“Though we have entered port...”

“They say there are no inns available on land.”

“Well... while we were waiting outside the harbor, not a single ship came out of port. That means the merchants who’ve been here since yesterday and so on are still staying in the city, right?”

“I suppose they would extend their stays.”

Skidbladnir’s crew had gone around checking the inns, but none of them had vacancies.

Of course, Abel saw no need to force his way ashore either.

They could simply stay aboard Skidbladnir.

If anything, the real problem was that he had sent the chief’s office a request for a meeting as the King of the Knightley Kingdom, yet not even a reply had come back.

“Abel, please give up on tonight’s delicious-things dinner party at the chief’s office.”

“I was never expecting anything of the sort to begin with.”

“But it’s all right. We have a powerful ally.”

“We do. Head Chef Kovac’s food is excellent.”

Indeed, Skidbladnir’s head chef, Kovac, and the cooks under him were all highly skilled.

“When we went ashore earlier for supplies, we managed to obtain a large amount of small white fish. Along with several seasonings native to the Dark Continent. So we’ve made something delicious.”

“This aroma...”

“Cah-rry?”

Kovac explained with a smile, Ryo’s nose picked up the scent, and Abel tilted his head with his usual wonderful pronunciation.

And what came out was—

“White fish karaage... curry-flavored...”

“This is good.”

“We were able to obtain tamin, carmeric, dougarashin, and the like quite cheaply. We combined them with the seasonings we had aboard, and it turned out well.”

“Probably cumin, turmeric, chili pepper...”

At Abel’s honest impression, Kovac answered happily, while Ryo translated the spice names into Earth-style equivalents.

Of course it was delicious.

“Maybe it’s actually better that we didn’t end up at some dinner party in the chief’s office.”

“No doubt about that. This is excellent.”

“Thank you very much.”

Ryo and Abel were both satisfied, and Kovac smiled.

“Come to think of it, didn’t this happen in the Eastern Countries too?”

“Hm?”

“You know, when we couldn’t go ashore and had to spend one more night aboard ship.”

“It did. Was that in the free city of Kubebasa?”

“That’s it! As expected of your memory, Abel.”

“Stop it.”

Ryo praised him, and Abel grew bashful.

“Your Majesty, you have been to the Eastern Countries?”

“Hm? Yes, due to various circumstances. We entered port there in the evening as well, and spent the night aboard ship.”

Abel answered Paulina’s question.

“I see. So it happens even in the Eastern Countries.”

“Does this sort of thing happen often in the Western Countries too?”

“I would not say often, but I have experienced it several times in both the Western Countries and the Dark Continent. In many cases, the issue is not the port itself, but disturbances within the land administration spilling over into the harbor.”

“I see.”

Ryo nodded at Paulina’s explanation.

It was likely connected to the chief’s sudden campaign.

Ryo and Abel looked at each other and nodded.

Early the next morning, after a dinner that had satisfied everyone aboard.

Someone from the chief’s office came quite early.

Even though it was still early morning, the man was sweating in streams.

“W-we are most terribly sorry to His Majesty Abel...”

“It is fine. I hear the chief is absent. His Highness the Crown Prince is acting in his place, yes? May I greet him?”

“Yes, of course. I shall guide you.”

The guide wiped away sweat again and again, bowing his head over and over... and barely looking at Abel at all.

Without changing his expression in particular, Abel disembarked from Skidbladnir and followed the guide together with the guarding Kingdom knights.

Ryo, of course, walked immediately behind Abel.

Abel and the others were shown into a conference room at the chief’s office.

Waiting there was a young man of about twenty.

“I am Zorn, Crown Prince of the Bardael Chiefdom.”

“I am Abel, King of the Knightley Kingdom.”

Once they had introduced themselves, Zorn was the one who began with an apology.

“Ordinarily, my father Battuzon, the chief, should be the one to receive you, but as he is absent, I will serve in his place. I humbly ask Your Majesty Abel for your understanding...”

“There is no problem.”

“First, allow me to express my deepest gratitude for saving Borne from its crisis.”

“No, I simply happened to be there. I did think it might be unwelcome interference...”

“I am told there were more than thirty thousand monsters. Had the renowned King Abel and His Grace Duke Rondo not been present, the city would surely have been destroyed. Truly, thank you.”

