Risou no Himo Seikatsu - Volume 15 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 — A Planned Miracle

Approximately a month had passed since the clandestine meeting between Aura and Yan.

Yan’s opportunity had come much sooner than expected. The mercenary had boasted that even within the church itself, there had been people who followed Priest Yan, and that had proved true. Capua had no idea who exactly had done what to arrive at the current situation. Whatever the case, though, Commander Yan was currently standing in front of Aura with a white wooden box in his arms.

They were within the stone room again, and Zenjirou had once more sent the mercenary over from Logfort. Nothing about the room had changed from the previous meeting. It was stone on all sides, the lighting coming from a brazier at the center. The sights didn’t change by the day, nor by the year. Last time there had been a small table and two chairs, but instead there was a simple bed in its place.

“Welcome, Commander Yan,” Aura greeted him. “I am pleased to see you have accomplished your goal.”

Indeed, she had a smile on her face as she spread her arms in greeting. The one-eyed mercenary, however, maintained his stony expression.

“His Majesty’s aid in arriving here was invaluable. If I may, though, my goal is yet to be accomplished. I am here to rely on your gracious aid to do so, however,” he said, dropping to one knee on the stone floor.

While his manners were as fine as any could ask for, the fact that he maintained his hold on the white box showed just how precious it and its cargo were to him, and it almost seemed like he was shielding it with his body.

That was unlikely to be far from the truth. While he had an iron core, it was clear that he was at his limit and had no capacity for joking at present. The war meant that it was not the first time Aura had seen such a person. Therefore, she kept her tone completely unaffected to avoid any provocation as she spoke.

“I shall proceed with the restoration. Remove the corpse from its box and place it on the bed.”

The mercenary gave a short affirmation and moved to do so.

He opened the box and carefully, gingerly, removed several blackened-red items, laying each of them on the bed. They were likely human bones. The majority of them had been carbonized and were misshapen. At a glance, it was hard to see them as bones, let alone human bones. To be blunt, they looked like lumps of rock stained with dirt.

And yet, the mercenary treated them as if they were babies, carefully arranging them on the bed. It was an act that would take less than a minute without care, and Yan took nearly ten. Frankly, minor damage to the bones would do nothing to influence the outcome, but this was neither the time nor place to say such a thing.

“That is all of them, then. Indicate the bone you have the greatest confidence in being correct. If there is no difference, then I shall choose.”

A single item would be the focus of the spell, and it would take in anything that was originally part of the same whole. If the initial target was wrong, it would change what was included. In this instance, if one of the bones Yan had brought belonged to anyone else, the time reversal would produce that person’s corpse.

Yan had a face like thunder upon hearing that there was yet more to consider, then carefully checked over all of the bones before indicating a large fragment.

“Start from here.”

His voice and finger alike were shaking noticeably. No one here would laugh at him, though. If anything, they were impressed at his courage picking so quickly. In fact, Aura herself had a greater estimation of him because of that, and her wariness of him grew in term.

“Very well. I shall cast the spell. You may watch, but attempting to hear the incantation is out of the question. Move back.”

Yan inched back. He wanted to watch from as close as possible, showing his loyalty. While his retreat was almost unbearably slow, Aura simply waited in silence, unmoving, for him to be as far back as she wished.

If he stopped before she told him he could, she would just stop herself. It was not a threat or unfaithful. Instead, it was a natural precaution for using such secret magic. While only those of the bloodline could cast the spell, the incantation was a source of much information.

Pushed back by her unflinching stare, the commander continued his retreat.

“That will do,” she said eventually. “I shall begin. I put you to use.”

Her final sentence was mumbled in the language of magic as she gripped the magic tool in her left hand. It was a simple construction, a marble surrounded by eight equilateral triangles of metal. In truth, though, it was one of the most powerful magic tools in the world.

Future Compensation was a space-time spell and, as the name implied, one that allowed you to pay for spells with your future mana. It let you use both the mana you had today, along with the mana you would have in the coming days. In exchange, though, you would be unable to recover mana for that length of time.

While it had originally acted as an advance on your mana, making it into a magic tool turned it into a spell for you to accumulate mana to pay with. On days where Aura knew without a doubt she would not be using mana the next day, she would use it to store the next day’s mana.

As a result, in exchange for being unable to recover mana the next day, that mana would be stored within the magic tool. In addition, it was made so it could be added to over time.

Perhaps fortunately, Aura was bound by the crown and throne, so there were many days she was unable to use magic freely. As a result, she had managed to store vast amounts of mana over the past several years.

With the words spoken, all of that mana was now released for use. She temporarily had access to hundreds of times her capacity. It was akin to being hooked up to a huge external battery. In her current state, she could cast time reversal on a huge scale.

With her left hand gripping the magic tool, she directed her right palm to the bone Yan had indicated and cast the spell.

“Let time’s flow reverse upon this object by fifty-three full days. As compensation, I present...”

The tool had enough mana that she could reverse the body’s time by more than a year, but the speed at which it had been retrieved limited how much she needed to do.

The magic tool released all of its mana at once, however much was actually used, so it was a waste in some ways. If her plan went as she wished and the priest was actually resurrected, she wanted him to remember the church capturing him. Therefore, she carefully calculated the time from when he had been captured and was still definitely alive and used that number of days.

Just like the rabbit before, the results were dramatic. A ball of light seemed to engulf the entirety of the bed, and then it went off like a camera flash.

Once the light abated, the bones had vanished from the bed. In their palace was a nude man. It was unclear whether his position on his back was just good luck or part of the magic. After all, it wasn’t clear what way around any of the bones were supposed to be, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’d shown up face down with either his lower half or head off the side of the bed.

Aura felt that considering this, it might have been more appropriate to use a wide enough area of the floor rather than a bed, but it mattered little now. She spoke in a calm voice, as though everything had gone to plan.

“The spell was successful. Commander Yan, if you can confirm his identity.”

With that, the commander had permission to approach, having looked almost like he was about to pounce forward regardless, his single eye bloodshot.

“Priest!”

His voice was loud and heavy with emotion as he ran towards the bed. Given how he was acting, there was little doubt that this was indeed the priest.

