Chapter 275
Chapter 275
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 275
Chapter Title: Chapter 14. One Empire, Three Legends (34)
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****
“Ottman, Ottman! Can you hear me?”
[...-crackle! That deep-.... sound!]
“Hello? Ottman! I used aura!!! Hey, wizard team!”
[........]
“Damn it. Dead silence.”
Even outside, Ottman had mentioned something about magical interference waves, but once they entered the Empress’s Palace, communication was completely severed. The same thing must have happened to them after entering the Consort’s Palace, so it was safe to assume something installed in the palace itself was blocking message magic.
The Professor glanced around the interior of the Empress’s Palace, which was decorated neither too extravagantly nor too plainly, as he laboriously dragged Gainax along.
....What a bizarre sight.
Rustle rustle rustle
Crunch crunch crunch—
Whether it was the First Prince or him, both were battered wrecks, leaving trails of blood in their wake. Servants who had rushed out from somewhere followed behind them in a daze, wiping up the long streaks of blood with blank stares.
“Your robes are soiled. Her Majesty the Empress will be displeased.”
“Your Highness. A letter has arrived, so please check it. You must check it.”
A maid crawling on her knees beside the unconscious prince being dragged along, wiping the dented, blood-soaked armor.
A butler shoving a few letters at the unresponsive prince, repeating the same words like a parrot.
“The tea is exquisite. Ah, a reception befitting the Empress’s Palace. They truly know how to serve nobility.”
“MaytheEmpireliveforevermaytheEmpireliveforeverbecometheFirstPrince’smeritandourfamilywillrisetothemoststeadytablemaytheEmpireliveforevermaythe—”
A middle-aged man sipping from an empty teacup in admiration. An old man endlessly muttering while licking the marble floor.
Scattered here and there were nobles from the First Prince’s faction, even more deranged than the city’s aristocrats, each lost in their own delusions.
The Professor pushed through them with effort and ascended the stairs engraved with exotic patterns.
Past the hall for banquets. A place visible at a glance yet separated.
An audience chamber that occupied an entire floor of the massive palace.
Between rows of imperial columns stood a path of red carpet, at the end of which sat two ornate chairs.
One for the Emperor, lord of all in the empire.
The other for his consort and mother of the nation. The First Prince’s birth mother and mistress of this palace.
“To think a guest would visit in these chaotic times.”
Empress Altena Tique Matrea. Once the leader of a nation-sized tribe as a woman, now embraced in the Emperor’s arms along with her people.
The Empress, with her northern tribe’s black hair and a golden gown symbolizing the imperial family, retained her beauty undiminished even past middle age.
“....Enter. I shall specially grant you an audience.”
Creak— slam.
The audience chamber doors closed, and at last, her gaze turned downward.
****
....Gulp.
As if she usually enjoyed such private audiences, her attendants and servants had slipped away like the ebbing tide at her permission for an audience. Silence filled the closed doors, and the extraordinary Empress’s presence instinctively made one brace their toes.
Still clamping Gainax’s head under one arm, the Professor fumbled in his pocket.
‘The curse coin shows no reaction.’
He had passed the initial check. However, the witch had slipped through verifications by priests who served the gods. It was too soon to relax just because the curse coin didn’t react.
As the Professor’s hand delved deeper into his pocket, searching for the contingency prepared for situations like this.
“....As a mother, it pains me to watch. How about releasing the boy.”
The Empress’s voice, quietly observing them, settled before him.
“....That’s a difficult request. Regrettably, my current state is such that I should be scouting for a coffin rather than seeking an imperial audience.”
“No. I have eyes and ears. Did you think I missed that roar and light tearing up His Majesty’s lands?”
Swish.
Clack. Clack. Clack. Rustle.
The Empress rose gracefully from her ornate seat, approaching the prince and him step by step with dignity. Boldness in her eyes. A flicker of small emotion amid it. Trembling. Resignation.
‘....No. It’s not her.’
The moment their eyes met, a thought unbidden rose in a corner of his mind: ‘Not the answer.’
This woman was not it. There was no concrete proof to assert it, but he felt it.
Rustle.
Finally, the Empress drew close enough that even he, slumped from exhaustion, had to look up. As if demanding the obvious, she bent at the waist, and the Professor released his grip on the prince’s head into her waiting hands.
Her gown cascaded like a waterfall around her as she sat on the floor like any common housewife. The mother removed her son’s bloodstained helmet and cradled his weary head in her lap, as if enveloping his faint breaths.
“So.... my son has lost. Gainax has fallen.”
She had been in the Empress’s Palace, but that brilliant golden light had been so radiant it pierced the walls, so she had no doubt of Gainax’s victory.
It was the same light as the one held by the bold man who had captivated her in her youth. The light of the man who proved himself the empire’s master with his mere presence, without a single servant or word.
Yet her son had fallen to the man before her. And he had come seeking something.
“You have the look of one with questions.”
