[MLV] 47. Unrest in the Homefront (Patreon)

A/N:

Monday's chapter is finally here :D

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Hundreds of officers from the interior police assembled at Boulevard d’Ormeval, where the Ministry of Economy’s headquarters was located. For the past few days, unrest in Lorienval exploded rapidly as scant details of a major disaster in the Rhonne Region began to reach the newspapers.

Unconfirmed news of soldiers dying due to incompetence and strategic blunders, with at least a hundred thousand civilians dying due to botched or late evacuations, and many more spread like wildfire from nearly all newspapers operated by people close to the Third Estate. One such newspaper watching closely was the Fairmont Post, a newspaper based in Concordia’s capital, known for reporting about economics and geopolitics.

One of their special correspondents in Alsatia, Henry Wakefield, was on the ground today as he watched another clash between demonstrators and the interior police at Boulevard d’Ormeval. He was thus rapidly writing the details of the story he was witnessing before his eyes.

As if overcome by the years-long autocratic and despotic rule of the group of ministers led by War Minister Marc-Antoine Courbet, the recent incident at the Rhonne Region stirred up all kinds of discontent festering in Alsatia. 

Now, demonstrators and protestors on the streets weren’t just demanding the truth from the council of ministers. Instead, they were now demanding the sacking of the ministers of the empire and the restoration of the current emperor’s reforms two decades ago. What started out as mere peaceful gatherings asking for the truth organized by aristocratic and wealthy students drunk on childish idealism soon spiraled out of control as workers and other normal people who were usually quiet joined in on the streets.

The shock after hearing the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Alsatians seemed too much for the people to simply stay silent about.

“Out of the way!” an Alsatian police officer on horseback shouted at Henry and other reporters near him, forcefully shoving them off to the side of the boulevard with his baton. “Out of the way!”

Naturally, Henry took heed of the officer’s orders and ran away from the center of the boulevard, but he still tried his best to find an area behind the interior police line where he could get a better glimpse of the worsening situation in front of him.

The specific crowd gathering at the boulevard was apparently members of the All Alsatian Union, made up mostly of metalworkers, railworkers, and people from Lorienval’s crystal munitions plant, alongside other major industries.

Even with the severe crackdowns by the imperial government against organized labor, just like with most countries nowadays, their membership still increased. In fact, Henry wondered if the war minister’s policies only made things worse, as the crowd at the boulevard was becoming more and more tightly packed, their numbers overwhelming. This show of force was intimidating, and the crowd seemed to know this as they shouted loudly for the police to get out of their way.

In response, the interior police’s formation solidified, and they began loudly slamming their batons on their hands to intimidate the demonstrators.

Henry continued asking around for the names of the officers in charge of the police formation or the specifics of what was happening. Unfortunately, people mostly pushed him away or told him to stay back. Soon, his work was fully cut short when the demonstrators at the front suddenly linked their arms on each other, chanting ‘death to the tyrants!’ over and over again, drowning out the interior police’s orders to peacefully disperse.

The people at the front are definitely professional agitators, Henry observed. They look experienced at fighting on the streets. Rubicains, most likely.

While he knew what was about to happen, Henry did not run away. Instead, he quickly moved back to the sidelines as the demonstrators finally advanced on the boulevard, building up momentum until they slammed straight on the interior police. Without care for their safety, the people at the front of the crowd took the interior police’s beatings head-on until their thin formation was torn wide open.

Even the officers on horseback couldn’t do much, though they tried their best to rally the remaining interior police who managed to escape the mob so they could reorganize. Before long, the group of demonstrators finally occupied the boulevard, chanting loudly in front of the economic ministry’s headquarters. Some even began forcefully entering the premises.

Henry did not waste time, immediately collecting quick interviews of the people on the ground before the interior police returned.

As he expected, within just a few minutes, the interior police’s reinforcements flooded the boulevard, launching a counterattack that forced the demonstrators to retreat, arresting and beating up anyone who didn’t escape on time, even bystanders who were just watching from the sidelines. Luckily, he already had everything he needed to write his piece for tomorrow’s papers, disappearing in the shadowy streets of Lorienval with the chaos as his cover.

“The military blunders of Alsatia’s regime reignite tensions in Alsatia! More protests erupt in the nation’s capital, as Sir Marc-Antoine’s embattled cabinet tries to—”

Pierre let out an audible groan as he read the headline.

“Great, more Concordian drollery,” Pierre grumbled to his aide-de-camp. “I don’t want to see anything from the Fairmont Post from now on. In fact, don’t you dare bring anything from the Concordians ever again.”

“Okay, sir,” his assistant nervously replied. “Would you like today’s issue of the Imperial Herald instead then?”

Pierre nodded.

“Much better. Hand it over.”

Unfortunately, when he finally read the newspaper, Pierre was just even more pissed. 