Spotting the remaining bones at his side, Aura breathed an internal sigh of relief. The bones’ lack of inclusion was because they were not originally his. In other words, if the incorrect bone had been chosen, she would have restored someone else entirely.

“Leaving him nude would be disrespectful. Clothe him,” she said calmly to the commander.

Only the man’s body had been the target of the spell, so him being nude upon its completion was something she had expected. Therefore, she had told Yan to prepare clothes for the corpse to wear. In fact, the bag on his back contained a complete outfit, including shoes and a hat. He didn’t have the wherewithal to remember that, though. In fact, Aura wasn’t sure whether he had even heard her.

“Priest, priest, priest!” he exclaimed, tears running down his face as he gripped the man’s hand.

“Just as with the rabbit, however whole it appears and however warm it seems, it is still a corpse,” Aura warned him, maintaining her stance that she had restored only the body despite her hopes to the contrary. None of those hopes showed on her face, though.

It was only natural. If she had allowed him to expect his resurrection and then betrayed those hopes, it would have been more than enough to invite his hatred. While the man’s own words and Zenjirou’s observations had shown the priest to be without mana, Aura herself had not confirmed that. Insects and small fish without mana would indeed be revived by the spell, but that didn’t necessarily mean that the same would hold true for a human.

She had privately been rather sure of it, but without any precedent, it was, truthfully, an assumption that would serve her well. Fortunately, though, that optimism seemed to have been on the mark this time.

“Priest?” the commander said. Being in direct contact with him, it was only natural that he was the first to notice. Given his occupation, he had a significant amount of experience with corpses. He had cut through people and witnessed the moment they transitioned into death. Therefore, he was never going to miss the dissonance.

“Your Majesty, is this truly a corpse?” As he spoke, he seemed to be grasping for something, repeatedly grabbing the priest’s arm and pinching his skin.

Despite her internal celebrations, the queen kept her voice gentle like she was speaking to a child. “It is. It has been restored to its condition while alive. I assume you can feel its warmth? It will soon cool, though. Quickly, clothe it.”

“That isn’t all. While it is warm, there’s resistance when I press on its arm, and the skin returns when I pinch it.”

A corpse remained warm immediately after death, but the resistance inherent to living things left soon after. Yan knew that from experience, so despite Aura’s words to the contrary, his hope seemed to grow as he put three of his fingers on the inside of the priest’s wrist.

“There’s...a pulse...”

At that, Aura decided the time had come to display her shock. “What?! Impossible!”

It would be difficult for even someone with a keen eye to see the act through the queen’s expression and voice. Commander Yan might normally have been able to manage, but his currently disturbed mental state made it impossible.

“It’s true. I can feel it, with my own hand!”

“Move!”

Aura strode forward, playing up her shock and holding her hand about a centimeter over the priest’s mouth. A warm breeze played over her palm.

Now certain that her scheme had come to fruition, she wanted to cheer but crushed the urge, allowing words to fall from her lips as if she were not truly thinking about what she was saying.

“Impossible... He is breathing.”

Those words seemed to be a signal, and the priest’s eyes opened. Brown eyes peered blearily through his barely open eyelids. Despite the evident weakness, there was clearly life in them.

“Kde...jsem?”

The words that passed through his quivering lips were meaningless to Aura.

Several minutes later, the priest was dressed in the robes the mercenary had brought with him and was now sitting atop the simple bed drinking from a water skin. The mercenary had finished explaining about the other man’s capture, his execution, and finally his resurrection at the hands of the queen standing before them. Finally, he regained his calm.

“Děkuju, seminaristo,” the priest said, likely offering thanks as he handed the water skin back to the mercenary. While the newly risen man couldn’t hide his exhaustion, his expression was a calm smile.

It was the first time Aura had resurrected someone, but everything seemed to have followed her assumptions. The priest was—both physically and mentally—in the same state as he had been fifty-three days ago. Some time had passed since he had been captured, hence the exhaustion, but he was still coherent. It seemed that his captors—at least until fifty-three days ago—had provided a bare minimum of sustenance, so he was healthier than she had expected.

Wordlessly, she sat and examined the foreign priest. He was slightly thinner than you would consider someone of medium build, and was wearing green vestments. His hair and eyes were both brown and, at a glance, there was very little about him that would leave an impression. For those who could see mana, though, he was an utterly alien sight. There was not even a fragment of mana within him. Using that sense of mana made it seem like she was looking at a moving corpse.

Aura had never met anyone similar in her life. There were a reasonable number of people who had practically no mana, but it was honestly unsettling to meet someone with literally no mana.

The priest’s resurrection was what she had expected and hoped for, but she could not allow that to be known. She kept her expression in the narrow band between “utter shock” and “a statesman forcing their shock down to act logically” as she spoke to the two men of the same name.

“I expect the two of you are rather confused. To speak frankly, the same is true of me. We cannot simply remain here, though. If there are no issues, I would like to speak with you both. Would you be willing?”

The priest was intelligent and driven, and so had become a polyglot to make up for the handicap presented by his lack of mana. Unfortunately, though, the official language of Capua was not one of those he had learned. Therefore, the mercenary offered to interpret.

“Priest,” he said, before repeating what she had said in his mother tongue. Aura, though, could understand exactly what he said due to the soul of language. He had repeated her words exactly with no deviations.

While it would slow things down, it seemed like they would be able to speak and negotiate with each other without any impediment. With her decision made, Aura kept her eyes on the priest but listened mainly to what the mercenary was saying.

“‘That would be fine. I offer my deepest gratitude for saving me through your abilities once I met my fate. It truthfully doesn’t feel real,’ is what he said,” the mercenary interpreted.

Aura nodded at his words. Before she started the discussions with the priest, she turned to the commander and spoke directly to him.

“For the rest of our discussion, you need not specify that you are quoting Priest Yan. Instead, preface any of your own thoughts with a warning that they are your own.”

“Very well,” he agreed. With that, Aura turned to discuss things bluntly with the priest.

“You need not thank me, priest. While the commander here is another matter, I had never expected to do anything which would enable you to personally thank me like this.”

She offered a shrug there. It was a natural position to take. She had used the spell to restore the body, not in order to have the priest offer his gratitude. Any gratitude that she was offered would have come from the mercenary for restoring the corpse.

