Side: Yuki

For some reason, even after coming all the way to the Enaria Holy Capital, I'm buried under a mountain of paperwork.

Seriously, when you're away on a business trip, shouldn't your main job be negotiating with the people you're meeting...? At most, you'd organize a few documents—not drown in administrative work.

Well... I did create—or rather, restore—a dungeon beneath Enaria, and we effectively established a new branch office here.

"Err... where did that set of documents go again?"

Muttering to myself, I rummage through the paper stacks.

Ugh... I can't find them.

Since we'd hastily set up this office inside the Eneria Dungeon, everything was arranged differently from our office back in Weed.

Heh, heh, heh. Good grief... The number of dungeons under our management just keeps growing, and the list of things requiring investigation is practically endless... Yet we're severely short on manpower.

Why on earth is the actual president of the organization stuck grinding out administrative desk work...? A company like this would go bankrupt in no time back in Japan. A president's job is supposed to be securing funding and meeting with people—not drowning in clerical work alongside everyone else.

Well, securing funds—or rather, Dungeon Points—wasn't really an issue. The real problem was the mana depletion crisis. Until we understood what was causing it, we couldn't carelessly increase our workforce.

You could say our company was carrying out a top-secret project. We had to make sure no one else caught wind of it. Naturally, that meant only people we trusted completely could be involved. On top of that, unlike Weed, we were now traveling between continents that, from the world's perspective, knew absolutely nothing about each other.

If an undiscovered continent were suddenly found on Earth, the nation that discovered it would never reveal it immediately. They'd keep it secret to protect their interests. Though realistically, they probably couldn't hide it forever. The ideal scenario would be to declare themselves the discoverer first, stake their claim, then share the benefits with powerful nations willing to become allies.

...When I looked at our current situation through the lens of Earthly common sense, I couldn't help but laugh... We were doing something absolutely insane.

While indulging in those idle thoughts, I continue sifting through the paper piles, but the target file is nowhere to be found.

"Huh... that's weird. It's really not here?"

I could have sworn I placed it right here... Yeah, I distinctly remember leaving it in this exact spot right before stepping out for lunch. I'm still young enough to take pride in not being senile, but the cold, hard reality is that the file is gone.

"What are you doing?"

"Yes. Just what exactly are you doing?"

Ria and Jessica, who were working through documents beside me, looked over and called out.

If your boss suddenly gave up searching the desk and started opening every drawer one by one, anyone would get curious.

"Well, I was certain I left those reference files right on top of my desk, but they've completely vanished."

I held up one of the related sheets as I explained.

"How unusual for Yuki-san to misplace a document."

"...Are you feeling alright? You aren't coming down with something, are you?""

The moment Jessica said that, both of them suddenly stood up with deadly serious expressions and began walking toward me.

"Calm down. I'm perfectly fine. Besides, what exactly are you planning to do if I were sick?"

Faced with two wives advancing on me with utterly serious faces, I instinctively backed toward the door.

"What are you talking about? If you're sick, then you need to stay in bed."

"Ria is absolutely right. Never forget, Yuki—if you collapse, it would be no different from the end of the world."

"Exactly. And since you always try to run away like this, we'll just have to lie down with you. Right, Jessica?"

"Indeed. The paperwork can wait. Continuing to work after becoming distracted enough to lose confidential documents is far more concerning."

"......"

I could ignore Ria's obvious excuse about wanting to sleep together... But Jessica's reasoning—that continuing to work in this state would only make me less productive—was impossible to argue against.

But I really don't remember misplacing it. There's no way I'd lose a document filled with classified information...

"Hey, Yuki. I'm returning this document... Hm? What are you all doing?"

Suddenly the door opened and Derieu walked in, casually waving the missing stack of papers.

"So you were the one who took them without asking."

"Mm? Ah... my apologies. You'd gone out for lunch, and the rest of us wanted to understand what had happened, so I borrowed them."

She tilted her head.

"But why are Ria and Jessica about to pounce on you? ...Actually, let me join in."

"You're the reason they're about to attack me! Don't take documents without asking!"

I pulled Derieu close, plant my hand firmly on her head, and violently scruff her hair.

