Chapter 50
Rex's deception was more effective than expected.
“Wasn’t Duke supposed to be on the eastern front?”
“Yes. We were informed that he was on the walls even yesterday···”
“Then what is that supposed to be?!”
Upon hearing that Duke had gone down from the eastern front to the southern front, the lords began lying low for a while.
They had joined the war, as the royal family warned, to prevent the empire’s revival, but they were also doing so to survive themselves.
They had never seen Duke’s prowess firsthand, but hearing that he had hacked through counts and barons alike left them unable to avoid shrinking back.
Then, upon hearing that Duke was in the east, the southern lords rejoiced and began invading again.
But lo and behold.
Duke’s figure appeared atop the southern fortress wall.
A hulking knight wearing a helmet and letting his cloak billow.
Seeing this, the lords halted their advance and began blaming one another.
“What kind of scouting was that?!”
“I did it properly! Duke was definitely in the east!”
“Then what’s that?!”
The thought briefly crossed the lords’ minds that this Duke might be a scarecrow.
But none of them had the courage to test it themselves.
They had also heard that some foolish count who had gone to the fortress to test it had died.
As I have emphasized several times, the lords’ reason for waging war was utterly selfish.
To maintain their own power, they had to stop the empire; to raise their power level, they had to seize the Sneria lord’s power level for themselves.
Since they had gathered for selfish reasons rather than some lofty cause, they could not help being extremely sensitive about their own deaths.
But they could not keep lying low forever.
“How long are we supposed to watch that woman strut around just because one knight showed up?”
That was because the Sneria lord was advancing even now to reclaim the territory that had been conquered.
People were naturally more sensitive to what they lost than what they gained.
Even if the land had not originally been theirs, it felt far too wasteful to give up land they had already conquered.
In the end, they dumped this group project on one person.
“You lead the way.”
They had used the lords’ traditional and rational decision-making method: putting the weakest lord at the front.
The baron approached the southern fortress with a miserable expression,
imagining himself being dragged away and chopped in half the moment he got near it.
The baron gradually approached the fortress with death written all over his face.
But the closer he got, the more he noticed that something was strange.
‘Huh? It’s not attacking?’
The baron’s hope that Duke was a scarecrow gradually turned into certainty.
Even within range of the arrows, Duke did not move an inch.
‘Could it be?!’
The baron shouted joyfully to his knights.
“Now’s our chance! That Duke is a fake, and the enemy has been exhausted by this reckless advance! Hurry! Before those pigs behind us notice!”
If he entered the fortress first and seized a power level, he could quickly escape this miserable treatment as the weakest···
That was the baron’s final dream.
Wham.
The greatsword that fell from above the baron’s head turned him into a pool of blood.
The knights’ faces turned pale.
When they looked up at the wall, Duke, who had been silent until just moments ago, was looking down at them with his arms crossed.
“Any knight worth his salt understands what it means to draw a sword, yes?”
The knights dropped their swords and knelt, as though excuses were not worth wasting time on.
After securing their surrender, Duke let out a sigh of relief inside his helmet.
‘That was a close one.’
***
Duke arrived in the south just in the nick of time.
He commended the fake Duke in the south, then went to Hana to pay the visit he had put off.
“Sir, thank you. You came at a good time.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t late. Are you going to head south from here?”
“Yes. I have to take back my people’s homeland. And get revenge too.”
“Hmm.”
Duke studied Hana’s face.
Nearly half a year of war had left dark fatigue visible beneath her eyes.
But what concerned him even more was the power level he sensed from her.
‘She’s still Level 52.’
Ari would soon reach Level 50, and the other company commanders had all reached Tier 4 and were looking toward Tier 5, but Hana’s power level had barely changed since the last time they met.
She had had neither the time to seek out an opportunity to raise her power level nor the chance for such an opportunity to find her.
Of course, over the past several months, she had fought countless lords and even achieved the feat of defeating some of them.
But she did not want to make killing intent her means of enlightenment, so her experience fighting them had not helped her much.
‘At this rate, things will proceed just like the original story.’
But Duke was not worried.
He simply needed to protect her here.
It was a simple matter of preventing the situation from arising before the original story’s tragedy occurred.
As Duke looked at Hana with that resolve, she tilted her head.
“Sir? Is there something you wanted to say?”
“No. Nothing. I was just worried about the eastern front.”
“If that’s all, don’t worry. We’re second to none in intelligence and espionage.”
She smiled faintly and extended her shadow.
Of course, the news that Duke was in the south would reach the other side before long.
But she and her retainers were shadow mages who had protected their domain through intelligence warfare and sowing discord for nearly a century.
Spreading false information, confusing intelligence networks, and controlling public opinion were their specialties.
“So don’t worry. They’ll think that Duke is a user of clones.”
“That’s a relief.”
Of course, Duke already knew this.
It would have been strange if he did not, since Rex’s operation had been devised on the assumption of Hana’s cooperation.
Of course, he had slept through the military meeting and missed it then; he had figured it out from what was written in the quest window at the edge of his vision.
After catching up with Hana, Duke headed to his tent to prepare for the next day.
“We’ll launch our counterattack tomorrow morning.”
Duke rose, organizing in his mind the list of lords he absolutely had to send to the grave to prevent the original story’s tragedy.
At that moment, Hana answered cautiously.
“On that matter, I would prefer it if you refrained from participating in the war whenever possible.”
“?”
Duke’s body froze as he was about to stand.
He could not help wondering whether what he had heard was a hallucination.
‘What? Is she going alone?’
Was this that business about fate that novels mentioned so often?
The sort of thing where, even if a butterfly flapped its wings and caused a typhoon, the predetermined fate of the original story would inevitably come to pass?
