Chapter 143. Factory City (4)

The commander's quarters are located within the barracks.

It is a detached housing complex a one-minute walk from the command post in the center of the barracks, and old man Poodle had paid special attention to everything from the exterior materials to the interior materials and design.

Although the site is quite large, there are only about fifty houses in the complex.

This is because only those with the rank of company commander or higher are eligible to move in.

Karen's quarters was a three-story mansion.

I knocked on the door.

No response.

Old man Brol scratched his beard.

"Where did this young lady go again?"

"It seems she's at her private residence. The 3rd Battalion Commander is on duty today."

Commanders of company commander rank or higher do not need to stay within the unit unless they are on duty.

It seemed Karen had also gone to her private residence in the city.

We left the barracks and headed for the streets.

Karen's house is located on the outskirts of the city.

Interestingly, she is a quite successful real estate mogul in the city.

The buildings registered under her ownership include one high-rise building in the central square, two buildings scheduled to be built in the new Dwarf Square, and about ten other large and small buildings scattered throughout the city.

In fact, it's not just Karen; the people who have followed me since my mercenary days are quite well-off in this city.

When Wolfskrig was just beginning to be rebuilt, the land prices were less than 10 percent of what they are now.

Perhaps the precedents of those who joined my faction early on and achieved a prosperous life are another reason why high-quality applicants are flocking to Wolfskrig.

The carriage stopped.

It was Karen's house.

Probably the least valuable among the properties she owned.

"Wow."

Bart let out a sound of admiration upon seeing the scenery beyond the main gate.

"Is this your first time here?"

"Yes, it's like a forest."

An accurate description.

Karen's house is a residence with a large garden inside the walls.

The garden plot is as large as the quarters in the barracks, but the house itself is small enough to be described as modest, unlike the three-story mansion.

It's so hidden by tall, dense trees that it's barely visible.

The main gate was open.

We crossed the garden, which looked more like a small jungle than a decorated one.

There was no path.

This was something I was curious about as well.

If people came and went frequently, a path would naturally form where the grass was trodden, but does Karen swing through the trees?

After pushing through the undergrowth, a small cabin appeared.

It was a cabin built of logs.

Smoke was billowing from the chimney, and a savory smell could be faintly detected.

Dewdrops on a spiderweb under the eaves sparkled in the sunlight.

I hadn't knocked on the door yet, but the homeowner seemed to know we were here.

"Oh my, my lord! Old man Brol! Bart! I'm coming out now!"

"You two go back to the carriage and wait."

"Sir, I think I'm lost…"

"...Brol?"

"Sorry. I'm bad with directions in the forest too."

Was this for real?

A man who was once a mercenary captain was bad with directions.

After the homeowner Karen personally escorted her two guests to the gate, I was finally able to enter the cabin.

The savory smell of bread, which could be felt from outside, was overwhelming.

After sitting for a moment, Karen brought out the source of the smell.

Twisted doughnuts.

"This is?"

"Kko-bae… Anyway, it's that hard-to-pronounce bread. You said you wanted to eat it before, my lord, didn't you?"

"You remembered that?"

"It was a story from your childhood, my lord. You don't talk about the old days much, do you? As if you just fell from the sky."

"…If you say that to Alina, it's blasphemy."

"Besides, you kept smacking your lips and even drooling, unlike your usual self. How could I forget that?"

Did I act so sloppily?

I don't remember.

Seeing her smiling as if it were funny, it must be a lie.

A very vicious slander at that.

‘Master, slander? I heard it too. The sound of you swallowing your saliva reached the subspace.’

‘Tick-tock-tick-tock!’

“……”

On second thought, I think I have talked about twisted doughnuts before.

I remember it being a topic that came up naturally when Karen turned out to be talented in baking and confectionery when the bakery first opened after the Harvest Festival.

When I was young, there wasn't much to do for fun, but I lived in a city famous for its bread.

A baker from the famous bakery that made the city famous opened a neighborhood bakery near where I lived.

The memory of going to the bakery around sunset, holding my dad's hand while my younger sister held my mom's, is one of the scenes that decorate my childhood.

Karen's twisted doughnut tasted exactly like the rice twisted doughnut that was always at the front of the tray back then.

"…It's delicious."

"A chewy yet soft bread made with rice. It was quite difficult, but in the process of making it, I was able to research improvements for rice bread."

"Improvements?"

"Yes. If you strain the water from pounded potatoes and let it settle, you get starch. Mixing rice flour with starch, milk, and eggs can make it soft and chewy."

Potatoes.

The answer came from an unexpected crop.

I was wondering if I should import glutinous rice seeds from the Eastern Empire or its neighboring countries.

"You're a genius, as expected."

"Ahaha…"

"I'll have to start large-scale potato cultivation in Kalisto."

"What?!"

Why are you so surprised?

Delicious things should be grown in abundance.

Potato cultivation was a matter I had considered from the beginning.

Potatoes are a root crop, providing more calories than wheat or rice from the same area of farmland, and they are also nutritionally sound.

They grow well without much management, so they can faithfully serve as a relief crop during a famine.

In a domain with a dry climate adjacent to wastelands like Kalisto, it's a perfect staple food.

Though they wouldn't grow well in Wolfskrig's hot and humid climate.

