The Legendary Rebuilding of a World by a Realist Demon King Chapter 70

The Saint's Z

Chests filled with golden coins were brought to the war council room.

I didn't bring it to the treasure room as it might confuse some people and get mixed up.

In other words, they were that similar. You could not tell them apart.

Fuma Kotaro saw this and raised his voice in surprise.

"That is amazing. World domination will be no distant dream with so much gold."

"If it was real, yes."

And then I told him what we would be doing.

"I want you to take this gold and infiltrate the enemy territory."

"Hmm."

"You will disguise yourself as a great merchant. You will spread the word in advance that you are carrying gold to the south cities."

"And you think Demon King Decarbia will hear of this and steal the money."

"Exactly."

"However, wouldn't it look suspicious if I carried ten thousand pieces of gold on one trip?"

"Indeed. So you should go as three groups and use separate routes."

"That is a good idea."

"And if he does take the bait, I would have plenty of reason to declare war. After all, he attacked a merchant that was under my protection."

"But, it's not real."

"No one will notice for weeks. I will move before then. He will become frantic once I declare war. That means he will want to strengthen his forces in a hurry. I believe he will hire human mercenaries and also buy lots of supplies."

"All with your fake money."

"Exactly. He will be able to pay them. But what will happen after that? How will they react to fake money that suddenly disappears? Will they trust him?"

"Not at all."

Fuma Kotaro laughed.

"Aye. His hired mercenaries will revolt. His merchants will abandon him."

"So, the army of Demon King Decarbia will be thrown into chaos."

"Yes, and it will be easy enough to defeat such an army."

"You may even be able to take his land without meeting him in battle."

"It would be nice if things worked so well, but I do not have such high expectations. We must prepare for battle."

Then I turned to look at Jeanne d'Arc.

She was not particularly intelligent. In fact, I was not sure that she had been following the conversation up until now. But she did understand that I intended on weakening Demon King Decarbia's army.

"I will do my best for you, Demon King!"

She said through clenched fists.

On the other hand, Toshizou said,

"You are as cowardly as ever, My Lord."

After this compliment, he asked about the formation of the troops.

"Same as before. I will lead the monsters. You will lead a mixed group of monsters and humans. Jeanne will lead the human mercenaries."

"Yes, the same as always."

Jeanne said with a smile.

"By the way, we are practically even in strength. But if my plan works, they will be thrown into chaos, giving us a much higher chance of winning."

"And if it fails?"

Toshizou asked the unfortunate question.

"I'll stop this war and scamper off."

"Well, your plans have yet to fail, so I am not worrying about that."

Toshizou and Eve trusted me greatly. But I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

It wasn't good to barely manage to get out of desperate situations every time through artifice.

I say it all the time, but usually, it was the larger number that defeated the smaller number.

This was even in the writings of Sun Tsu. Clausewitz's On War as well.

There was no reverse for that.

We would be following that rule this time as well.

I chose an enemy whose strength matched ours the most. And then I would do what I can to weaken them and decrease their fighting force.

If that failed. Then it would only be right to back out of the fight.

I told this to my commanders, and Jeanne agreed.

"This 'Sunko' person you always talk about is very wise. It's rare for a woman to know so much about warfare."

"Sun Tsu. Not Sunko."

I corrected her, as it was a grave insult to a great strategist. Then I told them to go and prepare the soldiers.

As the soldiers trained everyday, preparations just meant gathering weapons and ammunition.

There was also food and deciding which routes to take.

As it was custom to allow the soldiers to rest before battle, they were also given money.

There was a lot to do, to be honest.

However, these bland tasks greatly affected the outcome of a battle.

In the past, no Hero ever won by taking the issue of supplies lightly.

A good king knew the importance of food and did not allow his men to starve.

I was not likely to become a Hero, but I could avoid being a foolish king. In any case, food was one thing that was very important to me.

Thankfully, I collected plenty of taxes and we had more than enough food. It seemed that I would have no problem getting this war started.

This was mostly due to Eve and Gottlieb, who administered as my hands and feet.

I would have to reward them in some way when the battle was won.

As I thought about this, I declared that the meeting had come to an end. People started to leave, until there was only one person who remained.

The gold-haired Saint.

She looked like she wanted to say something.

But she looked hesitant. Perhaps because it was a war council and she knew that I was busy.

And so I said, 'What is it?' in a gentle voice. She then approached.

She smiled broadly and then opened her book.

"Demon King, look! I reached the letter 'Z.' Now I know all of the letters."

I said that it was very impressive and patted her on the head.

She had worked long and hard to learn this.

It seemed like I often ended up instructing her before a battle. Perhaps it was turning into a tradition for us.

And so I decided that she could move on to learning to read words.

It was quite the step up.

When I told her this, she smiled happily and said,

"I am glad! Thank you, Demon King!"

And then she threw her arms around me. She felt soft and smelled very nice.

Chapter end