Book 11: Chapter 5: To the High Kingdom
Upon returning from the capital planet to the Banfield family's home planet, the spaceport was filled with a hectic atmosphere.
Rumors are spreading that Banfield House has been put in charge of the border with the High Kingdom, and in fact, the Banfield family has shifted to a wartime regime.
When I came to the port, I was greeted by Klaus, who had been entrusted with the main planet.
"Liam-sama, we are preparing to go into battle as you have instructed."
As I walk without stopping, Klaus follows diagonally behind me.
"Even the Crown Prince is in trouble."
When I call him "Crown Prince" with sarcasm, Klaus does not listen.
"Since it is an imperial order, I cannot refuse, but are you seriously planning to fight against the High Kingdoms?"
The High Kingdoms, who love to fight, sometimes charge forward without regard to the damage to their own army.
Because fighting them always results in more damage, they are an opponent that the nobles of the empire do not want to fight.
Against such an opponent, I had issued an order to fight with all my might.
I would not think of conserving my strength.
I would hit the kingdom with everything I had.
"Are you dissatisfied?"
When I turned to Klaus, he had an indescribable expression on his face.
"We think it best to fortify our important strongholds and avoid fighting the High Kingdom as much as possible."
If we think only of protection, Klaus is right.
But why would I fight for the empire?
Evil lords are the ones who pursue their own interests.
"This is my war. I have decided to give it my all because I have decided it is for my own good. Klaus, you too must give it your all."
"I will do my best."
"My personal opinion is that you should be more greedy."
He is highly competent, but he is not assertive - no, Klaus is not greedy enough to pursue his own interests.
As my right-hand man, he is dependable and perfect, but as a subordinate of an evil lord, he is too serious.
I would say he is a loyal retainer, but I prefer him to be a little more greedy.
I understand that this is an extravagant concern, but I would like him to be a little more playful.
"Now, how would you say the High Kingdoms are?"
"This time it's too much!"
As soon as I returned to the mansion, Brian was furious.
He was upset with Cleo's betrayal towards me, whom I had been supporting up until now, and furthermore, he could not forgive Cleo for taking me on against the High Kingdoms.
"Calm down. You're too old. Getting angry is bad for you."
"How can you be calm about this? This is the part where you should be angry, Liam-sama!"
"Sure, Cleo's orders are infuriating, but this time it works out in my favor."
--I can make contact with the High Kingdoms with impunity.
I have other objectives, but even if I explained them to Brian, he wouldn't understand.
"No point in complaining."
When I said it once and for all, Serena, standing next to Brian, gave me a serious look. It's a gaze that seems to be probing something sharp.
"Liam-sama, you are serious about fighting the High Kingdoms, aren't you?"
"Of course. What's the use of cutting corners?"
"Is it out of loyalty to the Empire?"
"Loyalty?"
I almost erupted at Serena's question.
Serena doesn't understand anything when she asks for loyalty from me here.
"Don't make me laugh. In this world, results are everything. Loyalty is nothing but the result of a man's actions until the day he dies. --If I die in the battle against the High Kingdoms, my posterity will say that I showed loyalty."
I myself don't see any value in loyalty, though.
The only people I believe in are those who died without betraying me.
"So then--"
Serena's gaze turned grim at my answer, but Brian's exclamation interrupted her next words.
"Please don't say such an ominous thing! Liam-sama is the head of House Banfield and the hope of all the people! This family exists only because of you, Liam-sama! And if you die so carelessly - be more aware of that!"
"Oh, oh."
Brian's enthusiasm pushed me to reply vaguely.
His eyes are bloodshot and scary. You, you're going to break a blood vessel and collapse if you get so riled up.
When Brian's sermon ended, I headed to the bedroom and found Rosetta waiting for me.
"Thanks for the hard work."
"It sucks. Brian, that bastard, you've got to be kidding yourself to give me an hour-long sermon. If it wasn't for him, I'd have given him a slap on the face."
I sit down on the bed and Rosetta comes to sit next to me.
"Is the war with the High Kingdoms going well? I've heard that they have the advantage in terms of strength."
Rosetta, looking anxious, squeezed my hand and I squeezed it back with a little strength.
She must be anxious too.
"We are sending out a fleet of six hundred thousand in the first wave."
Not all of them are elite, but we have the numbers.
"I hear that the High Kingdom is a very fearsome country."
