The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 121
After the selection was made.
Since everyone was already gathered, they decided to have dinner together.
It was a perfect opportunity, as it might become difficult to gather like this for a while.
The food laid out in the dining room drew exclamations from the vassals.
“Wow, what’s this? For a moment, I thought we’d come to a party.” Olaf said with an exaggerated expression.
“Did Yumir do all of this?”
“No, most of it was done by Eonia.”
Yumir was good at healthy food but not so much with greasy dishes. Apparently, she unconsciously tends to minimize the use of seasonings.
That’s why it was appropriate for Eo to be in charge of the food for such occasions.
“Miss Mirabel? That’s unexpected.”
Everyone looked puzzled when told it was Eo’s cooking.
Even Bisketa seemed confused, not understanding why Eo would be cooking.
“Just try it. Then you’ll understand.”
Since they decided not to stand during the ceremony, everyone sat at the table and began eating.
Soon, exclamations of admiration followed one after another.
“How is it? Eo’s cooking skills.”
The reaction was more subdued than I expected.
Only Olaf showed exaggerated reactions like ‘The food dances on my tongue’, ‘It’s superior to any royal cuisine’, ‘I want to eat at this mansion every day’ and so on.
‘Hmm, the atmosphere is a bit stiff.’
You could say everyone hasn’t gotten close yet.
While it would be troublesome if they became too close, a minimum level of internal unity was necessary.
Above all, there shouldn’t be anyone left out.
I had to take care of such small details. That’s what being a manager entails.
‘Four people need attention, I guess.’
Yumir, Gaspar, Eonia, and Lysithea. These four had difficulty mingling with others.
Yumir, being my family and personal attendant, was respected by others, but her only personal connection was with Eonia.
Even then, Eo seemed to treat Yumir as a superior and be somewhat afraid of her.
Secondly, Gaspar wasn’t the type to enjoy socializing originally.
No, he likes socializing itself, but due to the discrimination he’s experienced as a beastman, he has an underlying hostile stance in human relationships.
‘In that sense, recruiting Olaf was a masterstroke.’
Olaf, who wanted to eradicate discrimination against beastmen, didn’t back down no matter how prickly Gaspar was. Now, it seems Gaspar has accepted Olaf as a drinking buddy, often going out for drinks after work.
Without Olaf, Gaspar might have been isolated.
‘Plus, with Aggert following Gaspar, things should gradually improve on Gaspar’s side.’
The same goes for Lysithea.
She’s already quite close with Estelle, and it should get even better when we recruit Ash later.
The real problem was Eonia.
“Haa…”
I sighed without realizing it.
How should I put it about Eo? She only wants to be by my side.
It’s not that it’s a bad tendency, but I wished she would actively build relationships with others too.
“Lord Ars. Is the food to your liking?”
“Yes, it’s delicious.”
“Hehe…”
It’s like this even now.
She doesn’t care about others’ opinions.
‘Could this also be the effect of magic?’
The magic that Eo supposedly cast on me. It might be the influence of what we casually called link magic.
When I discreetly asked Bisketa about this, her eyes widened.
“Did Eo tell you about that?”
“Yes, I pressed her about it. She reluctantly told me.”
“I see.” Bisketa glanced at Eo before speaking. “I also heard this by chance from the Holy King, but that magic supposedly has no use other than tracking.”
“What? But Eo said that if the target dies, she would die too.”
“There’s no way it could be such a terrifying magic. It’s probably an exaggeration of stories about some Valkyries who took their own lives when their lords died. Eo seems to have naively believed it as is. Really, that child…”
“But Eo said that Kuravel’s Holy King refused the magic to avoid shortening her life.”
“That was to prevent Eo from doing something similar.”
“By something similar, you mean… Suicide?”
“That’s right.”
Eo actually did something similar. When the Holy King died and the kingdom fell, she threw herself into a fire pit, saying she wouldn’t let the ruffians of Crossing defile her purity.
If she had used that magic on the Holy King of that time, she might have just taken her own life instead of entering the fire pit.
I decided to ask Bisketa more about the magic while I had the chance.
However, it seems Bisketa doesn’t know much in detail either.