“I offer you my thanks even so. My life would have ended in nothingness, and its continuation is thanks to your abilities, Your Majesty.”

“Very well, then I shall accept your gratitude. If you wish to demonstrate that gratitude, I would like to request that you make no indication that this outcome was in any way related to the Kingdom of Capua.”

Aura was well aware that this would be nothing more than a verbal agreement. Her plans were to send both Yans back to the Northern Continent, and it was impossible to compel behavior in people so far away with no connection.

Technically, it would be possible to take someone that the priest cared about more than himself and compel obedience that way, but Capua had no leads on such a person. Even if they did, making such moves would be the most foolish thing they could do.

“Of course. I remember none of it. I simply intend to answer any questions with ‘all that I am certain of is that I am currently alive,’” the priest said with his calm smile.

Aura looked somewhat doubtfully back at him. “I see. I had assumed you would call it the dragons’ guidance or similar.”

The mystique around resurrection had remained the same throughout the generations. Aura had assumed that if the priest had yet to break, he would use it as a convenient claim. If his claim was true, then he would also be saying he had no intention of actively using the events.

The priest’s smile took on a rueful tinge as he answered. “The dragons’ guidance is nothing so direct or biased. It is much wider ranging, impartial, and useless,” he said directly.

Of course, the meaning only reached Aura’s ears through the mercenary’s translation, so the words actually carried more weight when they reached her. The veteran’s face was twisted as he spoke, a clear question of whether he should actually say such a thing all but written on his face.

In other words, what the priest was saying was not a normal view within the faith. With some relief, Aura straightened and continued the conversation.

“You surprise me. I had heard that you were a devout follower of the faith in accordance with your rank.”

“I do indeed personally follow the dragon faith,” he answered. “However, I am also a researcher of dragons and have a position to explain my teachings. Oh, I was excommunicated from the church before my capture, so my position as priest is self-proclaimed now. I will always preach, though, that the dragon faith is nothing more than an emotional aid and a guideline for life. Breaking the faith’s creed will not cause a direct smiting from the heavens, and keeping the faith will not allow one to directly petition the dragons for supernatural aid. The faith is its teachings, and those teachings will lead you to salvation.”

“I see. You seem to be a highly intelligent man,” Aura said, her almost reddish-brown eyes closing slightly in a smile.

At the same time, she was internally certain of something. No matter what, she had to send him back to the Northern Continent. Even their brief conversation had been enough to make her sure that he was a man with intelligence, logic, adaptability in service of his goal, and a fixation on that goal that would allow him to surrender even his life for it. As a politician, he was the kind of person she wanted nowhere near her country, and that was precisely why she wanted her theoretical enemies to have to deal with him.

The priest had no way of knowing her thoughts as he answered. “My thanks. Regardless, coincidence or not, I cannot countenance not taking this opportunity to redo things. To avoid inconveniencing you, Your Majesty, I would like to ensure that my assumptions of the current situation are accurate,” he said, indicating he wished for there to be more information shared between the two of them.

“Hm, I would be willing to hear you out, but what do you mean by it inconveniencing me?”

The priest immediately answered. “To be specific, I wish to establish what happened while I was absent. If we are not in agreement about how to treat that period, it could disadvantage you in the future.”

“That would indeed be a problem,” Aura agreed. “Without an established timeline, ensuring our responses match will be rather difficult.”

She had not reverted him to “the the day before his execution,” but instead to the last day the mercenary had confirmed he was alive. This was to add a safety margin to account for the fact that criminals could die in prison before their official execution date without an immediate announcement of their passing. It was avoiding the possibility of rewinding time on the bones and changing them from “long since charred and blackened bones” to “only just charred and blackened bones.” If that had happened, they would have already used the magic tool, so there would have been no second chances.

Of course, although they hadn’t revealed it to Yan, her hopes were always for a resurrection, so she had added even more of a safety margin to avoid him being alive yet beyond help from his experiences while incarcerated. As a result, the priest had come back to life as she had planned, but there was a decent amount of time that he had no memory of. If they wanted to hide that his resurrection was a result of reversing time, they needed an established story to cover that period.

“First let us ascertain how things currently are. As far as you are aware, your memories are from fifty-three days ago? You have no memories after that, but prior memories remain clear, correct?”

The priest nodded shallowly. “Indeed, while I believe Commander Yan’s word, it honestly doesn’t feel real. Truthfully, I cannot believe the year’s end has already passed.”

The reason the priest hadn’t felt how much time had passed was that being imprisoned underground made it hard to accurately count the days. Maintaining an accurate sense of time when confined in a space without sunlight was difficult. While he had been provided with food and water once a day and could keep track of the days by counting how many times that happened, there was no way of recording it. Memory alone was unreliable. Human memory was far less accurate than people thought it was. Even so, the priest was still certain that it hadn’t been over two months since he was incarcerated.

“Is that just a problem of intuition? Does your body feel the same? Does anything seem amiss physically? Do you feel either weaker or stronger than you believe you should?” the queen asked.

“Pardon me for a moment,” he replied, then stood and rolled his neck, stretching and moving around several times.

Once he was done, he sat back down on the bed.

“No. For better or worse, I feel as I should. See this injury on my right hand... It was something I did accidentally soon after my imprisonment, but it has healed significantly, no? And yet it still remains. The cell was pitch-black so this is the first time I have personally seen it, but it feels as I remember it,” he said, lifting his hand to show its back.

While the priest’s face remained composed, his translator’s twisted in pain, his single gray eye narrowing. The mark on the older man’s right hand was, to be more specific, an injury at the base of his middle finger. Anyone who looked at it could see how it had happened at a glance. It was the kind of injury you got from punching something hard. He had probably punched at the walls of the cell—the holy man who was currently sitting with a placid smile. How emotional must he have been?

At the very least, it was not something she should touch on directly, Aura decided. She ignored its origin and spoke simply on its current state. “Intriguing. Even recovering wounds have returned to the state they were. While I am deeply interested in the results of my spell, let us set them aside. In other words, you lack the memory of the last fifty-three days and wish for an agreement on what to tell people who are aware of what happened during that time, correct?”

