Of course, as expected, Tifa looked at me, clearly unconvinced.
"Wait, hold on. That old know-it-all gets to repair the wall, and I get sent to the market?! I don't even know how to sell anything!"
"Indeed, Swen. I must say, your orders are hard to understand."
Well, even I didn't understand my own choices.
But my mind was insisting this was the right answer.
Which meant it had to be. If my intelligence is 100, then I must be right.
"...Swen..."
I could feel Luna looking at me with a worried expression.
She probably felt something was off too.
Even though she had decided to trust me completely, I hadn't actually proven anything yet.
But if they followed my orders now, something would definitely happen.
And it wouldn't be something bad, at least.
Confident, I spoke in a firm tone.
"Everyone, please listen to me. I know this may be hard to accept, but this is currently the best decision for our army. If it doesn't yield good results, you can cut off my head."
"..."
All three of them stared at me at once.
I knew this was a radical move, but there was no other way to convince them.
So naturally, complaints started to come in.
"Shouldn't you explain properly first? You can't just throw people into jobs that don't suit them."
"Yeah. Explain."
Of course this wouldn't be easy.
But if the result is the same, adding a convincing explanation shouldn't hurt.
There was even a saying that it was fine to make things up if the outcome was good.
Then Luna stepped in.
"Let me say something to everyone. Please, hear me out."
Everyone turned their attention to Luna.
"When I brought Swen in, I promised to trust him. This is his first proposal, and yes, I don't really understand it either... but I'd like to trust him, just this once. What do you say?"
So she's stepping in for me.
I was sincerely grateful to her.
No matter how much I tried to push my reasoning, I couldn't truly convince them.
After all, I had just joined and didn't have the presence of a superior officer yet.
That's why Luna, as the leader, had to be the one to speak up.
Right.
If Luna trusts me, then I must support her in return.
"My liege, I ask for your decision."
She met my eyes, closed hers for a moment, and then turned to Cain and Tifa.
"I ask you all to follow our strategist Swen's guidance this time. If anyone has objections, speak now."
"There are none, my liege. I shall diligently oversee the wall repairs."
"Well, if Luna says so, I won't argue... But I'm telling you, I really don't have any confidence, okay? Don't yell at me if things go wrong."
With the two reluctantly convinced, Luna wrapped up the meeting.
"That concludes this month's meeting. Funds needed for your tasks can be withdrawn from the treasury. I look forward to seeing your results in a month."
As the two left the castle, I bowed to Luna.
"Thank you for your trust, my liege."
"No, it's alright. I promised to trust you, didn't I?"
She sighed briefly and said, "...Still, speaking casually like this is harder than I thought."
"You didn't speak casually before?"
She gave me a sheepish smile.
"Yeah. Both Cain and Tifa told me I should act more like a ruler, but it's been really hard for me. But thanks to your encouragement, I managed it somehow. Hehe..."
"Even when it's just the two of us, I think it would be helpful in many ways for you to maintain your dignity as a ruler."
Luna let out a small laugh at my words.
Honestly—she looked extremely cute.
It was hard to imagine her as someone who would one day unify the continent.
"Oh, right. Swen, I wanted to ask you something..."
"Go ahead."
"Why did you send Lord Cain to the wall and Tifa to the market? I did say I would trust you, but it still feels like they should have switched places..."
Why?
I don't know either.
My 100 Intelligence brain just told me to.
So now I had to wrap those three sentences in fancy wording.
"Lord Cain might be a slick politician, but I believe there is much he can learn by being on the front lines. The same goes for Tifa. Having lived a rough life, I think she needs new experiences. A general isn't made just by fighting well. And ultimately, I believe this path will yield the best results."
"Is that so?"
Luna nodded slowly, impressed.
"Still... Swen, you're amazing."
"That was random."
"You saw right away that Cain is a bit sly, and that Tifa has had a rough life, didn't you?"
Ah, well...
'I've played as the Lunarian Army before.'
"As expected of someone like you, Swen. You can read a person's past just by looking at them. I really want to learn how to do that myself."
"Well, yes."
It wasn't bad being seen as competent.
She'd be more likely to listen to me now.
"So, what should I do?"
"Oh, right. I didn't give you a task yet. Do you have anything in mind?"
"Not really."
"Hmm..."
'Let's test something.'
I looked at Luna and said, "My liege, could you ask me: 'Swen, what do you think would be a suitable task for you?'"
"A question? That's not difficult..."
Even though it was a weird request, she asked without hesitation.
Her trust in me seemed deeper than I thought.
"Swen, what do you think would be a suitable task for you?"
It's a bit roundabout, but this was the only way to use my 100 Intelligence.
And soon, the result came.
[It is up to the will of the heavens.]
'...'
No matter how many times I checked, the result was the same.
It is up to the will of the heavens.
This wasn't the first time I'd seen that phrase.
So I quickly understood.
The original game this world is based on, Garland Eternity Saga, was old enough to support hot-seat multiplayer.
Meaning multiple players could play on the same device.
After 1P's turn, 2P would go, and so on.
And during such games, 100 Intelligence was the only time when an absolute prediction couldn't be made.
Naturally.