“I’ve heard that elves use several types of magic, but I don’t know the details either. It’s been a long time since we’ve had much interaction with elves, even before I was born. The elves have completely disappeared now, and when Crossing’s army came, the Holy King burned all the books in the palace library, so related literature probably doesn’t exist anymore. However…”
“However?”
“I heard from the Holy King that the elves had created some kind of secret storage in their forest.”
“Secret storage… Crossing couldn’t find it?”
“If even I don’t know the location, it probably wasn’t easy for Crossing to find either.”
The elves’ secret storage. The scent of a clue was wafting strongly.
I requested Bisketa to guide me to Kuravel’s site later.
“Alright. Let’s take Eo with us when the time comes.”
Since we’d be extremely busy for a while, we decided to set the plan generously for around February next year.
* * *
As the atmosphere live up, drinks began to be served under Olaf’s lead.
When the gathering took this turn, Bisketa left first. The same went for Estelle and Lysithea.
Estelle’s eyes shone as she said she wanted to drink too, but there was no way Rutger would allow it.
‘I guess drinking parties are similar everywhere.’
As alcohol entered the scene, the mood loosened and laughter could be heard.
Everyone seemed confident in their drinking ability, as they had brought out half of the alcohol originally bought for entertaining guests.
I decided to leave first. Anton approached with the child in his arms, as if to escort me.
“I’ll escort you to your room.”
“It’s just upstairs, no need. More importantly, don’t you need to drink?”
“I was hoping Ilya could enjoy herself comfortably today. It must have been tough recently.”
“Haha, then I’ll leave the cleanup to you. I’ll go ahead and rest.”
“Yes, leave it to me.”
I returned to my room and sat at the desk.
I decided to look at the terrain map to simulate this upcoming war.
‘The fronts I’ll be in charge of are three to five…’
Basically three, but it could increase to five depending on the situation.
‘If that happens, we might be short on commanders. I guess we’ll have to entrust that part to officers of the royal family’s direct army.’
Still, the chances of enemy forces reaching my position were slim.
My role was primarily to block the route to the capital, so I was basically positioned in the rear.
Bülang’s goal was to plunder and seize nearby territories, so they likely wouldn’t aim for the capital.
The variable would be the extent of Western intervention.
‘The West will want this war to escalate.’
As such, they might be preparing some operation to expand the scale of the war.
This could be an opportunity for me.
I could guess which forces are Western puppets by observing the movements of the Bülang forces that attack.
I thought there was a high possibility it would be the faction the protagonist belongs to.
“…”
I went to the wardrobe and took out a book that was cleverly hidden.
It contained the game’s story as I remembered it.
I decided to check the changed storyline through it.
‘First of all, both the recent Beckavia War and this upcoming war didn’t exist in the game.’
Originally, the major war scheduled after the Chimera War was the Tail War, involving Europe, Tunkai, Svenner, Alvard, and Bülang.
The timing was around autumn next year.
It’s called the Tail War because when Tunkai invaded Alvard, Europe, who had been waiting for an opportunity, struck Tunkai from behind, then Svenner attacked Europe from behind, and Bülang attacked Svenner from behind.
A war where they bit each other’s tails, so to speak.
‘Now the chances of this war breaking out are almost zero.’
Even if the Tail War does break out, it would be very different from the form I knew.
‘It’s better to look at future events broadly. More importantly…’
I looked for information about the people of Bülang.
Since there’s a possibility of encountering them in this war, I decided to check once more.
‘There are indeed many.’
Since the protagonist belongs to Bülang, most of the characters around the protagonist were from Bülang.
In terms of ratio, about 70% Bülang affiliates and 30% others.
That’s why there aren’t many game characters around me.
In the 2nd part of the story that was being updated, the world view was expanding, so characters from other kingdoms would have appeared in large numbers, but I don’t know about that part, so it can’t be helped.
As I looked at the Bülang characters, I couldn’t help but exclaim.
“Wow. There are quite a lot of female characters.”
In fact, Athena War Tales had fewer female characters compared to other male-oriented mobile games.
With about 50% female characters and 50% male characters, it could be said to have a more appropriate gender balance compared to other games where 80-90% of main characters are female.