“Exactly,” he answered, lips lifting into a soft smile. While many of the priest’s expressions could be summed up as “smiles,” there was a shocking range in the emotions they demonstrated.

He had been rewound to his state of fifty-three days prior, but the church had announced his execution forty-six days ago. In other words, there were seven days he had no memory of. Although he may have been confined below ground, it was all but impossible that he had made absolutely no contact with others over those seven days. At the very least, he’d have interacted with someone as he was being taken for execution. There would have been some form of conversation between them, and if the priest didn’t remember it, the church could declare the reincarnated man a fraud.

“Then perhaps we could claim you escaped at that point and say that the church used a substitute corpse through a lack of willingness to admit to it,” Aura suggested, assuming that it would be rejected.

Indeed, the man shook his head firmly. “We cannot.”

“I thought as much,” she admitted with a shrug.

His reaction confirmed her initial information. In his view, the church imprisoning him was not, in itself, wrong. The church was a group of priests, so should sometimes offer guidance to those priests that belonged to it, and if he was given that guidance, he was willing to change.

However, Yan felt that there was nothing wrong or excessive about his words, but conversely felt like the church had deviated from its initial teachings, and he wanted that discussion to happen. If he had escaped from imprisonment, then it would mean that he had changed how he thought about things for his own sake. Uppasala’s intelligence had come to the conclusion that even if he had come upon an opportunity to escape, he wouldn’t have taken it, and it seemed they were correct.

“Which means there are issues remaining. You did not escape, and yet you also have no memory of what happened towards the end. This is a definite advantage for the church. If they know you have no memory of things said during your imprisonment or at the time of your execution, they could demand you prove your identity by relating those words or else call you a fraud. No?”

“I cannot deny the possibility.”

In fact, that was his main concern. The church was in itself as influential as a country on the Northern Continent. Such influence allowed them to make white into black. Even the slightest hint of gray would be treated as fully black. No matter how Yan himself claimed he was the real person, if that influence labeled him a fraud, that would be how he was seen.

Aura scowled internally as the priest thought. Personally, she cared little if he was labeled a fraud. All she needed from him was activity and chaos on the Northern Continent. If, by some remote flight of fancy he insisted he could not immediately return and needed to wait for a chance while regaining energy here, that would be the worst possible outcome. She wanted the dangerous man in the North no matter what.

While those thoughts were swirling around her head, the mercenary—who had remained silent other than his translations so far—raised his hand slightly. “These are my own words,” he started. “Pardon, but I would say it is a simple case of ‘he said, she said.’ Perhaps we could overcome it with information gathering and predictions?”

“Hm. Explain in more detail,” Aura replied.

The commander did so. “Of course. While remembering it makes my blood boil, the information I gathered says that treatment in the dungeon got gradually worse. It is common for people’s memories in such situations to become unreliable. In fact, it is strange for such a thing not to happen. Furthermore, with no third party, it is possible for the church to lie. Actually, they will lie. They will say he repented just before the execution and begged for forgiveness. In which case, I believe all we can do is claim a ‘truth’ that suits us.”

They could question those who believed in the priest within the church about what happened to him, then using that information, he could predict how he would have reacted. Claiming that those events were the truth and that any missing information was simply due to missing memories would work.

“I see. Not a bad suggestion,” Aura replied, seeing how it could work, then offered some advice despite internally wanting to send them back to the Northern Continent at once. “There are still concerns, though. Continuing the argument assumes that both parties have equally influential voices. If either is overwhelming, the debate breaks down and one side is taken as fact. Would that be acceptable?”

It seemed unlikely that either man would fall for simply suppressing any of her doubts and claiming it should work. Also, she was not entirely happy with going so far as to use her secret spell and then having the church simply declare the revived man a fraud and refusing to engage with him.

The priest looked bothered, agreeing with the concern, but the translating mercenary spoke with surety. “Again, these are my own words, but I believe such a thing is unlikely to happen.”

“Hm. Would you explain?”

“Of course. Priest Yan underestimates his own influence. The church’s influence on the Northern Continent is great, and generally its believers believe the church’s claims. However, there are people who separately believed in him. They will trust his words. At the very least, those who we meet directly will understand it is truly him.”

His words were proud, enough to discomfit even the priest in question. The mercenary continued confidently.

“In his homeland of Bohevia, there is a great number of people who will believe him, including those in the palace and church. Within the capital where the university is, they would be an overwhelming majority.”

The queen forced the corners of her lips to remain in place. That was perfect. If he was right, that was practically ideal for Capua. Despite both sides being influenced by the church, Yan’s country and a country where those led by the church would all but fall into conflict.

Of course, with how much faith the mercenary had in the priest, taking it at face value would be dangerous. Regardless, it was a perfect situation for the priest to return to the Northern Continent.

“There could be no better result than for you to be able to return home. However, as I said, this was not something I expected. My plan was to teleport the commander with your corpse back to the Northern Continent. If it suits you, I can simply do the same for both of you separately.”

The first half of Aura’s speech was completely made up, but the latter was the truth. While she had schemed for a potential resurrection of the priest, she was unable to tell the mercenary as much, so she had made no preparations other than to restore the corpse. Therefore, it would be rather unfortunate for them to ask to recover and see how things went here.

There were only a very small number of people within the country who knew Commander Yan was in the room. The pair would be unable to leave the room, and bringing both sustenance as well as anything else required for daily life would be difficult. The greatest inconvenience was that there was no toilet there. The best result would be for the two of them to leave before they had to answer the call of nature.

Fortunately, the mercenary simply smiled. “That would be fine. Moving clandestinely is my specialty. I would have simply carried the corpse, but now he is alive. If anything, it will be less difficult.”

Things would be different if the priest had weakened to the point he was on the verge of death, but although he had lost weight, he could still stand and walk. It would be far easier than carrying a corpse around.

“Very well, then. Assuming you are in agreement, Priest Yan, the commander can explain the teleportation. Your destination will be Logfort in Uppasala. We have a certain degree of contact with their leadership, so even if you are discovered, they should turn a blind eye. It would only be tacit tolerance, though—the best course of action would be to remain undiscovered, so I ask that you move as quickly and secretly as is practical.” She had already informed the commander of all of this, but repeated it again for the priest’s understanding.