"Wow… You're not even a farmer, but you're so knowledgeable. I've always thought there was nothing you didn't know."

This is all knowledge gained from the game.

Those pseudo-intellectuals who say games are a disease should all disappear.

Though I did fall into this crazy world because of that game…

On second thought, maybe games should be banned.

"Anyway, let's get to the point."

I wiped my mouth with a napkin and corrected my posture.

The purpose of my visit today was not twisted doughnuts.

It was something much more important than mere bread.

And a very political issue.

"Karen, are you a pure-blooded Elf?"

"…!"

Is she simply a fugitive?

Or a royal who fled?

Now that the Elves have begun to act, this was a question that could no longer be postponed.

***

‘It was during the battle of Everlasting Hold.’

Olif's testimony went back quite a while.

‘The 2nd Battalion Commander was providing covering fire for you, the 3rd Battalion Commander, and the Dwarf Prince, who were fighting the Orc Great Chieftain. The enemies must have judged her as a threat as well, as a shaman's attack spell targeted the 2nd Battalion Commander.’

The anomaly happened then.

‘A flame, as if it were alive, protected the 2nd Battalion Commander. Fortunately, the spell narrowly grazed her head and passed by, but that's when I saw it.’

‘That she was an Elf?’

‘Yes. I saw the 2nd Battalion Commander's two ears rising pointedly amidst the flames. I'm not a mage, so I don't know for sure, but I think the Orc shaman's spell must have had some kind of impact.’

The past few days.

Before visiting Karen, I made a round of the ranger posts.

And I secretly asked a few of them who had long earned my trust.

If they had seen the same thing as Olif.

It was such a fierce battlefield that few paid attention to others' ears, but even among the rangers, whose senses were generally superior, there were variations in ability.

There were a few half-elves as well.

To those who adamantly denied it, I spoke.

My sincere intention was that Karen would not be disadvantaged by this matter, and that my purpose was to protect her.

Only after I swore an oath in Luark's name did they cautiously speak the truth.

And.

‘I apologize, my lord.’

"…I apologize, my lord."

Karen said the same thing now.

Some with tears streaming down their faces.

The rest with gritted teeth.

I look at Karen's eyes.

Eyes that always held a firm will, no matter where or when.

In the eyes of the woman who shot down enemies from hundreds of meters away, moisture was welling up.

The answer is already set.

It is no different from what I gave back to her loyal rangers.

"What in the world is there to be sorry about? You haven't done anything wrong."

"…Yes?"

"What's wrong with subordinates being loyal to their superior? Aren't you the field commander? Just as you are loyal to me, it's right for the rangers to be loyal to you."

"Uh…"

"Let's say, by some chance, something happens to me on the battlefield, or I have to let go of my command baton. Is a unit that immediately routs because its commander-in-chief has fallen a normal unit? No, it would be better off not existing at all. It would only be a burden in a crisis."

I am a commander.

Not a god.

Unlike others, I can look down on the battlefield from above, but I cannot perfectly observe every part as if I were there on the ground.

What I can formulate are the overall strategy and the flow of the battle.

In the end, whether a unit lives or dies depends on the commander and the members of that unit.

Unlike a chessboard, here there is no rule that the queen must fight well, nor that the pawn is the weakest piece.

"The same goes for you. So you hid your identity a bit? It's not like you tried to assassinate me, so what's the big deal? Shall I tell you a secret? I've destroyed the world over a thousand times."

"…What?"

"And my hobby is raising evil gods who destroy the world like pets. I feed them. Give them a home. And not just one, but several of them. Turns out, all those evil gods are addicted to flour and sugar."

"No matter how much you try to comfort me… What is all that?"

Karen let out a disbelieving laugh.

I leaned back against the backrest.

It was far from luxurious, a hard wooden backrest, but it had an unknown comfort.

A comfort like the rocking chair at my grandmother's house in my childhood.

"Calania Lemen Sharenta."

That was Karen's real name.

"Sharenta is the surname of Elven queens."

"That's right. To be precise, it's the surname given to queen candidates. The candidates who don't become queen lose their surname after the queen is decided, so in reality, it's a surname only one person can have."

The Elves have no queen.

They used to have one, but the line was said to have been broken.

The last queen died hundreds of years ago.

The current Paradise Elves are ruled by the Senate and a regent.

‘There was a setting that a descendant of the Elven royal family might be hiding somewhere.’

And not just any royalty.

A royal with a legitimate claim to the throne.

Like the nameless Meister of the Dwarves, it was one of the unresolved plot points.

The protagonist of that plot point was here.

Just as William, the disciple of the nameless Meister, is in this city.

The difference is that the nameless Meister is already dead, but the next queen of the Elves is alive and well.

So I asked.

"Karen."

"Yes?"

"Do you like Paradise?"

"No. Absolutely not. That place isn't a paradise, it's a hell. A hell where hundreds of thousands, no, millions are trampled for the eternal life of a few. Without even getting a chance to live, grow, and improve."

"Then I have a proposal. As a lord to a lord."

Noble to noble.

Lord to lord.

But at the same time, as comrades on the battlefield who have shared life and death.

To show respect for the time we have spent together, without deploying [Lord's Unyielding Mind].

Wanting to hear her complete and sincere heart, I asked.

"Will you start a new kingdom here?"