"A-Ah! I was wrong! I admit my mistake, so stop it already! My hair is getting completely ruined, ahhhh!?"

I looked back toward the other two.

"So there you have it. The documents were simply borrowed by Derieu. My physical condition is perfectly fine. Now, please sit back down."

""Tch.""

"Oi."

Honestly, I can't let my guard down around my wives for even a single second.

"So," I said, turning back to Derieu. "You mentioned you wanted to get a grasp of the situation?"

"Umu, precisely. It has been roughly three days since the assault on the castle, yet the castle grounds and the surrounding capital town remain in a state of absolute upheaval. We can't exactly wander around in public, so after consulting with Eris and the others, we figured we should review the intelligence gathered beforehand..."

"I see. But these are the reports and documents regarding the attack on the Holy Capital of Enaria."

"There is no harm in us mastering the full sequence of events, is there? After all, Yuki went ahead and handled everything behind the scenes all by himself."

"Well, I was planning to explain everything to everyone once preparations were finished. But those two over there suddenly started moving on their own, so I never got the chance."

As I said that, I glanced toward the corner of the office where two individuals are currently sitting on their heels in full seiza posture, using a pair of inverted mandarin orange crates as makeshift desks to draft a detailed summary of their recent actions.

These two are none other than the true orchestrators operating behind the scenes of the recent Enaria Holy Capital assault. Officially, however, the incident has been framed as an isolated rebellion led by Minister Noku. In the end, I simply consolidated the chaos and leveraged it to crush both factions simultaneously.

"Man..." I sighed. "It really was a terrible incident."

"No," Derieu corrected dryly. "You were by far the most horrific element in that entire sequence."

""Agreed.""

My wives nodded in perfect unison.

They'd learned that I'd forced Sia to perform a naked dance, and ever since, they'd been giving me blank, dead-eyed stares.

By the way, after making her put her clothes back on, I'd also quietly let Peace see her from a distance. Since Sia was technically her arch-nemesis, I couldn't risk Peace losing her mind to pure rage and kill Sia on the spot before we finished gathering information.

However, the moment Peace witnessed the two legendary figures executing the Fun Fun dance together, she burst into uncontrollable tears. She wept uncontrollably, sobbing lines like, "I... I... why did I even...?" I couldn't quite catch the rest over her wailing, but my wives quickly rushed in and escorted Peace away from the scene.

When I asked my wives why Peace had suddenly broken down crying, their answers were strangely vague and evasive. Seraria was the only one who offered a response, staring off into the middle distance with distant eyes...

"She likely felt as though her entire life's purpose had been thoroughly invalidated..." she had murmured.

Invalidated her life's purpose? What part of it?

I'd captured the very enemy she'd sworn vengeance against and made her perform the hilarous dance.

"Anyway," I said, changing the subject. "Did reading the documents help you understand what happened?"

"Umu."

Derieu nodded confidently.

"Eris and Ratz were there too. I understand everything perfectly."

"...Doesn't that just mean you couldn't understand it yourself, so Eris and Latz explained it to you?"

"Minor details do not matter! I understand the situation completely now, so all is well."

"Well, as long as you understood... What about you two? Do you need an explanation?""

Ria and Jessica haven't heard the full debrief yet. If anything remains unclear, explaining it here and now will save us time down the road.

"Yes, please. I was stationed inside the dungeon monitoring security the entire time."

"I would appreciate a debriefing as well. Since we weren't informed of the backend maneuvers, Mist-sama and I were stuck holding down the room alongside Miffy-sama until Derieu and Peace arrived. By the time we realized what was happening, the entire incident had basically drawn to a close."

The fact that these two stayed faithful to their duties is what let me act without too much worry. If either had been missing, we would have been even shorter on manpower, and the damage to the castle town might have been worse.

"Alright. Then I'll explain everything. Derieu, you should listen too. Eris and Ratz may have reached slightly different conclusions than I did."

"Understood."

"You two writing your reports on the orange crates over there can take a break and listen in as well. It'll help you understand how your actions ended up being used."

"...Uuugh. How on earth did things end up like this?"

