"I did say that. Like, it'd be nice to have a big Porter you could sleep in—something convenient like that. I did say that, but... exercise some restraint, Damian."
The allied forces continued gathering in Lufence, one after another.
The area they had prepared was originally an empty plaza—or rather, a grassland—but now a large town had sprung up. Many tents lined the area, among them merchants plying their trade and troupes putting on performances.
In one corner, several dozen large Porters built by Damian stood lined up. They were custom orders, using magic ore as a power source to haul massive quantities of cargo. It was true that transportation had become far easier thanks to the Porters.
Damian had a staff far too large for his small frame slung over both shoulders. He yawned as he looked over the largest Porter in particular.
"It wasn't me. Well, I did help with the design. I collaborated with the Automatons on the power source and all that, but it was old man Ratata who came up with the idea."
I turned my gaze toward old man Ratata, who was handing out instructions to his apprentices while holding tools. He gave me a thumbs-up and flashed me a grin.
"A man's romance. A moving fortress just looks so cool."
That was undeniably cool.
—No, that's not the point!
"How much did this cost?! And more importantly, how did you even manage to build something like this within that brutal schedule?"
In response to my question, Damian looked at me with disinterest.
"What's the big deal? I call it a fortress, but it's really just a mobile workshop. Automaton maintenance, weapon maintenance and manufacturing. The only other thing it has is a cannon."
I looked up at the small mobile fortress, and seeing the surrounding soldiers gazing up at it with their mouths agape, I couldn't even bring myself to scold him.
Damian grinned.
"There are rooms for Lael and the others too. They're small, though. Oh, and I can set up a stage so you really stand out. Something like this."
When Damian raised his staff, the mobile fortress slowly began to move. A stage had indeed risen at the front, making it highly visible.
Damian slung his staff back over his shoulder.
"See? Since Lael's fighting style is fundamentally defensive, I think something like this that lets you set up a position right away will really come in handy."
I gazed up at the mobile fortress.
"Setting aside whether it's actually useful, isn't the real issue here the Magic Stone consumption—"
Old Man Ratart cut in with a grin.
"Listen up. See that chimney? That's the engine — you toss Magic Stones in there and it runs on steam power. The costs don't exactly add up, but hey, it's not our money, so I figured we might as well go all out."
"...Wait, who's doing the paying? Isn't that me?! I'm the one with the final obligation to pay, right?!"
Damian and Old Man Ratart both looked away from me. These guys had sacrificed me on the altar of their own romantic vision. Unbelievable. I could never leave these two unsupervised — they had to be dealt with as a package.
Damian and Old Man Ratart spoke in thin, small voices.
"...We did thoroughly fulfill your requests."
"Y-yes. Perfectly fulfilled. We even made sure to build the others properly."
They still didn't get it.
"You haven't fulfilled my requests at all on the financial side! What the hell — I thought maybe it wouldn't be too bad, but in the end it's just this?!"
Racing over in response to my shout were Unit One, Unit Two, and Unit Three. They were clad in more ornate blue armor than before. They wore white garments underneath, and honestly, if someone called them Valkyries, I'd probably just nod in agreement. Their binders also had a more wing-like feel to them compared to last time.
Well, what was inside them was still completely hopeless, though.
"Oh my, so we did go over budget after all. Well, it was to be expected."
When Unit One said that — apparently having known all along — both Unit Two and Unit Three nodded.
If you knew, you should've said something!
"You three are getting punished later, you hear me?"
At that, all three looked at me with relaxed smiles. Unit One stepped forward as their representative and spoke, her expression practically beaming with joy.
"Punishment! We have been... eagerly awaiting that!"
No good. There were truly only hopeless people around me.
Then Vera walked toward me, followed by a handful of crew members carrying rifles and supplies.
"Vera? What are you doing here?"
Vera pointed at the mobile fortress.
"I'm the one funding that thing. Well, it was originally my father's investment, but if it had stayed that way, they would have saddled Rael with a massive debt, so I took care of it on this end. Besides, this is basically a landship, right? In that case, we're the ones best suited to operate it. The power source is more or less the same."
Now that she mentioned it, Vera's ships had been fitted with similar engines. You put Magic Stones into the furnace, and if I recalled correctly, it went something like —
"Huh? You're coming too? No way, it's dangerous —"
"It's dangerous for everyone. Besides, I'm used to rough work. If you take anyone else from my crew, they're all engineers — complete amateurs when it comes to operation."
