Since I forgot to post last week, I'm uploading two chapters at once to make up for it.
Today is the second chapter.
Several days after the discussion with the royal family, Rani and Reni arrived at the Ootori household as official emissaries from the South. Well, calling them "official" was a bit of a stretch — they were carrying their usual merchandise along as always, so it felt more like the emissary role was tacked on as an afterthought. But Rani insisted they had something serious to discuss, so we hastily arranged a meeting with Grandpa, Primera, and Amur all in attendance.
"Thank you so much for arranging this meeting. Here is a letter from my lady. Please have a look."
With a tone and demeanor different from usual, Rani produced a single letter she said was from Lady Hana.
I opened the letter from Rani on the spot and read through it. The contents were pretty much what I'd expected. I handed it to Grandpa, who passed it to Primera, and eventually it made its way to Amur.
Since the letter was addressed to me, Grandpa and Primera — who were posing as members of the Ootori household — could reasonably be excused, but there was no real reason to show it to Amur, the young lady of the Southern Viscount household. However, Primera handed it to Amur as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and before anyone could say anything, Amur had read it too. Well, it wasn't like there was anything problematic in it, and it did concern Amur as well, so that was probably Primera's reasoning. Incidentally, Grandpa and Primera just read the letter and nodded, but Amur furrowed her brows slightly.
"At a later date, I would like to deliver a letter of thanks written in the name of the Ootori household. I apologize for the inconvenience, but could we trouble you to stay in the Royal Capital for two to three days? If you haven't arranged lodgings yet, please feel free to use our estate."
"Understood. However, I have prior engagements after this, and my lodgings are already arranged, so I'd just like a room for my sister. As for the letter, I'll stop by three days from now to pick it up, so if you could have it ready by then, I would appreciate it."
"In that case, we'll prepare Reni's usual room. The letter will be ready by noon three days from now, but if something urgent comes up and you're unable to make it, would it be alright to leave it with Reni?"
"Please do."
It seemed Rani had other business after this and was planning to return to the South sooner than Reni, intending to head straight back once she received the letter in three days. That other business was probably gathering recent intelligence from her contacts working in the Royal Capital and bringing it back. As for Reni, he likely had the task of hearing about the zombie horde and other matters from Grandpa and me. And, as usual, he'd be conducting Amur's behavioral surveillance as well.
Once the official business was concluded, I called Jeanne and Aura and asked them to prepare Reni's room. As the two headed off to get things ready, Reni and Amur followed after them. Well, "followed" wasn't quite right — Amur was more or less dragged along by Reni, so perhaps she had intended to stay a bit longer.
"Now then, let's get back to our usual merchant dealings... Here is a list of Tenma's share regarding the yuzu pepper. We were able to secure yuzu this time, so I've brought it. And the azuki beans as well."
Apparently my share this time — serving as a sort of royalty payment — consisted only of yuzu and azuki beans, but in return, Rani had brought several dozen kilograms of each (five bags of over ten kilograms apiece). In monetary terms, it was considerably more than usual, but she'd increased the amount because yuzu pepper had been selling well lately.
There was also a scene where I bought several of the goods Rani had brought along and got an earful from Primera, but as always, it was a satisfying shopping experience.
After the shopping, I answered several of Rani's questions, and we held a meeting about future plans for about an hour. During that time, Amur and Reni never came back, which was a bit worrying — but perhaps they were gathering intelligence through their own channels as well.
"With this, we've secured a fallback in case things go south."
"Yes. However, the fact that they couldn't secure a firm commitment for reinforcements from the South is a real blow to the royal family."
"Well, it can't be helped, I suppose. If a horde of zombies were to come pouring out of the Great Old Forest as well, advancing southward would have to be on the table."
Hana's letter stated that if we were to evacuate from the Royal Capital, the South would take in the Ootori family and their traveling companions.
However, it went on to say that dispatching a rescue force to the Royal Capital at that point would be difficult. Moreover, if the situation was dire enough for us to be fleeing the Royal Capital, the South would likely face heavy blame afterward — so the reception party might only be able to come as far as the border of the Southern Viscount's territory, or perhaps just slightly beyond.
Even though beastmen are fundamentally sturdier and have greater stamina than humans, long-distance travel is still no small feat. The letter also noted that, setting aside my family and Amur, the South had very little obligation to risk their own people to save the King and the others (apparently a different reason was written in the letter to the King, and I was asked not to reveal the contents of this letter).
"Just reading this, it almost looks like the South has written off the kingdom. But they never actually said they won't help. If anything, it feels like they're playing hard to get."
Hana's letter only addressed what would happen if the Royal Capital fell into a crisis — it said nothing about the stages before that.
"The South would naturally want to put on a more impressive show if they're going to do the royal family a favor. It's only natural for them to play hard to get. Alex's letter might have mentioned it, but Hana probably judged it better not to include that in the letter to the Ootori family."
