"K-Kill me? What are you saying?"
Luke, commander of the Bloody Retribution Mercenary Company, with red hair and long, slitted eyes.
His looks resembled Mel's younger brother's.
"I-I am the strategist of His Excellency Duke Robert!!!"
He recited his backer and began to thrash.
"However offended you may be, is this not far too much?"
That was what the bastard blurted while thrashing with his throat in my grip.
Did he take my words for some savage joke?
But I meant it.
There was no mercy to spare for a worm of a bastard who treated slaughter, plunder, and human trafficking as the victor's right.
And so—.
CRUNCH!!!
I snapped the neck held in my hand.
Luke, a worm whose very name I remembered, was a fairly well-trained mercenary.
But he wasn't great enough to counter after being ambushed by my monstrous strength.
Perhaps he had never imagined dying with a snapped neck in a palace drawing room; the bastard expired on the spot.
And so I killed the commander of the Bloody Retribution Mercenary Company.
"B-Boss?"
Mel looked at me as though asking whether I had lost my mind.
She stared at me with eyeballs of differing colors, and seeing that expression for the first time in a while felt rather good.
Even so, I gave my strategist an explanation of my action.
Meaning: clean it up properly.
"The sooner this bastard dies, the better for the world."
In my experience, once you've done something, you might as well do more while you're at it.
Hadn't I already butted heads with the duke once?
Do one thing, then cause another incident after time has passed, and you get treated as a crazy bastard.
But commit one certain, large act all at once, and you become a fearsome bastard.
"He deserved to die, sure! I didn't know you hated them this much, Boss."
"It was a very brief moment, but the mere fact that I marched to war alongside those bastards was my greatest shame."
As a boy I marched to war with them, knowing nothing.
Which was why, even now that I'd regressed, I couldn't help holding on to it.
"S-Still...... you could at least consult me!!!"
For all she said, Mel's eyes were laughing.
Because this much was no different from an ordinary day in our company.
"Hmm, the timing isn't bad. I'll handle the cleanup!"
Mel, my strategist indeed.
She justified my action and began devising a way to clean it up.
Of course, I hadn't acted blindly either.
I had guessed that with his temperament he would come to us and needle us gently, and the bastard had done exactly that.
'Regression Power is truly the foremost power.'
The enemy didn't know me, but I knew the enemy.
Knowing the future changed the outcome this starkly.
Naturally it would have been quite the headache had the bastard learned how dangerous I was and gone into hiding, so I snapped his neck at this point in time.
"Boss! Let's just paint him as an evil god's man too!"
The duke bastard, an evil god's man; the shitty mercenary bastard playing at being his strategist, an evil god's man.
Tying them all together in one go was a fine method as well.
Mel rang the drawing room's bell to have the corpse dealt with.
DONGGG—.
A strangely heavy reverberation.
Before long a royal servant opened the door and appeared.
"A-A corpse!!!"
He shouted in a horrified voice as he looked at the body on the floor.
I calmed him, telling him there was no need for alarm, and spoke flatly.
"This bastard, too, was a follower of an evil god."
Plunder, slaughter, rape, human trafficking.
The Bloody Retribution Mercenary Company's record fell short of nothing in earning an evil god's name.
My memory and experience were the evidence.
And I don't know whether this incident had an effect, but.......
"His Majesty has concluded the royal council."
It took a full day before the king summoned us again.
We, and every noble who had attended Mel's investiture, stayed in the royal castle for a whole day.
The king must have had a great deal on his mind; he dragged it out.
Fortunately, thanks to that, our position grew endlessly favorable.
"Thomson!"
"Commander Jack, Your Excellency Margrave Mel. As you instructed, I have brought the great one."
Just then Thomson arrived with the knights of the margravial house.
I bore the golden coffin holding my father and arrived at the audience chamber where the king was.
But why was it?
"The dispute between Duke Robert and Margrave Kranel has been settled."
The heresy charge the duke raised against Mel.
The charge we raised that the duke followed an evil god.
And the matter of the Bloody Retribution commander I had killed.
"We have heard explanations sufficient to satisfy both sides."
The words of the bastard called a proxy, speaking for the king, were exceedingly strange.
"The background of Sir Jack, knight commander to Margrave Kranel, has been firmly verified. It has also been proven that Duke Robert's knight is a formal knight who followed proper procedure."
