To the south of the Arcana Kingdom lay the Jigsaw Kingdom. It possessed national power on a scale comparable to Arcana’s and was, at the same time, an extremely ambitious state. It regularly invaded the surrounding minor nations, demanding territorial concessions or outright annexation. Naturally, the people of the former nations it absorbed were subjected to brutal exploitation, making Jigsaw a dangerous country that sought to forcefully expand its power.
The small and medium-sized states around it greatly feared this kingdom and constantly monitored its mood. However, no matter how much they flattered it or sent tribute, it only bought time. To the Jigsaw Kingdom, smaller nations were merely prey to be devoured sooner or later, and it had no intention of listening to their pleas for mercy. If a nation happened to incur its wrath, it simply meant that its remaining time would run out even faster.
Even for such a greedy and powerful Jigsaw Kingdom, however, the alliance between the Arcana Kingdom and the Domino Republic was a threat. Just as there had been an exchange between the Black Prince and the leadership of the Oseo Kingdom before the wedding began, similar discussions had taken place in the Jigsaw Kingdom, where a plan was proposed. The idea was to form an anti-Arcana coalition led by Jigsaw, tightening economic and military pressure to sap Arcana’s momentum.
While the king attended the wedding, preparations progressed within the Jigsaw Kingdom on the assumption that such an anti-Arcana alliance would be formed. However, after the wedding held in the Arcana Kingdom, the king of Jigsaw returned home and declared the following:
“The plan to encircle the Arcana Kingdom is canceled. This is a royal order. I will tolerate no objections.”
Upon his return, the king canceled the plan with a single decisive command. Naturally, voices of doubt rose among the leadership. Some even suspected that the king had been cursed by sorcery, but the king, of course, denied this. He added that other great powers felt the same, insisting that he had not changed his mind alone. As for the crucial reason, he maintained complete silence.
The retainers were bewildered, but one thing was clear from the look on his face. At the very least, the king had not been swayed by temptation. And they sensed that prying into the matter carelessly might very well get them killed. He appeared intensely irritated and absolutely refused to speak of what he had seen at Arcana’s joint wedding.
“Destroy the Oseo Kingdom and annex it. Capture every member of the royal family and nobility and burn them all alive.”
Thus, for reasons unknown, the king redirected the spear that had been aimed at Arcana toward the neighboring mid-tier state, the Oseo Kingdom. The wise military commanders raised no objections and began preparations for the march. Since the target was the declining Oseo Kingdom, no one complained—there was no chance of losing.
Of course, there would be negotiations with other great powers, but everyone assumed those had already been handled. It was hardly appropriate—indeed, it would have been downright rude—to question a king who had just returned from the diplomatic stage as if they were dealing with a child. They believed there must be some deeper reasoning behind withdrawing from Arcana and turning their eyes to Oseo instead. But the king of the Jigsaw Kingdom did not invade based on such political philosophy. He invaded because there was no obstacle to doing so—and because he wanted to.
“Honestly... This is truly unpleasant! So this is what it means to be thoroughly detestable.”
At that moment, the Jigsaw king sat upon the throne in the audience chamber. His posture was slovenly, chin propped on his hand—utterly unfitting for the throne of a great power. Had anyone in the court other than him behaved so, they would have been executed, and their relatives punished as well. Even though he was the reigning king, it was the sort of conduct that would have drawn reprimands had his senior ministers been watching. However, at present, there was no one else in the audience chamber. He was alone, so naturally, there was no one to complain.
“Hmph... That brat really put me in a foul mood.”
The target of his anger was Prince Black Oseo—the epitome of insolence, a man who had hurled abuse at Magyan Tahlan without the slightest sense of propriety. At the initial stage, he had already been punished by the head of the Sepaeda house. Some might have complained that the punishment was excessive, but the king of Jigsaw, at least, had considered it appropriate. The problem came afterward. As further retaliation, the head of Sepaeda had dispatched a man named Sansui Shirokuro and the king had been forced to witness the extent of that man’s rampage.
