Ch.236236. The Frankish Kingdom (5)

Reality is not a war movie where the credits roll and the ending appears the moment of victory.

What this means is that the Frank Kingdom must take responsibility for its crushing defeat in the battle on the plains.

If they had won, they could have eliminated the karma for the mad baron’s atrocities and extracted appropriate compensation along with ransoms for prisoners and bodies, but…

With the allied forces suffering more than half their numbers being annihilated in a devastating defeat, such a dreamlike future will never come.

In addition to the baron’s responsibility for attempting to invade the Empire, they must pay the price for their defeat, and considering the not-insignificant ransoms for resurrectible corpses and prisoners… the situation becomes even more serious.

To put it somewhat extremely, this isn’t simply about paying reparations to end the war; the Frank Kingdom as a system itself could face collapse.

Among the 87… 86 lords, none particularly like the Frank Kingdom system, but all of them know that the Frank Kingdom is the best at protecting them from external threats.

If the Dawn Empire were to demand the complete dissolution of the Frank Kingdom in addition to war reparations, the fate awaiting the 86 scattered territories would be all too obvious.

So, as the lords anxiously awaited the imperial envoy…

Those who read the letter delivered by vampire bats used for mail delivery in the Empire were shocked by the peace negotiation terms proposed by the Dawn Empire.

“This is….”

“No matter how I look at it, is there something strange going on with the Empire?”

“I think differently… but one thing is clear.”

“Yes, for whatever reason, the Empire doesn’t seem to want the complete destruction of our kingdom.”

The conditions they proposed were so generous that these lords could genuinely harbor such optimism.

The complete cession of the barony that caused the incident was a reasonable condition that couldn’t be considered unusual, but the lords felt a sense of dissonance from the treatment of prisoners captured by the Dawn Empire.

The release of serfs without any separate compensation was quite extraordinary to begin with.

The ransoms subsequently proposed by the Dawn Empire were not just cheap—they were practically giveaway prices.

Elite infantry (by kingdom standards), the men-at-arms, were valued at 5 silver coins each, cavalry at 1 gold coin, and mid-level knights at 500 gold coins per person.

Of course, the coins to be paid must be the Dawn Empire’s standard currency, but even considering that, those amounts were essentially just nominal ransoms.

While they might be considerable sums for individuals, from a national perspective, they wouldn’t even qualify as “major expenditures.”

The amount of reparations was quite substantial, enough to plunge some territories into financial crises bordering on bankruptcy, but considering the situation, isn’t this saying that a crisis of national survival could be resolved with money?

Moreover, human instinct is often that of a madman armed with the notion that “as long as it’s not me, it’s fine.”

“You did this!! So you should take responsibility!!”

“Nonsense! Why should I alone bear responsibility?!! You traitors, all of you tacitly approved!”

“Warmongers like you would have threatened territorial wars if we didn’t agree!! Who could have opposed that?!!”

With the idea of shifting the responsibility for these reparations onto those who were once war hawks, internal accusations among some short-sighted lords continued, with shouting matches breaking out.

It had long been an undeniable reality that the Frank Kingdom’s political landscape would undergo major changes because of this incident.

And despite the generous terms offered by the other side, they couldn’t help but be suspicious.

How could the ruling class of a nation, inevitably accustomed to the endless greed of humans and sentient beings, not be suspicious of such “generous” treatment?

Especially when the national motto of the Dawn Empire was something like “If you get slapped, stab back with a knife!” at best, and they were known to have burned an entire city to the ground over the death of a single civilian.

Most of the kingdom’s lords, unless their heads were filled with flowers, couldn’t help but suspect that the Empire was plotting something, but…

Surprisingly, these terms truly reflected the sincere intentions of the imperial leadership.

※ ※ ※

《…It was you.》

In the divine realm of multiple gods located in the soul world—a world that materialized extremely surreal forms that transcended time and space.

