Chapter 172 : Chapter 172
Chapter 172. The Capital Transfer (3)
“…That is the current situation in the imperial capital, Your Majesty.”
Pewin, who had become a count, looked quite haggard.
Unlike before, when he had been hale and hearty despite his old age, he now seemed to have difficulty walking even with a cane.
Fine wrinkles had settled on his dry skin.
He coughed incessantly, so I glanced at the Apothecary.
“…….”
The Apothecary shook his head.
It wasn't an illness.
It seemed to be a matter of stamina.
Indeed, although Count Pewin had been hale, he was an old man approaching seventy.
Without the Emperor or Archduke Gabir, and in the imperial capital, which was not his own territory, he must have faced many difficulties in devising large-scale quarantine measures.
“You've worked hard. Go and rest.”
“Your Majesty, but the citizens of the capital are still…”
“What can you do in that state? Go back, wash up, and sleep. This is an order. I will see you tomorrow after you have recovered your strength.”
I sent him away with the characteristic tone of Emperor Karlos, which could be slightly annoying depending on how one heard it.
In fact, I didn't know much about Count Pewin.
During my sickbed visits, the Emperor had said that if Archduke Gabir was his right hand, then Count Pewin was his left, but that was all.
This playthrough was the first time I had seen Pewin directly.
Until now, he had already been assassinated by the anti-imperial faction at the start of the game.
The reason was that with the 4.0 update, sacred relics were added, and Marquis Ricardo, who had originally led his assassination, had foreseen the aftermath of the assassination with the relic's power.
Well, in the long run, Marquis Ricardo's scheme had actually worked out in the empire's favor.
If it weren't for Count Pewin, the plague would not have been contained, even if barely.
As they say, a blessing in disguise.
Come to think of it, the same could be said for the plague that had taken the Count's children.
The pathological quarantine measures he had researched for decades due to his trauma with the plague had now become the strongest barrier protecting the hundreds of thousands of citizens in the capital.
After sending the Count in, I continued the meeting with those who remained.
There were seven members at the round table.
Archduke Gabir, Archbishop Walter, the veteran knight of the Pegasus Knight Order, Edmund Berkeley, and Fenilsilado and Yula Katran of the Imperial Secret Knight Order.
And two of me.
I, in the form of the Emperor, opened my mouth.
“Fenilsilado.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Are the numbers of the dead and infected as reported by Count Pewin?”
“…Regrettably, yes.”
The Apothecary bowed his head.
I checked the report on the desk again.
50,000 dead.
100,000 infected.
It was not a small number.
But honestly, it wasn't a large number either.
It was bearable.
The population of the imperial capital was nearly 600,000.
When the plague broke out, Constantinople, with a population of 500,000, was said to have had five to ten thousand deaths daily.
Estimates vary among scholars, but it is commonly said that the plague claimed the lives of 40 percent of that great city's population.
A death toll of less than 10 percent, considering a larger population than Constantinople, a more densely populated city, and above all, a plague of incomparably greater power, could be seen as an astonishingly good outcome.
“…….”
Of course, this kind of thinking itself might be proof that I too had started to see people as numbers.
It wasn't entirely without merit, as the [Mind of the Iron-Blooded Monarch] trait, which I had obtained as an achievement upon succeeding to the Emperor's position, gifted me with quick calculation and logical thinking, but it also had a hidden effect of making one a so-called ‘capital T’ personality.
“Your Majesty, please give the order.”
Gabir said.
His blue eyes were fixed on me.
His tone was loyal, but his gaze was testing.
I shrugged.
He had the right to test me.
“You've done your best.”
He was my right hand, after all.
The one who followed me even while knowing my true identity.
He must want to know if I, wearing the shell of the iron-blooded emperor Lui Karlos, was qualified to be emperor.
I admit it.
Karlos was a great emperor.
But he too had his limits.
Because it was his first time being emperor.
I was not.
