This book covers part of the post war arc from the web novel. It's interesting to see the struggles of Souma in negotiating with the empire on Van's occupation and pointing out the flaw of the Mankind Declaration to the second of command in the empire by using the analogy of capitalism and communism in the form of a legend. There's also the psychological aspect in executing 'cruelty' as instructed by Machiavelli as he later thought out for a while whether his actions are justified in killing those who have not done any prosecutable wrongdoings but will be troublesome to handle later down the line. Can't wait to see what the next volume might entail for the kingdom and the principality.