15 Princess Olivia's Judgement

Seated at a small round table, Princess Olivia ran her fingers along the rim of the teacup in front of her. The rest of her body stayed completely motionless, and her gaze was unfocused, seeming to be staring into blank space.

She had already been in that position for at least half an hour, and the tea in her cup had long turned cold.

A young man walked over and sat down across the table from her, but simply remained silently and continued watching the Princess.

He was the young man dressed in leather armour who had accompanied Princess Olivia in seeking King Roland's audience earlier.

The group from Grand Wyvern Kingdom had now returned to the inn that they were lodging at, and were convening to discuss about the day's events.

The other two infantries were standing guard, making sure that nobody came close enough to hear any parts of their conversation.

"Drake, what do you think?" the Princess finally spoke, but her eyes continued to stare into space.

"I think you worry too much, Olivia."

Contrary to the princess, Drake seemed to be completely relaxed.

"Meaning?" Olivia's eyes finally refocused, turning towards Drake.

"Just like what our intelligence states, it is obvious that the king is a brainless brute. I do not know how strong he is in fighting, but he definitely is incapable of thinking. Just look at how he was so easily bought over by our gift!" Drake snorted in disdain. "That other princess, however, seems to have caught on. She should be that Princess Erin whom our intelligence has flagged out. But regardless, our request is just and reasonable, so there is no way for her to reject us!"

"Olivia understand that much too, but did you see the princess' reaction in the end? When the king eventually decided to let us tour their Royal Army facility, the princess actually agreed with a big smile on her face! Not just her, but everyone else seemed to accept it with a smile. Just thinking about it gives Olivia the creeps!" the princess continued to fiddle with the teacup in front of her.

"Probably a smile of helplessness, don't you think?" Drake thought little of what she mentioned.

"Olivia has a feeling that there is more to it. It seemed more like they had complete belief in whatever the king says? No, that cannot be. There is no way that anyone would have this much trust in such a king. Perhaps Olivia really is overthinking this," Olivia let out a sigh.

"Rest early, Olivia. You must have been too tired after the long journey all the way from the Grand Wyvern Kingdom to the Great Manta Kingdom." Drake commented.

"Is that not the case for you too?"

"I am a warrior. This is nothing to me. Rather, you are the one who would also have to meet the various nobles within the Great Manta Kingdom from tomorrow onwards, so it is only sensible to rest early, only then would you have the strength to do so," Drake's tone was tender and full of concern.

"That does make sense, Olivia shall return to her room first then," Olivia stood to leave the room and the infantries standing guard outside followed her away.

After all, the princess was the one whom they were supposed to be guarding.

And even if they wanted to guard Drake, they would need the capability to do so first!

If there was truly someone able to pose any harm to Drake, then they as guards would be worthless in the fight as well!

The night passed, and then came the day for the Grand Wyvern Kingdom envoy to visit the Royal Army facility.

Roland had initially worried that they would be too tired from the long journey, and had wanted to postpone their visit to the facility by a few days.

However, Princess Olivia had insisted that she was completely fine, and would prefer not to delay the visit so as to reduce the inconvenience caused to their hosts.

At that time, King Roland had bought that excuse without a second thought, allowing Olivia to let out a sigh of relief.

What inconvenience?

Who cares if it inconvenienced the Royal Army or even the entire Great Manta Kingdom?

As long as it fitted her agenda, she would not mind even having the entire world come to a halt as she went about tending to her affairs!

If Olivia were to let the visit be postponed for a few days, wouldn't that give the Royal Army a good opportunity to rearrange things such that they only show Olivia what they wanted to reveal?

No way!

That would be no different from just sitting down and posing questions to the Captain of the Royal Guards as suggested by Princess Erin earlier.

If that's the case, then she might as well not waste her time!

Thankfully, things worked out fine with King Roland's seemingly complete trust in her words, and thus she did not have to think of even more excuses.

This time, Captain Alexander was not present to show them around. Instead, a Commander of the Royal Army was assigned this troublesome task.

It did not matter to Olivia who was the one who accompanied her though, since all she wanted was to meticulously observe with her own two eyes.

She had zero trust whatsoever in anything that was said to her by her guide, rather, she was busy marrying everything she saw together with everything she remembered from her intelligence.

At the end of the tour, she only had one word as her conclusion.

Mediocre!

In fact, considering that it was the Royal Army of a great kingdom, she was already being tactful when thinking of it as mediocre!

If not for the fact that she knew the kingdom had just suffered huge losses from the great war, she would have described the state of the Royal Army with even more awful-sounding words!

But as much as she felt contempt for the Great Manta Kingdom, Olivia still took care to keep up her façade and ended the tour of the Royal Army facility on a pleasant note, praising the soldiers for their great passion in training.

Yes, passion.

That was the one thing she admired about the soldiers at the facility.

Even the soldiers in her Grand Wyvern Kingdom were unable to repress their negative emotions from leaking out due to the huge losses they sustained in the recent great war.

Yet the Great Manta Kingdom, seemingly having incurred even greater losses, actually managed to keep their soldiers' morale this high?

It must be an act!

Olivia had no doubt about it.

The commanders must have taken the chance last night to prepare the soldiers mentally, asking them to put on a show for her!

Still, what good was passion when the previously powerful army had been reduced to such a state?

In the face of sheer numbers, would burning passion allow each soldier to defeat multiple enemies?

What a joke!

The battlefield was not such an easy place!

The tour did not last long, but it was sufficient to significantly lift Olivia's mood.

Even Drake and the two soldiers accompanying her were brimming with pride as they thought of the superiority of their own kingdom.

