Chapter 277
Chapter 277
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: One Empire, Three Legends (36)
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“The power of the Emperor is not something to be wielded—it simply exists.”
Rustle. Rustle.
Golden sunset light poured through the grand audience chamber’s windows, and amid it, shadows like thorny vines grew and faded.
The Witch’s curse flowers. They ceaselessly sprouted and crumbled as if desperate to enter this place, appearing like manifestations of the Witch’s inner thoughts.
The Emperor, who had been silent as if choosing his words—or sifting through countless answers for the right one—finally spoke.
“From the Empire’s edge to its heart. You’ve crossed half the Empire. What did you make of the Empire you saw?”
The Empire I saw. The Professor recalled everyone he’d met on his journey from the Border White Territory to here. The Vizillen family of the Border White Territory—the patriarch Alessio Vizillen, who had severed his son’s head with a single stroke, even though that son had already been taken by the Mutts.
The countless wind mages he’d met on Storm Hill. The stiff, irritable mage Astrad and his master Gauman.
Knights who rushed out without pay at a single imperial command. Wandering knight orders that roamed the world hearing the grievances of the common folk, reserve knight orders from nearby families—all surplus manpower, yet none lacked extraordinary spirit. Knights who still clung to the romance and chivalry of knighthood.
Haunuman. A vassal state seeking independence from imperial interference, a city of steppe tribes where imperial culture blended with grassland ways.
“...It wasn’t peaceful. Each piece seems disparate at first glance, but all of it is tightly bound under the name of Empire, forming a harmony.”
“...Yes.”
“Indeed... peaceful. In the neighboring territory, over half the territorial guard was infected by the Mutt monster race and turned their spears against their own. The homeland of wind mages who’d endured for a century was half-destroyed by those beasts. Even as skirmishes large and small rage in Blue Line and most northern-adjacent territories, with Mutation Blood invasions underway, the daily lives of the imperial citizens remain as peaceful as ever. A foolish state of affairs.”
The facts from the Emperor’s mouth. That was the spark that first planted doubt in the Professor about this nation called the Empire. In the east, the Vizillen territory would have fallen to Mutt and Blue Line undead invasions if he hadn’t stopped them himself. Message magic ensured news traveled fast, yet even the adjacent territory seemed oblivious to the crisis.
Of course, from the Empire’s overall perspective, such calm response was exemplary. Panic spreads unease, prompts migrations, disrupts production of goods. That weakens the entire Empire, so confining chaos to battle zones while the rest carries on is ideal.
‘Like in an RTS game, where worker units must focus on production even if combat units are wiped out. But can people really function that mechanically?’
“That is the Empire. They do not move for the Empire. They simply live naturally. That natural way of living, fused inseparably with deep-rooted worship of the Empire, is how they act.”
“...Yes. I knew that much. Anyone with sharp eyes and ears, able to infer from clues, could figure it out. Now, Saint. You crossed half the Empire to reach here, met many imperial citizens along the way, heard plenty of rumors about the Empire. Do you remember what they call me?”
‘What the imperial citizens—or the rumors—call the Emperor?’
The Professor desperately combed through his journey. The Emperor. Stories about the Emperor. What had he heard? The Emperor is the Empire, and the Empire is the Emperor? Worship of the Emperor? Anything else?
“There was.”
Before he could recall an answer, the Emperor’s golden eyes drew it from within him.
“Of course there was. A trivial tale overlooked even by the speaker, brushed off by the listener. From the mouths of subjects who see me as father, teacher, executioner—slipped into the cracks of worship etched deep in their souls. Recall it. What am I known as?”
In that golden glow, the Professor’s memories traced back along his journey. Emperor. Emperor. Lion’s Empire. Lion...
“The Slothful... Lion?”
[As expected of the Slothful Lion’s Empire...]
[Blessings upon the Slothful Lion!]
Yes. It was there. From Lucilla’s lips, from passing imperial citizens. Inside or outside the Empire, they had a specific name for it.
A name so irreverent—daring to attach it before the Empire’s name, to an Emperor they revered without question.
The Slothful Lion’s Empire.
“People outside the Empire. People inside. Even those swept up in the fervor, who revere me like a parent and would leap into fire at my word—none hesitate to call me the ‘Slothful Lion.’”
“...Why?”
“Because it is the burden the Empire’s Emperor must bear. He who becomes Emperor dons that crown. Even if its weight snaps his neck, that is the Empire’s Emperor. I am the great Empire’s Emperor, Calessiax til Agdan IX, its master. Every drop of water, every blade of grass on that land belongs to me—it is the title of the demigod encompassing all who tread it, omniscient.”
