Chapter 45 - 4-9
They are Kosa people.
Laicanel Thora had only just realized the magnitude of the situation.
The Kosa people were changing everything.
—Why does no one else understand?
That was Laicanel's frustration.
Except for Laicanel, everyone in the Third Army was in a daze. Even the Royal Army—namely, his father, Sedias Thora—had not noticed the gravity of the matter. Throughout the country, people stared intently at an anxiety they could only faintly perceive, but in their hearts, no one had reacted yet.
Laicanel and Yugis Necrat were different.
The Necrat family had been like ants on a leaf-boat. They were destined to sail into rough seas and sink.
However, a wind blew from the east, riding a pitch-black horse. A tailwind was attempting to carry those people to a place they had never imagined. The Kosa people were the wind of the era. They would change everything. The situation was now being repainted, and it would never return to the same color.
Yugis had ridden this wind.
We should ride it too.
That was Laicanel's thought. The choice of whether to ride it or not did not even exist. If they did not ride it, the era would overtake them and leave them behind.
Barbarians who knew nothing of civilization would drive warhorses until they filled the land, and eventually, they would come to Siddim.
Whether they actually came or not was not important.
The mere possibility was enough. If he stoked that crisis, he could gather both people and money. The expansion of the Third Army would be easily accepted. Was this not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
Of course, the primary source of funds would be the western nobles, and he would have to use western peasants as soldiers.
Laicanel Thora was a diligent man. To stir the wind of reform within the Third Army, he met individually with two or three key figures, plied them with liquor, and spoke of his ideas. However, no one would join him.
"Let's do it."
The moment he said that, they would be burdened with the obligation of collecting funds. If they did not bring back large sums of money from their family homes, they would be viewed as incompetent. No one took such a risk. Even Laicanel himself, upon reflection, was the same.
His father, Sedias Thora, had money. He had it, but he did not want to use it.
He thought it would be a waste.
Even if they fought the Kosa people, the homeland could only defend itself. It was not a war where occupied territories could be expected. Such a war—
'We shall fight it with eastern gold.'
That was his father's thought. He was supported by the western lords.
—As if it would be that simple.
He thought instinctively.
—Father considers the Kosa people to be the same as ourselves.
Sedias Thora was rich in experience in war. Because of that, he believed he understood war. Based on his accumulated knowledge, he believed that the Kosa people must be human, after all. He thought that if the eastern soldiers faced them with the resolve to die, the enemy would surely seek a path to peace.
It would not be like that.
The Kosa people apparently accepted no conclusion other than the enemy's destruction or surrender.
That was not all. The Kosa people were complete others, whom one could not grasp with our imagination. It would be dangerous not to think of them as a different species. They were beings whose actions were unpredictable.
Unless the organization was completely transformed, they could not respond.
—Why don't they understand?
If he pursued the cause to its end, he arrived at a bitter conclusion. It was his own fault. If an organization had become obsolete, it was either because the head of the organization was stubborn or lacked ability.
In the first place, the governance required of Laicanel was conservative in nature.
The job of the young master of the Thora family, the leader of the west, was to inherit the system and not change it.
'It has gone well until now. We will continue to do the same from here on.'
He was to say that to his comrades and guarantee their vested interests.
Everyone shared a bit of dissatisfaction and a bit of satisfaction, and the west maintained its equilibrium. All Laicanel had to do for the rest of his life was to not break that; that was all.
But if the Kosa people were to attack, the story was different.
He should have started building a brand-new system immediately.
—I envy Yugis.
When touching a woman's body, Laicanel thought this from the bottom of his heart.
What had Yugis done?
He had simply somehow raised pieces of trash to a status where they were treated as human beings.
With just that, his comrades revered him as their leader.
The comrades here, Laicanel's Third Army, were from the start in places close to the highest rank. If their status dropped even slightly, they would grumble and abandon Laicanel.
—Should I start a war?
When slapping a woman's buttocks, Laicanel occasionally thought this.
It would be better to have a great war with the east and settle things before facing the Kosa people. However—
—Father would not permit it.
When it came to that, the only thing Laicanel could do was shut himself away in the darkness with a woman and writhe.
Yugis Necrat and his comrades returned to the royal capital carrying the head of a massive deer.
The deer's head was said to have been taxidermied and presented to the royal family.
