Genjitsushugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki

Chapter 6: In Which I was Baiting Sea Bream with a Shrimpbut Caught a Shark Instead B

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Translator Corner

Minasan oideyasu. This is Yukkuri demasu!

Another chapter!

You guys didn’t expect that I will do adouble release, right?

Well… Me too…

Please note that in all of the talkingbelow, 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 noguarantee that my translation is 100% correct. Please correct me if I waswrong.

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 Shrimpbut Caught a Shark Instead B

Then, one month pa.s.sed when…

In the Royal Voice Broadcast Orb’sinstallation room, I was currently in a meeting with a certain someone who was projectedon the quasi-receiver set. It was a girl wearing a pure white dress that wrappedaround her symmetrical body line; her beautiful golden hair was slack-fluffy wavedin 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 herimouto[2]that I had met before, but her large girlish eyes, when blinking, left acompletely different impression.

An outstandingly beautiful girl. Tobe 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 towardsgirl could make me think that she is beautiful. Then, this beautiful girl beganto speak.

『Howdo 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,  MariaEuphoria.

「h.e.l.loto 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 appearancewas cute…… it was a foul play.

「I amjubilant for this meeting, Maria-dono, since I had been looking forward to havinga nice and long conversation with you one day.」

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

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

『Youare so modest. Good retainers are something that are gathered under a wiseruler.』

This diplomatic formalconversation continued for a short while. Even without any probing words, I wasprobing for Maria’s nature. Her friendly smiling appearance while talking was thevery definition of a pure girl. She was so dazzling, that it made me, who wastrying to probe her like this, feel guilty. However, at the same time, I also hada thought: if she is a girl who is “only pure”, then she wouldn’t have beenable to govern the huge Empire.

『Bythe way, Souma-dono?』

「Yes,what is it?」

『Thematter about Amidonia, what are you truly planning?』

Maria was slightly closing hereyes. This alone made her feel more threatening. Even though her lips weresmiling, it could be seen that she was considerably angry…… Even so, well, itmight be inevitable. Since the matter this time, from the Empire’s point ofview, was close to betrayal.

『WhenJeanne reported the negotiations’ result, I was delighted that we could acquirea reliable ally in the east. However, might this all just be mymisunderstanding?』

「Evennow, we are still Empire’s sworn ally. This might be heard as an excuse, butthe result this time was a situation that was beyond our expectation.」

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

「Iwouldn’t deny that I had a little plan. However, I never expected that theresult would be like this. In all honesty, this situation keeps causing meheadaches.」

I said this while scratching myhead and Maria’s anger was lessened.

『CanI receive a detailed explanation?』

「Certainly.Let me begin with stating the summary: the Kingdom, at the very end, had beenoutwitted by a single girl. Acting with a thorough prediction of the chain ofstrives, perhaps the person who obtained the most profit, will only be thatgirl……」

　◇　◇　◇

Two months ago, at the time of Van’sreturn to Amidonia (to be precise, it was one month since the return, this wasthe report from Black Cat Squad’s surveillance about Amidonia’s movements).

The Capital Van and itssurrounding 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 removethe influences that the Elfrieden Kingdom had left behind. The various changesthat happened under the Kingdom’s reign were eradicated and Van returned to itsprevious state. Perhaps, Julius couldn’t endure the lingering scent from the Kingdom’sreign in the Capital Van, which could only be returned by bowing his head tothe Empire.

For a stable administration, thenthe effects of the previous administration need to be cleansed.  This policy itself isn’t wrong. However, everythinghas a priority. Naturally, the first thing that needs to be done is to consolidatethe foundation. The succession of authority needs to obtain a properguardianship while the previous ruler was still alive.[4]If they are unable to do so, then they might be scorned as an inexperiencednovice by the retainers. Thus, in a country where the dictatorship is strong, thisfoundation consolidation is important. However, Gaius met a sudden death and Juliuswas unable to do this step. For this reason, he should have concentrated hisentire attention on consolidating his foundation. And yet, Julius put theremoval of Kingdom’s influence as his priority.

