The 165th day of summoning another world [War begins] Part 1:

"Oh dear........we've lost our schedule........

Ryoma sat in his room in the castle and scratched his head as he stared into the air.
It's a good idea to have a good time with your friends.
I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to make your life easier.
It's a good idea to be careful not to interfere with the Lord's plans, as it is their duty now.
In fact, Ryoma's words are not the words that he said, expecting an answer.
They were merely words that she leaked to herself when she was deep in thought.
The sisters understood this after spending nearly five months together.

''Sister.......Ryoma-sama, you're thinking very hard, but you don't understand that it's past the dinner party's start time, do you?

'Yes but we mustn't interfere now because when you get your thoughts together, you'll give us a call and we'll let you know we're not interested. Just report back to me that you got in.

The sisters had already confirmed their absence from the dinner party.

Well I'll just go and say no.

Yeah. I'm not going to leave Ryoma-sama's side and tell Her Highness that I said hello.



''Yes I'm sure it's okay, since it's Ryoma-sama, but... oh, and you can rent the kitchen and prepare dinner. I'm sure you'll be hungry.

Yeah I understand.

With that said, Saara quietly slips out of the room.

I'm sure you'll be able to find a great deal more to say.
I'm sure you'll be able to find a great deal more to say about this.
It's a good thing that you're not the only one who has a good idea of what you're doing.
The only thing they care about is the safety of Princess Lupis.
It's not surprising that people who are assisting the princess will be put on the back burner.
As a matter of fact, Ryoma was just attacked by assassins the other day.
When Ryoma noticed the flying arrows, he bent down as quickly as he could, so the arrows didn't hurt him, but they were coated with a deadly poison and would have killed him if he had just snatched them.
Now that the assassin's whereabouts were unknown, it was only natural to be wary of another attack.
Both Laura and Saara were ready to become Ryojin's shield.
However, I fully understand that Ryoma would not be happy if he sacrificed his sisters' lives to save them, so I'm making all the preparations I can beforehand.
The chainmail worn underneath the maid's uniform is one of the countermeasures.


''Hmm.......I'm hungry.......''

Nearly two hours had already passed since Saara had gone to tell the princesses no.

''What time is it?''

'It's 10:05pm, sir.'

Laura quickly replied.

'Oh yeah........! Hey, we had a dinner party today. I see.........

Originally, I was going to have dinner with Princess Lupis for tonight's dinner.
But a report brought in the morning changed the situation dramatically.
Naturally, Ryoma had to think about how to deal with it.

''Do you have a message for me?''

He said he's probably struggling to come up with a solution, and that I shouldn't be concerned about his absence. However, he wants you to be prepared to make a statement of policy at the meeting tomorrow morning.

Princess Lupis was surprisingly friendly towards Liangma, who in a way was tantamount to rubbing the princess' face in the face by not attending the banquet hosted by the princess.
Of course, this shows how important the contents of that morning's report were.
Ryoma was relieved to hear Laura's words.

''All right........hmmm......until tomorrow.......''

Grrrr.

Liang Shin's belly screamed in frustration.
It couldn't be helped, as he hadn't eaten anything since lunch with only an occasional sip of tea.

'I'm hungry. What can I get you?

Yes. Miss Saara has reserved a kitchen to prepare the food.

Well you two will eat, too. You haven't eaten anything yet, have you?

Laura nodded happily as she said this, as Ryoma understood that the girls would not be eating before her.

'We'll have it ready for you right away.'


'Well. We don't have much time, so just listen to me while we eat.

I'm sure you'll be able to find out more about this in the future.
They were not only maids and guards, but at the same time they were important advisors to Ryoma.
By explaining his thoughts to them, Ryoma would not only deepen his own understanding, but it would also be a rehearsal for explaining to Princess Lupis and others.
Particularly important was confirming the meanings and phrases of the words.
Coming from a family of former high-ranking knights, the level of education the sisters have received is the highest in the land of Earth.
From Ryoushin's point of view, they are only at the upper elementary school level, but in this turbulent world, they boast an amount of knowledge that could be called knowledgeable.
In fact, most of the commoners who make up more than 90% of the population don't even know their own names.
The same is true of mathematics.
Merchants are only able to use addition and subtraction.
At the commoner level, there were people who had never even seen numbers.
Because of this world, even if Ryoma talked about a plan, people might not understand it.
If a word is spoken that has no concept itself, the person who is spoken to cannot understand the meaning.
That is why Ryoma explains to the sisters once.
This way, he could recognize words that they did not understand, or words that were difficult to understand.
The rest of the time, you just need to rephrase the words and explain them in a more concise manner.