Even if it was from beyond the monitor, I had watched the rise and fall of the empire more than a thousand times.
As emperor, I had saved the plague-stricken capital, and conversely, from the position of the plague priest clan, I had simultaneously detonated four plague bombs and wiped out the capital.
Those experiences produced swift decisions.
“But there is no hope for this city.”
“Your Majesty, what you mean is…?”
“We are abandoning the city.”
We had done well so far.
But we had reached our limit.
This was my conclusion.
The Emperor would probably have made a similar decision.
Designating the forest near Wolfskrig as an evacuation site was insurance in case the capital fell.
The only difference between him and me was experience, and the speed of decision-making derived from experience.
But that speed would save more than a hundred thousand more citizens.
“Evacuate the city. I will give you one week. If there are any objections, think them over by tomorrow morning.”
“Y-Your Majesty?”
“If there are none, we will proceed as planned. We will create an escape route with spells and miracles and evacuate all citizens to the south.”
“But Your Majesty, winter is approaching. If we drive all the citizens of the city to the south, where should we send them next?”
Archbishop Walter asked, as if pleading.
As if agreeing with his question, I slowly looked around the silent round table.
Come to think of it, there was one more minor difference between the Emperor and me.
“Viscount Ash.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I will requisition Wolfskrig from you.”
“……Your Majesty?”
“From this day forward, I name Wolfskrig the imperial capital of the Empire, and I will grant you the title of Prime Minister of the city.”
I was Viscount Ash before I was the Emperor.
Emperor Karlos would have had to persuade or force me to move the capital, but there was no reason for me to convince myself.
Whether it was owned by the Emperor or Viscount Ash, Wolfskrig was my city.
“……I will accept your command.”
As if it was unfair but I had no choice, a little bit of acting was all that was needed for seasoning.
I could see the eyes of Archduke Gabir, who was leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, sparkle.
When our eyes met, he let out a small sigh and shook his head.
Smiling faintly, as if he hadn't expected it at all.
Even by the next morning's meeting, no objections were raised.
Everyone knew it.
That the imperial capital had reached its limit.
We began to work on concrete plans.
The goals were twofold.
To safely evacuate the hundreds of thousands of refugees and lead them to Wolfskrig.
And to dismantle and transfer all the major facilities and goods of the imperial capital as much as possible.
“Bart.”
Personally, I had one more goal.
In my capacity as Viscount Ash, I summoned Bart.
“You called for me?”
“This is an entry pass to the Imperial Library. I received it from His Majesty. I have also told the librarians to cooperate with you while they pack their things. You will be able to take out necessary books and materials separately.”
“Uh, yes……?”
“I have a few things to look into before leaving the capital.”
I needed information.
***
Even if a person has no connection to military science, they will at some point in their lives hear phrases from classic military strategy books.
Zhipijie, baizhanbudai would be one of those phrases.
Although ‘baizhanbudai’ is often known as ‘baizhanbupai’ or ‘baizhanbaisheng’, and is often a hot topic of debate among so-called ‘military enthusiasts’, what's important is not the minor ending, but the intention of the phrase.
If you simplify the entire paragraph into 21st-century new generation, so-called ‘MZ’ style, it would be as follows.
“If you know your opponent's strength and your own, you'll always win. If you only know yourself? It's a fifty-fifty fight. If you don't know either? Just go and die.”
“…My lord Viscount?”
“Ah, I was just talking to myself. Continue what you were doing.”
“……?”
A mistake.
Fortunately, it was in Korean.
Bart, who had been flipping through a book, tilted his head and began to choose another book.
He kept glancing this way, but well, since it was in Korean, he probably thought it was some kind of eastern language.
By the way, my thoughts have been slipping out of my mouth lately.
To make an excuse, it's a side effect of the doppelgänger technique.
Since I have two bodies and two mouths, sometimes my thoughts and words get confused.
It's fine if I'm just using a doppelgänger for a short time, but since I've been maintaining it all day, and for over a fortnight, I seem to be experiencing symptoms of delirium.
