A Famous Traitor and Treacherous Genius

6 – These funds are now mine (1)

I think he was around twenty-seven.

The age when he was executed was probably around that time.

The Empire tried to kill me by giving me poison, but it didn’t work. They killed my father and then tried to kill me.

But it failed.

I was rescued by the ‘Kingdom Resurrection Army’ that attacked the execution site.

The person who led the rescue operation was Naria Geo Nostrum.

I still remember it.

Old bed.

A ceiling that looks like it will collapse.

Beyond the blurred vision, a golden-haired woman with white bandages wrapped around her body.

Princess Naria, who lost her country and was involved in resistance activities, was broken in many ways.

Her entire body was covered with tears and cuts, and her left arm had burn marks extending from her shoulder to the tips of her fingers.

There were even traces of something penetrating her abdomen.

It is said that she suffered abrasions while being chased by the imperial army, was pierced by her arrows, and had her stomach pierced by her magic rifle.

Even in the process of attacking the execution site and rescuing me, I was injured.

-Why on earth?

I couldn’t understand.

Because I am a member of the family that sold out the country, and from Nostrum’s point of view, I was a traitor.

-I didn’t save Gray.

In a worn out and hoarse voice, Princess Naria answered my question.

-I just saved the person who would kill the emperor of the empire.

Her To her, I was a ‘tool’ that was valuable for human use.

-You learned the imperial sword method.

-Yes.

-Please let me know. Or you yourself, take up the sword.

An assassination knife to kill the emperor.

The emperor was the strongest martial artist on the continent.

The world’s strongest unmanned vehicle.

A monster that possesses at least a master level talent in handling all cold weapons.

Among them, the emperor greatly preferred blades, swords with curved edges.

The empire itself had been cultivating swordsmanship, including ‘swordsmanship’, for a long time, and the emperor was the pinnacle of ‘imperial swordsmanship’.

-I will take revenge on him directly. If it’s for revenge, I won’t hesitate to save you and use you.

The princess was sincere.

-You were betrayed by the empire. Don’t you want revenge?

-…….

-It’s still the same. Trying to do nothing.

The princess despised me.

-It doesn’t matter. But keep this in mind. If I hadn’t saved you, you would have died.

The princess grabbed my collar with her bandaged hands.

-This is not about holding traitors accountable. I saved your life, now you are mine.

At that time, Princess Naria’s eyes looked sadder and more earnest than ever.

-If you don’t want to do anything, if you don’t know what to do, just do as I tell you. Be my sword.

She forced me to become her sword, her knight.

* * *

“What are you thinking like that, master?”

While riding in a carriage, a driver riding a horse next to me asked.

“Sir Robert.”

“…Oh!”

“Why are you surprised?”

“Well, it’s very rare for you to call me by your first name…?”

Robert Seville, a knight in his mid-20s, scratched his cheek and smiled awkwardly.

“Butlers and maids rarely call you by your first name.”

“Is there a need to remember everyone’s names?”

“Ah, ahahahaha….”

This is sincere.

I don’t think there is a need to memorize the names of people who are not that important to me.

Even those who work in the family.

“In that respect, you really resemble His Excellency the Margrave.”

Does your indifference to those around you resemble your father, or is it a legacy of the Gibraltar family?

“It’s a bit hard to call him a minister, but….”

“I make sure to take care of those I consider important enough to memorize their names.”

“Yes. So I’m happy.”

“I know the Lord’s name?”

“Yes. It is an honor. The first master knows my name.”

I have no choice but to know.

There was a factor in the present, and there is a factor in the future.

“Sir.”

“Yes, master.”

“I was the one who designated you as the escort knight in the first place to go to the ‘gate’ of Gibraltar Gorge.”

“…Yes?”

Robert opens his mouth in surprise.

-Your Excellency the Gray Margrave! Why, why did you betray Nostrum!!

That miserable and distorted image from the future overlapped for a moment.

“I appointed Sir Robert Seville as my bodyguard. Do you not like it?”

“Well, that can’t be possible!! It’s an honor!!”

