Isekai Nonbiri Nouka Chapter 1087: Mikel Worries About the Kingdom

Your waist is important when striking a pose.

And so is the stamina to hold that pose.

Having learned this, my name is Mikel.

I’m Alfred-kun’s guide.

-0-

Don’t let work pile up.

Do the work you can do.

Put a stop to trouble before it happens.

Mother followed these principles, so she investigated the nobles who were planning to take action using military force.

Thanks to her own investigations and the information provided by Count Godrake, they had identified almost all of them.

They checked twice to make sure they hadn’t missed anyone.

Taking the time to do this properly would save time in the long run.

First, there were the nobles who planned to use their own soldiers.

Their goal was to intimidate Alfred-kun, so the soldiers weren’t taking things seriously.

They probably thought they were just bullying a fledgling merchant.

Their numbers were around twenty to thirty men.

At most, there were about fifty.

As the soldiers set off in high spirits, Mother’s troops charged at them from the flank.

Our side was serious.

And we had more than five hundred soldiers.

There were about four one-sided battles, with no casualties on our side.

Using the captured soldiers as evidence, they then arrested the nobles who had given the orders.

As for the fact that two of the nobles’ patriarchs had been mixed in with their own soldiers… well, how should I put it?

I was impressed they’d managed to remain patriarchs for so long.

No, perhaps they’d become so desperate that the patriarchs themselves had to take action, which was why they’d resorted to military force?

-0-

Next came the moves to harm Count Silversilk’s family.

In this case, the nobles didn’t act openly.

If they did, it would lead to an all-out war with the count’s family.

Their goal was to harass them, so they used people who operated behind the scenes.

However, the truth was that Mother had influence over the very people operating in secret.

In Raywhite Kingdom, it was impossible to work behind the scenes without the Korin Religion… no, without Mother finding out.

As soon as a request from a noble came in, it was promptly reported to one of Mother’s subordinates, and the noble who had made the request was arrested.

I was impressed, as always, by Mother.

The patriarchs among the arrested nobles were forced to retire and hand over their positions to their successors.

Even if someone other than the patriarch had been the mastermind, the patriarch was still held responsible for failing to manage their household and was advised to retire.

Some nobles offered to apologize, but Mother refused to forgive them.

She said that even if she forgave them, they would only grow resentful again once some time had passed, so there was no point in wasting effort on them.

I learned a lot from that.

Oh, what about the nobles Count Godrake had asked us to go easy on?

「Don’t worry. I helped arrange the succession of those households myself, so there won’t be any confusion.」

Ah… I wonder if I can really stop worrying.

-0-

Next were the merchants who had incited the nobles.

Mother didn’t use soldiers against them.

Instead, she prohibited the merchants in question from using the ports and from passing through checkpoints with their goods.

Did Mother have the authority to do that?

No.

But if Mother said she wanted it done, those who did have the authority would comply.

Five days after she issued the prohibitions, the merchants came to her and bowed their heads.

Perhaps I should learn from how quickly merchants like these made decisions.

Was five days too slow?

They were merchants from the provinces, so I think they came in a hurry.

It’s not as if they could use teleportation magic, after all.

Mother ordered the merchants to pay compensation.

Those who couldn’t pay in cash were allowed to pay in goods instead.

Half of the compensation collected was given to Count Silversilk’s family.

The other half went to the Korin Religion.

Alfred-kun’s share would be given to him out of the Korin Religion’s portion.

The reason for not handing it over to him directly was to keep Alfred-kun from attracting attention.

That should have resolved the problem.

Or so I thought, but one small problem remained.

The fabric that had started the whole mess.

Most of the merchants who paid their compensation in goods had brought fabric.

There was so much of it that it was difficult to put a price on it.

Even if they tried to take it elsewhere to sell, the transportation costs would be higher than the proceeds.

Mother seemed to have asked the Malde Company, which had close ties to the Korin Religion, to turn it into cash. But even the Malde Company would probably struggle to deal with all that stock.

Still, it wasn’t something I needed to worry about.

-0-

The thing I should be worried about is this.

Kato-san.

He was Alfred-kun’s bodyguard.

So he did his job as a bodyguard.

He drove off the people who tried to attack Alfred-kun.

There was no problem with that.

Even the attack itself had been expected.

Mother had told Alfred-kun to avoid going out as much as possible because remnants of the noble families who resented what had happened might come after him. But rather than let himself be protected, Alfred-kun chose to fight while acting as bait.

Since he had been attacked despite making that choice, there was no problem.

We had been prepared for it.

Forty lightly armed men had attacked us.

However, the guards Mother had arranged were nearby, and Alfred-kun was fully prepared as well.

Honestly, my first thought was, how had forty men even worked up the courage to attack him?

I was so wary that I even considered the possibility that these forty men were a decoy, and that the real attackers might throw poisoned knives at us from somewhere.

But these forty men really were the main force.

Kato-san dealt with all of them by himself.

First, before the forty attackers could reach us, Kato-san appeared on his motorcycle.

Immediately afterward, he stood on the motorcycle with his arms crossed.

He faced the forty men charging toward him and said in a low voice, 「Dance」.

The forty men began dancing as if they were being controlled by strings.

Their arms and legs bent in directions they were never meant to bend, and they screamed in pain.

Then Kato-san snapped his fingers and said, 「Scatter」.

The forty men who had been dancing collapsed as if their strings had been cut.

The joints in their arms and legs had been dislocated, making them easy to restrain.

That was the problem with Kato-san.

Was it that he’d gone too far?

No.

Considering that all the attackers were still alive, he had actually been quite merciful.

So what was the problem?

It was Kato-san’s fighting style.

I had watched from behind, and it was so smooth and stylish.

So cool.

Even the other guards had started imitating his poses.

And that made Alfred-kun jealous.

Kato-san tried to calm Alfred-kun down by holding up a sign that read, 「Supervised by Flora.」

I helped, too.

The time we spent calming Alfred-kun down was overwhelmingly longer than the combined time it took to fight the attackers and restrain them.

The problem even dragged on until the next day.

It was exhausting.

Oh, who was Flora-san, anyway?

Lulushi-sama’s cousin?

Someone holding the position of a little sister?

So she’d helped come up with Alfred-kun’s poses, too.

Huh.

-0-

After investigating the forty men we had captured, we confirmed that they were indeed remnants of the noble families Mother had warned us about, acting out of resentment.

Apparently, those who had suffered losses due to the sudden changes in leadership had attacked us because they were struggling to make ends meet.

Honestly…

What was I even supposed to say?

W-well, I supposed I should be glad we’d captured them instead of letting them run loose.

However, Mother expected another attack.

This time, it wouldn’t be remnants of the resentful noble families. Instead, people looking to seize the territories of weakened nobles and merchants would attack us to show off their strength.

……..

Did they never stop to consider why those nobles and merchants had lost their power?

I guess they didn’t.

I began to question the education of the people of Raywhite Kingdom.

「Put your concerns together into a formal proposal and send it to the princes or someone like that.」

Mother told me to do that, so I did.

Oh, right.

During the second attack, Alfred-kun managed to imitate Kato-san and was absolutely delighted with himself.

「It wasn’t an imitation. I put my own spin on it!」

Let’s just say he did.

「I really did put my own spin on it!」