Became a Strategist with a 100 Intelligence and 100\% Accuracy-Chapter 156: Inevitability (3)

"......Huh?"

I barely managed to conceal my startled expression, responding in a deliberately puzzled tone.

"You did not send me away for my own good—is that not what you meant?"

"......I’m sorry, but I fail to understand. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the two, does there?"

For now, I brazenly denied it while desperately trying to figure out what to say next.

Because—she wasn’t wrong.

My goal was for Lady Luna to unify the continent.

At first, I followed her simply because she was the one most capable of achieving that goal. But now, I genuinely wanted her to be the one to bring unification. And the most crucial condition for her to accomplish that was for Lady Serpina to remain in control of the Serpina Army—indefinitely.

In other words, I had saved Lady Serpina’s life.

Which meant that her statement was, in a sense, the undeniable truth I had never once admitted to her.

There was only one problem.

How in the world had Serpina figured out that I had said those things to save her life?

"......."

Serpina stared at me with an enigmatic expression.

The usual overwhelming pressure, the commanding gaze of an absolute ruler looking down from above—none of it was there.

What stood before me was... I hesitated to put it into words, but—a frightened girl.

For the first time, Serpina von Eingart felt like nothing more than an ordinary woman.

I carefully observed her reaction before finally parting my lips, speaking heavily.

"May I ask why you think that way?"

Before making any reckless statements, I needed to hear her reasoning first.

"......Very well."

Serpina slowly closed her eyes, then, as if coming to a resolution, led me toward the desk.

On the spacious desk, there was only one thing—an expansive map of the continent.

"If it weren’t for your advice... I would have prepared a diplomatic envoy the very next day and departed for Brans Army. Since our army holds the initiative, few would expect me to travel all the way to Arnel Castle. I assume you thought the same."

"If my lord were to make a move, I would expect you to head no farther than the border."

"Yes. You understand, then. As expected..."

I wasn’t sure what kind of riddle she was trying to pose, but for now, I decided to play along.

Serpina was no fool. If she had called me here and was speaking so firmly, it meant she had already pieced together a solid line of reasoning.

And considering the presence of the map on the table—it meant the answer was hidden there.

If I couldn’t refute her reasoning with my own, there was only one thing to do.

I had to climb onto the foundation of her logic.

I silently examined the map, listening intently to her words.

"From a strategic perspective, the nearest location from here is Cohart Castle."

She pointed to Cohart Castle with her finger.

Naturally, I focused on the map even more.

"The time required to travel there... and the time needed to form an alliance and return..."

...!

I saw it.

The moment she mentioned "travel time" and "return time," I understood exactly what she was implying.

"You’re referring to a landslide."

"!!!!"

At my words, Serpina’s eyes widened in shock. She stared at me, visibly shaken.

Her reaction alone was enough to confirm that I had deduced the correct answer.

While looking at the map, the thought that kept repeating in my mind was the fact that Serpina had asked me if I had tried to save her.

Which meant—somewhere on this map, there had to be a clue pointing to her death.

A clue within the map that indicated how she could have died? That narrowed down the possibilities significantly.

And the reason it boiled down to a "natural disaster" was because she had pointed at Cohart Castle, which was positioned near the border.

No matter how many rebels lurked in the region, the odds of an assassination attempt occurring within the territory itself were lower than the likelihood of a natural disaster.

But Serpina wasn’t someone with a 100 Intelligence stat like me. Even if she were extraordinarily intelligent, predicting a natural disaster down to its exact location and occurrence was impossible.

Which meant that even for someone as logical as her, it had to be a natural disaster that was reasonably foreseeable.

For example, something like, "Were you concerned that I would be struck by lightning?" would be an absurd conclusion for Serpina.

Lightning leaves no clear evidence. It would be far too contrived for someone to witness it and report it later.

More importantly, for lightning to strike, it needed to rain—but the northern continent had been experiencing stable weather for a while.

