Soudouki Chapter 180

Chapter 180   Negotiation With the Church

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「Just what is Answerer Kingdom doing?」

The leaderships of the church was shutting themselves in Oxitania, the grand church that was also a fortress that boasted to be impregnable. They made difficult faces while sitting around the round table and continuing the unproductive meeting.

More than half of the pope territory, no, almost its whole territory was already occupied by the enemy.

From the start the size of pope territory was small with scarce population. Even after gathering volunteer from the whole continent, the total number of soldiers they had was less than sixty thousand.

Furthermore the majority of them weren’t professional soldier. They were nothing more than fanatic believers.

Therefore, it would be difficult to use them tactically and organizationally in battle.

With such army, it would be impossible to go into a field battle against the Grand Union army that would number eighty thousand when Mauricia Kingdom’s completely reformed army joined.

No, it would be difficult for them to win even in defensive battle. The firearm weapon that the Grand Union possessed could destroy defensive position in its entirety.

To be honest the only reason the church was still safe at this moment was because the Grand Union was postponing their all-out attack for some reason.

If the enemy began to attack them in all seriousness, nine out of ten the church would be destroyed.

They weren’t even allowed to run away. Other than those who abandoned their faith and surrendered, everyone else would definitely fight for the last glory of Europa Church to their death.

The majority of the believers were already resolved to die, but the passing of time was giving them room for terror to set in.

Human couldn’t maintain their tension forever.

Even if they were resolved to die and the tense situation continued indefinitely, sooner or later their tension would loosen and their will to survive would peek out.

The leaderships of the church who were their guide also weren’t an exception.

「That’s, they said that they need to prepare to move the army……」

「Do you know how many days has passed since they gave that excuse!?」

Logically they also understood Answerer Kingdom’s excuse.

Since the curtain was raised, Answerer Kingdom suffered completely unexpected three consecutive defeats.

Thirty percent of the army that they had considered as the strongest in the continent for so long was crushed and couldn’t be used anymore.

That fact pushed the leaderships of Answerer Kingdom military to overly prudent.

Even so, it was the fact that in the current situation the church didn’t have any leeway to be considerate for Answerer Kingdom’s convenience.

The church’s destruction was only a matter of time unless they somehow got Answerer Kingdom to dispatch reinforcement and also defeat the Grand Union.

But the problem was if they carelessly sent reinforcement and that reinforcement got easily defeated.

There was no doubt that right now the believers’ morale was high and they would fight without any regard for their own life, but if the long awaited reinforcement that finally arrived got defeated easily in front of their eyes, it was doubtful whether the believers would still maintain their morale.

No, looking back at past history, the possibility was high that the morale would crumble like sand castle.

For the church, there was no denying that they also hoped for Answerer Kingdom to do their preparation perfectly in order to obtain certain victory.

「In other words, we just need to buy time correct?」

「Your eminence’s statement is exactly correct in my humble opinion.」

It would be troubling if the Grand Union started attacking before Answerer Kingdom’s reinforcement arrived.

But it would also be troubling for them if Answerer Kingdom’s reinforcement came carelessly while still lacking preparation.

There was nothing more vexing than this for the church, but that was the unvarnished truth of their current situation.

「The survival of the church is above all else. In that case surely god will forgive us even if we play a trick here.」

「……A trick?」

「Send a messenger to the beast king of Trystovy. Tell him I’m preparing a place for me to talk with him without anybody else present.」

「That’s! That’s dangerous! Please don’t!」

「I’ll stop it depending on how things goes……this won’t be that dangerous. First send the messenger. The enemy too will surely postpone their attack because of that.」

「H-however there is no guarantee that those people will obediently respond to the talk demand!」

One of the archbishops timidly expressed his worry to the pope.

If the church was refused after asking for a talk, the church’s honor would be crushed. The believers’ morale might also get affected.

But the pope curtly cut down the archbishop’s worry.

「They will definitely respond to our demand for a talk. They have a circumstance that won’t allow them to ignore our church.」

「What in the world could that be……」

The upper echelons around the round table tilted their head in puzzlement.

They knew just how severe the oppression that the church had applied toward the beastmen all this time.

For the beastman, the church was an existence that contained only great harm without even a shred of benefit for them.

It was to a degree that they were puzzled why the beastman hadn’t launched their onslaught to them overbearingly in this chance.

In fact, the resentment the beastman race harbored toward the church was extremely deep. It made Baldr intentionally removed the beastman race from the army that surrounded the church.

From the beastman race’s perspective, the church had stolen their land and assets, persecuted them unjustly, and even stole their lives for many centuries.

Radical opinion that they should use this chance to sweep away the church cleanly from the surface of this planet using this chance wasn’t small.

Of course the church that was at the oppressor side also had justified reason and teaching that made them acted like that, but as expected they were aware that there was no way the beastman would obediently accept that reasoning.