The fools of the Fourth Army began to proclaim the success of the hunt in every direction. That was the rustic, unsophisticated side of the east. Was it not vulgar? However, the citizens did not think so. Voices praising them grew louder in the city, and the Third Army lost its presence.
As expected, he had to ride the wind blown by the Kosa people.
—With this, my assertions will have a bit more persuasiveness.
First, he would create two or three influential sympathizers to solidify his footing. After that, he would arrange a forum for discussion and pull the flow toward himself in one go.
To change the organization—specifically, what would he do?
Regarding this, Laicanel had long been refining a secret plan.
He would bring the Eastern Regional Army under the umbrella of the Third Army. The Third Army would move its headquarters to the east. Leaving the land they were accustomed to would call for opposition from his comrades, but it was an absolutely necessary measure. Western soldiers had to be stationed in the east.
He would dispose of Yugis. However, it would be bad to do it with his own hands. It might root a sense of revenge in the east. What was desirable was to trap Yugis and have him judged by the hand of the judiciary.
He would deal with the Kosa people using eastern gold and soldiers. The Third Army would command them.
Laicanel began to emit a light in his eyes that felt like a deep chill.
He felt a surge of vigor within himself.
Recently, the childishness of his way of speaking had vanished. A rasp began to appear in his voice, and it started to resonate deeply.
No one saw through the true nature of this change. Even the women he slept with did not notice that Laicanel was becoming a different person than before.
Though, there was one woman who held the right to step into Laicanel's inner self.
"Is it a bad thing?"
The one who spoke abruptly was Princess Luchentin Alish.
It was early winter, at dusk when the sun had begun to set, in the Princess's room. There were embers in the fireplace. Besides the Princess, there were two maids.
Recently, his sexual desire had been increasing, and Laicanel wanted to find an opportunity to embrace the Princess.
Because it was just such a moment, he was inwardly startled.
"A bad thing?"
"Are you plotting something bad?"
"What... why would you..."
"Laika, I cannot like you lately. Your lips are like the color of blood."
"Are you concerned about my lips?"
"No, not particularly."
Princess Lucy's eyes, which had been light blue, had recently increased in depth and become more blue.
"The scent, too. You smell of blood."
"Surely..."
"Yugis Necrat."
Because the Princess spoke words that touched the core again, Laicanel was about to stand up from his chair.
"Even when that person returned from the hunt and went before His Majesty, he must have killed many animals, yet he did not drift with a scent like yours."
"You have a keen nose," Laicanel said, then panicked, realizing he had spoken sarcastically. "Of course, I am not plotting anything bad."
The Princess gazed at him with sincere eyes.
Laicanel struggled not to avert his gaze.
The one who averted her gaze was the Princess.
"Yes, of course. You wouldn't do anything bad. I said something foolish. I simply—you have changed. You are trying to change. Yugis, probably, and I as well. Everyone is changing."
Because Yugis's name appeared again, Laicanel felt panic rather than wonder. He suddenly did not know what he should say.
"There is one thing that does not change."
He was about to say something cliché, stereotypical, and lie-like.
"My love for you."
After saying it, Laicanel regretted it.
Not because he had said something cliché. It was because, although he hadn't intended to, uncontrollable emotion had been infused into it. It was not acting. However, it might have sounded like acting. He had become too emotional. The other party was royalty. In any case, one must not throw emotions at them.
For the first time in his life, Laicanel felt fear toward a woman.
He realized that he held deeper emotions for Princess Lucy than he had thought. Those emotions might already be betrayed. The Princess would laugh at him. Laicanel was afraid of that.
Princess Lucy's arm moved, and the back of her hand softly brushed Laicanel's shoulder.
"Surely, the Kosa people are the ones who are bad."
She said so and lowered her eyelashes.
Laicanel gave his farewell greetings half-absently and left the Princess's room.
He did not know how to organize his own emotions.
Without leaving the detached palace, he headed straight to the Queen Consort.
Though it was for a short time, they had a promise for a tryst.
"You're quite early," Queen Yumeria was in a good mood.
Even while violating Yumeria Alish from behind, the previous conversation did not leave Laicanel's head.
'The Kosa people are bad.'
There was a part of him being comforted by these words of Princess Lucy.
His hip movements were about to stop.
—Am I in love with the Princess?
No, he wanted to think. Filthy emotions like affection or love were suitable to be played out with a woman like this one, Queen Yumeria.
Laicanel forgot the version of himself from a few hours ago who had been thinking about embracing the Princess soon.
