Chapter 7: Newspaper

The sound of marching boots was drawing closer.

It had already been three years since Shia had said those ominous words.

Time had passed quickly—far too quickly.

“…Ah, what a terrible piece of news.”

Now fifteen years old, I was sitting in my room just as I always did, quietly sipping a cup of tea. The gentle fragrance of the black tea drifted through the air, a calm contrast to the unease spreading through my mind.

In my hand was a freshly printed newspaper.

The thin paper rustled softly as I held it up and stared at the bold headline printed across the front.

“An assassination, huh…”

The article dominating the front page reported a shocking event: the crown prince of the Austin Empire, an allied nation of the Kingdom of Lunoa, had been assassinated.

“…An assassination?”

I leaned back slightly in my chair, narrowing my eyes as I reread the words.

The level of civilization in this world was roughly equivalent to the early modern period.

To be more precise, it was about the same level as the era around the First World War in my previous life.

And the current geopolitical situation reflected that almost eerily well.

At the center of the continent stood the Kingdom of Lunoa.

Facing it from both sides were the Kingdom of Friez and the Rosha Empire, two powerful nations that had formed an alliance against us.

Our homeland, the Kingdom of Lunoa, had originally been a patchwork of rival noble territories before eventually consolidating into a powerful unified state.

…In other words.

Yeah.

This was basically the German Empire all over again.

The Kingdom of Friez corresponded neatly to France, while the Rosha Empire was practically Russia.

The political structure of this world wasn’t all that different from the one that had led Earth into the First World War.

“Wait… hold on a second…”

I wasn’t stupid.

I had already understood this geopolitical structure long ago.

Anyone who looked at a map could figure it out instantly.

Of course, there were differences unique to this world.

For example, there was no island nation equivalent to Britain. And the successor state of what had once been a massive world power—the birthplace of the global religion that dominated this world—still existed, sitting smugly on the sidelines and pretending to act as some sort of neutral game master.

There were plenty of unique quirks.

But the important part was this:

There existed a clear axis of opposition between the Kingdom of Lunoa and the two-nation alliance.

And there had already been a place where these two factions fought indirectly through proxy conflicts.

That place was the Austin Empire, a vast empire that contained multiple smaller nations within its borders.

More than ten years ago, several of those internal nations had begun movements for independence.

The two-nation alliance—Friez and Rosha—had secretly supported those independence movements.

Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Lunoa supported the Austin Empire in maintaining its control.

And now…

The crown prince of that very Austin Empire had been assassinated.

“…Isn’t this…”

My fingers tightened slightly around the newspaper.

Could this news be the equivalent of the Sarajevo Incident?

“…”

My expression darkened as the realization settled in.

Just how large would the war that followed become?

With magic existing in this world, I doubted warfare would unfold exactly the same way it had in my previous life.

But if a war truly erupted between the great powers…

Then the fragile surface peace that had somehow lasted for nearly a hundred years would finally shatter.

“…I hate this.”

Weapons were meant to be stockpiled.

Meant to act as deterrents.

They were never supposed to actually be used.

Thinking that, I continued reading the newspaper, hoping—perhaps foolishly—that things wouldn’t spiral further out of control.

“Noah! Have you been well? Your Onee-san came to see you!”

At that exact moment—

BANG!

The door to my room burst open with enough force to rattle the walls.

Shia’s voice rang out energetically as she stepped inside without the slightest hesitation.

“Shia!? What are you doing here!?”

I shot up from my chair in shock.

Shia was supposed to be in the royal capital.

Seeing her here so suddenly was surprising enough.

But her next words made my heart drop.

“What do you mean ‘what’? Haven’t you heard?” she said, crossing her arms as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “War. War is coming… the war is about to begin. That’s why I came back.”

“…What!?”

My mind went blank for a moment.

Shia—who should have been in the capital—was standing right here in front of me.

And now she had just declared that war was beginning.

The shock of those words hit me even harder than her sudden appearance.