Paul clenched his fist in midair.
"In my plan, the war against the orcs will be fought along two fronts. One will be a traditional war of sword against sword, while the other will be cultural."
"As for the cultural front, first of all, our enemies were originally a disorganized mass. Although Alba has united them for now, they certainly aren't of one mind internally. Their conflicts aren't limited to practical interests. Their respective tribal traditions and ways of life must also differ in many details. I need to fully understand the contradictions between them and, when the time is right, create advantages for us in our war against the orcs."
Paul painted Yarvis a vision of the bright future he had planned.
"Second, if the day truly comes when we defeat the orcs, I don't want to repeat the mistakes of history. This time, I intend to eradicate their culture completely and destroy the bonds that sustain them as a race."
Yarvis quietly let out a sigh of relief. When Paul had said he intended to destroy the orcs, he had thought the young Marquis meant wiping out the orc race physically.
That would have been terrifying. As a scholar, Yarvis had an almost instinctive aversion to large-scale slaughter. The orcs were a race capable of communicating with humans, after all.
Still, the Marquis was being somewhat arrogant—at least, that was what Yarvis thought. Even Gabella's young emperor had only managed to maintain a stalemate against Alba.
He asked aloud, "My lord Marquis, are you certain you can defeat them militarily?"
"Yes."
To Yarvis, Marquis Greiman seemed to be answering something self-evident, not even bothering to offer the slightest explanation.
He had no idea where that confidence came from. In the eyes of the world, Aldo had been utterly