The Imperial Herald, a prominent pro-aristocratic newspaper, also talked about the unrest, but it was filled with overly exaggerated bravado about how the disturbances were going to die down soon because real Alsatians support the current government, without much concrete analysis of the situation. Even if he was an aristocrat on the side of Marc’s government, he wasn’t a man who enjoyed being talked to like an excitable child.

False confidence in a time like this wasn’t good. Having a bad read on reality would just mean that they would be complacent when this wasn’t a time of half-measures. No, this wouldn’t just ‘die down.’ They must do everything to restore order, from making an example out of the most violent agitators, arresting their supporters in the Estates General, or launching another campaign to shut down problematic newspapers. While this wouldn’t actually end the commoner threat forever—nothing would in fact—it would be enough to reinforce the state’s authority until people forgot about the army's minor shortcomings, killing off unrest.

They already tried this strategy twice, and it always worked well. 

But he suspected the faint-hearted writers of the Imperial Herald refused to loudly endorse this again because it usually led to volatility in the markets for a few months, which their financial backers treated as something more sacred than the goddess herself.

A shame. Even the quality of the newspapers on our side is declining. There’s no more appetite for decisive ideas. I suppose it’s inevitable now that we let commoners join our side as well to bulk up our numbers.

Hah, I really miss the old days.

Back then, commoners wouldn’t even be able to question the authority of the nobility without being punished harshly. It was all because the sick emperor was too soft to them during the last days of his active reign, Pierre believed. He gave them a small taste of undeserved liberty, and suddenly, they wanted all of it. Now, the commoners were so emboldened that no matter how hard they beat them up, they would always come back.

Truly annoying.

But even if this was difficult to manage for people like Pierre, they must play the cards dealt to them.

So for now, he simply folded the newspaper and drank a copious amount of coffee to lessen his temper. These past few days had already been rather stressful for him and everyone in the imperial army, and he really wanted to dampen his headache a bit. But every time he tried to do so, this problem simply lived in his head rent-free.

What do noble tax exemptions have to do with this anyway? They’re just looking for excuses to undermine us.

Pierre shook his head before emptying his mug of coffee. He had to keep himself mentally sane, or else he might snap at the princess. As much as he hated being soft on her, he knew himself that he couldn’t afford risking anything. They had to buy as much time as they could to manage and suppress the unrest.

If the princess decided to leak the full truth before the interior police and the imperial army finished preparing and redeploying for the planned crackdowns, then there was a high risk that the war minister would be forced to step down or risk civil war. Even if they could win it easily, Alsatia being torn apart would only mean Concordia would overtake them.

That was utterly unacceptable.

The rest of the morning was spent preparing himself for a meeting with the princess. The standoff between them and the demon brigade members she was with lasted for far too long already. He had been sending letters after letters every day to the war minister to quicken his pace and to come here at once, but the man was too busy preparing for his planned crackdown on the opposition.

The princess was thus becoming more and more antsy, Pierre observed. Every day, when she came to his office to demand supplies, her tone became sharper and bolder. At this point, her sympathies with the demons were becoming too obvious, which was worrying for Pierre, because she was most likely going to be the next empress even if they disliked her.

But good news was in. Tomorrow, the war minister would come here by morning.

All he had to do now was to hold off the crown princess just one more day, and everything would be fine.

Within an hour, finally, the crown princess and her strange human friend arrived at Pierre’s temporary office at Florimont. Most likely, the princess was going to ask for supplies again and demand updates about the war minister’s schedule. This was where he usually found himself on the thin ice because it was hard making up excuses as to why the war ministers couldn’t arrive on time.

But he had his letter now.

“Tomorrow, your brother is coming here,” Pierre announced with a grin. “Again, I apologize for him that he’s been too slow, but things are very busy at the capital. I imagine you’ve heard things by now.”

Lucille read the leader silently, closing her eyes briefly, before handing it to Pierre. “Hmph. Took him long enough, but I suppose I can overlook this.”

“I’m glad. I hope that this will improve Her Highness’s mood a bit.”

“It did. But until this situation is resolved, I won’t be satisfied by anything.”

“No worries, that is reasonable.”

Pierre stood up from his seat.

“But I have a request myself.”

Lucille narrowed her eyes a bit as she looked at him.

“I believe the soldiers under your care rested well enough,” Pierre said. “If they’re truly the brave warriors you believe they are, then it would be reasonable for me to inspect them and appraise their condition if they can rejoin the fight?”

Lucille briefly turned to look at her human attendant. Pierre’s eyes grew cold as he looked at this woman, Alice, he remembered. A few days ago, she was present during a scuffle between his troops and the soldiers under the crown princess’s care. Apparently, she must be a mage specializing in barrier magic, at least according to the reports they had available, and she participated in the princess’s counterattack at Florimont and beyond.

He wondered what she was truly capable of, because the woman in front of him seemed plain. Too plain.

Definitely someone hiding something, Pierre thought.

“Fine,” Lucille took back Pierre’s attention. “You can inspect the soldiers. But until I’ve talked to the war minister and found a concrete settlement, they will not fight your battles.”

