Chapter 395

“Was I too far out of line?”

“It’s a whim.”

“It was madness. What was so pretty about it? Did it provide amusement? It was only for a moment.”

“Wasn’t that the ‘thing’ that was to come?”

“Humans are animals of potential and possibility.”

“Therefore, they are arrogant.”

“He will be the same.”

“You don’t know that, do you? Just like it gave amusement, the thing that is to come might also change?”

“If he ends up trapped there, that’s the end of it.”

It was a question and answer with no one to listen to, asking and answering alone.

—

Krang held the first strategy meeting at the royal palace training grounds. A small platform had been set up, and Royal Guards were stationed around it.

In the middle of it all, the nobles gathered first.

Where people gather, words are bound to spill out. It started with someone sharp-eared, the kind who heard every rumor.

“I heard fifty Lycanthropes appeared at the Border Guards. Count Molsen is said to be a Mage. Who knows what else might come out of his territory?”

“Humph.”

“It’s dangerous. Thankfully, they stopped them.”

“There’s even talk that the Demon that shook the capital before was also his work, not just the Lycanthropes.”

“Is that all? They say he was behind the accidents inside the royal palace too, with Baron Mernes at the center.”

Krang didn’t try to control the flow of information. If anything, he spread it further. So everyone knew the details of what had happened.

“I also heard we have to fight without calling a single knight from outside.”

“Does that make sense? At least someone from the Red Cloak Order should be here.”

“…Isn’t this a battle with no chance of winning?”

A young noble who had recently inherited his title crossed the line. It slipped out without him meaning to, born from anxiety.

Even with only Krang’s side remaining, not everyone was of one mind. When anxiety takes hold, faith wavers.

That was exactly what was happening now.

The group ranged from non-hereditary nobles to semi-nobles, along with guild owners in the capital and guildmasters.

“Insolent.”

“Can’t you even trust the lord you chose?”

Two nobles who had been listening in silence rebuked him, and the young noble snapped back.

“It doesn’t help to just blame. It helps to face the situation, read the trends, and make judgments. If we’re going to believe blindly, shouldn’t we just go to the temple and pray?”

“Baron Jepl, what are you trying to say?”

At that, Baron Jepl answered immediately.

“I’m saying we should face reality and do what we have to do.”

“Is that betrayal?”

The noble who spoke looked ready to swing at any moment.

Because the training grounds were being used as a meeting place, everyone was armed.

Some of those who weren’t nobles frowned. Is this really fine? No one knew how long this civil war would last, but was it right to stand on the same side as men like this?

“Do you want to see blood, Baron Rudin?”

The way they said each other’s titles was stiff. They weren’t exactly enemies, but they had fought before—adjacent territories, with a mine between them.

Their relationship couldn’t have been good.

While they quarreled, anxiety spread further.

Those closer to Count Molsen’s territory were the most shaken.

What happens to their lands if Demons form a colony and attack?

Losing even one city would be catastrophic.

Even if it’s a civil war, did they have to risk everything they owned?

What if they lost? No—what if they won, and nothing was left?

If a territorial war broke out afterward, whose side would the King take?

The side that fought better, or the side that was useful then?

It wasn’t just nobles thinking that way. Master artisans and others were the same.

Everyone here had political weight to consider. Even so, they were people with courage and will.

Weren’t they the ones who had turned their backs on Count Molsen?

Of course, there were those among them who could never share a boat with him.

One had lost his family’s entire guild after the Count swallowed the surrounding commercial districts in the name of business.

Another had lost half his territory after being forced to pay an absurd protection fee—protection from Demon attacks, no less.

Those people ground their teeth whenever Molsen’s name came up.

“Humans becoming Demons? No. Didn’t he harbor a group of Demons from the beginning? How can we call someone like that human?”

Demons were humanity’s enemy. Someone voiced it plainly.

He was the master of the artisan guild. They took pride in forging weapons for humans, so it was a natural thing for him to say.

More than twenty people had gathered.

