Extra Story: Thereafter of the Foolish Royals ①

This extra is the author’s luxury.
It has nothing to do with the main story, so skip it if you would like to.
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“Congratulations on the engagement.”
“Thanks.”

The day after Armilicia’s engagement party, I the King, was attending the full-body meeting.
Yesterday’s party was a turbulent event, and was the talk of the town.

What’s more, the difficult to handle anti-demon aristocrats were finally abolished, and the central army, which was up in the air till now after forming peace with our neighboring country, could now be put to work again. Truly two birds with one stone, no; three birds if we include Armilicia’s engagement itself.

The count who despaired was graciously granted land, and the anti-demon aristocrat who lost his position became the child of a real aristocrat.
I truly am moved by myself, for creating this situation where no one loses.

“Lord (Lougracia), yesterday’s case was handled in an excellent manner. I’m honored to be born under the reign of a wise King like you.”

I hear a voice raised in my admiration.

“If it isn’t the Defense Minister. Keep up the good work.”
“Ha!”

The Defense Minister bows and sits down.
It seems that everyone is now ready.

“Then, let us start the meeting. First the report from the military department.”
“Ha!”

In response to my words, the meeting begins.
The Defense Minister stood up and starts his report.

“……that’s all”
“Hm…. Hmm? It seems that the military spending of the month before last has increased significantly, but why is this?”

Looking at the report in my hand, the military spending of the month before last is more than ten times that of the previous months.
The numbers for last month have not been released yet, but this number is unusually high even though it is not during the war.

“Ha! That’s the cost of sending troops to the Demon Forest. Since there are actual battles there, the cost of repairing weapons and armor as well as the cost of treating soldiers are included in the amount.”
“I see.”
“This time, we have spent extra money, but I would still like to have some more funds in order to raise the morale of the soldiers who are going to the frontier. In the Demon Forest, magic stones can be harvested to offset the costs.”

Hm, I thought this was a good way to utilize the army which was taking it easy till now, but it seems that it costs more than I expected.
However, if we’re able to compensate for it, I’ll let it be.

I heard that magic stones from the monsters of the Demon Forest have high magical power and can be quite expensive.
It’s a little disappointing that you can’t make a profit there.

But protection against the Demon Forest is an important job to protect the breadbasket after all.
It shouldn’t matter much even if we don’t make profits there.

“Okay. Finance Minister, calculate the profits from buying and selling magic stones and use that to pay for the military’s expeditionary expenses.”
“…”
“What’s wrong? Finance Minister?”

When I give instructions to him, the Finance Minister flips through the materials many times and begins to confirm something.
After a few seconds, he raises his head.

“Um, about the sale price of magic stones, since the magic stones acquired by anti-demon aristocrats are already recorded as being earned by the army, we can’t increase military funding from the magic stones collected by the central army. Rather, the magical content of recently collected magic stones has lowered from before causing their prices to drop. I came here to request that they be defeated a bit more gracefully…”
“What!?”

The Defense Minister hits the table and stands up.

Looking at the documents given by the Finance Minister, it is true that the profits from magic stones has dropped.
Isn’t it close to half the price from before?
Because it was originally a large amount, the difference had reached thousands of gold coins.

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“Are you calling our soldiers second-rate?”
“No I’m not. However, it’s true that the quality of magic stones has dropped. Given our losses, next month’s military spending will have to be cut.”
“What are you saying! It costs more to defend against the Demon Forest! How dare you reduce it!?”
“If that’s the case, then we’ll just have to sell the military recreational facilities in the Center.”

The Defense Minister and the Finance Minister were creating a pandemonium.
I can not believe it.
To think the costs were so high.

Despite only removing a single anti-demon aristocrat.

“T-that’s right, Interior Minister, the frontier aristocrats got a salary. Can we use it for military spending?”

The anti-demon aristocrats should have received a certain amount of salary every month.
Allocating that to the military should give us a bit more breathing space.

“Huh?”

The Interior Minister probably didn’t expect his turn to come so suddenly. He looks at me with a surprised expression.
After being glared at by the Finance Minister and the Defense minister, he gives up.
He probably couldn’t refuse in this situation.

“Well it’s normal to take back the salary we used to give the anti-demon aristocrat, so that’s fine…”

Oooh.
We finally talked about making a profit today.
Of course, the Defense Minister and the Finance Minister also had slightly cheerful faces.

However, those faces soon froze over.

“… but the salary of an anti-demon aristocrat is only 100 silver coins, you know?”

At this point, I began wondering whether I made a terrible mistake.
I didn’t know the anti-demon aristocrats were profiting the country so much.

I remember the face of the boy who answered my, the King’s, questions with gracefulness.

“T-that reminds me, wasn’t the anti-demon aristocrat defeating monsters with beginner magic [Wind Blade]?”
“Y-yeah that’s true.”
“Then why not leave the knights who can use magic to protect the frontier?”

The Defense minister says so and looks towards the knight captain.

“Yes, it can’t be helped that the army was useless. We shall depart.”
“Guu.. I’ll leave it to you.”

The defense minister made a bitter face, but he had to make peace with the situation.

“Knight’s captain! I’m leaving it to you.”
“Ha!”

The knight’s captain bows his head with reverence.

This turned out to be messy.
It’s an astronomical task to change long-standing customs after all.
This is the bitter truth of life.

But this should work.
There is no way the knights can’t do what a 10 year old managed to.

I stroked my chest in relief.

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