Reincarnated into a Game As the Hero’s Friend - Chapter 112

Chapter 112

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Hello, Nisarah is here! So I once again hope to ask the readers’ wisdom!

1. their leader is demon king

2. in the earlier chapter, Welner mentioned ‘monster’ without using the 魔物 kanji so I assumed ‘魔物 ‘ and ‘monster’ were different species

But in chapter 111 Welner mentioned a demon named Minor Demon so I’ve been thinking of changing 魔物 into monster or translating Minor Demon into another words, or just kept both but what do you all think?

Tldr: Should I change all church into temple and demons into monster or not? vote here!

♦

The next day, I was stuck in this meeting room in the morning. Even His Majesty was taking part in today’s meeting, so it was pretty important. I was only standing silently in the corner, though. I was only attending today’s meeting because I was told that I had to attend no matter what, not because I particularly had something to say.

The first agenda of the meeting was the award ceremony. The highest commander of the Finnoi defense battle, Duke Grunding, was granted the mining right of the Zarsden Mine. From what I remember, the mining right of the Zarsden Mine originally belonged to the Bachem house, so the royal family lost nothing by giving that mine’s rights to the Grunding house.

No matter who held the mining rights, the amount of taxes that should be paid to the kingdom remained the same, so the kingdom as a whole would also lose nothing. Plus, the Zarsden Mine wasn’t located in the Grunding Duchy, so it would be easy for the royal family to monitor it. The only advantage Duke Grunding would have by having this mine’s rights was that his income would increase.

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On the other hand, this announcement would also act as a warning to other nobles, a kind of announcement that the Bachem house would be punished for its action.

“Next, Ingo Fati Zeavert. The work that Sir has done is worthy of praise. As such, in addition to the reward money, we would also allow Sir’s family to have an ornamental frame on the family crest.”

Surprised gasps filled the room after His Majesty finished his words. For me, though, I was trying my hardest to hold back my bitter smile. The royal family was too cheap.

It was said that once people had enough food, clothing and money, they would start chasing honor. This was exactly the case for nobles. There were even some noble houses that would even put their family honor above the life of their own family head.

And in this muscle-brained world, military honor was considered more valuable than some land in the eyes of the people of the court. Our ancestors sure did a good job making people think of honor like this. After all, it would cost the royal family absolutely nothing to give honor.

In my previous life, the subject of the nobility family crest was pretty complicated. Its design involved the history and the characteristics of the members of that house. You needed far more than one book to explain all that.

But perhaps because this world was originally a game world, the subject regarding the nobility crest in this world was simpler. In one word, the nobility family crest was proof of the family origin, just like the Kamon in Japan. The nobility family crest didn’t even appear in the game.

(T/N: Kamon is a Japanese family crest.)

Long story short, family crests existed in this world, so wearing random family crests wasn’t allowed. What I think was unique to this world was that no family crests depicted mythical beasts like Dragon or Griffin. I mean, in my previous world, they were considered mythical beasts, but here, they were a real enemy of humans.

The old noble family used animals or plants as their crest, while the younger noble family used objects like musical instruments or weapons as their family crest. The newly emerged noble family often used simple patterns like stripes or polka dots as their family crest.

The difference between the family crest didn’t mean that older noble family houses always had more influence in the court compared to the emerging ones. There were several emerging noble houses that had a huge influence on the court.

The frame that surrounded the noble’s family crest was something that reflected their standing. No frame meant the family was an honorary noble family, monochrome frame meant the family was a normal noble family, and gold and silver frame meant the family was a superior noble family.

Lastly, the decorated frame was the highest-ranked frame. Giving the right to use the decorated frames to the Zeavert family meant that the royal family acknowledged the Zeavert family as the top-ranked family among the Count houses. But that was all. There was no additional benefit to having this frame. Ah, no there was one. Your seat arraignment in the banquet would change… what a useless benefit.

Those who think of it as important would be elated to have the right to use decorated frames, but unfortunately, I wasn’t one of those people. I mean, other than the so-called honor, the crest frame was practically worth shit. Furthermore, the nobility around me would be observing and judging me more harshly because of this crest, so for me, having it was more of a curse than a blessing.

That was why, dear honorable nobles, would you all stop looking at me with those gazes!? Although no matter how much I disliked it, I would wear that family crest in the future.

After that, other noble families were also given various rewards. Then suddenly, the air turned cold.

“We will now announce the families that would receive punishment. First, Knap Marquis House.”

“Yes!”

The current Marquis Knap, Frank Pablo Knap, stepped forward. He then kneeled and lowered his head. I personally think he was more of a victim here, but since his nephew, Mangold, caused the battle to be waged in the capital, others wouldn’t be satisfied with letting the Knap Marquis house go without any punishment.

“One of Sir’s family members gathered soldiers without the royal family’s permission and caused damage to many other noble families. Head of Knap house, do you have any excuse!?”

“No, I have no excuse!”

The devils that entered the capital because of Mangold’s action caused some noble families to lose their most skilled knights and worse, some noble families even lost their family heads. So the royal family had to punish them here.

But I still felt sorry for the new Marquis Knap. After he got the Marquis title, all he did was to stay in his territory to rebuild the Knap house and take care of the refugees from the former Triot who came sporadically to the Knap Marquisate.

