Rebirth in a Ruined Nation! The Life of a New Strategist Starting From Now - Chapter 115

The Empire’s Turmoil (2) – A Godsend

If Das-san and Rays-sama’s prediction were correct, then the rebel, 2nd Imperial Prince Philemas should die in an ‘accident’ in the middle of his handover.

For the Empire, this ‘accident’ was the best way to take care of Philemas, as bringing him back to the Empire would have been too much trouble.

“But the situation changed, you said?”

“From what I heard, the officer in charge of the handover who had been visiting the Empire frequently suddenly stopped coming and when the Empire tried to find out what had happened to him, we found out about…”

“The Battle at Zetta Plain?”

“Yes. When the Emperor heard about the Zetta Plain, he sent a secret messenger to Gorber to ask what had happened.”

Rays-sama frowned. First was Philemas and now this ‘secret messenger’. Knowing people from the enemy’s country were moving freely in Rudek’s territory probably didn’t feel good.

But, although it was a problem that we managed to let Philemas’s group pass through this country unknowingly, spies and the likes were different matters. They moved while mingling with commoners so they were difficult to spot.

In fact, just like there were spies in our country, we also had spies in other countries.

Plus, although Rays-sama didn’t say it out loud, the reason Philemas’s ship managed to pass through our sea was more likely than not because of the attempt to kidnap Rufa back then.

After we rescued Rufa, the furious Zackhart-sama started a major cleansing of Gedland’s underworld. As a result, the underworld was like a beehive being poked.

According to what I heard, many people of the underworld fled to the sea, and there was no end to the number of reckless people who sailed out to sea in small boats.

If we left these people alone, they might cause accidents to other sailors in the sea, and in the first place, it was dangerous to just leave people who have ‘circumstances’ dire enough that they would risk their lives escaping to the sea on a small boat alone.

 It wasn’t hard to imagine how busy our Navy was at the time, dealing with those people. Then, if at such a busy time, there was a ship that looked like nothing but a merchant shop from another country…

If we trust the capability of our country’s Navy, then I think that time was the only time Philemas would be able to slip through Rudek’s security net. If so, was Philemas just lucky, after all?

No, it was still too early to just attribute it to Philemas’s luck. After all, Philemas had a better chance of survival if he escaped to the southern continent, so the fact he chose to go to Gorber while risking being caught in Rudek’s sea was still suspicious.

At any rate, Gorber’s response about this matter to the Empire has changed dramatically since the Zetta Great War. The officer in charge who used to deal with the matter suddenly disappeared and the new officer in charge said that ‘Gorber didn’t mind handing him over, but the Empire has to make the arrangement by themselves’

The previous officer in charge said that Gorber’s side would arrange everything but the new officer said something exact opposite. This meant that now, Gorber had no intention of causing an ‘accident’ during the handover so the Empire had to take the traitor back, even if it was a hassle.

After all, if there was no ‘accident’ the Emperor couldn’t allow the ringleader of the rebellion to be left alone.

But here a problem arose. Our country, Rudek.

Although the current situation between Rudek and the Empire was relatively peaceful, we were still in the midst of a war with the Empire.

The current situation was also different from the drifting ship incident. At that time, a compromise was found because Luluria was treated as a person from a different country, not someone from the Empire. This time though, it was completely the Empire’s problem.

Even if the Empire requested Rudek to let their people pass through so they could bring back their traitor to the Empire, Rudek wouldn’t, and couldn’t agree. Rudek’s upper echelon would probably reply to the Empire’s request with, ‘Don’t look down on us!’ or something along that line.

But the Empire couldn’t act too humble to the country they were at war with. They also couldn’t request to pass through the Lifrea for the handover since the Empire’s relationship with Lifrea, the country that allied itself with Rudek for the sake of fighting against the Empire’s invasion, was worse than with Rudek.

But it wasn’t like there was no room for negotiation between Rudek and the Empire.

In the current situation, both countries would want to avoid fighting.

The Empire was tied up with their war against Zanadefol.

In the future that I knew, even 40 years later the Empire’s territory didn’t change. They failed to conquer Zanadefol and they also couldn’t defeat Lifrea who had become a major powerhouse after swallowing Rudek.

As for us, we might have won against Gorber in Zeta Plain but our 6th and 4th Divisions were being rebuilt while the 2nd and 10th Divisions also suffered considerable damage due to the battle. Our army was currently exhausted so we didn’t want to provoke the Empire.

So what we and the Empire needed currently was a point of compromise.

Ah, I see, so that was why.

the Empire wanted to give a face to Rudek’s king by sending their 4th Imperial Prince, Tsetsedra as the envoy.

For the Empire, it wasn’t a bad scenario for the 4th Imperial Prince, the very person who stopped the rebellion, to come and negotiate with Rudek to bring the traitor back home.

Making the 4th Imperial Prince, one of the Emperor’s sons, bow down to Rudek as an envoy would also be giving enough face to the Rudek Kingdom.

It was in this kind of situation that Das-san visited the Empire….bringing a letter from me.

That letter, for Prince Tsetsedra and Luluria was like a godsend, though for me it was just a letter I sent at a coincidentally convenient timing. Well, I was glad to know that Luluria was doing well…a bit too well in fact, after hearing Das-san’s story though.

“I see. I understand everything. I’ll request King Zeurasia’s permission for the meeting. Das-dono, can you come with me and  repeat what you just told us in front of the King?”

“Of course!”

Now that Rays-sama and Das-san had reached an agreement, I finally felt like the pressure had been taken off my shoulders. When Rays-sama saw my relieved expression, he shot me with a look as if to say, ‘It’s too early for you to be relieved’

“Of course, Roa, you need to come too since the Empire’s side specifically mentioned you.”

Sigh… as expected, I couldn’t escape.