“....”
“It must all seem incomprehensible to an outsider. I understand. I was the same. The empire is.... far more bizarre and complex than we imagine.”
From the Empress’s words, the Professor realized she felt the same. From the northern empire borders, beyond the domain. Like him, not born an imperial subject, thus lacking that deep-seated worship of the empire and Emperor in her soul.
“You don’t seem.... regretful.”
“Why regret? If it has come to this, it was destined.”
“Destined....?”
“The empire. It means the empire wills it.”
Wiping the blood from the prince’s face with her sleeve, the Empress met the Professor’s eyes with her deep gaze.
“What did you encounter crossing the empire’s borders?”
“....We crossed the Blue Line into the borderlands.”
“Yes. And what did you see there?”
“....Mutes and undead.”
“Then. At Storm Hill.”
“Chamber Maids and.... named ones.”
“And so, passing Haunuman, you judged those devouring the empire from within, and reached the capital like this. And felled my son, closest to the throne.”
“....”
“Following my own path, it was all for you, yet also for the empire. Do you think it mere coincidence? Truly believe that from the moment you set foot on this land, you moved purely, solely by your own will?”
The Professor couldn’t easily respond to the Empress’s loaded words. Manipulated? Led by someone’s hand? The witch? Or the Emperor?
‘Hyde, anything burrowing into my head and twisting the party’s path?’
[None at all. With my eyes wide open red-hot, you think I’d miss that?]
Hyde denied it vehemently, as if it were absurd. If not him, then probably not. But dismissing the Empress’s words as lies? Her account made their journey too.... convenient from the empire’s perspective.
Amid the confusion and doubt, the Empress’s low laughter seeped in.
“Heh heh heh. That look in your eyes too. I was the same. Living here as the empire’s mother and His Majesty’s consort, I saw and felt so much. Impossible not to know. Don’t worry. It’s not anyone’s will—it’s the empire itself.”
“The empire itself....?”
“Exactly as said. This vast land guided your path.”
From the Empress’s lips flowed the empire’s secret history, dreamy, resigned.
“My son, Gainax, symbol of dominance, embodies the will of those who wish the empire to expand and reclaim past glories.”
“The First Princess’s power over magic, administration, and bureaucracy embodies the will of those desiring peace and the maintenance of this prosperity, free of conflict.”
“The Third Prince, backed by provincial nobles’ influence, embodies the will of those seeking internal strife to seize the empire’s power amid it.”
“And the Second Prince, hand in hand with the empire’s shame, embodies the will of the empire’s darkness. Its enemies, invaders, spies, and misguided rabble who wish this nation crumbled, fragmented, vanished.”
.
.
.
.
“The empire’s power divided among them. It is no different from the manifested will of all the empire’s subjects. The imperial family’s abilities, birth, even conduct are shaped by the forces flowing through the entire empire. If Gainax fell, then the empire—this colossal being called the ‘Valtin Empire’—must have willed it.”
Thus they dreamed. Innumerable subjects of the empire. Power born from them all, in its most legitimate form, closest to the Emperor, dwelling in Gainax.
Thus she resigned. If her son was broken by someone’s hand, then it too was this colossal empire’s will.
‘This is the empire’s strength.... that maintained peace for five centuries.’
A god without form, essence, even scriptures for its faith.
As long as that prosperity endures, rebellion is impossible. The empire’s vast majority subjects—more than half would never wish war and violence.
Thus peace holds, the people desire it more, reinforcing the origin, linking to the empire’s peace and safety.
If territorial wars arose, merging two nobles’ lands strengthened the empire; if rebellion, their house’s extinction ensured its safety.
A nation that strengthened and multiplied itself.
That was the nature of the immense power tied to the Emperor and empire.
“Then.... I don’t understand. Why did I defeat the First Prince? I, an outsider, not even a noble subject. And this chaos has gone beyond bounds—if that too bears the empire’s will, then for what purpose all this....”
“Yes. Strange, isn’t it? The empire’s subjects’ origins already divided among the imperial heirs. What will, what force led you to the capital to cut through it.... That, even I wish to know.”
A woman swept by mighty power, into the empire’s fate.
Empress Altena Tique Matrea—even she, once an iron-blooded leader of mighty hordes—liked this bizarre man who cleaved through the fate’s storm that broke her to resignation.
She too felt the anomaly. The breeze that should ripen spring had grown into a storm, blizzard, a savage winter whirling to freeze all the empire.
Jingle.
She extended to the Professor the necklace with a small ornament around her neck.
“This is....”
“Go to the Imperial Palace. By rights, amid the throne strife, none—not even imperial kin—enter the Emperor’s residence. But you.... who felled the empire’s path of dominance.... might pierce that melee and reach His Majesty’s side.”
The ornament she handed over—a small lion-head charm—protected the wearer from traps, ancient magic, and spells installed throughout the Imperial Palace, meant for imperial family.