The emotion he directed toward the Princess should be more noble and clean.
Loyalty.
It was loyalty. That person understood him better than anyone. He thought he should repay her.
But even so. In that conversation just now, a strange name had come up twice.
"What are you doing? Being so rough."
The Queen was looking back at Laicanel.
Yumeria Alish had finally given birth to a boy around early summer. Clever as she was, she kept a mysterious silence, never mentioning the matter of the heir at all. Perhaps as a reaction to that, her demands in the bedroom had become beastly.
"Faster. Do it faster."
Laicanel did as he was told. He coldly extended arms that were sturdier than they looked and pressed the Queen's head down into the pillow. The woman's voice of pleasure became muffled.
After finishing the job and beginning to dress,
"Just what is the matter?"
Yumeria's dissatisfied voice sounded.
Confident that he had satisfied her, Laicanel stopped his hands and gazed at the Queen.
"It felt as if your heart was not here."
The Queen had one eyebrow arched like a bow.
Laicanel sighed and brought up the name Yugis Necrat.
"Do you remember him?"
The Queen wore a mysterious smile.
After drawing Laicanel in at length like that, she looked away.
"Regarding that, there is an interesting story."
Hearing the Queen's story, Laicanel was astounded.
Yugis Necrat apparently had a plan to sneak into Princess Lucy's room.
"Your Majesty!"
It was two days after Yugis Necrat returned to the royal capital when the maid Almirah came to Yumeria with a bouncy voice.
Almirah was a girl with bright brown hair and a face full of freckles. Her wide-set eyes always sparkled with a bursting curiosity.
"Speak quietly, Almirah."
Yumeria was immersed in composing poetry in her room. Her reputation in this field was high. She was enthusiastic about supporting painters and musicians, and the Queen herself created as a bearer of court culture, possessing a circle of poetry and literature enthusiasts. She still did not spare effort in acquiring the education befitting a Queen.
Like a fawning dog, Almirah knelt at her feet.
"Queen Mother—"
Yumeria admonished the maid with a single movement of her eyebrow.
This girl, Almirah, was completely hopeless in the arts. She had a shallowness, attempting to navigate the world with only her tongue and charm. However, the Queen liked the maid's foolishness.
She wanted to protect her innocence and immaturity from the hardships of the world.
After putting the quill and ink away in the writing box, Almirah began to speak as if she could no longer wait.
"Miss McGillis had a secret meeting with her fiancé."
"Who?"
"The silver-haired woman, the Princess's maid."
Yumeria remembered. She had ordered that Krisina McGillis be watched.
Though she was utterly useless in the arts, Almirah displayed unexpected tenacity when given this kind of work. There were many failures, but she had a positive attitude that did not let them discourage her.
It was she who had caught Krisina having a secret meeting with her fiancé in the detached palace's courtyard on a moonlit night.
Yumeria wanted to separate her stepdaughter Lucy and Laicanel. Since the two were closely related by blood, if she pressed that point, there was a high possibility that the engagement could be declared void. Thinking that she might obtain the catalyst for that from Krisina, she had Almirah investigate.
Rather than a story of romance, it was for the sake of her son, Clorot.
She wanted Laicanel, her son's father, to be nearby. It would be troublesome if he married and went far away. In an emergency, she would need him to protect both mother and child.
Yumeria listened to the maid's story.
Krisina had apparently changed the meeting place.
"It was the wing corridor between the South Wing and the East Wing. There was a convenient blind spot; Miss McGillis was inside the corridor, and Lord Danforth was outside the window, and they were talking. I..."
Almirah let out a giggle. "I crawled under the floor of the wing corridor and hid. I held my breath in a place where I could pinch Lord Danforth's knee."
"Are you alright?"
"About what? I heard the conversation properly. I heard every word."
The maid was a carefree one.
Krisina's fiancé, Cloden Danforth—the son of a poor eastern noble who had now risen to a high-ranking officer in the Fourth Army—had said that he wanted to sneak Yugis Necrat, also the son of a poor noble, into the bedroom of Luchentin Alish, the Imperial Princess of Siddim.
Yumeria was stunned, and then immediately began to laugh.
"Is it true?"
"It is indeed true."
"He asked Krisina to facilitate it?"
"That is correct."
"And then..."
Krisina, of course, refused.
Cloden persisted.
