novelraw Chapter 169 : Chapter 169
Chapter 169 : Chapter 169
169
"The Belmein Kingdom? It is truly the sticks. The middle of nowhere. Full of monsters, no specialty products to speak of. Hm? I suppose it has Akarind Academy now, at least."
"Well......"
Inside one of the few buildings still standing in the capital.
A young woman sat on a sofa in an utterly brazen posture.
Wearing a skirt closer to a dress, she had one leg propped up on the chair at a precariously bold angle, chin resting on her hand.
Silver hair that shone brilliantly.
A beautiful face that anyone would do a double take at.
The sole royal who would have to lead this kingdom forward.
Princess Charlotte Belmein.
"But the people of this kingdom are third-rate. I mean it. Hm? If you read the letters Father sent me, it was always 'our great kingdom this,' 'swordsmanship that,' 'study hard and come back to marry into a good match,' blah blah blah. Honestly, had he lost his mind?"
"......"
"The world is overflowing with Aura and demons are appearing and everything is falling apart! And a daughter who fought through competition to make it all the way to the Empire is supposed to study public administration, come home, and go 'tee hee, it is time to get married, oh what a fine man, you will make me happy, won't you? Shall we have three children? Then we had better get started on the first one right away' — is that what he thought? That is insane."
"......"
"That is what happens when you are that clueless about the world — you get wiped out in one go. Ah. I should have cursed him out more before he died. What a waste. Life really is futile, is it not? Do you not think so?"
Lord Murray and I fell silent in the face of the prospective Queen's verbal onslaught.
Honestly, we were somewhat overwhelmed.
This princess seemed to have become a complete nihilist after entering the capital.
'I have seen quite a few students like this.'
The Empire endlessly pitted its enrolled students against one another in competition.
Ailen, who had quit the Imperial Academy just this year and transferred to ours, was a case in point.
She had been talented enough to wield a magic sword — demonstrating skill in both swordsmanship and magic — but because of that, she had failed to distinguish herself in either one and received failing marks.
And she had been on the verge of expulsion.
That someone with that level of talent could still be eliminated — the fact that Charlotte had survived to her graduation year in such a place meant she was essentially one of the geniuses who represented this world.
But then a problem arose.
She was royalty. After graduation, she did not go job hunting — she had to return to her own kingdom.
And as she had said, in most cases she would have had to find a good match and marry.
All that fierce competition, all that survival — and the reward was marriage.
As a result, royal princes and princesses tended to grow increasingly cynical with each passing year at the academy.
'Study? I will work hard, sure. Sigh...... Must be nice for you lot. Not being royalty.'
'The world is unfair. Or is it fair? It gave me talent and a prison in the same breath.'
'Must be nice for you. Not having a royal mom and dad. At least you can be free.'
Whenever that happened, I would often respond with something like:
'Must be nice. I do not have a mother. What does it feel like to suffer because you have one? Oh. I do have a father, technically, but he refused to be one. Does that still count as having one?'
'Ah, that illegitimate bastard is pulling the pity card again.'
That was how I used to counter them.
Brought back old memories.
Lord Murray, unfamiliar with that style of Imperial humor, was watching the princess with cold sweat running down his face.
"Your Highness. Please, your dignity......"
"You would know best, my Lord. You have seen the students at the Academy firsthand. You have seen all the blunders the Belmein Kingdom made, too."
The princess regarded Lord Murray with a mocking gaze.
In truth, although her tone was harsh, nothing she said was wrong.
That was precisely why Lord Murray was floundering.
So I stepped in.
I laid out the current situation for the princess and began walking her through the plan, one step at a time.
She was cynical, but she was not stupid.
She said she had majored in public administration, military science, and history.
Perhaps because of that, she grasped and understood my plan instantly.
"You want me to enroll in graduate school? Rather rude for a first meeting."
Was the start.
"So you are telling me to relocate the royal court from one backwater to an even deeper backwater? Why not just take me hostage outright."
Was the middle. And when we arrived at the topic of marriage.
"What kind of son of a bitch are you?"
Was the end.
The princess faithfully understood every part of my proposal and acknowledged its necessity.
"Just you wait. The moment I ascend to the throne, the first thing I will do is have that teacher executed for insulting the Crown."
"If you threaten death over a marriage suggestion, all your loyal retainers will flee."
"All my loyal retainers are dead."
I looked at Lord Murray with pity.
He looked plenty loyal to me.
In any case, after exchanging a somewhat prickly first meeting, we outlined the path forward.
"You will need to spend a few days here stabilizing public sentiment. Comfort the survivors and defend the Royal Castle."
"Defend? Who is going to attack?"
"Nobles who have assessed the situation will be on their way. Before they arrive, you need to restore order here and demonstrate that the Belmein royal court is still powerful."
Charlotte wore an indifferent expression at my proposal.
She pointed a finger at the wall — or rather, where the wall used to be.
Beyond the gaping hole, the ruins spread out before them.
The mercenary guild and students continued their relief efforts, but those were only stopgap measures.
Most unsightly of all were the heaps of iron scattered everywhere.
It was the iron the Iron Eater had absorbed — now fully melted down, giving off an eerie sheen, sprawled across the ground in undulating, wave-like formations.
