We changed the name of Thorsdale to the Grand Duchy of Sevensworth, making it an autonomous country. For pure convenience’s sake, my title was changed to grand duke. This was the main reason I’d decided to take over this entire country. By making it an independent nation, I could rule it the way I wanted to. Even if the king tried to enforce his hostage law to take Ana away, I had no obligation to listen.
From the start, the Sevensworths had more political power than the royal family. We were powerful enough to take an entire country for ourselves without much effort. If we decided to form a country of our own, it wouldn’t matter because his military forces could never match up to ours. Now we had the vast land of Thorsdale, so there was no way for the king to impede us economically either. The power of this grand duchy would become the shield to protect Ana. This had been my goal all along.
Usually there’d be some kind of ceremony to honor the founding, but we were in the middle of finalizing the ending of the war and transitioning this land to exist under our rule. We’d have to save all the celebrations and ceremonies for later. Though this country had come into formation extremely quickly, it was all so I could secure Ana’s safety as soon as possible.
Though Thorsdale had become the Grand Duchy of Sevensworth, I still retained the same ducal status I had in the Luchizua Kingdom. As the head of this grand duchy, I was now a vassal of Luchizua as well. In essence, this duchy was a vassal state of Luchizua. However, there was someone who didn’t find the situation all too amusing, and that was the current king.
Soon enough, an envoy from the current king came to present me with preposterous demands. “I believe that this country’s royal family should be the ones to look over this country. This country only exists due to His Majesty. For the time being, all territory should be ceded to the king until a decision is made on how to divide it.”
“This is why we had an agreement on how to divide the territory. I even have a contract.”
I’d predicted this would happen after I took this country, which was why I’d made sure to have him agree to my plan for annexation prior to this whole affair. As expected, he’d come to complain now that I had succeeded. How annoying.
“Yes, but I think it’s best to follow convention in this situation and not your own opinion of how to divide these territories.”
“If you wanted to follow tradition, then the king himself should’ve been on the battlefield. It’s not tradition for a member of the royal family to dictate territory division without having stood on the battlefield themselves.”
It was true that more often than not, the royal family had a say in territory division; however, that was because they themselves usually participated as well. It was a given in Luchizua that nobles fought for their territory and the royal family fought to protect their country. In this attempted invasion, the royal family had not joined the battle, resulting in Thorsdale being captured. It was very abnormal. As such, it was strange to leave the dividing of the territory up to people who hadn’t even participated in the battle.
“Wh-What arrogance!” the envoy said in a rage. “In the first place, do you really think you can simply claim this as a grand duchy, making your own country?!”
This is seriously a pain to deal with. “It’s also in the agreement and I have a contract.”
In the past when the Sevensworth territory was still its own kingdom, it had possessed about the same strength as Luchizua at the time. In order to avoid wars with each other, the Sevensworths chose to obey the Luchizua Kingdom and were given special recognition as a vassal in return. They were given the right to official coronations and to even form their own country if they felt mistreated.
After poring through the documents that Thorsdale had been using, I found evidence of secret correspondence between Luchizua and Thorsdale’s king at the time. He’d wanted to use Thorsdale to destroy House Sevensworth. This was the reason they’d suddenly tried invading us without any reason to do so. In the documents were agreements to not attack after they invaded the Sevensworth territory, plans on how to divide the territory up after they’d completed their invasion, and other very particular details of their partnership. This was more than enough reason for me to declare the Sevensworths as being treated poorly and form our own country.
To begin with, this was a contract from far in the past. It was possible that neither this envoy nor the current king himself even knew about it. The envoy was a low-level official, and the current king had never gone through the education that he would have gotten if he’d been the crown prince from childhood. But the fact that they weren’t aware of this contract worked in my favor now.
“Regardless, this is unlawful! You’re a country in name only! It’s not legitimate!”
“Well, speaking of legitimacy, His Majesty isn’t legitimate either.”
“Wh-What?! How rude!”
“Our house is currently housing Sir Dietfried.”
“Wh-Wh-What?!”
The envoy gaped for a moment before regaining his senses and asking if he could meet with him. Since he was nothing but a third secretary, I refused his request. You get what you deserve. It was His Majesty’s fault for sending over someone this low-ranking to confer with the new ruler of this country.
The envoy strode frantically out the door, finally leaving the room in peace and quiet. It was true that the former crown prince was in our territory, and most likely His Majesty had already suspected he was here. He’d definitely been sending people into our territory to try and get information, but that was okay with me.
If he sent that many people here to be his eyes, that meant he had fewer around him. This was my way of helping my mother- and father-in-law with their plan. The queen had said that in exchange for us giving refuge to her and the former crown prince, they’d do anything, and we were going to take them up on that offer.
As part of my support, I sent some members of the Hartley clan to help my mother-in-law. I was sure the dowager queen and former crown prince would be fine. I had knights and golems protecting them, and they had members of the Hartley clan with them as well. The golems had sensors that could detect anyone getting close to them, which eliminated the potential for surprise attacks. If they tried to attack by using disguises, the Hartley clan could easily see through and detect them. Worst-case scenario, they could help them run. With these preparations, I was sure that everything would work out.