Chapter 84

Long Spear Corps

And so the strategist known as Kongming, joined my army.

When I had first met him, his hair was disheveled and his clothes were covered in wrinkles. He was the furthest thing from formal. But when I saw him in the castle again, he had fixed his hair and wore smooth clothes.

He said that he could not look bad when standing in front of his master.

In other words, he was the exact opposite of Toshizou, who appeared before me in the same clothes he wore at the brothels.

It was this seriousness that made him a good choice for the protector of Decarbia Castle.

And so I gathered the civil and military officers together and appointed him as lord of the castle.

Demons, humans, and demi-humans. All of them raised their voices in protest.

“He is apparently a Hero from another world. Isn’t it a little too early to be leaving this castle to his care?”

One demon said hesitantly. The others agreed.

And so I explained to them.

“This man was the best strategist in his world and a more than capable officer. However, I understand how you feel. So this is what we will do. Give it two weeks. During that time, he will be the acting lord of the castle and show you what he is capable of.”

I was their lord, and if I was insisting to this degree, they had no choice but to accept.

Ultimately, this idea was put into action, and Kongming acted as lord of the castle. However, during this time, Kongming did no work at all.

What he did do, was lock himself up in the library and do nothing but read books for ten days.

After the officials of the castle saw this, they consulted me.

According to them, Kongming did not work, and was not fit to be lord of the castle. And they were not wrong.

However, I insisted that there were still four days left.

“There are four days remaining, according to the promise. And so we will wait.”

I said with finality as I thrust their written complaint back to them.

They furrowed their eyebrows.

Some of them complained behind my back, while others were more honest.

“This castle was run most satisfactorily by Lady Eve. But everything has stopped during the last ten days. I do not see how this can be fixed in just four days.”

They insisted. But this turned out to be a big mistake.

Because Kongming did turn things around in four days.

When Kongming found out that I had been sent such complaints, he entered his office and said, ‘perhaps I should get to work now.’ And then, in just three days, he processed the mountain of documents that had accumulated on his desk.

And he did it with precision, and in the eyes of many, most fairly.

For instance, there was a complaint regarding the custody of a child.

Kongming called the man and woman and told them to each pull the child towards them by grabbing its hands. The one who won would get the child. Of course, Kongming gave the child to the loser. For they had stopped pulling when they saw the pain on the child’s face.

He also solved a problem regarding the rights to the water with great fairness.

Calculations were made based on the number of people sent from each village to work on the waterway and the length they had built, and also the amount of money it cost them. This was then converted to units of copper coins which he showed the villagers to persuade them how much water they could have.

Eve saw this and muttered,

“…Amazing.”

“This is how he works. I believe that this place will continue to develop as long as he is here.”

I declared confidently.

And like this, Kongming became the lord of Decarbai Castle and was accepted by his subordinates and the people.

Finally, my burden was no longer as heavy.

Since everything had gone so well, I started to think of finding another Hero to take care of Eligos Castle. But perhaps that was hoping for too much.

Eve said,

“Such Heroes are not easily found. I suggest you slowly grow personnel and expand instead.”

“I suppose you are right.”

I agreed. And so we did just that.

Much of Decarbia Castle had been destroyed during the battle.

If an enemy attacked us like this, the castle would fall in one night.

And so I wanted to repair the castle and strengthen the walls.

That would require a lot of materials.

I decided to use what little gold and silver Decarbia had left.

And I also borrowed money from merchants that were in town.

As they now had great trust in Kongming, they were more than happy to be of service.

Any extra materials would be used to strengthen the army.

Such was my decision, but I wasn’t sure what kind of monster to summon. And so Kongming gave me some advice.

“Demon King. We should have a long spear corps.”

“A long spear corps? Why is that?”

“Our neighbor, Demon King Zagam is known for having an army of knights on horses. This would be one way to deal with them.”

“I see.”

The Legendary Rebuilding of a World by a Realist Demon King