Chapter 684: Sly Fox of Sharal

When I finally took some time to visit Kakagar, I had already thought of many hypothetical situations beforehand.

Would he be heartbroken because of losing his homeland? Would he be burning with fiery passion, wanting to take back what had been his? Or would he be in a funk due to receiving a severe impact?

“No matter what, he’s probably changed. It’s so embarrassing for him to have fallen so far already in just a few years.”

However, I never expected to see Kakagar like this…

“Dear courageous adventurers and Contract Heroes, evil fire monsters are right before us! But, have you truly fully prepared against them? This is the final stop before the frontlines of battle against the flames, so don’t miss this opportunity! We have ice magic scrolls, ice magic potions, fire resistant staffs, and all sorts of ultimate anti-fire equipment for sale! Moreover, as we’re the previous masters of this land, not only can you obtain free maps from us, we’ll even issue quests to you! As long as you can bring us fire elemental soul cores and magic materials, you’ll be handsomely rewarded by us!”

No, it wasn’t Kakagar who personally announced that via a loudspeaker. The person speaking had previously been his personal secretary. Kakagar was currently crouching by the list of exchangeable rewards, eating some pancakes without regard for his image. He was even sweating all over. If it weren’t for the fact that I recognized him, I wouldn’t have been able to tell him apart from an ordinary merchant.

For some reason, he wasn’t staring at the volcano with hate in his eyes, nor did he seem to be depressed at all. In fact, there seemed to be no difference in how he acted from before.

“Hey, isn’t this Your Highness Roland? Are you here to take a look, or maybe for a tour? If you intend to go into the volcano on an adventure, I have plenty of good products for you. I guarantee that the flames won’t harm you. I’ll even give you a 40% discount.”

In fact, he was the first to greet me. Yet, my face kept twitching. Had I been even a slightly military person, I would have likely already tossed this guy into prison.

As for why? The wares that Kakagar was currently selling to the adventurers were all military resources just issued to the Mist Alliance military!

In order to deal with fire elemental creatures, all the nearby military forces in the area received anti-fire equipment. In fact, Kakagar’s wares were even marked with the seal of the Mist Alliance military.

“What happened to your military?”

“There were only 3,000 soldiers left to begin with, and more than 2,000 died on that night against the beast stampede. I think there were about 400 or 500 left, but they were pretty useless, so I told all of them they could go.”

I paused in surprise for a moment before being filled with a mysterious sense of anger. However, Kakagar spoke up again first.

“Country… I know that you all never admitted that Sharal was a country, but at least it was a territory. But now, even the territory is gone, so what use is there for a military force belonging to this former territory? It would be better to just let them go back to their families. It wasn’t easy for any of them to survive.”

Kakagar stood up and rubbed his hands as if he was cold. Although his expression was still calm, my soul vision could tell that for an instant, he showed agony and pain.

“…Are you regretting it?”

I didn’t refer to what he was regretting, but I knew that he’d understand.

“Regret? That’s so meaningless. That’s because the choice I made eight years ago wasn’t wrong at all. Business development was the most suitable choice for Sharal. My people’s lives improved so quickly all because of this choice. Our status in the Mist Alliance improved as well…”

Kakagar paused for a moment of mysterious silence. But when he spoke again, he spoke even more directly.

“Even if I had the chance to redo everything, I would still have chosen this path. Sharal never had much of a standard military force to begin with. Our population is insufficient, which makes our combat potential insufficient. Our mixed-blood population is also unable to keep up with the times. Rather than being on guard against this and that, missing the opportunity to majorly develop alongside the Mist Alliance, I would far prefer to take a gamble and focus purely on business opportunities. It was just that our luck was rather poor, and it turned out that a volcano was underneath us. Not only that, the Fire Elemental Lords had to come attacking…”

I suddenly felt a mysterious sense of guilt as I kept mentally telling myself, ‘This isn’t my fault! It’s not that I jinxed Sharal!’

“…But since we’ve already enjoyed the benefits of my choice from eight years ago, then it’s also natural to have to pay a price. There’s no meaning to regret. Rather than wasting time on regret, it’s better to just focus on the future.”

I could tell through my soul vision that everything he said came from the bottom of his heart. Perhaps, I… no, the entire Mist Alliance had underestimated Kakagar.

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Weak countries would also have their own path of survival. Strong countries could be forceful and act sly or domineering, or try and scheme or cause fractures between other countries. However, any weak country that tried this would be playing with fire.

Kakagar had seen that the future Mist Alliance would have more centralized authority, and as power became more centralized, the Mist Kingdom would definitely eliminate those who opposed it within the Mist Alliance. And even if nobody openly opposed the Mist Kingdom, there would always be one or two that would be made an example of in order to force the other Mist Alliance member countries into submission.

Since the overall unity of the Mist Alliance meant that no internal warfare would actually break out, with only cold wars transpiring, Kakagar seemed as if he was greedily enjoying peace and giving up on his military, but actually, he was disarming himself in order to reduce other countries’ vigilance against Sharal. He relied on having the two major Mist countries’ support so that he could concentrate fully on business opportunities to develop Sharal. At the same time, he also slowly joined the Mist Alliance’s political circle with the identity of someone harmless.

The developments over the past few years had more than proven his choice to be correct. Just 10 years ago, who would even know the name of this ruler of Sharal? But now, the ruler of every Northlands country would pay him their respects.

As for other things, Kakagar was in no hurry. He could wait until the Holy War was over. Not having a military meant that Sharal wouldn’t have to send forces to contribute to the Holy War. Sending financial assistance instead was quite acceptable, and would even bring less pressure. And after the Holy War ended, that would mean a rebalance of all the great powers, which might even give Sharal an opportunity to rise up. At the very least, since Sharal’s economy had improved so much, the country would naturally become more powerful as well, so Sharal would have greater influence.