The mercenary repeated the words dutifully to the priest, who nodded and then spoke to Aura directly. “Áno, rozumím jejímu veličenstvu královně.”

Of course, Aura didn’t understand what he’d said, but his firm expression and the bow he gave suggested it was meant to be an agreement.

The translation from the mercenary was essentially what she had expected.

“Yes, understood, Your Majesty. The rest of what I have to say are my own words. We will do as you ask. I am not going to repay your aid with hardship,” he said earnestly.

Given their behavior, Aura decided that there wouldn’t be any issues from them. “Very well. This is the final thing I can do for you. I pray for your fortune.”

With that, she sent both Yans to the Northern Continent.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

Several days later, once the resurrection had mostly been dealt with, Zenjirou and Aura were in the midst of one of their usual discussions in the inner palace living room. What they would discuss here was completely classified. They had wanted to be even more careful than usual, ensuring that everyone was away from them. However, a private meeting excluding even the maids who were allowed to remain at their side for the entire time they were within the inner palace would leak and draw attention. Thus, they had waited until the most trustworthy of the maids were on living room duty. It was a natural precaution to take now that time reversal—Capua’s most secret spell—had resurrected a human.

They had started by exchanging information, questioned anything that seemed amiss, spoken of each other’s doubts, and continued until both were satisfied. At that point, Aura heaved a sigh, letting her shoulders rise and fall.

“I see. So you did not meet either Commander Yan or the revived priest in Logfort?” she clarified.

“I didn’t,” Zenjirou answered seriously. “I waited in another room and pretended to be absent.”

That night, he had been hiding within the building in Logfort since he had sent the mercenary to Capua, and had still been there when Aura sent both of them back. It would have been preferable for him to see them to gather information, but unfortunately he was nowhere near as confident in his acting abilities as his wife was. He’d decided that it was less of a risk to avoid the possible information leak than to see them directly, even if it did strike him as odd.

Aura couldn’t help but agree. “Indeed, there was a reasonable chance they could have spotted our plan if you’d met them then.”

They did not want anyone to know that his resurrection had been planned rather than happening by chance. It would potentially see their spell’s capabilities misunderstood, and above all else, it would be clear they had some goal in mind for the priest. If the two men knew that Capua was using them to sow discord on the Northern Continent, their goodwill towards the royal family would likely sour.

Zenjirou had decided the Northerners would be able to tell the whole thing had been planned if he interacted with them, and he was likely correct. He wasn’t as skilled as Aura at controlling his expressions, and the period between the resurrection and the meeting would have allowed both men to regain their calm. While one was a priest and the other a mercenary, and they therefore had different positions in society, both were intelligent and logical men—both insightful enough to have doubts caused by Zenjirou’s clumsy acting.

“Fortunately, it seems the two of them have left Uppasala without being spotted. At least as far as those working in the building and around the port, no one has mentioned seeing them.” While Zenjirou’s information gathering abilities weren’t exactly high, his conclusion was unlikely to be wrong.

Moving without being noticed was one of the mercenary’s specialties, especially considering his extensive experience. The priest was also far lighter on his feet than you would expect from either of his titles. He would be able to avoid dragging the mercenary down, at least. They had likely avoided people seeing them during the night and boarded a suitable ship out of the country.

At that point, Zenjirou moved to get confirmation of what he’d been thinking this whole time. “Hey, Aura?”

“What is it?”

“If things go as we’re expecting, are we going to be able to hide time reversal bringing someone back to life?”

Aura considered it for a while before giving a conditional affirmative. “Likely so, yes. Rumors will spread, but that is already the case. If the priest keeps his word, they should remain only that.”

In that respect, Aura was taking a rather optimistic view. While part of that was due to what she had seen of the kind of man the priest was and had some faith in his behavior, more of it was due to the lack of benefit to him. A “miraculous resurrection” was much more advantageous to him. If he had been revived due to lineal magic from the Southern Continent, it would be the family that was impressive, and there would be no mystique to it.

“That sounds right. So what about our records? The main things that come to mind are recording everything and then making sure only the royal family can view those records, or leaving no record at all if we’re prioritizing secrecy. I guess it has to be one or the other.”

Even Zenjirou knew that a half measure would be the worst choice. Ambiguous information would lead to distortions in expectations and hopes in future generations. “A person without mana can be resurrected through time reversal” could become “a person can be resurrected through time reversal.”

Aura had to agree on that front. “Indeed, we have to commit fully to whichever path we decide on. Much of the secret information for royalty is passed down verbally, but that easily grows distorted.”

Verbal communications were far more secure than written records, but written records were by far the better choice for passing down exact information. While the resurrection needed to remain secret, the exact circumstances around the possibility were just as important.

“Yeah. Honestly, it seems like it’d be way worse for the vague possibility of resurrection to leak than the truth about how specific the circumstances we need are.”

“Quite so. However, the fact is that it must remain as unknown as possible at large,” she said, nodding along before having a sudden thought. “I know—we can have you record it.”

“Me?” Zenjirou asked, confused. He knew nothing about keeping information hidden, but when Aura continued her explanation, he had to agree it made sense.

“Yes. You can record such information on your computer and leave no physical record. Additionally, if you use your own language rather than the local one, it should be all the harder for it to leak.”

“I see, that works,” he had to admit.

Information in the computer needed power to be read back. Even if it could be read without it, keeping it in Japanese would make it harder to understand.

Either way, they intended to pass the computer and generator down to their children. The generator was one thing, but using the computer to a reasonable degree required knowledge of Japanese. In other words, their children would need a decent level of proficiency in reading and writing in the language. Considering that, leaving the information in Japanese was perfect.

“The problem will be losing the information stored within it when we rewind it. There are limits to the amount of external storage I’ve got, so choosing the specific information we need to pass on will be the issue.”

“Hm, then perhaps we can allow the level of secrecy to decrease and you can record it on drake parchment, still in Japanese?”

“That’d probably be the best bet. It’d mean we need to not print out the dictionary I’m making, though.”

He was using his free time on plans for the request from Utgard. His current step was digitizing all the documents the royal family had on space-time magic. He had also been typing up a list of equivalent words between the two languages before then. It was only the very beginning stages of creating a dictionary. No one other than Zenjirou could do it, and it seemed too vast for him to finish within his lifetime.