Crown Prince Zorn bowed his head again.

Ryo silently gave a small bow.

In situations like this, Ryo wore his formal composed expression.

“Speaking of which, I hear the chief has gone out on campaign. When we left the city of Borne, Lord Chukudy had told us nothing of the sort, so I was surprised...”

“Yes. Two days... no, three days ago, perhaps. At the stage when all of you left the city of Borne, there were no plans for the chief to go out on campaign.”

“And that changed within these three days?”

“Yes...”

Zorn stopped there.

He seemed to be considering how much he was allowed to say.

Abel brought the coffee he had been served to his lips and waited.

After thinking for several seconds, Zorn began.

“The destination of the campaign is a place called Tantoga, the capital of Julban.”

“Hmm. I have never heard of it... no, come to think of it, I recall hearing of ‘Tantoga, the largest oasis city.’ Is it related to that?”

“It is precisely the desert nation that made that Tantoga its capital.”

Zorn nodded, surprised by Abel’s knowledge.

“Julban itself is a nation founded ten years ago around the oasis city of Tantoga. That country suddenly began invading our nation. Though the oasis is large, in the end it is still an oasis in the desert. Its population cannot possibly grow that large. It was a small nation, not only compared to the Eastern Nations, but even compared to the Bardael Chiefdom. And yet it attacked one of our cities.”

“I see. So this is a counterattack.”

Abel nodded at Zorn’s explanation.

Then he tilted his head.

“However, it does not sound like something that would require the chief himself to lead troops out.”

“Yes. At first, our generals were supposed to go out on campaign. However... Julban attacked not only our cities, but also cities belonging to the Federation of Western Nations.”

“Oh?”

“The Federation of Western Nations also declared war on Julban. And over there, they announced that the head of the Federation himself would lead their troops. On top of that, they called for a joint campaign with our nation, so...”

“In order to match the ‘rank’ of the commander-in-chief, your side had no choice but to send the chief as well.”

“Exactly as you say.”

Relations between nations were complicated.

“This may be a strange question... but are the Eastern Nations and Western Nations not on poor terms?”

“As Your Majesty says. Our chief’s office also considered the possibility of a plot by the Federation of Western Nations.”

At Abel’s words, Zorn nodded deeply.

Yes. Lure the chief onto the battlefield and assassinate him there... perhaps the Federation of Western Nations had drawn such a picture and even planned for its own head to go out on campaign.

No, perhaps the attack by Julban itself was part of that very plot.

They seemed to have considered even that much.

Abel, by nature, was not especially skilled at plots.

However, if even Abel could think of that much of a scheme... it was only natural that the chief’s office had considered the possibility.

“However, we discovered that the damage suffered at Julban’s hands was far greater in the Western Nations than in our own nation.”

“They would not go that far for the sake of a plot, then.”

“Of course, as anything can happen, our nation has also deployed twenty percent of our regular army for this campaign.”

“You are taking every precaution.”

Abel nodded at Zorn’s explanation.

The Eastern Nations centered on the Bardael Chiefdom, and the Federation of Western Nations, a federation of over thirty small states.

These two nations were the two great powers ruling the northern coast of the Dark Continent.

Of course, there were also nations that remained independent and belonged to neither.

But the difference in national strength between those countries and the two powers was immense.

One to one hundred... one to two hundred...

The difference was so vast that one could say the two great powers did not bother getting worked up and annexing them.

And perhaps Julban, their opponent in this campaign, was separated by an even greater gap in national power.

“This Julban attacked both great powers... do you know the reason?”

“No...”

At Abel’s question, Zorn grimaced and shook his head.

Naturally, the chief’s office had investigated that point extensively as well.

But no matter how they investigated, no information surfaced beyond “Julban attacked one-sidedly.”

And the same was true for the other campaigning nation, the Federation of Western Nations.

“They started a war on their own? Do they have some calculation that says they can win even against the two great powers?”

Abel murmured.

The Knightley Kingdom party ended up entering the guesthouse adjacent to the chief’s office.

Abel said he wished to depart within the day, or tomorrow at the latest, but Crown Prince Zorn stopped him.

He asked them to please wait until the chief, who had gone out on campaign, returned victorious.

If he allowed them to depart like this, the returning chief would scold him.