First, Julius made a decree toprohibitt people from watching the Royal Voice Broadcast in all of Amidonia. Thiswas the consequence of having the Royal Voice Broadcast Orbs in the Kingdom’scustody. Of course, the stalls, that exists because of the Royal VoiceBroadcast’s viewers gathering, were forcibly demolished (since they knewJulius’ character well, all the vendors had disappeared, as a result, Juliuscould only demolish empty stalls). I wonder how Van’s citizens saw the demolitionof 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 hadbeen bestowed with my retainers’ names. Well, from a defensive point of view, theyshould have only stopped at destroying bridges that lied on the Kingdom’sattack route to Van, but he destroyed unrelated bridges just because they were 「Thingsmade by the Kingdom」, which was a foolish move. The interruption of the transportnetwork was a matter of life or death for the people. For the peddlers andmerchants, roads are a property. Whether Julius knew about it or not, what Machiavellihad said not to do since it will incur hatred, 「Don’treach one’s hands on the citizens’ women and properties」[5], he had already done it.

In addition, he didn’t give anyaid to the citizens, like the emergency food distribution that was performedunder the Kingdom’s reign, and increased control on public moral, he especiallyprohibited women from enjoying fashion and prohibited booming art culture thatwas 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. Withthe freedom that had been given to them now robbed away, the citizens of Vanbegan to clamor:

『HisMajesty Souma’s time was better.』

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

『Eventhough the children finally got their meals...』

『Why doesn’tJulius-sama treasure his citizens more than a foreign king?』

『Iwonder if His Majesty Souma can occupy Van again.』

Such opinions and grudging stareswere aimed at Van’s castle. Well, amongst their resentful complaints, there wassomething that was not Julius’ own fault. In the first place, the ElfriedenKingdom and the Amidonia Dukedom differed in population, territory size and economicconditions. For the Amidonia Dukedom to give out the various aids that the Kingdomhad given out, could be said as unreasonable. However, the common citizens didn’tunderstand this point. So in the end, the more Julius tried to erase Elfrieden’scolor on Van, the more its citizens drifted away from him.

　◇　◇　◇

Then, what about the regions outsideVan and its surroundings? In this too, it didn’t turn out well. Just like mystatement before, since Gaius’ sudden death prevented the succession ofauthority, Julius was disdained by Amidonia’s lords. This ‘disdain’ came in twoforms. The first one was “What’s with the Ducal House, why I have to bow myhead to that neophyte”, the so-called “looking down at the other party” type ofdisdain. The other one was, “That inexperienced ruler is not reliable, I willneed to fend for myself.”, the so-called “the other party can’t be counted on”type of disdain.

In practice, amongst the n.o.blesand Knights cla.s.s in the Amidonian territory, the latter was the majority. Tobegin with, in a feudalistic system, they devoted their loyalty for the compensationof territories or properties from the ruler. If the ruler didn’t have power todo so, then the retainers must protect their territory and properties withtheir own hands. Their actions will be not for the ruler’s sake, but for theirown.

I had presented Julius with thewords from Machiavelli 『A country that is obtained with hardship is easy togovern, a country that is obtained without hardship is hard to govern』[6]. Sure enough, Julius, who obtained Van easily byborrowing the Empire’s authority, suffered hardship.

Although I had mentioned thatJulius had decreed the prohibition of watching the Royal Voice Broadcast, onlyVan and the nearby regions abided to it. The other regions were like, 「A decreefrom the Duchy Capital has nothing to do with me!」,and so they kept on watching the Broadcast (by the way, since I had predictedthis, I kept broadcasting entertainment programs to Amidonia).

