Richard blinked and continued thinking.
Did Oscar and the Alliance Emperor think that once he obtained power, he would be forced by moral pressure or pride to desperately fulfill his obligations, doing everything possible to help the Soma Alliance achieve victory?
In other words, were they trying to squeeze every last bit of value out of him? Come to think of it, that possibility could not be ruled out. From Oscar's perspective, Richard was someone who had wiped out an entire branch of the Truth Society. Whatever methods he had used, Pompey had indeed fallen at his hands. If they could truly wring out his value, then the Alliance would not be losing out by giving him books from the Royal Library.
But... if that was really what they thought, they had miscalculated somewhat.
His sense of morality had never been particularly strong. Asking him to occasionally do some short-term work for them was one thing, but expecting him to work long-term? Absolutely impossible.
Honestly, if he had not wanted to avoid making things look too ugly, he would have felt the urge to walk out of the Command Room halfway through directing the battle. But considering how much effort he had already put in, leaving just like that would have meant wasting his own investment, so he had persisted until now.
But this was also his limit—the limit of how far he was willing to fulfill his obligations.
Since he knew his authority was real, there was no need to keep testing it. After all, being able to use power when he wanted and refrain from using it when he wanted was what real power meant. Only having a choice counted as genuine power. If he had no choice and was forced to use it, then it was an