" Fearsome? There is no country in this world that is not terrifying. What do you think the empire has done so far? From my point of view, the people of the High Kingdoms seem to me to be a bunch of honest guys who are all about brute force."
The Empire is more frightening than the High Kingdom.
This is because the true enemy that the guide was talking about - that is the emperor of the empire, Baglada.
The guide even warned me that he would become my enemy.
It is not the High Kingdom that I should watch out for, but the empire itself.
Rosetta looks down sadly.
"His Highness Cleo has changed. He used to be so generous."
"He was just playing the nice guy because he was weak."
"Maybe so. -but I'm very sad to see you go. Darling, don't you think anything of it?"
"I don't think so. I didn't believe in them from the beginning."
A truly kind person would not be so cruel to his own sister, who had been by his side protecting him.
"--We leave tomorrow. I'll leave the affairs of the territory to you. Just try to maintain the status quo."
"When will you be back this time?"
"I don't know. More importantly, we won't be able to contact each other for a while. I'll leave Amagi at the mansion, so if you have any problems, you can count on her."
"Okay."
Protecting borders is complicated.
To begin with, the universe is large. It is too big.
Basically, it is the defense of a planet as a base or a space suitable for warp.
There are two types of warp.
Long-distance warp, which uses a special gate to travel from a location suitable for warp, and short-distance warp, which is performed by a spacecraft alone.
The advantage of long-distance warp is that it allows immediate travel to a specific location. However, it cannot be used without a gate, and there are only a limited number of locations suitable for warp.
The advantage of short-distance warp is that it can be performed without the use of gates. However, the distance traveled is short and consumes a large amount of energy from the spacecraft. In addition, if it fails, it can lead to a serious accident.
For now, short-distance warp is the mainstay of war because it stops or destroys the gate.
Enemies are rarely encountered by chance, and large scale wars are fought in camps.
Since it is unknown where the attack will take place, the defenders will deploy their forces in key locations.
The basic rule is that forces should not be dispersed, but if they are not dispersed, they cannot be defended.
Therefore, hundreds of thousands of fleets must be dispersed.
Planet Augur.
I arrived at the planet once guarded by the Banfield family and went to the spaceport for the first time in a long while.
"How is Marion?"
As I recall a junior colleague from my days as a government official, Elysia, who was following me, gives me a dumbfounded look.
"Do you have time to play? Soon the commanders of the dispatched forces will gather. We don't have much time before the meeting."
"I'm curious to see how the planet I took care of is faring. I want to see for myself."
In the past, I used to send Tia and Klaus to do development.
Augur has developed a lot.
While the surrounding habitable planets are all rural, Augur looks urban.
In the sense of my previous life, it would be a small provincial city.
I took a trip to the spaceport on a personal visit to see for myself what Augur was like.
While I was looking around the souvenir store in the spaceport with Elysia, dressed in civilian clothes, a group of military men with bad looks approached us.
The trio ignored me and approached Elysia.
"You are beautiful, sister. Would you like to have tea with us?"
"We are soldiers of the Banfield family, you know."
The three men wearing the military uniforms we use at our house had apparently come to the spaceport on leave.
I don't know which ship they belong to, but they look very frivolous.
Elysia turns away and says firmly.
"I decline."
Then the trio's faces changed to a very unhappy look.
"--Hey, don't get carried away. We're soldiers of the Banfield family. Don't you dare take that kind of crap attitude with us."
"Our lord is the invincible Liam. You have no idea what will happen to you if you antagonize him, do you?"
"You should leave your silent boyfriend alone and come play with us."
He has named the Banfield family and even used my name to dignify it.
-They must be from a recently acquired planet, judging by the atmosphere.
The soldiers from other families were incorporated into the Banfield family when we acquired the planet.
They must have been retrained, but they are not well-trained by any means.
Good to see for myself.
For a moment, I thought about killing them, but I am sure there are many of these people out there. Killing them would not solve anything.
I decided to leave with Elysia.
"Oh, boyfriend? I guess we look like boyfriend and girlfriend, don't we? Oh no, I'm in trouble!"
-I was blushing and embarrassed because he thought I was her boyfriend, for some reason.
The three military men who approached me looked at me sharply and jealously at me.
"You're a real disappointment too, you know that? I have to go now."
"Wait!"
As I was about to walk away from this place with Elysia's hand in mine, the soldiers reached out to me.
"Hey, wait!"
