Leaving the imperial capital in the hands of Henry, Oscar, and the Prime Ministers, I headed for Saralria Province.
Saralria Province was where a revolutionary technology—or rather, the vein of ore supporting it—lay dormant.
It held the potential to vastly transform life across the entire Empire, and by extension, for all of humanity.
After reassigning Margrave Gert and making Saralria imperial crown land, I decided to go see it for myself.
Right now, I was en route along the highway.
I was disguised as the young scion of a traveling merchant family, accompanied by just a single servant.
The one traveling with me was the maid, Rou Peiyu.
She was the daughter of a tribe that had once challenged the Empire and lost. Following the circumstances where I took in most of her clan, she had been serving me loyally as a maid.
It hadn't been long since she entered my service, and unlike capable maids like Evelyn or Zoe, she was thoroughly ordinary. For that very reason, I brought her along as camouflage.
Incidentally, her clan had the rare custom of placing their family name first and given name second.
At the moment, Peiyu was trailing behind me, carrying a massive load on her back.
"Your Maj—er, I mean, Master."
"Hmm?"
"What is it?" I asked, turning around mid-stride to look at Peiyu, who had nearly slipped up on how to address me.
She looked weighed down by the heavy burden; perhaps she wanted a break.
"What kind of place is a desert?"
"Well, I've never seen one in person either, but they say it's just sand as far as the eye can see."
"All of it is sand?"
"Have you ever seen the ocean?"
"Yes."
"Then it's easy to picture. Imagine an expanse as vast as the ocean, only made entirely of sand."
"Th-Then crops won't grow at all! Even wild game probably wouldn't survive there..."
Peiyu looked utterly flabbergasted.
It seemed she understood well enough that nothing grew in sandy soil.
"Yeah, exactly. It's an endless stretch of barren wasteland. That's why Saralria Province became the largest province by land area in the Empire. It's essentially a collection of leftover scraps unsuitable for farming or hunting."
"I see... A desert, huh..."
As she walked, Peiyu gazed into the distance, lost in thought over what a desert might look like.
After walking a while longer, a checkpoint came into view further down the road.
"Master, something looks wrong."
"Yeah... It smells like blood."
Even with some distance still between us and the checkpoint, the stench had already drifted our way.
The area before the gates was in chaotic uproar.
Even from afar, I could tell a violent brawl was underway.
"Let's go. Stay close to me."
"Y-Yes!"
With Peiyu following obediently at my heels, I headed toward the checkpoint.
Once we got closer, the situation became clear.
A mob dressed in common clothes was tearing various parts of the checkpoint apart.
They weren't using proper carpentry tools, but rather hoes, square timber, and whatever else was on hand.
Because of that, they were clumsy at it, and the destruction was taking time.
Apart from the mob of commoners, there were also officials and soldiers.
Severely outnumbered, they had already been beaten down and dragged off to the side, where they lay groaning.
"..."
After thinking for a moment, I carefully approached the crowd and called out to a man who had just broken down a section of fence.
"Excuse me, what's going on here?"
"Huh? Who're you... Some rich brat?"
"Just a traveler. More importantly, what is all this? Why is this happening?"
"We're doing an uchikowashi."
"An uchikowashi..."
I had heard the term before, but this was my first time witnessing one in person.
It was a form of collective direct action by the common folk where, in response to some outrageous injustice, they rose up together to thoroughly smash the property and dwellings of those responsible.
In principle, the basic creed was to destroy property while avoiding killing or injuring people as much as possible.
Looking closely, while the defeated officials and soldiers were indeed groaning and incapacitated, not a single one appeared to have sustained a fatal wound.
"This checkpoint is atrocious! Do you have any idea how much transit tariff they extort from us?"
"How much?"
"Half our cargo."
"Half, you say?"
"That's right! I haul vegetables and produce to the town ahead, and they always seize half the actual goods right here on the spot!"
"So you couldn't take it anymore, and it came to this."
I nodded in understanding and surveyed the area.
As if venting long-festering resentment, the other men continued demolishing the checkpoint with their awkward tools.
"It'll be over soon, so just stand back and watch."
"...All right."
I nodded, gestured for Peiyu, and stepped back as told.
The uchikowashi continued for about an hour before the men finally withdrew, satisfied.
"Master, let's pass through."
"No, wait a little longer."
"Eh? Ah, yes..."
Though looking puzzled, Peiyu obeyed my instruction.
After watching for a while, a cloud of dust approached from the distance.
A fat, bloated official riding a well-fed horse arrived before the checkpoint, accompanied by about a hundred soldiers.