You are aware that General Hodram has joined up with the nobility?

The sisters nodded in response to Ryoma's words.

Normally, this information should only be known to a limited number of people, but this kind of information is easy to leak.
This bad news that was brought this morning was an open secret that everyone working in the castle had heard about in the evening.
Ryoma is bitterly disappointed at how easily the country's secrets are leaked, but there is nothing that can be done about it due to the lack of individual awareness of crisis management.
Mikoshiba Ryoma is, after all, a stranger summoned from another world.
There is no way he can change the state of the country in a short period of time.
There is no choice but to deal with the problems that are in front of us right now, starting with the most important ones.
The only thing that has been leaked, however, is that General Hodram seems to have joined the nobility.
The information regarding the process was mixed.

Yeah. Then........let's start with the background.

Ryoma spoke up as he drove the meat down to his stomach with the wine in his mouth.


It was about four days ago that General Hodram left the royal capital Piraeus with the White Sword Knights, of which he is the leader, in the name of restoring domestic security.
Ryouma confidence had not been informed of this.
According to what I heard later, General Hodram had gone to talk to Princess Lupis.
In fact, ever since the aristocrats held Princess Ladine, the security of the Roseria Kingdom has been deteriorating.
I'm sure you'll find that you'll be able to find a lot of people who are willing to help you.
Justice without power will only be trampled upon.
Even so, in the royal capital Piraeus and other reasonably large provincial cities, the aristocratic faction or the princess faction strategically stationed their troops there, so there was no extreme worsening of security, but on the contrary, the figure of knights and soldiers disappeared from those strategically worthless villages and frontier cities, and there were reports of a rapid worsening of security.
Of course, this was inevitable.
Whether it's Princess Lupis or Lord Gerhardt, they don't have an infinite number of troops.
I'm sure Liangma himself was concerned about this, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Then General Hodram took advantage of this.


''The people are the kingdom!

This one word shook Princess Lupis' troubled mind.
If Ryojin or Elena had heard these words of General Hodram, they would never have believed him.
It's certainly a legitimate argument.
But is it possible for an ambitious man who has been obsessed with a sense of privilege to suddenly feel for his people?
Of course not! I'm not going to assert that it is.
The chances are not always zero.
But it's clear that it's infinitely low.
If Ryoma and Elena had been present at the scene, they would never have believed this story.
At the very least, they would have avoided having General Hodram directly in charge.
But Princess Lupis didn't understand this.
But Princess Lupis did not understand this.
But she succumbed to General Hodram's righteous argument.
She herself wanted her people to be at ease.
As a result, I accepted Hodram's proposal.
And sure enough, Princess Lupis was deceived.


''So that's why.''

The sisters' expressions didn't move when they heard Liangma's story.
If you talk to Lyone, you'll get 100 or 200 expletives from her, but they won't show it.
It's because they understand that it's worthless to show their anger by spending time with Ryoma.

''I see.......so what Ryoma-sama is concerned about is the fact that General Hodram has joined the noble faction? Or is it?

Laura's eyes looked up at Ryoma as she probed.

'Does Saara know what I care about?'

Without answering Laura's question, Ryoma turned the conversation over to Saara.

'You suspect that this turnover was engineered by someone else, don't you, Ryoma-sama?

Yes, that was exactly why Ryoma had been worried about it for nearly half a day.

Appointing Elena was the right decision in itself.
But she was a deleterious drug.
Medicines that have efficacy can become poison if taken in excess.
And Ryoma made a mistake in handling the drug Elena.
She did indeed work wonderfully.
She worked with her own friends who she had been in contact with in the first place and got into the knightly faction at once.
Her dissatisfaction with the Knight Faction's Hodram was true.
In just half a month, half of the knightly faction had shifted to Elena.
Originally, the dissatisfaction with Hodram was swirling within the knight faction.
With Elena's return, the knights found an outlet for their dissatisfaction and turned to Elena with all hands.
And as the days went by, their numbers increased.
In the end, all that remained in Hodram's hands were the 2,500 child knights, of which he was the leader.
It's not just a matter of time before you'll be able to get your hands on a new one.
Originally, Ryoma and his team had planned to eliminate Hodram after dealing with the problem of the noble faction.
However, it's hard to imagine that Hodram, whose own faction was devoured, would meekly retain the princess.
We will take out Hodram before he does anything unnecessary.
It was only a week ago that this policy was settled.

