Chapter 412: Lost Property of the Church

"Oh my, my brother Ulrich is coming back with His Highness the Crown Prince?"

"It seems His Majesty the Grand Duke and the rest of the lords plan to spend Carnival in Radensdorf."

Piecing together the contents of Count Belfort’s letter, the crown prince had apparently been pestering the grand duke about how long he meant to go on camping out in the east, and the grand duke seemed to have packed the crown prince off with Ulrich in response.

Come to think of it, the grand duke isn’t exactly a hardworking monarch. He has no interest in developing his lands and leaves all the work to his ministers, so I have no idea what he actually does with his time.

Hmm, don’t tell me conspiracy is his hobby, exactly as his disposition suggests?

Or is he trying to stir the count palatine’s family up even further, now that a civil war has broken out among them?

Anyone else might not manage it, but the grand duke is more than capable. People with the conspiracy disposition love getting the better of others more than anyone else in the world. And on top of that, he has power.

"So he means to dump everything on His Highness the Crown Prince."

"Or maybe the Wittelsbach princess has him wrapped around her little finger."

"Princess Elisabeth, was it? The one who appears in the fourth heroic ballad? What is she like?"

It was a touchy subject, so I looked away as casually as I could. Of all things, the fourth heroic ballad praised the Gale Knight for rescuing a beautiful princess kidnapped by a wicked black knight.

"She’s a pitiful woman. I heard she’s been shown more than twenty prospective political marriage partners."

"Good heavens! So the Bavarian royal house treats their precious princess like a piece of merchandise!"

"Originally, she was Prince Louis’s intended."

At the mention of Louis, Hilda looked startled, then grew solemn.

They say the political marriage was pushed through to form an alliance with the Duke of Radensdorf at the time, but looking back on it now, the match seems to have been used to build up a justification for intervening against the Altringen royal family.

In the end, Grand Duke Konrad got himself a decent justification. He had to hand his niece over to Grand Duke Karlus, whom he despised, but he gained a card he could use to pressure the count palatine, whom he hated even more.

And now that the count palatine’s eldest and second sons have started a civil war, could there be any better windfall? The grand duke’s staying in the east might mean he has secretly struck some kind of agreement with Bavaria.

Hilda, who had been quietly sipping her tea, let out a sigh.

"I’d heard royal marriages weren’t easy, but this is truly beyond imagining."

"Princess Evangeline, who’s so fond of you, won’t have an easy time getting married either."

"That’s true. Lady Eva is of marriageable age as well."

Is there anyone in the country fit to marry Princess Evangeline?

The only power that could match the royal family’s status is the Rudelich family of Offenburg, but with Lily paired off with the crown prince, that door is closed too. The rest are all run-of-the-mill count families.

Then a possibility suddenly came to mind.

"His Majesty the Grand Duke told me to make a special effort to build a friendship with His Highness the Imperial Crown Prince."

"So it’s a scheme to use that friendship to get close to the imperial crown prince. Is His Highness still unmarried?"

"Not yet. He was griping about how hard it is to find a wife, since the empress meddles so much."

Is the grand duke thinking of marrying Evangeline off to the next emperor? The Habsburgs don’t seem likely to accept a match with a family that has no dowry (land). But it isn’t entirely out of the question either.

When he announced he was sending the Duke of Altringen (formerly the Duke of Radensdorf) to Austria, his appointing me as an attendant struck me as a bit odd, but if that was the reason, it made sense.

Forging a blood alliance with the Habsburgs to stand against Burgundy matters too. Friedrich, called the gentle emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, had long been especially wary of Burgundy.

People whispered behind his back that he was an incompetent emperor who couldn’t repel Hungary’s invasion, and yet he took a hard line against Burgundy. He even went so far as to present twelve bronze cannons to the Duchy of Beren.

Grand Duke Karlus took the gift as mockery, but for the emperor to hand over cannons meant he cared that much about border security. And this at a time when Hungary, having swallowed up Bohemia, had pushed right up to his doorstep.

Why worry more about a distant enemy than a nearby one?

I’ll have to ask him casually when I meet Maximilian.

"Still, I won’t go until after our child is born."

I kissed the back of Hilda’s hand and whispered it like a vow. There had been times I traveled away when problems came up in the territories, but those trips lasted two weeks at most, nothing compared to a foreign campaign lasting months.

For two weeks I hadn’t had a moment to relax, sorting out Vintenheim’s various problems and setting its direction. The irony of it: I, a former office worker who used to curse workaholics, had become a workaholic myself.

Still, I took comfort in having escaped the point grind. Have you ever seen a hyena prowling the foothills in search of quests? I’d nearly become one. I’d much rather be a leopard.

That’s thanks to the point generator the system installed in my office. I first installed it in Feuzen for 2,000 points, but since I never upgraded it, it only generated the most basic 20 points a day.

Twenty points a day? That’s it?

At first, I wondered what good that pittance would do anyone.

I even tallied up the points I’d accumulated over the course of the civil war, and it came to about 2,000. Hmm, in a peaceful, war-free period, that’s a decent income, even if it takes three months to bring in.

Then, when I relocated to Rosenheim for good, the point generator’s range expanded, and once a total of 140 points a day started coming in from seven territories including Rosenheim, it was a different story.

Paralyzed by indecision over where to spend my remaining 55,000 points, I poured every last one of them into upgrading the point generator. Reaching level 5 required a total of 60,000 points, so I settled for level 4 for the time being.

Then, with the points gathered over the next two weeks, I raised it to level 5, and at last an income of 700 points a day started rolling in. I no longer needed to be tied down to repetitive quests or quest hunting.

That’s 7,000 points in ten days and 70,000 in a hundred.

Is this what a landlord’s easy living feels like?

Passive upgrades were so expensive that I’d been at a loss over how many quests I’d have to grind to afford them, so this was like stumbling on an oasis in the desert. That’s probably why I’d regained my composure.

"How does it feel to be appointed search unit commander of the Gale Knights?"

"It’s like I’ve set foot on the stairway to heaven!"

"If you set foot on that stairway, you’re dead."

"I mean that’s how it feels! How it feels!"

Ted Meyer had been released from his post as training instructor and officially assigned as search unit commander under the Gale Knights. The unit was built mainly around members recruited from the east who had failed to fit in.

The existing members mocked it as the dropout unit, but since Ted was its commander, they kept their jeering quiet. Ted was my direct retainer, which showed how much attention I was paying to this unit.

And their mission really was very important to me. A lord couldn’t go off treasure hunting at his leisure, so I’d used the need for reconnaissance as a justification to create a treasure-hunting unit.

At the same time, I meant to give the struggling dropouts within the Gale Knights another chance. For most of them, the problem was that their lowly status made it hard to fit in properly.

Ted, with his exceptional people skills, would take good care of them and lead them well. And since they’d been through basic cavalry training and real combat, their fighting strength at least was nothing to worry about.

Daniel came in carrying three scrolls.

Ted and Daniel exchanged nods of greeting, glad to see each other.

"As commander of the Gale Knights, I hereby give the search unit its first mission. Search unit commander, follow the clues in these scrolls and find the extremely important ’lost property of the Church.’"

I phrased it as the Church’s lost property out of concern for how others would see it. The search unit was already being called the dropout unit, and if word got out that they’d been mobilized for a lord’s treasure hunt, they’d be looked down on even more.