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The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 206

The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road Chapter 206.

After returning to the main camp, I looked for Lucretia, but she was nowhere to be seen, probably busy with post-war cleanup.

On site, damage assessment was taking place. 

The commanders of each unit were gathering their subordinates to conduct detailed damage assessments.

As a member of the Academy’s lower class, I headed to where the members of Class 17 were gathered.

Erina was there too.

When she saw me, she closed her eyes as if thanking the gods, muttered something, and then ran towards me.

“Sir Ars, welcome back safely.”

“Yeah. Somehow I managed to come back alive.”

“You don’t look well. Are you injured by any chance?”

“There are some circumstances. I’ll tell you soon.”

I reported my return to the commander.

The original commander must have died in battle, as the Academy teacher who had been commanding Classes 11-14 nodded and wrote something down.

“Wade from Class 17, is it? I’ve been hearing about your exploits here and there.”

“The stories are exaggerated.”

“Well, that’s something to discuss later. Any other matters to report? I heard you pursued the enemy.”

“I chased them deep but ended up losing them. The fatigue from that has accumulated, so I’d like to rest for a while.”

“Very well. Rest in the barracks until the damage assessment is complete.”

“Thank you.”

Glancing at the faces of Class 17, something felt missing. About 1/5 of the class members had been reduced.

Mello was sitting down with a dejected expression. Seeing that one of his three close friends was missing, it was easy to guess why he was like that.

The wounds of war.

For most of the people who participated in this battle, it was their first time experiencing such pain, so the wound became a terrible agony that gnawed at their hearts.

Erina was no exception.

When we were alone in the barracks, Erina hugged me, sniffling.

“So this is how sad war is. I think I now understand how much hardship you’ve been through until now, Sir Ars.”

“Hmm, to be honest, this war wasn’t that terrible comparatively speaking.”

It was just that special situations like undead soldiers and illusion dragons occurred, but it wasn’t a terrible war.

A truly terrible war would involve war crimes like massacres and looting, along with food shortages, epidemics, spies, and so on. This war was clean in those aspects. Though there was the assassination of the princes.

Even so, it was clear that this would remain the most intensely memorable war in my memory.

I confided in Erina about what happened today. About stabbing Estelle.

“That banshee was Estelle!?”

“Yes, and without knowing that, I…”

Perhaps she saw that I was blaming myself. Erina stared at me with stern eyes.

“Sir Ars. There’s no need to blame yourself. It was war. Estelle would have known that well enough. If she didn’t know, that’s her fault, not yours, Lord Ars.”

“Even so…”

Slap! She hit both my cheeks with her palms.

“I’ll say it again, you don’t need to feel any responsibility. If Estelle blames you, I’ll give her a piece of my mind.”

“Haha… Thank you.”

It was quite comforting. Erina smiled warmly and then asked about what happened after.

She widened her eyes when I said I infiltrated the enemy camp, and she jumped up when I mentioned giving blood to Estelle at the end.

“You shared your blood with Estelle? That can’t be!”

Erina was shocked as if the sky had turned upside down.

It’s understandable, as for people here, blood transfusion was something that only appeared in legends, myths, or creepy black magic rumors.

“S-so what happened to Estelle?”

“She’s okay. I’m not sure when she’ll regain consciousness, but Master Ilya will take care of that part well.”

“…”

Erina pressed her lips tightly. For some reason, she seemed envious.

“…What if.”

“Hm?”

“If I were in the same situation, would you give me a blood transfusion too, Sir Ars?”

“No? We’d have to consider the circumstances.”

I’d be in big trouble if the blood types didn’t match.

However, she seemed to interpret my words differently, as Erina pouted as if upset.

Finding her expression cute, I hugged her tightly and forcefully pulled her towards the bed. Erina struggled as if protesting, but soon relaxed.

In return, she wrapped her arms around my head and pulled it to her chest.

“You’ve worked hard. Rest well.”

“Mm…”

As if the tension had eased from her comfort, fatigue suddenly overwhelmed me. With my face buried in her chest, I fell asleep.

* * *

The next day.

The atmosphere in the camp was gloomy. This was because the results of the detailed damage assessment had come out.

Out of 60,000 troops, 23,000 had died. Since the army mobilized this time was practically the entirety of Ellan Kingdom’s forces, it meant that about 30% of the kingdom’s military strength had essentially vanished.

