Surviving As The 5Th Prince Of Hellman Kingdom [EN]: Chapter 145

145

<145>

Fisher was interviewing a soldier.

“Aren’t you scared? Of course, I’m scared. Just yesterday… Ah! I shouldn’t say this…”

He quickly took out a pack of cigarettes and shoved it into the soldier’s pocket.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have…”

The soldier looked around, then lowered his voice.

“What I’m about to say must never appear in an article.”

“Don’t worry. All our reporters are from the Lionel Kingdom. Even if it’s a scoop, we can’t publish anything that could harm the national interest, even in the slightest.”

All articles sent by war correspondents are subject to prior censorship. Fisher recalled the face of the person censoring the articles in his head.

Julian Coward.

The sole survivor of the Coward family, which was said to have been wiped out during the Hamel Empire’s invasion over a decade ago.

Evan’s right-hand man.

Ira’s lover.

The second-in-command of the Royal Secret Service.

Julian, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The strong scent of a scoop he exuded was enough for even ordinary reporters to pick up on.

Naturally, Fisher had also investigated Julian’s past.

He felt like he was sinking into a swamp. He couldn’t find out anything about his past. It was as if he had really fallen from the sky.

‘Now is not the time to think about him.’

He was in the middle of an interview.

Fisher shook his head, cleared his mind of thoughts about Julian, and waited for the soldier to speak.

“So… yesterday, the squad that reported discovering barbarians during reconnaissance went completely silent afterward. In the end, not a single one of them returned.”

Fisher, who had been quickly writing down the soldier’s words, stopped his hand.

“Not a single one?”

“Yes. Not a single one. So, the unit I belong to urgently followed their trail this morning…”

“And?”

“We only found traces of a bloody battle. We couldn’t find a single body. It’s obvious what that means, isn’t it? The barbarian bastards dragged all the corpses away for cannibalism, right?”

The soldier shuddered.

“That’s terrible. Is there anything else?”

“Well, there’s this…”

The soldier glanced at the pocket where the cigarette pack had been placed. Fisher cursed him inwardly for being a thief and put another pack of cigarettes in his pocket.

“There’s a reconnaissance unit rumored to be haunted by the Grim Reaper.”

“A unit haunted by the Grim Reaper?”

“It’s a unit of people who were selected for special missions… More than half of them die and come back, they say.”

Fisher spoke with the soldier a few more times before parting ways and heading to the smoking area behind the reporters’ quarters.

No one was there, probably busy with their reporting.

‘Something’s strange.’

Since Chieftain Nurgal’s Noya tribe joined the Khan tribe’s garrison, the Royal Army and the Khan tribe were like a ticking time bomb.

Amid the intense tension, there had been several small skirmishes between reconnaissance units. What Fisher found questionable was that the ratio of deaths to injuries was overwhelmingly high.

He wanted to interview the injured survivors of the battles with the Khan tribe, but the Royal Army heavily controlled the treatment center where they were staying, so there was no way.

Flick, inhale- exhale.

Feeling frustrated with the reality of producing articles at a similar level to reporters from other news outlets, Fisher frowned as he smoked.

Just then.

“Hey, Fisher. How’s the reporting going?”

Twilight War Correspondent Kappa appeared in the smoking area.

Kappa, who had already had all his cigarettes stolen by the soldiers, fixed his gaze on the cigarette Fisher was smoking.

Fisher chuckled and took out a cigarette for Kappa.

“Haha! You’re the only one, Fisher.”

“You have to pay me back with a pack when a package comes.”

“No need to say it twice. I was just sending a telegram to headquarters telling them I don’t need anything else, just send cigarettes.”

Kappa lit a cigarette with trembling hands.

Inhale- exhale.

He took a deep breath of cigarette smoke and exhaled, and his trembling hands calmed down as if nothing had happened.

“Haa, I feel alive.”

The two smoked in silence for a while.

Fisher spoke first.

“How long do you think this standoff will last?”

“Won’t they come soon? It’s amazing that they’re still standing off. I actually thought the Khan tribe would try to cross the walls as soon as Nurgal’s Noya tribe arrived.”