“Of course, Your Highness. I really just need to do this in advance,” Pierre explained.

“Alright. Come with me then.”

Taking his adjutant with him, Pierre went out with Lucille and Alice to go to the demon soldiers’ camp. While there was still a hint of tension when he arrived, the soldiers appeared cooperative, the officers in charge following Pierre’s orders properly and without friction. 

He was satisfied by this.

Having already seen the recordings in Lucille’s hands, he had seen how these soldiers fought. While he wouldn’t officially admit things, he begrudgingly respected these soldiers. Just a tiny bit. They did fight for Florimont and joined the princess in a counterattack against the devils without any reinforcements.

Such an act was commendable, in a limited sense. But it was the bare minimum performance expected of demons, so he wouldn’t give them any high praise for it. Still, his mood wasn’t as bad as it was earlier. He had half-decent soldiers here, people he could later command to retake the towers with his regular soldiers.

Something is wrong though…

While Pierre didn’t have an accurate count on how many demon soldiers were under the princess’s protection, his men did give him estimates of around four hundred to five hundred soldiers at the camp. The amount of supplies the princess requested nominally reflected that value.

But now that he and his adjutant had the chance to look at their formation and count them, the two of them realized that there weren’t even two hundred soldiers here. He turned to look at the princess beside him.

“Where are the rest?” Pierre asked. “I am fairly sure there were more than two hundred or so soldiers originally.”

The princess frowned, crossed her arms, and avoided his gaze.

He was truly getting annoyed by this behavior from her. She wasn’t acting like a proper elven lady at all!

“It’s your fault, general,” Lucille said. “Ever since the scuffle and the severe lies and accusations you people throw at them, the morale here has been dwindling severely. They’ve been slipping out in the night and I haven’t been able to stop them.”

She stared back at him, staring at his eyes as if challenging him.

“Not that I can really blame them. They just fought so hard for their homeland and were backstabbed by it. Tell me, general, why wouldn’t some of them finally choose to run instead of dealing with us?”

“So all this time, there really are deserters in their ranks!”

“There were, but do the men in front of you look like that?” Lucille asked. “The fact that even after days of this tense situation, they still remained here speaks of their character, does it not? They refused the temptation to flee.”

She gestured to the lines of soldiers in front of Pierre.

“The men before you, sir, are the bravest warriors we have. Ready to serve even an ungrateful nation. What more can you ask for?”

“...”

Pierre massaged his temples as he looked away from the princess. He truly didn’t like that tone of her’s. But, right now, there wasn’t much he could do about it anyway, so he simply decided to let this issue slide. He’d like to keep his temper at a minimum in front of the princess.

I wish this goddamned crisis was over, Pierre thought to himself. I miss my wife.

After inspecting the camp, Pierre went back to Florimont for his daily duties, his mind lost again in the wider campaign his army was conducting to retake the towers. Before he knew it, morning was here, and the war minister finally arrived at the frontlines.

“So, you’re leaving?” Lucille asked, as the two of them shared a breakfast again on an isolated part of the camp.

“Yes. I have to continue my work evacuating the families of the soldiers who went with me,” Alicia said. “Ideally, I’d like to have all of them back at Orevogorsk before anyone here notices.”

“I see…”

Lucille’s face was hard to make out for a bit, but she immediately put on a brave face.

“Well, you shouldn’t worry. I’ll do everything I can to make sure that the soldiers who wished to stay will be treated properly. I won’t back down from this.”

“I know,” Alicia laughed softly. Then, she stood up. “But, I also know that I cannot trust your brother, so…”

Pulling out an orb similar to the one Lucille had whenever she summoned her artificial spirits, Alicia summoned her clone, which she had been using at her base in Lorienval whenever she was gone. Lucille’s eyes widened as a woman who was completely similar to Alice Kasperska appeared before her.

Lucille stood up in shock.

“No way—!”

“This woman before you is just my avatar,” Alicia said with a smile. “I have a fragment of my mind in her, so she’s essentially just me, in a way. Alice here will help you out and monitor things here for me.”

“How?!”

“The explanation as to how I made her is far too long, and I have no time for that, but, one day, I promise I’ll share my knowledge.”

“I… I see.”

Lucille stared at Alicia’s clone, trying her best to calm herself down by breathing in and out deeply. Once she was done, she simply shook her head.

“Alicia, you don’t run out of surprises, do you?” Lucille asked as she smiled. “...I’m still not sure what to make of this, but thanks for letting me know. I’d really like to have a long tea party with you though, because I just have so many questions.”

Alicia laughed at that.

“Sure. Anyway, I’ll have to go now.”

Soon, Alicia disappeared, leaving her clone behind with Lucille.

Then, she arrived back at Orevogorsk.

Due to how many people she suddenly reintroduced to her town, they were currently on a temporary camp outside of Orevogorsk while Maxim prepared to construct their future homes. Many of them must already be itching to go back to Alsatia with her to track, convince, and bring their families here.

She smiled.

“Time to get to work.”