That autumn, they went hungry.
It was the season when golden wheat should have rippled across the fields. Instead the farmland lay black and barren.……Along the market streets the corpses of the sickened and the starved sprawled everywhere.
One dutiful son labored hard to dig a grave to bury his father's body. The following week, that man was a corpse himself. The plague had passed to him from the body. Meanwhile, those who abandoned their families and fled to save their own skins survived.
The people who stayed loyal to family and neighbor were the first to fall. The more a city overflowed with love of neighbor and love of one's fellow citizens, the more freely the plague ran rampant. In the places where ethics ran thin, people clung to their lives and fled to this side of the continent, and to that. Vice became virtue, and survival became a vulgar joke.
There came an absolute shortage of hands. The grain was never properly cultivated, and it withered before it could even grow. On the heels of the plague came a great famine.……Faced with this unprecedented catastrophe, the sovereigns of the human world were thrown into confusion.
That the plague had killed off the peasants in droves, that much they understood. That the labor force had dwindled, that too they understood. But had the number of mouths to feed not shrunk by just as much? Feeding ten mouths versus feeding three. Which was the easier task was plain as day. Why, then, were the starved springing up in droves across the entire continent?
The problem lay with the sovereigns themselves.
At the time the Crescent Alliance army invaded, the sovereigns of each nation, in order to recruit conscripts effectively, made the following declaration.
─ The black herb will be distributed to the army as a priority.
─ If you want the miracle cure, volunteer and become a soldier!
The logic was that since soldiers fought the Demon Lord for the sake of humanity, a reward naturally had to follow. Perhaps there was no flaw in the logic itself. But amid a situation where people were sickening and dying overnight, the sovereigns failed entirely to calculate what enormous ripples such a declaration would set in motion.
"The supplies have failed to arrive again today!"
Princess Elisabeth von Habsburg struck the table, worked into a fury.
"Your side pledged to support my army. This is no different from a violation of our international cooperation!"
"My apologies, Your Highness."
The ambassador of the Anatolian Empire broke into a cold sweat.
"If you would grant us just three more days' grace……"
"Last time it was four days, the time before that a week. Today it is three days again? Ha. You may as well say you will deliver the supplies once the war is over."
It was not the Habsburg imperial army alone. This same scene was being played out across every camp of the allied human army.
The war with the Crescent Alliance had broken out in earnest in late spring. Even if the war dragged on somewhat, they could easily hold out if they counted on the autumn harvest. It was on this calculation that each nation had drawn up its supply plans. But compared to what they had reckoned, the actual harvest was absurdly small.
The reason was that the countryside was all but stripped of manpower.
The population had already shrunk from the plague, and on top of that even the able-bodied laborers who remained had enlisted in the army to receive their ration of black herb. What was left in the countryside was mostly feeble old folk and women. Compared to the previous year the harvest was halved—no, in more than a few places it had fallen to a mere twenty percent.
The wise sovereigns realized they had fallen into a vicious cycle.
To stand against the Crescent Alliance, an army was needed. To maintain an army, manpower had to be drawn from the countryside. Draw manpower from the countryside, and the harvest fell. When the harvest fell, supplies dwindled, and in the end the army could no longer be maintained……
After sending the ambassador away, Princess Elisabeth clutched at her hair. Her beautiful silver hair was brittle now, unlike before.
"This cannot go on. The Crescent Alliance is not the problem. At this rate the very foundation of the nation will collapse……!"
She muttered anxiously.
Lately the days when the princess sank into worry through the whole night had grown many. The battles with the Crescent Alliance, the supply problem, the political goings-on in the capital, the stirrings of rebellion from the Second Prince's faction—the causes for worry were countless. But the true reason was the nightmares.
Whenever she fell asleep, without fail her little brother appeared in her dreams. His eyes were gouged out, and from the empty sockets tears of blood flowed endlessly. Screaming, her brother repeated over and over, 'Sister, I can't see, sister, help me.'
Flustered, she searches the ground for her brother's fallen eyes. But the earth is already drowned in tears of blood. She cannot tell where the eyes are. As she claws desperately at the ground searching for them, before she knows it her two hands, her two arms, her whole body are soaked and dripping with blood.
At last she finds the eyes, and when she looks toward where her brother is, her brother has already drowned in the sea of blood……a hideous nightmare.
"Your Highness. The Queen of Bretagne has come to call."
The guard spoke from outside the tent. The princess answered, secretly gladdened.
"Ah. Tell her to come in at once."
"There's no particular need to tell me. I've already heard."
Drawing back the tent's curtain, a woman entered. Hair red as blood swayed. Henrietta de Bretagne. The heroine who ruled the Kingdom of Bretagne.
"You look terribly tired. Have you slept?"