The document was certainly not worthy of being called a proper dictionary, created solely by Zenjirou with his own knowledge, but there was still a big difference between having it and not. If he recorded the secret information in Japanese on drake parchment, then he would need to keep the dictionary out of sight as much as possible.

It was something he’d need to do in order to pass the computer and generator on to his descendants, but it wasn’t something that needed to be perfect either.

Aura agreed. “Indeed. Japanese is of little use without access to the computer, so keeping the dictionary on the computer maintains the secrecy.”

Conversely, it would be a good idea to translate instructions on the appliances and their maintenance, along with how often the battery required rewinding away from Japanese and leave written records. Shutting off the generator meant doing the same to every appliance connected to it, so keeping detailed information on those procedures was vital.

Digressions aside, they had decided how to deal with the information on resurrection via time reversal.

“So does that pretty much finish everything about Priest Yan?” Zenjirou asked.

“It does,” Aura affirmed. “Or more accurately, it marks the point where we can do little but wait and watch.”

The priest had been revived and sent back to the Northern Continent. Capua had no further control over either man, so all they could do was wait and see. They were out of Aura’s hands now.

“Got it. Is there anything else we need to talk about?”

The required secrecy was far and away the highest with Yan’s revival, but it was not the only problem currently facing the country. There were several other matters of greater importance. He’d only just asked the question when he remembered something else he should ask about.

“Oh, what about that glass craftsman I sent after the commander?”

“Ah, he is a guest of the palace. We do not yet know his skill, but the palace will be taking responsibility for the rest of his life. He will not be leaving.”

The elderly craftsman had originally managed a small workshop in Bohevia, but he’d been unable to keep pace with technological advances and was starting to struggle to keep food on the table due to the lack of demand. Zenjirou had invited him to Capua through a local intermediary.

The instructions he had been given included coming to Logfort in secret, and there had been a lump sum, but they had not given him any advice for how to get there in secret. While he may have done his best, it was almost inevitable that the leaders of Uppasala would spot him. Truthfully, it was something Capua wanted to happen. He was a smoke screen to divert from the two Yans moving around.

Out of work or not, countries could certainly find fault with a foreign land poaching their craftsmen. There was therefore nothing unnatural about Zenjirou teleporting him to Capua behind closed doors.

“I hope he’s useful. They might be old techniques, but he should be able to make reasonably transparent glass, so I’ve got some hope for him.”

The queen nodded in agreement as she spoke. “That would be the ideal outcome. We cannot ask for too much. He was useful for camouflaging the priest’s and mercenary’s movements. That is enough.”

She had very few expectations of the aging man. While advances in technology had put him out of a job, the same wasn’t true for all of his peers. Some maintained a living using the connections they’d formed over their years in business; others dismissed the new technologies as a gimmick and still maintained a following with their polished traditional techniques. There were some who had moved away from production to manage workshop unions, while delegating the production to newcomers who had learned the new skills. Some were even joining the young apprentices to learn the new skills as well.

Overall, those who couldn’t maintain some form of living were in the minority. From one perspective, they’d picked someone whose personality, skill, business acumen, administration, passion, and luck had all failed to secure him an opportunity. In that way, they certainly couldn’t expect too much of him.

“Well, that’s true. I guess I’ll just take it as a bit of good luck if things go well,” Zenjirou told himself, changing his opinion.

“That would be for the best. Speaking of such things, Freya made a suggestion. She wishes to use her own funds to bring people from the Northern Continent. Those specializing in the bleaching and washing of cloth specifically,” Aura said with a meaningful smile.

Realizing that it was about what Zenjirou had advised Freya on, he answered truthfully. He’d never intended to hide it in the first place. “Yeah, Freya spoke to me about it, and I gave her what advice I could. As far as I’ve seen, the average cloth on the Northern Continent is higher quality than ours.”

Technically, you could consider his advice to Freya as favoring one of his wives over the other, but a relationship where he could not even do that was too detached for Zenjirou. In the polygamy common in noble families, such relationships were not unusual, but Zenjirou’s mental constitution wasn’t strong enough to withstand something like that.

Indeed, Aura herself wasn’t condemning him for offering his advice. “It is not an issue,” she agreed. “I have given her leave to spend outside of a limited number of industries, and I have no right to stop you from offering her advice. The potential problem would be the likelihood that her success will invite pushback from our countrymen that work in that industry.”

If Freya was successful, it would mean a new supplier of cloth and fiber being formed in Capua. Assuming Zenjirou’s judgment of the quality was accurate, the thread and cloth would be able to outcompete current products on either quality or price—or potentially both.

That not happening would be an issue for Freya, but it coming to fruition would also disadvantage the local workforce. Businesses with higher quality and lower prices still often failed due to lack of fame or trust, but Freya had her title as royalty. In the worst case—or best, depending on your perspective—the current workers could lose their businesses.

Zenjirou may not have had the best head for business, but even he could see that. “That wouldn’t be good,” he admitted. “Then what if she only sells the techniques rather than directly selling the products?”

“Sell the technique?” Aura asked.

“Yeah. Whatever happens, I’m probably going to be teleporting them over, right? That puts a significant limit on numbers, and they wouldn’t be able to produce huge amounts of anything. That would mean they’d need to hire local talent as well. That would put them in direct competition with the current businesses, though.”

Competing for patronage was one thing, but the merchants would not let poaching their workforce go unanswered. If they hired children and unskilled apprentices, they would take too long to turn a profit. Freya didn’t want to spend a long time making money; she wanted it as quickly as possible.

“So her people would start by replicating things here. They’d use local materials to get bleaching to the same level as on the Northern Continent. There would be a fair number of businesses that wanted those techniques. They could mass-produce cloth under license, and Freya could take a percentage of their sales. That would end up benefiting both sides, right?”

Zenjirou’s idea—centering mostly on minimizing conflict rather than maximizing profit—was potentially the best advice he could offer here.

“A continuing fee to utilize the established technique? That could work well if it is accepted,” Aura agreed.

The proviso was there because it wasn’t a proposal that would usually work. There was no concept of intellectual property on the Southern Continent, so collecting money for techniques and knowledge was difficult.