"Insolence! How dare you, how dare you, how dare you!! Mere lowlifes, how dare you! What have you done to my checkpoint?!"
Seeing the checkpoint reduced to ruins, the man threw a furious tantrum on horseback, practically stomping his feet in rage.
"Looks like that's the official in charge here."
"I-It seems so."
"I'm going over. Wait here."
"Eh? B-But..."
"Wait here."
"Y-Yes!"
Leaving Peiyu behind, I walked toward the checkpoint.
Along the way, a soldier spotted me and alerted the official.
The man turned toward me from atop his mount, glaring down at me.
"Who do you think you are?!"
"..."
Without a word, I brought my foot down on the fallen symbol of the checkpoint—the gate's primary barrier.
It was a performance that all but declared, I'm the one responsible.
"One of their accomplices, are you?! Seize him!"
At the man's command, several soldiers lunged at once.
Easily slipping past the attacks of the common spearmen, I brought knife-hand strikes down onto the napes of their necks.
Struck squarely in their vitals, the soldiers' eyes rolled back instantly, and they dropped like stones.
"Wh-Wha-wha-what?!"
"Come at me all at once."
"Don't get cocky! You lot, slaughter him!"
Barking orders like a common bandit, the fat official rallied his men.
The soldiers charged one after another, but I dispatched them in turn with precise body blows and knife-hand strikes.
"Wh-Wha... Who on earth are you?!"
"Hmph..."
I gave a deliberate snort, swept a disdainful glance over the official, and turned on my heel.
"I won't let this go... You bastard, I will never forgive you for this...!"
The official spat out curses dredged from the bottom of his gut.
With those parting words trailing behind me, I walked away.
☆
That night, we took lodging in a nearby post town.
By the glow of a lantern, I set about drafting a letter.
"Um... Master?"
"Hmm? What is it?"
Peiyu, who had been assisting with my writing in the same room, spoke up timidly.
"Master, you were incredible today. You looked so cool."
"Is that so?"
"Does that mean you foresaw how it would play out?"
"Yeah. During the uchikowashi, there were barely any guards, and no sign of anyone in charge. That pig of a man had to be the overseer."
"I see."
"By acting like that, his hatred gets redirected entirely onto me. People of his sort will always charge headlong at a fresh target for their malice."
"To think that far ahead... As expected of you, Master."
Answering Peiyu's questions, I continued penning the letter.
"All right. Hand this to the courier who brought the administrative documents from the capital."
With that, I handed the letter to Peiyu.
"Understood. Um, what kind of document is this?"
"Hmm?"
I looked at Peiyu and let out a quiet chuckle.
Being a rather ordinary maid, Peiyu didn't quite grasp the line between what was appropriate to ask and what wasn't.
If it were classified, I wouldn't tell her, but this was harmless enough.
"It's about handling uchikowashi."
"Eh? Hasn't that already ended?"
"It's for the future. Looking ahead to when another uchikowashi might break out, I've issued an imperial decree to the imperial princes managing the capital to reform the law."
"The law..."
"For now, the commoners who took part in the uchikowashi will be punished."
"No way!"
Peiyu moved to protest, but I raised a hand to stop her.
"Likewise, the one who provoked the uchikowashi in the first place—in this case, that pig. He will be punished as well. But as for the penalty, the official's will be far heavier."
"Ah... you're making it heavier for him...?"
I smiled slightly at how Peiyu framed it as a favor.
Having witnessed today's events, she had clearly sided with the commoners.
Well, that was fine.
"Yes. And going forward, the higher the status, the heavier I intend the punishment to be."
The order I sent to the imperial princes in the capital was to 'draft a proposal,' so I would need to scrutinize whether it followed my intended direction once I returned, but...
"For a noble, let's see... it might be best to set the penalty just one step below death."
"Th-That severe?!"
Even Peiyu, who sympathized with the commoners, was taken aback by that.
"Because preventing such unrest is a noble's duty."
Thinking for a moment, I turned fully toward Peiyu.
"Take today, for example. You carried the luggage the entire way."
"Y-Yes."
"I carried nothing. Even though I am a man and you are a woman, I made you carry the luggage, and I didn't lift a finger."
"Right..."
"That stems from status. I am the master and you are the servant, so it is only natural that you carry the burden."
"Yes."
"In that same vein, it is a noble's duty to secure the livelihoods of the common people so they are not driven to revolt. Any noble who fails in that duty must face severe punishment."
"Ah..."
"Do you understand now?"
"Yes! Master, you really are amazing!"
Like an innocent child, Peiyu gazed at me with sparkling eyes.