"No……it is no time for sleeping."
The princess of the Habsburg Empire and the queen of the Kingdom of Bretagne.
The two had become friends in this war. A hero had recognized a hero. Had human power been overwhelming on the continent, the two heroes would surely have contended for supremacy against each other.
But now, however kindly one put it, humanity was in a poor state. Troubles within and without—within, the plague festered inward; without, the Crescent Alliance invaded. And now the ill fortune of a great famine had piled on top of it all.
—Perhaps in this very war with the Crescent Alliance, humanity might be destroyed.
The two heroes arrived at this despairing conclusion. And they rejoiced at the fact that there existed a comrade who thought exactly as they did. As an enemy such a person was unsettling, but as an ally there was no more dependable counterpart. It took less than a week for the queen and the princess to become the closest of friends.
"Let me ask you honestly. Elise, do you have any provisions left?"
No preamble. The moment she sat at the table, she came straight to the point. Proof, the princess thought, that the queen was cornered exactly as she was.
"No. There's no surplus at all……even stretching it to the utmost, a month would be tight."
"A month, then. About the same. On my side it's a month and a half, perhaps. And that's without counting the time it would take to march back to my kingdom."
The two sighed. As if by arrangement, their timing was identical. At that, the two looked at each other and burst out laughing.
The princess thought it strange. For some reason she could be far more honest before this person than before her own trusted retainers. Was it because they both bore the fate of a nation on their shoulders? It was almost a pity that she had met her only now.
"Very well. In that case, only one option remains to us."
"Ah. A decisive short campaign, I suppose."
Queen Henrietta nodded.
The two had meant to draw the war into a protracted campaign. They had seen through the fact that the Crescent Alliance army's chronic weakness was precisely its supply lines. Without human corpses, a monster army could not endure. Let us avoid battle as much as possible until they self-destruct under their own enormous bulk—that had been the original plan.
"To think the supplies would fall short of expectation by a full half. I couldn't have imagined it."
Queen Henrietta pursed the corner of her mouth as if put out.
Now the circumstances had changed. It was the human army that now stood to be tormented by supply troubles. A month at the very most. The war had to be concluded within a month. It would mean forcing abnormal losses upon the soldiers. A ghastly scene of hell would unfold……
"But that isn't the only problem."
Queen Henrietta narrowed her eyes and looked at the princess.
"Let us speak frankly. Well? Do you think a revolution is likely to break out in Habsburg?"
"A revolution……"
Princess Elisabeth groaned. She wanted to deny it, to call it absurd. Had her counterpart been an ordinary sovereign, she would have denied it without hesitation. But the Queen of Bretagne was different. Before her, bluster was useless.
"I can only say it is dangerous. But I have been joining hands with the republicans for five years now. At present nearly all of the republican faction in the capital supports me."
"Dangerous, but you can keep it in check. So that's how it is……I envy you. My situation is thoroughly poor."
Queen Henrietta gave a bitter smile.
"As you can see, I became king in a woman's body. In the course of that, cooperating with the nobles was essential. It is no exaggeration to say my power is sustained by the nobility. Then again, that's true of any nation, I suppose."
She poured the wine from the table into a cup.
"Is it all right? To be drinking?"
"God created wine to be drunk at times like these, I should think."
"Hm. Then I shall drink as well."
Queen Henrietta widened her eyes as though surprised.
"Heh, weren't you the one who said drinking at night is bad for the health?"
"I've no obligation to guard my health at the cost of leaving a friend to drink alone."
"A friend? A friend, is it."
It has been so long since I last heard that word, the queen said, and poured wine for the princess. The two clinked their cups with smiles on their lips. The queen wetted her lips with the wine and said,
"I met in secret with people from the Batavian Republic. And I heard a rough account of what sort of form this republic of theirs would take, what sort of reforms would be needed……it's impossible. It was nowhere near a level the nobles would accept. A rebellion would break out at once."
The princess's expression grew grave.
"But what can be done? At the very least one must put on some show of reform. The commoner soldiers' discontent rises higher by the day. The noble commanders tremble with ever-greater unease. They fret over whether insubordination might erupt at the level of the soldiers themselves."
"So it's the same on your side."
Queen Henrietta sighed.
"The commoners want change, the nobles want the status quo. It's as if there are two different armies within one army. It cannot be called a proper army at all. Do you know? It's a problem that lies beyond training. The soldiers' very will to fight has grown thin. Even now I'm on my way back from beheading three deserters."
It was actually twelve, the queen added. A high number of deserters could in itself become a factor that sapped morale. Only three had been publicly executed, and the remaining nine had been quietly buried. It was an order the queen herself had given.