Marquis Vaisar and the Marquis of Okto, the two great nobles, hadn’t appeared yet.

To be exact, both of them were with Krang.

Inside a small building behind the training grounds, in a barracks reeking of sweat, the two men spoke.

“Not everyone will be of one mind.”

“But we can’t call them enemies.”

They spoke in turns.

Those who rode the tide.

Those who stood with Krang but had no intention of risking everything.

And those whose thoughts were knotted in different ways.

Even so, they were needed.

No one could guess how much power the Count was hiding.

So even if a Ghoul stood on their side, they would have to shut their eyes for a moment and pretend it was fine.

No—in truth, the Count was already doing exactly that.

‘So he’s a Mage.’

Marquis Vaisar’s brow furrowed deeper.

What had Count Molsen done? Humans and Demons stood at his back.

They couldn’t know how, and they didn’t need to.

Right now was the moment to fight and win.

“You have to think long-term.”

The Marquis of Okto added.

His power came from the land. Otherwise, he wouldn’t carry the name ‘Okto.’

The longer the war dragged on, the more the Marquis of Okto would bleed.

If battles raged here and there, would the farmland survive?

And yet he insisted the war shouldn’t be short. To win, they would have to tear away Count Molsen’s foundation.

He must have calculated that if the fighting dragged on, the Royal Guard would intervene on its own.

“You said you’d refuse the knights’ intervention. You shouldn’t have done that.”

It was the right criticism.

He believed they shouldn’t be picky about means and methods when victory was at stake.

Krang only smiled faintly. The weather was pleasant, the sunlight warm. Summer was coming.

The season when the chirping of grasshoppers grew especially loud.

“The weather is nice.”

Krang said.

Marcus, arriving late, saw their hardened expressions and asked,

“Did you two have a fight or something?”

Marcus could be called a loyal subject. Whether the two marquises joined after seeing terms, or whether they were here because they couldn’t stomach the enemy, Marcus had risked everything on Krang.

“Your elegance is slipping, Marcus.”

“Since when have you worried about my elegance?”

Marcus shot back and took his place at his lord’s side.

“You’re going to end it in one go, right?”

It was a natural question.

“I have to. I’m too timid to do it twice.”

Krang replied.

“Oh, so it’s just once because you’re timid? That’s a fine way to mock people who are actually timid.”

Marcus joked.

“What do you mean, end it in one go?”

Marquis Vaisar asked. He was an old politician who didn’t panic, but he couldn’t let that pass.

One battle meant staking everything.

“If we drag this civil war out, what will be left of this land?”

Krang asked with a smile.

“If we lose a civil war, we lose everything in our hands.”

It was true.

“Then we must win.”

“Do you think it’ll be easy to win with this group?”

“Are you underestimating the Count’s power?”

“Neither. I’m doing everything I can. The rest is praying the goddess of luck smiles on us.”

“We have to make sure she doesn’t.”

Even if it made the country sick, they had to win.

Krang shook his head inwardly.

But he understood the two men in front of him.

If they don’t win, they lose. That was how they saw war. Krang saw further.

‘We can’t end it with just winning.’

Count Molsen would likely try to end it with one battle as well.

It was too obvious for the two of them not to see.

If he wanted the throne, and if he wanted that throne to remain the King’s chair afterward, he had to do that.

They couldn’t become beasts picked clean by hyenas after the fighting ended.

The Kingdom of Liechtenstein in the south. Azpen in the east.

There were still many enemies. The threat of the Demon Realm was dizzying.

So they had to end it here in one stroke, with the power they had now.

‘Wider and bigger.’

“The threat of the Demon Realm grows every year, and we keep losing territory. I won’t just leave it like that.”

Krang cut away the excess and spoke of the future.

The two marquises weren’t fools. They understood.

It was after the civil war. Krang was already drawing what came next.

They fell silent.

“My heart is too narrow right now to grasp your grand intentions.”

Marcus tossed it out like a joke.

