Chapter 27 (1/2)

“What do you think is the primary problem faced by my fief of Meissen?”

As he laid in the thick bedding woven out of feathers and became comfortable playing with his partner’s large fingers, the seventeenth Lord of Meissen, the Duke Ernst Gille Farson Rintz Kleber, asked this question.

“The primary… I am not too sure of this myself, but would it be, money?”

Ernst’s partner, the Dunbertian named Ganche, answered while slightly tilting his head.

“It’s true that the fief of Meissen suffers greatly from financial difficulties. However, I don’t believe that is its most dire problem.”

Ernst grasped the man’s muscular arm and thought over this answer whilst guiding that arm toward the center of his legs.

Those thick fingers promptly inserted inside of him, and as Ernst let out a sweet pant, he opened his mouth to explore his developing thoughts.

“Do you know how many people reside in Meissen?”

“695 people.”

“And the number of militia?”

“It has 157 people.”

This immediate reply came from within the bedding.

“That’s right. The number of militia under the captain’s command amounts to 157 people. The population of Meissen, including the militia, is 695 people. Now then, are these numbers reasonable…”

Ernst felt his small manhood become captured in the hot, sticky heat of the man’s mouth.

“Of the 695 people, about 150 of them have developed Kleber’s disease. Of the remaining 550 people, 100 of them are children who are unable to work, and 80 of them are elderly. Of the remaining 370 people, 157 of them are in the militia.”

“…That means, a third of the adults who aren’t suffering from disease have joined the militia? I feel like that’s a very high number…”

Ganche poked his head out from the covers, his thick fingers still inside of Ernst.

“That’s right. It’s a very high number. Yet, we can’t say that it’s an unnecessarily high one.”

Ernst stroked the man’s brown hair.

“The Kingdom mandates that Meissen must have a militia of 200 troops.”

“That’s… an impossible number, isn’t it?”

“It’s an unjustifiable number when you take Meissen’s circumstances into account. However, by no means has the Kingdom set this demand down for no reason. The justification for it lies in the fact that our neighbor, the Lux Kingdom’s fief of Caprix, has a militia of 300 people.”

The two fingers that Ganche had been massaging him with stopped their movements.

“Ngh… move. It’s not as if those 300 soldiers are attacking right now.”

When Ernst felt those fingers begin moving again, he pressed a kiss to the man’s muscular arm.

“The fief of Caprix has a population of 1200, and the fief of Rintz has a population of 1000. In the past, Meissen once had a population of 1100 people. At that time, the number of patients with Kleber’s disease was 100 people. It had more citizens than it does now, and fewer people afflicted with disease.”

He reached out his slender arm to grasp his partner’s thick manhood. It was already hard and hot enough.

“…Let’s stop talking. Ganche… Put this in me.”

As Ernst arched his back, Ganche sucked on the nubs on his thin chest. Ernst was lifted onto his partner’s muscular stomach, and that beloved part of his breached Ernst’s small rear.

It wasn’t so easy for Ernst to rid himself of the things that the royal palace had imprinted in him for 60 years. He operated by exact times as if an actual clock had been built into his body.

After eating breakfast, Ernst promptly entered his office and shut himself away in there until lunch. He read the documents on Meissen that had been given to him when he had first taken up his post, analyzing them.

After lunch, he walked around the mansion. The enormous estate had just the right amount of space for exercising after lunch. Though he should actually be walking around outside, Ernst still wasn’t used to walking in the snow, so he had quickly given up on that.

When he approached the usual corridor, Ernst looked down to watch the militia’s training. When Ganche noticed him, a smile lit up his face. The surrounding militia troops also became aware of him and sketched out clumsy salutes.

Ernst raised his thin arm, gesturing for them to not pay him any mind and continue.

As he watched them resume their training once more, he felt slightly relieved.

Compared to how helpless they had been when Ernst had first come into office, these troops had become incredibly robust, Ernst thought.

“For how many villages is this estate within a child’s walking distance?”

Ernst asked the head butler.

“For how many…? I think, if the child is about 10 years old, there are around three. If the snow was a little shallower, then that might be possible for about one more.”