It's probably because the human mind was originally designed to control one head, two arms, and two legs.
They say that in a split-brain patient whose corpus callosum is severed, the left and right brains each occupy one arm and one leg, but even so, the brain is under the illusion that it has ownership of the entire body.
“My lord Viscount, I have selected everything on this side. Ancient history, hmm, mostly books on war weapons and strategy. I think we can move to the next library.”
“Alright.”
I drank the cold tea.
A useless thought.
With Bart, I moved to the next room of the library.
You would think the Imperial Library would have a quiet, library-like atmosphere, but it was the complete opposite.
From the sound of hammering and sawing tools to shouts from all over, and piles of books toppling over, it was a complete mess.
At least the place where Bart and I were going was in a better state, as a few librarians assigned for guidance and assistance had tidied up the surroundings.
It couldn't be helped.
The Imperial Library was in the middle of being organized.
It wasn't just here.
All government and private institutions in the capital were in a similar situation.
It was the third day since our arrival in the capital.
The capital transfer was officially announced yesterday, the second day.
The city to which the capital would be moved was under embargo, so speculation was rampant, but the fact that the capital was being abandoned was known to all the citizens of the city.
With the entire city preparing to move, it was only natural that there wasn't a quiet place anywhere.
Even in that commotion, the reason I had granted Bart access to the Imperial Library and unlimited book withdrawal was for one reason only.
‘I need information.’
I need to know both about the enemy and about myself.
That's what the Art of War says.
The enemies I'm currently focusing on are two.
The Emperor of the Lumer Legion.
And the Eastern Emperor.
Both had possessed multiple sacred relics of the Outer Gods long ago, and had fully utilized their power to conquer vast lands and build empires.
Unlike other factions that had used multiple sacred relics and collapsed after a major battle, those two leaders had stubbornly survived through thousands of years of suspended animation and were still alive today.
In fact, the Lumer side was fine.
I had achieved world unification with Lumer about ten times.
However, the Eastern Empire.
There was a severe lack of information on this one.
Although I had a lot of experience playing as the Eastern Empire, I had no experience playing as the Eastern Empire with the emperor resurrected.
I only knew a few things.
The moment the emperor's seal was broken, the heroes who had been ruling the Eastern Empire until then, including the ‘Prime Minister’, would lose the game.
The Eastern Empire with the emperor's seal broken was practically treated as the main body of the church.
And at this point, the Eastern Empire had a fairly high probability of summoning an Outer God.
“…….”
My intuition, honed over thousands of playthroughs, was telling me.
That I was missing some important information.
The dwarven King of Kings, Ungol, had said long ago that the Eastern Empire was showing signs of corruption.
The Lumer Legion, unlike in a normal playthrough, had immediately destroyed Indika before even properly awakening.
In the first place, why did the ancient empires that used sacred relics collapse?
Why did their rivals always appear even after they had built such huge empires, and why did they perish gloriously at the end of the most intense battles?
I myself had already collected six sacred relics.
Was there any guarantee that I wouldn't follow in their footsteps?
I don't know.
There was still not enough information.
Although I could now literally ‘put my heads together’ and deliberate by constantly operating a doppelgänger, since I only had one consciousness, it didn't seem to be a big merit.
It was also because with two bodies, the number of people looking for me had doubled.
Even now, while I was deliberating for just ten minutes, someone called me.
It was the emperor's side.
“Your Majesty.”
If my memory serves me right, this man was the manager of the imperial family's secret factory complex.
That is, the factory complex that ran on magic stones.
“I am sorry to report, but the magic stone inventory is decreasing rapidly. If we maintain the original production rate even after the capital transfer, it will be difficult to last even three months.”
“Let's go.”
“Y-Your Majesty?”
“Lead the way. I will see for myself.”
I was planning to visit the factory complex anyway.
I had business at the mana tank factory.