In the worst case, it wouldn’t be strange for the pope to be assassinated right on the spot in the talk. No, rather the possibility of that occurring was higher.

「──The pope has secret that is only available for the pope.」

It was a black secret that he didn’t want to ever learn if possible though.

The pope waved his right hand to wave off any objection.

「I will take complete responsibility for everything. Send a messenger to them quickly.」

No matter what was the opinions of the church’s upper echelons, the pope’s order was absolute.

The messenger who brought the request for a talk was immediately brought to Baldr by Ramillies who was in total command of the encirclement army.

Shue rejoiced at this happening that seemed like a chance of a lifetime for her, but Baldr couldn’t help but feel a tinge of uneasiness.

「This is the help from heaven!」

「……To be honest, I can’t wipe off the feeling that this is too convenient.」

Unlike Shue who was smiling widely in joy, Augusto was harboring distrust toward the church’s decision. Rather Baldr also thought that it would be stranger to not hold any doubt toward this.

However they also couldn’t choose to reject this talk request here.

They could easily imagine that this request was only a ploy from the church to buy time.

「……Guess I should try meeting this pope at least once.」

Due to the decision of the two top leaders, the pope and Baldr, the meeting between both sides was realized in a terrifying speed.

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Heated debate continued for long at Answerer Kingdom that wasn’t aware of this event.

For the military standpoint, they thought that they shouldn’t carelessly dispatch their army until the mass production of the holy relics from the church and the training for their use were finished.

If they were defeated again next time, the whole continent would definitely consider Answerer Kingdom as finished. Not only the neutral small countries, even Grand Duchy Tenedora might betray them.

That was the only thing that they couldn’t possibly accept as the country that prided themselves as the strongest nation in the continent.

「Even just a small one is fine, prepare a battlefield where we definitely will win. Even the slightest chance of defeat won’t be tolerated.」

Answerer Kingdom’s king, Alexei III gave that strict order to the prime minister with angry expression.

Something like dispatching army in succession was completely impossible, much less when the destination was the pope territory that was really far away from the capital.

Even so, now that the king had obtained the title as Vhoepos, the protector of the church, not doing anything at all would be a bad move.

It would cause them to lose their justification of protecting Europa religion and rumor of Answerer Kingdom’s unfavorable situation would spread to the whole continent.

The bad influence of the defeats was also playing a large part in holding them back from proactively going into offense.

They possessed two vassal countries in the form of Nedras Kingdom and Grand Duchy Tenedora, and their Piotr gold coin was used as the international currency throughout the continent, but now they were forced to follow the exchange rate that was decided by the Grand Union in foreign trade.

The vast vested interests that were given to them unconditionally had crumbled completely too quickly. It was too quickly that they didn’t even have any time to deal with it.

The most terrifying thing was the prediction that the income of Answerer Kingdom would be halved compared to last year.

The flow of the world accelerating and changing so quickly and drastically like this was something that was outside the scope of their imagination.

「The mobilization of the soldiers is already half finished, and the mass production of the holy relics is also progressing well. Perhaps there is no need for us to force ourselves to save the church.」

「As expected that argument is just too irrational. Our country won’t be able to keep our face if we do that. Or rather, Grand Duchy Tenedora will give up on our country if we do that you know?」

A suzerain state that was useless when push came to shove was no different than a parasite that could only suck away money.

Abandoning the church at this juncture meant that it would be only natural for them to also abandon a country that was worth even less than the church.

If they did something like that and Answerer Kingdpom became isolated from the whole continent, even if they won the war the possibility was high that they would only get an advantageous peace treaty from it in the end.

Realistically speaking, the combat strength of Answerer Kingdom had already fallen to a level where it would be really difficult to aim to unify the whole continent.

But nobody here was trying to accept that fact.

Some of them had noticed, but it was obvious that they would be treated as someone misguided the moment they mentioned it.

In the worst case someone else might use that as an excuse to drag them down from the position that they had climbed up to with much effort.

The more a nation was rapidly falling into danger, courageous opinions would have easier time to be accepted. That was because pessimistic opinion would directly lead to their own loss of vested interests.

「──We won’t abandon the church.」

The words that Alexei III proclaimed were met with agreement from all his chief retainers.

To have a substantial rule over this Aurelia continent, being the protector of Europa Church was a justification that would be really precious to have. Letting go of that was equal to letting go of their claim as the successor of the unification dynasty.

It was impossible for them to adopt such national policy.

「Even so, to think that the animosity toward a king that is descended from beastman bloodline would be this low……」

The crown prince Piotr shook his head in disgust.

Answerer Kingdom was the land where prejudice toward beastman was the thickest in this continent.

