Rebirth in a Ruined Nation! The Life of a New Strategist Starting From Now - Chapter 110

The Hogbeck Territory (5) – An Old Story 

“You should stay here longer. You think so too, right, Opa?”

Cecilia said to us as we were getting ready to leave in the early morning of the new year.

“Wickharlt, I think at least you should stay here a bit longer,” I said to Wickharlt.

Originally, the reason Wickharlt wanted to go to Lieze Fortress was to apologize and also thank the 7th Division for filling in for the 6th Division that had left the Lieze Fortress at short notice.

But we met and exchanged words with General Thor the other day so it could be said that Wickharlt’s objective had already been achieved, albeit by accident.

“But I’m also concerned about Drew,” Wickharlt replied.

After this, I had to make sure Wickharlt took plenty of vacation so he could return home more.

After all, this year might be the last year he could meet Opa-san and also his own family.

Of course, I’ll try my best to prevent that from happening.

“I’ll try to come home more often in the future,” Wickharlt said with a slightly annoyed tone. I was sure he was just trying to hide his embarrassment.

“Roa-dono,” The lord walked toward me and held out his hand, and I shook his hand.

“Please take care of my son,” He said with a serious tone.

 “…of course.”

I was the one who was being taken care of by Wickharlt, though.

And so, we left Wickharlt’s house.

***

Lieze Fortress was closer than Hakusha. The journey was uneventful so it didn’t take long for us to finally arrive at the fortress.

When I spoke to the gate guard, he said he already heard that we were coming so he let us in without even checking our plate.

This kind of thing would only happen at this time of the year. No one would go to war in the new year so the security was quite lax. It wasn’t only in our kingdom though, I bet everywhere around the continent was like this.

Do not fight during the year-end and the New Year holidays. This was an unwritten rule in the northern continent. The unwritten rule was born because of a certain incident.

Once, in a small country in the northwestern part of the continent, an outstanding man was born.

His name was Glanzweul. It was said that if he had been just a little bit more considerate of others feelings, he might have united the northern continent.

But Glanzweul was killed, alongside his entire family and vassals. Not because of an enemy’s general, but because of the people and soldiers of his own country.

Glanzweul was strong in warfare and was also extraordinarily talented in politics. He also employed the best and brightest people regardless of their backgrounds, which was an unusual thing to do in that era. He quickly transformed his small country into a major powerhouse. However, his decisiveness in pursuit of his goals caused hardship to the people below him. 

Regardless if it was the new year or any other holiday, he deployed his army to conquer other countries. At first, his people were delighted by their country’s countless victories but once Glanzweul’s kingdom had grown to a certain extent, his people asked Glanzweul for a rest, but Glanzweul didn’t allow it so the people kept on waging war under Glanzweul’s order without rest.

Then, a major rebellion broke out.

Ironically, the rebellion took place on the last day of the year. On the day when his people asked for rest, pillars of flames went up all over the country.

What’s more, at that time Glanzweul’s family was all attending a New Year banquet so perhaps it was meant to happen.

The rebellion was successful. Glanzweul was killed and his head was deployed on the castle gate. After that, a civil war broke out.

In addition to the people who led the rebellion, the relatives of kings of the countries destroyed by Glanzweul all participated in the civil war so a long battle happened.

The only fortunate thing that happened was the fact neighboring countries didn’t invade during that civil war but perhaps the reason for that was that the situation was so chaotic that other countries didn’t want to get involved.

That was how the Alliance of 16 Countries was born.

Even though the 16 Countries allied with each other so they could stand up against other countries, they were not united as a single country due to their own various interests and agendas.

At some point, a saying was born on the continent.

‘If you don’t want your country to get destroyed, don’t wage war in the new year.’

Even the continent’s most powerful country, the Greedl Empire adhered to this unwritten rule, so maybe the rebellion was far worse than what I’ve learned.

That was why around this time, I was sure that all fortresses on the northern continent, not just Lieze Fortress, were like this. The soldiers that remained at the fortress were also somewhat relaxed. The atmosphere of the entire fortress around this time of the year was quite unique.

“Ah, you’re here,” Lapilia-sama came to pick us up.

“Lapilia-sama. How is Drew?”

“She kept working on something and didn’t sleep a wink since we got her, but just now, she fell asleep…or more like, collapsed, but she’s fine.”

I could also see slight dark circles around Lapilia-sama’s eyes. I was pretty sure that, unlike Drew, she managed to get some sleep but it seemed like she had been taking care of Drew for quite some time.

Surprisingly, she was good at taking care of others, it seemed.

“Drew will be sleeping for a while so let’s go and greet Thor-sama first.”

Though I was also concerned about Drew, for now, we decided to follow Lapilia-sama’s lead and walked toward the building in the center of the fortress.