kscans

Chapter 137 - 8. The Two Imperial Princesses

"Listen to me, Lisabet. You were used by that man."

Maytyl looked at her with pity. Lisabet was bewildered by the sudden accusation.

◇◇

Lisabet was summoned by Maytyl while she was busy scrambling to manage the recovery from the dragon, Baguild’s, attack. She was perplexed by the abrupt summons to a war front.

In terms of straight-line distance, her hometown was the closest part of the Empire to Kurtheite. However, the Imperial army had bypassed it, following the great river. Busy with the restoration of her own domain, all she knew was that there had been a great victory in the east and a difficult struggle in the west.

Even with the struggle in the west, the Empire now occupied both Cazelle and Kurtheite, putting them in a position to launch a pincer attack on the Royal Capital. Rumors among the people suggested the Kingdom’s surrender was near.

Aboard a transport ship laden with military supplies, she crossed the great river where wyverns danced in the sky, accompanied by the Horse-Dragon Knight who had traveled with her. As they passed through two towns under Imperial occupation, she felt a slight sense of relief to see that order was being maintained, though she was still fearful of the Imperial soldiers.

Upon arriving in Kurtheite, the knight who came with her was summoned first. Lisabet retired to the room assigned to her and changed out of her traveling clothes.

"To be summoned so suddenly, and to transport a princess along with cargo. Princess Maytyl is being quite rude, even if she is the architect of a great victory," Ann, the attendant who had been permitted to accompany her, fumed.

"I heard they took Kurtheite with almost no casualties, and it seems that was true," Lisabet said, as if to placate her lady-in-waiting. The Horse-Dragon Knight who had come with them hadn't spoken a single word, but his pained expression had made her uneasy.

However, the morale of the Imperial forces in Kurtheite was high, and the residents, who far outnumbered the Imperial soldiers, were outwardly obedient to the Empire. She hadn't heard of any measures like massacres being taken, so it must have been an overwhelming victory. She thought of the people in her hometown, who had simply endured, unable to defeat the dragon.

According to what she heard, a Mana Charging Furnace had been installed on a nearby mountain, and a system for replenishing the magic in their magic crystals was now in place.

"Indeed, just from the farmland we saw on the way here, it looks like the Empire’s food supply will be secure. It's just…" Ann trailed off.

"I know. If the Kingdom’s abundant food supply flows into the Empire as is…"

The price of food in the Empire would plummet. While that was far better than starving, she worried about what would become of her already poor hometown. Her troubles were endless.

◇◇

"What do you mean, ‘I was used’?"

Lisabet asked Maytyl. Neither of them had touched the tea that had been served as a mere formality.

"I’m talking about that pollen."

"The pollen… you say? But the pollen’s effect was genuine, was it not? Thanks to it…"

Lisabet’s voice sharpened slightly. The man Maytyl was referring to was surely Ricardo Vinder. In her mind, he was a benefactor to her homeland, and she had effectively repaid his goodwill with betrayal. While she had no intention of objecting to national policy as a member of the Imperial family, she still did not wish for conflict between the Empire and the Kingdom.

"Hah. Fine, I’ll explain it properly. First, Dagobard’s crushing defeat."

"A crushing defeat… you say?"

Lisabet was shocked by what Maytyl told her of the war situation in the Kingdom’s west. Dagobard’s army had lost two-thirds of its Horse-Dragons and their riders, and worse, the commander Dagobard himself had been taken prisoner. It was a complete and utter defeat.

This was according to the report from the knight who had escaped, the very man Lisabet had traveled with, who had survived because his Horse-Dragon’s legs had been injured in a pitfall trap inside the gate, forcing him to retreat outside the fort.

"By my calculations, half of the Empire’s Horse-Dragons have been lost. It will take more than five years to recover from this damage. What’s more problematic is the way we were defeated. Dagobard was certainly careless, but even that was a result of the Kingdom’s information manipulation. And…"

Maytyl looked at Lisabet.

"The tool they used for that was you."

The Horse-Dragons had been defeated by that pollen. The Kingdom’s army had reacted the pollen with acid to create a smoke, and the Horse-Dragons that inhaled it collapsed with ease.

"…I was only told that the pollen was effective against dragons, and that is exactly what I reported."

Being treated like a traitor was unbearable. Lisabet protested.

"I’m not doubting you. It’s not something you could have done, after all. Even I wouldn’t have been able to at that point. In any case, the Kingdom did not teach us the best way to use that pollen, which is to turn it into a gas."

"W-Well, isn’t that to be expected, to some extent?"

"Yes, it is. There’s no need to give your best intelligence to a potential enemy nation. But if you’re going to say that, then handing over the pollen in the first place is strange, isn’t it? You couldn’t have trusted him completely either, I’m sure."

"That is… true. Is that not why both Prince Dagobard and you, Princess Maytyl, tested it yourselves? And its effect was exactly as he said. Perhaps the Kingdom did not wish for relations with the Empire to break down."

"That’s probably right. The Empire’s lands would be impossible for the Kingdom to manage even if they did acquire them. But that has nothing to do with the Kingdom being wary of the Empire. How do you explain this?"

Maytyl placed a single sheet of paper in front of Lisabet. Lisabet tilted her head in confusion.