Rather only countries in remote region like Nordland Empire or Gartlake Kingdom had thin prejudice toward beastman race. Even Mauricia Kingdom and Trystovy Kingdom should have deeply rooted prejudice toward beastman race remaining inside them although it wasn’t as deep as Answerer Kingdom.

And yet the Grand Union showed no sign of disgust toward Baldr at all. It was unbelievable.

In reality, disgust toward Baldr wasn’t nonexistence by any means among the commoners and nobles.

That was exactly why Baldr applied exchange rate sharing, the split-up of Dowding Company, and even involving Rialhama Kingdom to make trade between nations as something constant.

It was also like that in the modern society. It was extremely difficult to get down from a bus that had been boarded, and doing that would be accompanied by drawback.

Just as could be seen from the turmoil that was accompanying Britain’s separation from EU (Brexit), fundamentally once a global standard got completed, it could be said that getting out from there was nearly impossible unless there was a befitting reason for that.

The drawback of getting out from a framework after it had started moving was just that great.

By the time the beneficial cooperative body called Grand Union was established, most of Answerer Kingdom’s schemes were crushed.

However the governing body of Answerer Kingdom was unable to understand that reason.

It couldn’t be helped. After all they had never even thought of uniting the continent in horizontal level using international cooperation.

「Military minister, how many soldiers we can mobilize with full equipment at the present time? Of course I’m referring to the holy relics for the equipment in this case.」

「……Regretfully if we take the risk of the enemy launching a landing operation into consideration, we can’t mobilize the capital’s defense army. I believe that forty thousand will be the best that we can do.」

「……That’s few.」

Their loss of the control of the sea left a great ripple here.

Baldr had the achievement of practicing large scale landing operation at Nedras Kingdom and suppressed the capital in one go.

They couldn’t possibly leave the western part of the capital empty to send their whole army to the east.

「At the very least the church also have to consider about evacuating to our country. Especially his eminence the pope and the holy relics, they are the only thing that we can’t allow to fall into the enemy’s hand.」

What if the pope got captured?

If he was scared for his life and did something like excommunicating Answerer Kingdom in exchange of his life, they might lose even the few remaining advantages that they had.

They couldn’t imagine that stubborn and prejudiced pope bending his knees in front of the beastman, but there was always a chance no matter how small it was when one’s own life was put on the line.

Besides there was already a difference in performance between the weapons of both sides at the present time. Allowing the church’s holy relics to fall into the Grand Union’s hand would be a painful blow.

──Answerer Kingdom didn’t have any choice from the start.

No matter how much debate they had, the only thing that they needed was a way to win without fail.

It was fine even if it wouldn’t be a great victory. If they could just create a situation where they could proclaim victory and saved the church……

The discussion was going around in circles because they were unable to calculate the method for such definite victory.

However it was at such timing an information that didn’t allow them to continue their debate leisurely like that arrived.

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「Please pardon my interruption, however there is an urgent messenger for his majesty from the eastern front army.」

「Let him pass.」

It was a meeting where the leaderships of Answerer Kingdom were gathered.

An old butler faithfully accomplished his duty even while feeling terror that he had to interrupt such meeting.

A young messenger who looked really haggard entered inside to replace the butler.

It seemed the messenger had gone through a really severe forced march.

「I came with an urgent report from his excellency General Kutuzov of the eastern front army!」

「Umu, I shall permit you to answer directly. What happened?」

「His eminence the pope of Europa Church will hold a talk with the Grand Union in order to negotiate for peace! His excellency ask for instruction of how he should deal with this situation!」

「──What did you say?」

Shocked voices of everyone overlapped with each other due to this situation that overturned Answerer Kingdom’s strategy from the foundation.

The time for discussion was over at this moment.

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The pope of Europa Church and the king of Trystovy Kingdom and also the nominal leader of Grand Union Baldr were going to hold a meeting. This news spread through the continent and left astonishment in its wake.

Everyone couldn’t believe it, but it went without saying that they held a faint hope that Europa religion would be saved with this.

Many of the commoners who supported Baldr were also Europa believer. The majority of them didn’t reject Europa religion itself by any means.

It was only human for them to wish for the religion to survive if the matter could be settled peacefully.

Countries like Mauricia Kingdom and Haurelia Kingdom also felt the same. Answerer Kingdom was different matter, but if possible they wanted to settle the matter with the church peacefully without rocking the boat.

Their country was put on a position where they had to be considerate toward nobles and commoners who followed Europa religion because the number of the follower there was greater than in other countries.

「I wonder if things will go as we want it to……」

Baldr entrusted the affair of the kingdom to Augusto and together with Shue he headed to Soldividian where the church was barricading themselves.

Shue was deeply moved at the mutual trust between the two with how easily Baldr entrusted the full authority of the country to Augusto, but the two of them had just the right lubricant that made it possible.

It was none other than the unselfish person, the minister of domestic affairs Giloramo Camoloni.

