; Lumiere had just been frustrated with her passivity. Now in her current position, Lumiere felt she could align herself a little more with Maria’s way of thinking. Although, given her fondness for reckless haste, that might not have changed the result.

It’s too late for that... I chose this path for myself, so I have to follow it.

Changing gears, Lumiere looked down at the document in front of her. Suddenly, the door to the finance ministry burst open, and Kasen, the Crossbow of the Tiger, came in pushing a cart. It was loaded with almost nothing but stacks of paper.

“Madam Lumiere. I’ve collected the paperwork from all the relevant departments.” Kasen sighed as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

Though she looked at this new pile of work with a face of anguish, Lumiere quickly regained her composure and smiled. “Thank you for taking the trouble, Kasen.”

“No, this was no big deal,” Kasen replied as he carried the stacks of paper to Lumiere’s desk.

She let out a bitter laugh as she accepted the paperwork. “It’s a great help having you around, but aren’t the generals gathered to celebrate a New Year’s feast right now? Why don’t you join them?”

“No, I couldn’t possibly.” Kasen shook his head. “It wouldn’t sit right with me leaving you all to do the work while I enjoy a banquet. Let me help too.”

“Oh...I see.”

“Yes. And, hey, look...”

Kasen left the room for a moment, returning with a service cart that had been sitting outside the door. The upper and lower levels of the cart were laden with sumptuous dishes. Lumiere’s eyes widened as Kasen flashed her the mischievous grin of a kid who’d just pulled off a prank.

“While I was picking up the paperwork, I raided the kitchens. Let’s snack on this and redouble our efforts.”

“Hee hee. Let’s.” She smiled softly.

As she felt defanged by Kasen’s behavior, Lumiere’s furrows melted out of her brow.

Yet elsewhere, also around the same time...

Having forsaken the year-end feast to scheme in his own room, Hashim was receiving a report from the intelligence team that served under him.

Without so much as looking at the man, Hashim asked, “How are things proceeding?”

The intelligence operative bowed his head and began his report. “Shaping of domestic opinion is proceeding apace. The voices of those who wish to see Fuuga conquer the entire continent grow by the day.”

“Splendid.”

“However...the results of our operations inside the Kingdom of Friedonia have been less favorable. The intelligence operatives in the service of King Souma are all rather skilled and deeply loyal to the royal family. There are no cracks to work our way into. We suspect that infiltrating them like we did the Gran Chaos Empire will prove impossible.”

“Hmm... That’s unexpected.”

Hashim recalled Souma’s face. It was plain, lacking the majesty of Fuuga’s or the charm of Maria’s, so he was surprised to learn that Souma had such capable agents. Hashim had been aware of the existence of the Friedonian intelligence service, of course, but never thought they could completely shut down one of his operations. The existence of covert operatives suggested a darker side to Souma. Anyone who maintained such a powerful intelligence service had a certain amount of darkness around them.

“I suppose you can’t judge a book by its cover...” he murmured.

“Huh...?”

“No, it’s fine. Avoid pushing too far into Friedonia; focus instead on reforming public opinion inside our country.”

“Yes, sir!”

Once he had given his subordinate his orders, Hashim revised his understanding of Souma.