Once someone had learned the method, they could quite easily refuse to keep paying, and there was no law to compel them to do so. If anything, the blame would usually fall on the people allowing their trade secrets to fall into their hands.

That wouldn’t be an issue in this case, though, because it was being posited by Freya, a member of the country’s royal family. The royal family’s influence was exceptionally strong for a feudalistic nation. For those living in areas under the royal family’s direct control, they could force it to be accepted. Even agreements outside of the norm for the continent would be kept to. That was how much power, influence, and authority the Capuan royal family had.

“Hm, I would allow it in that case. In fact, other dyes rather than simply the bleaching techniques would also be acceptable.”

It was an unshakable fact that the Northern Continent was more technologically advanced than the Southern Continent. That meant there was a decent chance that their dyeing techniques were better as well, not just their washing and bleaching methods. Whether they applied to all hues was another matter, but Aura was considering a limited number being used to drum up interest. Zenjirou pondered it before shaking his head.

“No, I think we should stick to the washing and bleaching first. Most dyes are plant-based, right? The plants between the two continents are completely different, so it’s unlikely we’d be able to find the right plants here, and finding substitutes would add a lot of work.”

If the original plants could grow in Capua, it would be fine, but the difference in climate made it a likely fruitless endeavor. If it did work, it could still take years or even decades to actually pay off. Freya wanted to make Alcott a reality as quickly as possible and needed the money for that.

“I see. That holds. Is that not also the case for the white thread and cloth, though? The reagents used in their manufacturing and bleaching are presumably made from local ingredients, which would surely make them just as difficult to reproduce here, no?”

While Zenjirou partially agreed, he refuted her concerns. “On the whole, probably. It seems far more reproducible than their dyes, though.”

There were countless hues of dyes, and even using the same red flower in the same way could produce slightly different shades of red dye depending on the soil in which it was grown.

Conversely, bleaches were all similar on close examination. They removed stains and color. Of course, there was a degree of compatibility with the chemicals and fibers, so there was no guarantee that the same techniques would produce comparable results on the Southern Continent. Regardless, Freya wanted a method for getting money quickly. If it seemed like it would take too long after investigating, she could simply move on to the next option.

“Very well. Then I shall arrange it. I will inform Freya.”

“Yeah,” Zenjirou replied, managing to swallow the word of thanks that wanted to leave his throat. Thanking Aura for giving Freya consideration in the way she was would not be an impartial position to take.

It was irritating, but this was one of the duties of royalty, and an obligation for men with multiple wives. In Zenjirou’s case, both women were accomplished in their own right, so he had to keep this sort of thing to himself.

The thoughts about duty and marriage prompted another topic from Zenjirou.

“Speaking of, how’s everything going with Prince Yngvi? They’ve only had the one gathering so far.”

The gathering Zenjirou was talking about was the event where Yngvi was the guest of honor. While officially it was hosted by the royal family in order to welcome him to the country, it was well known that it was actually for him to find a second wife.

Aura offered a slight shrug to his question.

“It will almost certainly be Mirella. According to Freya, that is the way he wants to go. We will need to carefully sound out her wishes.”

“Her wishes” could perhaps be rephrased as “her resolve.” It was far from uncommon for a girl’s wishes to hold very little weight in marriages between nobles from the same country. This marriage, though, was an extreme exception where she would be marrying into the royal family of a country on the Northern Continent.

It was both an extreme honor, and something that would see them to great fortune if it went well, but it also meant spending the rest of her life in a completely foreign land. It was practically inevitable that there would be difficulties that would be impossible to predict. Fulfilling such a duty would require skill on the girl’s side, but also her willingness.

“I pretty much expected it, but Yngvi definitely makes his choices quickly. I agree that finding out how she feels about it is important, but the problem is who does it and how.”

By blood, she was Count Márquez’s niece, and adopted by him. She was also currently working within the inner palace as a maid. In that respect, it would be easy for either Zenjirou or Aura to ask her directly, but Zenjirou was aware that neither of them were really suited to it. They were both members of the royal family and in favor of the marriage going ahead.

Mirella was sharp enough that she’d understand that. Therefore, while Zenjirou or Aura could tell her to speak truthfully, there was still a good chance she would infer their desires and answer in agreement.

“Indeed, we do not want a commitment, but to know her feelings. For the time being, I will have the head maid spread the information here that Prince Yngvi will be having a second bride from Capua, and then have her listen to the maids’ gossip. Of course, we will be asking for Lady Octavia’s aid eventually.”

Aura’s suggestion was nothing particularly special. People generally spoke most freely with those they worked closely with and trusted. They would say things to their peers that they would not tell their superiors. The young palace maids would never be able to pass up such a juicy piece of gossip, and there was little doubt that they’d speak rather thoughtlessly about it. Additionally, they would all know that some of their compatriots had been allowed to return briefly to their families and participate in the welcome for Yngvi. The maids who had not would certainly question those who had.

Did he speak to you? If he proposed, what would you do? Those answers would lead to their actual thoughts.

“This wouldn’t just be for Mirella, but I wanted to offer whoever marries him the right to periodically return to Capua,” Zenjirou said.

The queen nodded shallowly in agreement. “A good idea. Both the wife and the maids who accompany her,” she replied. Her voice gained an apologetic tone. “Though the burden will fall on you.”

Teleportation between Capua and Uppasala would almost certainly fall entirely on Zenjirou. While it would doubtless increase his workload, Zenjirou himself didn’t see much of a problem with it.

“It’ll be the same as with Freya and the maids from the Northern Continent. Spending a few more days there won’t be that hard on me.”

Zenjirou was teleporting all over the place already, so adding a little more time to his stays on the Northern Continent to send Yngvi’s future wife and her retinue back would practically be a rounding error.

The two of them fell into silence, both having told each other what they had to say.

“So we’re preparing for war, then...with all of this,” Zenjirou said.

“To respond to a war, specifically. Vexing as it is.”

Her agreement to his almost meaningless statement was as reluctant and annoyed as her words implied. Schemes to sow discord in enemy nations, strengthening industry and economic strength, using that economic strength to build more ports, and a political marriage to an ally. All of those actions could indeed be called preparations for a war.

