Dmitry’s reception room.
As he entered, there was a familiar face. Edwin Hector was drinking tea and greeted Roman Dmitry like it was a natural meeting.
“Long time no see.”
“Why did you want to see me?”
“You seem to be in a hurry. Please sit down.”
This was unexpected. The last memories of both men weren’t good. Seeing the walls collapse and Hector’s soldiers slaughtered, Edwin Hector showed eyes full of hate as if he were about to shed bloody tears.
The relationship between the two was clearly bad. No matter how much they should disregard their personal feelings for national interest, their relationship couldn’t be this peaceful.
Roman sat down.
Edwin Hector lightly tossed the topic to ease the tension.
“First of all, congratulations on the foundation of the Dmitry Duchy. I knew that Roman Dmitry was a great man, but I didn’t think that you would end the civil war in Cairo and also defeat Kronos. Even in Hector, many people were surprised by your actions. Everyone was outraged by the atrocities of the empire, but no one could act as you did.”
“Get straight to the point. We aren’t close enough to compliment one another without feeling awkward.”
“… you are right. In fact, I also didn’t expect for us to meet in another place other than the battlefield.”
The atmosphere turned cold. The events in the past—Edwin Hector didn’t forget them. He was now being forced to smile because of the situation, but on the battlefield, Roman Dmitry made him feel an overwhelming sense of terror.
During the time when he crossed the border for his nation, Hector’s soldiers were one-sidedly annihilated, and the defeated soldiers, who did not gain anything, had no choice but to spend a really cold and difficult winter.
And Butler, who suffered major injuries, needed a full year to even hold the sword again. His heart ached for him.
Hearing the news of Butler’s despair and what he was going through made Hector frustrated. Edwin Hector, who lived away at the time, fell into guilt over the wrong choice he had made.
Hector was in decline. If he hadn’t pushed for the war, he wouldn’t have experienced that pain of defeat, and even though it was difficult right now, the people who died would still be alive.
He caught his breath. The past was bad luck. And having encountered Roman Dmitry on the battlefield, he was even more certain that he had to meet the guy.
Edwin Hector said,
“I’m going to tell you the truth about the war between Cairo and Hector. There was another side, a shady side, which instigated the war.”
Roman Dmitry’s expression didn’t change. As he calmly accepted the news, Edwin Hector spoke what he had prepared in his head.
“As Mr. Roman Dmitry knows, the Hector Kingdom decided to go to war because of the poor harvest that year. I am not making excuses for what happened. We attacked Cairo to live, and that was wrong. But right after the war ended, we confirmed that the poor harvest had been done by force.”
The timing felt odd. The village, which was initially normal, soon showed signs of an anomaly when the war was over like there was no more need to hide.
“It started with a village in Hector. It was a village that had a bad harvest, and as soon as the war ended, the ground turned dry and black, and there were reports that too many carcasses of animals were found close by. And that was just the start. With the abnormal symptoms spreading throughout Hector, we learned that there was another reason for the poor harvest that was afflicting Hector—the Necromancer’s Curse. The beings who worked hard to dry the land for a long time didn’t care about hiding what they did once they achieved their goal.”
It takes a lot of effort to keep a curse running, so the situation was clear. Hector thought that God had abandoned them, and that was why they weren’t getting any food, but the reason was something else.
When his doubts became certain, Edwin Hector couldn’t contain the rage inside of him. In the war with Cairo, the people who died and the people who went to the battlefield to obtain food for their nation met a monster called Roman Dmitry and achieved nothing.
He wasn’t going to blame it on the other person. The idiocy of being duped by a dark and shady plan, as well as their defeat in the war, occurred because the officials who governed Hector were lacking.
However, he had to find out the truth. Having entered the Magic Tower through a deal with the tower master, he had an intense time last year.
“Which side really benefited the most from the war between Cairo and Hector? If you think about it, you can assert that the force was the Kronos Empire. Those who want to use Cairo as a bridge to begin their conquest will only benefit from whoever wins between Cairo and Hector, so I began to concentrate on them. At first, I didn’t believe it. Even though their ambitions have reached their peak, black magic is an area that humanity shouldn’t touch.”
It had been exactly one year, and he had just recently discovered a fact that drew Edwin to Dmitry.
“Ten years ago, I discovered that there was a phenomenon similar to Hector in the Kronos Empire. There was a deliberately bad crop, but the Kronos Empire didn’t actively solve the problem and hid the truth instead. So when we found a clue about a person related to it, we discovered that their poor harvest was the result of an experiment.”
It wasn’t perfect evidence. The person who knew about the bad harvest was just an errand boy, and he had no power, so they couldn’t use that as evidence.
However, Edwin Hector convinced him. As he looked at Roman Dmitry, he revealed his purpose for visiting Dmitry.
“It was as expected. The true identity of that shadow was the Kronos Empire.”
The benefits that could be gained from the war between the two kingdoms were obvious. Control barbarians with barbarians. Even if the Kronos Empire didn’t exert much effort, they could drive Cairo into a corner by attracting external forces.