"These are figures that appear to be a record of magic vein activity near the Imperial Capital over the last seventy years. It was apparently presented at a meeting in the Kingdom. The Kingdom predicted that the Empire had the leeway to attack them. You can’t possibly imagine how I felt when I saw this."

It seemed that even Maytyl, who could be called the pinnacle of Imperial sorcery, did not possess data from over forty years ago. Lisabet recalled meeting Ricardo in front of the room belonging to the man named Fulsy, who had measured this. And Alfina had told her. There was a prophecy of a sudden monster flood in the Kingdom’s west. Ricardo was the only one who believed it when no one else did.

"Let’s go back to the pollen. How much knowledge do you think the Kingdom needed to devise this stratagem? They needed to know that the Empire uses Horse-Dragons, and that Horse-Dragons belong to the same biological group as dragons. Above all, they needed a deep knowledge of the pollen’s mechanism of action. It was only very recently that I learned from the autopsy of the dragon, Baguild, that the poison affects the respiratory system. It wasn't just Dagobard. I, too, was played right into the hands of the person who thought of this."

"You’re saying Ricardo-dono deliberately gave the pollen to me?"

"He probably predicted that we would test the pollen and reach that conclusion. He might have even been praying that we had at least as much knowledge of monsters as he assumed we did."

Maytyl’s face twisted into a self-deprecating grimace. Sweat trickled down Lisabet’s brow. Maytyl’s explanation perfectly accounted for the doubts she had felt and the defeat of the Horse-Dragon army that had seemed invincible.

"B-But, that’s just too…"

If that were true, he was nothing short of an intellectual monster. It felt completely unreal. She couldn’t even muster anger at being used.

Lisabet had thought even Alfina’s words were an exaggeration, colored by her "certain feelings" for him. Besides, he had no aptitude for sorcery. None at all.

"Until just the other day, I thought it was only natural that the Kingdom would be destroyed by the Empire. While the Empire was making desperate progress to counter the ever-intensifying monster activity, the Kingdom was sleeping. But seeing this data changed my mind."

"And that is…?"

"Why hasn’t the Empire been destroyed by the Kingdom?"

"!"

Lisabet was speechless. Maytyl smiled. Then, without caring that it was cold, she took her first sip of tea.

"Of course, I’m joking. But it’s true that some things can’t be explained. The discrepancy between this highly advanced knowledge and the actions of the Kingdom as a whole. The Grand Duke in the east believed we were suffering from monster attacks. Why? Anyone who knew about that data would have been suspicious, no matter how incompetent. In the west, Dagobard’s Horse-Dragon army advanced to Bertold without any trouble. Do you understand what this means?"

"…"

"My hypothesis is that this knowledge was shared among only a very small number of people. And so, there is something I want to ask you."

Lisabet found herself pierced by a sharp gaze.

"It’s about the man you mentioned earlier. You’ve spoken with the heir to the Vinder Company, haven’t you? Ricardo, I believe his name was."

"Y-Yes…"

"That company is involved in nearly every one of the Kingdom’s monster countermeasures, including the Horse-Dragons and the Castle-Eating Worms. We also know that the heir is on friendly terms not only with the Oracle Princess, but with Craig as well."

"B-But, he is a mere merchant. The fact that he possesses no magic was confirmed not just by me, but by Count Biral as well. Besides, if he had achieved such great feats, he would be more…"

Remembering the sense of wrongness she herself had felt that a mere merchant was in charge of handling that pollen, the conviction in Lisabet’s words gradually faded.

"Of course, there’s the possibility that the Vinder Company is just a front. Though I can’t imagine who would be hiding behind it."

"The Kingdom has a mage who is revered as a Great Sage…"

"Yes, and I hear there is a young alchemist hailed as a genius. But, it’s strange…"

Maytyl placed two metal objects on the table. One was a simple iron tube, the other was of an extremely complex design.

"Until now, no, even today, this tube is used in the majority of the Kingdom’s carriages. And then it suddenly became this. Biral reported it as an extremely worrying development that would increase the Kingdom’s transport capacity by twenty to thirty percent. That much is true. But the difference between these two is not something so mild."

Maytyl held the tube in her right hand and the complex circular mechanism in her left, spreading her arms wide.

"The technological gap between them was bridged by an innovative application of alchemy. But what about the theoretical, the conceptual gap between them?"

"…"

In front of the silent Lisabet, Maytyl sank into thought, as if possessed.

"No, perhaps all the pieces have just fallen into place. That’s right, the Kingdom’s inconsistency. If you assume that the central figure who planned this series of events has neither magical aptitude nor social power, it all connects, doesn’t it? What if all that was provided was the concept alone? That should be impossible. And yet, it feels like it’s the only possibility."

Maytyl muttered to herself, staring into space.

"In any case, there’s no doubt that the man from the Vinder Company is involved. I want you to tell me everything you know. About that man, and about those around him."

Maytyl’s gaze returned to Lisabet.

"W-What do you intend to do with this person?"

"Acquire him, of course. That man has successfully dealt with every disaster that has struck the Kingdom. It’s impossible that he just happened to come up with the knowledge for each one. Tell me, just how many concepts are packed inside that head? That brain might be more valuable than the Kingdom itself."

Maytyl smiled. Her expression was just like that of a girl her age.