Vadim PoV
I hid in the brush as I watched several man in horseback. They must've been the men that Niconora and the others had seen, judging from their armor.
Makkuroyama had fallen, yet some of their people continued resisting. They felt nostalgic for their short lived independence when Makkuroyama had been one of the wealthier parts of what was Kuroriku, a contrast to the poverty it experienced under Amelia's mother.
Amelia and I would've been fine with letting them keep it, but independent Makkuroyama was being funded by Kasai no Ki to serve as a launch pad against the core of Kuroriku and the south and northern Grand Dukedoms. We couldn't allow the rest of the kingdom to fall to them. If so, Kuroriku would've seized to exist as a whole.
