Chapter 1: Preparing for Innovation (part 1)

The Captain of the Royal Guard, Ludwin Arcs.

Though only in his late twenties, this excellent man was the captain of the Royal

Guard, charged with leading the 40,000-strong Forbidden Army in times of crisis.

Ever since the Kingdom's Forbidden Army and Army, Navy, and Air Force had

been dismantled and reorganized as the National Defense Force, he'd been seen as

the next in line to become Supreme Commander. He was currently training under

the current Supreme Commander, Excel, as her second-in-command.

He was a handsome man with straight blond hair who came from a good family.

He was also highly popular with the maids who worked in the castle. However,

despite all that, there were never any rumors of him becoming involved with a

woman, and he had once become troubled when weird rumors started to spread

that he might swing the other way.

Speaking of weird rumors about Ludwin, there was one more: the rumor that his

family finances were difficult.

That came from the fact that Ludwin, for some reason, was always eating at the

cafeteria for the maids and guards who worked at the castle, as if he were trying to

keep his expenses to a minimum. He came from a good family, held an important

position, and received a good salary, so it was hard to imagine; but from time to time

Ludwin was spotted eating the cheapest bun that the cafeteria offered.

In response to this, many theories were offered.

"He wants to share his men's joys and sorrows by eating the same things they

eat," or "By being frugal, he is preparing himself for a time of crisis" were some of

the more positive interpretations. But...

"Actually, maybe he's a penny-pinching miser," said some, and "Perhaps he has a

lover and a secret child, and all his money goes to them," gossiped others.

However, while there was no talk of Ludwin making ostentatious displays of

spending money, there was no sign of him saving it, either. So where was Ludwin's

salary going?

The answer to that question was something we would eventually find out.

◇ ◇ ◇

—Early in the 11th month, 1546th year, Continental Calendar — Royal Capital

Parnam

With autumn growing deeper, the days grew gradually colder.

With the post-war arrangements with the Principality of Amidonia concluded

and the corrupt nobles that had been working behind the scenes to hinder me

domestically swept aside, Elfrieden was enjoying a fleeting peace.

Because the internal threat of the corrupt nobles and the external threat of

Amidonia had both been taken care of at the same time, the people's opinion of

myself as king and Hakuya as the prime minister had improved. With the nobles

who had chosen not to take a side in the conflict with the three dukes now swearing

loyalty to me, I was able to quickly centralize power.

It was that sort of autumn afternoon where I could imagine my political reforms

would be moving forward in leaps and bounds.

Currently, I was in the governmental affairs office in Parnam, showing Liscia a

certain something. "Take a look at this. What do you think?"

"It's very... long, thin, and curved." With a curious look on her face, Liscia stared

intently at the thing I was showing her.

"Do you want to try it?" I asked.

"Can I? Well, then..."

Liscia's thin, white fingers reached for the rapier at her waist. Then, narrowing

her eyes, she drew her blade and swung it at the thing. In the next instant, there was

the screech of metal on metal and the tip of her rapier was cut off and fell to the

ground.

Liscia looked back and forth from the severed tip to her rapier, then cried out in

surprise, "M-My sword?!"

As Liscia lost her mind over what had happened, I let out a big sigh. "What're you

suddenly taking a swing at it for...?"

"Well, you asked if I wanted to test it!" she exclaimed.

"I meant for you to hold it, maybe take a few practice swings," I said. "I have no

idea why you suddenly tried slashing it..."

Liscia could be a bit of a meat head sometimes. Was it her teacher Georg's

influence?

"Besides, you must know what would happen when you swing two blades at each

other, right?" I asked.

Liscia's eyes wandered around the room awkwardly. "W-Well, you know... That's

a Nine-Headed Dragon katana, right? I was interested in its cutting edge, you could

say..."

"Honestly..."

The blade that had chopped Liscia's sword in two was a type of katana,

specifically a Nine-Headed Dragon katana, forged in the Nine-Headed Dragon

Archipelago Union, a maritime state that ruled the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago

to the east of Elfrieden.

It was single-edged, with a thin, narrow, curved blade. There was a blood groove

running between the blade ridge and back. That's enough detail to make it clear that,

for those in the know, it should have been apparent that the Nine-Headed Dragon

katana closely resembled a Japanese katana.

Unlike this country's swords, which were meant to chop through things (the

Western style), it was specially designed to cut by pushing or pulling. Exactly the

same as a Japanese katana. Maybe the manufacturing process was the same, too.

That Nine-Headed Dragon katana was out of its sheath and its blade was

exposed, sitting on top of a sword rack with its blade facing upwards. That was how

it had been when Liscia had taken a swing at it and lost.

Liscia was now staring intently at the Nine-Headed Dragon katana's blade. "It's

got an incredible cutting edge, huh."

