Water Magician

Vol 4. Chapter 744: Lack of Information

The chief’s office in Hosoina, capital of the Bardael Chiefdom.

The army had been defeated, and the chief had been taken prisoner.

This was a matter that concerned the nation’s very survival.

Meetings on countermeasures had been held day after day.

They had decided to send out the army.

Work on organizing that force was also progressing.

The problems were its scale, who would lead it, and gathering information on the enemy nation...

“The royal family has been expelled from Julban? Why is that information only reaching us now?”

“There was no particular proclamation, and most of the people are apparently unaware of it.”

“So even if only the top has been replaced... it has nothing to do with the people.”

At the report, Crown Prince Zorn’s expression turned lonely.

They were desperately working to run the country.

Even if they devoted themselves to government day and night in order to make the people happy and prosperous... it did not reach the hearts of the people, who were busy with their daily lives.

He knew it could not be helped, but the fact remained that it was lonely.

“And the name of the new king?”

“We do not know clearly.”

“Without even obtaining that information, our nation sent an army to the battlefield... and brought my father out as well.”

At the generals’ poor information gathering, Zorn’s expression turned as if he had bitten down on something bitter.

But he shook his head slightly.

It was wrong to blame the generals, he told himself.

To begin with, everything about this war was strange.

A sudden war launched by a small country... against the two great powers of the northern coast, simultaneously.

And before that, the royal family had been replaced?

To top it off, the enemy force supposedly numbered only several hundred.

And those several hundred had defeated forty thousand soldiers when combined with the Federation of Western Nations.

“What is happening?”

No one could answer Zorn’s murmur.

As long as they did not understand the enemy, they could not move, and should not move.

They had to thoroughly gather information.

However... the situation would not wait for them.

A new report arrived.

“The Julban army has begun moving north.”

“What! And my father?”

“The chief’s figure has apparently been confirmed within the army moving north.”

“They mean to deny us time to prepare.”

Zorn muttered bitterly.

In other words, there was no time to gather information.

“We cannot allow them to reach Hosoina.”

Zorn understood at least that much.

An enemy army lined up outside the city walls, with the captured chief pushed to the front.

What would the people think if they saw that?

Their trust in the nation would collapse in an instant.

They would believe the state lacked even the power to take back the head of the nation captured by the enemy.

Even if they used the city walls to repel the enemy army, once the people’s trust had fallen, it would not recover so easily.

There would certainly be those who took advantage of that.

Not only Julban this time, but even the movements of the Western Nations were unclear.

Or perhaps even within the Eastern Nations, one could not know how things would move...

The Bardael Chiefdom was ultimately only one of the countries composing the Eastern Nations. It was currently at the center, but that did not guarantee it would remain the center of the Eastern Nations forever.

“Do not let the enemy army reach Hosoina under any circumstances!”

Meanwhile, the Knightley Kingdom party continued staying at the guesthouse.

“They lost the previous battle, didn’t they? Apparently, a new army has marched out.”

“So it seems. I hear Julban’s army is moving north.”

“So they sallied out to keep this capital from becoming the battlefield?”

“That is likely. In a siege defense, city walls are certainly convenient for protection... but they also place the people inside the city on the front line.”

“War really is hateful.”

“It truly is.”

Ryo sighed, and Abel agreed.

The two of them were the Premier Duke and the king, the top two of the nation.

But... no, precisely because of that, they did not like war.

Rather than waging war, Ryo far preferred sprawling limply on a sofa while reading a book, occasionally eating cake and drinking coffee.

Tens of thousands of times more.

“From what I hear, Chief Battuzon has been taken prisoner by the enemy.”

“What, really? The people in the city probably don’t know anything about that, do they?”

“Of course they would not. It is top-secret information kept within the chief’s office.”

“Information control again, as usual. Governments are the same no matter the country.”

Ryo sighed.

“It cannot be helped. I believe the center of this Bardael Chiefdom is Chief Battuzon. If the people were told that such a figure had become a prisoner of the enemy army, the unrest among them would be severe.”

“Would it?”

“The day we arrived, the sea was in chaos too, wasn’t it? If things were like that simply because the chief had gone out on campaign...”

“Ah... I see. That may be true.”

A nation was better off with someone at its center.

If it clearly had such a person, the nation stabilized.

Or more precisely, the hearts of its people stabilized.

A government, or perhaps a national flag or national anthem, could not serve as a replacement for that.

Study history, and that became clear any number of times.

Perhaps people were able to show their greatest strength when they gathered beneath another person.

A very simple and easy-to-understand logic.

When people who failed to understand that rose to the core of an organization, that organization collapsed.

It did not matter whether it was a nation or a company.

