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“Hm? That was supposed to be an honest compliment, though,” Arness replied.
“What part of that is a compliment?!” Nozomu yelled.
“In the end, it doesn’t really matter how capable a king is on his own. Try as one might, it’s impossible to rule over an entire nation by oneself. A king’s true strength lies in his ability to draw others to his side. Having a personality that makes them want to aid you, to serve you...that’s indispensable for a king,” Arness explained.
“Hmph, now that you mention it...” Logically, it made sense. But Nozomu still couldn’t acknowledge it—no, in truth, he simply didn’t want to admit it. He wanted to be the type of ruler that could protect everyone, not one that needed protecting. He wanted to be like his father Suoh Yuuto.
“What’s more,” Arness continued, “strong and powerful rulers tend to fail to understand the feelings of the weak. But you, my brother, are average just like them, so you’ll always be in tune with the people and understand what they want. What better quality could a leader need?”
“Arness, you should really work on choosing your words more carefully,” Rungr said with a sigh. “How do you think Big Brother feels when you call him ‘average’ and ‘weak’? You really don’t understand the nuances of the heart at all.”
Arness pouted. “I was just trying to explain my reasoning...”
“Be that as it may, you constantly overthink things just like you have now, and you fail to notice who you hurt as a result,” Rungr explained. “The reason we want to help him is much simpler. It’s because he’s a good, gentle person, and we all want to see him succeed. Wait, Big Brother? What’s that face for?”
“Because you just touched on another hang-up I have,” Nozomu said with a strained smile. People only call you a “good, gentle person” when you have no other merits worth mentioning. He could recall many times he’d seen his father curse his own generous nature, so he knew it wasn’t a desirable trait for a king to possess.
“Strength and weakness are two sides of the same coin, Brother Nozomu. You fail to recognize the talents you possess,” Wiz said with an exasperated sigh.
To Nozomu, it just sounded like she was calling him an idiot. But when he thought about it, maybe she was right. What if strength and weakness really were two sides of the same coin, and he’d avoided flipping the coin over until now because he’d hated the idea of being weak? What if he’d tried so desperately to gain something he lacked that he’d failed to realize it was right by his side all along? If so, he was hopeless. Truly beyond redemption. All that effort he’d put in... Was it for nothing?
“So, what, you’re saying my talent is...my likability?” He couldn’t imagine anything lamer. If he really did possess such a talent, he wanted to excise it as soon as possible.
“Precisely. At the very least, it’s a talent I’ll never be able to possess in my lifetime,” Arness said.
“Yeah, the rest of us are all too realistic. No one’s as unconditionally kind as you are,” Rungr added.
“Tch. You’re making fun of me after all!” Nozomu spat, clicking his tongue in irritation. Annoyed though he was by their comments, it did make him realize something. He’d always admired his younger brothers’ ability to remain calm in any situation, but because of that, he’d been blind to the truth—the reason they were so good at seeing the bigger picture was because they lacked empathy. Looking back, it was almost as if they always drew a line between themselves and others. That was likely the truth of the matter.
“Basically, you’re a lot like Liu Bang, Brother Nozomu,” Wiz said with a self-satisfied look on her face. He’d heard the name Liu Bang several times from his father’s stories, which drew on his father’s extensive knowledge of military history. Liu Bang was apparently a legend who’d founded the Han Dynasty in China. Though he was, by all accounts, nothing special as a soldier or a commander, he’d possessed impressive charisma, which gained him loyal, capable retainers who’d ended up becoming his greatest strength. He would make great use of his retainers’ skills to eventually become emperor. Honestly, Nozomu would much rather be like Liu Bang’s rival Xiang Yu, who he’d admired in his youth. However, life didn’t always turn out the way one wanted.
“All right, all right, I get it. In other words, my role is to keep my crazy brothers and sisters in line, right?” He didn’t know the first thing about managing something as large as an entire nation, but he felt he could at least manage his siblings. All of them were quite fond of him, and as long as he wasn’t outrageous with his demands, they listened to him. He’d even served as a mediator several times when things had gotten heated between them. Perhaps he wasn’t someone who drew others to him like his father, but he was good at managing relationships between people.
In that case, what he needed to do was fully acknowledge his own powerlessness, delegate his siblings and supporters to the right departments, and without feeling ashamed, lean on their support by leveraging their experiences and talents.
“Arness, let’s go with your earlier plan. I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens.” Without a shred of hesitation or doubt, Nozomu made his decision. He’d given up on trying to shine. He didn’t have the talent to begin with. But he could at least be responsible for his own actions—on that point, he refused to waver. One could call it his final vestige of stubbornness. What he didn’t realize, however, was that the resolve to take responsibility was one of the things people desired in a leader most of all.
“Hmph. Cowards, the lot of them,” Babel muttered, glaring in the enemy encampment’s direction. The war god Suoh Yuuto possessed enigmatic technology, so he’d assumed that his son would also outfit his troops with advanced weaponry. Wary of that outcome, he’d equipped a cavalry unit with compound bows to see how the enemy would fight back. That way, even if the enemy had some ace up their sleeve, by having his troops keep their distance and fire from long range only, he could keep his casualties to a minimum.
“They didn’t try anything. They had no plan. Meaning, they don’t have access to the knowledge from the land beyond the heavens after all...?” Suoh Yuuto had declared that the war god would rain down divine punishment upon them if anyone tried to unseal the forbidden knowledge from the land beyond the heavens, and in fact, ever since the battle of Tarshish, that technology had been prohibited. In a move uncharacteristic of the normally lenient Yuuto, he’d been incredibly strict on the matter, declaring his word as absolute and even threatening to severely punish those who defied him. In that case, perhaps he’d been just as strict on his son and wouldn’t let him use the technology either.
“Well, it’s too soon to determine that, though.” Babel also couldn’t discount the possibility that this was all a trap to throw him off guard. At this point, the wisest course of action would be to observe his enemy’s movements for a while longer, using the cavalry unit to keep them at bay. If after several days they still continued to hide in their shell and endure, it’d then be safe to say they had nothing to pull, at which point Babel would use the phalanx formation to wipe them all out in one go.
At least, that had been his plan. But then...