"No--don't fucking touch me."
"What!?"
I glared at them lightly, and the soldiers fell on their butts in fright.
Ignoring them, I tried to take Elysia back to the spaceport, but the soldiers of our Banfield family, with their bad attitude, were conspicuous in the spaceport.
--I don't want to be here.
On the general flagship Argos--a superdreadnought battleship, the general class was participating in a meeting via three-dimensional images.
It was Klaus, as a matter of course, who was in charge.
"The fleet of the Banfield family is six hundred thousand. The fleet sent by the Empire--"
Our knights and generals look unhappy about the fleet sent by the empire.
The generals and knights of the dispatched teams who participated in the conference looked uncomfortable despite the 3D images in the conference room.
That's as it should be.
I was laughing at the number of fleets that had been dispatched.
"How could you have gathered all of them? All of them are old-fashioned and outdated naval vessels and mobile knights. The rest of the regular fleet hasn't even been properly replenished or maintained."
The number of these ships is one hundred and twenty thousand.
The numbers sounded encouraging, but what they contained was problematic.
One of the problems facing the Empire is its overgrown patrol fleet.
They are a fleet that receives a minimum of supply and maintenance, and simply patrols empty space.
They range from a few ships to several hundred.
I suspect that few people in the imperial army know their exact numbers.
Not much different from such a patrol fleet are the frontier nobles.
They are not powerful aristocrats, but rather those who live in the countryside.
They have only a few hundred old-fashioned ships.
Even the exhausted regular fleet was sent here.
"The Empire wants to hit us against the High Kingdoms and wipe us out, don't they?"
When I joked about it, the knights and generals who attended the meeting looked at me bitterly.
However, no one complains bitterly about my words as the chief executive of the place - the commander-in-chief.
There should have been no one.
"Does the duke consider this battle a lost battle?"
A man of mature age, who looks like a very serious general, stares at me.
The man who looks like a man of spirit looks more like a true human being than my men I saw standing in the spaceport.
The man was one of the commanders of a regular fleet that had been dispatched to several locations.
"Do you plan to win?"
When I asked, the other party looked at me seriously.
The nobles, knights, and generals dispatched from the empire also look at me sharply.
"Of course."
I ask the commander, who intends to win, what strategy he has in mind.
"Then tell me what you plan to do to win."
The commander projects a three-dimensional image into the conference room.
"We will distribute our allies among the major planets and withstand the attack of the High Kingdoms."
It seems that a fleet of one million eight hundred thousand is divided into three to protect important bases.
This is the strategy that Klaus had also been thinking about.
I applaud.
"You are right, it's the only way. --If we only protect it."
In the bustling conference room, I declare.
"I'm not going to be on the defensive. --I will attack the High Kingdom."
After the meeting.
After a break, the next meeting was held only for the Banfield family.
Klaus continued to preside.
"The first army is 60,000 ships, including Liam-sama's SS. The second army - 60,000 ships led by me. The third army is 30,000 ships led by Lady Christiana. The fourth army will be 10,000 ships led by Lady Marie for the purpose of playing around. The fifth army will be--"
The first group of vessels sent by the Banfield family this time numbered 600,000.
The formations are announced one after another, but after the fifth army, they are the ones whose names I don't even remember.
A man who can serve as both a knight and a general is very valuable.
Those whose names are called are undoubtedly excellent.
But there are few who make a name for themselves like Klaus, the first knight.
This is the problem.
There are those who are superior to Klaus in terms of ability alone, but it is difficult to say whether they can produce results.
As Klaus was announcing the formation, my junior diciples, who were standing next to me, looked dissatisfied.
They are both dressed in the ceremonial knight's uniform that has been prepared for them, but Fuuka seems unsettled.
"Why do we have to go to the trouble of getting together and making an announcement? On top of that, these clothes aren't even cute."
Rinho seems to have no complaints about her clothes, but she can't seem to forgive herself for being brought to the battlefield.
"I don't want to be separated from my master or Yasuyuki or something. Oh, but I might like this outfit. I look good no matter what I wear, so it's like cosplay, and I like it."
Costumes and all, these guys are treated with the treatment of a colonel in the Banfield family army.
I really wanted to treat them as brigadier generals, but Klaus stopped me from doing so.
The reason I brought these two discontented girls to the battlefield was because my master asked me to do so.
"The master was worried about you playing around, so he asked me to take you with me. You should reflect a little."