'Yes, it's too unnatural it's true that Hodram is cornered. That's why we need reinforcements I understand that but I don't understand how Lord Gerhardt can accept that. And I can't for the life of me imagine that General Hodram would bow to his political enemies on his own.

Liang Shin's mind never forgot the look in his eyes when he first met General Hodram in the audience room.
Eyes full of greed and ambition.
And those eyes that looked at Ryojin.
''You lowly commoner!'' His eyes said so clearly.
He was arrogant and discriminating, and was unforgiving of his enemies.
Moreover, his pride is terribly high.
He is not on good terms with Lord Gerhardt, who has been in charge of political affairs.
I'm sure that even if he were aware of the predicament he's in, he wouldn't be the first one to bow.
That's why Ryoma couldn't foresee General Hodram joining the aristocracy.

''Certainly... but can't you believe that Lord Gerhardt approached you about it?

Indeed, it's hard to imagine anything else. But the question is who advised Lord Gerhardt about it.

Since there was little chance of General Hodram bowing down himself, it could be expected that this story was brought up by the aristocrats.
It is certainly the aristocrats who have been in charge of political strategy.
They may be good at such underhanded maneuvering, but it takes time to find a compromise between people with conflicting interests, and emotional lumpiness is a problem that cannot be ignored.
However, if the aristocrats were able to resolve these issues, there would be no need for Prince Gerhardt to carry the bastard Princess Ladine.
All he had to do was bring Princess Lupis to the aristocrats' side.

I see........in that case, could it be that the surrounding countries are manipulating us?

'Yeah that's what I'm most worried about... I hope it's unfounded...'

Ryoma nodded at Laura's words.

In the past, the western kingdom of Zaruda and the kingdom of Roselia, where Elena went as a reinforcement, are currently in a state of conflict due to the issue of tariffs.
It's not that they don't get along with the Mist Kingdom to the east, but that doesn't mean they're good friends either.
In the past, we have cooperated with the Oltmere Empire to prevent their advance, but the situation among the three countries is not exceptionally good.
No, on the contrary, it's just bad.
If there's an opening, it's so bad that we'll bare our fangs.

There's so little information out of the country................

Whether this is unique to this country or to this world as a whole is something that Ryoma doesn't know right now, but there is just too little information.
There is only one way to get information about other countries at the moment.
The only way to get information about other countries is from people who move around the country, such as mercenaries and merchants.
But this is information that is no longer fresh.
And they don't always bring the information we are looking for.
Their job is not to carry information.

The sisters were well aware of the reason for Ryoma's blurbs.
It was because they had been working with Ryoma for the past few months, and they knew the importance of information and preparation in advance.
But at the same time, he knew that Ryoma's wishes would not be met.
The privileged classes in this world are not very aware of the importance of information.
If you want it, you have to hire someone to do it for you.
But under the current circumstances, there is no time to spare.

"Ryoma-sama........there's no point in worrying about something you don't understand. We have no choice but to defeat General Hodram and Lord Gerhardt before the neighboring countries have a go at us, don't we?

Ryoma could only nod at Laura's words.
He knew that he himself had no other choice.

'Lord Gerhardt has about 60,000. If General Hodram's 2,500 and the mercenaries are added to this, it's about 65,000. This is 12,500 for the knights and 20,000 for the nobles under Count Bergston. So the total is 32,500. We're at an overwhelming disadvantage in terms of numbers...''

Ryojin nodded at Saara's words.

''Originally, most of the aristocracy faction were only middle or high ranking nobles above the rank of count, so their fiefdoms are large and the number of troops drafted is large. It's not just the number of soldiers, it's the number of aristocrats that will win.

But that was already obvious. And they're a close match in terms of strength.

You'll find that all of the knights are able to use magic.
I'm sure you'll be able to find a great deal more to say about it.
It's very important to me that you have a good idea of what to expect.

I'm sure you'll be able to see that the situation is the same as before just because Hodram has been given to the enemy.

''That's right. But while we shouldn't pay too much attention to an invisible enemy, it's not good to ignore it.

Laura's words had a decent grasp of the current situation.
The most frightening thing is that they will be guided to invade another country before they can take care of Hodram and Gerhardt.
There is no proof, but that possibility can never be ignored.

''Then I guess the best thing to do is to get this over with quickly...''

Ryoma's eyes stare into the air.
It's just one game to decide the game.