Because they failed to grasp the obvious truth that people had emotions.

If one tried to move people through reason and logic alone, there was no way it would go well...

“The chief who was taken prisoner... why was he taken prisoner?”

“If you take a head of state prisoner, he is useful in all sorts of ways when you think about later negotiations, isn’t he?”

“Ah... if they killed him, he’d become a martyr. The citizens would unite and say, ‘We’ll defeat the enemy for our murdered chief!’ or something like that.”

“Exactly. If no successor had been decided, or if the successor was clearly inferior in ability... if there were such circumstances, they might kill him to lower the country’s governing capacity.”

“So it depends on the case.”

Ryo nodded at Abel’s explanation.

Whether to execute one person or take him prisoner...

Even in deciding that, many things had to be considered.

That was probably what politics, war, and diplomacy were.

“Thinking of it that way, we are fortunate.”

“No doubt about that.”

Dark Continent coffee had been placed before Ryo and Abel.

During their stay at the guesthouse, the Bardael Chiefdom had arranged everything for them.

Of course, even so, Ryo occasionally went out into the city and bought food—rather, gathered information—without neglecting his duties.

That was why he possessed the information that the people did not know the chief had been taken prisoner.

“Come to think of it, wasn’t an important person from the neighboring Federation of Western Nations also out on campaign as commander-in-chief?”

“The head of the Federation. After they lost, he apparently went missing.”

“I thought he might have been secretly connected to Julban.”

“It seems that is not the case. The Federation of Western Nations’ army of twenty thousand appears to have been destroyed too.”

“To destroy a total army of forty thousand... Julban is a small country, isn’t it? How did they gather such a large army?”

Ryo tilted his head.

“This is apparently unconfirmed information, but it seems it was not a large army.”

“Unconfirmed information?”

“Scotty apparently heard it from a female official at the chief’s office whom he became acquainted with.”

“Ah... Mr. Scotty is handsome, after all. Impressive.”

Abel explained with a shrug, and Ryo nodded in admiration.

It was a method of information gathering Ryo did not feel he could manage well.

“The rumor says there were fewer than a thousand.”

“What? Fewer than a thousand destroyed forty thousand? And on top of that, took the chief prisoner and made the head of the Federation disappear?”

“Yes. Absurd, isn’t it? They must have lured them into some kind of trap, but...”

“They weren’t wiped out completely, were they? There must be soldiers who survived and returned to this capital. Is there any information from them...?”

“As expected, it seems they were not able to obtain information that would amount to military secrets.”

Abel let out a small sigh and took a sip of coffee.

Drawn along, Ryo also took a sip of coffee.

“Well, whatever they did, it’s certain they are an extremely troublesome opponent.”

“Yes. The next battle... the one fought by the army that left the capital earlier will be a major turning point.”

“If they win, good. But if they lose...”

“They will have to defend this capital with the remaining army. If they lose twice... after that, sallying out again will be impossible.”

“A decisive battle for the capital...”

Both Abel and Ryo wanted the Bardael Chiefdom to win.

Of course, they knew almost nothing about Julban.

But judging from the information they had heard, it felt as if justice lay with the Bardael Chiefdom... probably, somehow.

At the very least, it was certain the chiefdom had courteously hosted the Kingdom party, including the two of them.

“Suppose... just suppose, but if the Julban army surrounds this capital while we are here, what do we do?”

“Who knows... If the Bardael Chiefdom side wishes it, we may end up lending them a hand.”

“That would be without any treaty or anything concluded, right? Wouldn’t it be interference in domestic affairs?”

“Honestly, it is a delicate point. Since I, a king, have been caught up in it, I can lend my strength... it is not impossible to insist on that. Well, since the other country would be asking for help, perhaps it would not be interference in domestic affairs... but honestly, I do not know. Cases like that are not common.”

Abel shrugged.

Yes, diplomatically, that might just barely pass.

Of course, the ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) simplest and most certain way to avoid the problem would be for the Knightley Kingdom party to leave the country before this became a battlefield.

That said...

“This time, I came here ultimately to explore the possibility of trade with the Dark Continent. Considering that we seem to be in a position to build a deep relationship with the Bardael Chiefdom, the center of the Eastern Nations, one of the two great powers of the northern coast, I think that diplomatically, it would be better to remain rather than withdraw. But...”

“But?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

Abel said it with a grimace.

Seeing that, Ryo grimaced too.

Ryo knew how sharp Abel’s instincts were.

They were not something to be taken lightly.

“It’s certain that this oasis nation moving north possesses extremely powerful military strength. After all, they defeated forty thousand regular troops from the Eastern Nations and Western Nations combined.”

“That is exactly the problem. Truly, what in the world is moving north?”