Ch.5Chapter 5. Laying the Foundation (2)

The next day.

In the center of a small castle in the middle of Zeilant, Luna was introducing me to her subordinates.

“This is Swen, who will be serving as our army’s strategist from today.”

The two officers of Luna’s army looked at me with subtle expressions.

Including me, there were a total of four people belonging to this place.

One was ‘Cain Nerkis’, a man approaching 70 who handled political affairs.

According to the setting, he was the man who contributed the wealth needed for Luna to raise an army as a leader.

The other was the valiant female general of Luna’s army, ‘Tifa’.

She was Luna’s childhood friend who stepped up to help Luna without hesitation.

Though somewhat one-dimensional, she didn’t seem like the type to betray others.

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Cain Nerkis. Don’t mind my age, feel free to be comfortable around me. Hmm-hmm.”

The white-haired man Cain wore a tattered robe.

After shaking hands briefly with Cain, I extended my hand to Tifa who was standing beside him.

She grabbed my hand with her large one, then tilted her head and said:

“My name is Tifa. But, Swen… are you a woman or a man?”

“What? Can’t you tell by looking? I’m a man.”

“Why are your forearms so white and thin for a man? And your face is so pretty too.”

When I only saw her in dot graphics, I didn’t notice, but seeing her in person like this, I understood why she would say such things.

Rather than just feminine, she had a muscular physique closer to that of a female warrior.

Her red hair was tied up high for ease of movement.

The large axe strapped to her back emitted a strange aura that made people feel intimidated.

She grabbed my arm roughly a few times, shaking it, then smiled and said:

“Well anyway, nice to meet you! Strategist friend!”

‘Whew, she’s quite draining.’

We’d only just exchanged greetings…

Is it that people with low power stats tend to have weaker energy, or something like that?

Anyway—

These two people were the only talents currently under Lunarian’s army.

Cain with high politics but mediocre in other areas.

And Tifa, with decent power and leadership but not particularly intelligent.

This was the talent pool of Lunarian’s army.

Of course, both had tremendous potential.

First, Cain. At first glance, he looked like an ordinary old man who would spend his remaining days idly passing time—

But in reality, he was the supposedly dead younger brother of the fallen emperor of the United Empire.

The setting was that he had narrowly escaped death from a power struggle, living in hiding under a false name, and began cooperating with Lunarian after seeing a subtle possibility in her.

In other words, this man was actually a relative of the Einhart family and the uncle of the infamous tyrant Serpina.

Just before his natural death, he would reveal his true name and insert all his secretly preserved descendants into Lunarian’s army—these descendants were such SSS-tier characters that it would be no exaggeration to call them a dream team, making it crucial to keep him alive until his natural end.

Next was Tifa.

Though she appeared ignorant, she was one of the few special individuals on the continent who could detect the existence of mana.

This game, [Garand Eternity Saga], wasn’t particularly historically accurate but rather a medieval fantasy mix—but the profession of ‘mage’ didn’t publicly exist.

Cavalry beats archers, archers beat spearmen, and spearmen beat cavalry.

The game had a very simple combat mechanism based on these three relationships.

Being a classic game, there wasn’t much depth to it.

However.

That didn’t mean ‘magic’ itself didn’t exist at all—

A few chosen individuals could detect the mana existing on the continent and perform miraculous attacks like shooting lightning or raining down meteors of flame.

Tifa was one of those individuals.

Tifa’s biggest characteristic was that despite being a general-type character skilled in combat, she could use magic.

All other mages were intelligence-type strategist characters, and realistically, it made more sense for mages to have high intelligence.

In other words, her potential was to become essentially the strongest general—’good at fighting and can use magic too.’

Of course, when this ability would awaken remained unknown.

It could be summarized as ‘if you somehow manage to keep Tifa alive in Lunarian’s army, she’ll eventually use magic.’

Since Lunarian’s army concept was [Return of the King], it would be correct to say that the only two subordinates also had similar concepts.

Anyway.

Since I couldn’t become a returning king right now, that information wasn’t particularly important to me.

After all, if you left Luna’s army to the CPU in the game, after about a year you’d see a message like [Lunarian’s army has disappeared beyond history].

“Then let’s begin this month’s meeting. Feel free to express any opinions on what we should do this month. If there’s any mission you’d like to take on, speak comfortably.”

