Chapter 95 (1/2)

95 Meeting 2 After we returned to our room for a while, we heard a knock. It was one of the Earl's attendants who came to us and said, 「The Earl said that he wants you to come to his room」. As expected, it seems that he hesitated to come uninvited to a three-girls room, which is also the Her Highness Princess' room.

Perhaps it's a briefing about our visit to the royal palace.

(Mitsuha) 「Excuse me」

After knocking, we entered the Earl's room.

(Audyst) 「Ooh, sorry for the trouble. I'm thinking of having a briefing for our meeting the day after tomorrow……」

The Earl said so to me after lowering his head to Sabine-chan.

Even though Sabine-chan is a royalty and still has a superior position than the Earl, she is no more than just an observer and a decoration for this diplomatic mission. The Earl is the one who has the authority for this mission, that is 『the king's representative』. However, as he couldn't treat Sabine-chan as a person from the lower position, he turned to talk to me.

My position? Hmm~ probably an adviser or external collaborator? I got a job from the king himself, though.

And the briefing start.

This mission doesn't mean that we need to visit all of the neighboring kingdoms.

Priority is given to the kingdoms that are friendly or neutral and facing the sea. Then the next target will be the kingdoms that seems to be appropriate for this delegation to go, such as friendly inland kingdoms, and kingdoms with large national power. Among those, we will choose the ones that are not too far away.

As one would expect, we won't visit all kingdoms on the continent. If we do that, by the time we returned home, Sabine-chan and Colette-chan will become adults and I will be still……wait, such thing is probably too much, indeed. Well, in conclusion, it will take quite a while. Besides, there's no point in establishing treaties with distant kingdoms in the first place.

In addition, our kingdom's specialists will separately deal with kingdoms, where various problems are involved. As for the neighboring kingdoms, it will be quicker and more effective to show the actual items like the sailing ships and cannons, thus we invited the other kingdoms' representatives to our own kingdom. Therefore, we will only negotiate to the kingdoms that doesn't have those criteria.

……then, why are we in charge of this neighboring kingdom?

First, it's not a lot of trouble because this place is on the same route with the original mission.

Second, they probably have known me quite a bit as they are a neighboring kingdom. Therefore, if I don't visit this kingdom, they will probably think it as 『the patriotic princess shrine maiden-sama』 only pa.s.ses through their kingdom. Hence, it will cause them to lose face.

And finally, the leader of this kingdom is still a young princess.

(Audyst) 「This kingdom, Darison Kingdom's king is bedriddened due to illness, and the one who acts on behalf of the King is the first princess, Remisama. However, as the first prince is still young, there's a possibility that he will be manipulated by the ones who wants to control the kingdom as they like……」

(Mitsuha) 「Aahh, so that's why……」

The queen has already died, and if the king cannot recovered as it is, the kingdom will be in chaos when something went wrong.

The disruption of a friendly kingdom is not what we hoped for in the current situation. There is a possibility that other kingdoms may take advantage of the confusion and it will become a problem for the kingdoms that is next to it as their people will be listless.

(Mitsuha) 「Well then, we could just strengthen the princess' position, right?」