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(331)
I covered my face with both hands and rolled on the floor.
Jaylilith's urgent voice was heard.
“Mattheus! What have you done?”
“Archduke Valen! Archduke! Come to your senses!”
Dadadadada.
I heard Mateos running towards me in a hurry.
His big hand grabbed my shoulder.
chin.
At that moment, a pain that felt like the wound was being burned by a mountain surged through me.
The sound of breaking glass rang loudly in my head.
I screamed for this room to leave.
“Ugh, aaaaaaaaaah-!”
The suppressed energy of resonance finally leaked out.
A faint, but clearly crimson glow radiated out in all directions.
Fortunately, no one in the room was affected to that degree.
“You?”
Jaylilith dispersed the waves with a simple gesture, while Mateos and Argos did not even blink.
But there was a huge difference between not being harmed and not noticing it.
"grandee?"
There was a coolness in Mateos' voice.
bang!
The next moment there was the sound of a door breaking and plate armor clashing.
"His Holiness!"
“Saint!”
“Your Majesty the Emperor, please come out! I sensed residual mental waves in this room.”
I slowly opened my eyes and looked around the room.
“…….”
Jaylilith was holding the back of his neck, Argos was smiling bitterly, and Mateos was rolling his pitch-black eyes around helplessly.
The wide doors shook from their hinges, and dozens of paladins with their swords burning with divine power drew their heads into the room.
“What on earth is going on?”
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
“His Royal Highness the Duke of Valencian, the knight Tentia has arrived!”
Following them, the court nobles, high-ranking clergy, and knights including Sir Tentia, who had been attending mass in the hall below, flocked in.
I felt like closing my eyes again.
"ah."
It's done.
* * *
Fortunately, there were two of the most powerful men in the world in this room.
“……There is no problem, so go back. It is the emperor’s order.”
“……The God of Light has told you to step aside.”
The emperor and the saint joined hands and began to sell medicine.
“That’s fortunate.”
“It was nothing special.”
“I thought Archduke Valencian was the Encroacher? Haha.”
The clergy and nobles who came in like a flood were now leaving like an ebb tide.
We moved to a room with a intact door, Argos had his bishops prepare new tea and new coffee, and the emperor finally got the saint to apologize.
“I want an apology for trying to burn my advisor to death.”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness. Can you forgive me?”
“It’s okay. … Cough, cough! Let’s get to work. Let’s leave the past behind. Aren’t there mountains of things to do and stories to share?”
“Thank you, Your Highness. Okay. Let’s talk about the future.”
In that way, I was able to bury the controversy surrounding the Temple of Amon and the controversy surrounding the Archbishop of Sereraj.
It was a very good price considering the slightly tanned face.
“Ahem. Then I will first tell you about the old things I saw.”
I started talking with a cough.
The six-winged snake I saw in the crack of the world then, the whale with eyes the size of a lake, the horse with dozens of legs growing, the tentacles that shone and swayed, the giant snakes coiled around, the brass bull… … .
“These guys were in that space. Do you have any idea, Saint and Pope?”
Actually, I didn't expect such a detailed answer.
In the first place, it's strange to expect someone to tell you something they saw in a crack in the world.
But Pope Argos nodded as if it was natural.
“Yes, Your Majesty. I know very well who would call them.”
Jaylilith raised an eyebrow.
"huh?"
Argos opened his mouth, slightly pushing up his glasses, which made his already harsh expression look even harsher.
“They are all ancient artifacts served by the Amirs of the Southern Continent. Almost all the ancient artifacts of the guardians of each region have come out.”
Mateos also nodded a little late.
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“They use the power of the Old Ones to create Encroacher Warriors on a national scale. It’s only natural that they would stay in that space. They would have been waiting there for a thousand years since the establishment of the Emirate.”
Jaylilith frowned.
“You seem to know a lot about the Emirate of Amir.”
For a thousand years there was no formal contact between the Soletaras Empire and the Emirate of Amir.
Even the conquering monarchs of Soletara, whose names have made their mark on history, were unable to establish governorates and colonies beyond that wasteland.
All I know about them is that they are a bunch of lunatics who worship the old.
Justinian before his return had no intention of joining hands with them, and Jayrillis before his return had no intention of conquering them.
Their destruction was not ours to initiate either.
They invaded the empire as if it were an annual event, as it descended into civil war, and Jaerilis retaliated each time with meteors and spears of wrath.
And around the 34th year of the reign of Jayliris, a large-scale ritual failed and the country was effectively ruined.
Upon hearing the news, Jaylilith dropped meteorites on major cities.
Because of that dust, there was a famine in the southern part of the empire for a while.
We were the ones who ended it, but it is said that the country was already ruined just from the aftermath of the failed ritual.
Even I, a high-ranking official, only know this much, so even if it were Gwangmyeong Church, it didn't seem like they would have very plausible information.
But the Pope of the Gwangmyeong Church continued speaking leisurely.
“Countless missionaries went on the path of martyrdom. A thousand went and only one returned, but a thousand years passed like that.”
Fortunately, it appears I was wrong.
"hmm."
“The Church of Light knows more about the Emirate of Amir than Your Majesty thinks.”
“Let me listen.”
Jaylilith smiled curiously.
Argus stroked his white beard.
* * *
“They are actually a looser federation of city-states than the Jahan Alliance.”
“Each city serves different old things. This is not simply a matter of cultural differences. In a society where the gods are different, it essentially means that they are completely different countries.”