If she had traveled far south, the weather might have been different, but that distance was too great to be relevant.

So lightning was out of the question.

Then what?

My eyes landed on the valley that lay along the shortest route between Eingart Castle and Cohart Castle.

In this game, traveling through a valley always meant preparing for potential landslides.

There was only one possible answer.

And a landslide would leave behind tangible evidence, making it easy for reports to come in.

There were even villages nearby.

"...So, in the end... you really were... trying to save me."

"......."

"But... even if I were to suddenly claim that a landslide was going to happen out of nowhere, I wouldn’t have believed you. Just like last time... And had you been completely honest about it, I might have acted stubbornly just to defy you. Frankly, I don’t believe in nonsense about the movements of the heavens and whatnot."

...???

"You must have known... that I would think that way, didn’t you?"

Not really—was what I almost said.

But I swallowed the words down.

To be honest, this was the first time I had ever heard that Serpina didn’t believe in such things.

She usually listened to me well enough, and since she talked about things like "insight" and "intuition," I just assumed she had some belief in those kinds of concepts.

Whether she knew what I was thinking or not—

Serpina looked at me with an almost sorrowful expression and spoke.

"Tell me, Swen... Was I right? Did you... say that to save my life?"

Hearing her trembling voice, I thought to myself.

What was my role within the Serpina Army?

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

It was to keep her alive.

And for that, the most important thing was ensuring that she trusted me—making sure she listened to my words when it mattered most.

After all, I had already seen two rulers before her meet their downfall because they ignored crucial advice.

Serpina was different from Lunarian. To gain her trust, I had to prove something to her.

And right now—

Wasn’t this a golden opportunity to do just that?

If I were Serpina, I wouldn’t have been fixating on the unbelievable notion that I could predict a landslide. I would have been thinking about something deeper.

But for some reason, the usual sharpness in her eyes had been replaced by urgency.

Had something happened to make her think this way?

Regardless...

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Wouldn’t it be best to just go along with what she was giving me?

Thinking lightly of it, I slowly lowered my head.

"...To be honest, I considered telling you outright, but I feared it would sound a bit absurd..."

"...!!!"

Good.

Now, all I had to do was raise my head and say something like, 'As long as I could save my lord, that is all that matters to me.'

If she asked how I knew, I could just throw in something vague about the heavens. The outcome had already proven me right, so she wouldn’t bother pressing for details.

With that in mind, ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) I lifted my head and slowly opened my mouth—

"My lord, as long as I could save y—"

...?

Something was wrong.

I couldn’t speak.

No—more precisely, my mouth, the organ designed for speech, had been sealed shut.

What had filled it, blocking my words, was... something soft.

It didn’t take me long to realize what it was.

A tongue.

The very tongue that had allowed me to maneuver my way through every conversation, to deceive and manipulate, to navigate my way to survival—

That tongue was now entangled with someone else’s.

And in that moment, I realized—

Serpina’s lips were pressed against mine.

She was kissing me.

Despite the sheer suddenness of it, I felt no shock, no overwhelming embarrassment.

Instead—

I felt a strange sense of relief.

As if... this wasn’t the first time.

Why...?

Before I could even dwell on the thought, her warm, soft tongue pushed deeper, claiming every corner of my mouth with a slow, deliberate thoroughness.

How much time had passed?

Eventually, our lips parted with a faint, glistening strand of saliva lingering between us.

"Haa..."

Serpina, her face flushed red, her breath uneven, looked at me.

Her golden eyes—

They held only me.

Not as an absolute ruler.

Not as the Lady of the Serpina Army.

But as a woman.

And in that voice, trembling with emotion, she spoke.

"...Swen. I don’t care who holds a place in your heart. It doesn’t matter how many came before me."

"So, please."

"I don’t need all of you. Just a part of you is enough. At least for this moment—stay by my side."

As I looked at her, listening to the plea in her voice—

I thought to myself.

...My first kiss tasted like yuzu.