"Sia, stay strong..."

"....."

Why did this somehow make it look like I was the one bullying them? I'm not the bad guy here.

Three days had passed since the incident. It was probably a good time to review everything from the beginning. I might notice something I'd overlooked too.

"Let's start with the operation I originally intended to carry out."

Picking up a marker, I began writing across the whiteboard.

"The goal was to quickly conclude a ceasefire and buy us more freedom to move."

I began writing on the whiteboard as I spoke. Everyone listened seriously, focusing on the whiteboard and my words.

In truth... what we actually did was pretty plain.

As I said, our goal was to secure the ceasefire quickly so we could devote ourselves to investigating the mana depletion problem. But simply signing a ceasefire wouldn't mean we'd suddenly be free to work in peace. The people opposed to the ceasefire would continue harboring resentment.

Eventually, they'd start acting on their own and cause trouble—whether it meant targeting Princess Miffy, interfering with our activities, or causing trouble in general... It would become nothing but a headache.

Therefore, instead of suppressing those malcontents—I decided to make use of them.

For the anti-ceasefire faction, the ceasefire negotiations were the perfect stage to cause a commotion, with Princess Miffy as a convenient scapegoat. If there was a way to cause a disturbance without taking responsibility themselves, they would definitely use this situation.

Well, if everyone in the country was "Long live the King! Long live the ceasefire!" and followed orders perfectly, it wouldn't work, but that's never the case. There are always cracks. Or rather, if everyone was pure and upright, war wouldn't have broken out in the first place.

So before any of this began, I had Kirika and the others infiltrate the Holy Capital of Enaria. Their mission was to identify influential figures who seemed dissatisfied with the ceasefire and who were secretly maintaining contact with foreign nations.

One name eventually surfaced.

Minister Noku.

He was actively engaging in shady backroom dealings with Lodei—a neighboring state allied with Enaria—making him an exceptionally easy asset to manipulate. Kirika quietly "borrowed" the correspondence between him and Lodei.

Kirika quietly intercepted letters exchanged between him and Lodei. We forged exact copies with altered instructions, and leaked them to his estate. The fabricated instructions suggesting that, once a disturbance broke out, they should use the monster-summoning artifact we'd provided to frame Princess Miffy.

We planned to use that to have the pro-ceasefire and anti-ceasefire factions work together to crush the representative of the opposition. This would deepen mutual understanding, make them comrades-in-arms, and make the remaining troublemakers harder to move.

That had been the plan.

However, as you already know, some revolutionary or whatever suddenly released monsters into the castle and town, causing a huge commotion. Thanks to that, even though I was wondering when to act, I ended up having to improvise a lot on the spot.

Well, they made such a big scene that destroying the Minister's house wasn't a problem, and handing over evidence didn't raise suspicion. If it had only happened at the castle, people would have questioned how we knew about the Minister's secret agreement, requiring more groundwork.

Inside the castle: Mino, Derieu, Peace, and Hein cooperated to eliminate the monsters while protecting the soldiers. Meanwhile, in the city: Eris, Ratz, Milly, and Rurua all performed brilliantly.

Finally, The minister made one last desperate attempt by summoning yet another monster. Ironically, that played directly into our hands. Using that monster, I was able to demonstrate our true strength before the King of Enaria and all the kingdom's leading officials.

This also served as a warning: 'If you pick a fight with us, you'll suffer even more damage than from the monsters'.

"So that's how everything turned out in our favor. You could say it was a blessing in disguise."

After my lengthy explanation, silence filled the room.

Everyone seemed to be mentally reviewing what they'd just heard.

Almost simultaneously, their gazes shifted toward Sia and Kishua.

The two women sat frozen in place. Both had buried their faces in their hands. They were crying.

"Uuu... How... How..."

"...Our perfect plan is..."

Yeah, tough luck, girls.

You two probably thought you were leveraging the ceasefire to execute your own grand master plan, but your absolute worst misfortune was running into a group whose raw stats completely outclassed yours.

