Volume 3 Chapter 6 Part2 (1/2)

Translator Corner

Minasan oideyasu. This is Yukkuri demasu!

Another chapter!

You guys didn’t expect that I will do a

double release, right?

Well… Me too…

Please note that in all of the talking

below, Maria and Souma were mostly speaking in a formal way of speaking.

Also, no (name) aid for this chapter. As 「」 is for Souma and 『』 is for Maria.

DISCLAIMER: There is no

guarantee that my translation is 100% correct. Please correct me if I was

wrong.

Author:

Dozeumaru(どぜう丸)

Translator:

Yukkuri Oniisan

Editor:

So-Chintzy

Postwar Arc

Chapter 6: In Which I was Baiting Sea Bream with a Shrimp

but Caught a Shark Instead B

Then, one month pa.s.sed when…

In the Royal Voice Broadcast Orb’s

installation room, I was currently in a meeting with a certain someone who was projected

on the quasi-receiver set. It was a girl wearing a pure white dress that wrapped

around her symmetrical body line; her beautiful golden hair was slack-fluffy waved

in a way that looked just like the Yurufuwa Wave hairstyle[1];

and she was the same age as me. She had the same face contour just like her

imouto[2]

that I had met before, but her large girlish eyes, when blinking, left a

completely different impression.

An outstandingly beautiful girl. To

be honest, I am surrounded by different beauty types - Liscia, Aisha, Juna-san

– so I think I have a rather good eye for this. Even so, just a single glance towards

girl could make me think that she is beautiful. Then, this beautiful girl began

to speak.

『How

do you do, Souma-dono, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Maria.』

She was the Empire’s Holy Maiden,

Grand Chaos Empire’s Empress,  Maria

Euphoria.

「h.e.l.lo

to you too[3],

Maria-san? I am Souma Kazuya.」

『?

What’s with that way of speech?』

「Nothing,

I just wanted to speak like this for some reason.」

Her head side-tilting appearance

was cute…… it was a foul play.

「I am

jubilant for this meeting, Maria-dono, since I had been looking forward to having

a nice and long conversation with you one day.」

『Me

too. Souma-dono’s skill had become renowned even in the Empire.』

「Even

so, my skills…… are all because of the help of my excellent subordinates.」

『You

are so modest. Good retainers are something that are gathered under a wise

ruler.』

This diplomatic formal

conversation continued for a short while. Even without any probing words, I was

probing for Maria’s nature. Her friendly smiling appearance while talking was the

very definition of a pure girl. She was so dazzling, that it made me, who was

trying to probe her like this, feel guilty. However, at the same time, I also had

a thought: if she is a girl who is “only pure”, then she wouldn’t have been

able to govern the huge Empire.

『By

the way, Souma-dono?』

「Yes,

what is it?」

『The

matter about Amidonia, what are you truly planning?』

Maria was slightly closing her

eyes. This alone made her feel more threatening. Even though her lips were

smiling, it could be seen that she was considerably angry…… Even so, well, it

might be inevitable. Since the matter this time, from the Empire’s point of

view, was close to betrayal.

『When

Jeanne reported the negotiations’ result, I was delighted that we could acquire

a reliable ally in the east. However, might this all just be my

misunderstanding?』

「Even

now, we are still Empire’s sworn ally. This might be heard as an excuse, but

the result this time was a situation that was beyond our expectation.」

『So

to say, this is not the Kingdom’s plot?』

「I

wouldn’t deny that I had a little plan. However, I never expected that the

result would be like this. In all honesty, this situation keeps causing me

headaches.」

I said this while scratching my

head and Maria’s anger was lessened.

『Can

I receive a detailed explanation?』

「Certainly.

Let me begin with stating the summary: the Kingdom, at the very end, had been

outwitted by a single girl. Acting with a thorough prediction of the chain of

strives, perhaps the person who obtained the most profit, will only be that

girl……」

◇　◇　◇

Two months ago, at the time of Van’s

return to Amidonia (to be precise, it was one month since the return, this was

the report from Black Cat Squad’s surveillance about Amidonia’s movements).

The Capital Van and its

surrounding regions had been returned by borrowing the Grand Chaos Empire’s authority,

and the first thing that the present Amidonian Duke, Julius, did was to remove

the influences that the Elfrieden Kingdom had left behind. The various changes

that happened under the Kingdom’s reign were eradicated and Van returned to its

previous state. Perhaps, Julius couldn’t endure the lingering scent from the Kingdom’s

reign in the Capital Van, which could only be returned by bowing his head to

the Empire.

For a stable administration, then

the effects of the previous administration need to be cleansed.  This policy itself isn’t wrong. However, everything

has a priority. Naturally, the first thing that needs to be done is to consolidate

the foundation. The succession of authority needs to obtain a proper

guardians.h.i.+p while the previous ruler was still alive.[4]

If they are unable to do so, then they might be scorned as an inexperienced

novice by the retainers. Thus, in a country where the dictators.h.i.+p is strong, this

foundation consolidation is important. However, Gaius met a sudden death and Julius

was unable to do this step. For this reason, he should have concentrated his

entire attention on consolidating his foundation. And yet, Julius put the

removal of Kingdom’s influence as his priority.