"We had swords like these in the country I came from, and when it came to

cutting power, they were top class," I said.

In one program I'd watched, I had even seen a katana cut through the stream of a

water cutter (a machine that used high pressure water to cut through things), after

all. They had to have some pretty impressive cutting power.

Liscia let out an impressed grunt. "That's really something. But what's a NineHeaded Dragon katana doing here?"

"It was a gift from Excel," I said. "It apparently came from a fishing ship from the

Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago that they seized."

"A fishing ship?"

"There've been a lot of them lately, I hear. Ships from the Nine-Headed Dragon

Archipelago that come into our waters to fish illegally."

In this world, there were large creatures called sea dragons (they looked like

monstrous plesiosauruses with goat horns) used to tug iron ships. Sea dragons were

relatively docile, but among the large sea creatures of this world, there were also

vicious and dangerous ones like the super-massive sharks called megalodons.

Because those sorts of dangerous sea creatures mainly lived in the deep sea, fishing

was, by necessity, restricted to the coastal waters of the continent and islands.

There were still enough fish to catch, so it wasn't much of a problem, but in

recent years, the number of ships from the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago coming

to fish in our waters had increased.

In this world, it was commonly accepted that fishing should be done in one's own

country's coastal waters or on the open sea (though that was, of course, dangerous),

and fishing in another country's coastal waters was considered illegal. Illegal fishing

ships could be seized or sunk without recourse. And yet, the number of illegal fishing

vessels entering our waters was on the rise.

Correlating with that, there had been an increase in the number of clashes

between fishermen.

"We've submitted a formal complaint to the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago

Union, but... there's been no reply," I said. "I have Excel's fleet out patrolling our

waters, but it doesn't seem to be having much of an effect."

"It's a maritime state you're dealing with, after all," said Liscia. "They have the

best shipbuilders and helmsmen in the world."

She was right. In the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, they trained other

creatures that could draw their ships in addition to the usual sea dragons. I had

heard they were incredibly fast. That, and because fishing ships were made of wood

and not loaded with cannons, they could move quickly. If they focused on trying to

escape, a military ship couldn't catch up to them.

"Even this ship they seized recently was only caught when they had the bad luck

to run aground," I added.

"Then why don't we chase after them with fast wooden ships of our own?" Liscia

asked.

"If we did that and they were armed, we'd take heavy losses, you know?"

"...You're right."

It hurt that, as the ones guarding, there was a bare minimum of equipment we

would need to get ready.

Liscia crossed her arms and thought deeply about it. "Still, it's a bit strange. It's

true that, if they make it to our coastal waters, they can fish here easily, but to get

here, they have to travel over the open sea where there are large sea creatures,

right? Why would they go through that risk to fish here illegally when there's the

chance they'll be caught?"

"Who knows..." I said. "There might be something going on in the archipelago,

and there's no way for us to find out what it is. We get barely any information on the

island countries."

Even if I had my clandestine operations unit, the Black Cats, infiltrate the country

to collect intelligence, the country was surrounded by the sea, making it hard to get

information out. Messenger kuis couldn't travel over large stretches of sea when

there was no place to rest, and a jewel for the Jewel Voice Broadcast would be large

enough that it would be difficult to sneak in. That, and there was the risk we'd lose it.

In the end, we'd have to resort to sending people over the sea to deliver the

information, but that would take days to arrive. Intel had to be fresh. Even if our

spies got their hands on important intel, it would be meaningless if there was no

way to communicate it back home immediately.

I had asked those who, like one of our top loreleis Nanna, had drifted here from

the Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago, but it turned out that, while all islands swore

loyalty to the Nine-Headed Dragon King, the living situation on each was different.

While I could gather fragmented pieces of information, it was hard to put together

any larger picture.

"I've gotta say, it's harder to deal with a country when you don't know what

they're thinking than it is to deal with one that's clearly hostile," I said. "I don't even

know if we should be getting ready to defend ourselves."

"That's true..."

Liscia and I both wracked our brains, but we came to no conclusion.

"Well, there's not much point in us thinking about it here," I said at last. "Getting

back to the topic of the Nine-Headed Dragon katana, the katanas from my world

were incredibly sharp, but they had the drawback that they couldn't stand up to

impacts and would break or warp easily," I said. "But in this world, there's

enchantment magic, right? That's how this katana is sturdy enough to stand up to

trading blows for a while."

"That would make it the best in its class as a sword blade, yeah," said Liscia. "But,

well... that's only for the blade itself."

"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked.

"We don't fight on the strength of our weapons alone. Everyone in this world can

use magic to a greater or lesser degree, and most of us use fire, water, earth, or wind

elemental magic. When it comes to a fight, we can wreathe our blades with those

elements, too."

Oh, I've seen that, I thought.