The wind blew.

  Moist, lukewarm wind flows and pats the city.

  This is the capital of the Immenstadt Empire, Neltaheim.

  TN: ネルタハム(Nerutahamu) – name of the city, open for suggestions

  It is a feudalistic country. Farmers are suffering from taxes while the nobles are getting fat. The merchants favored by the nobles are the only ones who’ll make fortune. It is a country where the difference between the rich and the poor is extreme.

  However, in Neltaheim, something big has occurred in these past years.

  It is the rise of a certain religion.

  That religion is a monotheistic type. At first, Immenstadt Empire has a lot of polytheistic religions that induced antipathy and disputes among many.

  Because of that, Neltaheim never accepted any religion within it.

  Hence, whenever there are situations where this new monotheistic religion tried to convert the citizens into believers, they’ll receive persecution.

  But before they noticed it, that religion’s believers gradually increased its members. In 5 years, that religion increased their number of believers to the extent that they can be called the largest faction in the country.

  That speed is obviously abnormal, an abnormal come-from-behind drama. Eventually, even the emperor Lysias Artinas became a believer.

  As a result, the Immenstadt Empire begins to advance to a different way.

  In the capital, the nobles who acted insidiously became surprisingly quiet. The vandals and criminals who are lurking and had built a nest in the back alley are disappearing day by day.

  In the rural areas, bandits who are always raiding villages do not appear now even though they were not subjugated.

  Moreover, crime rate has significantly decreased in towns where a church of the religion was erected.

  The emperor said that those are the effect of that religion in his speech. That made the religion surfaced from underwater and went on the stage.

  To the hearts of the people, that religion corrected the country. It is the religion that worships the god of truth, Melqart.

  When the words about Melqart’s teaching comes out, the Melqart believers who had been living quietly until now became powerful in a dash. Becoming a Melqart believer has become a prerequisite of getting an important post in the country.

  Thanks to that, the empire has become easier to live in for the Melqart believers and the number of believers kept on increasing.

  Before anyone noticed it, the Immenstadt Empire had changed to a totally different country.

  Churches are built in every town and village of a certain size. The mayors, the village chief’s, and on some places, the nobles, has less power compared to the Melqart religion officials and priests.

  Meanwhile, the Melqart religion, who gained a large number of believers, has reached a point of having its own armed forces called the saint army.

  They are soldiers chosen by god with a mission of protecting the lives of believers.

  When the founding of the saint army was announced, they managed to gather soldiers in no time. They have trained them in every town and villages with churches.

  It was a few days ago that the army started to move for the first time.

  The day before that day, the Immenstadt Empire manage to restore their former territory that was robbed by the Rembrandt Kingdom.

  The Immenstadt Empire had recovered more than half of their former territory that was conquered by the Rembrandt Kingdom that day. In addition, the Rembrandt Kingdom has announced in public that they will return the other half of the former territory of the Immenstadt Empire that they occupied to the Immenstadt Empire.

  However, that information was restricted by the Immenstadt Empire. The return of their former territory that was announced by the Rembrandt Kingdom was not conveyed to its citizen.

  To the citizens, they explained that the saint army will go as reinforcement in order to give a decisive blow to the Rembrandt Kingdom.

  Traces of war are strong to the territory of the Immenstadt Empire that they regained. Villages are burned down and there are a lot of corpses of people and soldier around.

  Those who have returned from that place and returned to the Immenstadt Empire’s capital spread what they saw and many people reacted to the cruelty of the Rembrandt Kingdom.

  With this, people other than the Melqart believers, shared the same feelings.

  Historically, the Immenstadt Empire was the strongest of the five major powers and not the Rembrandt Kingdom.

  The sleeping lion woke up.

  Thus, the people’s heart tilted to retaliation war.

  In the empire’s capital, after receiving Emperor Lysias’ encouragement, the saint army marched at once to the direction of Rembrandt Kingdom where there is still a cease-fire.

  The wind blew.

  Lukewarm wind flows to the depths of the back alley.

  The splendid imperial capital Neltaheim. The noble who are engaged in crimes disappeared and the crime rate decreased dramatically.

  But there are countless of corpses in the back alley of the capital.

  The wind blows again.

  It has become a damp, bloody wind.

  In the immediate vicinity of the corpses, a stall owner is selling various things and children are running innocently.

  This is the imperial capital of the Immenstadt Empire, Neltaheim.

  Today, there is no city more eerie than this.

  Moreover, the war starts again.

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