“And the soul of a mortal cannot endure that divinity. So, a price must be paid, naturally.”
The Professor could see it. Even as he spoke, the vitality fading from the Emperor’s eyes. He had declared through his own lips that he would answer questions, so the responses continued, but his own will—the one that had spoken of it before—had already withered within the golden halo.
“Omniscience. Knowing all. A mere mortal soul cannot bear it, sinking into a curse-like boredom, sloth. That is the burden laid upon this Empire’s Emperor. Knowledge implanted as naturally as breathing in every subject’s heart: the Emperor is slothful. Thus, they call me the Slothful Lion.”
From the Emperor’s booming voice commanding the Empire, to the frail voice of an aged, shrunken old man. From a blazing torch to a flickering ember on the verge of extinction. The Emperor’s voice shifted moment by moment, mirroring his own state.
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An Emperor declaring himself sunk into a curse-like sloth. Though his form seemed profoundly weary, the Professor kept tension in his unwavering gaze.
His body might strain under the weight, but the golden aura enveloping him remained intact.
If the Empire was the Emperor, then the Emperor would not fade until the Empire crumbled.
“Sloth. It means this Calessiax til Agdan IX splits into ‘Calessiax’ and ‘Agdan IX.’ I know all, understand all. Thus, every part of the Empire finds its own place, leaving me an endlessly slothful empty shell. Calessiax fades, and only Emperor Agdan IX remains in that shell. That is the curse upon this Empire’s Emperor—the neck-snapped Emperor.”
The Emperor knew. Long ago, the fallen saintess who barely survived had taken root in this Empire.
He knew when she became one with a humble farm family, devoured them all, then used that power to swallow a village, a city, an entire territory.
Yet he watched without reaction. For the Empire had accepted her. Drawn her in.
Everything the Empire drew in was for its own prosperity, and knowing this, the Emperor needed do nothing, think nothing—sinking into endless sloth. The Emperor existed as a mere symbol.
Thwack!
The Emperor’s scepter struck the floor, and the grand audience chamber reverted to a shabby, dim fortress. The withered curse flowers that had appeared when the Professor crossed the imperial palace’s threshold, blanketing the rundown city.
“Behold this sight. A worn, battered remnant of a past kingdom. Before this land was called Empire, squeezed between nations, plundered daily—a weak state. This is the capital of the ‘Baltin Kingdom,’ Oll Amperia. I ask you: what does it mean for the Empire’s capital, its heart, to harbor such a dilapidated city?”
With the Emperor’s question, the fortress walls burst open, revealing the cityscape below the hill.
Shabby, yes, but clearly forged in battle. Sheer cliffs made the hilltop city a natural fortress, sharpened wooden palisades everywhere, from stone mansions to mud huts—none lacked wooden shutters, bows, arrows.
A vision of the past. In the Empire, mansion and courtyard bespoke the owner.
“The Empire... even after growing this vast, still hasn’t escaped the specter of that era?”
“It’s not that it hasn’t escaped—it is that era.”
The Empire was the will of the founding Emperor, the great hero, fused with the wills of all he conquered. Its growth was merely that fusion expanding.
“The Empire is the Emperor. The Emperor is the Empire. But that uncontrollable Empire’s will and power crushed the individual will of the Emperor deep into his subconscious. The result: an Empire moved solely by the founding Emperor’s great will, the 500-year-old specter’s will. An Empire that is itself, complete.”
An over-prosperous Empire. At endless expansion’s end, it reached vast mountains in the east, dense elven forests in the west, governing masses of people equal to its territory.
That became the problem.
“It grew too vast. Territory and subjects alike.”
The people yearn for peace and prosperity.
The Empire’s citizens, countless as stars, the Empire itself. The collective foolish will crying for peace finally surpassed the founding Emperor’s spirit—the ancient hero who bound the Empire. The Emperor, meant to adjust it to reality, lost in sloth’s curse, became a doll, a receptacle for that power.
The Empire could not mend the resulting rift, growing endlessly, manifesting as its current reality.
“I know it. The nobles know. The imperial military knows. The turmoil in the eastern three kingdoms beyond the mountains isn’t confined there. If they fall, the Mutts devouring everything will reach for this Empire. Yet look. We know, but thought doesn’t reach action—it withers. Because of the selfish, foolish hearts of imperial citizens simply wanting peace. Even if the neighbor burns, content with their fertile patch—too many such fools! Because the Empire is one, that vast foolishness moves it as one!”