Even among those female characters, many were noble ladies specialized in internal affairs, so if we only consider armed characters, it’s about 20% female to 80% male, which is rather few female characters.
“No, should this be considered a lot?”
Even in modern history, active female generals in war can be counted on one hand. Joan of Arc is about the only one that comes to mind.
This world still had quite a few female commanders. Both in mercenary groups and cases like Sophia Veron.
I have three female armed characters by my side, excluding Yumir.
“I should check this first.”
There are two main female armed characters and two male armed characters currently by the protagonist’s side.
I decided to remember their tendencies in case I encounter them on the battlefield.
It was then.
“Sir Ars!”
Bang! Eo burst into my room with a slurred voice.
“Eo? Geez. How drunk are you?”
“Hehe, I’m not drunk…”
Smelling her breath, the alcohol smell wasn’t that strong. She just seems weak to alcohol.
“But why did you come to my room?”
“Well… You said I could come anytime.”
“Did I say that?”
“You did! When we were fighting Madon! You said you’d teach me tactics!”
I don’t remember, but if she says so, it must be true.
“But can you learn tactics in that state? It’s better to just rest today.”
I took her to my bed. If I let her sleep for a while, Yumir will probably come to get her.
As I laid her on the bed, Eo curled up, hugging the blanket.
“Uhehe. It smells like Sir Ars…”
“Geez, how careless.”
I tucked her in properly and covered her with the blanket.
Not long after, Yumir and master Ilya came up.
Master chuckled seeing Eo sound asleep.
“My, to think she’d pass out after just a few drinks. If I’d known, I would have drunk with the men.”
It seems Yumir was also tipsy, her face flushed.
Yumir picked up Eo who was sleeping in my bed. She seems to be trying to take her to her own room to sleep.
However, Eo was gripping my blanket so tightly that Yumir couldn’t detach her.
“Uhehe…”
Eo, rolled up in the blanket.
She was dragged out with the blanket, wearing a happy expression.
* * *
The day after the dinner.
While everyone else was suffering from hangovers, I was facing Juras with Anton in town to discuss this matter.
Juras seemed to be enjoying the situation. It looks like he quite liked the scheme the West attempted this time.
“This much is needed to make things interesting.”
“You speak so easily as if you’re not at the receiving end.”
“Haha, this is partly your fault too, isn’t it? This incident was entirely predictable. Guderian Chester even leaked the information. I heard he spoke about it at that meeting. With that level of insight, couldn’t you have predicted this in advance?”
“That’s…”
It was hard to deny. As Juras said, if I had focused all my attention on it, I could have somehow predicted and taken measures in advance.
The problem was that after informing Duke Hellian, I thought I had taken sufficient measures and became complacent.
Juras spoke as if mocking, “Ars, you shouldn’t overestimate others’ abilities too much. When it comes down to it, the only one you can rely on is yourself. Remember that.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep that in mind. So? Is Crossing’s policy as I said?”
“That’s right. We’ll strengthen the defense of the southern territory and slowly gather troops. The period will be about 20 days as you predicted.”
“What about the option to intervene immediately?”
“We’re not considering it. The southern territory plays an important role in our future plans. We don’t want to create unnecessary variables.”
“Hmm.”
If so, Crossing won’t have any influence in this war. Because Bülang will retreat just as Crossing starts to move.
“Oh, by the way, what happened with the Casper Millias matter I asked about?”
Casper, who is rumored to be dead. It’s still unknown whether the Saleon faction or the Hellian faction killed him. Or maybe he’s not dead at all, and it’s just a rumor.
Juras raises the corner of his mouth ominously. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’ve taken care of it my way, definitively.”
“Stop talking so cryptically. It’s creepy.”
“Heheh.”
However, the truly chilling thing was not this.
Juras handed over a document, saying this was the main point.
The document contained information about a certain individual, a composite sketch, and something like a code word.
“This is information about one of the spies I’ve infiltrated into Bülang. If necessary, extract information from this person. It should be of some help.”
“This is…!”
I didn’t know how to react.
The spy Juras presented.
It was because their identity was one of the protagonist’s close characters.
TL NOTE:
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