The Strongest Dull Prince’s Secret Battle for the Throne

“Alright, let’s hear your report.”

Father cut straight to the point.

Father is sitting on the throne with Franz, the prime minister, besides him. Facing them are only me and Leo.

Leo was asked to give his report as the inspector at the Privy Council but he instead requested a private audience with Father to give his report.

If that’s the case then I was intending to bail but Father said that it will be troublesome and have me stay. He probably wanted to ask me about Lize-aneue and Jurgen later I guess.

“Yes. I will begin my report now. Speaking from the conclusion, it was confirmed that the people of the south have been victimized by a kidnapping organization and it is likely the southern nobles are also involved in the said organization as well.”

“…….continue.”

“Yes. The center of this incident was the basement in the mansion of the Lord of the city of Bassau. It served as the base of operation for the kidnapping organization where they confined the abducted women and children. I have confirmed this with the testimony from the rescued children so there is no doubt that at least Earl Sitterheim who ruled over Bassau was involved in the incident.”

After the hole connecting to the Demon World was closed, the mansion along with its basement appeared in its place.

It was not swallowed by the whole but rather overwritten by it.

Thanks to this, we were able to discover a lot of things after an investigation.

“And? Where is that Sitterheim?”

“He died. According to the knights that know Earl Sitterheim, it seems that the body of the Demon who Silver fought against was actually his body. The Demon probably possessed him after his head was cut off.”

“…….”

Father silently looks outside.

He probably doesn’t want to hear it but he must.

I heard the details from Leo to some extent but it seems that this incident still has much deeper roots.

“Your Highness Leonard. I heard from the story that the ones who summoned the Demons were actually the children that managed to escape. Where are they now?”

“…..We faked their death and Lize-aneue transported them to the Eastern Border via a safe route. Right now they are under the Eastern Army’s protection. The elder sister of the child who was the center of the incident is also staying there with them. That elder sister was also the adventurer who first brought this matter to our attention as well.”

Yes, right now, Lynfia is staying at the Eastern Border.

She is there to take care of her sister and the rescued children.

The person herself was worried about them and Leo readily agreed to dispatch her there. It seems she said that she will come back to join us one day but it is undecided when that will be.

After all, the existence of those children makes this incident even more complicated.

“Why did you fake their death? Do you think that I would punish those children?”

Father asked with a slightly angry tone.

The previous incident was caused by the children summoning the Demons. They are both victims and perpetrators. That’s why Father has a reason to punish them.

However, that was not the reason Leo faked their death.

“No, it was because we discovered a curious document.”

Leo then gives a piece of paper to Franz.

The paper had reddish-black blood on it. It was discovered in the basement so it was probably the blood of the one who tried to dispose of it.

“This is…..!?”

Father raised a voice in surprise once he received the document from Franz.

When he showed it to Franz, he visibly frowned at its content.

What was written there was a manual.

It was a method to create a weapon with the combination of a child who holds strong power and children who have the ability to amplify others’ power.

It was a document that described such a method.

In other words, an incident similar to what happened in the south could be recreated in another country. Thus it can be assumed that there is someone in this country who thought up such a plan.

Moreover, there was one word that appeared many times in the document.

“Such a method……the [Military] is considering doing this……?

“From the document, it was made clear that the experiment was a request from our military. The Eastern Army is safe since Aneue is the one who is in charge of it but we can not trust any other military personnel with this, that’s why we decided to fake their death to prevent the children from being pursued and used as weapons. Please forgive me.”

“It’s a wise decision. However, from the document, it seems that the incident this time was just a trial. Is it safe to assume that they gathered the children because they were asked to perform such an experiment?”

“Speaking from the result, it ended up being a success. If they can cause a similar incident to happen in another country then it will be a great opportunity for us to invade. The Demons that will be summoned through this are certainly terrifying however, considering that the Empire has the Brave House in our arsenal, there would be nothing to be afraid of.”

That’s right. This is an invasion plan.

And it’s not just because Father has no intention to start any invasion so he wasn’t informed about it. Someone is preparing their own future invasion and this is their preparation toward that.

That was what we could derive from the document.

“Gordon huh……”

“I have another report I want to make personally.”