The phrasing was subtle.
With the board laid out this well, most kings would swing the blade.
Cutting off our heads or the duke's, some show of decision was in order.
But—.
"It seems the misunderstanding deepened on both sides. Reconcile here and withdraw."
The king's proxy finished by adding that Mel's appointment as 'Mel von Kranel,' lawful margrave of the kingdom, was confirmed.
I could only feel utterly bewildered.
'Haven't seen a moron like this in a while.'
The king resolved the problem in the most idiotic way possible.
It was also the way I loathed most.
Namely: postponement.
I swear on my monstrous strength, putting a thing off brings a more wretched result than acting and failing.
On the way out of the audience chamber.
"Boss, you know Murphy's Law, right?"
Mel asked with a bitter smile.
To think I would hear that scum's name here again.
"What of it?"
Mel spoke to me almost in a whisper, in a tone full of conviction.
"In the end, the civil war can't be avoided."
The fundamental cause of this small country's destruction had been civil war.
Which meant the civil war I had wanted to prevent would happen after all.
***
"Well, we've got nothing to lose."
For the sake of young ones like Thomson I had wanted to stop the civil war at least, but it had become a war that would happen regardless.
"That's Murphy's Law. Same context as you thinking the World War will break out again, Boss!"
"......I understand well enough."
Only now did that scum's law properly make sense to me.
Just as I'd believed the World War would run its course unchanged, this small kingdom's civil war had flowed the same way.
From what I confirmed during our stop at the royal castle, the work of eating away at the country had been underway for years.
I asked with an awkward laugh.
"In the end, aren't we the ones who shine brightest in war?"
If you cannot avoid it, enjoy it.
A mindset gained through countless wars, and one of the few good sayings to come out of the incomprehensible world.
The talented cannot beat those who strive.
Those who strive cannot beat those who enjoy.
Therefore our Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company is the strongest.
"Hm-hm~."
Mel was much the same as me.
Humming, she began sorting through the factions.
"So the necromancer side's puppet is Duke Robert, that's settled. But there's still one piece missing."
The context was this.
This kingdom, its national strength shattered by civil war, would be destroyed by dwarven bombing and then occupied by necromancers.
We hadn't yet found the link to the dwarves.
Weren't the dwarves of this period already burning with zeal for new technology and driving out their artisans?
"Boss, while we're in the capital, let's look into it properly!"
It was a moment when nobles of every sort had gathered for the birth of a new margrave.
The castle's event was over, but there was no chance any noble would be idiot enough to simply return to his territory.
Nobles are lunatics who, once gathered in the capital for any reason at all, will throw parties for a solid month.
"Ooh, there's a party hosted by Duke Robert?"
Mel declared she would attend the party of the very duke she had screwed over.
In the terminology of their world this was called 'teabagging,' an expression I rather liked.
It was also a tactic our company enjoyed using.
"Boss, you absolutely have to take this mission!"
Before entering the party we set our respective roles.
More precisely, Mel set my role for me.
"It's not much to my liking......."
"They probably don't want to talk to the Boss who snapped their commander's neck either?"
Mel presented a justification I couldn't deny, so I had no choice but to comply.
And so we arrived at our destination.
A stone building whose fairly splendid carvings stood out for a petty kingdom.
Before the building stood the Stalwart Knight who had blocked my fist, and both he and I stopped at a single exchange of glances.
As we entered the hall, Mel asked.
"So, what do you think?"
A question about the Stalwart Knight.
"He was strong, without question. And his restraint is formidable."
Knowing well what the epithet Stalwart Knight meant, I owed him respect on that count.
The armor the bastard wore was itself no different from a magical weapon, yet rather than use it he blocked my ambush with his own capability alone.
Wasn't a man with power holding that power back the hardest thing of all?
"That he wraps himself in an arcane weapon like that and keeps his sanity proves he's a true knight. I see now why he survived so long while owning that sword."
[The Demon Sword That Would Be Strongest If It Did Not Break]
The original owner of my sword was the Stalwart Knight.
Unlike me, the bastard hadn't killed the soul in the sword; he'd endured it with his own mind.
'The reason must lie inside that corpse-reeking armor.'
Through this clash I discovered a startling fact about the Stalwart Knight.
From this point in time the bastard was a pseudo-undead.
