Honestly, when we began marching toward Forbin, I had braced myself for at least some resistance.
Forbin is the capital of the West and its largest city. Including Forbin and the satellite cities around it, it boasts a population of 150,000.
As befitting such a large city, it was only natural that it had some degree of defense.
The reason I had bothered to drag the Dreadnought all the way here was to neutralize those defensive facilities.
"So I expected at least a battle, but..."
Muttering softly, I looked around the western capital, Forbin.
I could see traces of a Magic Tower that had once defended the capital. But there didn't seem to be anyone inside.
The tower, partially collapsed and covered in ivy, looked more like a ruin.
"They've grown too accustomed to peace."
The capital, Forbin, had been too peaceful until now.
There had been no chance of Barbarians invading the capital. It was thoroughly protected by the Arbel Mountains, and the South, directly below it, had almost no army.
It seemed that the importance of defending the capital had naturally declined as well.
And the money left over from that must have gone to corrupt nobles.
Moreover, our legion's march had been too fast.
We had kept the number of soldiers and supply units to a minimum and spent an entire week doing nothing but charging forward.
There would have been too little time to rebuild the collapsed defenses within a week.
The land of such corrupt and incompetent nobles. The West.
The suffering of the people here will end today.
Western Grand Duke Charles Raymonds.
It's time to settle things with that bastard once and for all.
Creeeak-
The sound of a door opening echoed through the quiet Forbin Castle.
What emerged was a small army of a few hundred.
For someone with the status of the West's scoundrel, it was a truly pathetic number.
It was also proof that Western Grand Duke Charles Raymonds had completely lost the people's hearts.
"It's been a while, Charles Raymonds."
One of the main culprits who had ruined the ending of the original 'Monajoh'.
The fiercest hunting dog in the Empire, and a mad dog who, at Aria's word, wiped out everyone who tried to stop the war.
To prevent such a thing from happening in this world, I intend to deal with him myself.
***
People who suffer a great failure fall into two categories.
Those who rise above failure, and those who are crushed by its weight and despair.
Western Grand Duke Charles Raymonds was closer to the latter.
After all, he had never properly experienced defeat before.
The overwhelming aerial force known as the Western Wyvern Knight Order.
Enemies who, as natives, had no air force.
The battles Charles Raymonds had fought were battles anyone could win.
The only one who didn't know that was Charles Raymonds himself.
Always succeeding, always winning wars, always on the superior side, he was a scoundrel who knew nothing of defeat.
'If I do as I say, I always win, so why should I listen to others?'
That was his basic way of thinking.
Until he met Aria.
Aria was the only woman Charles Raymonds had ever taken a liking to.
Charles Raymonds quickly lost his heart to her.
Having always been the victor, he thought Aria would eventually become his as well.
...Of course, it was a vain dream.
In the original 'Monajoh', Charles was ultimately not chosen by Aria.
The hunting dog tamed by Aria became a useless beast once the civil war that destroyed the Empire came to an end.
And when the hunt is over, the hunting dog is eaten.
Amid the ruins of the fallen Empire, he was abandoned by Aria.
By then, tens of millions of people had already died and suffered.
It was the first defeat he had ever experienced.
Fortunately, in this world, Charles did not have to ruin the Empire in order to be defeated.
Because someone defeated him before the men who entered Aria's 'harem' could.
"Kyle Leopold...!!!"
Crash-!
The ceramic bowl he threw struck the office wall and shattered. Even so, his anger did not seem to subside. He threw a chair next and paced back and forth, seething with rage.
After raging for a while, Charles plopped down where he stood.
Then he muttered,
"...This, this is all because that retarded idiot bastard pulled some fucking bullshit."
In the end, Charles Raymonds never realized his own fault.
His pride could not tolerate it.
The fat worm who had once been made to kneel beautifully before the woman he loved.
To him, it was now his turn to kneel.
The pride of the Western Grand Duke could not accept that he, who had always been superior, now had to crawl before a man he had considered inferior.
Therefore, to Charles, everything was that man's fault: Kyle Leopold.
It had to be.