Heavy and hard, they were not easy to clear.
"How do you intend to clean up a place that looks like this?"
I answered with a smile.
"Those will help us."
"Those?"
"Yes."
Princess Charlotte was not convinced.
So I decided to show her.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
We headed for an open lot set up on one side of the capital.
A temporary workshop had been established there.
"Good heavens."
Countless vials of reagents floated in midair, and massive machines of unknown origin packed the open space to the brim.
In the center of it all, a man with unkempt hair wore an expression of mad fervor as he hammered away at iron.
CLANG! CLANG!
Was it the hammer that was extraordinary, or the man wielding it who produced some extraordinary force?
With each strike, the iron glowed blue and rippled like rubber.
Accompanied by a clear ring, the iron turned to liquid, then solidified again, transforming into shapes of its own accord.
"This is incredible! Insane! Absolutely insane! And all this amazing stuff was handled only by the past — no, future? Whatever, the parallel-dimension version of me?!"
"Sihan."
"Oh, Cassian!"
Sihan looked thoroughly elated as he called my name.
It was only natural.
"This is no joke! It completely demolishes basic assumptions! Shape-memory alloys? Magnetic resonance alloys? Phase-change metals? Superconductors? Name it! I can make anything!"
According to Rozalin, it was Sihan — not in this life, but in the life before the regression — who had dealt with this Iron Eater.
Ocean Hall had brought him to land, and in the process he had learned about demons.
From there, he had ended up dealing with the demon in a nearby Triban territory.
And after obtaining the Iron Eater's Fantasy, Sihan had reportedly poured out inventions in the most literal sense.
That made sense, because the Iron Eater's Fantasy could alter the properties of metals and merge existing metals into a single alloy without any resistance reaction.
I did not truly understand how extraordinary that was.
But there was one thing I did know.
"You need weapons? I made a few over there."
That whatever Sihan produced would be beyond all reason.
Where he pointed stood a slender cylinder.
Below the cylinder was a small handle, and in front of the handle was some kind of trigger that a finger naturally rested against.
"Pull the trigger and the projectile fires forward. It is dangerous, so test it outside in an open space — somewhere wide."
Sihan warned me the moment I picked up the object.
"Is that necessary? Everything around here is ruins anyway."
Princess Charlotte reacted gruffly, eyeing Sihan's device with suspicion.
Her reaction seemed to have wounded Sihan's pride.
Setting down his hammer, Sihan trudged over and beckoned me with a waggle of his fingers.
I handed him the metal cylinder, and he propped it casually on his shoulder.
"Watch closely."
He glanced around, then flicked his hands in a sweeping motion.
The people standing before him rose into the air and drifted aside to the left and right.
"A mage?"
"6th-circle."
"What? Excuse me? Why is a 6th-circle mage in this backwater?"
While Charlotte reeled in shock.
With a piercing crack that split the air, a small iron ball shot forward.
It was several times faster than an arrow loosed from a bowstring.
BOOOM!
And far more powerful than an iron ball fired from a cannon.
The iron ball had quite literally punched through the air and embedded itself in the distant building rubble, obliterating it completely.
The destructive force was on par with the siege magic of a decent 3rd or 4th-circle mage.
"Heh."
Sihan smiled with satisfaction as he watched the cloud of dust billow upward.
I glanced at Charlotte.
Having studied military science, she could not possibly fail to understand the magnitude of a single weapon like that.
Judging by her eyes, calculations were racing through her head.
"How many of those weapons can you make?"
"Huh? You want me to mass-produce those? Right now there is only one. Humanity stands on the cusp of a great leap forward in Magitech. If I can devote myself to research, then in two months......"
"Pull an all-nighter and make at least a hundred!"
Charlotte, who had been listening, shouted.
"A thousand rounds of ammunition on top of the weapons!"
"Are you insane?"
"That would be enough to deal with every noble who comes knocking!"
Her calculations were done, it seemed.
I smiled and spoke to Sihan.
"You heard her. It seems you will need to make them."
"Hey, hey! I told you! We are standing on the cusp of a great leap forward in Magitech! You want me to waste time making weapons for fighting humans? We need to be taking down those demon bastards."
Sihan was not wrong.
We did not have time to fight humans.
Which was precisely why we needed to settle the humans quickly.
"We do not need weapons as impressive as that one. Ten that actually function, and about a hundred rounds. The rest just need to look the part."
These were nobles rushing over because they thought the royal court had fallen.
Since a number of them would be coming together, they would keep each other in check.
All we needed was to make an example of one.
Once that single one was dealt with properly, the rest would obviously just turn around and leave.
"So please, make them."
"I said no!"
"But what if I threatened to take back the Iron Eater Fantasy I lent you?"
At my words, Sihan looked at me with a wounded expression.
In a previous life, this Fantasy had surely been Sihan's.
But in this life, this Fantasy was mine.
What could he possibly do about me taking back what was already mine?
"......Y-y-you demon...... you tax collector from hell...... why is mine yours?!"
"So, your answer?"
"I will make them......"
Excellent. Deal struck.
We shook hands with smiles.
And the next day.
"Quite a turnout."
The outskirts of the Belmein capital.
From far in the distance, a cloud of dust kicked up by a large number of people began to rise.