Super Righteous Player
Chapter 943 - 1 Annan’s Bad Idea

Chapter 943: Chapter 1 Annan’s Bad Idea

"I think I understand the story... but what I wanted to ask was about what happened afterward."

Dmitry leaned slightly forward and pressed Annan, "How did you convince Crown Princess Elizabeth to withdraw from the royal selection? I heard that she voluntarily gave up her campaign..."

The Duke of Annan’s official state visit to the Kingdom of Noah had completely concluded.

Shortly after Annan and his group had safely returned to the Duchy of Winter.

Suddenly, Crown Princess Elizabeth of the Kingdom of Noah announced that due to health issues and her inability to marry and bear children, she could not succeed as the King. Considering the continuation of the Kingdom of Noah, she would formally withdraw from the royal selection and devote her remaining years to working in the field of reemployment for retired soldiers.

Now, with Prince Philip having been assassinated.

Kafney and Elizabeth were now the last two inheritors of the Kingdom of Noah — regardless of who won the final victory, Noah’s next ruler would be a queen.

The difference was that one queen was fourteen years old this year, and the other over forty...

— Specifically forty-nine years and a few months, it could still be considered as ’over forty’ — that was quite reasonable.

Generally, people tend to prefer a younger ruler. That often means opportunities... because during the royal selection phase, a ruler would gradually build up a base.

They need to promise what riches and honors they can offer once they ascend the throne.

Otherwise, where would so many talents come from, ready to serve them?

Choosing sides is indeed critical. But in most cases, you won’t see a scenario where a "Wise King" excels far beyond his contemporaries without promising anything.

— If there really was one, then the current King would have to be worried.

This also led to an unusual situation.

That is, the older the inheritor and the stronger their abilities, the fewer benefits they could offer. Those who joined them later did so more to "pick sides" and to avoid being purged...

In other words, the earlier someone joined an inheritor’s cause, the more they were tempted by benefits; the later they joined, the more they were threatened by the possibility of their success.

Take someone as young yet with a profound background as Kafney, a sudden victory meant countless unclaimed benefits.

As long as one could win the favor of the young queen, barriers that would otherwise take decades to overcome could be easily leapt over. Moreover, with the protection of the Silver Baron Church, no one could confront or force Kafney to relinquish any of her powers.

Most importantly, she had no offspring yet — and the only other contender for the throne, the one who voluntarily stepped down, was the Crown Princess. If anyone wished to oppose Kafney, they would only have the Crown Princess to turn to.

But...

"It might be a bit different from what you’ve heard."

Annan shook his head, set the symbol of power, now a "bi-colored scepter," beside the table, and leaned slightly back.

He held a piping hot brown sugar sweet cake that Zoya made for him, took a gentle bite, then turned to Dmitri and explained, "Elizabeth didn’t ’voluntarily withdraw from the royal selection’; she was thoroughly defeated."

"Defeated?"

"Yes, the Crow family had located and reported to her the actual whereabouts of Nicholas II, the murderer of Prince Philip — He was preparing to slaughter a village to use in his experiments."

Annan inhaled softly, his expression growing serious, "Thus, Old Crow personally reported this to Crown Princess Elizabeth, hoping she would notify the Silver Baron Church to apply for a knight to capture the target."

"...And then?"

Dmitri thought Earl Geraint’s response was quite good.

He even envied how his family lacked such a potent and decisive leader of an intelligence agency...

Oh, they had one before. But that person later defected.

"Then she refused the operation and immediately placed Earl Geraint under house arrest. She also dispatched the military, intending to handle the matter herself."

Annan said slowly.

He could actually understand Crown Princess Elizabeth’s strategy.

From her standpoint, it was a killing several birds with one stone situation.

In Elizabeth’s view, the Silver Baron Church’s erosion of Noah’s royal authority had become too severe. Originally, the church had controlled the economic lifelines of the kingdom, but this generation’s Pope had begun to engage in massive charity operations and take control of the newspaper industry... This meant that even the lower classes were beginning to be swayed.

As a legitimate heir to the throne, she had to find a way to reclaim the power that the church had silently usurped from the Noah royal family.

If Philip were to be assassinated and ultimately dealt with by the church, then the church’s prestige would further increase. The sense of security under the church’s protection, coupled with the economic prosperity brought about by the foreign trade agreement with the Winter Duchy, could lead to a large number of active soldiers retiring.