The only encouraging part was that most of those initially counted as missing were found to be alive.

And the fact that the 2nd Prince Landis, who was thought to have gone missing and died, was found alive.

Landis was discovered with severe injuries. According to rumors, he had subdued the assassins after a fierce struggle and gone into hiding.

Usually, assassins are persistent in targeting their mark until death once they’ve drawn their blades, but it seems even they had difficulty finding Landis who had hidden, due to the dragon’s illusory power.

Prince Landis, who had miraculously survived, was now unconscious in bed, his mental strength apparently exhausted.

The royal guards were so tightly protecting Prince Landis that no one could get near him.

Even his younger brother, the 4th Prince Joseph, was kept away.

In fact, they seemed to be most wary of Joseph’s approach.

“Does this mean Prince Landis will succeed to the throne next?”

“I’m worried. Prince Landis is excellent, but his political abilities were considered lacking compared to Prince Proud or Prince Paris.”

“Still, he’d be better than Prince Joseph, right?”

“That’s true, but…”

Voices of concern were coming from all around. The death of Prince Proud had been that big of a blow.

It’s said that there were loud arguments in the military council meeting where future policies were being decided.

Prince Joseph, who was currently in command, insisted on pursuing the retreating enemy and capturing Iswakan, but other commanders argued for observing the situation until Prince Landis regained consciousness.

Although the dragon had withdrawn its power and flown off somewhere, that didn’t mean they were free from the dragon’s threat.

The enemy could use the dragon again.

Thus, the opinion to exercise caution carried more weight.

Some even suggested retreating to major cities, leaving only minimal forces deployed.

Although Prince Joseph’s insistence prevented a retreat, there were no additional attack orders for now.

‘Oh boy, because of that foolish prince, we’re stuck here.’

Strictly speaking, the tactically correct answer was the all-out attack Joseph was advocating. According to Master Ilya, it seemed the enemy could no longer control that dragon.

However, Joseph was insisting without such evidence, so he couldn’t persuade people.

From my perspective, retreating to major cities would have been convenient, but it wasn’t bad to witness the enemy’s retreat with my own eyes.

‘Article, wasn’t it?’

It seemed the people of Article were using ships to move to the Forest of Lament on the opposite side.

‘I hope Estelle has regained consciousness.’

There was no use worrying about this part.

Rather, I needed to come up with a plan regarding Rinoa’s situation.

Rinoa, suspected of assassinating the princes, seemed to be under interrogation without even being allowed to sleep.

Thanks to Prince Landis’s survival, the intensity of the investigation had lessened; otherwise, they might have treated her as a real criminal and even resorted to torture. That’s how significant the death of a prince was to the nation.

After pleading with Lucretia several times, I finally managed to arrange a meeting with Rinoa.

The meeting took place close to midnight.

Rinoa appeared with a haggard face.

“Looks like you’ve been having a hard time.”

I took out some honey snacks I had brought. The guard pretended not to see, as if willing to turn a blind eye.

It wasn’t that the guard was kind; it was thanks to the charm I had cast on him beforehand.

“Eat some.”

“I don’t have an appetite.”

“You need to eat to regain your strength. Here.”

I forcefully stuffed it into her mouth. Rinoa grimaced but soon started munching, seemingly finding it tasty.

“About this incident, you obviously didn’t kill them, right?”

“What if I did?”

“Don’t speak as if you’re testing me. There’s nothing good that can come from that.”

In fact, even the guard I had charmed earlier narrowed his eyes at Rinoa’s words just now.

Rinoa sighed and nodded.

“I didn’t kill them. Neither Prince Proud nor Prince Paris.”

“What about you being at the location where the princes were at the time of the incident?”

“I’m not sure. At that time, I was moving following Anduha. I didn’t even know where we were going.”

“Anduha…?”

“Don’t make that face. Anduha is absolutely not a traitor.”

“There are no absolutes in a person’s life. I never thought I’d end up stabbing an acquaintance with a spear either.”

“What? Did something happen to you too?”

“It’s not a big deal. More importantly, what do you plan to do now? Whatever happens, we need to clear the suspicion.”

“There’s no other way. We just have to cooperate sincerely with the investigation.”