"So, moving forward, our immediate course of action is to assist in Enaria's reconstruction efforts. By farming maximum favorability with the local populace and the court, we'll establish a comfortable operational environment that allows us to move freely later on. We'll still be conducting covert investigations behind the scenes, of course, but there's no downside to getting along with them."

"I see."

"Understood."

"I believe that's an extremely logical course of action."

All three of them seemed satisfied with the explanation.

"So, Derieu, was it different from what Eris and the others told you?"

"No, it was fundamentally identical. I simply listened to Yuki's true motives and thought to myself, 'Yup, that's classic Yuki for you.'"

...Classic me, huh? I'll choose to take that as a compliment.

Now, I need to tell one more thing to these pitiful clowns who are crying.

By the way, since Peace still hasn't recovered, these two don't know who we are or why they lost. They might still have hope of being rescued, so I'll crush that too while I'm at it.

"Also, to the two Holy Sword wielders over there: no reinforcements are coming for you. Or rather, even if they do show up, it won't change a single thing."

"...W-What do you mean by that!?"

"...Don't listen to him, Sia. He's only saying that to trick us into revealing information."

"T-That's right! We will never yield to your cowardly threats! Even if you managed to defeat the two of us—"

As Sia begins launching into her cliché villain speech, I smoothly talk right over her.

"—During the initial battle, there was another Holy Sword wielder monitoring the situation from a distance, right? I went ahead and applied a few subtle modifications to her."

""Eh?""

"As long as that individual safely reports our presence back to your main force, we can intercept incoming units with absolute ease. Did you two seriously believe your little watcher went unnoticed?"

Both of their mouths drop wide open in utter shock.

I mean, come on. After launching an operation of that scale, whether it succeeded or failed, having a dedicated scout monitoring the situation to report back is basic military protocol. Frankly, if you weren't even capable of managing that much, you wouldn't qualify as our enemies—you'd barely rank as disposable toys.

Incidentally, calling that individual a "scout" is a bit of a misnomer, considering she is already operating directly under my administrative control. Well, she isn't consciously aware of it, of course. I subtly approached her, placed her under my domain without triggering her awareness, and sent her on her way. She is currently delivering detailed reports about our capabilities directly to her superiors, completely according to my design.

Their operational strategies are completely transparent to us, and we have eyes on every key player. The battle was effectively decided before it even began.

"Honestly, it would be a huge help if your main force targeted the Betan sector next. We've deliberately leaked rumors suggesting our primary combat assets are concentrated over here, and we made sure your scout verified that the two of you are still alive. They'll almost certainly attempt to abduct key members from Betan to use as bargaining chips."

"T-That's right!! I don't know how much you think you've figured out, but your allies back in Betan are as good as dead! Our transportation speed operates on a completely different dimension!"

"Precisely! We advise you to reconsider your position! If you release us right now, your companions might still have a chance to survive!"

Normally speaking, given that they possess spatial translocation capabilities, beating them in a conventional speed race should be impossible.

Yet, my wives simply fix the two girls with even deeper looks of pity.

"...Yuki really is completely merciless, isn't he?"

"...Um, well, our group can easily catch up to spatial transit speed anyway..."

"...There is zero chance Tori and the others would lose to an attack of that caliber."

Hearing those casual remarks from my wives, the two girls freeze, their eyes went completely blank.

Precisely. I deliberately leaked the information.

Why? To wrap up the conflict as quickly as possible and prevent unnecessary, wide-scale mana dispersion. I don't know what grand objective their faction is pursuing, but if they keep spawning high-level monsters and scattering concentrated mana across the realm, there's no telling what kind of ecological disasters might be triggered.

Therefore, it is vastly more efficient to force the climax to occur within a strictly controlled, pre-prepared battleground under our direct management.

"Fu-ha-ha-ha! Struggle as hard as they can! After all, the more they do, the more useful information we'll gather!"

"""......"""

The room suddenly fell silent.

Delivering that villainous line with a sinister chuckle, I suddenly freeze in place.

Then, a thought crossed my mind.

"Hey... did I just sound ridiculously like a classic villain just now?"

"""Yup."""

Ah, looks like I set up a classic losing flag.

Guess I'll just have to layer a few dozen more contingency plans on top of the ones I already have.