C99: Means of Obtaining an Army (8)

Two weeks have passed and the royal capital was completely occupied by Lushak. However, Lushak did not take the throne. He chose a young royal who was easy to manipulate behind the scenes and he himself became a duke after he took over all the real power.

The reason why he didn’t take the throne himself was simple: there were still many of Kashak’s lieutenants left, and there were probably some who advised him against it.

He only occupied the royal capital, but he did not bring the entire territory of Estren to its knees. Of course, the powerful nobles of the royal capital, the dukes who had tried to escape, were captured and taken hostage.

If the name of the Estren dynasty is kept alive and someone from the Estren royal family is put on the throne, it will be the Kingdom of Estren anyway. If he could gain so many benefits by not taking the throne, he would have had no choice but to accept it.

How to completely defeat Estren in this situation? Just overthrow the central government.

The local aristocrats have not really given their approval to Lushak. If only the central government seized by Lushak disappeared with the fires still burning around it, there would be rebellions in many territories to seize that power.

The country is in a state of turmoil where each region is fighting against each other without centralization, and without a king, the country cannot be united.

At the moment, Lushak has taken control of the royal capital and is somehow promoting the idea of a unified country, but as soon as he is gone, Estren will be divided into four sides. If that were to happen, there was no way the surrounding countries would leave Estren alone.

They would not miss this chance to gradually subjugate Estren’s territory by destroying it individually while their own people were fighting among themselves.

Then they will fight each other for more territory, and the entire southeastern continent will not be interested in Aintorian.

Once the rear is secure, I will be able to deal with Narja and South Lunan without worry. The hill overlooked the gates of the royal city, where the head of the king who was killed while fleeing still hung. Fortunately, Serena had been somewhat relieved of Dofle’s death in two weeks.

Her familiarity with the land had been very helpful.

“What do you intend to do now?”

“I’m going to kill duke Lushak.”

“Duke Lushak…….?”

“He’s a duke now.”

I answered and she suddenly knelt down.

“Is such a thing really possible? If you can kill Lushak……if you can avenge my father’s enemies, I will have no regrets even if I die!”

“I’m not killing him to avenge you, Your Highness. It’s for Aintorian sake.”

“I will do whatever I can to take revenge!”

“Your Highness, I understand. Please stand up first. This is not something to get down on your knees about.”

When I tried to help her up, Serena made a thoughtful gesture and then opened her mouth as if she had made up her mind about something.

“His Majesty is dead and I am a fugitive from the royal palace, so I am no longer a queen. I’m just a sinner who couldn’t save her husband or even her father…….”

Actually, that’s what I was hoping for. I need help, and capable people are always welcome.

“I will, if Your Highness makes up your mind.”

“Decide? I’ll do……anything. I will obey you.”

Serena smiled and said so, dimples forming on her cheeks.

“You will work for me as a part of Aintorian. You said you would do anything, and you will live up to that commitment.”

“I, I’m going to……become a member of Aintorian……? But I have no talent whatsoever. Why should I be……!”

You don’t have to say that much. In terms of talent, your basic attractiveness value is high enough to be a trump card in a civil war.

Attractiveness is a hidden ability that is not displayed separately, but if it is high, it will not lower public sentiment when conscripting or collecting taxes. It also has an effect on development and agriculture.

Even one more such person would have a considerable positive effect on the country and Aintorian was currently experiencing a serious shortage of manpower.

“Not to toot my own horn, but……I became queen because of my face, not my talent. And I’ve never accomplished anything on my own, only helped my father implement the policies he wanted.”

“Is that so? I think there’s another talent you mentioned in your story.”

Serena was too stunned by my words to continue.

A few seconds later.

“I don’t know about that……talent, but I will follow Master Erhin regardless of whether I am a member of……Aintorian or not. My dream was to travel the world and live freely and at this moment, I have already fulfilled my dream, because I’m looking around the world with Erhin-sama like this. That’s why I feel so at ease now. I want to shout that I am free!”

“Then I will treat you as a subordinate from now on. Is that clear?”

“Yes, of course!”

She nodded loudly. With a slightly exaggerated gesture.

“If you’re so determined, I’ll give you a quick order.”

As I said this, Serena straightened her posture and looked up at me with a tense face.

“Shout.”

She looked at me with a surprised face when I ordered her to do so.

“We’re the only ones here now. You have a good view of your father’s burial place and the royal palace. You can give it your all here.”

“……Yes.”

She did not cry in the face of her father’s death and tried her best to suppress her emotions.

At first, it seemed as if she could not accept his death. Later, after she hugged the tombstone and admitted her death, she showed her endurance again and again, either because she missed the timing or because she could not take revenge. But she couldn’t keep doing that forever.

She nodded at my words and looked around. Then she screamed at the top of her voice. After calling out the name of her father, the man she loved most in this world, over and over again, she finally started to cry.

I was not going to stop her, she should cry as much as she wants now.

***

It was quite complicated, though.

The only way to defeat Estren without using troops was to invest time. After all, causing the periphery to explode is the surest way to bring down a puppet regime. Especially if there’s a good cause involved.

Luckily for me, I had one, a queen who could claim the pretext of carrying on the will of the king who had ruled Estren for so many years.

Just as I had hoped, Lushak was out of control. After all, his humanity was the worst of them all. In less than two weeks, he had begun to oppress the people around the capital. Dozens of villages near the royal capital disappeared one after another.

A puppet government is more vulnerable to a cause, and it is the people’s will that reacts to it. A country that disobeys the will of the people cannot function normally.

If the value of the people’s spirit falls below [10], it will turn into a mob and cause a civil war. If I could manipulate the sporadic civil unrest, it would be enough to drive out Lushak and create anarchy. Then, I could kill two birds with one stone by using the anger of the people to gather the people of Estren and bring them back to Aintorian.

It was also a chance to increase the population of Aintorian, in fact, this was my original purpose. The most important thing I can obtain from Estren is population.

Our current population is 1.05 million and there was still room for more as Brinhild was quite large. The larger the population, the more money it would cost, but more troops could be trained.

Narja is full of monsters and I could no longer rely on points, so I needed an army that could fight on equal terms. I’m going to move the people of Estren to Bridget since the battlefield will be there.

My plan is to convince them that we share the same cause of overthrowing the puppet regime and guarantee them a stable life after explaining to them the bleak reality of the region where the war will take place. It’s pretty selfish, but it’s the only way.

Public sentiment and population are part of conquering this game, and it’s a way to save my life. Honestly, my life is the most important thing.

I’m not from this world, and I don’t have any justice or cause in mind. I just have the will to conquer this game. In any case, it’s easy to manipulate the people’s minds to create a civil war.

Originally, the public sentiment in Estren’s capital was reasonably stable at 70. Thanks to the mediocre king, the aristocrats hadn’t made any significant policies other than fighting for power, so they had been able to maintain the 70 figure.

However, within two weeks after Lushak came to power, public sentiment had dropped to 30. It only needs to drop another 20 from there. Right now, there was not yet enough unrest in the numbers to cause a civil war, only a few voices of discontent here and there.

I had to manipulate the civil unrest and give it a powerful edge. I needed to infiltrate the government to persuade the citizens to become my people after denouncing and overthrowing the puppet government.

Without an army, I would have to use the will of the people to overthrow this puppet regime. Furthermore, I was confident that I could lead the rebellion to success, not failure.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t take out Lushak on my own. There was no one who could stop me for at least half an hour but that would not be the people’ s will. There would be no reason for the people of this country to follow me.

I need a good reason to make the people of other countries follow me. Population is power, that’s why I was going to infiltrate the largest village in the area.