Since they couldn’t rely on thecentral government, each city had been gathering soldiers or mercenaries. Consideringthat at this time, the Kingdom was disbanding the Three Dukes’ Army and then.o.bles Army and reorganized them into the United Army, what had happened inAmidonia was the exact opposite of the Kingdom’s situation.[7]The actions of the regional feudal lords gathering their own soldiers wasn’tsomething that Julius could ignore, but if he rebuked them, there was a riskthat the lords would begin to rebel one after another. However, if someone was justlooking at the results, this was a chance to clean out all the pus.

Machiavelli had pointed out thatthis was the time to use『cruelty』. Even if they do rebel, then one should destroy everyhostile force and then exercise his authority over the others who were stillundecided in their position. However, Julius didn’t use this move. Perhaps he wasletting the sleeping dogs lie, or perhaps he feared that his depleted numbers ofsoldier from the last defeat would be reduced even more? I couldn’t possiblyknow his reason for this. However, this lack of policy was the first movetowards the quagmire that he wouldn’t be able to escape from.

One month ago, or one month afterVan’s restoration, the rebellion of the citizens of the Amidonia Northwestern Regionhappened.

　◇　◇　◇

The impetus for the citizens’ rebellionoriginated from the food shortage. It also happened in the Kingdom, but thefood shortage in this region was more severe. Van’s northwestern region hadbeen the most severely afflicted region, the number of deaths from starvation hadreached the unheard level of several hundreds. The citizens had requested thefeudal lord for a.s.sistance, but the feudal lord rejected this request. Since toprotect the region, they needed to gather soldiers, so the few food that was storedwas for the soldiers’ maintenance. This feudal lord’s reaction was the cause ofwhy the citizens’ anger exploded and attacked his mansion.

The soldiers gathered to protectthe feudal lord and the territory fell into a situation where they must opposethe angry citizens. Nevertheless, most of the gathered soldiers had been sc.r.a.pingfor a living, so when they clashed with the fellow angry citizens, they endedup fleeing in all directions. The scuttling feudal lords managed to reach the DukedomCapital Van and appealed to Julius for the suppression of the rebellion. If therebellion dragged on, then the dissatisfaction smoldering in each territorymight flare into a flame.

If he showed his authority andforce at this time, then the n.o.bles would abide to him. With this judgment,Julius led the regular army and personally embarked to suppress the rebellion. Theangry citizens had no means to oppose the regular army, and thus the rebellion wasgradually suppressed. The gruesome spectacle where corpses of citizens scatteredthroughout the rebelling village was widespread in the Northwestern region. AlthoughJulius finally suppressed the Northwestern Region’s Rebellion and put it to anend, he received a yet another astonishing report.

During his absence, the citizensof the Dukedom Capital Van revolted and occupied the city.  Furthermore, they sent messengers to pledgeallegiance to the Elfrieden Kingdom and appealed for reinforcement, which theKingdom immediately accepted and had sent out their army. Van and itssurrounding regions were once again reoccupied.

　◇　◇　◇

『Andthen, you…… reoccupied Van as the result.』

「Thatis correct. Since it was an appeal from the Van’s citizens.」

Maria send a gaze demanding anexplanation, so I calmly nodded. Of course, this Van’s citizens’ uprising happeneddue to the incitement from the Black Cat Squad led by Kagetora. They concealedthemselves in Van’s vicinity, and while observing the progression of events, theymade connections with influential people of the city, and chose the timing tocause Van’s citizens’ to riot at their own discretion.[8]The time between the messenger’s arrival for allegiance and the reoccupationwas so short because I had deployed my army beforehand along the border at theformer Carmine Duchy.

『The 『HumanityDeclaration』 stated that it is prohibited to change the nationalborder by force. Van’s citizens had revolted and taken the city by force. Withthis, if Amidonia’s border change, then there will be a violation of the HumanityDeclaration. If this happens, the Empire, as the leader nation, will need to intervenebetween the countries once again. The Kingdom that moved its army into Van, too,would be dealt with in a severe manner.』

「Canyou?」

Just with this short remark, Mariasuddenly kept her silence.

