CH 377

“Right! Attention, everyone! Be quiet!”

“””””…”””””

When I stood in front of the assembled and said that, they became quiet in an instant and all eyes were on me. Or rather, it wasn’t noisy from the beginning… How should I put it…, when I said that with the same kind of atmosphere as the school in my previous life, everyone looked at me with a serious faces and a heavy silence.

This is just a bit much… Let’s go with a lighter atmosphere, shall we? It’s good that everyone is serious… but let’s smile. Like making a ruckus on purpose… There are various things you can do, right?

I can’t do it… There can be no one who can keep up with the mood-lightening of the previous life. And since I’m in a position of absolute power, it’s only natural that all of my subordinates would be serious like this. It would be better to make it feel a little lighter, but…

“Eh~…… then I would like to start the meeting.”

I have no choice but to start the meeting immediately. I can’t stand being watched in silence all the time.

I decided to hold a meeting today because there is an important agenda. Even though it’s an important topic… it’s not something that can be summed up in one word… What can I say.…? They’re all too serious, too inflexible, too invested…

Frankly, I thought Alvaland and Welez were going to be in the process of conquering from now on. Even so, it was a little unconvincing, or rather, it didn’t make sense to say that they had finished conquering it while I was still canned up in Laudin.

Certainly, I gave them the authority to decide. And I decided and presented the conditions for the negotiations, and told them that if the negotiations failed, there would be no other choice but to invade by force. But I never thought that I would send a messenger on my own without my knowledge, negotiate, fail, and immediately attack by force.

But it turned out that way. When I thought that it would be dangerous if I didn’t move soon, it was already after I conquered both of them, so I can’t understand how to put it into words…

In the first place, I was surprised that both Alvaland and Welez were captured at the same time. I thought I had to deal with one of them one by one, but everyone just attacked and captured both at the same time… It’s too unreasonable… I feel like an idiot for overthinking this and that.

“King Karruzer! What is the agenda for today’s meeting?”

“Ah~…, that’s right… First of all, everyone, let’s establish the ‘how-to-do’ 1 more firmly…”

If the discrepancy between me and everyone is due to the difference in common sense, it can’t be helped. No matter what, I’m bound by the common sense of my previous life. That’s why I think it’s strange, I don’t even think about it, and I’m going to have a lot of discrepancies. It can’t be helped anymore. Let’s break it down as such.

The problem is that each of us is unaware of the discrepancies, and there is a huge gap between what I thought would happen and what everyone actually did.

For example… this doesn’t happen when building towns or canals. This is because we use a common understanding of the blueprints, hold meetings to reach a mutual agreement, and discuss any problems that may arise while actually constructing them.

The same thing is happening not only in construction but also in various other research institutes. This is because if there is a failure or something is stuck, they will report it to me, consult with me, and present a solution. I think it is important to have this discussion and share information and recognition.

But when it comes to military and domestic affairs, it just doesn’t mesh. Everyone thinks that there is no need to report to me and bother me, so they decide and act at their own discretion. As a result, the situation exceeded what I had originally expected. The invasion of Alvaland and Welez this time is just that.

I’m glad that it worked out in the end. It’s a big problem that a war involving my House was going on without me knowing. If you say that my perception was naive, you’re right. I have no excuse.

But… no, that’s why we have to establish a more solid communication system so that the same thing doesn’t happen again.

“The ‘how-to-do’’?”

“That’s right. I’ve said this many times before, but some of the newcomers probably don’t know about it,” I said. “It’s reporting, contacting, and consulting. It’s not that each of us decides on our own and moves on our own. Instead, we properly report and communicate with each other before making decisions.”

We are always expanding. There are many things that newcomers do not know or do not understand, even if it is a matter of course for veterans.

There will always be times when you can’t ask your boss for judgment. On the battlefield, when the enemy makes an unexpected move and the situation becomes different from the plan, should you have to ask your superiors, “What should we do about this?”, they won’t be able to respond in time.

It’s still good if the enemy can be escaped from, but it’s the worst if your army suffers fatal damage due to such a delay in judgment. So in such cases, it is necessary to act independently at the discretion of the field commanders. It doesn’t mean that he has to consult with his superiors about everything and ask for instructions.

However, it is unacceptable for the person in charge of the site to arbitrarily decide, “This is fine.” even though there is plenty of time and leeway. If they keep deciding ad hoc and do not contact others to keep consistent with the overall plan, we’ll end up in a lot of trouble.

Therefore, there must be a solid standard for cases where a quick decision must be made on the spot and cases where it must be done after sufficient consultation. But it is also impossible to decide such a thing exactly. There are many ways to say it, depending on the case by case, time, and situation, but there is no uniform answer as long as the work and circumstances are infinitely different.

If an exception is provided in the first place, there may be cases where all cases are pushed through as exceptions even if they are not exceptions. Regardless of how many such examples there have been, in terms of image, anything would be “This is a violation of the supreme command!”, and the military force pushes through their own unreasonableness.

Regardless of whether or not they were true, it is possible to push through everything as an exception or not to be interfered with by others.