First, Julius made a decree to

prohibitt people from watching the Royal Voice Broadcast in all of Amidonia. This

was the consequence of having the Royal Voice Broadcast Orbs in the Kingdom’s

custody. Of course, the stalls, that exists because of the Royal Voice

Broadcast’s viewers gathering, were forcibly demolished (since they knew

Julius’ character well, all the vendors had disappeared, as a result, Julius

could only demolish empty stalls). I wonder how Van’s citizens saw the demolition

of the stalls in the plaza, considering it already functioned as a market for them.

Moreover, just like what I had guessed,

Julius destroyed the bridges on Van’s outskirts that had been made by me and had

been bestowed with my retainers’ names. Well, from a defensive point of view, they

should have only stopped at destroying bridges that lied on the Kingdom’s

attack route to Van, but he destroyed unrelated bridges just because they were 「Things

made by the Kingdom」, which was a foolish move. The interruption of the transport

network was a matter of life or death for the people. For the peddlers and

merchants, roads are a property. Whether Julius knew about it or not, what Machiavelli

had said not to do since it will incur hatred, 「Don’t

reach one’s hands on the citizens’ women and properties」[5], he had already done it.

In addition, he didn’t give any

aid to the citizens, like the emergency food distribution that was performed

under the Kingdom’s reign, and increased control on public moral, he especially

prohibited women from enjoying fas.h.i.+on and prohibited booming art culture that

was widespread in Van……and many others. I heard that the house that had the songstress(Lorelei) drawn on its wall, was torched by the soldiers. With

the freedom that had been given to them now robbed away, the citizens of Van

began to clamor:

『His

Majesty Souma’s time was better.』

『When

we were the Kingdom’s territory, we didn’t have to live under this suffering.』

『Even

though the children finally got their meals...』

『Why doesn’t

Julius-sama treasure his citizens more than a foreign king?』

『I

wonder if His Majesty Souma can occupy Van again.』

Such opinions and grudging stares

were aimed at Van’s castle. Well, amongst their resentful complaints, there was

something that was not Julius’ own fault. In the first place, the Elfrieden

Kingdom and the Amidonia Dukedom differed in population, territory size and economic

conditions. For the Amidonia Dukedom to give out the various aids that the Kingdom

had given out, could be said as unreasonable. However, the common citizens didn’t

understand this point. So in the end, the more Julius tried to erase Elfrieden’s

color on Van, the more its citizens drifted away from him.

◇　◇　◇

Then, what about the regions outside

Van and its surroundings? In this too, it didn’t turn out well. Just like my

statement before, since Gaius’ sudden death prevented the succession of

authority, Julius was disdained by Amidonia’s lords. This ‘disdain’ came in two

forms. The first one was “What’s with the Ducal House, why I have to bow my

head to that neophyte”, the so-called “looking down at the other party” type of

disdain. The other one was, “That inexperienced ruler is not reliable, I will

need to fend for myself.”, the so-called “the other party can’t be counted on”

type of disdain.

In practice, amongst the n.o.bles

and Knights cla.s.s in the Amidonian territory, the latter was the majority. To

begin with, in a feudalistic system, they devoted their loyalty for the compensation

of territories or properties from the ruler. If the ruler didn’t have power to

do so, then the retainers must protect their territory and properties with

their own hands. Their actions will be not for the ruler’s sake, but for their

own.

I had presented Julius with the

words from Machiavelli 『A country that is obtained with hards.h.i.+p is easy to

govern, a country that is obtained without hards.h.i.+p is hard to govern』[6]. Sure enough, Julius, who obtained Van easily by

borrowing the Empire’s authority, suffered hards.h.i.+p.

Although I had mentioned that

Julius had decreed the prohibition of watching the Royal Voice Broadcast, only

Van and the nearby regions abided to it. The other regions were like, 「A decree

from the Duchy Capital has nothing to do with me!」,

and so they kept on watching the Broadcast (by the way, since I had predicted

this, I kept broadcasting entertainment programs to Amidonia).

Since they couldn’t rely on the

central government, each city had been gathering soldiers or mercenaries. Considering

that at this time, the Kingdom was disbanding the Three Dukes’ Army and the

n.o.bles Army and reorganized them into the United Army, what had happened in

Amidonia was the exact opposite of the Kingdom’s situation.[7]

The actions of the regional feudal lords gathering their own soldiers wasn’t

something that Julius could ignore, but if he rebuked them, there was a risk

that the lords would begin to rebel one after another. However, if someone was just

looking at the results, this was a chance to clean out all the pus.

Machiavelli had pointed out that

this was the time to use『cruelty』. Even if they do rebel, then one should destroy every

hostile force and then exercise his authority over the others who were still

undecided in their position. However, Julius didn’t use this move. Perhaps he was

letting the sleeping dogs lie, or perhaps he feared that his depleted numbers of

soldier from the last defeat would be reduced even more? I couldn’t possibly

know his reason for this. However, this lack of policy was the first move

towards the quagmire that he wouldn’t be able to escape from.

One month ago, or one month after

Van’s restoration, the rebellion of the citizens of the Amidonia Northwestern Region

happened.

◇　◇　◇

The impetus for the citizens’ rebellion

originated from the food shortage. It also happened in the Kingdom, but the

food shortage in this region was more severe. Van’s northwestern region had

been the most severely afflicted region, the number of deaths from starvation had

reached the unheard level of several hundreds. The citizens had requested the

feudal lord for a.s.sistance, but the feudal lord rejected this request. Since to

protect the region, they needed to gather soldiers, so the few food that was stored

was for the soldiers’ maintenance. This feudal lord’s reaction was the cause of

why the citizens’ anger exploded and attacked his mansion.

The soldiers gathered to protect