「The 『HumanityDeclaration』 also recognizes thepeople’s right to self-determination. If the citizens of Van and itssurrounding regions wished to change their allegiance from Amidonia to Elfrieden,then shouldn’t the Empire as the leader of the 『HumanityDeclaration』 recognize themand give them their needed support?」

『……』

Maria might also understand this.That’s why she didn’t say anything else. Seeing Maria behave like this, I letout a small sigh and then informed her in a direct manner.

「Thisis the reason why the Kingdom didn’t partic.i.p.ate in the 『HumanityDeclaration』」.

　◇　◇　◇

《Humanity Anti-Demon Race United Front Declaration. ThreeMain Clauses》

First, the non-recognition of borderchange by force due to conflicts between fellow humanity.

Second, to respect the rights toequality and self-determination of all peoples within every nation.

Third, for countries far from theDemon Lord’s Territory to support the countries near the Territory which serveas a bulwark against the Demon Lord Army.

Ideally, these were a really praiseworthyclauses. However, there existed a contradiction amongst these three clauses thateven the Empire didn’t notice. Certainly, if they abided rigidly to these threeclauses, then these could prevent a cross-border “external” conflict. However, ifit was a problem that happened “internally”, then this treaty would make anymovement impossible.

By applying this treaty to Van’ssituation, if the citizens’ right to self-determination is to be recognized, themember nation of the Humanity Declaration must recognize the current Vancitizens’ right to self-determination. However, then this would mean that therewas a border change in Amidonia, so they mustn’t recognize it. Then, there wasalso the question of whether or not the independent Van would be considered amember of the Humanity Declaration, so this reasoning wouldn’t apply to them. Butif Amidonia suppressed the independence that Van wished for, then Amidonia assignatory member nation could be attacked for not recognizing the citizens’right to self-determination. In other words, the member nations of the HumanityDeclaration would be cornered into a situation where it is impossible to takeany movements.

There might be people who were thinkingwhy the Empire didn’t notice this. However, this was something that actuallyhappened and went unnoticed. After all, it was something that “even the 20thcentury earthlings didn’t notice”.

「Haveyou heard about the fairy tale in Jeanne-dono’s report?」

『……Yes. Certainly, it was a story about people who were afraid of being draggedinto the conflict between two G.o.ds and decided on the rules to avoid the war,right?』

The fairy tale was like this:Once, there was the G.o.d of the East who said 「Theworld ought to be equal」 and the G.o.d of the West who said 「Theworld ought to be free」; it was an age where each country who believed inthese two chief G.o.ds were glaring at each other. The country that lived closeto the boundary of the two G.o.ds’ conflict, created rules together with numerouseastern and western countries so that they wouldn’t be dragged into thatconflict. Those rules were, as follows.

First, let’s stop changing bordersby using force.

Second, let’s give the right to thepeople of each country, so they could decide by themselves.

Third, let’s be friends and have acultural exchange between eastern and western countries.

『Ihad heard this from Jeanne. It truly resembles the 『Humanity Declaration』. I am curious about the end of that fairytale. How didthe world fare after that?』

「Fora while…… this rule functioned neatly. Before long, the G.o.d of the East divided,and so, with the balance of power broken, the state of tension was lifted, and bothfactions had evaded a total war.」

『Thenit…… ended up happily, right?』

「Yes,for a time. However, after that, in a certain multiethnic country, there was acertain ethnic group that raised an armed rebellion for their independence. Ifthe ethnic group’s independence was not recognized, then it would have violatedthe self-determination of people’s rule. However, if they recognized the independence,then they would have approved the border change by force. This contradiction, forcedthe countries, who made the rule, unable to take any action.」

『Justlike the Empire, correct?』

I gave a firm nod to Maria’squestion. You might already noticed it, but this fairy tale was from Earth’shistory. The G.o.d of the East who said 「Mankind ought to be equal」 was『Socialism』. TheG.o.d of the West who said 「Mankind ought to be free」 was『LiberalCapitalism』. The countries who believed in these G.o.ds and glaredat each other was the 『Cold War-era West and East』. Then,the countries that convened to discuss how to evade the war were the partic.i.p.antnations of the 1974 『European Security Conference』(which become the 『Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe(CSCE)』), and the rule that they decided on was the accordcalled the 『Helsinki Final Act』.

