Indeed, the Goddess had granted the wish of a lowly creature.
The next day, the Habsburg Republic issued a diplomatic statement.
The document was a listing of dry, colorless words. Sentences that were not merely typical but positively soppy with boredom crawled across the page. Strip away all the unnecessary fat and distill it down to a single voice and a single message, and you could sum it up roughly as: "The Habsburg Empire is a pack of absolute bastards."
How delightfully concise the world could be.
Why did people have to mobilize every conceivable language and ornament to dance around the core point? Presumably they did it deliberately, so that no one else could decipher it. It was a thoroughly rotten habit.
I felt a faint pang of regret and sorrow in a world where natural beauties are valued less than made-up ones, though it seemed I was the only person who felt any real chagrin over this state of affairs. The Republic's statement was accepted by the other nations without much criticism.
Laura, watching the situation unfold, raised a question.
"Surprising. I thought the Republic was isolated among its neighbors."
"That's because we won too overwhelmingly. The neighboring nations certainly wouldn't want us to crush them."
I laid my head on Laura's thigh.
We were lying in bed together, both of us naked. The two of us slept together almost every night. The fact that Laura and I were lovers was already common knowledge. There was nothing left to hide.
"I have no intention of stopping a war from breaking out. But it would be problematic if one side won unilaterally. Well, the neighboring nations' thoughts on that are pretty obvious."
"So the Republic has been playing the fall guy."
Laura ran her fingers slowly through my hair, as though combing it. It made me feel at ease.
"In the best light, you could say they read the room. In the worst light, they volunteered to play the clown. The neighboring nations can't say certain things openly, so the Republic says them on their behalf. The rest of the countries hint at tacit approval through their silence... Mm."
Laura slipped a wild strawberry into my mouth. They were the wild strawberries we had picked intending to stuff them into the heads of the Count of Pavia, the Knight Commander, and the Deputy Commander. We had picked far too many, so a considerable quantity was still left over.
"Well. Something like that."
"In the end, hasn't a tacit diplomatic consensus been reached to stop the Empire? Is our lord all right with that?"
"I don't care."
I smiled faintly.
"In the current situation, there's nothing to be gained from stopping the war on the Republic's behalf. We'll demand that the Sardinian royal family immediately cease all aid to the Republic, and Sardinia is in no position to refuse that demand……."
"Oh. So the Republic gets to play the role of a glorified prop before being discarded."
I rubbed Laura's ribs in affirmation. She let out a squeal. For the record, Laura was ridiculously ticklish. I'd heard that erogenous zones and ticklishness might be connected somehow — it might actually be true.
"You can probably guess how the Republic will play this, Laura."
"Mm. They'll try to gain some kind of advantage in negotiations, no matter how small."
"And how does one gain an advantage in negotiations conducted during a war?"
Laura lowered her chin and fell into thought.
"A victory… The Republic will want to win at least one battle."
I nodded.
"We planted a spy inside the Republic. Consul Elizabeth has been quietly mustering mercenaries with Venetian backing. She started about three months ago."
"Three months ago…? We hadn't even moved our forces at that point!"
Laura's voice was stunned.
"We hadn't even begun the diplomatic offensive yet. How could the Republic have predicted our movements?"
"The Helvetica Confederation approached us seeking subordination, didn't they? A ceasefire with Politunia, negotiations with the Teutons, the Frank Empire already dealt with, Batavia taken off the board. Sardinia was the only remaining option. Simple logic."
Somehow amused, a smile crept onto my face of its own accord.
"Consul Elizabeth possesses the intelligence to see through that simple logic. Heh — she truly never fails to meet expectations. She always keeps things entertaining for me."
"……."
Laura looked down at my face with a somewhat blurry gaze.
"My lord…"
"Hm? What is it?"
"Well, you see…"
Laura let her words trail off. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind.
"……Never mind. It's nothing. Anyway, the Republic can't very well jump into this war so carelessly. If Consul Elizabeth gets involved in the conflict, our Demon Lord army will invade the Republic immediately. It'll become a two-front war."
"That can't be allowed."
Let me stress this once more — the Demon Lord army must never be used.
Mobilizing demons is precisely what Consul Elizabeth is hoping for. If that happens, this war will degenerate into an all-out conflict between demons and humanity. The surrounding nations that have been quietly watching from the sidelines will take up arms at once.
"The Second Chrysanthemum War must remain, above all else, a political struggle fought between human nobles. Consul Elizabeth is saying this: Come and invade us if you dare. We'll be destroyed, but in exchange, the Empire will suffer terribly……"
I let out a soft chuckle.
"Is there any word for a woman so brazen her guts are practically spilling out of her belly? The Republic is a country she built from start to finish with her own blood and sweat. And she handles that country — that precious country — like a mere chess piece on a board. Impressive."
"……"
Laura gazed at me once more with those hazy eyes.
For some reason, she seemed worried about me. No — not worried. Concerned? Heavy-hearted? ……Either way, human emotions can never be neatly pinned down to a single word. Rather than telling her not to worry, I buried my nose against Laura's skin.
I was confident. I had made my preparations. The Habsburg Republic would undoubtedly fall within this year, and at the latest, by next year……
The Habsburg Republic entered the war half a month later.
To be precise, it wasn't exactly entering the war. Several cities, including Venice, had petitioned the Republic with requests to "please protect our cities." The Republic simply accepted and garrisoned troops in Venice.
The number was 15,000 — mercenaries from Anatolia and Politunia. No matter how you looked at it, that was far too many to simply guard a handful of cities. Closing your eyes and doing a bear dance — that's what that proverb was invented for.
What interested me was the heavy involvement of mercenaries from the Anatolia Empire.