'Yugis has no intention of doing anything insolent; it does not matter if they cannot meet alone. Anyone other than the Princess may be present. If he can just convey his feelings to the Princess in a single word, Yugis will be satisfied and leave immediately.'
"A-and then?"
"Miss McGillis finally gave in and promised to tell the Princess. However, she told him not to expect a positive answer."
"And then, and then, what about Lucy?"
"I don't know. I tried lingering around Her Highness's room, but..."
Yumeria let out an "Ah."
"When was it? The secret meeting."
"Before noon."
That reminded her. On that day, His Majesty was unusually free and had lunch with Princess Lucy. Because the Princess had been depressed and lacking energy lately, he said.
Yumeria had not been present because she had appointments with other noblewomen. When she met His Majesty in the afternoon,
"Lucy had regained her spirit," he had said. "Even her complexion improved. She finally wouldn't reveal what she had been worrying about. Do you have any idea?"
She had answered no. "Girls of that age—"
She had stated an opinion that, even to her own ears, was foolishly banal.
—Is she keen on it?
Was the reason Princess Lucy's mood recovered because she heard the story of the rendezvous?
The possibility that she was happy upon hearing the story of the rendezvous?
No, surely not.
—Though it's not impossible.
It was probably not a story where the two had entered a mutual relationship without Yumeria's knowledge.
An eastern youth had fallen in love with a daughter of the royal family, which was far above his station, and Lucy was finding it amusing. The fact that he would sneak in probably evoked a secret-like excitement and warded off boredom. If a decent man loved her, it would serve as material to indulge in sweet narcissism.
However, what to think of the recklessness of young people.
The Queen, who had only just passed twenty, shook her head, ignoring her own past.
It was an impossible foolishness. Especially Yugis Necrat. To do that at this critical time. It was an act that betrayed the trust of the comrades who believed in him and followed him.
Though, the recklessness of the enemy was to be welcomed.
Yumeria smirked, wondering if she should just set the stage for them.
If Lucy and Necrat achieved a beautiful love, the two would obtain a momentary happiness. Laicanel would gain a catalyst to defeat his political rival, and Yumeria too would welcome the desired result.
Tilting her elegant head, Yumeria took the necklace shining on her chest.
She gave it to Almirah, whose eyes were sparkling.
"Continue to investigate. However, make it your first priority not to be discovered by the other party."
Almirah hurriedly kissed the back of the Queen's hand and left the room with a bouncy step.
The idea that it would be interesting to pair Lucy and Yugis was eventually discarded.
Laicanel was suffering.
He was standing at a crossroads.
A feeling of wanting to be of help suddenly surged within her.
"I have an interesting story,"
Yumeria began to speak after catching his attention.
After hearing it, Laicanel was aghast. His complexion was not good.
"The son of Necrat is a nuisance, isn't he?"
She tried to peer into her lover's face, but he turned away.
"What's wrong? Isn't this a perfect opportunity?"
"No, but..."
If possible, he wanted to undermine the basis of Yugis's political position, and doing something like using romance as a tool... or something like that, Laicanel muttered with a dull expression.
Out of a habit from childhood, Yumeria bit the inside of her cheek.
—He doesn't want to involve her.
In their struggle. Lucy.
Furthermore, hearing that Lucy's heart was dancing at the thought of Yugis's night-visit had given him a genuine shock.
Various emotions came and went at once, but Yumeria could not leave the slumped back before her alone.
Crawling out of the bedding naked, she slapped the shoulder of the figure sitting on the edge of the bed from behind.
"Idiot! Whose woman is she!"
Laicanel looked at Yumeria with a pathetic face, his eyebrows drooping. He was holding his shoulder.
"Whose woman is she!"
"No..."
"Position this, basis that, it doesn't matter. A man is coming to steal your woman, isn't he? There should be only one thing to do. Now!"
"Nelly..."
"Now, go. I will come out later. I'll have my friends coordinate their stories, so it's fine. Now, just go."
Laicanel started to say something, but in the end, he stood up.
Just before leaving the room, a smile had returned to the face he turned back with.
"Nelly, thank you."
The Queen was left alone in the small room prepared for the tryst.
—What am I doing?
The silence of being alone permeated the Queen.
She could not admit that she had acted like a clown.
Suddenly, she thought of Yugis Necrat.
That boy was not foolish. He was in love.
Those who fall in love all start running without thinking and end up doing foolish things.