The reason why I immediatelyrecognized the contradiction of the 『Humanity Declaration』 wasbecause I knew about the 『Helsinki Final Act』which it resembled. Since, to take a college exam, I also needed to studymodern history. That’s why I knew that this 『HelsinkiFinal Act』, which had given constant results during the Cold Warera, had afterward prevented any actions to be taken for the ethnic conflictbetween the Serbians and the Croatians in the former country of Yugoslavia.

『……Isthis the pitfall of the Humanity Declaration that Souma-dono had mentioned?』

Maria said it with a deploringtone.

「Yes.This pitfall is lethal for a multiracial country like us. That’s why, theKingdom couldn’t partic.i.p.ate in the Humanity Declaration.」

This might sound cruel, but for acountry where a single race dominated, like Amidonia, this was not aparticularly grave problem. If from the start, the other races’ positions were low,or if their population was few, then they wouldn’t have had an opportunity forindependence domestically. On other hand, for a coexisting multiracial country,this was dangerous. If the national administration was strong, then therewouldn’t any problem, but if that administration weakened, then they might considerseparation or independence. Even though the present seems to be alright, no oneknows about tomorrow. Just like what Machiavelli had said: “One must beprepared for a change of fate.”[9]

『Thisis a painfully true statement. Since our Empire is also a multiracial country.』

…… True. Since the Empire isstrong at the present, then it will be alright. At the present condition, wherethe Demon Lord’s Territory came encroaching from the North, there was no placeas safe as the Empire, the strongest country of humanity. It was unthinkablethat there would be races or n.o.bles inside the Empire who wanted to changethis. However, if the administration didn’t go smoothly, or if the threat fromthe Demon Lord’s Territory disappeared, then what will happen to Empire whocarried the Humanity Declaration on her sleeve?

「Maria-dono……」

『Iknow. However, this is not the time to drop the flag.』

When Maria said this, she smiledwith eyes that held a strong determination.

『Evenif this is a path towards ruin, I believe that the Empire is the light of hopefor the people who live today. It is evident that to oppose the Demon Lord’sTerritory, mankind must face it as one. Even if it is only for a moment, theEmpire will raise its flag to unite the people’s hearts.』

「…… Ithink I know the reason why you are called the Holy Maiden.」

I think that this is a naïve and idealisticway of thinking, but these kind of words can attract people. In time, the daywhere the harsh reality hits might come, but even so this girl was determinedto tout her ideals. It looked perilous, but I also wanted to see it. Such wasthe charm that this girl possessed.

(Jeanne-dono also couldn’t stop her worries, I see……)

I recalled the general imouto thatwas more realistic than her sister, but when I did so, I could heard Hakuya’svoice inside my heart, telling me with a vein on his head, 「Isthat something that you can say yourself?」

『Iunderstand the circ.u.mstances led to Van’s reoccupation. I think that for now, itappears that there is no fault on your side. “Even if, for example, you are doingsomething in the back.”」

Maria shook her head and said itwith a composure. Fumu, it seems that she had suspected the Black Cat Squad’s movesin Van’s revolt. Why she didn’t demand an explanation for this might be becausethe Empire also had performed the same intelligence operations. The same with Amidonia.Maria then continued her words.

『But,Souma-dono. There is something that I don’t understand.』

「Aboutwhat?」

『Why didthe Kingdom annex the entire Amidonia Dukedom?』

「……」

☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽

Next Chapter on how A Realist King’s HaremManagement Chronicle!

Now… Who is THAT GIRL that Souma meant? Itwas no other than *drum roll*:

See you next chapter! In Larvyde-san"s site that is!
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