Reincarnated into a Game As the Hero’s Friend

lner needed to send two messengers to the capital, one to report to the kingdom and the other to report to his father, the head of the Zeavert family.

Welner had no intention of losing.
Even so, it was the duty of the governor to prepare for the worst situation.
Behnke and Frenssen looked at each other, then accepted the Skywalks.

“If that is the case, then I shall accept this.”

“Ah also, if there is still no sign of our enemies, can you call Sir Kesten?”

“As you wish.”

When Welner finished his second cup of tea, Kesten and Rafed arrived in the room.
Welner immediately asked Kesten, “Sir Kesten.
Have you contacted the capital?”

“Yes.
I sent a messenger when I saw the signal, then I sent another one after some time had passed.”

“Good work.”

Welner nodded.
Although there was no way the messenger would face a bandit attack or an accident midway since he used Skywalk to go to the capital, there was still a chance that the messenger would get attacked by the demons right after he arrived outside the capital, so it was a right decision to send a second messenger after some time had passed.

After that, Welner discussed other preparations for the war including personnel assignments or the availability of the weapons and tools for war.
Welner also instructed them to proceed with the preparation for the catapult.

“How’s my reputation in the town?”

“It is about half good and half bad.”

“That’s good enough for now.”

As the army had returned victorious, the reputation of Welner, the army’s commander, was now quite good.
On the other hand, some people blamed Welner for the war, saying that if Welner didn’t send the troops to the Triot, the war wouldn’t have happened even though the Pledgers Council had explained to the people of Anheim that ‌the demons would have still attacked Anheim soon even if Welner hadn’t sent his troops to Triot.

Well, Welner had expected this level of blame.

“If we win, we will be envied.
If we lose, we will be criticized.
We have a quite unfortunate standing.”

“Stop saying depressing things.”

Unexpectedly, Kesten’s statement made Welner feel down.
Although Welner had been prepared to face the consequences of the war both as a commander of the army and as a noble, Welner was still not happy to be blamed like that.
Seeing the two’s conversation, Rafed cleared his throat.

“Well, because the story of how you played around with the demon general has spread, you are now quite popular, sir.”

“That’s good.
In the upcoming battle, I only have my popularity to count on.”

If Gezarius used Mangold’s appearance when he attacked the town, there was a chance that some people would rebel from inside after they saw how the son of the previous lord of this territory had appeared.
Welner could only count on his popularity as the current governor to decrease the chance of rebellion happening.
The chance would forever remain, though.

“I wonder when the reinforcement will arrive.”

“Who knows? In the first place, the reason why I chose that kind of strategy was to buy time since we don’t know when the reinforcement will come.”

Gezarius must have predicted that the humans had sent a messenger to the capital, but there was a chance that Gezarius didn’t know the existence of the Skywalk.
If he didn’t know, that means there would be quite a bit of a gap between Gezarius’s prediction of when the messenger would arrive in the capital and the messenger’s actual arrival.

In addition, Welner had also bought a lot of time by using a strategy that made his army move between forts.
So now, Welner could only do his best to survive until the reinforcements arrived.

“Still, Your Excellency, you smell.”

“Frenssen said the same thing earlier.”

After being told he smelled for the second time by Rafed, Welner let out a bitter smile.
Then he sniffed his sleeves.
Rafed, who saw his action, continued his words.

“You know, Your Excellency, your fiance might hate you for smelling like that.”

“I don’t have any fiancee!”

“Truly? I thought Lily-dono is your fiancee.”

Welner was surprised by Rafed’s words.

“Why do you think Lily is my fiancee?”

“Well, seeing how protective you were of Lily-dono before, I thought she was your fiancee.
I mean, there are many ways to make Lily-dono your fiancee despite the fact she’s a commoner.”

“It’s possible to make Lily who is a commoner my fiancee, but she isn’t my fiancee.”

Welner didn’t have a fiancee.
You could say that Welner was too busy with his job to think about getting a fiancee now, but even without that, Welner himself had constantly tried to avoid the topic of a fiancee.

“Well, I can imagine your reason for not having a fiancee but it will be best if you do not mention it to anyone.”

“I know.”

Welner smiled bitterly at Kesten’s somewhat sarcastic remark.
The reason why Welner avoided the topic of fiancee was simple.
The current Welner was an easy target for ambitious parents and hyena girls, especially in Anheim.

After all, even though Welner’s reputation in the capital was bad, he was still the heir of a Count house.
Although his reputation made it possible for him to avoid the talk of engagement for the time being, there were still many girls who wanted to get married to him despite his reputation just to become a future countess.

In addition, people with great military prowess were basically popular in this world.
Although the fact that Welner succeeded in wounding Gezarius had not spread yet, the news of Welner exterminating the bandits had become well known.
Currently, Welner had a reputation as a civil official who was strict in judging crimes.

While thinking ‘it would be troublesome if too many strange rumors about me started to spread’, Welner stood up and went to take a bath.
Maybe it was something that Welner did to escape this conversation, or perhaps Welner simply wanted to think about other things on his own.
No one would know the truth.