"An army that has to falsify the number of its deserters—it's no joke……"
The two drained their wine in silence. The princess's mouth was terribly bitter. And the bitterness was surely not from the wine alone.
The army's morale would not rise. For whose sake must they sacrifice themselves? Did they truly fight for humanity, for their families?……Doubts sprouted like mushrooms among the rank and file. The more doubts there were, the more sluggish the army became. It had a great effect on fighting strength as well.
At least it was fortunate that the black herb had been distributed to them first. The soldiers regarded it as a favor. The nobles could no longer be trusted, but they would not turn against the lord who had shared out the black herb—that was roughly the mood.
"Declare reforms, and the nobles rise in rebellion. Declare no reforms, and someday the commoners' discontent will explode. You lose even the soldiers' support. A trap either way."
The queen swallowed a groan.
"If only such a crisis had struck while my royal authority was still strong."
The princess shared in the queen's worry. If royal authority were sufficiently strong, one could push reforms through.
But neither Henrietta, enthroned in a woman's body, nor Elisabeth, who had staged a coup from the position of Third Princess, was anything close to a strong monarch. That they were just barely holding on through personal charisma was the accurate way to put it.
Ten years. With just ten more years, they would have stabilized their power.
Raise up a single hero from among the commoners. Make him accomplish deeds so great that even the nobles could not complain. Set that hero up as a figurehead and advance reforms little by little, and the nobles too would not rebel much. Royal authority would strengthen, and the commoners' support would rise. The nation would grow rich and strong.
Why now, of all times? The princess could not help thinking it again and again. Spilled water it might be, and yet it was so bitterly regrettable. A mere ten years. With just ten years, everything would have been different. Why now, of all times……
The two talked until late into the night. Rather than deliberating over anything, it was closer to unburdening their hardships to each other. Both queen and princess stood at the summit of a nation. Neither was in a position to pour out her worries freely to just anyone. They could be honest only with each other.
As she rose from her seat, Queen Henrietta said,
"I am going to annihilate my own army."
"What did you say?"
"Reform is impossible in any case. A noble rebellion would break out. Better to use battle as a pretext and kill off the commoners. In my kingdom, the only ones who have heard 'that' speech so far are the soldiers. I will cut out the bud of revolution."
But then—, the princess started to say, and closed her mouth. The queen's eyes were dyed with a sorrowful rage. She had wanted, more than anyone, a rich and strong nation. The foundation of a nation is its people. At the fact that she had to kill those very people with her own hands, the queen was fiercely enraged.
"The king is the father and mother of all the people. Which is to say, I am about to kill my own children. Dantalion, was it? That man has driven me to commit an act of monstrous, unfilial cruelty.……This grudge, someday I will repay it without fail."
The queen left those words behind and departed the tent.
"……"
Elisabeth was left alone, lost in thought. She was recalling the figure the queen had just named. She was recalling the words that man—Dantalion, the seventy-first-ranked Demon Lord—had spoken.
─ That was the last breath the boy ever drew. Why. To the one who was trying to kill him, he poured out neither anger nor resentment to the very end……he only asked why.
─ The boy truly could not understand it. Why the beloved sister he loved was killing him. The boy loved his sister with all his heart.
─ You are a filthy, disgusting piece of garbage, a murderer.
Genius that she was, she remembered Dantalion's words without omitting a single one. And so the wound too remained vivid. Every time she woke drenched in cold sweat after dreaming the nightmare of her little brother, Princess Elisabeth could not help but ask. How did that man know everything? Just what was that man's true identity?
"……Dantalion."
She tried muttering the name. But the question was not resolved; it only deepened further and further. Recalling Dantalion's figure, the princess drifted off to sleep before she knew it. That night too, without fail, her little brother appeared in her dream, and the princess woke feeling sticky blood on her palms.
"Robert, I'm sorry. Your sister was wrong. I'm sorry, Robert. I'm sorry……"
Elisabeth pressed her face into her pillow and wiped away her tears. Even then, the princess had to clench her teeth so that the sound of her weeping would not somehow leak outside.
The following day, a fierce clash unfolded on the Bruno Plain.
The First Legion of the Crescent Alliance army and the Bretagne royal army of the human forces collided head-on. Though the monster army led by the Demon Lord Sitri suffered great losses, it succeeded in encircling the Bretagne royal army. It annihilated the royal army. So fierce was the battle that only the Queen of Bretagne and a handful of her close aides barely managed to escape. That very day the queen broke away from the allied human army and returned to her home country.
On the road home, they say, the Queen of Bretagne shed tears and mourned her soldiers again and again.
============================ Author's Afterword ============================
While Queen Henrietta and Princess Elisabeth were swallowing tears of blood, Dantalion was spending lewd and pleasant days together with Laura.