“We need to identify the culprit. …The Savior Alliance as the perpetrator.”

“…!”

I spoke firmly.

“There’s a high possibility that the Savior Alliance is behind this incident. So I think it would be best if you tell everything you know.”

Since Rinoa’s Branford family, who had been recruited by the Savior Alliance, was said to be the mastermind of the rebellion, I thought there might be a possibility that they had information about other traitors.

I was suggesting to Rinoa to sell the name of that traitor to overcome this crisis.

‘If there is such a traitor, Rinoa will bite her lip. If not, she’ll sigh.’

Eventually, Rinoa bit her lip.

“That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because… It would turn into an irreversible big incident.”

It seemed that the impact of the information Rinoa held was quite significant. If so, a few more questions arise.

Why hadn’t Rinoa, who held such important information, been assassinated until now?

‘Or are they expecting that information to leak through Rinoa’s mouth?’

Expecting the irreversible big incident Rinoa just mentioned to occur.

‘Or maybe the information Rinoa has is false. Tch, either way, it all fits together.’

I found myself in a dilemma.

“Alright. For now, let’s go with the investigation. Maybe new information will come out when Prince Landis wakes up.”

“I’m sorry. And thank you, Wade.”

“I’ve received more help from you, so it’s nothing. Well, hang in there.”

As I left the barracks after the visit, I went over Rinoa’s situation once more.

Rinoa deserved sympathy.

Unable to stand by and watch her parents risk millions of lives for rebellion, she confessed everything to the state and then personally assassinated her parents and brother.

Afterwards, she deliberately acted like a scoundrel to intentionally tarnish her family’s honor. This was to increase the justification when she would be executed later as an example to other traitors.

There’s talk that the king used a fake corpse to save Rinoa in this process, but this isn’t certain.

‘Anyway, up to this point is inevitable. An inevitability I didn’t interfere with.’

To put it extremely, it’s fine to think of it as a predetermined game story.

Even if it’s a side story, this is still the world of Athena War Tales after all.

The problem is the story after I intervened. Butterfly effects would have occurred from that point on.

‘Quite a lot has happened.’

Rinoa followed me into the Forest of Lament, and because of that, she was investigated by the royal family.

Because of me, she fell out of favor with the 4th Prince Joseph, and the Branford branch family influenced by Prince Joseph is trying to drive Rinoa out.

In this incident, whether by coincidence or design, she’s been accused of attempting to assassinate the princes.

‘There’s likely to be some clue about the mastermind in this part.’

The mastermind is obviously the Savior Alliance, but the Savior Alliance is a collective of hundreds of alliances. I don’t know exactly which alliance plotted this scheme yet.

‘At this rate, it does look like Prince Joseph is in cahoots with the Alliance.’

This might be the answer, but I couldn’t hastily conclude with the lack of information.

* * *

The war situation was sorted out amidst the standoff between both sides.

The dark mages of Article vacated Iswakan and crossed over to the other side. They made Freyja, the city across, their base.

We naturally recaptured Iswakan as a result.

The city maintained its original state. You could say they left it clean.

It looks like it could return to its previous state immediately if the citizens came back.

We received orders to stand by here.

A week passed like that.

For me, who wanted to cross over quickly to meet Estelle and my master, it was an unbearable time.

‘It was better when I was a general.’

As a low-ranking soldier, there was too little freedom of action. Well, in exchange, I got to spend a lot more time alone with Erina.

Still, on the 10th day, as citizens returned to the city and Prince Landis regained consciousness, a festive mood flowed.

A welcome guest came to me as well.

A guest who entered mixed in with the returned citizens.

“Kuhahah, it seems a tremendous incident has occurred.”

“Gaspar!”

“Sorry I’m late, I had a lot to prepare to come here. Have you been well, Ars?”

“More or less. What about you, are you alright?”

“I’m doing okay too. That Gunther fellow was quite precarious though.”

I moved to a place where we could talk alone.

Gaspar wanted to hear about the progress of this war, but I decided to tell him that news first.

The story about the clue to finding Yumir, that is.


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The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road

The Extra Strategist’s Royal Road

Score 9.2
Status: Completed Type: Author: Released: 2022 Native Language: Korean
I ended up possessing Ars Elaine, a supporting character in the game. Struggling to prevent my death, I pave my way.

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