From Julban to the capital Hosoina was a two-day trip each way.

The battle would likely take place today or tomorrow, so they would not be kept waiting long...

It was true that they were not on a hurried journey.

Especially if the Western Nations, which they had been supposed to visit next, were also caught up in war, the Kingdom party’s visit might be felt as a nuisance.

A meeting between nations beginning with bad feelings from the start would hardly be wise.

“Normally, a newly formed small nation could never defeat two great powers.”

“Yes, I think so too.”

The guesthouse where the Kingdom party had been lodged.

In its main guest room, Ryo and Abel were drinking Dark Continent coffee while holding a discussion.

“But from what Crown Prince Zorn said, no matter how you look at it, Julban was the one who started this war, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

“Once the Eastern Nations had been attacked, they had no choice but to fight. I understand that. I do understand it, but...”

“Why did Julban start the war?”

Everything inevitably came back to that.

“It looks as if they are deliberately trying to take on both great powers at the same time.”

“Somehow make the army of the Eastern Nations and the army of the Federation of Western Nations clash... I cannot think of any reason to take on both great powers at once other than that.”

“Fratricidal conflict... they were already two nations on poor terms, weren’t they? In that case, it seems entirely possible.”

Ryo was not particularly well versed in the history of the Dark Continent, but he did remember hearing such things while in the Western Countries.

For example, that at the pope’s inauguration ceremony, the Eastern Nations and Western Nations had been seated apart from each other...

“Ever since they parted ways a hundred years ago, they have continued skirmishing with each other. In the last few years, the Western Nations formed themselves into a federation, and apparently their top leader has been pushing a conciliatory policy toward the Eastern Nations, so armed clashes should have decreased.”

“I see.”

“Even so, they are probably potential enemies to each other at heart. Given the right trigger, the mood for war may emerge.”

“The history between nations is troublesome.”

“I agree.”

Abel nodded.

The Knightley Kingdom had been fighting the Debuhi Empire since before it became an empire.

A relationship between neighboring countries lasting hundreds of years.

It was not something one or two generations of kings or emperors could resolve.

Because it had sunk deep into public sentiment.

Public sentiment, as the word “sentiment” implied, was not a matter of reason. It was a matter of emotion.

That meant it could not be solved by logic, nor would it change no matter how thoroughly one explained the reasons.

It was probably one of the most troublesome things within the framework known as a nation.

Honestly, how could such a thing be eliminated...?

Even when one thought it had been eliminated, it would immediately be dragged back up.

Those trying to seize new power, or those whose own power had begun to grow shaky, would drag it back up and turn the people’s eyes outward.

It would be used for such purposes.

“It is very difficult.”

“It truly is.”

Ryo knew that from the side of historical study.

Abel knew it {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} from the side of imperial education.

They both knew it was troublesome and difficult to resolve.

“Well, it is not something we can interfere in.”

“True. Let’s think about what we can do.”

Noninterference in domestic affairs.

It was a great principle in relations between nations.

“We have been kept here in this guesthouse... and I have a bad feeling.”

“A bad feeling? You mean something like the chief’s office suddenly surrounding this guesthouse?”

Abel said it with a laugh.

As one of the “patterns” Ryo often mentioned, that certainly was a common one.

“No, that development already happened once, on Ichiban Island. It won’t happen again for a while.”

“So it was a ‘development,’ not a ‘pattern’...”

Ryo said it with a strangely serious expression, while Abel smiled wryly.

“Here, I think it must be... the earth splits open, the sky falls, the world connects to the demon realm, and terrifying creatures from another world come through and trample this world underfoot... That development seems likely.”

“Demon realm? Another world? Do such things exist?”

“Huh? Come to think of it, is there no demon realm and such? Since this is fantasy, I felt as though there should be...”

“Fantasy? I have never heard the term demon realm.”

“What...”

If a king, a member of the highest intellectual class, did not know of it, then the demon realm probably did not exist.

“It’s a standard fantasy term, and yet it doesn’t exist... How unfortunate.”

Ryo shook his head with a lonely expression.

Two days later.

An urgent report reached the chief’s office of Bardael.

“We entered battle with Julban, but our army has been destroyed. The chief has been taken prisoner.”

That report sent shock running through the chief’s office.