Old Man Rataar crossed his arms and nodded.
"Aye, that's fair. But I wasn't expecting the young lady to show up."
Vera let out a sigh.
"I'm not handing this off to anyone else. Well, if you think of it as a landship, I am curious about it. More importantly, though — the scale of this operation is enormous."
Vera looked around, clearly stunned by the sheer size of the assembly. But this wasn't even all of it. More forces were gathering at other locations.
My main army, plus two separate corps. Across the three forces, the total would likely exceed two hundred thousand. Between the Four-Nation Alliance and the deserters and bandits they had absorbed, the numbers had ballooned.
"The main force is one hundred thousand. The other two are fifty thousand each. I left one to Baldoa, and the other to Maxim."
"Oh, that's surprising. What about General Broa?"
"He'll command the main force. Honestly, the eastern front is basically just an advance with no real resistance until Central makes a move, so there probably won't be any major battles for a while."
Right — the defeat of House Walt was really paying dividends now. After all, among the Landed Nobility, there was no lord left with forces capable of fighting me head-on.
Even if they tried to band together, the answer to whether the gathered lords could put up a real fight was a resounding "no." Pride and the refusal to serve under someone else played a part, but the real problem was that none of them could muster enough soldiers to contend with two hundred thousand.
Banseim had grown considerably weaker.
"According to Rauno's investigation, they would have switched sides to our camp if anyone with half a brain were in charge over there. Apparently, the royal Banseim family in Central isn't lifting a finger. Even when they sent requests for reinforcements, there wasn't the slightest sign of movement."
Damian, who had been listening, spoke with an air of disinterest.
"Aren't there lords with no judgment to speak of? I mean, there's no shortage of people who figure they can just side with whoever wins in the end, right?"
Vera nodded as well.
"That's right. There are always people who can't read the tide. You'd be surprised how many nobles are like that."
I addressed the two of them.
"Here's the thing — I've been spreading the word that everyone needs to make a clear choice about which side to join. And sure enough, people who heard that rumor came to join us, along with those who fled here. If you go that far and still try to sit on the fence, that's not going to fly, right? Sorry, but your lands and assets get confiscated. Well, there are exceptions if there's a legitimate reason you couldn't move. But there are even houses that joined us despite the head being absent and the heir not even being ten years old."
Compared to those families, what should be said about someone who has their lord present but still tries to play it safe? And there was another troublesome problem.
Just like Banseim had tried when Agrissa was defeated, there were plenty of others angling to pull the same stunt. In other words, people trying to sell themselves to me at an inflated price.
But the time for actually fetching a high price had already passed.
I said with a smile.
"Well, after we win I'm going to need land, so quite a few prominent lords will have to disappear. Even if I divide up Baim and Rulufens, it won't be enough. If I carve up too much, I won't have enough left to stand up to other countries — my authority thins out, and I lose my deterrent power."
Vera looked at me.
"You're actually pretty cold about these things, aren't you? If I only saw how you are normally, you'd seem like someone brimming with compassion."
I recalled events from a little while back.
"A lot happened and we drifted apart. I mean, I do like taking the high road, but both Ceres and I have made more than our share of enemies. I want to deal with all that and make sure things pass smoothly to the next generation."
In any case, I wanted to secure a solid foundation. And for that, there were plenty of lords in the way.
Grandpa Latarta looked over at me.
"Kid, you're quite the villain."
I answered with a smile.
"That's not quite right. Because I'm... the kind of villain whose name goes down in history. Well, if you win, you're a hero."
After all, this was a decisive battle involving the entire continent — so that the exhaustion wouldn't fall solely on Banseim and the rest of them.
——Rauno had infiltrated Banseim.
He was in a town governed by one of Banseim's Landed Nobility, rendezvousing with his subordinates in a tavern. For a place that was supposed to come alive at night, the meager food being served and the sparse number of patrons told Rauno that Banseim was considerably worn down.
One of his subordinates, disguised as a traveling merchant, looked around.
"Everything is so desolate. And the food they serve is dreadful."
On the plate sat a thin soup, a small piece of bread, and a handful of sad little snacks for drinking — and that was all.
The pair posing as traveling performers were elves. Since elves were naturally inclined to wander, traveling wouldn't arouse suspicion, and the two had volunteered upon hearing they could become knights.
"From what our people are saying, it's the same everywhere."
