Tension was tightening in the palace conference room. The generals sat in silence, not a word passing their lips. Amid the heavy gloom, Queen Henrietta let out a sigh.
"My apologies. We've been had."
Consul Elizabeth shook her head.
"There is no one who needs to apologize. I, too, failed to discern the enemy's true intentions, so……"
An extraordinary scene was unfolding in the conference room. The council table had been split in half. On one side sat the ministers of Bretagne. On the opposite side, where no one was seated, twenty Magic Crystal Orbs projected their images simultaneously. The ministers of the Habsburg Republic appeared as though they were truly present in the room.
Henrietta swallowed something rising from within her chest and muttered.
"Rudolf von Habsburg. Elizabeth, is that man truly still alive?"
"……I honestly can't say. But Barbatos has long been known as a master of dark magic. Manipulating a corpse would be trivially easy for him."
Henrietta sneered.
"Then we've been outmaneuvered by a dead body. Using even the dead as pawns in their schemes when necessary. Truly a fitting trick for that Demon Lord."
The silence in the conference room grew heavier still.
Seated in total were seventeen humans. Both nations pursued meritocracy to the core, and thus the seventeen gathered here represented the most capable individuals in all of humanity. Every last one of them wore a face clouded with gloom.
"Hmph."
Henrietta let out a derisive snort, clearly displeased. She interlocked her fingers and sank deep into her chair.
"The Batavia Republic and the free cities have thrown in with the Demon Lord Army. What are they after?"
"……Some republicans believe that fighting the Demon Lord Army in the first place is nothing more than a deception cooked up by the aristocracy."
Elizabeth spoke carefully.
"They believe that nobles agitate the masses solely to preserve their own status, and that this is the true essence of the war against the Demon Lord Army. They would be convinced that cooperating under a single purpose, transcending status and race, is the truly republican ideal."
"This is Bruno's nightmare."
"Oh."
Elizabeth nodded. On the Bruno Plain, Dantalion had screamed that the crusade was merely the logic of the ruling class. That influence was still very much alive.
Queen Henrietta sneered.
"Hmph. Transcending status and race. Do they not realize that is actually a political rallying cry? Remove discrimination, and humans will find a way to fight over new statuses and new races. Foolish creatures."
"But it is also true that we are in this crisis because of those fools."
Though she did not agree with her friend's perspective, Elizabeth let it pass.
"Public opinion is currently rising among the nobles in their own countries. Even if it is Emperor Rudolf, isn't the very pretext of subjugating the Demon Lord correct? Their true intention, of course, is a wish for the Empire's order to be restored, not for the Republic."
"Why don't you just purge them all?"
"I would like to, but..."
Elizabeth let out a soft sigh. Now that she thought about it, she had been sighing a lot lately. In the past, she hadn't known sighs at all. She had always been brimming with confidence, her face shining with conviction and hope.
It had only been a few years, yet it felt like a distant past, almost impossible to remember. Why was that?
Back then, she had been spring. She had believed without a doubt that the Empire would be reformed. But the Empire had fallen, and a long drought followed. A gloomy sun scorched the earth without a single drop of rain. It was the summer of drought and dust ruled by Dantalion...
"The majority of citizens are sympathetic to the attitude shown by the nobles in Heidelberg. They have no real power yet, but enough influence to sway public opinion. The risk of public opinion deteriorating further is far too great."
That was right. This, too, was because of Dantalion.
The story of rushing to death to save the city was being called 'Heidelberg's Six Citizens' and was wildly popular. It could be said that bards nationwide were enthusiastically singing it. Though there were slight variations, generally the Heidelberg mayor appeared as a despicable and selfish soldier, while the six nobles appeared as noble heroes.
For the past few years, nobles had lived with bated breath. Even the Second Prince Ferdinand had been executed without blood or tears. Common nobles went without saying. The moment even a hint of resistance was shown, they were purged unconditionally.
In other words, this was the first time in years that nobles were receiving widespread favor. In this rare and fleeting period, Dantalion just happened to have organized a great army. And the nobles were sympathetic to Dantalion's movements...
Was it just a coincidence?
'It's too perfectly aligned for a coincidence... and too grand for a single person to have intended it. Neither makes sense.'
But what if it had come to pass exactly as Dantalion intended?
From where did he begin orchestrating this? From the moment he sent the nobles flying from the fortress at Heidelberg? When had he made contact with the Batavia Republic? Before the war started? Or much earlier still, when he entered the Frank civil war under the alias Jean Volé?
Why do the free cities align themselves with Dantalion's plan?
Over the past three or four years, free cities had sprung up across the continent like mushrooms after rain. Elizabeth and the upper echelons of Habsburg had rejoiced, believing their successful revolution had inspired the movement — that republicanism was growing ever stronger.
…But what if, just hypothetically, their revolution was not the cause? What if Dantalion's intentions had been lurking behind every city's independence?
In truth, wasn't the founding of their own republic also, if one traced it back, Dantalion's doing? Had he already been laying out an enormous deception back then? A plan to draw in the Batavia Republic and the free cities, and bring the Frank Empire to its knees?
'Impossible.'
Indeed. Even for Dantalion, the notion that a single individual could move history on that scale was absurd.
He was probably overreacting out of nervousness. And yet, each time he tried to figure out where Dantalion's intentions ended, it felt like sinking into a bottomless swamp…
Elizabeth pressed her fingertips against the corners of her eyes, exhausted.
"…Furthermore, now that the Batavia Republic and the free cities have joined their side, our justification for entering the war as the Habsburg Republic has diminished drastically. If we openly ally with you, we paint every republican state as our enemy."