"The Southern Viscount's territory is an autonomous region. Even if the request came from the royal family, they can't just unconditionally say 'yes, we'll send troops' — that wouldn't look good. At the same time, it wouldn't do for the South to appear to be prioritizing the Ootori family over the royal family. The Ootori family does have Amur from the Southern Viscount's household, so saying they'd take them in as a last resort isn't unreasonable at all. Even if the contents of the letter to the Ootori family leaked a bit, it shouldn't be a problem."
It was a thorny situation, but the South wasn't entirely under Hana's Southern Viscount household — it was more of a collective with the Southern Viscount family at its helm. On top of that, the South had enough power to stand on its own as a nation if it came to the worst.
If Hana were judged to be unreliable, the figurehead could be replaced, and the South might well choose the path of independence.
For those reasons, it wouldn't look good for Hana to appear too submissive. The royal family, knowing that relations with the South could sour, shouldn't be able to harshly criticize them just for refusing once.
However, Hana wanted to avoid being perceived as disregarding the royal family at this juncture, which might be why that part was left out of the letter addressed to me.
"So the idea is to play hard to get the first time, then agree on the second request?"
"And have Alex bow his head while we're at it. If anything, I could even demand that Ernest bow as well... Now that would be truly entertaining!"
"I think that might be going a bit too far, Grandpa..."
Even Primera looked somewhat taken aback by Grandpa's usual mischief. If I'd been the only one within earshot, I would have definitely just laughed it off.
"But you know, Grandpa stepping in between the royal family and the South might actually be a good idea. While you're fooling around with Ernest like always, you could say something like 'I'll mediate between you and the South, so you owe me one!' and then frame it as though the alliance between the Southern Viscount family and the royal family came about through that. It might actually smooth things over pretty nicely, don't you think?"
Not to toot my own horn, but both Grandpa and I are quite popular in the South, so if either of us stepped in as a middleman, plenty of Southerners would probably go along with it without much fuss.
However, if I were the one to act, it would become yet another major achievement for the Ootori family. I wanted to leverage Grandpa and Ernest's long-standing bond to create the impression that the royal family and the Southern Viscount household had been brought together through their personal connection.
That way, if it came time to discuss rewards, it would be easier to ask that they be given to Grandpa personally.
"Hmm… That does sound rather interesting. More importantly, I might end up being the key figure behind something that's almost guaranteed to succeed. I could even expect rewards from Ernest and Alex. Not a bad deal at all. In that case, I should go see him right away!"
And with that, Grandpa declared he needed to "prepare," then took off running back to his room.
"Hana-san might have actually wanted Grandpa or me to act as a go-between, huh."
"That may well be the case… Rather, I'm almost certain of it. Among the Southern Viscount household's close acquaintances, the ones with the most influence over the royal family are Tenma-san and your grandfather. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that having either of them step in wouldn't result in anything bad for the South."
"Tenma-sama! Merlin-sama just flew out through the hallway window!"
A few minutes after Grandpa bolted, Aura came rushing in with an urgent look on her face while I was talking with Primera. Apparently, Grandpa hadn't used the front door—he'd jumped straight out of the hallway window. Startled by the sight, Aura had come to report what happened, but when I told her that Grandpa had gone to visit Ernest-sama, she said, "Oh, is that all? Just his usual thing," and left with a look of understanding.
"I'm used to it by now, but even if it's normal for the Ootori family, jumping out of a second-floor window to go somewhere is, by any reasonable standard, extremely abnormal. Please try to be more careful around children."
"Yes… I'll see what I can do…"
Primera didn't accept "see what I can do" and flatly told me to absolutely stop doing it, but honestly, I don't think that's possible. Well, there was no way I could say that out loud, so I just nodded quietly… But it seemed Primera had already seen through the fact that I had no intention of keeping that promise, and she pressed me on it several more times.
Incidentally, Grandpa came back about an hour after his departure. According to him, his proposal had been exactly what the royal family needed, so they immediately made him their point of contact and began negotiations with the South. The rewards were to be a large quantity of expensive and rare liquor—a deal that was very much like Ernest-sama, who knew Grandpa's tastes all too well. They'd even planned it so Grandpa would be thoroughly worked.
"You're lending them your name, so they ought to handle everything else themselves…"
"Well, even if it's just in name, if Grandpa is going to be the point of contact with the South, he needs to know what's being discussed and what goes into the letters. And above all, Grandpa himself needs to write a letter to Hana-san, doesn't he? Trying to take all the easy, profitable parts for yourself is just too shameless."
"True. For the royal family, all they'd need to do is wait until the next round of negotiations."
"Ernest told me the same thing Primera just did. He said that even without borrowing my name, the deal would've been wrapped up within a month anyway."
