Episode 66
“There is someone who has been invited to Hebron. I will introduce him to Your Majesty.”
“Who is he that changed the look in your eyes?”
Indeed, the royal special inspector was different.
Gaius read my emotional changes.
“This is the former High Priest of Valancia.”
The former Archpriest of Valancia was once considered a potential successor to the Pope, and served in the Duchy of Breio. He is now retired and out of the front lines, but his free treatment of the sick while traveling around Zenon has become a problem. The reason was that if Valancia’s name became known, the current Pope’s authority would be undermined.
I brought in the former High Priest of Valancia, who was in a corner.
– When I was young, the high priest saved me from a terminal illness. Please let me repay that favor. Isn’t it Haryan’s will that I came to visit the high priest at a time like this?
Valancia accepted my advice, and he became the resident priest in Hebron.
He used the title of Senator Raphael, not the former High Priest Valancia.
“He, he is in Hebron?”
Valancia had a good reputation even at the royal court.
This was because of his record of treating the sick without sparing himself whenever an incident or accident occurred.
“We treated him with the utmost care, as he wished to live quietly in the countryside.”
“Aren’t you bothered by me?”
“I’m sure you won’t refuse, since it involves the undead.”
Gaius nodded after thinking for a moment.
“Tell me where he lives. I must go and see him myself.”
“I will guide you. And now his name is Raphael.”
The Hebron gentry thought Raphael was a skilled doctor. He prescribed basic medicines based on my book, Introduction to Herbalism, and he would occasionally use divine magic on patients who seemed difficult to treat.
The next day, Valancia and Gaius left for the Viscounty of Slane.
‘Up to this point everything is going according to my script. The problem is their reaction after that… … .’
Writing screenplays and novels was a talent I realized belatedly. I decided, belatedly, to fully display my talent.
* * *
“Eventually, Pakus intervened.”
Although he was demoted to the position of the second-ranking lord of the Magic Tower, Pakus was a 7th-class archmage and was considered to have the best combat magic ability in Zenon. His authority was assumed to be similar to that of a marquis, and that great man intervened in the affairs of the local barons.
“I knew it would happen once. With this, it is safe to say that the link between Count Srein and Archmage Pakus has been severed.”
The daughter of the Count of Srein was found dead. It was said to be an accident, but it was clear that she was killed at the will of the Duke of Pacus or Breio.
It is assumed that Count Srein received sufficient compensation for the loss of his daughter.
At first, I thought he might have received money or magic stones, but the financial situation of the Srein Estates was getting worse day by day. I thought he might have just given it to me with the promise of helping me someday.
As expected, when the Count of Srein was faced with a predicament, he asked for help from Pacus. To be precise, Pacus’s disciple Ornemicus was dispatched to Srein.
Gaius, the royal special inspector, was forced to take a step back due to his lack of expertise.
However, Gaius did not just sit still.
“The Eye of Zeno is engraved on the Srein Viscounty.”
“I expected this much. We also need to get out of Srein. Srein will fall on its own. Let’s prepare thoroughly until then and devour it like hyenas.”
Srein was not even Hebron’s neighboring fief. You had to cross the Jayleson Counties to get to Srein. From now on, it was Jayleson’s business. Hebron would continue to provide Jayleson with information, and Jayleson would react and tighten his grip on Srein.
“We have received a request from the Canaan Mercenaries. Are you sure you want to do it?”
A few days ago, I met the leader of the Canaan mercenary corps. He was shocked by my offer to join the mercenary corps, was horrified after our fight in the training arena, and when I pointed out a fatal flaw in his training method, he bent down and asked me to teach him.
That’s why I joined the Canaan Mercenaries.
A branch of the Canaan Mercenaries was established in Hebron, and an agreement was made between the Canaan Mercenaries and the Viscount of Hebron.
The quest assigned to me was ‘Hunt the Branded Monsters’. I was in charge of hunting monsters in the surrounding territories centered around Hebron, and thanks to that, I was able to quickly obtain information about the branded monsters.
But I couldn’t be satisfied with this. For the nobles, legitimacy was more important than anything else.
“There’s nothing I can’t do. What about the rumors?”
“I told you that your Majesty would be working with the Canaan Mercenaries to subdue the monsters that were trying to confuse Zenon.”
“Isn’t it a little bland?”
“Do you have anything in mind?”
“Think about it. A Viscount, not even a Baron, was a mercenary in a mercenary band. And the Viscount was a young man, twenty years old this year. Why would this young man be in a mercenary band?”
Amy furrowed her brows.
She was susceptible to this kind of imagination because she was a person who looked at reality coldly.
Amy pondered for a moment and then asked again.
“… … Did you find a weakness?”
“No, wasn’t it the young man’s romanticism? The desire to fight alongside the great Captain Canaan, the courage to risk his life to save Zenon from danger, the innocent yearning for the friendship of the rough men you only see in knightly novels!”
“Pfft, you’re not very mature.”
Amy’s assessment was correct.
If you were a bard, you had to put aside romanticism and face reality. The position made the person, and if you couldn’t keep up with the position, you wouldn’t be treated like a human being in this world.