"Indeed. The republicans believe we're on the same side, after all. I suppose that's another angle."
Henriette laughed, now genuinely amused by the absurdity.
"Elizabeth. This scheme feels less aimed at me and more at you, doesn't it?"
"…."
"It seems the nightmare of Bruno's madwoman fears the Consul more than she fears me. Very well. Being shackled by tedious justifications was never my style anyway."
Henriette drew something from inside her robes and slammed it onto the table with a thud. It was an ornate ring — the ring that only the Emperor of Frank could wear, symbolizing supreme authority and legitimacy over the empire.
That this object was in the hands of Queen Henriette rather than the Emperor laid bare, in the starkest possible terms, who truly ruled the current Frank Empire. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.
"Henriette. How is it that you have…?"
"Last night. The Frank Emperor Henri suddenly fell gravely ill and collapsed in the auxiliary palace."
Henriette smiled.
"Since it's a serious illness of unknown cause, it will take some time before His Majesty the Emperor can return to state affairs."
"......"
Why did the head of state of the Frank Empire have to fall ill at precisely this juncture? There was no need to even ask. The smile that Henriette wore told the Habsburg commanders everything they needed to know, and a chill ran down their spines.
"Had I been bound by principles and hesitated, this would never have ended up in my hands. Great Bretagne would never have had the chance to stretch its reach from the peninsula to the interior. Elizabeth — principles are a stopgap measure deployed by those who cannot prevail through sheer strength."
Henriette rose from her seat. The moment she did, the Bretagne commanders stood in unison. One general stepped forward and draped a red cloak over Henriette's shoulders, while another attendant produced a pipe and offered it to her respectfully.
Henriette drew on the pipe once and exhaled with a soft huff.
"Power. That is absolute. No matter how hard Bruno's Nightmare rolls its skull and piles up justifications and whatnot like a grand temple, the moment we emerge victorious it all crumbles into a sandcastle. They want war? I'll gladly dance along with them."
With those words left hanging, Henriette strode out of the conference room. The Bretagne generals filed out one after another, following their queen. For a long while, the heavy thud of their footsteps reverberated ominously through the air of the chamber.
The Magic Crystal Orb went dark.
Among the Habsburg ministers, it was Kurz who cautiously spoke up.
"Consul, if I may — even though we won't be able to join the war, the Bretagne army is the strongest force on the continent. I'm not certain of the details, but don't they have a Demon Lord named Agares on their side as well? I don't think there's reason to be overly pessimistic."
The generals murmured in agreement and nodded. Knights were fearsome units by nature, but Bretagne's knightly orders were something else entirely. The proportion of cavalry within their army was overwhelmingly higher than in any other nation.
But Elizabeth shook her head.
"You don't understand. Henriette doesn't understand either. Just now, she spoke of starting a war. But that isn't correct. The war began long ago — far, far before any of this......"
Elizabeth sighed.
"This war was originally meant to be fought as a joint campaign between Bretagne and ourselves. That was our strength. And what of the enemy's strength? We assumed it was nothing more than the Demon Lord's army."
"......"
"But now look at what's happened. We ourselves have dropped out of our own forces, while the enemy has gained the Republic and the Free Cities. By the time we noticed, this is where we stand."
The enemy had drained their combat power without spilling a single drop of blood while simultaneously reinforcing their own. If there were levels of strategy — upper, middle, lower — this would without question be called the highest of the high.
"To Henriette, a war is decided through battle. Diplomatic maneuvering and struggles of legitimacy are nothing more than the foundation stones for combat. But the enemy sees things from an entirely different perspective. Battle is merely an extension of war at the end of the day. It's nothing more than the conclusion of a war. ......This is Dantalion's way — that man's way."
Elizabeth clicked her tongue. Her dear friend, that beautiful queen, was deceiving herself. She would think she was throwing herself into the war of her own free will, but that was absolutely not the case. Would she even realize that their very perspectives were fundamentally different……
"A man like that would never leave his victory or defeat to chance. He would have come here with a battle already mapped out in his mind — one he could only win from the very start."
"……."
"My loyal subjects, I am afraid. What has happened once may never happen again, but what has happened twice is bound to recur. Dantalion has already toppled the Habsburg Empire. If he were to bring about the fall of the Frank Empire as well, would there be any human nation left that Dantalion could not destroy?"
The answer was clear. There was none.
To keep that outcome from coming to pass, Elizabeth had to move. Even without joining the main force directly, she could organize countless partisan units to harass the rear of the Demon Lord's army. If they disguised themselves as mercenaries, no one would be any the wiser.
"I will organize partisan units. We will pass through the borderlands of the Habsburg Empire and infiltrate the rear of the Demon Lord's army."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The generals answered in thunderous voices.
Cut their supply lines and disrupt their operations. If the opportunity arose, they could support the Bretagne forces from the flank. That alone would give the Demon Lord's army considerable trouble. Elizabeth was confident she could cling to the enemy like a hunting hound — relentless and unyielding.
The rest was up to Henriette. Elizabeth prayed with all her heart that she would be victorious…….
============================ Afterword ============================
Elizabeth: The nobles are collectively swaying public opinion. Who is the mastermind?
Dantalion: That would be me.
Elizabeth: The Batavia Republic is siding with Rudolf. Who is the mastermind?
Dantalion: Ah, that would be me.
Elizabeth: The Free Cities have thrown their support behind Rudolf's army. Who is the mastermind?
Dantalion: That would be me as well.
Elizabeth: ………….