“Honestly, this is a difficult topic. If everything is rigidly based on rules and standards, flexible operation cannot be achieved. However, if each person makes decisions as they please, there will be overstepping of one’s authority and a lack of coordination and consistency with others. I am not able to make such decisions as a matter of law. I just want you all to think about this.”

Even though I say that I can’t set a clear standard, I tell people to follow such vague rules well. What I’m saying is messy and left to others, but I can’t say anything else.

“So it’s not just what orders are handed down from King Karruzer… it means that we have to think and act among ourselves.”

“Gotoh! Are you well enough to out of bed?” I said.

While we were having a meeting, a ragged man with burn marks all over his face walked in. It’s Harold Godot, of course, but Harold Godot died the other day. So who we have here now is no longer Harold Godot, but another person named Gotoh.

“I am,” Gotoh said. “You had already miraculously healed me, King Karruzer.”

That’s a lie. My recovery magic is still incomplete. Besides, at that time, even if I poured almost all my magical power into it, it was far from a complete cure. The problem above all else is that my recovery magic promotes the body’s inherent healing factor.

In other words, no matter how hard you try, you can’t heal wounds that your body can’t heal by itself, and the amount of forced recovery will cause problems in your body other than where the injury is. It doesn’t just end with the injury being healed, it also consumes physical strength to increase self-healing power, and that’s how much the body is overworked.

Harold… No, I saved Gotoh’s life, but soon after that, he lost consciousness and was in bed suffering from the aftereffects of his burns. He seems to have finally recovered to some extent but is far from fully healed.

“Indeed… it’s as Lord Gotoh said.”

“Umu! We rely too much on King Karruzer!”

“Because of our unreliability, we are giving His Majesty trouble. 2 We have to do better!”

Yes, yes. It’s not what I thought, but everyone seems to be motivated and it’s a good thing… is it, though? Thanks to Gotoh, something should have come together neatly.

So the meeting continued, not only about the what-to-do but also about future policies.

Now then… I guess I’ll be able to stay here for about a week or so with things related to the Blish Isles. As a finishing touch this time, I’m thinking of capturing Ehrland Island, which is next to Blish.

Ehrland is an island to the west of Welez, and the area between Blish and Ehrland is called the Ehrlish Strait. It’s more convenient to cross over to Ehrland from Welez or Alvaland. Thanks to the unification of the Blish Isles, it became possible to cross the strait from there, and we decided to invade this time.

There are still various islands on the north side of Blish, but as expected, it’s impossible for me to rule them all from end to end this time. As a finishing touch this time, I would like to unify the island of Ehrland and return to the Kingdom of Ploiss.

Ehrland, however, will not have the same strategy as before. It’s not only because the local infrastructure isn’t in place, or because it’s beyond Blish Island, so it’s hard to stretch the transportation and supply routes, but there’s also a very fatal problem.

There’s a reason my subordinates were able to conquer Alvaland and Welez so quickly. That’s because the opponent’s forces were organized to some extent. There were countries other than the Kingdom of Alvaland in the Alvaland region. But most of the Alvaland region was ruled by the Kingdom of Alvaland.

That’s why if the Kingdom of Alvaland surrendered, all of its other territories would automatically surrender to us. The Welez region was the same, and thanks to the presence of the great power of the Gweneded Kingdom, when the Gweneded surrendered, we were able to occupy the entire sphere of influence at once. But there is no such large force in Ehrland.

At first glance, you may think that if the enemy is a small or weak force, it will be easy to capture. But it’s not. The war ended once the Kingdom of Alvaland was conquered, but in Ehrland, all tens or hundreds of small forces had to follow us. If things go wrong, we might have to crush each village and town we run into.

Even if it is easy to defeat the enemy, you must urge them to surrender or obey each time, and if they refuse, you will have to fight, and after you have defeated them, you must negotiate after the war. And you have to establish your rule one by one in each ruled area.

I don’t even want to imagine what the effort would be. No matter how you look at it, it’s troublesome. In that case, it would be easier to crush them all at once in a decisive battle with a large force.

So it seems that conquering Ehrland will take a lot of time and effort. Perhaps the unification will not end during my stay. The size of the island is also quite large…

The coastal area must be attacked by the Galleon fleet as usual, and the inland area must be occupied by the Old Wessek Army who crossed over from Blish Island. Since the enemy is a small force, there will be no need for large artillery deployment or navy bombardments. Especially since I don’t want to move the slow artillery units too much.

I will prepare to some extent, but I will keep the artillery in the rear and leave the advancing forces to the Old Wessek Army’s infantry and cavalry and the Caan Army’s guns. The infrastructure, especially the roads, is not very good, so it is difficult to stockpile supplies. It will be the hardest thing to crush this kind of place.

I’m also going to be active this time. You have to traverse rough terrain with a light unit. In that case, my magic will also have a lot of use.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Mikoto said.

“Um… are you really going to come with us?” I said.

“Of course, we are!” Alexandra said.

“Leave the escort to me,” Claudia said.

“I, I’ll do my best…” Louisa said.

I was thinking of invading quickly while burning down the villages and towns on horseback… but my wives said they’ll follow me… This… looks like it’s going to be unplanned this time too…

T/N: For those of you who wanted to see the wives and the Magic Unit in Action, the first major historical battle will be in the next chapter. The Ehrlish will not know what hit them.