An event that had to happen so the protagonist could awaken?
Crack.
‘Who says it will.’
Duke was not a man who believed in fate or heaven.
He had already died by electrocution, failed to reach the afterlife, and been reincarnated in this godforsaken world—how was he supposed to believe in that sort of thing?
More than anything, he hated the very idea of fate forcing misfortune upon his favorite.
So he was going to become the final boss who could flip fate off and tell it to go eat shit···
Before Duke’s thoughts could continue any deeper, Hana brought him back to reality.
“Sir? Did I say something inappropriate?”
“No. But why are you trying to shoulder this war alone?”
“Because I am the lord of this land. If I cannot reclaim the land I lost because I was weak, my people will not trust me.”
Duke looked into her eyes.
She was not letting it show, but she looked like someone driven to the edge.
He did not know whether emotions could really be read through someone’s eyes, but for some reason, he was certain of it when it came to her.
And he could roughly guess why.
She had lost confidence because she had been unable to prove herself.
Only then did Duke realize what he had overlooked.
‘Can a bird in a cage be happy?’
If he wanted to keep her safe, he could simply charge out right now and soak the plains in those lords’ blood.
But if he did that, all that would remain was the fact that she was someone who could not live without relying on others.
Was that really the right thing to do?
Was he locking the queen he adored in a cage?
After thinking it over, Duke opened his mouth.
“I’ll discuss it with my lord.”
Duke immediately left the tent and contacted Rex.
“My lord.”
[What is it, Duke?]
“Something like this happened, but I’m telling you because I don’t think this is something I should decide.”
He said that, but Duke was half-confused himself.
If he overstepped, he would infringe on her autonomy.
But if he simply respected her autonomy and left her to it, and irreversible military damage resulted, she would have to live with the guilt.
Since he had not properly used his brain in centuries, he did not know how far it was right to go from a military standpoint in a situation like this.
Rex sneered from beyond the interface at Duke’s question.
[Oh. So you are a man after all.]
“?”
[This is relationship advice, right? You’re flustered, aren’t you?]
What the hell was this shut-in loser bastard talking about?
How dare Rex of all people tease him?
A vein bulged on Duke’s forehead.
Though he was loyal, that was loyalty toward Bitcoin, not anything close to sincere respect.
In Duke’s mind, Rex was too flawed as a human being to respect on a personal level.
But Duke did not show those feelings outwardly.
“No, my lord.”
[I knew it. Hehe. Romance between heroes···]
Rex sneered as he looked at the screen.
Romance between heroes had also been content in the game Rex used to play.
He would sometimes advise them as their lord and play matchmaker; depending on the outcome, each hero’s dialogue would change or certain skills would unlock.
But more importantly, it was simply fun to watch.
One hero’s romance would be sweet, another’s would be bitter.
Later, after reaching the endgame and having nothing left to do, he collected heroes so he could enjoy watching things like that.
In that sense, Duke’s relationship consultation was something Rex had been looking forward to.
‘Look. It’s been unlocked.’
Wasn’t that proof enough, with Duke’s relationship consultation window unlocked and the advice function becoming available?
Coward Rex went in, and Gamer Rex came out, acting all slick.
[Leave that to me. I’ll come up with a great strategy for you.]
‘What is this? Why am I so pissed off?’
Duke felt the back of his neck grow hot for the first time in a long while.
Rex’s misunderstanding was not what made him feel bad.
How could he dislike being paired with his favorite?
It was just that the man who used to whine under his desk had suddenly regained his confidence and was acting like some expert in romance, which annoyed him.
‘And he can’t even make any progress with Ari.’
As Duke mentally honed a blade, Rex diagnosed Sneria’s situation for him.
[First of all, Lady Sneria is right. This is related to governing authority too.]
The people are loyal to the government that protects them.
Thus, even if Hana won this war, if it left the impression that the outsider Rex had won it, her governing authority would be seriously shaken.
This had been a long-standing truth throughout history, from Earth to this world.
If things went wrong, even if she reclaimed her territory, her domain could effectively become a puppet state of the marquisate.
That was why she could accept Duke only as reinforcements; she had to deliver the decisive blow herself.
[Especially the eastern front. Duke shut it down, so public sentiment there is probably already wavering in all sorts of ways.]
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
[Just help her the way you help Ari.]
“?”
[Teach her, and in case of emergency, just act as a safety net from the rear.]
“Will that really be enough?”
[I think Lady Sneria will agree.]
“···I was asking in a military sense, not for relationship advice.”
[I answered in a military sense too.]
Duke was uncertain, but decided to follow Rex’s words exactly.
‘So doing that won’t cause a military problem, right?’
It presumably meant that Hana would regain her self-esteem and the war would proceed without problems.
Duke let out a sigh of relief and ended the call.
Then he suddenly realized something.
‘Why did I even ask him something this simple?’
This made it look like he had been asking for relationship advice for no reason.
Damn it.
Duke denied it repeatedly and returned to Hana.
‘That insolent Rex. When I get back, I’ll give him one hell of a nasty surprise.’
Burning with vengeful feelings toward the blameless Rex,
.
.
.
Meanwhile, Rex was in his office.
“Hehe···”
There was one thing he had not told Duke.
The people of the east had already gone over to Duke, and even if Hana distinguished herself, it would be difficult to win them back.
But he had not bothered to tell Duke that.
After all, from time immemorial, strengthening one’s governing authority had not simply meant reclaiming territory oneself.
The strongest and most common means of strengthening a noble’s power had always been blood ties···
“Hehe··· Romance content is fun···”
The hardcore gamer who had been famous in the community as a serial voyeur could not change his old habits, even after the world changed.