“If that is the case, we would give the Knap family a suitable punishment. The current Knap Marquisate would be confiscated and we order Sir to rebuild the former Fleethem County. The position of Count Fleethem would remain, but as the head of Fleethem remained missing, the position would be left vacant.”

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The room became noisy again. Essentially, Marquis Knap was ordered to rebuild ruined Fleethem County, including the half-destroyed Valeritz, on his own.

In addition, the Knap house’s territory was reduced by a large amount to the point that a random Count House would have more territory than the Knap house. This was a quite severe punishment.

But I felt that the royal family did well by deciding on this punishment. With this, the Knap Marquisate was now a territory under the direct control of the royal family, so they could now build a defense facility to prepare for Gezarius’s attack with no hindrance. However, this one benefit wasn’t something I could announce to the public now. The kingdom reaped a lot of benefits with this decision.

“Then…”

His Majesty mentioned about 20 noble houses of various sizes. They were all noble houses that the devils had successfully infiltrated. They were the victims of Mangold’s plot but they have to receive punishment for letting themselves be used by the devils.

Still, since this many noble houses became the victim of Mangold’s actions, it was no wonder that the royal family decided to severely punish the Knap house.

“Originally, we should have given punishment to all houses that we had mentioned before, but as the number of the houses was large and we have acknowledged that many of them were only unwillingly being dragged into a conflict, we have decided to give Sirs a chance.”

As His Majesty said that, a map so large to the point it could be mistaken as the wall tapestry was brought out. It was the map of the capital and I recognized most places marked on it. In any case, how big would a demon need to be to produce this kind of demonskin paper?

“As Sirs could see, this was the map of our capital. The places marked on the map were places where there were some problems with the road’s stone pavement, or some renovation was needed.”

The locations marked on the map were the locations that were mentioned as having various problems in the daily report of the orphans and the refugees who were cleaning the street. I made a list of those locations and submitted it to the kingdom on the same day as the prototype weapons demonstration. A public facility that wasn’t mentioned inside my list was also marked on that map, though.

“If Sirs could repair the places marked on this map using Sirs’ own money, we will not mention the matter of the punishment in the future. Of course, the record of Sirs’ family ever receiving punishment would also be erased. Furthermore, we would also allow a nameplate for the person responsible for the renovation of a certain place to remain there.”

As soon as His Majesty said that, many nobles immediately raised their hands and actively offered themselves to take part in the renovation work. The nobles’ reaction was quick.

“We are pleased by everyone’s eagerness, but for this renovation project, we have one condition. Sirs must hire the capital’s citizens and the refugees as the workers for this renovation project.”

No one was dissatisfied with that condition. Everyone was fired up as if they were fighting for a precious seat. It was getting chaotic here.

As I was watching the situation in front of me that exceeded my expectation, His Highness looked at me with a smile hidden in his eyes.

The royal family’s decision to do this was killing more than 2 birds with one stone. First, rather than giving the noble families disgrace by giving them punishment, the royal family gave them a chance to carve their names in the capital. For the noble families that value honor, this was a great gift, rather than punishment.

Second, this renovation project would ease the citizens’ hearts. The citizens didn’t care where the money for the renovation came from. What they cared about was the fact that the royal family cared for them, so this project was a good opportunity to overwrite the citizens’ bad memory of the capital almost breaking into a civil war.

And the most important thing was that the economy would move with this renovation project. The basis of the economy was to make the money circulate.

It was hard to make the money circulate properly because of the demon king invasion and the attack in Finnoi. However, if the nobles’ money were spent on doing this renovation project, the money would end up in the people’s hands, who would in turn buy goods and with that, the economy would start to move.

In addition, this renovation project provided job opportunities to the refugees, so the renovation project could also become one of the countermeasures against the problem of refugees. The refugees would use the money that they earned via the renovation project to buy goods in the capital so the economy would move again. The renovation project could also provide job opportunities to poor people. Not to mention, by working in repairing the stone pavement, anyone would also be able to gain some experience as a mason, so even poor citizens without any education could finally gain some work experience.

There were many other benefits.

Well, the prices of consumable things, especially food, might rise, but since the royal family currently had a lot of financial leeway now, everything should be fine. I mean, the royal family didn’t have to spend any money on the renovation project.

“However…”

His Majesty’s cold voice overwhelmed all the people in the room. This might be rude, but maybe because my impression of the king was someone who threw all his responsibilities to the hero, I never thought that the king could make that kind of voice.

“Count Bachem, who is not in this room, would be excluded from this renovation project. We will announce our decision regarding Count Bachem in the future.”

Decision was a roundabout way of saying punishment. For His Majesty himself to say this word meant that Count Bachem would receive a severe punishment. Understandably, His Majesty seemed to be really angry at Count Bachem.

Still, I was curious. Did the Bachem family was used by Lestlatga while their only aim was to bring Lily to their own territory, or did they plot to bring Lily to Lestlatga from the very beginning? I didn’t have enough information to find that out.

“We will also divide the former Knap Marquisate into several parts, and will appoint people to act as governors in our stead. First, Viscount Welner von Zeaver.”

“HUH??”

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I was surprised because my name was suddenly mentioned while I was lost in my thoughts. 

“We will officially appoint Sir as Viscount, and as a governor under the royal family. Sir would be in charge of Anheim region of the former Knap Marquisate.”

“I will humbly accept the order!”

I deserve praise for barely being able to react. I got a feeling that my manner was strange today… Ah, I didn’t know. My head was blank.

How did this happen??