“Why must I be made to suffer like this?”
His blood had run cold, even as his guts seemed to boil with rage. For the sake of self-preservation and for the sake of the state during this time, he had been forced to flatter the Arcana Kingdom with all his might—flattery he never wanted to offer. He wanted to vent the pent-up resentment of having been made to behave so humiliatingly. That was why he decided to invade and destroy Oseo. In other words, for reasons that were little more than displaced anger, he was about to wage war.
“Well...at least we should gain some territory.”
By the hand of Sansui Shirokuro, Oseo had already been devastated. Even if he won, there would be little to gain, but that also meant the invasion would be easy. Without imagining any difficulty, he let out a light breath.
In the border region of the Jigsaw Kingdom, there stood a massive fortress that served as the base for the invasion of the Oseo Kingdom. At present, enormous quantities of food and weapons were being gathered from the vassal provinces and stockpiled there. It was simply proper procedure when preparing to attack another nation; armies needed to be fed and equipped, after all.
“Still, there’s so much. This campaign is against the Oseo Kingdom, right? Do we really need all this?”
“Did you not read the documents? They say the region is already worn down, so local procurement will be difficult. That’s why we’re bringing extra supplies. Still, for an attack on a mid-tier nation, it is actually quite a lot...”
“Why is it already worn down before we’ve even invaded?”
The soldiers in charge of managing the provisions were checking that there was no discrepancy between their lists and the actual supplies in the storehouses. Given the sheer volume, the inspection had turned out to be a little rough, but neglecting it would allow embezzlement and skimming to run rampant. A little pilfering might be tolerable, but if it became large-scale, it would be no laughing matter.
“When I see supplies gathered to conquer an entire country, I always think the same thing—how awful it would be if someone attacked here and stole them.”
“Yeah, I can’t say I don’t get that. If all of this were taken, it’d be like a nightmare.”
Looking at the sheer mass of provisions under their care, it was not strange to think that way. Still, that concern was about as realistic as worrying whether a real ghost might appear in a haunted house. They spoke lightly because they knew it could never actually happen.
“Well, unless every soldier in this fortress is wiped out, no one’s stealing these supplies. No matter how big an army comes, that’d be impossible.”
“True enough.”
Stealing from a temporary field depot or a supply column during a campaign was one thing, but taking food stockpiled inside a fortress was unthinkable. So it really was just needless speculation—imagining that this place might be attacked. At the very least, there was no force in the surrounding area capable of capturing this fortress.
“Hey, do you hear that? There’s a noise coming from outside.”
Their assumptions were not wrong. The idea that monsters who had nearly wiped out humanity ten thousand years earlier might attack this fortress was itself an absurd thing to imagine.
Fresh grass and flowers, towering trees—scenery that was commonplace in this world appeared dazzling to visitors from a world that had withered away. But mere beauty did not fill empty stomachs. They had not come as tourists; they had come to the Jigsaw Kingdom’s border with the sole purpose of plunder. “If I were truly thinking in the long-term, I would have wanted the first target to be the Arcana Kingdom. And not for food, but to steal noble treasures.”
The dragon who served as overall commander said this while glaring at the distant fortress.
“However, we need food right now.”
He spoke those words after wrestling with the matter in his own way. Attacking another country like this only pushed them farther from their ultimate goal. Yet if they did not secure food now, they would be wiped out immediately. On the long journey to this new world, the monsters’ provisions had been nearly exhausted. Oseo had no such surplus either, and if things continued as they were, both sides would collapse together. In any case, they had to seize food as quickly as possible.
“No objections?”
The monsters listened in silence, without even nodding. It was not merely that they agreed—they themselves were the ones most desperately in need of food. The monsters who had established a base in the Oseo Kingdom had left their families behind there. They wanted to bring food back and feed them as soon as possible.