“First of all, as someone with first-hand knowledge, I will propose an idea,” I began. I had an ace up my sleeve. “What we need the most right now is a new leader for the Yanga territory.”
I felt like I heard “No, we don’t,” come from the crown prince’s mouth, but it was my time to talk.
“Sacula cannot continue to keep taking in refugees, and there are still a lot of citizens remaining in the Yanga territory. The responsibility of rebuilding and managing the refugees from here on out should fall to the person responsible for those decisions—in other words, the leader of that territory.” Now, let’s begin. I was prepared to get into the meat of the discussion, but it seemed the crown prince did not share my enthusiasm.
He kicked back his chair as he stood up, and spoke in an angry tone of voice not very suitable for a discussion. “Stop right there! Didn’t we say that the purpose of this meeting would be our plan to finance the relief supplies?”
“No? I am pretty sure we just said that we would talk about the situation on a wider scale.”
“I didn’t agree to this!”
“I am not sure what Your Highness thinks, but surely you acknowledge that the very capable duo of Her Highness Princess Alicia and Father Birkan have been very successful in donating supplies. While we still need to improve the pipeline there, it is not a pressing issue right now,” I explained to the crown prince. “The problem is less how much support the royal capital and central regions can provide and more that there are too many large decisions we are unable to make or act upon. There is no Viscount Yanga and no one else in this world who can call the shots and make decisions for the territory in their place. To put it bluntly, only His Majesty the King holds the authority to do anything there.” Once a territory had been left in the care of a feudal lord, then not even the king could interfere, however, he could use his authority to act on their behalf. If the king was to formally declare a plan to recover the territory as a jurisdiction, he would then be able to exercise full authority.
“However, I am not about to ask the king, who resides here in the capital, to take command of a territory on the outskirts of the kingdom. As the crown prince said previously, it is too great of a distance, to the point that it took three months for the supplies to arrive. It would not be possible to ask that of our king.” If we were to look at the situation on a grander scale, the conclusion was obvious. “Rather than discussing small matters like relief supplies, we should decide who will be the successor to the Yanga territory. I have said it a few times now, but even with the best people for the job, the distance between the royal capital, Yanga, and Sacula is too far. Right, Your Highness?”
I used the crown prince’s own words against him in order to gain the upper hand. I kept the blows coming. The crown prince may be above me in position, but in all other matters, I had the upper hand. We had both the Church and intelligence experts sponsoring us. We were based at Count Sacula’s manor, which was known for its military strength. Anyone who fought someone in the ring a whole league higher than them in terms of authority and military force was crazy. They should have dropped from the fight when I made it here to the meeting on time. Maybe they just did not see the realities of this battle, or maybe they were just mistakenly obsessed with the idea that Princess Alicia might disrupt the line of succession.
Well, I think I’ve done enough damage. If this had been a boxing match, now would have been the point when the referee stepped in to stop me from throwing any more punches. However, unfortunately, this was not a boxing match, and we could not expect the one person who could act as a referee to play fair.
“Sir Fenix, your statements have been acknowledged,” spoke that same referee, who I trusted even less now. “You are correct that a successor to Viscount Yanga must be decided. I promise that I will consider it.”
“With all due respect, Your Majesty, I believe a name has already been given, so I wonder how much longer you will need,” I responded. Are you so much of an idiot that you had three months and were still unable to decide? I tried not to ask that out loud and held back a sigh in the process, but all had become clear now. He is an idiot.
The current king would not even swat an insect harassing his daughter if he thought it might affect his position. Of course, he was carrying out his duties as king, but he should regard his daughter’s position as princess equally highly and act immediately on her behalf. He only seemed to care for his responsibilities, not the responsibilities of others. I can’t make sense of it. And now, the king was wrapped around the crown prince’s little finger. If he was offering no help to his daughter, then was he helping Prince Albert as the king or as his father? While he would never state his true intentions, it was quite easy to tell from his actions.
“These things take time. I will spend some time thinking about it,” said the king as he concluded the meeting. If anyone had gained anything from this meeting, it was the beaten crown prince. Or, to put it in other words, despite being so close to delivering the knockout, the Frontier Alliance had lost the match thanks to an unfair referee. How did it come to this? His Excellency Count Gentoh, Alicia, and myself all gathered at the count’s mansion within the capital to lick our wounds and recount the day’s events.
“Ash, I’m glad you were able to get here so quickly. Good work,” Count Gentoh said, kicking off the discussion.
“You should thank Sir Argos. I would not have known if it were not for him...though, did you send out other envoys?” Count Gentoh grinned. It seemed that Count Sacula, Baron Nepton, and Viscount Sukuna had all worked together to send envoys from their respective houses. “Is it all right if I leave my thanks for that until another day and ask about the meeting?”
“Yeah, about that...” Count Gentoh shrugged his shoulders. “I never anticipated that the king would make such a biased decision. I suppose that’s on me. I thought that if it were a formal setting, he would make a fair decision.”
“He’s a dumb parent advocating for his idiot son,” I responded. Count Gentoh had a distant look in his eyes. He looked like he had just lost a lifelong friend.