It was an old proverb, half a mockery on the surface, but underneath it carried a simple message: if Krang’s intentions were hard to understand, then trust and follow him.

The two marquises understood.

But they didn’t let it slide.

“That tongue of yours will suffer one day.”

“I’ve told you so many times, but it won’t fix itself.”

They scolded Marcus in elegant tones, and Marcus only smiled and followed his lord.

Krang stepped outside.

It was time to face the gathered nobles, guildmasters, and merchants.

He needed their power. He didn’t have enough justification, and he didn’t have enough troops.

Above all, they had to become one to fight properly.

It would be best if they all shared the same intention, but if that was impossible, then they only needed to be tied together by a center of gravity.

If that didn’t work, then set conditions.

A new thought surfaced.

‘Is this a disadvantageous fight?’

Krang denied it at once.

Since when had he only fought fights that favored him?

A disadvantage didn’t equal defeat.

There was a man beside him who turned the impossible into the possible.

If Krang could do even half of what Encrid showed—

If he could follow even half of the luck Encrid always claimed to have—

Then that would be enough.

The first button was here.

Krang climbed onto the platform, sunlight falling cleanly on him, and looked out over them.

The murmuring naturally died.

“Did you sleep well?”

That was his first line.

A few words flew back—exclamations, worries, doubts.

After hearing them all, Krang raised his hand once, then lowered it. The simple gesture was enough to quiet them.

“I believe we will win. Don’t you?”

Confidence—based on what?

“Baron Jepl. I heard your light infantry moves so fast through the forest that no one can catch them.”

Jepl had a ranger unit he raised by feeding and sleeping in the woods.

Even if he was asleep, he’d wake and go out if it was hunting.

“…Yes.”

“And Baron Rudin, I heard you’re an excellent spearman.”

“It’s lacking.”

“I heard you once dreamed of joining the Royal Guard. Am I wrong?”

“It was a childhood dream.”

His skill was said to exceed a Squire’s level. Krang smiled.

“I think it only needs to be once. Just once.”

His voice spread through the wide training grounds, then vanished.

But the words lingered, as if they stayed floating in the air.

As if they had been engraved into the mind.

All they could see was his lowered arm and faint smile.

He didn’t look like a monarch, nor like a great strategist.

And yet it felt like they could trust him.

If he were lying, he’d be the greatest con artist in history.

But he wasn’t.

He was the next King, and the head of this side.

“How will you fight?”

“Since he told us to meet at the Nauril Plains, we will.”

Krang said it as calmly as if he were going to pick up a friend visiting from the edge of the city.

That calm composure gave them faith.

The belief that they would win.

Some had believed in Krang from the beginning.

“I have fifty well-trained spearmen. It’s not much, but please use them well!”

One noble stepped forward, and then another.

“My skill is poor, but I’ll stand at the front.”

“I’ve stockpiled food. I’ll send wheat and beans.”

If anxiety couldn’t be resolved, it could be covered with faith.

“Believe. We will win.”

Krang did that.

Without a grand speech, he bound those who remained to a single purpose.

He said one battle would be enough.

“What if Count Molsen has other intentions?”

The Marquis of Okto muttered.

He was a genius of internal affairs, but war was different. Battle wasn’t his field.

Krang, stepping down from the platform, answered.

“Count Molsen is ambitious, and he’s too smart. So he will.”

—

A month passed quickly.

“Are no knights coming?”

At the question from his escort and adjutant, Count Molsen answered as he tightened his armor.

“You must be disappointed.”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

His forces had been assembled on the assumption that the Royal Guard would intervene.

But they were fighting without the Royal Guard.

‘It’s arrogance. A foolish bastard.’

Clang.

He wore layered armor, iron plates fastened one after another, and in his hand was the magic sword that symbolized the Count.

Once he finished arming himself, he declared,

“I will end the royal family at the Nauril Plains.”

Bwooooooo!

Count Molsen’s army sounded their bugles across the plains.

A signal to come out and fight.