《Somehow, I wondered where you’d gone… you were hiding underground.》

There, as I invested a significant portion of my consciousness in analyzing this incident, I couldn’t help but sigh at finally catching the mastermind behind the Frank Kingdom’s reckless declaration of war.

‘Horus… you fool. Not even able to hide properly, you’re a failure as a conspirator.’

The essence of this incident was a spontaneous situation triggered by the instigation of Horus, the evil god of fear. In other words, the Frank Kingdom’s brainless movements were also part of his clumsy plot.

When I completely ended the fate of the Rom Empire and established the Dawn Empire in its place,

the paths of the Seven Great Evil Gods, who had divided the remaining territories of the Rom Empire among themselves, diverged in two directions.

One was to occupy the former territories of the Rom Empire and directly confront my Dawn Empire. The evil gods of “Plague,” “Despair,” and “Misfortune” chose this option and began cultivating their forces.

However, when the strongest, “Plague,” was thoroughly defeated and forced to surrender unconditionally, the option of building strength in the front yard and confronting head-on was conclusively deemed a failure.

The other option was to sell off their shares of the old Rom Empire generously, then use that capital to move their bases to another continent.

The two who had either no pre-established forces in the Western Continent or had lost them to uprisings—”Conspiracy” and “Pleasure”—chose this option and moved their bases to the Eastern Continent.

Initially, they expanded their influence successfully by taking advantage of the absence of major evil gods, and “Pleasure,” who openly operated his cult in the open, even devoured an entire country.

The evil gods, who expected to continue expanding their influence successfully in this way, ultimately failed to overcome the demonic invasion that would end the Age of Darkness.

Consequently, as the forces of all evil gods except the Dawn Empire were completely uprooted, Horus cut off all contact after the last news that he had gone down to the Southern Continent…

《After leaving you to cause trouble buried in the sea… now the land looks easy to you?》

This guy, did I really look that easy to him?

While I was quietly watching him buried in the sea preparing his grand ritual, now he’s openly eyeing the land and starting to probe little by little.

After the Age of Darkness, instead of the land, he began operating in the sea, aiming for cosmic horror, acquiring several sea-related divine attributes, and his motif changed to Cthulhu and Dagon.

Having picked up some strange ideas somewhere, this being who was trying to become a god of cosmic horror finally couldn’t break his habits from the pantheon era and was about to start causing trouble.

When he was plotting to create an Innsmouth in my territory with fish-people similar to Deep Ones, those Deep Ones raided coastal villages and kidnapped about hundreds of people.

Of course, I couldn’t stand by and do nothing, so I allied with some aquatic races being exploited by Horus to rescue the people.

Afterward, I retaliated by summoning the great demon of Leviathan, the demon king of “Envy,” to his headquarters, the “Fortress of Stars.”

Perhaps frustrated that I thwarted his ritual to summon his main body into reality, Horus led his cult and employed all sorts of petty schemes.

According to my investigation, this incident also seems to be a case of Horus reversing his technique of instilling fear.

Since human instinct is ultimately governed by fear, he probably placed his followers nearby to subtly guide emotions.

So I initially decided to directly strike at Horus’s forces rather than stirring up those insubstantial feudal lords to provoke the forces of good, but…

There was one minor problem: none of Horus’s forces are currently operating openly.

Forces of an evil god specialized in covert operations are hiding, and their location is in the middle of the sea, which I can hardly call my domain.

Therefore, my choice was—to tarnish his honor.

I directly ordered the administration to publicly reveal the mastermind behind this incident, while also re-releasing the legendary song “Horus Has One Testicle.”

To finish it off, I distributed various propaganda materials with strong artistic nuances, which depicted Horus, a god with a clearly male persona, as a young girl in order to mock him.

Considering that incorrect perceptions of a god’s appearance can actually change the god’s form, my gift of mockery… isn’t bad for annoying a troublesome fellow.

In truth, dealing with just Horus is still a bit much when the enemy (demons) remains intact.