“It’s probably because all of the kingdom’s airships have been mobilized. Wouldn’t the Secret Service deserve a lot of credit for detecting the Khan tribe’s unusual signs in advance?”

“His Majesty’s bold decision must have played a part as well. If it were like before, they would still be discussing countermeasures in the royal capital, right? We should send troops, we shouldn’t send troops, let’s just send supplies, no, we can’t do that either. They’d be grabbing each other by the collar while saying that. … Wait, this is good? Good! The title of the next article should be ‘The Khan Tribe Couldn’t Budge Thanks to His Majesty’s Bold Decision.’ If you steal it, you know?”

“I won’t steal it. Use it as you please.”

Kappa, who couldn’t even finish half of his cigarette, put it out and carefully put the butt in his pocket before hurrying out of the smoking area.

‘He’s really going to use it?’

Fisher was left alone.

He was going to finish his cigarette and go up.

But.

Kappa, who had just disappeared, came running back in a hurry.

“Fisher! Fisher! Now is not the time to smoke! Someone stole the Hamel Empire’s national seal! The empire is completely turned upside down.”

Fisher quickly threw the cigarette he was smoking into the ashtray and ran out of the smoking area.

***

The theft of the national seal.

It hadn’t happened in the ‘future.’

After receiving the urgent report from the Hamel Empire while facing off against the Khan tribe, I quickly opened the [Library] and questioned Genie.

> Genie, can you identify the culprit who stole the national seal?

「It is currently impossible to identify the culprit.」

It wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.

The [Library]’s limitations, which made it impossible to identify the culprit without a physical ‘record,’ were once again disappointing.

> Tell me the details of the incident that Dongmak [Hamel Empire’s intelligence agency] has identified.

As a secondary option, I looked at the information from Dongmak, the Hamel Empire’s intelligence agency, which leaves records in the form of documents.

「After the emperor, who admitted that he had little time left to live, wrote his will, he opened the seal box to stamp the national seal, only to find it empty. Dongmak is currently investigating the time when the national seal disappeared…」

I carefully read and reread the details of the incident that Genie was telling me.

The conclusion was that even Dongmak didn’t know.

They didn’t even know when it disappeared.

It was truly a ghostly affair.

I crossed my arms and pondered.

Although there was no evidence, there was someone I suspected.

‘Klaus Robitz.’

Charles’s strategist.

In the ‘future,’ it was generally believed that Charles could not have become emperor without him.

I had never spoken to him directly, nor had I ever seen his face. However, based on the exploits I had heard, he was like a combination of the kingdom’s three brains.

If he stole the national seal…

‘The possibilities for its use are endless.’

The national seal itself is just a stamp made of a slightly special material.

However, there are quite a few people in the Hamel Empire who believe that the national seal chooses the emperor.

It was valuable because it was the national seal used by the emperor, but somehow the order of precedence had been reversed.

‘The timing of the theft is amazing.’

It was discovered that it was stolen right after the will was written. Even if the emperor had designated the crown prince in his will, it became possible for the princes and princesses who were not designated as crown princes to insist that they could not accept the will because the national seal was not stamped on it.

Ah!

> Can I also know the contents of the will that the emperor was writing?

「The answer to that question…」

The fact that that phrase had started meant that the information was above the price I had set.

If the emperor sensed his death, the contents of the will would be revealed in a few days. I couldn’t immediately carry out any schemes even if I knew it now, so I cut off Genie’s words.

> Never mind.

The theft of the national seal will have a major impact on the future situation, but it doesn’t matter much in terms of us retaking the Northwest right now.

Rather, it wasn’t bad because a significant portion of Dongmak’s attention, which had been focused on us and the Khan tribe, would be chasing the whereabouts of the national seal.

I decided to focus on the matter at hand and got up from my chair and approached the window.

It had been snowing heavily since I received the report that the national seal had been stolen.

‘It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon?’

Looking at the dark clouds in the sky, it seemed like it would last at least two days.

A boon and a bane [blessing and a curse].

The boon was that we could temporarily stop postponing the small-scale local war with the Khan tribe.

I was worried because it seemed like someone had noticed something strange in the confrontation between the kingdom and the Khan tribe.