In fact, the war on the Southern Front was directly linked to Kronos’s gains. The Hector Kingdom tried to bring in the Kronos Empire to solve the unfavorable situation, and regardless of the result, the Cairo Kingdom had no choice but to focus on the Southern Front rather than the Western Front for a while.
So they were slowly taking Cairo’s breath. Just as Hector withered away from a bad harvest, the internal and external strife weakened Cairo.
Edwin Hector said,
“People only focus on the bad things that Kronos is doing in front of their eyes. Since they openly declared taking over the continent, we only think it would be fortunate enough if they didn’t invade the borders. But the truth is different. The Kronos Empire is cleverly destroying those who stand in their way one by one. Their target is Cairo. They are using Cairo to step into a bigger war, as they can defeat it easily. Unlike the Kingdoms’ Alliance, which consists of four kingdoms. Cairo and Hector—if they destroy the two kingdoms and take full control of the northern part of the continent, then they can split the continent and do a full conquest.”
“If that is true, why come to me without releasing this to the public? Since black magic is a sensitive subject, even the Kronos Empire wouldn’t be able to avoid taking responsibility.”
“I agree. But that alone won’t bring the empire down. No, maybe it will even start the war. The Kronos Empire has been holding back its ambitions because of Valhalla, but in fact, it wouldn’t be strange if a war broke out. And with the current strength of the Kingdoms’ Alliance, excluding the empire, there is no one else who can handle it.”
It was enough evidence. Kronos knew full well that the kingdoms could do nothing but argue, and that an argument not backed by force was meaningless. So Edwin Hector first thought of Roman Dmitry.
“Our relationship went wrong from the start. The responsibility lies with Hector, and if you ask us to take responsibility for it, I will gladly accept it. However, in order to stop the ambitions of Kronos, Dmitry and Hector must work together.”
His true purpose was an alliance. He hoped for the power of Roman Dmitry.
“For years, Hector’s people starved to death. Whenever I think of their faces in sadness caused by the Kronos Empire, I feel that I cannot live with them under the same sky. My heart is angry, and I am angry to the point of going insane. This is not just Hector’s problem, so please join me in my plan to destroy the Kronos Empire.”
It was a rather one-sided conversation. Edwin Hector coughed up his accumulated resentment, and his words were quite persuasive too.
However, strangely, despite saying all that, Roman Dmitry had a calm face.
It was a strange atmosphere. Roman Dmitry took a sip of his tea, put the cup down, and looked at Edwin Hector.
“I knew.”
“… what do you know?”
“After the battle on the Southern Front, I asked my people to travel around the continent. Actually, the war between Hector and Cairo was something both sides didn’t want, and I thought maybe it was instigated by someone. As you said, it was very clear that the two nations would shed blood, and someone would benefit from it.”
The Lower District. The people of the information guild were all over the continent. They gathered all the information and got a clue about black magic by putting all that information together.
Hector’s bad harvest smelled odd to him. As Edwin investigated, he couldn’t find clear evidence that it was the work of the Kronos Empire, but at least it was possible for him to infer that it was the plan of someone.
Actually, it wasn’t that surprising. Edwin Hector seemed to be expressing his anger at the part about how humans used black magic, but there were many cases in Murim that were worse.
The Gangshis that were made from corpses. They were monsters that sucked out people’s qi. Many people gave up living as human beings in order to achieve their own goals.
And Roman said,
“We are already preparing for war with Kronos. If it was really them, they would surely put their ambition of conquering the continent into action, and just like the Hector Kingdom, they would stop at nothing to destroy Dmitry. But aside from that, why should Dmitry join the Hector Kingdom?”
“… does that mean you will decline my offer?”
“Let’s be straightforward. Precisely, I am asking if Hector is in a position to make such an offer.”
His eyes changed. They looked the same as when he was on the battlefield. Roman Dmitry showed ferocious eyes, as if he were going to devour Edwin Hector.
“The Hector Kingdom was cornered by the intentions of Kronos, and even though you attacked Cairo as a surprise, you failed to achieve your purpose. It shows that you are weak. Due to the long, poor harvest you had, Hector festers from the inside, and those who are troubled by this incident will inevitably lose their intention of being soldiers as time goes by. And that isn’t all.”
It was the cruel truth. Roman Dmitry mercilessly revealed what he had tried to ignore.
“The war with Cairo is over, and the bad harvest is over. But it will take time to restore those lost lands, and the people of the Hector Kingdom are still hungry since it hasn’t been fully resolved yet. I heard that Prince Edwin Hector got a lot of help from the Magic Tower. But the problem still hasn’t been resolved yet? If war breaks out, does Hector even have the supplies to carry out the war? Prince. It isn’t like I don’t know your sincerity. Your mind thinks of your people. Your desire for revenge is on the verge of exploding, and you want to take Kronos down. However…”
This meeting and this conversation, which was supposed to be smooth, went wrong from the start, just like the relationship between the two men.
“Stop saying things I already know, and tell me why I should join hands with you.”