“Yes, at twenty, even if he is immature, he will understand. Moreover, if the young man is a huge fan of Geoffrey, a writer famous for his knightly novels, people will nod their heads in agreement.”
As I explained it to that point, Amy’s expression changed strangely.
Jeffrey was the most popular writer in Zenon. Only the pseudonym Jeffrey was revealed, but no one knew his true identity. Even Fromm, the publisher of Jeffrey’s books, said that they had never met Jeffrey in person.
Jeffrey always sent his maid to handle publishing contracts and settlement issues.
“What do you gain from such rumors?”
“This is the emergence of a hero who will go through any trouble for peace and justice.”
“That hero is the lord, right?”
“Why? Do you think I won’t be able to do it?”
Amy seemed to be having a hard time thinking.
Creating a hero was not as simple as it sounds. Rumors spread quickly, but it required people who constantly talked about heroes and an abundance of stories. This required all-out information manipulation and activity.
“… … Do you like Jeffrey?”
“I like it. I’ve read all of his works. I like his older works more than his current works. His current works seem to be tailored to the reader’s tastes. They seem to be written hastily under time pressure. In the past, I enjoyed following the author’s wild imagination, but these days, I can guess how things will develop next.”
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“ah…….”
“Why? Do you know Jeffrey? Oh, by the way, when you first met me, didn’t you say something about Jeffrey? Did you say you were a fan of Jeffrey too?”
“Oh, no. At that time, you mentioned Geoffrey’s
“Haha, that’s right. I think you said that. But to judge my taste based on that kind of taste, Amy has a strange side. Anyway, the meeting with the writer has been resolved. After all, the writer works under a pseudonym, right? I don’t want to dig up something the writer is trying to hide.”
If Jeffrey wrote my story, I felt like I would be crowned Zeno’s hero.
‘Should I write a letter? I heard that they accept fan letters from the top of Prom. Would that be a waste of time?’
I shook my head. And then I made up my mind again.
‘You only live once. Well, you might live twice. In any case, life ends when you die. Do what you can so that you won’t regret it.’
“Hebron’s tax revenue has increased significantly. This is because the number of merchants traveling between Zailson and Hebron has increased significantly. It has been investigated that more than half of the merchants operating in Srein have moved here, and according to the Serpens merchants, more than 70% have moved. It seems that the rumors we spread are starting to have an effect.”
No one in Zeno knew the importance of information.
All information was held and handed down by the Zeno royal family, and they had long held the idea that ‘the ignorance of the people makes it easier for the nobles.’
The Duke of Breyo secretly developed his intelligence capabilities.
Although it was nothing compared to the royal intelligence group, ‘The Eye of Zeno’, a considerable amount of money was invested in gathering information.
Both the Zenon royal family and the Breio dukedom were obsessed with ‘information gathering’. They were afraid of the problems that would arise if they processed and spread the information they had worked so hard to gather, so they steadfastly maintained their chivalric spirit of protecting the truth.
I was different from them. I was not a knight. I was not an absolute power that could survive without manipulating information.
“A soldier who went missing in the Srein County has returned as a zombie. The family members who were bitten by him have also become zombies, and those who smelled the stench from his rotting body have also become zombies. A priest of Harjan and a disciple of Archmage Pacus have been dispatched to the Srein County, but they have not yet discovered the cause.”
It was a story I made up. I turned the corpse of a soldier of Srein disguised as a bandit into a zombie and sent it back, and those who witnessed the zombie disappeared without a trace. It was Viscount Srein who took care of it.
I fleshed out this fact.
It was true that the priests of Harjan and the disciples of Pacus were dispatched, and they were not even aware that zombies had appeared in the Srein County.
This was because all relevant evidence had completely disappeared.
“Yes, that’s exactly how it spread.”
“Is this really accurate?”
“yes?”
“Are you sure it’s accurate?”
Amy looked at me and answered uncertainly.
“You know, Your Majesty. Don’t storytellers boast too much? Also, when a story is passed on to many people, it can change a little.”
“From what I heard, the Demon King has descended upon Srein.”
I had a habit of listening to the maids. Living in the basement of the Duke of Breyot’s house, I heard vivid news of the outside world through the maids’ chattering.
The maids of the Hebron castle would gather in groups of three or five and gossip, and I would often turn up my hearing and listen in on their conversation.
“That’s too much. There were already reports of strange men wandering around Hebron. They were followers of a new religion called Armos. They would shake bells as they walked.”
“I have no intention of increasing the number of religious sects in my territory, so drive them all out before they gather power.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“As you say, the words keep changing. It’s good for manipulation because there’s no evidence left behind, but it could easily lead to an uncontrollable situation.”
This was the downside of word of mouth. That’s why the Zenon royal family and the Breio dukedom were also careful to manipulate information. After all, they had the power to change reality to their liking.
Amy looked at my mouth.
I was waiting for the next words.
“Let’s spread the information by writing.”
“Writing?”
“Every week, we provide a little bit of information about Hebron and the territory surrounding Hebron to the people of Hebron. We can’t make it as long-winded as the rumors we spread, but we can write it in a way that is favorable to Hebron.”