In the Kingdom of Noah, joining the army was also a kind of "contract," a kind of "transaction."

When they retired, they either received a substantial pension or obtained a stable job position. This was the promise made at the beginning of their recruitment.

But the problem lay in the fact that Noah’s current economic situation no longer allowed for this.

If the army could handle this situation well, then at least the wave of retirements could be delayed for a few years. That way, for the next few years, Noah’s economy would not suddenly collapse... as long as she established a maritime trading company that could accommodate retired soldiers, she could gradually stabilize Noah’s economic problems.

"And so, Elizabeth chose to let the army handle this,"

Annan said slowly, "If she wanted to mobilize the army, she would need to do so as a blood avenger, to have even the minimal standing. We all know Elizabeth’s relationship with Philip, but the general populace does not understand..."

Yet here lay another problem.

She was not the queen, merely the Crown Princess.

Would mobilizing a large army to "avenge her own brother" be seen as an act of "whimsy"?

Although it was still for the good of Noah, the public would not see it that way. They could not foresee that distant future.

"So, she needed a noble cause. That is, to take revenge for a nameless small village.

"For the common people, the timeline of events looked like this: the Crown Princess receives intelligence about a heinous event of a ’Nata County’ gang slaughtering a village—of course, we know there were no bandits and it had nothing to do with Nata County. But for the people of Noah who didn’t understand the Transcendents, this excuse made more sense.

"After that, the Crown Princess immediately dispatched the regular army to encircle the bandit gang located in Nata County, eventually discovering that Philip’s assassins were the masterminds behind the curtain and defining them as ’rebels.’

"So, she managed to suppress the church’s opportunity to appear, delayed the further unemployment wave that would have resulted from the retirement wave, and had enough control over the military to start the maritime trading company she had long anticipated. She even avenged Philip in name and flexed the military muscle a bit, keeping the local nobles and businessmen from jumping around...

"She also had an excuse to wipe out Nata County, which had accumulated a large number of fugitives with various dark connections to the Royal Capital nobility. Regardless of what connections existed and who backed whom, physically exterminating them—cleaning up thoroughly—ensured their backers wouldn’t challenge her for ’suppressing the rebels.’

"And to complete this scene, all that was needed were ’innocent civilians from Nata County,’ pointing at certain forces as ’rebels’ ... For the sake of survival and prosperity, such people could easily be rounded up in large numbers in Nata County."

Annan looked at the suddenly enlightened Dmitry and sighed helplessly: "You really should brush up on your political knowledge, Dmitry."

"Hey, that’s what you’re here for..."

Dmitry hemmed and hawed, quickly changing the subject: "And then what? How did she fail?"

"Because before the army reached ’Nata County,’ I had already taken care of Nicholas II."

Annan said lightly, "I had evidence in hand. So did Kafney—The church attacked the Crown Princess.

"She ’sent out the army hastily after receiving incorrect information,’ and had to be responsible for it. And detaining high nobility obviously couldn’t be exposed to outsiders. Because that would throw the entire Noah royals into doubt, even damaging Kafney’s reputation.

"In the end, we asked her, ’Do you want your name or your life?’

"How so?"

Dmitry immediately followed up, his expression eager.

"If she wanted to keep her name, then let the ’rebels’ she fabricated assassinate her. Then Kafney would act as ’the successor,’ completing the unfulfilled tasks of hers. In the future, people would only remember these as Elizabeth’s accomplishments, benefiting Noah.

"If she wanted her life... then admit her hasty behavior and give up her claim to the throne. The church could save her face, temporarily not publicizing her many actions—including letting Nicholas II massacre a village, unreasonably detaining the leader of the Crow, Earl Geraint, and trying to physically interfere with Nata County.

"But if she acted rashly, these pieces of evidence would come out, immediately crushing her—and they could even fabricate more. Pinning some undefendable accusations on her as well... Out of ten accusations, if four have solid evidence and six are irrefutable, people often believe she did all ten.

"As the price for sparing her life, Elizabeth could no longer engage in any activities involving core power. Moreover, she had to appear in public to gather opponents against Kafney... in other words, to use herself as bait."

And this was the pact she had made with Queen Kafney.

Annan spoke leisurely, his eyes twinkling craftily.

—Without a doubt, this was his suggestion.