Chapter 29
The city of 『Schneefel』 lay at the western edge of the Empire.
When the rebellion broke out in Dreihart, a rebellion broke out here as well.
Schneefel was not a city with as many slaves as Dreihart.
But its people were worked to the bone by the lord, effectively living as slaves.
The root of the problem was 『usury』.
On the surface, the lord of Schneefel did not violate Imperial law.
However, he used taxes such as tolls, customs duties, and water taxes with remarkable ingenuity to oppress his subjects, ultimately forcing them to borrow money from usurers he supported.
Backed by the lord, the usurers exploited the people with the staggering annual interest rate of 240%.
Even when the people sued the usurer, the case was summarily dismissed through the lord's influence, and the people either disappeared or became slaves.
Then, one day, around the same time as the Dreihart Rebellion, the usurer was assassinated.
Evidence that he had colluded with the lord to oppress the people was scattered throughout the domain, and the people's anger exploded.
They rallied around Noland, known as Schneefel's righteous outlaw, launched a rebellion, killed the lords and nobles, and seized the domain.
With the support of Bloodkin mages, they had prepared a much more formidable defense than Dreihart, and the presence of farms and groundwater within the domain made suppressing them seem far from easy.
The problem was that this was a region where lords who supported the prince had gathered.
The prince could not tolerate a rebellion in a region full of his supporters, much less the fact that the rebels had driven back the force sent to suppress them.
So the prince personally led the Golden Knights to suppress them.
The result was overwhelming.
The Schneefel rebels were several times larger in number than the Dreihart rebels.
Moreover, the righteous outlaw Noland was a strategist with extensive experience facing various knight orders after having once been a bandit, and he had even received the aid of Bloodkin mages.
Although Schneefel's rebels were several times stronger than Dreihart's, they collapsed before the prince and the Golden Knights without lasting even a single day.
Countless rebel corpses lay scattered throughout Schneefel's burning forest.
The righteous outlaw Noland, covered in blood and missing one arm, knelt before the prince and begged for his life.
“S! Save me. I surrender!“
The battle had lasted half a day.
The forest was burning and everything around them was soaked in blood, yet the prince remained completely unsoiled, shining with a golden light.
He pointed his golden sword at Noland and spoke.
”Are you the leader of the rebel army?“
”Th-that is correct!“
The prince looked at Noland.
There was no anger in his gaze.
Instead, it conveyed compassion and pity.
”I investigated the situation on my way here. I understand very well why you started this rebellion. From now on, no one in Schneefel will suffer from usury.“
”Th-thank you!!!“
The prince's merciful words gave Noland hope.
He began to hope that he could live—and that he might see a better tomorrow.
”But a rebellion is still a rebellion. You violated Imperial law and killed a noble who possessed the right to inherit the throne, even if he was only a low-ranking noble.“
Although the prince felt compassion and pity for Noland, he raised his sword as a prince and as one who upheld the law.
He declared to the rebel leader,
“Accordingly, I, Kailos Sword Novarens, the First Prince of the Empire, hereby sentence you to death.“
”S! Save me!! I was wrong!! Please, save me!!“
Noland begged for his life with his one remaining arm.
There was neither a righteous outlaw nor a rebel leader there. There was only a single human being who wanted to live.
Toward that one human being, the prince swung his sword as an executioner.
”May you be born blessed in your next life.“
Shnk-!
The golden sword passed through Noland's neck as swiftly as light, and he died without even realizing that he had been killed.
That was the last mercy the prince could offer him.
* * *
After personally suppressing the rebellion in a single day, the prince ordered the necessary follow-up measures and quickly returned to the Imperial Capital.
Duran, the prince's handsome young, brown-haired secretary, had been waiting by the carriage for the prince to return to the Imperial Capital. When the prince arrived, Duran bowed and greeted his master.
“You have worked hard, Your Highness.“
”Compared to the suffering endured by the people of the Empire, it was nothing.“
The prince boarded the carriage and immediately departed for the Imperial Capital.
While handling the mountain of delayed paperwork inside the carriage, the prince's eye fell on a report.
“The rebellion in Dreihart in the east has been suppressed?“
“Yes. I hear House Kron succeeded in suppressing it on its own.“
Dreihart was another rebellion that had broken out around the same time as Schneefel's.
