132 - - Art. 132. All Departures Are Abandoned.
"You\'re the king of Juka. What the hell are you going to do?"
What are you going to do? We have no choice. By the way, miss?
"What?"
I didn\'t hear your voice the other night in my dream, but you were pointing towards the forest, right? What was that?
"I was showing him the direction where the dog god is. What? Didn\'t you notice?"
I don\'t know, I don\'t know.
"You wanted to have a baby, so I told you, but you didn\'t want to go there at all. And now you want to be king of Juka! I really don\'t understand!"
I don\'t know either. But thank you. You told me the location of Inugami. I\'m glad. But didn\'t it take about half a year to get to Inugami\'s place?
"That\'s a man\'s foot. If you fly a horse as fast as you can, you can get there in two months!"
It\'s too far.
So what are you going to do now?
In the meantime, we will make sure that the people can eat. Formality and manners will come later. It is said that one must have enough food and clothing to know how to be civilized. We will do our best to secure food, clothing, and shelter first.
"That\'s good, that\'s good. You can tell the people that."
Is that how it is?
"Yes, they will!"
Okay, I\'ll do that.
"Linos."
Yes, sir?
"... I don\'t have a choice. I\'ll protect you from now on. Don\'t worry.
What do you mean, "secure"? What? Where are you going? Whoa, you run fast. Where are you going, Eri-Lou? Hey, Eri-Lou!
When I woke up, it was still midnight. Tomorrow is my first day in the Juka since being named king. Maybe I was in high spirits. I looked around and saw Rico peacefully sleeping. Rico\'s sleeping face is really soothing. If not, I will let Riko heal me again. I felt a little better when I thought of that. And then I went back to bed.
The large plaza in front of the west gate in the capital of the Kingdom of Juka. Thousands of people were gathered here. Nobles, soldiers, citizens, merchants... When was the last time you saw such a large crowd? Not since the time when the people crowded together to escape from the capital during the rebellion of Marshal Kargi. And in front of the gate, several adventurer-like men and knights with helmets under their arms were lined up.
Among them, one of the men strode up the stairs and climbed to the top of the gate. When he reached the middle of the gate, the man shot something magical to the whole square.
"...aaaaaaah...". Check check check. One-two, one-two. Honjitsu ha seitenari, honjitsu ha seitenari. Can you hear me?
A young man\'s voice rings out. The eyes of the people are fixed on this man.
"Oh, yeah. Oh, I\'ve put up a ward so that you can hear my voice here now. What is it? Well, as many of you know, I\'m the new king of this land, Linos. Well, it\'s nice to meet you. I\'ve asked you here today because I want you to hear my thoughts on the future of this country. By the way, I\'m open to disagreement, so be prepared for it."
The man coughs ahem and starts talking again.
"The first thing I want to ask you all is that I want to rebuild this country. I don\'t want to go back to the old Jukka kingdom. If I\'m going to do it, I\'m going to do it thoroughly... I\'m going to make it a better place to live for everyone. And, uh... well, let\'s see. Well, we\'ll decide on that later, but I\'d like to ask two things of you, or rather, two things I\'d like to ask of you.
Tension rose among the people at once.
"No, it\'s not difficult. It\'s a natural human thing to do. I\'ve got two things to say. One, don\'t cause trouble for others. Be it a parent or a child, a wife or a lover or a friend. Well, it is inevitable that children and old people cause trouble. Just try to live without bothering others, that\'s what I want you to do. And the other thing is to help others. It doesn\'t matter what it is. Help others in some way. I want these two things to be the guiding principles of our country."
The people look at each other with a pout.
"Oh, feel free to tell me if I\'m not following this. First of all, I want to rebuild this country. I want to make sure that everyone has clothes to wear, a place to live, and food to eat. We will decide on the details of the country after we have all these things. First of all, I want to build this country together so that it can be restored. I look forward to working with you."
The man sighs and continues his story.
"So, I\'ve been thinking of changing the name of my country. Juka is what that is, isn\'t it? It reminds you of the Great Satan, doesn\'t it? I feel like that could affect a lot of places in the future. So, I would like to name the country Agartha, what do you think? If you have any other suggestions, let me know. I\'ll give you a week. I will close it at 12:00 p.m. in a week.
With that, the man quickly descended the gate.