Since it was essentially a fixed race from the start, it was a foregone conclusion that an agreement with the South would eventually be reached. Even with Grandpa stepping in, the difference would probably only be reducing one month to half a month at most.
However, the fact that the royal family deliberately accepted Grandpa's scheme must mean they placed that much importance on even a half-month difference. Otherwise, there was no way Caesar-sama, Zayne-sama, and Ernest himself would have gone along with it—even setting the King aside.
Just as that matter was nearly settled and they were discussing future plans with the King and the others, Grandpa apparently fled back here, fed up with Ernest's grumbling. Though from what I heard, it sounded less like grumbling and more like complaints about Grandpa's behavior… And even if Ernest had quietly attached conditions afterward, the blame would ultimately fall on Grandpa for not being there to see it through.
"But even if they shortened the timeline, if the royal family writes to the Southern Viscount household right away, it wouldn't arrive for about a week, right? Then assuming the reply takes the same amount of time, and after that the South receives a request for reinforcements—they'd need time to assemble troops, prepare weapons and supplies. Military movement takes time… Even optimistically, it'd probably take around two months."
"There is the possibility of sending a small, fast-moving advance unit, but if a full-scale battle breaks out before the main army arrives, they could end up absorbed into another noble's forces and used as expendable pawns. So even if they split their numbers to send some to the Royal Capital, they'd need at least enough soldiers to operate independently as the Southern Viscount's Army."
So far, there hadn't been any reports of movement from the zombie hordes, and efforts were focused on strengthening the military and fortifications. But if this stalemate continued, there was a possibility that those eager to rescue the border lords and invade the Empire would push for deploying troops all the way to the Haust Margraviate. In that case, it was unclear how many nobles would commit forces, but the Southern Viscount household would certainly refuse. After all, the enemy wasn't limited to zombies coming from the Empire's direction alone.
"As for the zombie hordes, we can't make any moves since we don't know where they're based. Besides, the Kingdom has to deal with the Reformist Faction problem too, so we can't afford to leave ourselves wide open... At the very least, things would change if we could just figure out what our enemy is and where they are."
"If we advance our troops all the way to the Margraviate's territory, we'd have to worry about the Royal Capital's defenses too. We'd be thinning our own numbers, the facilities out there are limited, and to top it off, we'd have people who might turn on us at any moment. Attacking would be a poor strategy, wouldn't it?"
"But at the same time, if we just sit and wait near the Royal Capital, discontent will only keep building... This might be the most difficult war in the Kingdom's history."
"If there were a strategy that could change the situation... One option might be to somehow pull back the armies that are surrounded near the border to the Royal Capital, reorganize our forces, and then lure the zombie hordes into the Margraviate to strike them there."
"That's impossible."
"A desperate last resort, no doubt."
Duke Sanga and Marquis Samons might choose to retreat, but Margrave Haust would almost certainly remain. To do otherwise would mean abandoning the Margraviate and its people.
If there were a way to evacuate every last civilian from the Margraviate, the Margrave might agree—but that was close to impossible... no, it flat-out was impossible. And if they abandoned the Margraviate like that, even if the Kingdom won the war, the royal family would be finished.
"Besides, the military seems to believe that it's precisely because the border lords are still holding their positions near the border that the zombie hordes have been heading straight for the Royal Capital."
No matter how much larger the zombie hordes were than the Kingdom's army, my grandfather and I both had the impression that in terms of individual average strength, the Kingdom's army had the advantage. We'd reported this to the military as one of the few pieces of intelligence we had on the zombies.
From all of this, the conclusion was that the zombie hordes were taking the most direct route to the Royal Capital in order to leverage their greatest advantage—their numbers.
"In terms of movement speed, the Kingdom should have the advantage. So the zombies might be thinking that if they reduce their numbers too much, they'll risk being picked off one by one. Also, if they spread their horde out too much, the Duke's army and the Margraviate's forces they'd managed to contain could break free more easily. The zombie horde could end up being attacked from behind, you know."
In truth, it was unclear whether the Lich presumably leading the zombie hordes was actually thinking that far ahead. But with Duke Sanga and the others still holding their ground, the zombie hordes had been heading straight for the Royal Capital, so the military believed that meeting them near the Royal Capital would result in the fewest casualties, both in lives and economically.
"If we're going to meet them at the Royal Capital, will the Southern Viscount's army end up being treated as a mobile strike force? Given their concerns about coordinating with the Royal Capital's knights..."
"That would probably be the safest approach. After all, the Southern soldiers and the noble knights fight differently, so keeping them separate from the start would be more efficient and lead to fewer disputes. The beastfolk from the South prefer individual combat prowess over coordinated tactics, after all."
"If that's the case, then Tenma-san and Grandfather might end up fighting alongside the Southern Viscount's army more often."