Issuing orders once a month, with subordinates carrying out missions for that month.

It was exactly the same as the Garand Eternity Saga system.

In response to Sovereign Luna’s words, Cain slowly raised his hand.

“My lord. I believe it would be right to invest money in the market for commercial development this time.”

‘Commercial development, huh.’

When you first start the game, naturally, you lack basic funds.

There were only two ways to gather money.

Either explore the surroundings, or invest in commerce to increase the monthly tax income.

In that sense, Cain’s proposal was entirely reasonable. Continuing to explore had a low probability of finding money, and with a character with high politics, the effects of running commerce would be quite good.

“…Swen. What do you think?”

Luna pondered for a moment, then looked at me and asked.

I had asked two things of her.

To treat me as a subordinate as much as possible, and to discuss all significant matters with me.

While the first was whatever, the second was very important.

To use my intelligence 100 brain, it was important to receive questions in some form.

And the result comes quickly.

[If Cain is assigned to commerce, he will achieve fairly good results].

But.

‘Let me think about how I played Lunarian’s army.’

Actually, Luna wasn’t a ruler I played that much.

After succeeding with the returning king concept just once, I didn’t touch it again because it became boring.

A game that was challenging enough to rack your brains before becoming the returning king became too easy afterward.

So, while I couldn’t treat my playing experience as absolute gospel, it would be fine to use it as a reference to some extent.

“…My lord. May I offer an opinion?”

“Speak.”

“I think it would be better to order Lord Cain to repair the castle walls in preparation for enemy attacks, rather than commerce.”

“…?”

Cain looked at me with puzzlement.

“Listen, Swen was it? I’m pleased you overestimate this old man, but… repairing walls requires someone to lead the soldiers directly, and do you think the young men fixing the walls would willingly follow an old man like me?”

Listening to Cain, I could figure out how the actual commands worked in this game.

In this game, to repair walls well, you needed high [Power].

Conversely, to achieve results in commerce, high [Politics] was needed.

Since it was a very simple mechanism where results were determined by stats, I had never thought about how these stats specifically applied in the workplace.

Since Cain with low power couldn’t achieve good results, it seemed a plausible reason was attached—[because he lacks strength, workers don’t follow his orders well].

‘Still, we can’t just build up commerce meaninglessly.’

There was only one reason I ordered repairs.

Because this city was destined to be lost anyway.

No matter how much we struggled to conscript and train soldiers, develop commerce with this level of talent pool, this city—[Zeilant]—was fated to be taken by the Brans army nearby.

Since the ruler of the Brans army, Lynn Brans, tended to be quite expansionist, this was practically a foregone conclusion.

If that was the case, rather than developing markets and handing over a highly developed city—

It was much wiser to repair the walls solidly to buy time while pretending to hold out.

This wasn’t a delusion but exactly the trick I had used when I actually played as Lunarian.

If there was a powerful nation nearby, first run away as much as possible.

When you reach an area that powerful nations wouldn’t covet, use that as a base and somehow hold out.

Since different correction values were applied each time and things like the positions of each country or the quality of territories weren’t fixed, it couldn’t be an absolute strategy, but that didn’t change the basic operational method.

Luna seemed somewhat confused by my opinion to have Cain repair the walls.

But she nodded and said:

“…I understand. Then what about Tifa?”

“I’ll do whatever you want me to. I can do anything. Should I go repair the walls with this old man?”

“Swen. I ask you, what mission would be good for Tifa?”

Well, as she said, I could just have her repair the walls too.

Since running away was the predetermined future anyway.

Still, since I was asked, I should check.

‘What should I assign to Tifa?’

Again, my intelligence 100 brain quickly draws the most perfect conclusion.

[Commerce].

“…???”

What?

Commerce?

No matter how many times I thought about it, there was only one conclusion.

[Tifa should be assigned a mission related to commerce].

‘…Hmm.’

I couldn’t understand it no matter how I thought about it.

But I trust my intelligence stat.

Intelligence 100 in this game only speaks the absolute truth.

As long as this is a world inside the game, that condition is unchangeable!

“…Swen?”

“Ah, sorry. Just thinking for a moment.”

I looked at Luna, Cain, and Tifa in turn…

Then, in a very solemn tone, as if I wasn’t joking, I said:

“I would like Tifa to engage in commerce and develop the market.”