Robert dexterously waved his hands wildly on his horse and shook his head.

“hehehe, Master, I….”

It’s something I would enjoy.

Whatever the reason, it means that the next margrave has looked upon him favorably since childhood for whatever reason.

“Sir.”

“Yes! Master!”

“Are you satisfied with the Kingdom of Nostrum?”

“……Yes?”

If such a person suddenly starts saying something meaningful, you cannot help but be embarrassed.

“You’re not dissatisfied with the kingdom, are you?”

“…Ah, ahahahaha! That can’t be possible. How much I love Nostrum. I am a man born in Nostrum, and I will die in Nostrum!”

Sorry, but when you die, you die not in Nostrum, but in the land that used to be Nostrum.

“But why are you asking that? Huh, maybe a loyalty test…?”

“It’s similar. I know that you are sincere towards the kingdom.”

“Phew. I thought I was losing my liver.”

“Why with something like this?”

Although he has skills, he is a gentle and naive person.

If you go up to the royal capital, you will be pushed aside by people and relegated to a single position.

A loyal and foolish knight.

Therefore, he is also the person whose name I remembered and memorized.

“Kyung. Next question. Sir, how long do you think ‘Gibraltar Gate’ will protect Nostrum?”

“…….”

“Answer me. Otherwise, it’s not the first time you’ve seen it, right?”

The carriage stops.

I got off the carriage and, accompanied by a guard, looked around the front line of our frontier, ‘Gibraltar Gate.’

Sheer cliffs on both left and right.

Its height reaches a whopping 300m.

Even the length stretching from side to side is several kilometers, and the width of the canyon is only 1.4Km.

The wall installed in the middle of this 1.4 Km long area is the Gibraltar Gate.

There are a total of three gates built on the road inside the approximately 3 km long canyon.

The only land route that connects the empire in the west and the kingdom in the east.

It is the Wailing Wall, which the empire has never been able to overcome until the last gate in its history over the past hundreds of years, and the Gibraltar family has protected this canyon since the beginning.

Detour?

Impossible because there is a forest in the north where elves reside.

Even if you go through an all-out war with the elves, crossing is impossible because there is an extremely long river behind it.

Impossible in the south because it is an area infested with monsters.

It’s a distance that can’t be covered in one day, but it’s actually an area cursed with magic where people can’t lie down on the ground, so camping is impossible.

There is even a ‘statistic’ that says that when crossing over to a place other than a canyon, out of 30,000 people, 3,000 will survive.

In other words, it is difficult to advance eastward by land routes other than the canyon.

In the end, the empire researched invasion methods based on ‘magic engineering’, which could be said to be their core technology, but-

-Margrave of Gibraltar! Our empire will liberate the people of Nostrum Kingdom from their incompetent king! Open the door!

The Margrave opened the gate.

– I will offer the blood of Gibraltar to open the door.

The gateway cannot be opened by physical means.

Because only the blood of Gibraltar has a magic installed that can open the gate.

-Advance!! Towards the royal road!!

When the three gates, which were said to be able to easily block 30,000 with just 300 men, were opened at the same time, the imperial army immediately passed through the canyon and established a camp in the Earl of Gibraltar.

Kingdom, super emergency.

At the time, I remember that about 100,000 soldiers passed through the canyon.

If the Margrave of Gibraltar had risked his life to fight with his soldiers, he would not have come across the ravine alive with only about 10,000, not 100,000.

Or it may have been blocked without being able to cross at all.

“Boy, how can the empire cross the ravine when the Margrave has his eyes wide open?”

If only the Margrave of Gibraltar had drawn his sword against the Empire.

“The kingdom’s strongest sword master. I am

Your Excellency, I think you are truly the strongest in the kingdom!”

“I think so too.”

“As expected!”

That’s because the strongest man has decided to rebel and wants to say ‘Welcome’.

“Even if my father is alone here, the enemy will not be able to cross the gate without permission. If the Sword Master stands on top of the 50m castle wall with sword energy flying, how will they be able to break through it?”