“Of course, they serve one Sultan. However, the relationship between the Amir, the local chieftain, and the Sultan is, um… I would say, similar to the relationship between the Emperor and the great nobles at the beginning of his reign. They are in the same cultural sphere, but they are not united as one.”
“They say that even in the old days, there were compatibility and conflicts. That’s why it’s common for big cities to fight each other, claiming that their god is the best. That’s why we have to believe in a monotheistic religion like the Gwangmyeong Shinkyo. Tsk tsk. You uncivilized bastards.”
Although the conclusion was a bit strange, Pope Argus succeeded in conveying the information that Jayrillis and I wanted.
He told me how to give those devil worshippers a hard time.
“Your Majesty. I think we can choose a method that preserves the Empire’s national power as much as possible.”
I said excitedly.
Jaylilith laughed languidly and cruelly.
“I think so too. It would be good to split up, Pope. Do you have any specific information?”
Argos' wrinkled eyes shone like jewels.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
The elite, who had lived as jurists in a closed society for decades, were artists of division and collusion.
“After all, attacking with the successor is the best.”
Jaylilith nodded.
“I think so too. I know from experience that it ends when you kill everyone.”
“It is said that the current Sultan, Baphomer, is old and has only one safe child, a daughter.”
"one?"
“The other sons and daughters either died because the erosion was too severe, or gave up their worldly succession rights and joined the erosion sect.”
“Then I guess we just have to wait to fight over marriage and succession. Is time on Jim’s side?”
Jaylilith concluded her words as if asking someone a question, and the saint answered her.
“The God of Light helps those who help themselves. What do you think about assassinating the Sultan or inciting another Amir to woo his daughter?”
These were the words of a saint of the Church of Light who was cruel to pagans, and a black saint who was called the Wrath of God before his return.
Ting. Ting.
The emperor flicked his teacup with his fingers and smiled contentedly.
“It would be okay to proceed with both at the same time. There will definitely be internal strife. If we send the purification troops and Archduchess Helena then the conquest itself will be easy.”
Pope Argus smiled kindly and stroked his beard.
Of course, those words were by no means those of a good person.
“Let the son of Archduke Sicarius marry his daughter. Then the Empire can take away the right of succession and cause chaos among them.”
Jaylilith clicked her tongue, as if she was starting to get a little annoyed.
The duke seemed almost as tired as the war.
“Then why can’t Jim just drop the meteorite?”
But as someone who has done both a lot, I actually found war to be much more tiring.
I clicked my tongue urgently.
“Your Majesty the Emperor. The great enemy outside is uniting us internally. Didn’t you say you would divide us?”
Just because a country is ruined doesn't mean the people are ruined.
The encroachers they were dealing with now and the alien races they would face in the future were already daunting, and they couldn't allow those desert gods to hide in the empire.
“I think it’s going to be annoying.”
“You can conquer an enemy country with a meteorite, but you cannot rule it. In order to rule it, you will have to send Archduchess Helena anyway. It is better to send her to a divided enemy than to a united enemy.”
The saints and the Pope took my side.
Mateos declared solemnly.
“That’s right, Your Majesty. I don’t want those pagans to resent us. Why should they fight among themselves and die?”
“I agree with what the saint said. We should not give them a reason to unite.”
Argos also asserted, and only then did Jaylilith nod.
“If you all say so, I will understand. I will tear apart the Sultan’s succession structure.”
?????? ?????? ????
As I listened to this series of conversations, a strange thought occurred to me.
No, isn't this something I, a loser, should do?
Why are saints and popes saying this?
Is our empire okay?
“Your Majesty, you don’t look well. Are you still in pain?”
Mateos asked worriedly.
I hesitated, befitting the reputation of a spoiled brat.
“Please don’t laugh. For a moment, I wondered if this was okay.”
The next moment, all three people reacted differently.
Jaylilith smiled languidly.
“I am innocent. I can do whatever I want.”
Mateos got angry.
“Stop talking like that and just ignore me from behind the red-light district! No. The Archduke who kidnapped me twice is talking about a heretic-.”
Argos smiled kindly and gave a pointed answer.
“Your Majesty. If you fight, don’t you become similar?”
okay.
yes.
I was a living witness to that.
Aren't you starting to have mental waves bursting out now as you fight with the old things?
I burst out in a hearty laugh.
“Yes. Your Holiness is right. Then, please start by creating public opinion through sermons. It’s not a war that will start in a day or two, but shouldn’t we have a justification for raising taxes and conscription?”
Argos smiled.
“We should call in the bishops from Sicarius’ side.”
“I will make the donation next week.”
Mateos shook his head.
“Please do it this week. Please do not put off until tomorrow what you would like to give today.”
“I sent quite a few to Rudy-.”
“During the construction of the new city, workers are lining up to collapse from the heat, and they can’t even get treatment because they don’t have money.”
The symptom, so-called 'heatstroke', was a more serious illness than expected.
If I wasn't careful, I could have died on the spot.
The cure required enormous divine power, which meant enormous donations, and no one with the money to do so would work outside in this weather.
Mateos held out his palm majestically.
“Divine power alone was ineffective in treating the patient. It was best to let him rest in a cool place. I will temporarily hire a lot of cold magicians. Didn’t you see that several cartloads of silver coins came up from the red-light district recently? Please make an offering.”
I smiled bitterly and nodded.
"All right."
That smile between confidence and shamelessness was truly saintly.