Now that the Frank Empire had been blown to bits, only two nations on the entire continent still claimed the title of empire: our Habsburg Empire and the Anatolia Empire across the sea……
Was it because they judged that Habsburg's power must not be allowed to grow any stronger? Or had Elizabeth been stirring things up from behind the scenes? Probably the latter. As expected, Elizabeth was entertaining. She always had at least one move you never saw coming.
"Foreign nations interfering in the war! What is the meaning of this, Marquis!"
Of course, I had personally predicted that the Republic would enter the war, but regardless, I put on a show of fury. I immediately summoned Marquis Rodi and threw a spectacular tantrum.
"It's not an intervention. The Venice Council was merely concerned about contingencies..."
"Not an intervention? Ha. Then I suppose if the Piacenza-Parma Council requested our Imperial Army to station there, that wouldn't count as participating in the war either?"
"That... that is..."
"What kind of excuse is that? Even a five-year-old would laugh at it!"
Marquis Rodi was drenched in sweat.
For this very moment, I had never once raised my voice during all my previous meetings with the Marquis. Even when I was insulted, I had remained calm; even when tensions were high, I had kept my composure. I had been saving it — this one card — for the day the Republic would finally intervene.
"Your country asked us to wait! You asked for time needed for negotiations! Marquis, you said those words yourself. And behind our backs, you were plotting this little scheme? Is this how you repay our respect toward your country?"
"...I have nothing to say, Court Count."
Marquis Rodi was bewildered by my rage — something he was witnessing for the first time. When I screamed at the top of my lungs, he had no idea how to respond.
Poor guy. The Sardinian royal court was hounding him to extract some kind of concession, the Duke of Milan was cursing him for ruining the grand game by stepping in unnecessarily, the Grand Duke of Florence was berating him to stop trying to win through diplomacy and instead prepare for battle...
And then he gets summoned by me and gets thoroughly chewed out for the way he's been handling things. How pitiful.
Right now, Marquis Rodi probably felt so wronged he wanted to bite off his tongue and die. There's no role more back-breaking than being an ambassador. The others cause all the mess, but he has to carry the entire blame.
For the record, I have a hobby of making already pitiable people even more pitiable.
"This was a duel between the Farnese family and your country. Do you understand? It was not a brawl where third parties could wade in and dirty their hands."
"You speak the truth, Court Count..."
"When you lose a duel, you should have the decency to accept your defeat gracefully. Now you can't handle it yourselves, so you want to drag in other nations? Unbelievable... Your country is shameless, has no concept of honor, and has forgotten the basic respect that ought to exist between nations!"
I kicked the table with a crack.
The table toppled over, and the wine bottle sitting on it shattered into pieces. The Marquis flinched. It had been an extraordinarily expensive bottle of wine, but I didn't care. I had placed it there precisely so I could break it.
"Marquis. Take a look at this. Open your eyes wide and see for yourself!"
As I raised my right hand, something dark and gas-like oozed up from my shadow. It quickly took shape. Six Death Knights burst forth and in an instant surrounded both me and the Marquis.
"G-G-Grand Duke. This is..."
"Yes. Death Knights. Each and every one of them possesses strength on par with a second-ranked imperial warrior. If I so desired, I could summon two hundred of them right here, right now."
The Marquis's face went pale. In truth, it was a few short of a hundred.
"They're no different from an elite order of knights two hundred strong. Without anyone noticing, they could infiltrate enemy lines in silence and seize the enemy commander's head. Do you now understand what an extraordinary military force this is?"
"......"
"And yet I never once deployed this extraordinary force against your nation!"
This time I kicked the chair. It grazed right past the Marquis and went flying.
"Why? Was I such an idiot that I couldn't even use a force I could pull out of my pocket at any moment? Was it because I didn't know how useful they would be on the battlefield? No!"
"......"
"Because they are demons — and I believed I had to engage your nation in nothing more than a duel of gentlemen against gentlemen! Because I respected your nation. Because I trusted you as a man, Marquis! I am the Demon Lord, and I did not mobilize the demons!"
The Marquis lowered his head further and further. With just a little more pressure, his nose would have touched the floor.
"And you, your nation, trampled my respect and trust so cruelly underfoot......!"
"I truly... have nothing to say in my defense..."
"Save your empty apologies!"
I moved right up close to the Marquis. I raised my eyes and glared down at him. If the Academy Committee had witnessed this scene, they would have unanimously awarded me this year's Best Actor in a Leading Role.
"If the Republic's army so much as takes a single step from Venice!"
"......"
"The Imperial forces will no longer show even an ounce of gentlemanly conduct! Remember this, Marquis! See for yourself just how wretched the common people you so fondly praised can become!"
The Marquis's face drained of color, overtaken by despair.
"Court Count, please… I am but a lowly servant begging you. Please, at least spare the people—"
"If you don't want to witness such a sight, then keep the Republic's army in check!"
I shoved the Marquis roughly by the shoulder with my hand. It was a dismissal.
"Now get out!"
The Marquis had no choice but to leave once again, looking utterly spent—like a father ground down by his company.
Once I confirmed he was gone, I pulled a fresh bottle of wine from the drawer.
Here's a secret: the glass bottle that had rolled off the table and shattered earlier had contained cheap wine. I had swapped out the contents beforehand.
One should never handle what people drink so carelessly. Say what you will, but I am a man who observes basic courtesy.
"Mm."
I poured the wine into a glass. A lovely aroma rose to my nostrils.
Now Elizabeth was going to suffer quite a bit. She had left the Republic behind and come all the way to Sardinia, so she naturally had to pay the price. Leave home and hardship follows. Isn't that right, Élise?