The prince had negotiated with the princess to grant authority over Dreihart to whichever house suppressed the rebellion, partly to strengthen House Ryan.
However, he could not hide his surprise that House Kron, a third house belonging to neither House Ryan on the prince's side nor House Silla on the princess's side, had suppressed the Dreihart Rebellion on its own.
After slowly reading the report, the prince learned how the suppression of the Dreihart Rebellion had unfolded.
As he read the detailed report—from the failure of the joint suppression campaign and the beginning of the siege to House Kron's solo campaign, its success, and the measures that followed—the prince was impressed by the clean handling of affairs he had not seen in a long time.
”House Ryan should have suppressed it… I apologize for failing to carry out the plan.“
”No. Every beast has a battlefield suited to it; my mistake was failing to assign the right talent to the right place.“
”I am deeply sorry, Your Highness.“
While the prince was suppressing the rebellion, Duran had been handling his duties. He felt truly sorry to the prince, believing that his own incompetence had prevented House Ryan from suppressing the rebellion.
But the prince did not mind.
Dreihart was regrettable, but it was ultimately only a small city in the east, and when he looked at the bigger picture, the person who had engineered this situation was clearly no ordinary individual.
The prince realized that, whether it was the lord or a retainer of House Kron, someone with tremendous talent for devising an overall strategy was behind the house's actions, and he grew curious about House Kron.
”House Kron… I have been hearing its name a lot lately.“
“Yes. I hear that the people and minstrels are cheering for House Kron's unconventional policies and actions.“
Duran had been watching House Kron since the red mage Sharen joined it and it clashed with House Ryan.
House Kron's sudden growth had greatly shaken the balance of power in the south.
It would be good if House Kron became an ally, but it would be troublesome if it joined the princess or another faction, so Duran continued to keep watch over it.
After reviewing all the information on House Kron, the prince set down the report and spoke.
“My sister will not sit idly by.“
”Yes. I hear she has already sent a ‘gift’.“
”She's quick. Just like Lilli.“
The prince had known about his younger sister's schemes for some time.
He also acknowledged that his sister's strategy of using romantic leverage, though undignified, was effective.
Indeed, House Silla under Zeras had nearly joined the prince's faction, but that gift had made it part of the princess's faction.
“What shall we do, Your Highness?“
”…It might be worth going along with my sister's prank this time. We should send someone too.“
For once, the prince decided to humor his sister's scheme.
At the prince's words, Duran asked,
”Understood. Then whom shall we send?“
As the prince pondered, a certain knight came to mind.
Certain that this knight would carry out the task he had in mind in his stead, the prince spoke to Duran.
“We will send that knight. If they share our intentions, it will benefit them, and if they do not, they can handle it themselves.“
“I see… Understood. I will send that knight.“
Once everything was settled, the prince gathered his thoughts.
The game for the throne was drawing closer, and the Bloodkin had begun operating openly.
To unify the chaotic Empire, he needed great power and many powerful allies.
There were countless heroes in the Empire.
They were not all his allies, but neither were they all his enemies.
With even a single ally precious, Calix, who received the people's cheers as the King of Liberation and the Silver Dragon of Kron, seemed like an attractive force to draw to his side.
”Calix Kron… I would like to meet him.“
Hoping that he was as righteous a lord as the report described, the prince looked forward to meeting Calix from inside the carriage.
* * *
After resolving Dreihart's problems, I returned to Kron for the first time in a while.
There were still many problems to resolve, but it was not good for me, the lord, to remain away from my domain for too long, and all the major matters requiring my decision had been settled.
After resting comfortably in my bedroom in Kron and recovering from the journey, I drank a cup of tea in my office and calmly reflected on things.
Have I…already come too far to become incompetent?
I had wanted to become a reasonably beloved, incompetent lord, but honestly, I felt I had already come too far for that.
The Kron domain was growing larger every day through land reclamation, and with Dreihart added to it, I had even gained battle-hardened soldiers, with Zarha as the prime example.
If I remembered correctly, my title in the World Archive had probably already been upgraded from lord to grand lord.
While calmly sipping tea for the first time in a while, I thought it over and made my decision.
It was too late to become incompetent now, and my retainers were far too capable.
If so, the position I needed to take was not that of a beloved, incompetent lord.
From now on, I would become 『the Beloved Ally』, loved by every faction.