Chapter 83

TN: Since this chapter contains many names from various units of the Yuri Empire, here’s some mini-personal-fandom-ish that I created for myself. LINK HERE. Warning: May Contain Spoilers.

“After I found out that there was a ‘Reconciliation Faction’ in the Eldard Kingdom that opposed the deployment of troops to the Yuri Empire, I first informed Sera-sama, the captain of the <Water Lily>.”

“It is true that Partita told me about it at the time.”

Partita’s words were immediately validated by Sera.

“But I haven’t done anything about it. If the kingdom cancels the military campaign and comes to our country for reconciliation, I think that would be fine with Yuri-sama.”

“You are right, Sera-sama did not do anything. I then informed the fact to Henruda-sama, the captain of <Yellow Rose>.”

“Indeed, I heard about it at the time. I decided that it would be in Yuri-sama’s best interest if the kingdom came to war with us, as it would increase the land of the Yuri Empire, so I took some action.”

“Can you please explain to everyone what exactly you did?”

“Nothing much. I only buried a few of the kingdom’s conciliators.”

When Partita urged her, Henruda replied as if it were nothing.

The reason why the reconciliation faction had the power to speak out against the main war faction is that Marquis Lautner, who is the prime minister of the kingdom, is a man of deep faith and was the flag bearer for the reconciliation faction.

If Marquis Lautner, a major figure in the royal family, advocates fierce opposition to the dispatch of troops, the nobility below the count will have no choice but to suppress their voices. If the Prime Minister is watching you, it means that you are at risk of having your position threatened.

Nevertheless―――The royal army was promptly sent to invade the land of the Yuri Empire because Marquis Lautner and other major members of the reconciliation faction were all assassinated・・・・・.

The murder weapon was a common ‘arrow’ deployed by the kingdom’s army, so it remained unknown who the murderer was until the end. So, it was concluded that someone from the ‘Pro-War Factions’ in the kingdom, who had lost their nerve, had done the killing.

The person who carried out the assassination was none other than the <Yellow Rose> led by Henruda.

The arrows fired by the <Yellow Rose> are blessed by the spirits of wind and earth, so they fly at high speed without being affected by wind or gravity, and can easily pierce targets at great distances.

In addition, the arrow itself can be imbued with some kind of spirit using the [Spirit Arrow] skill, and in this case, the arrow itself will strongly guide the target with its will, so it will hit the target without mercy even if the target moves after it is shot.

So as long as we can get the right arrows for the Royal Army, it is easy for the Yellow Rose to assassinate a VIP by firing a magic bullet from a distance where the shooter cannot be detected.

“In addition to Sera and Henruda, I also talked to Primula, the captain of <Red Rose>, about the inner workings of the kingdom.”

“Yes, you certainly did.”

Primula now nodded her head in agreement with Partita’s words.

“Could it be that Primula was doing something too?”

“It’s a bit like magically firing up the emotions of the royal nobility.”

The Red Rose uses the magic of [Range Emotional Heightening] daily throughout the kingdom castle, secretly giving all the people in the castle a state of abnormality that amplifies their emotions.

It fueled the feelings of anger among the nobles of the kingdom at the loss of the city of Nildea and greatly increased their desire to fight the main battle.

“If the <Red Rose> would have acted, I wouldn’t have assassinated it. There’s a good chance Yuri-sama would be upset if she found out, and I would have preferred it if I didn’t have to get my hands dirty.”

“If I had known that the <Yellow Rose> was acting, I wouldn’t have done it either. It was quite troublesome to go all the way to the kingdom under the guise of ‘extermination’ to use magic every day.”

“In fact, everyone is doing whatever they want without telling Yuri-sama. What do you think, don’t you think it’s necessary to have a place like this to share information about everyone’s activities?”

With that being said, both Henrudah and Primula were speechless.

The two of them were followed by everyone else in the room who nodded their heads in agreement with Partita’s words.

The fact that the incitement of the main warring factions of the kingdom was revealed was a lure for more information to flood into the meeting.

For example, it was revealed that several troops were involved in the case of the skeleton soldiers sent by Yuri, who annihilated the kingdom’s defenders and caused the collapse of the capital and other cities in the kingdom.

For example, <Kikyou> worked on the walls of each city in the kingdom during the night, reducing their durability to the limit in a way that could not be seen, so that the walls could be easily destroyed by skeletal soldiers at a later date.

<Nadeshiko> replaced the ‘Holy Wand’ sealed underground in the Kingdom Cathedral with a fake wand made by <Rindou> that contains magic to extinguish undead demons.

<Himeyuri> pre-eliminate high-level individuals from the Yuri Empire to the kingdom, thereby preventing skeleton soldiers from fighting with demons on their way to the kingdom.