I think I\'ve made my point to the people. I don\'t know what will happen next. But I promised myself that I would restore this country. Rico is already preparing the structure of the country, and Gon and Mei have begun researching the soil and specialties of the country. All I can think of is to make money first. We are in trouble as a nation if we don\'t have money. I know it sounds ghastly, but that\'s what I\'m going to think about first.
"...Agartha?"
The hand that was signing the document stops. As soon as I look up, the flesh hanging from my cheeks shakes. The man stands up with a big, fat body, spins on his heel, and stares out the window.
Madeline, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Ramallon, looks out on the stormy sea reflected in the window of her office in the royal palace with an expression of displeasure on her face.
"Also... I have received a letter from the Heidata Empire regarding the prisoners of war..."
"Prisoners of war? What are you saying?"
"...to discuss the release of prisoners of war."
After a few moments of silence, Prime Minister Madlin turned his head and muttered something like, "I\'m sorry, I\'m sorry, I\'m sorry.
"Silence! Our empire cannot afford to talk about prisoners of war."
"Awe."
The man bowed reverently and left the room. Prime Minister Madryn sighed, sat down at his desk again, and began to look over the documents. He looks over the numbers. He has to sign his name, but his hand is shaking as he holds the pen.
Just then, he hears a knock at the door. He stared at the door and said in a grumpy voice
"Come in."
He urges her to go. General Callies entered the room.
"Oh, this is the general. What are you doing here all of a sudden?
"I was just in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen Mother."
"Her Majesty the Dowager Empress? And what did Her Majesty say?
"He asked me to attack the Heedata."
Prime Minister Madrin looked up to the heavens.
"That will be impossible. Heedt has pulled out his troops almost unharmed, hasn\'t he? It would be suicide to attack Heedata now. Besides, the logistics..."
"That\'s what I told you, too. But you are very upset.
"Well, I didn\'t hear that Matkal\'s troops were wiped out. As I recall, I told you that we had no choice but to retreat when a large force from the Heedatians attacked.
"Yes. Her Majesty the Dowager Empress says that if that\'s the case, Heedata must be empty. Now is the perfect time to bring down Heedata. She wants us to take the capital, the mother of all healers!
If I could do that, I would have done it by now. I have told you repeatedly as Prime Minister that there is no food to feed the troops now, but why don\'t you understand?
Her Majesty the Empress Dowager says she has food.
Oh, that\'s new news to me.
"We\'ll take the mountain road to the capital of Hearda. There will be wild plants in the mountains. Some demons may be able to eat them. He told us to go there while eating the roots and leaves of the trees.
"...That\'s a very Empress Dowager way of thinking."
General Caries and Prime Minister Madrin smiled at each other.
"For Her Majesty, high mountains and wide rivers are of no concern at all. She is only looking at a map and saying that the hardships of climbing a mountain with heavy equipment, the time it takes, the heat, the cold...she is not concerned about high mountains or wide rivers. The difficulty of crossing deep rivers, the coldness of the water...they don\'t care about those things at all. I wish I could be like that. How easy it would be if I could make a plan without worrying so much. From Her Majesty\'s point of view, the capital and Heedata are close to each other on the map. It\'s no wonder that she thinks she can take down the capital if she attacks right now.
"Good grief. You\'re in a lot of trouble, General.
But more importantly, Prime Minister, how is this year\'s crop coming along?
"Not good. The people will starve to death.
"I still think we should have brought back all the crops from Juka.... Especially wheat. What should we do now that our plan to wipe out the people of Juka and bring the people of the Empire there to harvest has come to naught?
General Caries mutters with a faraway look in his eyes. Prime Minister Madrin sighed,
As for the produce, that\'s our business. We do what we can. You, General, try to devise a strategy to get Agartha\'s crops.
At that moment there was a knock at the door and one of the attendants entered.
"Prime Minister, His Majesty has summoned you. He requests an urgent meeting.
"Okay, tell him I\'ll be right there."
The chamberlain bowed reverently and left.
"...Your Majesty," he said, "do you mean the Emperor, or...?
"General, don\'t be such a prude."
General Caries smiles bitterly.
"By the way, Prime Minister..."
What is it?
"Something has been bothering me for some time now."
"What\'s bothering you?"
"You have been talking about Agartha since a few minutes ago, where are you talking about?"
The dry laughter of Prime Minister Madrin echoed through the room.