The Empire was diseased. When swift action was needed, it sought the safest, most passive solution with least harm. As it had in ancient times, when tiny Baltin Kingdom, with only one city left, could tolerate no defeat.
And as a collective will nearing self-made prosperity, the Empire—aware of its illness—sought to heal itself.
“The Witch is clear change for an Empire hardening like stone. Horrific with blood and flesh, but to the colossal beast called Empire, good and evil mean nothing. The Empire needed surgery, and she seemed a fine scalpel to the Empire’s vast will—for excising its sickness, culling the overabundant citizens.”
A shock for the diseased Empire. To heal itself, it accepted the tumor. Amid that, the Witch grew her power, burrowed like a snake, reached the Emperor’s side—the center of it all.
But what the 500-year-old will moving the Empire hadn’t foreseen.
The Witch had read the Empire’s nature as a vast will collective from the start, coveting it.
Riding the Empire’s currents like a snake, before the ponderous giant noticed...
She stole the Emperor’s power. A portion of it.
“The Witch... stole that power given only to the Emperor, the Empire itself?”
“Did I not say it’s not given to anyone? The Emperor is a living symbol. The Empire’s power exists solely in the Empire as a whole. The Witch planted her curse in me, here, across the Empire. In my weakened state, she widened that gap with the curse, seizing part of the Empire’s divinity—the throne that exists of itself, ownerless.”
Swoosh—
The Emperor undid the sash of his ornate robes, revealing his torso. On his sturdy frame—remnants of a robust prime despite his age—curse flowers rooted deeply, vividly overtaking his demigod form.
Confessing the Empire’s most painful failure, the Emperor paradoxically seemed delighted.
“Huhuhuhu... The Empire misjudged the Witch’s capacity, yielding part of its heart. She moved to wield that power, to grasp even the Empire’s facade. And now... here we are, you and I, facing each other, talking. Foolish. Utterly foolish! This Empire, all its subjects! The Witch, and even you before me! All so foolish it’s laughable in my eyes! Hahaha! Hahahahaha!”
The Emperor laughed. Half his face—invaded by curse flower roots—remained a doll sunk in sloth and ennui. The other half burned with irrepressible ecstasy and madness, his laughter echoing through the dilapidated fortress.
“The Witch stole half the ‘Empire’ from the Emperor! It means this ‘human Calessiax,’ dormant under vast power, now has room to awaken and act! Finally, the ‘Emperor’ and ‘Empire,’ crushed into oneness, can move as one will! That wretched fallen one’s scheme tightens around my neck! How is that not hilarious! The Empire—every act for the Empire itself! Uhahaha! Hahahaha!!!”
‘So that’s it. He emphasized the curse-like sloth and absence of self so much, yet I wondered how he could assert his will like this.’
As he said, the Emperor was merely a receptacle for the ‘Empire’s’ power collective. Succession was like swapping a burnt-out bulb for a new Emperor.
But this Emperor conversed with clear personal will. Now the reason was clear.
The gap the Witch’s curse pried open. The Emperor’s power leaking through it.
With the Empire’s crushing will ebbing, the prisoner trapped within—the will of Calessiax, slumbering under the Emperor’s name—finally emerged.
“Aaah. Like a nightmare. Look at this old body, Saint. When I ascended, it commanded the world, shattered boulders. But opening my eyes, it’s aged to ruin, claimed by the curse. If this Emperor’s seat isn’t a curse, what is? Had I known sooner, I’d never have clawed so fiercely for it.”
The Emperor—Calessiax—chuckled at his fading body’s absurdity, turning eyes to me. His voice remained aged, but the tone was that of a newly ascended thirty-something Calessiax, not the old Emperor.
“A long tale, so now the answer. How the Witch wields the Emperor’s power? Simple: she gained an imperial body. The war for the throne gathers all the Empire’s scattered might to the capital for succession. That instability is perfect for theft. The diseased, broken Empire’s power accepted her as the means to excise its rot—radically reducing overpopulous citizens.”
“Then, the Witch... is Terenua, the Second Prince’s mother?”
“...Foolish.”
Thwack—!
The scepter struck the floor again, and the scenery shifted once more.
‘Reality.’
He sensed it instinctively. Not the ‘garden’ crafted by near-divine imperial power—this was the imperial palace as it truly existed.
Vast, majestic, bloodstained audience chamber.
Corpses of imperial guards who’d slain each other to protect the Emperor amid the curse, and two in imperial garb, sprawled at his feet.
Kicking the corpse in empress-consort attire—worn only by empresses and consorts—the Emperor’s one eye, stripped of gold, gleamed.