In my past life I had thought the demon sword made him that way, but.......
The truth was different.
"The bastard is forcibly maintaining a state in which his body is dying."
"Why?"
"The background behind it, I don't really know. In the past he was just one of the strong foes I broke, wasn't he?"
Because I had only met him on a battlefield, killed him after a bloody duel, and taken the spoils.
"Shall we investigate properly?"
The bastard was a subordinate of Siegfried, the Magic King.
He was a bastard I'd only meet after leaving this petty kingdom, but getting detailed information in advance would make things easier.
"How will you investigate?"
"Those mercenary bastards are still around."
Only the commander of the Bloody Retribution Mercenary Company had died; the leadership beneath him remained.
And in that state they remained attached to the duke.
"So that's why you put me in charge of finding the dwarves."
"Right!"
Mel would take information on the Stalwart Knight.
I would take information on the dwarven force hidden in the kingdom.
Such were the roles Mel had set.
With the matter roughly sorted, it came our turn to enter the party.
"Her Excellency Margrave Mel von Kranel, and Sir Jack, Knight Commander of Kranel, now entering!!!"
The atmosphere of this hall was peculiar.
As though speaking for the duke's ambition, a servant stood ready to announce entrances like a royal herald.
"We who serve the same Second Prince raised our voices over nothing. I apologize for my excessive words."
On top of that, the duke conceded a step first, like a magnanimous man.
He went further and even introduced us before the nobles himself.
"Your Excellency, I sincerely apologize regarding your strategist. Our misunderstanding ran deep, and our hand was somewhat rough."
Mel needled the duke once more, but though he frowned, he laughed like a large-hearted man.
"The man did tend not to know his place!"
Well, it was an obvious ploy, but both sides knew it and let it pass.
That suited us as well.
While Mel conversed among the duke's subordinates, I set about my own task.
As I stood alone picking at the dishes on the table, people with eyes gleaming like wolves began to approach me.
"Lord Jack."
An old noble approaching with the respectful title of Lord.
"I had no idea Margrave Kranel's knight was so robust a man!"
A young noble showing friendliness even as he stayed wary.
"Ho ho, your muscles are quite something. Not even that armor can hide......."
Even a middle-aged noblewoman of the sort Veil would like came at me, spilling laughter.
This hospitality was viciously repellent.
But—.
'Mel, you mischievous.......'
Turning my head slightly, I saw Mel watching me, her lips twitching as she held back a laugh.
It had all gone too smoothly; she had evidently meant to make sport of me.
But I could endure it.
For the sake of the objective.
"Ahem—."
I took out the dwarven-made piece I'd received from the baron and asked, 'This needs repairing. Does anyone know an artisan?'
Adding that it was a dwarven-made piece I'd gone to great lengths to get.
At that, several nobles approached with gleaming eyes.
"We keep our own smiths in our territory. If you show it to them—."
"It is a piece only a dwarven artisan can repair."
"Ahem......."
Most were chaff.
Such bastards came and went for a good while, trying to forge a connection with me.
I waited patiently.
As a rule, when the fakes gather, the real one appears among them.
As expected—.
"I know an artisan."
Before long a man came to me.
He introduced himself as Count What's-His-Name and looked at me with a most confident gaze.
"An artisan who can repair this?"
"That is right."
What my Spirituality's energy revealed was truth.
Which meant this bastard was entangled with the dwarves.
To take the initiative, I made the first offer.
"Send the artisan and Margrave Mel will reward you suitably."
"I will come myself, together with the artisans."
He'd come obediently just because he was asked?
It plainly felt like an attempt to forge a connection.
The startling fact was that this bastard belonged to the 'First Prince' faction.
Perhaps—.
'Were the dwarves eating away at the First Prince and the necromancers at the Second?'
The question came naturally.
Two worms gnawing away at a country.
In that case, just how great an idiot was the king standing between them?
'It's not like the king's ruining his country on purpose....'
It was absurd beyond words.
Well, whatever the truth of it, making this country a puppet state of the Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company, as I had originally planned, looked entirely appropriate.
'A mercenary company that devours nations—.'
The Devouring Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company.
In this life the company's name might grow a little longer.
With that consideration of naming, the party came to a close.
We boarded the carriage back to the margravial castle and shared the information each of us had gathered, and as a result I had to hear something shocking.