If Augusto ruled with prodigious talent, Giloramo was making himself standing out conspicuously by being a person of common sense with unselfish character and good luck while not having any interest toward fame at all.

Astonishingly, the project that he worked on was the expansion of noble’s autonomy even though as the minister of domestic affairs he had to strive to realize centralized authoritarian rule.

「──I want to go home. To my homeland the sea of Camoloni. And then after I get home, I don’t want to be called back to the palace anymore.」

This man Giloramo loved commonplace happiness above all else. He wished for the expansion of noble’s autonomy completely for his own desire.

Furthermore in order to prevent himself from getting dragged into unnecessary dispute, he was even formulating a plan for feudal lords to abandon their military power and basic constitution (that would later be called with the name of Trystovy Magna Carta).

「Just how sharp and capable the minister of domestic affairs is?」

「How can someone that capable is hiding in the countryside without holding any ambition……」

The policy of Giloramo was welcomed by the nobles of Trystovy with surprise and favorable opinion.

First, many people feared that the nobles would have their vested interests stripped from them due to the charisma of Baldr as a great hero and became reduced into being mere government official.

Many of the nobles were countryside feudal lord who had taken root in their territory for hundreds of years. The decline of autonomy would directly affect their meaning of existence.

The older their family line was, the more they wanted to rule over their land with their own hand and discretion.

However if the central government would recognize their autonomy like before, accepting limitation from the constitution wasn’t that big of a problem for them.

What’s more in regard to the military strength, war itself would cease to exist when this final confrontation with Answerer Kingdom was over. Besides there was no way the military strength of a single noble would be able to oppose a hero like Baldr.

Even if they had to abandon their military strength, they were still allowed to maintain police force to some degree.

Rather their burden for military expense would be reduced with this and their financial affairs would change for the better.

There was no doubt that this was a chance of lifetime for them to rebuild their territory that still hadn’t fully recovered from the exhaustion of civil war.

「Trystovy nobles will be alright as long as we have the domestic affairs minister.」

「The prime minister is also not a cruel person, but he is too intelligent that there is no opening to get closer to him.」

「His majesty’s eyes in appraising people are really accurate.」

Trystovy nobles all praised Giloramo unanimously like that.

In other words Giloramo wiped away the uneasiness of the nobles for their future, and on top of that he also achieved the centralization of power by making the country monopolized the military power. He managed to achieve such astonishing feat.

Augusto knew that Giloramo actually didn’t have such deep thought when he formulated his plan, which made him even more astonished with how superb the adjustment of balance and timing that Giloramo had performed.

「Ku-ku-ku-……you won’t get away, no matter what……!」

Augusto had promised Giloramo that he would only need to serve as domestic affairs minister for three years, but it was at this moment that Augusto became convinced how Giloramo was someone that he must never allow to get away.

With this Giloramo would be forced to delay his dearest wish from being realized for several more years, but there was no way for Giloramo to know that seeing that he wasn’t an omniscient god.

Because of that, there was no worry at all right now even if Baldr left the country in the hand of his subordinate and left.

Even so, Baldr didn’t harbor that much hope for his meeting with the pope.

Augusto predicted that nine out of ten this was only the church’s attempt to buy time. Baldr himself also felt the same.

But now that they had been told about the truth from Shue, they had to know how much the pope was aware of the truth.

There was also a possibility that the legend had been lost and the pope didn’t know anything.

The negotiation would become extremely difficult in that case.

Both sides would only be able to compromise with each other if it was for the sake of saving this world.

If the church one-sidedly thought of themselves as justice, the possibility of them agreeing to hand over the holy relic was extremely low.

「I think that it’s impossible for the pope to not know anything……but, the possibility that the legend has become distorted is high. Even in my country the legend has gotten very dramatized.」

「That’s how it works with ancient legend like this. It will be stranger if it can still stay the same even after all this time.」

Baldr smiled wryly at the apologetic looking Shue while also telling her that they didn’t know what would happen in the negotiation.

To be honest, Baldr was thinking that rather than proper negotiation, perhaps what they really needed was military threat, or perhaps dirty work like assassination or sly scheme.

However Baldr decided that there was no need to say anything about that to Shue who seemed to be a bit too idealistic as a person for her own good.

「……Your majesty, we will arrive at Solvidivian soon.」

「How is the situation of the other side?」

「Yes, there are dozens of holy knights present, but there isn’t any sign of ambush.」

「I guess they at least have the intention to talk huh.」

The number of soldiers that Baldr brought was overwhelmingly superior.

For the church, it would be the best if they could assassinate Baldr, butof course Baldr had no intention to give his life easily.

In the worst case he might even behead the pope and immediately charged into the sanctuary of Oxitania.

Now that his parting with Sanai and Masaharu had been decided, Baldr was starting to learn to be even more practical in his business as a statesman.

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