“There’s more huh……”

“Unfortunately, while fighting against the monsters in the south, I witness the death of one of Earl Sitterheim’s knights. If we believe his story, it seems that Earl Sitterheim was actually threatened to take part in the kidnapping. Just before we arrived, he decided to rescue the children and rose up against the kidnappers.”

“I see……in other words, that kidnapping organization has enough power to threaten a Lord huh.”

“Yes. there is a possibility that a powerful noble is behind them. Perhaps, every noble in the south might be involved as well.”

The deeper you dig, the more darkness raised to the surface.

Anyone who got tainted by that darkness must be punished. After all, if that darkness spread too much, the Empire might not be able to stand any longer.

Even when you don’t want to leave it alone, you have to choose an appropriate time to uncover such darkness.

“This is getting complicated. Whether it be the request from the army to create humanoid weapons through the kidnapping organization or the possible involvement of the southern noble, we have to pick which thread we have to tread on first.”

“That’s why I wanted to hear Your Majesty’s judgment on this.”

“……..”

Father stays quiet for a while and turns his sight toward me.

I have a bad feeling so I shake my head left and right repeatedly but Father still turns that question toward me.

“How do you think we should proceed? Arnold?”

“Why are you asking me……..”

I sigh and start thinking.

No matter how much I think, I still couldn’t find the right answer.

If we start digging into the military, we will be in conflict with Gordon and if we start investigating the southern noble, we will have to go against Zandra again.

It would be safest for us to conclude this incident with the defeat of the Demons in the south.

However…….

“You don’t want to hear a safe answer right?”

“Of course.”

“Haa…….”

After a deep sigh, I came to a solution.

However, is this really a good answer?

Still, I will have to say it.

“I think that we should leave the military alone for now. Requesting humanoid weapons from a kidnapping organization is certainly an unforgivable crime and we have to find out what they are going to do with such a weapon but the root of the problem this time is the southern nobles. If we do this poorly and most of the southern nobles are involved with that criminal organization……at worst we might have a rebellion on our hands. In case we have to deal with that rebellion, we can use the military to suppress them. The investigation can be done after we weaken them. If we do this in reverse then we might not be able to have an appropriate response to the southern rebellion after all.”

“Taking both of them down at the same time huh. If that’s the case then we don’t have to prepare any special measure. We can simply observe the actions of the military and come up with an appropriate countermeasure. If they start something dangerous then we can start an investigation on them and if not then we can leave them alone until we take care of the other. I think that is a good proposal.”

“……Did you finally decided to stop pretending to be incompetent?”

I shake my head to Father’s words.

Sorry but, I don’t remember ever playing incompetence with Father at all.

I simply never assert myself.

However, we can’t deal with this problem that way.

“I never heard of any important matter so I only kept to myself. But the incident this time is deep-rooted. Plus, Leo probably came to the same conclusion himself already……..still, he probably couldn’t say it himself considering his status.”

“…….You think that I would take it as he is using his proposal to his advantage in the succession war?”

“It simply wasn’t that strange for anyone to take it like that. It’s bad enough for me to propose it but it would be even worse if Leo were to say it himself.”

When I said that, Father convincingly nodded.

Franz also looked as if he was impressed.

My sight matches with Leo. He relays his thanks with his eyes and I shrug my shoulders to tell him to don’t mind it.

Then, Father reached his conclusion.

“We can’t leave this alone. Leonard, you will continue your investigation on the southern incident. Do you have any clues to follow?”

“According to the knight’s story, Earl Sitterheim entrusted a letter to a person by the name of Rebecca. I intend to start by searching for her first.”

“I see. Earl Sitterheim……he left a letter huh.”

The fact that he has a letter to entrust to someone means that he was looking for an opportunity to come clean.

Father might not be able to forgive what Earl Sitterheim did but he has his own thoughts about this as well.

“By the way, Arnold. Did anything happen to those two’s relationship? Any progress?”

“Eh?”

You are going to talk about that now?

With that retort in my mind, I told him that they made some progress.

Hearing that, Father blatantly frowned and began his sermon.

Arghh, so it ends up like this in the end? Seriously…..?

While wishing that the sermon would end soon, I let out a small sigh.

TLN: Planted evidence? or was it true? I find it unlikely that Gordon would willingly cooperate with Zandra though…..