"Though apparently Central is somehow eerie. Even when songs are sung and customers gather, there's not a trace of life in them... and there's no vitality at all. According to this one guy, it's like the fire just went out. It was so unsettling that he fled right away, apparently."
Rauno organized the intelligence he'd gathered.
"No matter which route we take, there are problems. The food shortages are severe. Too many places won't survive the winter."
Worried as Rauno was, he was thinking about something even more troublesome.
(But still — why are these lords, who don't seem to be charmed by Ceres at all, obeying Banseim?)
Some territories had been charmed by Ceres and had declared all-out resistance. But conversely, there were also many territories that, despite Ceres having no involvement whatsoever, refused to submit to Lyle. It felt different from a sense of justice, or the fact that Lyle belonged to House Walt, the same as Ceres.
Rauno addressed his subordinates.
"Our final destination is Darion. That's where we're to regroup."
Seeing his subordinates nod, Rauno found himself worrying about the situation in Darion, his ultimate destination —.
——Clara, who led the transport column, twitched her eyebrows at the scene before her.
Wild potatoes collected from North Baim were being crammed into wooden crates with abandon — tough, tenacious things brimming with life force that multiplied relentlessly if left unattended.
In places where human hands never reached, they could be found in enormous quantities. In managed areas, however, they were disposed of in moderation.
One could say that the reason wild potatoes were hard to obtain in Banseim was precisely because such places were scarce there. However, once the people of North Baim began buying them up, the folks of Baim came flooding in with enormous quantities of wild potatoes they had found.
Once they realized it meant money, the response was typical of the people of Baim—full of that distinct, decisive energy.
And there stood Adele, the one who had declared she would pay for them, looking quite pale as she stared at the mountain of wild potatoes.
"...Yes, there have been problems since last year, but I never imagined there would be this many. What am I going to do? Our finances... We've secured the food, but our finances..."
Beside Adele stood someone who perhaps shouldn't be here at this particular moment—Maxim.
"There is no need to worry, Lady Adele. I, Maxim, shall go and collect the funds from those agreeing to exchange their potatoes."
Adele looked at Maxim.
"I'm counting on you, Maxim. Otherwise, we'll be out of funds completely."
Clara observed the pair.
"I may not be in a position to say this, but with a great battle looming, shouldn't you two step a bit further away from the money? Besides, this mountain of wild potatoes... even if you say they've been processed, they taste rather terrible, don't they?"
Adele and Maxim, who were holding hands, turned toward Clara.
"This was the result of considering how to solve our food problem. Now we can get through the winter. It's vastly better than starving to death."
"Exactly, Lady Clara. This is a great achievement of Lady Adele's."
Clara pushed her glasses up a fraction, letting the lenses catch the light.
"...The soldiers are depressed because they think this will become their food. You did explain it properly to them, right? Morale is rather low, you know."
Adele froze with a "Huh?!" expression on her face and then turned stiffly to look at Maxim. Maxim shook his head.
"I received no instructions whatsoever. In fact, isn't this an issue for the overall command structure, under the jurisdiction of Lord Rael or Lady Lianne?"
Clara looked at Adele.
"I heard that you, Miss Alette, were taking responsibility for the potato matter. Since no notification came through no matter how long we waited, I grew concerned... and it seems you've gone and done it."
Clara smiled at the perspiring Adele.
"That's why they call me Discount Lianne."
Adele then turned and shouted at Clara.
"I'm the one who said it! Do you have any idea how busy I am around here? I've got the management of Baim to deal with, not to mention the rebuilding!"
Maxim jumped in to back Adele up.
"That's right! Lady Adele is very busy!"
However, Clara just scoffed.
"Lianne manages Rufens while keeping an eye on everything at the same time, you know. Well, do your best. Also, could you please pick up on the mood around you already? The final battle is approaching, and you two have been dragging out this awkward relationship this whole time... Just get married already, will you? Baldoa and Alette have already had their ceremony, even if it was a simple one."
Upon hearing that, Maxim began to panic in a fluster. Clara watched Adele, thinking that a big guy carrying on like that was anything but cute.
Adele tilted her head.
"...Who's marrying whom?"
With that one question, she utterly devastated Maxim. Clara, despite being completely taken aback, approached Maxim.
"Do your best. I'm rooting for you. Also, Ludmilla is trying to arrange a bride for you, so watch out for that, would you?"
Maxim had collapsed to his knees on the ground as Clara spoke to him.
"...I'll do my best."
Or so he said.