“Go. His Imperial Majesty knows all. Go, resolve your doubts, fulfill your duty.”
The Professor read the relief in her eyes. That her son had escaped this savage storm’s core. That the empire’s colossal grip had not seized her blood.
The once iron-blooded woman was gone. Only a mother embracing her son, at last freed from the fate forged at his birth.
The Professor took the imperial symbol from such an Empress’s hand and rose.
“....Be cautious. For nearly a decade, even I, his spouse, and the consorts have not beheld His Majesty’s face—not once. Something.... is happening in the Imperial Palace.”
An otherworldliness even the Empress, ignorant of the witch, could sense.
Before leaving the audience chamber, the Professor glanced back at them one last time. The Empress whispered softly into his ear, like long ago, decades past, reciting northern legends at her young son’s bedside.
“It’s over. At last, only now, it’s over, Gainax. My son.”
“....Puha, heuk, ugh.... Mother.... I.... the empire.... me....”
“No more. This was as far as it went. You thought reaching that peak was freedom.... but heaven aided you. Now live not as First Prince, but as Gainax. Gainax Agdan. At last.... a life where your name is just a name.”
The barely conscious son, and the aged mother sitting on the floor, stroking her grown son’s hair.
A prince raised from birth for emperorship, freed by the denial of that life.
“....”
The Professor etched the sight in his eyes, then exited the aura-shattered Empress’s Palace.
His gaze turned to the Imperial Palace.
Origin of all golden auras surging in the capital. The empire’s heart.
****
Meanwhile, at the outskirts of All Amperia. In the lower city where madness spread, long ago Telde Mayer’s nightmare began to recur.
Squeeze—
The highest noble nearby, owning the grandest mansion. Atop Duke de Gaulle’s spire, a girl bundled in sacks pulled a rope.
“....I can’t just sit here. I’m.... I’m Lucilla Aedran! Future leader of the Gold Jaeger Caravan, heroine to spread the Aedran name worldwide with the golden law! Ugh! Uwaaah! I can do it! I can, do it!”
With shaking eyes, on the narrow rooftop where one slip meant death, teary-eyed Lucilla slapped her cheeks hard to banish fear.
Lucilla Aedran. She was cautious, careful. Though Idraasil hid her in a nook, with rat corpses shredded nearby by a patrolling maid cleaning them repeatedly, the spirit magic concealing her seemed masterful even to a layman like her—so normally, she’d have hidden silently until the party finished.
But.
Whirr whirr whirr— clunk!
“Good, good! It hooked!”
A strange impulse. An inexplicable pull. And the flashing aura in the night sky, battle noises, worry for the grown party.
“....Aedrans don’t leave deals to others’ hands. There’s something I can do. Surely, there is. Beyond that wall!”
And a conviction so strong she found it odd herself. With faint golden flicker, the conviction came.
Thus Lucilla hurled her grapnel—made from a broken candlestick—toward the wall from that high spire.
Clunk.
The battle raining aura had damaged even dwarf masterpiece All Amperia’s walls.
And nearby where she climbed, a collapse made the spire higher than the wall.
Bizarre coincidence. Bizarre impulse. As if coincidences eager to draw her inside overlapped.
“I learned to sell flowers over arranging them, carts over carriages—that’s me, Lucilla Aedran! I can do it.... They call me legend and such, fine, I’ll become a proper legend—!”
Whoosh—!
Over the lower city dyed in madness and slaughter.
The girl all in the capital jestingly called ‘legend,’ her shadow—and shrill scream—flew into All Amperia’s interior.
All too coincidentally, where First Prince’s knights had cleared others, securing safety.
Adjoining the path to the Imperial Palace.
From inside the wall, another spire. The elf seeking the wizard party. Following the battered saint, toward her mission’s target: the Imperial Palace.
“Eek! O-Ottman! We’re gonna die like this!”
“If you run faster than the Imperial Guard on your own legs or fetch Neria to help me, then I’ll hear your complaints!”
“Pfft, Nel, for when she meets the witch—”
“Then shut up and entrust yourself to the current! The Imperial Guard seems bent on beheading all approaching the Imperial Palace! Even Notum’s drifting fine—why are you—"
“Notum’s a troll, all blubber! I’m just bones!”
“Grr, puha! Rude. Master. Notum’s a beautiful female with plenty of muscle.”
“G-Got it! Go— pfft! Got it, so grab me! I, I can’t swim—grrrgh!”
Splash!
After encountering the terrified Flower Consort, en route to Second Prince’s mother Terenua Consort’s palace.
Ottman, Aldrich, Notum fled swept by Ottman’s water filling a narrow corridor after tangling with the Imperial Guard.
Those gathered in the capital by chance and necessity moved as if led by some will.
To the Imperial Palace. Origin of all these powers and events, swirling with ominous brilliance.
Following paths forged by some colossal will.
To where the Emperor resided.
****