When 1P offered an alliance to 2P, the game had no way to predict 2P's decision.
So in those cases—when player interference added an unknown variable—the strategists would say: [It is up to the will of the heavens.]
So basically—
What happens to me depends on what I do.
Makes sense. I could just ignore the suggestion and not go out.
Predictions can't be made about my actions.
A penalty, perhaps, but it didn't matter. It was obvious.
"...Swen?"
"Ah, sorry. Just thinking."
I stroked my chin and pretended I'd just come to a conclusion.
"I'll go explore the area. There might be hidden talents we haven't found yet."
"Alright. I'll be counting on you."
After saying goodbye, I stepped out of the castle.
Even though it was already morning, not many people were out, and those I did see seemed listless.
'What a dreary place.'
Well, it's a city we're going to abandon anyway, so it doesn't matter.
I set out to explore the surrounding region.
* * *
A few days later.
Tifa sat quietly in a corner of the market, her expression full of discontent.
'How the hell am I supposed to help with this?'
On the first day, she greeted the market vendors and tried to get a conversation going about reviving the marketplace, maybe tossing out an idea or two.
But it hadn't gone anywhere. The villagers, struggling just to survive, showed no motivation to participate.
With no clue how to deal with people in situations like this, Tifa could do nothing but barely hold back her rising frustration.
If she had even a shred of basic knowledge about commerce, she might have been able to teach them something, but she knew absolutely nothing.
And she couldn't just resort to brute strength.
Her actions would directly reflect on Luna's reputation in this city, and damaging the reputation of her childhood friend was the last thing she wanted to do.
'What the hell was that flimsy little tactician thinking when he put me here?'
She could at least understand if he'd told her to train the soldiers.
What was he thinking, assigning someone completely uneducated like her to this kind of job?
'Luna's acting weird too. I was worried she seemed a little out of it, and while I guess it's fine that she's started giving orders decisively—if that's because of that tactician guy, that's a huge problem, isn't it?'
Wait… did he seduce her?
With his looks?
She hadn't been around many men, but even Tifa had to admit Swen was pretty good-looking.
He didn't have that rugged masculinity or anything, but he had the soft, beautiful-boy aura that naturally tugged at maternal instincts.
She imagined the older brothers of the women working in brothels probably looked exactly like that.
'If he's using his pretty face to cloud Luna's judgment… I can't forgive that.'
Should she rough him up a bit?
Just as that thought crossed her mind, for the first time since arriving, a market vendor called out to her.
"Um… e-excuse me, M-Miss Tifa?"
"Huh?"
Tifa turned to look at the person who had called her.
More accurately, it was a boy.
He was trembling, clearly intimidated.
"No need to be so scared. Yeah, kid. What is it?"
"W-well, um, I-I think you're the one in charge of the market now… r-right?"
"That's right."
"C-could you maybe help me out a little?"
The boy pointed somewhere.
"Our shop got completely destroyed in the typhoon a while ago… My dad is bedridden, and my mom isn't in good health either… My younger siblings are too little, so I have to fix everything myself, but it's just too much alone, so… um."
Ah.
So he was asking for some help with heavy lifting.
Tifa figured it was better than just sitting around doing nothing.
And helping people in the city would naturally raise Luna's reputation.
"Sure, I'll help. Where to?"
"R-really?"
"Why would I lie to you?"
Relieved, the boy let out a long breath and started walking.
Tifa followed after him.
'Damn, this is a mess…'
Two weeks ago, a typhoon had hit Zeilant.
The damage had left scars all over the market.
'It's not just this place. A lot of homes are wrecked too.'
Some rebuilding had been done over the past week, but—
The place the boy led her to was completely destroyed, in a truly miserable state.
"Looks like this whole place needs to be rebuilt from scratch."
"I-is that gonna be hard?"
Tifa patted the boy's head and said, "Hard? Nah. This is exactly the kind of thing someone like me is here for. Hey!"
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
Tifa flagged down a passing merchant.
"Go grab some shovels and bring back about ten guys who can work. I'll pay them."
"Y-yes, right away!"
The man quickly brought back around ten able-bodied men.
Honestly, they probably would have followed her orders out of fear even without pay, but offering wages made it easy to gather people.
"Here are the shovels you asked for."
Tifa took the shovels and set the men to clearing the remains of the collapsed wooden shop.
'Wow, they really slapped this thing together. No wonder it fell apart.'
The typhoon hadn't even been that strong, all things considered.
Clearly, the low development of the town meant the buildings were hastily and poorly built.
'I should lay down proper foundations so it won't collapse again.'
She didn't have much else to do for the month anyway.
Thinking that, Tifa picked up a shovel and started digging into the ground.
After scraping the dirt a few times—
Clang!
With a strange noise, a jolt shot through the arm holding the shovel.
Clang, clang.
After a few more strikes—
She realized there was something buried under the dirt that wasn't soil.
At first, she thought it was a rock, but it didn't make sense for a rock to sound like that.
It had the distinctive feel of metal striking metal.
Tifa dug around it and pulled out the object her shovel had hit.
'Is this…'
What emerged was—
A very old, extremely heavy-looking box.