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"So... you are really going to kill him, right?" asks Beatrice as we wait for the carriage of one of Drial Cenit's tax collectors.
Beatrice became my slave a few months ago, and I've grown quite accustomed to her quiet company.
She is the only constant in my occasional forays into Drial Cenit, as Alessia and Delia only accompany me when they can coordinate with their days off at the clinic.
For several weeks now, I have begun to take on the role of a kind of 'heroic bandit' in the kingdom, using masks and my perception inhibitor to camouflage my identity while I steal from the nobles of Drial Cenit to give to the people.
The idea behind this stage of the smart clone's plan, if I remember correctly, is to create a reputation for myself as a 'hero of the people' while fostering friction between the peasants and the nobles, which in turn will generate tensions between the king and the nobles.
"Kill who?" I ask in response as I try unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn of boredom.
It's been a few hours since the tax collector passed by, so I'm sure he'll be back soon; only this time his carriage will be loaded with the taxes he collected from the various towns, small villages, and a few families living in slightly isolated houses.
At first, I found it a little curious that the kingdom of Drial Cenit used carriages to collect taxes and not travelers, as that would be safer.
But apparently that is not possible.
This is due to the limitations of space travel, as the economic cost of the skill, due to its MP consumption, makes it counterproductive.
If travelers were used, the cost of travel would take up a large part of the money collected in taxes.
And that's assuming the kingdom had so many travelers at its disposal, which is quite unlikely considering that the class is not very common.
In any case, this suits my plans perfectly.
Or rather, the smart clone's plans.
"The king," says Beatrice, yawning as she settles down to rest her head on my shoulder.
We are both sitting, hidden by some bushes, at the edge of a forest that borders the road that the carriage must take to return to the small castle of the nobleman in charge of this area.
"Ahh. No, I am not going to do it," I say as I look intently at the road.
'It should appear any minute now.'
"But... Then... What's the point of all these things we are doing?" asks Beatrice, confused by my words.
"I already explained it to you when we started these raids. It's so that the king will die," I say, without paying much attention to her.
Beatrice says nothing in response for several seconds, so I turn to look at her and find her with an expression of deep confusion.
"Haha... It's not that complicated, silly. I'm not going to kill the king. His own people are going to do it," I say with an amused smile.
"What?" she asks, increasingly disturbed by my words, looking at me as if I had just said something crazy.
"That's why we're trying to increase the discontent throughout the kingdom. The people of Drial Cenit are already quite angry with the king and most of the nobility..." I say while gently tapping her forehead.
"... You yourself confirmed it when Melisa told me."
The company's base of operations in this kingdom is now fully established, and thanks to that, the clever farmer was able, without attracting too much attention, to investigate the issues I asked her to look into.
Among the things she found out is the fact that the relationship between the people of the kingdom and the nobility is quite poor due to multiple factors.
The most important one is the forced conscription of people to swell the ranks of Drial Cenit because of the recent war.
Here, conscription was much more aggressive than in Castemira, as people from all over the kingdom were recruited, regardless of their knowledge of combat.
Apparently, the justification for this was that the military training the recruits would receive would be sufficient for them to learn how to fight.
But the reality was that this only served to make a percentage of the army cannon fodder for diversionary maneuvers.
When this information spread, it caused tremendous discontent and indignation among all the families who had lost loved ones in the war in this way.
This was even more so considering that many of the fallen were the sole breadwinners in some households.
Another factor contributing to social tensions is taxation, which has been gradually increasing in quantity and amount since the war against the kingdom of Castemira began and which did not decrease at the end of the conflict after the defeat of Drial Cenit.
But that's not all, as these factors are further aggravated by the stupid, abusive, and arrogant attitude that the nobles normally have toward the commoners.
Once again, this is similar to what happens in Castemira, but apparently here it is worse.
According to Melisa's findings, it is quite common here for nobles to murder a commoner for trivial reasons such as dirtying their clothes, getting in their way, or speaking ill of them.
Apparently, things were not like this in the past, but the situation has gradually worsened since the current king was crowned.
Beatrice told me that all the information Melisa had gathered was more or less correct, according to what she knew, and she added some details of her own.
Among those details were the different dates on which each nobleman usually collects taxes each month.
"Yes, but…" murmurs the redhead, almost as if talking to herself, and she becomes pensive.
"They're on the verge of rebelling. All it takes is a little stirring of the hornet's nest and sooner rather than later the people will refuse to continue being mistreated the way they are," I say slowly, pointing emphatically at us and the place where we know the carriage we are waiting for is due to appear.
"But wouldn't it be easier to-" she begins to ask, but I interrupt her with some impatience.
"Look. If I kill the king of Drial Cenit, that would make me a public threat to the rest of the kingdoms. Which for us would mean saying goodbye to any possibility of peace and tranquillity…"
'It's really not that complicated to understand...
Or maybe it is?...
Haa'
"... On the other hand, if the king falls because of his negligence and short-sightedness in governing, well... that won't draw much attention to us."
"That's... brilliant," she says, her eyes widening in surprise, now that she finally understands what I wanted to explain to her.
"I know. That's why it's my plan... more or less. I thought you understood the first time I explained it," I say with a smug smile.
"You just said we were going to do a series of things to get rid of the king, but you never said how you planned to accomplish that…" she says reproachfully.
"... I thought you'd want to take him down with your own hands. That's what I would do in your position."
"Yes, well... I could probably do it quite easily, but the easiest thing isn't necessarily the best thing. I think…" I say as a blurry silhouette approaching in the distance catches my attention.
"... Yes, look! The tax collector's carriage is coming back."
"I don't see it," she says, squinting in the direction I'm looking.
"Ahh, right…" I say, realizing that she obviously can't see it yet, as I can only see it because I have my Eagle's Eye Lvl 33 activated, so I point it out to her.
"... Never mind. If you walk a few minutes down the road, you'll see it for yourself soon enough. I'll support you from a distance, as always, but be careful."
' - He's so incredible... His wisdom, his vision, his strength, his speed, his skill in sex... Everything about him is so exceptional.'
"Don't worry. They won't even know what hit them... Hehe... Or cut, in this case," says Beatrice with an excited smile and becomes invisible.
'Haa...
She really enjoys the idea of killing people...
And even more so when it comes to men...
She's almost like a very exaggerated version of the three annoying beauties.'