Now that they had confirmed that not much was left of the Royal Army, all they had to do was to check out the armies of the other nobles.

However, that was nothing but a formality.

How would a king allow his nobles' armies to remain stronger than the Royal Army?

Even if that useless king was stupid enough to do so, there was no way that his retainers were as useless as him.

Allowing such a thing to happen was equivalent to setting up the stage for a military coup!

Regardless, since she had already arrived personally at the Great Manta Kingdom, Olivia thought that she might as well just go through with the motions and visit the main military families within the kingdom.

So when Olivia heard that Marquis Berghis, Head of the Tonquello family, was currently in the capital, she was overjoyed!

How lucky!

The Tonquello family controlled the territory around Landfall City, which was at the far west border of the Great Manta Kingdom. If she could talk to the Head of the Tonquello family, she might be able to convince him to allow her access to tour the Tonquello Army facility.

What was the Tonquello family?

It was the family famed for having the strongest army in the Great Manta Kingdom, on par with that of the Royal Army!

Now that she had seen enough of the Royal Army, she immediately caught onto an opportunity to take a look at the Tonquello Army, so how could she not feel lucky?

If she could truly gain the approval of Marquis Berghis, then that would eliminate the risk of her making a long trip to Landfall City in vain.

That said, she was not too worried about not being allowed to tour the Tonquello Army facility in the first place.

Bearing in mind that even the king personally approved of her actions, there was little that a mere Marquis could do to reject her!

With that in mind, she hurriedly sent her men to make contact Marquis Berghis, and managed to arrange for a meeting on the following day.

---

"Olivia thanks Lord Berghis for taking the time from your busy schedule," Olivia gave a deep smile as she finally got to meet Berghis.

"The pleasure is mine, Princess Olivia. Though busy is the last thing that you should be using to describe me right now," Berghis gave a bow as he greeted the envoy from another kingdom.

The two were meeting within Marquis Berghis' lodging in Windfall City, seated facing each other on opposite sides of the spacious room. Olivia was seated along with Drake with the other two infantries standing by their sides, while Berghis was seated alone with servants around him as well.

While the Marquis was usually based away in Landfall City, it was no issue for a man of his stature to own a grandly decorated mansion in the capital. This also served him well during the times when he had to visit the capital for businesses, personal or official.

In fact, many other nobles who were on better terms with him would borrow his mansion as their temporary accommodation when they visited the capital, owing to how comfortable and spacious it was.

Up to just a few days before, the mansion was still housing several other nobles, but they had all returned to tend to their fiefs after accompanying the king on his visit to the Royal Army facility.

Berghis, on the other hand, could not afford to do so.

As of now, he was still nervously waiting for the judgement from the king, and he thought that he could express more of his sincerity and repentance by choosing to stay within the capital.

"Olivia has long heard of the might of the Tonquello family as well as the personal strength of Marquis Berghis. Now that we are meeting in person, Olivia sees that the rumours were not without truth!"

"It flatters me to hear your words, Princess Olivia. I am but an old man with nothing but a little bit of strength. Your companion, for one, seemed to be just as strong!"

As a fellow warrior, Berghis was able to sense that Drake was a powerful individual.

In fact, if he had paid attention, he would also have been able to tell from her movements that Rose was well trained.

However, he had been preoccupied with the notion that she was just a personal maid of the king sent to humiliate him, and thus was too busy coping with his emotions to pay attention to his opponent.

Moreover, with his leather armour on all the time, Drake was practically broadcasting to the world that he was a warrior, so who would not notice?

"Lord Berghis sure loves to jest! Though we are all well aware that an individual's strength has no true bearing in a battle between armies. It is a pity that the Royal Army of the Great Manta Kingdom seemed to have been greatly weakened by the great war!" Olivia answered.

"Greatly weakened by the great war, eh?" Berghis unintentionally snorted in response.

"Oh? Did Olivia say something wrong? Truth be told, Olivia was given the chance to have a tour around the Royal Army facility yesterday, and it truly seemed that the Royal Army had shrunk in terms of number of soldiers, or is Olivia wrong?" Olivia's eyes narrowed as she probed further.

Judging from his reaction…could there be something that she missed out?

"You have probably seen the entirety of the soldiers within the Royal Army. If it was before, then yes, I would have agreed with you that the Royal Army is no longer as strong as before. However things are different now. What difference does it make even if the number of soldiers was reduced by half? The Royal Army still remained as the strongest within the kingdom, standing head and shoulders above the rest!" Berghis sighed.

"When you say that, surely you do not mean even the mighty Tonquello family?" Olivia was truly surprised by what Berghis said.

Even if the number of soldiers of the Royal Army was reduced by half, they still remained as the strongest within the kingdom?

Could it be that the armies of the other nobles were hit even harder by the great war?

"Hahaha!" Berghis broke out in a self-deprecating laughter. "The Tonquello family? Princess Olivia must really be overestimating the might of my Tonquello army!"

With that, Olivia finally understood that she had already achieved her goal, and no longer had a need to remain in this foreign land.

The Great Manta Kingdom was but a shadow of its past, its vast armies so severely weakened that they no longer posed a credible threat.

Even though the Grand Wyvern Kingdom's armies were affected by the great war as well, it seemed like they had gotten away lightly relative to their neighbours.

Olivia closed her eyes for a moment and lamented the cruel workings of fate that had landed such a powerful kingdom in such a state, but at the same time, she thanked the heavens for blessing her kingdom with such an opportunity.

It seems like the armies of the Grand Wyvern Kingdom would be getting busy again in the near future...