When looking at all of this from the perspective of a small country, not only was nothing wrong with this development plan, it even showed signs of great wisdom and understanding of politics. Even if Kakagar’s personal reputation was ruined along the way, as everyone would think of him as nothing more than a merchant, as long as he succeeded, he could be viewed in the future as a greatly successful ruler. But if his luck was poor… just like how it was now, he would likely become reviled as an incompetent and foolish ruler who caused the destruction of his own country. It would also be impossible to remove such a stain even after his death. It was likely that his descendants would have to bear with such a tarnished reputation for the rest of their lives.

Actually, what was the difference between a foolish ruler and a wise ruler? What was the difference between someone insane and a genius? Sometimes, the only difference would be a tiny amount of luck, for the unlucky who failed, no matter how much they tried to explain things, would forever be considered to be in the wrong. As for the fortunate who succeeded, no matter how much they emphasized that it had only been luck, others would only view it as their acting humble.

“…Do you want to recover Sharal’s territory?”

“Yes, but it’s almost impossible. I also understand what an elemental war represents. Also, for the entire Mist Alliance, for the Mist Kingdom, and for you… I believe that you don’t wish to see the ‘fire’ here being extinguished. In that case, no matter if it’s possible or not, it will become impossible to extinguish the fire here.”

Indeed, I wanted the Mist Alliance to be engaged in battle. Best of all would be a battle whose scale could be controlled. This would give us the perfect excuse not to get involved in all the chaotic battles of mainland Eich. Having an ongoing battle in the Northlands would also make the Chaos Faction and Order Faction less on guard against us.

While we weren’t the ones who lit this fire in the Northlands, judging from long-term results, this fire was indeed beneficial for the Mist Alliance. As Kakagar surmised, I definitely wouldn’t let this fire be extinguished so easily.

“Sly Fox” Kakagar had a seemingly honest smile, worthy of a professional merchant. Yet, his words made it quite clear that he wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he had seen through everything.

I fell silent. With Kakagar being so direct and honest with me, if I replied using some official governmental words, that would only make me sound foolish and vulgar.

“…Actually, there’s already no more reason for the Sharal Autonomous Region to exist,” Kakagar stated.

If some other Sharal person had said this, I likely would have believed them to be insane. But right now, Kakagar had finally tossed aside all appearances as he spoke such words quite seriously.

“Originally, my ancestors named this place ‘Sharal’ as a homonym for the word chauvinism. This was to remind us that all of us were unfortunate individuals who were victims of ethnocentrism. We all had such difficult times due to being exiled by racists, and since other species didn’t treat us as part of their own kind, we mixed-bloods would become a family of our own. No matter if someone was a half-elf, half-human, half-beastman, half-giant, or whatever, as long as that person was a victim of ethnocentrism or beliefs of racial purity, that person would be part of our family.

“…Over the past several centuries, there have been 11 generations of Sharal leaders. They have all lived up to our ancestors’ promise, and the situation in the Northlands didn’t change one bit. The entire Northlands was our enemy. Everyone else looked down on us, viewed us with hostility, and cursed us as half-blood bastards. Pure-blood humans even viewed us as beings lower than beasts. Apart from the Mist Kingdom which was blood-related to us and the barbarians, the entire Northlands viewed us as lowly outsiders.”

Kakagar paused for a moment. Then, it seemed as if his murky yellow eyes started glowing golden as he became incredibly energetic.

“But, the appearance of the Mist Alliance changed everything. When the entire Mist Alliance began to accept the undead, elves, beastmen, dwarves, dark elves, and dragons, with your policies of racial equality and mutual respect, it became much easier to accept us mixed-bloods who had always been viewed as strange before. Your Highness Roland, we mixed-bloods are truly grateful to you for this. At the very least, we can now walk openly out in the streets of the Northlands without needing to wear capes and hoods. We no longer need to worry about being treated as thieves and bastards, or being imprisoned or enslaved for no reason.”

Kakagar was actually many generations removed from being a half-blood, reaching the point where he appeared fully human except for having pointy ears, but he had always viewed himself as a mixed-blood in his heart, along with being the representative of all mixed-bloods. Although he seemed to be foolish and dull, he actually had a sensitive heart.

“I won’t waste words by trying to ask for a place where all species can truly treat each other equally. But as long as the Mist Alliance becomes stronger and stronger, all species will finally be able to live together, and everyone will be a foreigner, yet nobody will be a foreigner. Sharal, the land that offers harbor to mixed-blood ‘bastards’, will indeed no longer be necessary in this Mist Alliance. That was when I finally decided to start developing business and tourism in Sharal. Due to the development of magical engineering, we mixed-bloods no longer have any advantages in battle. Our population is low, and we’re uncouth. Such weaknesses of ours are quite obvious. In order to keep up with the current generation, I had to find a way for the people of Sharal to support themselves, and now that Sharal no longer exists, it might actually be a good thing for all of us mixed-bloods to truly enter the entire Mist Alliance and the Mist Kingdom. The Mist Kingdom is a major country that won’t possibly mistreat its own people.”

“Sly Fox” Kakagar dusted himself off, got up, and started walking off, leaving me with only the image of his back.

“I don’t need any compensation for losing my country. As long as the Mist Alliance and Mist Kingdom continue to survive and thrive, that will be enough for us mixed-bloods.”

And right after that, Kakagar’s voice filled with wisdom suddenly become much sharper.

“…Everyone, don’t miss out on this great opportunity! We’re selling the newest and best military equipment here! These are outstanding wares that you can’t purchase anywhere else, even with money! I obtained all this by risking my very life…!”