Book 5: Volume 4 Chapter S1, The King at the Mercy of Others

Translator: Kazumi

Editor: Silavin

 

The Smith Kingdom’s Capital had barely recovered from one round of unrest when another disturbance broke out.

 

The Royal Army raided a building.

 

“This raid is carried out by order of the King! Resistance will be treated as treason!”

 

In a nation where the King held absolute authority, that declaration left very little room to maneuver. One wrong move, and a man’s head and body might find themselves no longer connected.

 

“What is the meaning of this?! You can’t just—!”

 

The knights, however, were not there to be reasoned with. They had their orders. Arguing would only delay the work and earn them a reprimand from their superiors. They thus moved swiftly and somewhat mechanically.

 

One of them found his way to the center of the building and stopped in front of his target.

 

“You, the leader. Come with us.”

 

“On what grounds—!”

 

The knight looked at him with quiet exasperation.

 

“If you dig around long enough, there’s always something to find. Isn’t there?”

 

The leader went still. The words had landed precisely where they were aimed.

 

He had survived this long in the shadows because of his connections. But the moment those knights stepped through the door invoking Royal Authority, those connections had ceased to matter.

 

In fact, there was a reasonable chance they had already been severed.

 

He sank to his knees.

 

“…Where did I go wrong?”

 

No one in that room had an answer for him.

 

That day, one dark guild was annihilated by Royal Decree. For the ordinary citizens of the Capital, it was the kind of incident that flickered briefly across conversation and was forgotten by evening. Only a select few understood that this particular action carried weight far beyond its surface appearance.

 

♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦♢♦

 

King Assar received the knight’s report in his private chambers, where he had been resting between obligations. He listened, nodded once, and spoke in an even tone.

 

“I see. Well done. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

 

“Yes, sir!”

 

The knight departed promptly, and the King was left alone.

 

It was unusual for the King to request a direct report on something as specific as a knightly raid against a dark guild. Even if such operations were carried out in the King’s name. Though, it was using his name largely as a means to override any protection extended to the criminal organization from powerful merchants and Nobles.

 

Once the door closed behind the knight, King Assar allowed himself a quiet sigh. There was no one there to see it, which meant it was his true feelings.

 

A knock came at the door.

 

“Your Majesty. Prince Christoph has arrived.”

 

“Send him in.”

 

He had an idea of what his Son had come to say.

 

Father and Son were, at their core, on easy terms with one another. The formality of having a knight announce the Prince was closer to ritual than a warning.

 

Christoph entered the room and, upon seeing his Father’s expression, seemed to mirror it.

 

“It seems the capture went smoothly.”

 

“Yes,” King Assar confirmed.

 

Christoph paused. Relief was plainly visible on the King’s face but there was something else there too.

 

“…Did something else happen?”

 

At those words, the King’s expression shifted, and for a moment it looked like he had bitten into something unpleasant.

 

“The investigation is still ongoing. But it appears the entire incident was ‘his’ own initiative.”

 

Christoph stared at him.

 

His expression communicated quite clearly his thoughts, ‘That can’t be right.’

 

“…How do I put this?” The King let out a slow breath. “Bad luck, bad timing. One way or another, or perhaps both. In any case, that man was unfortunate.”

 

“I’m not sure sympathy is warranted for someone with his record.”

 

King Assar’s expression as he replied was, word for word, the same one his Son was wearing.

 

The reason the King had issued a direct command, the reason for the forced investigation, was tied to the incitement of the dark guild against Crown. Neither the King nor the Crown Prince had heard this from Kousuke himself, but the story had reached them through the Shadows’ leadership, and the King had immediately ordered a full military inquiry.

 

What that inquiry turned up was not what he had expected.

 

He had assumed that the disturbance had been orchestrated with the backing of a merchant faction or a minor Noble House. But no such connection had been found. The merchants and Nobles who had been associated with the guild’s leader were, by all accounts, as bewildered as anyone. The leader appeared to have acted entirely on his own.

 

Upon hearing this, King Assar had reportedly said several things about the man that were not fit for formal record.

 

Christoph, hearing the account from his Father, sighed with the weariness of someone who had come to expect a particular kind of problem.

 

“That man really does seem to attract trouble wherever he settles.”

 

The ‘man’ in question was, of course, Kousuke.

 

“Don’t say it.” King Assar’s voice was flat. “Besides, the original circumstances were our fault to begin with.”

 

Kousuke’s arrival in the Smith Kingdom had stemmed from the chain of disturbances involving the dark guilds. The trouble that had followed could be traced, indirectly, back to that. It was understandable that both the King and the Crown Prince felt something when they thought about it.

 

It was a kind of resigned frustration.

 

*Why did it have to be now?*

 

It was a question neither of them could direct anywhere useful.

 

The direct questioning of the leader continued for several more days. In the end, it confirmed what the initial investigation had suggested: the disturbance against Crown had been entirely his own doing. The inquiry ran longer than usual given that it had been initiated by Royal Decree, but once it was clear nothing further could be uncovered, the matter was handed off to the appropriate judicial process, and the leader was remanded for sentencing under the laws of the Smith Kingdom.