Was his name Fisher?

Julian mentioned his name and expressed his intention to kidnap him to the Royal Secret Service.

At least as far as I could confirm with the [Library], all the spies inside Bellington Fortress had been identified.

They were gathered separately and mobilized to fight in small-scale local wars with the Khan tribe. The soldiers called them the unit haunted by the Grim Reaper?

‘We can’t rule out the possibility of spies.’

There may be spies who don’t leave records, or there may be spies on the Khan tribe’s side, not ours.

Anyway.

If stopping the postponement was a boon, what was the bane?

That the troops gathered at Bellington Fortress would be heading to the Northwest in the next two or three days.

‘I’m worried about the infantry.’

The existing northerners, who were trained in the harsh climate, were less of a concern, but the problem was the troops mobilized from other regions.

The area near Bellington Fortress is a rugged area surrounded by mountains.

It’s already dangerous, but what if there’s snow on top of that? Just moving would cause numerous casualties.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

Hundreds of soldiers would die just by pointing from here to there on the map.

It was something I had to bear entirely.

That was the duty of someone sitting in the position of king.

***

The Black Knights’ commander’s office.

Charles was staring intently at a fist-sized seal.

The national seal.

A relic that would give the world to whoever obtained it.

“Is it just made of Amantium [a metal more precious than mithril]?”

Amantium, a metal more precious than mithril.

Most of the relics of God were made of Amantium.

However, the national seal was just the emperor’s seal and did not cause miracles that broke the laws of the world like other relics of God.

It was because it was a human creation made by melting down a relic that the founder of the Hamel Empire had obtained after destroying a country and finding the relics left by the country’s guardian deity.

It was a symbol of the Hamel Empire’s founder’s arrogance that even God could be subdued.

Charles somehow felt like cutting the national seal in half.

Thump.

The door to the commander’s office opened without a knock.

“Prince Charles…!”

Klaus, who discovered Charles fiddling with the national seal, quickly closed the door in alarm.

Bang!

“How can you leave it out like that?”

“Don’t make a fuss. There’s no one around but you and me.”

“The director of Dongmak might be secretly watching. Honestly, you wouldn’t notice if he approached, would you?”

“… The emperor is dying any day now. The Khan tribe and the Lionel Kingdom are facing off in the east. There’s no reason for the director of Dongmak to be here.”

“You never know. He might have noticed that the national seal I stole ended up in Prince Charles’s hands. I appreciate you trusting my skills that much.”

“…”

Charles, who lost the argument, slipped the national seal into his arms.

“But what trick did you use? If the director of Dongmak noticed, doesn’t that mean you made a mistake while taking it out? I need to know too.”

“Hehe, there was a way. I’ll explain it next time. More important things have happened than that.”

Charles’s eyes twitched.

“More important things?”

It was not easy to guess what could be more important than the national seal.

Klaus smiled and approached the map hanging in the commander’s office.

“The Lionel Kingdom army and the Khan tribe, who were facing each other, turned their horses at the same time.”

Charles’s eyes widened.

Satisfactory reaction.

Klaus himself was like that when he first heard the news. He smiled faintly and approached the map hanging in the commander’s office.

“The Lionel Kingdom is heading here, where they lost 10 years ago. The Khan tribe is moving towards Byeokram Province here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. That’s why it’s an emergency right now. It’s a funny situation, isn’t it? The Black Knights will be ordered soon.”

“Order?”

“To move immediately to stop the Lionel Kingdom. They’ll probably give back the Black Knights’ airship, the Black Dragon, which they confiscated.”

“What is our response to that? Could it be that you didn’t anticipate the situation at all?”

“I thought about it… Haha! Once again, I felt that Evan Lionel is a formidable human being.”

Charles gritted his teeth at the mention of Evan’s name.

“Should I go and cut off his head?”

“Why should we go there? The Lionel Kingdom and the Khan tribe’s military action is an indelible disgrace from the empire’s point of view, but it will be a golden opportunity for the prince. Evan Lionel is definitely an enemy, but… there are times when you have to pretend you don’t know. Don’t ignore my words ‘like last time.’ Do you understand?”