“The castle wall itself is equipped with a mana shield, so it can withstand enemy bombardment as long as the mana of the wizards or magic stones is not depleted. hehehe.”

“Yes. It is truly an invincible shield.”

Returning to the past and looking at it from this side, it is truly absurd once again.

“Sir Robert, do you know? This canyon can only be opened by humans from the House of Gibraltar.”

“Ah, yes! I know very well. When I was first assigned here, I used to walk around on the aerial bridge over there.”

Robert pointed to the wooden steps and ladders installed in the canyon.

Although the door is tightly closed, repairs must continue, so this facility is provided for maintenance workers.

“If there were no bridges and ladders going up and down the 50m wall, the Margrave of Gibraltar would have had to come and open the door every time. hahahaha!”

During the exhibition, the kingdom side is made of special wood that has been magically prevented from burning so that it can only be used on this side, while the other side is just regular wood.

Now that I think about it, that management….

“Hmm.”

One thing occurred to me.

“Go back.”

“Yes?”

“I’m done sightseeing. I wanted to get some fresh air, and I also wanted to talk to you for a bit.”

“Ah, yes!”

Robert didn’t really doubt it, but rather twitched the corners of his mouth that were about to rise and turned his head towards Baek.

“Let’s go, master!”

Really.

A loyal servant like this should have been by Princess Naria’s side.

* * *

When I talk to my father alone, I always feel a slight chill running down my spine.

“Son.”

Although there are some that have the spirit of a sword master.

“What should I do if I want to sell my country?”

I tried to do something in a new direction based on that feeling, but the method wasn’t right.

“It’s a little embarrassing to ask you, who is now 10 years old, but I’m sure you already have the answer that I would need to think about for 10 days to come up with.”

But my father knows how to deal with people well.

“Tell me something. What should I do to pave the way for the empire to take over the kingdom?”

If I hadn’t stood out, my father would have secretly called someone in the family who was dissatisfied with the kingdom.

But I was there, and my father called me.

As a counselor, advisor, comrade, and successor for the rebellion.

“I think the kingdom should be toppled from below.”

“From below?”

“Yes. In order to prevent my father from getting caught later, we should have him decide that ‘there is a possibility that the empire will go to war on its own.'”

“That’s right.”

My father lifted the sword at his waist.

“Even in a sword-to-sword battle, if you want your opponent to attack you, it’s essential to reveal a gap here.”

Politics is like a sword fight.

My father understands politics that way.

“How can I make the gap visible? How can I create the gap?”

“First of all, you have to take a long look.”

It took 10 years in the future.

“First of all, we need to make sure the empire can get over the walls of Gibraltar.”

“Specifically, what? You can just tell me your rough thoughts.”

10 Years old.

A father would hope for the minimum amount of ideas that his child’s brain can come up with.

“Of course, it would be important to create a point of contact with the empire.”

If I had just stayed as the flow went by, I would have been acting like a 10-year-old here, saying, ‘Uh, that’s it.’

-You didn’t do anything.

The words Princess Naria said to me pierced back into my head like a dagger.

-If you…

I swallowed the last words, but the phrase ‘if you actively did something’ was probably omitted.

So.

“Let’s attract the empire’s spies. All we have to do is create a cause.”

“Justice?”

I decided to willingly become a ‘genius’.

“Yes. I happened to see Gibraltar Gate today. Um, the ladder equipment is…old.”

“Hmm? What are you talking about? The ladder equipment is-“

“Father, you don’t want to buy new wooden doll toys and plush toys because they are worn out, right?”

“……Ho.”

My father’s eyes began to sparkle.

“We tear everything down and build a new one. Instead of mobilizing local residents, we hire construction workers directly.”

“Indeed, indeed… By bringing in workers, the empire’s spies naturally seep in among those workers…?”

“Yes. We are doing construction for national defense, so what problem is there?”

Our assets must be protected.

“Anyway, it’s old, so we’re building a new one.”

For greater treason in the future.

“And I think this is the most important thing….”

Treason, the first.

“You request the budget from the king, right?”

A waste of taxpayers’ money.