Count Clayton did two things in a single day.
The first was to publicly question Grand Duke Rodriguez.
The Flame Dragon belonged to the Clayton Family, yet Grand Duke Rodriguez had transformed it into an Undead bone dragon. To the Clayton Family, this was an insult. Nobles valued their dignity and would defend it with their lives.
This was practically an open confrontation. Moreover, Grand Duke Rodriguez's identity as an Undead mage had always drawn criticism. Just like Count William's Family's Legions of Vampires, Undead mages lay outside the bounds of accepted human morality and custom.
For a time, the nobles' eyes lit up as they watched the conflict between two top-tier noble houses.
The second matter concerned the Imperial Legions.
Count Clayton publicly accused them of assigning a great deal of military merit, in recent times, to people unrelated to the battlefield, while the soldiers who had fought desperately on the front lines failed to receive the credit they deserved.
One soldier had slain fifteen enemies, protected His Majesty the Emperor, obeyed deployment orders, transported provisions... When all those merits were added together, the final result was that his credit had been split five ways, becoming the merits of five people, all five of whom became officers in the Imperial Legions.
Another soldier had defended a frontline camp, rescued nobles, rescued officers... Those were clearly two separate merits, yet after the war ended, he received no commendation from the Imperial Legions. Even when the noble he had saved tried to intervene on his behalf, it was useless.
There were far too many such cases.
One stone stirred a thousand waves. If the first matter had merely been entertainment for the nobles, involving disputes and conflicts among them, then this matter drew the attention of far too many people.
Recently,