“Is it the war that’s vexing, or...”

“Responding,” she replied immediately. “If it is to happen regardless, I would much prefer to be the instigator. Being reactive chafes.”

While Zenjirou was effectively a commoner from a peaceful land, Aura was the monarch of a powerful nation that had emerged victorious from a war. As a statesman, she was conservative and tended to avoid true warfare. However, that did not mean that doing so was her first priority.

She understood that Zenjirou’s views in that area were drastically different from her own, so she began to explain the way she governed and led the country so they could come to an understanding.

“With war, you can either be active or reactive. When you are reactive, you have little choice, so I am talking solely about the active side of things. While this is my personal view, I will say that I believe there are three conditions that need to be met to actively wage war.”

“Like the whole ‘heavens, land, people’ thing?” Hearing the phrase “three conditions” linked to war made him respond with that practically instinctively.

Aura blinked in surprise. “Oh, interesting. The heavens, the land, and the people? That certainly does cut right to the heart of the matter in a rather understandable way.”

“Well, it comes from a saying thousands of years ago, and it’s still used today.” A saying still being in common use thousands of years from its coining was perhaps some of the best proof of its validity.

Aura nodded at his answer. “They are incisive words. However, they are not the three conditions I was talking about. The heavens, land, and people would come second to the three I consider. One of them would be the chance of victory.”

Zenjirou considered her words for a moment before nodding. “That makes sense. But does that mean there are two other things you consider as important as the chance for victory?” He was entirely unfamiliar with military matters, so he couldn’t think of anything.

Aura nodded and then answered. “There are. The first—more important than the chances of victory—is the benefit. A war with no benefit is not one I would wage even if victory was assured.”

“Right...”

It was perhaps an obvious statement. There was the issue of whether any benefit would be to the country as a whole, to the royal family, or to the monarch personally. It was a digression from their current topic, though, so Aura didn’t go any further.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Zenjirou continued. “Even if you’re guaranteed victory, waging war for no benefit is just a waste.”

“This is all from the perspective of declaring war, after all. A war that in itself offers a benefit rather than solely through victory is better, but that would be far too convenient. The third thing, which can sometimes be second in importance, is the end of the war.”

“The end?”

This time, Zenjirou had no idea what she meant, so Aura added to her explanation.

“More specifically, perhaps ‘the ability to dictate an end’ would be a better way of phrasing it. Ending a war is extremely difficult. After all, you have an opponent. Even if you personally decide you want to stop, you cannot unless your opponent agrees. Hence the third condition is having measures in place to bring things to an end if it becomes necessary. That is why it and the chances of victory can sometimes switch their importance.”

If victory was all but assured, such measures were less necessary. Conversely, if those measures were practically perfect, the chances for victory didn’t need to be quite so high.

The queen then continued her explanation. “From the Northern Continent’s perspective, the benefits of their acts of aggression are clear. The second condition, their chance of victory, is less clear at present. Personally, we feel that it has not been met, but the truth of the matter is uncertain. Even then, there is the possibility that they see it as being so.”

Zenjirou couldn’t deny that there was a chance the church could assume a low chance of victory was actually a high chance, or even a guaranteed win.

“The reason behind their willingness, though, is the third condition. They have a practically perfect way to end a war, and they are the only ones in that position.”

Zenjirou considered her statement for a moment and immediately came to a conclusion. “Oh, right. They’re the only ones with intercontinental ships.”

The Northern and Southern Continents were separated by a vast sea, and only countries on the Northern Continent had vessels capable of crossing it. Therefore, if an invasion went poorly for them, they could simply withdraw their ships and unilaterally declare an end to the war. In the absolute worst case, they could abandon both their ships and men and end things that way. To add to that, the actual leaders commanding the invasion would never be on the ships. While it might hurt their coffers, they would never be at any personal risk.

“Indeed. That is why gaining capable ships is indispensable to us.” Aura nodded firmly, her reddish-brown eyes narrowing.

For as long as the Northern Continent was the only party capable of crossing the sea between them, no matter how different their combat power was, it would never change that the Northerners would be on the offensive and that the Southern Continent would be on the defensive.

However, if the Southern Continent were able to get ships of their own and succeed in making a round trip to and from the Northern Continent, it would serve to keep the Northern Continent’s states in check. If they could manage to plant the seed of a counterattack on the Northern Continent’s soil if things went poorly, it would be a worthy accomplishment.

“So if things go well, could we head off the invasion as a whole?” Zenjirou asked, still unable to discard his hopes of finishing things without a war.

The queen shook her head. “No. That is not going to happen. Building the ships, manning them, and establishing intercontinental routes will take years, at least. Meanwhile, preparations for a naval invasion will need around the same amount of time. In other words, if the invasion takes place on the time scale I am considering, plans for it will have already progressed by the time we have our ships. They are unlikely to abandon such plans after they have been fleshed out to such a degree. We should consider it inescapable at this point.”

Her statement was no lie, but nor was it the whole truth. If the Northern Continent’s politicians were particularly short on nerve, there was a chance that they would call the whole thing off. However, that was extremely low. Aura was of the mind that telling Zenjirou that would only cause problems.

“I suppose so,” Zenjirou agreed, following the logic and lack of falsehoods. That meant admitting that it was inevitable that his country would eventually be at war.

He realized he was shaking slightly. Zenjirou wasn’t actually as cowardly as he thought of himself. A coward wouldn’t board a boat that had a reasonable chance of sinking, nor would they face off against a huge boar as he had, even if they had powerful magic tools protecting them.

When it came to war, though, his estimation of himself was entirely correct. Zenjirou’s desire to avoid war, his dislike and fear of it, were unusually strong for someone in this world. It had therefore taken him time to come to grips with it and accept it. Coming to grips with war in the way he had, though, made his resolve weighty and firm.

“So we meet them in kind.”

“We do,” Aura agreed, despite her surprise at how firm the resolve—the like of which she’d never heard from him—in his words was.

“We win.”

“We will.”

“So thoroughly we push the next conflict back as far as possible.”

“Yes, that is right.”

Despite her shock at the words and surety coming from him—things she never would have dreamed of hearing from him—Aura offered her agreement.