The two of them, perhaps remembering what had happened, turned their heads away from me and replied, "We've been doing this for a long time."
"I know that."
"I'm sorry."
Neither of you look remorseful.
"This is part of your training. I'm bringing your mobile knights, too, and I expect you to do well. Just don't disgrace the One-Flash's name."
A fake avid prepared by Cleo and Calvin.
Those three machines have been refurbished for my sister disciples and for Ellen, who is not here.
Fuuka shows interest in the battlefield.
"There are strong guys there, aren't there? I prefer it in the flesh, but I'll give it a go because mobile knights are fun too."
Rinho is keen on spreading the name of One-Flash.
"It's nice, isn't it?. I'll show you that One-Flash isn't just for senior brother and sister."
They are reliable junior sisters.
As I am preparing them for their opportunities to play an active role, the announcement of the formation is over.
Klaus turns to me and asks me to speak.
I get up from my chair, and a spotlight shines on me in the dimly lit room.
"I'm sure there are many of you here who are dissatisfied with our fight against the High Kingdoms. Why would we bother going out there? That's what you're probably thinking."
Many frown at the blatant harassment of the Banfield family only, although it is good that they are sent to defend the border with the High Kingdom.
It is impossible for me - to take such harassment sincerely.
"I'm telling you this because many of you are mistaken. I have no intention of fighting for the Empire in the first place."
As the buzz begins to build, Klaus raises his voice.
"Liam-sama is speaking. Please refrain from private conversation."
I wait for it to quiet down and then I tell the rest of the talk.
"I fight to defend the territory of the empire? I have no interest in such things from the beginning. What I am aiming for is the capital planet of the High Kingdom."
From the very beginning, I was planning to fight against the High Kingdoms without any defense in mind.
It is interesting that even Klaus is surprised when he hears nothing.
It was some time after Liam's departure.
At the Banfield family mansion, Amagi was by Rosetta's side, who was in charge of the affairs of the territory.
Amagi was assisting Rosetta in her political duties, but she noticed a change in Rosetta's physical condition.
"Rosetta-sama, if you are not feeling well, you should rest."
"I'm fine. Darling put me in charge, so I should at least try this--!"
Seeing Rosetta with her hand over her mouth, Amagi immediately rushed over to her and started scanning her.
She then quickly arranges for a doctor.
With her left hand over her ear, she explains the situation to her correspondent.
"Please arrange for a doctor right away. Yes, yes. Yes, it's Rosetta-sama."
As soon as it was determined who the patient was, the door to the office opened and the waiting doctors and nurses entered.
Female knights surrounded Rosetta and immediately went on alert.
As the doctor begins to examine Rosetta, Brian arrives a little later, out of breath.
"Is Lady Rosetta safe!"
Men are not allowed in the building.
Brian is concerned for Rosetta's safety while being interrupted by the female knights.
"Is Rosetta-sama safe? Liam-sama is away, and if anything should happen to Rosetta-sama--"
The doctor then talks to the nurses, ignoring Brian who is fussing.
"That's unusual* in this day and age."
[TL/N: *Theyre saying its unusual, might be because being normally pregnant in their universe isnt much of a thing. In the earliest chapters it was explained that normally, a couple would get their genes/DNA in a machine and artificially birth a child through their technology. Liam was born that way if you guys ever remember in the first volume.]
"Though given Liam-sama's circumstances, perhaps it can't be helped."
Brian tilts his head when he hears the conversation between the doctor and the nurse.
"Why is Liam-sama's name in there?"
Seeing Brian anxious, Amagi stood up and led him out of the room.
As they walked out into the hallway, Rosetta's surroundings became noisy.
Amagi put her left hand over her left ear as she listened to the scene in the hallway.
"--No. I can't reach the master because of the communication problem."
The battlefield creates all kinds of communication problems.
It was, in other words, evidence that the war against the High Kingdom was intensifying.
"It's only been a few months, and already so much! Is Liam-sama, who guards the border, safe?"
If they cannot contact Liam, the general in charge of guarding the border, that means the situation is quite dangerous.
Amagi narrowed her eyes.
"Is the invasion of the High Kingdom more intense than expected? I think we should hasten the departure of the second group."
Brian collapses to his knees.
Not only Rosetta, but even Liam is in danger.
Amagi looks up at the ceiling as Brian winces with sadness.
"I must inform the Master as soon as possible."
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