“A foolish, ambitious woman, scheming by any means to crown her son. Seizing the chaos, she brought the Second Prince and his rabble to assassinate me, invading the palace. Imperials have secret passages. She’s a hag like Sagar, but not the Witch.”
“Then...”
“Ponder it, questioner. I chose and led you here for that endless curiosity. If not Terenua, who is the Witch?”
The Emperor’s power. Absorbing only a part, yet one who sought to claim even its outward manifestation—not from behind the truth, but in plain view.
The visible throne. The war for succession. Imperial blood.
A position to spread curse flowers across the Empire.
Road construction? The one who could plan it beforehand.
Backed by most administrators, essential construction mages, jurists.
“...The First Imperial Princess. She’s the Witch.”
“She’s seized most of the Empire’s administration, the rest by curse. With the First Prince sunk, she’s closest to the throne above and below. Even bound by curse, she holds substantial imperial power—so the Empire already sees her as Emperor, clearing her path.”
Rustle. Rustle. Rustle.
As the Emperor’s low voice spoke, dust began falling from the palace ceiling.
“...Yet, though I loathe the imperial throne myself, I remain the Empire’s Emperor. I cannot watch all subjects carve their own flesh in pandemonium. Thus, as the Empire’s Emperor, Calessiax til Agdan IX—legitimate inheritor of this throne, unlost of will—my first command, Saint.”
Rumble—
Boom! Crash!
In the palace crumbling from its foundations like self-destruction, the Emperor raised his scepter and tapped my shoulder.
“Open a new Empire. Slay the legitimate next Emperor, the Witch. Found a new dynasty, proclaiming the Empire awakens from 500 years’ slumber—to forge a millennium of history as a new Empire!”
Boom!
The wall dividing capital and palace collapsed. Before the kneeling Professor and Emperor, the capital—filled with flames and chaos—laid bare.
Rustle. Rustle.
The crumbling palace. Like it, the Emperor’s flesh began to disintegrate.
One with the Empire, the Emperor. Declaring the Empire’s end meant accepting his own death.
“Thus. The Empire... shall endure. Endure, Empire. That is the first and last imperial decree of Calessiax til Agdan IX, last Emperor of half a millennium. The Lion’s Empire sets; a new dynasty rises. Freed from the founding Emperor’s specter 500 years past. A new dynasty.”
With each word, each phrase of the Emperor’s speech.
Its meaning seeped into the air.
The words became power—wind, dust, strands of golden might—spreading to the Empire’s ends.
That power toppled the Empire’s symbol, the palace; the lion banner atop burned to ash.
Destroy the Empire, birth the Empire.
‘Part of the Empire in the Witch’s hands. The rest lingers in the Emperor’s body.’
Using the Empire’s remaining power, the Emperor made the Empire fade.
Not succession—dissolution.
He made the rest vanish with the Empire, lest it fall to the Witch.
“You, Saint. The sole one to audience the true Emperor—Empire’s power and will fused—since the founder. You refused to become Emperor yourself, so be the herald proclaiming the Lion’s Empire’s end, the standard-bearer announcing the new dynasty’s birth.”
Whoosh!
From the collapsing palace rubble, a self-ignited banner fell before the kneeling Professor.
“To the one who rejected Emperor... choose the new Emperor... As when Baltin took the Empire’s name. As when the primordial Emperor was named...”
The Emperor knelt with his withering, crumbling body. His scepter bound the half-burnt sky cloth as a pole. With that, the last Emperor, mission fulfilled, became ash.
“...So it comes to this.”
He’d suspected the Emperor abnormal since curse flowers spread Empire-wide.
If the Emperor was the Empire, to devour it, the Witch must taint him. He’d expected the Emperor’s death somehow.
Scepter as pole, half-burnt lion banner as base.
The Professor took the scorched, unmarked banner.
That instant, the last golden aura from the Emperor’s ashes fully dispersed into the air, and
『A-aaaaaaah!!!!』
Far off in the capital, a horrific scream echoed.
The Emperor’s final gift. Severing the death curse flowing through sacrifice rites, stakes ensnaring the Empire—implanted in all citizens.
[Survive.]
Likely the Witch’s rage as the Empire she thought hers slipped through her grasp.
“...I came to ask him to lend a hand against the Empire’s parasite.”
Yet he held the seed of a new Empire. Good or bad, unclear.
“...If the Empire’s heart turns to dust like this, the next world’s obvious without looking.”
With a deep sigh, the Professor stowed the banner in his subspace, rising on legs recovered enough to walk.
No more hiding. Toward the city where massive thorny vines and curse flowers shattered it like walls.
Toward the Witch.
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