That felt like they were saying our fighting style was more brute-force oriented, but... the two of us unleashing magic while the Southern soldiers kicked down enemy lines and pushed the front forward by sheer force... it was actually a pretty decent tactic.
"That might happen, so we should probably sit down and discuss it with Hana-san at some point."
"Well, for the Southern Viscount's army too, they'd rather rampage around with us than be stuck side by side with some stuffy noble."
A mobile strike force wouldn't be able to dig trenches easily, but since they had Golems, they could build walls even while on the move.
"A guerrilla force using the Ototori family and the Southern Viscount's army's 'mobile fortress'... no, an assault force, you mean? If there's no Lich, we could push straight into Imperial territory."
As for supplies, I've got a ton of Magic Bags and Dimension Bags on hand, so unless the enemy has outliers like a Lich or enemies with long-range attacks, we should be able to reach the Border Count's domain without much trouble—even if pushing into Imperial territory itself is another matter entirely.
"Well, I think we could pull it off, but the Lich is the biggest problem. If the Lich weren't there, this whole thing wouldn't have snowballed into such a huge issue in the first place."
The four-armed monster is also a threat besides the Lich, but we've already figured out its weaknesses, so we should be able to come up with some countermeasures. Even setting that aside, unlike the Lich, it's the kind of thing a few knights can handle if they team up.
"So because of a single Lich, the Kingdom has been backed into a corner like this."
"On the flip side, you could say it goes to show just how extraordinary the combat power of Tenma-san and Merlin-sama—the Ototori family—really is."
The fact that Grandpa and I, just the two of us, can handle the monsters pushing the Kingdom to its limits means, exactly as Primera said, the Ototori family's fighting strength is arguably the greatest in the entire Kingdom.
"If we manage to win this safely, then next time..."
"...we'll"
"...have to"
"...be careful"
"...about"
"..."
"...that side of things."
"While Tenma and I are around, things will be fine, but I do worry about what comes after."
While I'm alive, I myself would serve as a deterrent, so things should be manageable—but who knows what happens after that. For all we know, by Tida's next generation, the Ototori family might be judged a threat to the Kingdom.
"Our approach to dealing with nobles—both mine and Tenma's—isn't exactly reliable, so we'll need to make sure we educate our grandchildren properly."
Primera might end up being the one to handle this, but when the time comes, it'd be better to swallow our pride and ask the King, Maria, or even Duke Sanga for guidance.
When I relayed this to the two of them, both Grandpa and Primera agreed—but right after that,
"In that case, before we worry about the children, Tenma-san and Grandpa, you two need to at least learn the basics—even if it's just the bare minimum."
And just like that, she said it with a smile on her face. She was probably worried that our attitude toward the King and the others would have a negative influence on the children. Well, I couldn't exactly deny it, and more importantly, smiling Primera was terrifying, so Grandpa and I nodded obediently without a single word of objection.
"Um... would it be alright if we took up a little of your time?"
While Grandpa and I were being cowed by Primera's aura, Leny and Amour peered in through the slightly open gap in the door.
"What's wrong, Leny?"
"Something happen?"
Almost simultaneously, Grandpa and I called out to Leny as if escaping from Primera's pressure. Seeing us like that, Primera seemed to lose heart—the pressure she'd been giving off just moments ago had completely vanished.
"I happened to overhear part of the conversation, and I was wondering—if the Ootori household and the Southern Viscount's household were to fight together, would it be possible to lend us a corner of the garden to use as a base for the viscount's household?"
Apparently, the Southern Viscount's household did have a base of operations in the Royal Capital, but they were few in number and each one was only large enough for one or two people at most, making them unsuitable for sustained activity in the capital.
"That's perfectly fine. When the time comes, having a way to communicate with the South would be a help to us as well."
After checking with Grandpa and Primera, I decided to allow the Southern Viscount's household to set up a temporary base of operations in the Ootori family's garden. The space I offered was the rest room for noble retainers that we'd had built previously, and it had been renovated considerably since then—it could now be used for overnight stays without any issues.
However, while I'd granted permission for the use of the space, this had apparently been decided by Leny on her own initiative. She would consult with Rani first, then send a letter to Hana, and the final decision on whether to officially rent the space would depend on her reply.
"The Southern household hasn't had much involvement with the Royal Capital, so they've been struggling to find a suitable location... Well, the Ootori household was their top candidate to begin with."
She spoke as though it had just occurred to her, but it seemed they'd originally intended to rent part of the Ootori estate as their base from the start. Well, considering that our household had already hosted top-ranking viscounts besides Viscount Robot on numerous occasions, they'd probably figured the chances of being turned down were low before making the request.
"Oh! Once it's officially decided, we'll make sure to provide proper thanks, and the intelligence agents staying here will be limited to those we particularly trust, so please rest assured!"
She also mentioned wanting to borrow the leftover bathwater so as not to be a nuisance to the Ootori household.