"If that idiot bastard hadn't come on to my Aria. If that hadn't happened, I would never have had any reason to quarrel with the South in the first place!"
He let out a rage-filled scream and grabbed the door, as if he intended to go out right then and drag the man back.
However, he could not open it all the way.
A man like an animal. Charles Raymonds.
Animals are endlessly strong against the weak, but before the strong, they become endlessly servile.
Before Charles Raymonds's eyes rose the hellish night of Albion Harbor.
The Knight Orders that had melted away without being able to do anything. The murderous bombardment flying wildly, and the Flare that had blocked his vision.
"Fuck!"
Bang-!
Once again, only screams and the sound of something breaking could be heard in the Western Grand Duke's Office.
Charles Raymonds could neither become strong enough to rise above defeat nor become the bigger man who could admit his fault and bow his head to someone he had looked down on.
He merely escaped reality in his room and vented his savage temper.
Normally, that would have been fine.
Because of his characteristic irresponsibility and love of war, the work of the Grand Duke's Office was already being handled by subordinates who wore themselves out in his place.
But... now, the South and the West were clearly in conflict.
With Charles Raymonds, who could be called the cause of it all, holed up in a corner of his room, it was only natural that bad rumors would spread.
At least, Charles Raymonds thought so.
Such thoughts led to auditory hallucinations.
—A man who calls himself a Grand Duke, holed up in a corner of his room when a war has broken out... tsk.
—Isn't this ultimately the war he started? Starting it himself and then being so irresponsible. What a sight...
—Ha, after all this, he'll probably go wag his tail at that woman again.
Did it make sense for a servant to insult a Grand Duke in a strict class society?
Such common sense no longer applied to Charles Raymonds, whose mind was already half gone.
His persecution complex grew worse and worse.
And ultimately, that persecution complex was directed at the weak.
"Butler, you bastard! How dare you insult Charles Raymonds, the ruler of the great West and the legitimate bloodline of House Raymonds!"
"N-No! I did not say anything!"
"Stop your nonsense! Are you saying that the words of this Charles Raymonds were a lie?!"
Over the course of a month, the number of people injured by his persecution complex began to increase, with some even being killed in severe cases.
As a result, the butlers and maids of the Grand Duke's Office became reluctant to enter Charles Raymonds's room.
Consequently, Charles Raymonds grew stranger and stranger.
The news that reached him was always despairing.
"The South has made a total war speech and dispatched its army!"
"Marquis Eric Smith led a great army of 40,000 and set out, but was annihilated by the Southern Army..."
"Aquiten Fortress has fallen to the Southern bastards! Their army has reached the very gates of the Grand Duke's Castle!"
Driven to his limit and no longer able to escape reality, he finally had to step forward.
The situation no longer allowed him to remain holed up in his room.
"Yeah, fuck. I just have to win and prove it. I just have to catch and crush that half-witted, mannerless idiot bastard, Kyle!"
He just had to repay them in kind.
To the end, Charles Raymonds followed his instincts.
However, by the time he actually went outside, everything was already over.
No one tried to follow Charles Raymonds.
It was his karma.
With the South and the West in conflict, the noble Grand Duke had spent weeks holed up in his room, spouting delusions.
There was no loyalty in the Grand Duke's household, so the corrupt nobles who had gathered only for money would never follow him.
The major nobles had already fled.
The people did not follow him either.
Public sentiment had clearly shifted in favor of the gentlemanly Southern Army rather than the corrupt Western nobles who only exploited them.
Thus, when Charles took up his lance and came out before the Grand Duke's Castle with the few remaining troops, what he faced was a plain filled with 5,000 soldiers.
"It's been a while, Charles Raymonds."
It was Kyle Leopold, looking down at him from horseback.
Ironically enough, the scene resembled the one from ten years ago.
The day Charles had subdued Kyle, who had been harassing Aria, and publicly humiliated him.
The crowd surrounding Kyle as he knelt.
Standing at the very front had been Charles Raymonds.
"How is it? A familiar composition, isn't it, Charles Raymonds?"
The mocking voice cut off Charles Raymonds's last shred of reason.