<Sakuraka> secretly wiped out the troops of the then expeditionary kingdom army, so that when a skeleton soldier attacked the capital, so they won’t run to the reinforcements.

<Kuroyuri> used her ability to strengthen the undead to greatly increase the fighting ability of the skeletal soldiers when they attacked the capital of the kingdom.

On the other hand, the <Red Rose> used range-weakening magic, and the <Red Plum> deployed curse wards to reduce the kingdom’s ability to fight back.

<Yellow Rose> had assassinated a general with outstanding command ability in the Royal Army by sniping him from a great distance. In addition, they use arrows made from shaved human bones, which were ordered by <Rindou>, to disguise the arrows as if they were fired by skeleton soldiers.

<Blue Rose> controlled all the spirits in the vicinity of the kingdom’s capital from a distance, manipulating the magic and sorcery used by the kingdom’s army to suit their needs. Despite their obvious weakness to fire, the fire magic unleashed by the kingdom’s army always burned the kingdom’s soldiers, not the skeletal soldiers, which is a horrifying story.

In other words, all troops except the <Shirayuri> and <Water Lily> were involved.

Although Yuri was quite surprised at the time that the skeleton soldiers were able to break through the defenses of the kingdom’s army.

If 10 of the 12 units of the Yuri Empire’s pride and joy had been crafted so that the skeleton soldiers would win. It was natural for the skeleton soldiers to win.

Other times in the past, villages in the kingdom have offered reverence to Yuri Empire for three days in a row, and many troops have been involved in that as well.

Specifically, the reverence of Notoku was due to the involvement of <Rindou>, who wanted to secure villages that produced animal materials, Shirin was due to the involvement of <Kikyou>, who wanted to keep forestry-based villages in check, and Erato was due to the involvement of <Himeyuri> and <Red Rose>, who thought they could use it as a bridgehead for a war against the Principality. It seems that they were involved.

It seems to be a coincidence that the villages have offered their reverence for three days in a row. The fact that the villages offered their reverence is undoubtedly the result of the involvement and instigation of the Yuri Empire.

Furthermore, the messenger that came from the duchy the other day also had multiple units involved in it.

Before the carriage of the duchy’s delegation entered the territory of the Yuri Empire, <Nakeshiko> first detected it, and <Yellow Rose>, who received the information, approached under the cover of night and used spirit magic to put the entire delegation into a deep sleep.

The <Red Rose> uses the magic of [Spiritual Search] to read the memories of the messenger Sofia Theodore to investigate the purpose of her visit, and learns that Sofia has come as an emissary of peace and that her father, Cadain Theodore, has given her the discretion to negotiate that up to two cities of the Principality may be ceded to the Yuri Empire in the event of peace. They also learned that her father, Cadain Theodore, had given her the discretion to negotiate for the cession of up to two duchy cities to the Yuri Empire.

In addition, the <Rindou> prescribed a drug to make Sofia’s consciousness fade, and the <Blue Rose> worked on the spirit in Sofia’s body to falsify her memory and rewrote the terms of the peace allowed by Cadain Theodore to ‘only apologize, not concede anything, not admit defeat, and only on the condition that we share the pain’.

―――In this series of events alone, four units were involved.

In addition to that, <Kuroyuri> also had the succubus followers that she summoned with the [Summon Followers] absorb and drain the ability values, lowering Sofia’s [Wisdom] from 251 to 3.

The amount of [Wisdom] that Sofia loses will depend on Succubus who performed the absorption drain. This is a permanent effect and not a [State Abnormality], so it will not be exposed by Yuri’s [Spatial Grasp] or [Appraisal] skill. The succubus itself can return the ability value to the original owner.

This is because she has mastered the [Etiquette] skill, so even though her [Wisdom] is greatly reduced, she can still carry out polite conversations naturally, and her stupidity is surprisingly undetectable.

However, Sofia’s intelligence has been lowered to the level of a level 1 infant. This is the reason why she could barely say sorry to Yuri to the audience but was stunned to find that she could not negotiate with her in any way.

“You’re all over the place……”

“Absolutely……”

After receiving reports from each of the troops about the series of events, both Hera and Sera hung their heads with indescribably complicated expressions on their faces.

Despite their unhappy expressions, the need to share information across units was strongly acknowledged by the twelve captains, and it was decided that the secret late-night meetings would continue to be held.

However, it was decided that the words ‘secret meeting’ and ‘meeting’ would not be used in the future.

Their lord, Yuri, is intelligent and has good intuition, so it would be easy for the secret meeting to be exposed if they were to say something inappropriate. They wanted to minimize the risk of losing the trust of her subjects by letting them know that they were acting alone and without permission.

Therefore, it was decided that from now on, the secret meeting would be referred to by the symbol ‘YSK’.

Incidentally, this is an abbreviation for “Yuri-sama’s Conference for World Domination.”