Chapter 19
Chapter 19
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: The Will of House Sachsen
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Some time after the commotion subsided. The emperor's men departed, and peace once again returned to Castle Sachsen.
“Young Lord.”
As proof of that peace, the voice of the maid, Eve, could be heard waking Dale early in the morning as usual.
“Young Lord Dale, it is time to wake up.”
At her voice, which was gentler than usual, he rose from the pillow stuffed full of feathers. The dawn sunlight seeping through the window was very faint, so the room was still dark.
But the knights of the castle would have already risen and be engrossed in their training.
“Thank you for waking me.”
“Yes.”
Hearing Dale's words, Eve silently bowed her head. As a maid, her role for the moment ended there. But after bowing, Eve hesitated, not leaving her spot, as if she had something to say.
Sensing her meaning, Dale smiled quietly.
“Is there something you wish to say?”
“Well, it's just... um...”
The young maid, Eve, couldn't answer right away, her words trailing off.
A seventeen-year-old girl speaks respectfully to a mere ten-year-old boy, while Dale speaks to her informally. Because their stations are different. This is that kind of world.
A person's nobility is determined at birth, and no one questions such class distinctions.
That's why to men like Petro, she would be nothing more than a 'lowly thing' to be treated as they please.
“......Thank you.”
After much hesitation, Eve gathered her courage and spoke.
“For someone like me to be able to serve you, Young Lord, is truly an honor.”
Had she hesitated so much just to say that? He had spent a considerable part of his life in this world, but he was still not used to that way of thinking.
Nevertheless, he had no choice but to get used to it.
The eldest son of House Sachsen.
He understands the weight that name carries and uses everything he can. Without doing so, he would never be able to bring down the empire.
“Yes.”
And so, Dale simply smiled quietly. The conversation ended there.
* * *
That day, instead of crossing swords with the knights, Dale was summoned by his father and headed to the Duke's office in the castle.
The top floor of the castle, the office of his father, Duke Sachsen.
“That was an incredibly dangerous thing you did, Dale.”
As soon as Dale entered, his father, Lord Black, spoke, recalling the events of that day.
A clash with an imperial noble. Was he about to be reprimanded?
“......I have no doubt that you are an intelligent child.”
But Lord Black's next words were slightly different.
“Why did you choose to act in such a manner?”
It was simply a pure question. A test of Dale's caliber.
‘The time has finally come.’
Upon hearing that question, Dale did not hesitate.
No, rather, how long had he waited for this day.
—The day he would be treated not as a ten-year-old child, but as a proper member of the ducal house.
And so, Dale answered, explaining the political meaning behind his actions that day.
“That is not all.”
Furthermore, Dale's story did not end there.
“——Had the 'Hero from Another World' not died in his fight with the Divine Sword, Lord Badel.”
Dale continued calmly. The truth of the 'nation called the Empire' that he had realized while being raised as the Empire's hound in his past life. A truth that even Lord Black did not realize.
“The next target of the Hero's sword would have been here, the Duchy of Sachsen.”
“......!”
Because in his past life, Dale had clearly heard the imperial family's secret schemes and plots against House Sachsen.
But the Empire feared the Hero's power even more than Duke Sachsen's.
They feared a situation where the leash known as the 'Prohibition' would snap, and their own hound would break free of their control.
That is why he was disposed of immediately after defeating Lord Badel, and the Empire's plan to use poison to fight poison—to subdue Lord Black with the Hero—ultimately ended in failure.
“......You speak of incredibly irreverent things.”
Duke Sachsen asked back, feigning sternness.
“How can you be so certain?”
He couldn't just blurt out that he'd heard it in his past life.
“In the past, even though the Hero from Another World defeated the Demon King, the Empire did not completely root out the darkness of the Demon King's Domain.”
Dale continued.
“Instead, after withdrawing their main forces, they unilaterally forced our House Sachsen to bleed.”
Using only suspicions and evidence that could be considered 'rational'.
“Along with the absurd command to reclaim the Demon King's Domain as imperial territory——”
“......”
The monsters that endlessly plunder over the mountain range. And the high-ranking demons holding their breath in the darkness, awaiting the time of their revival.
“As long as the darkness dwelling in that land does not completely disappear, our bleeding will not stop.”
Though it is called the Demon King's Domain, that is merely a name given for human convenience.
A much deeper darkness dwells in that land.
So deep that even the Demon King he defeated was but a part of that darkness.
“The imperial family, who knows this better than anyone, is precisely why they granted the Demon King's Domain to you, Father.”
There could be no clearer proof that the imperial family is wary of House Sachsen.
“Furthermore, people outside the North point their fingers at our ducal house, calling us the 'Clan of Darkness'.”
Clan of Darkness. At those words, Duke Sachsen gave a bitter smile.
“The Empire and the people outside the North clearly fear our power.”
Having said that much, Dale played his trump card.
“That is why, just as they once abandoned the Hero, they will try to eliminate any 'internal risks' that threaten them.”
“Abandoned the Hero...?”
At those words, Lord Black gasped in surprise. Of course, Duke Sachsen is one of the few who knows the 'truth of the Hero'. One who knows that the Hero's end was simply the Empire's way of disposing of him.
But Dale was not.
How could this child know such a thing?
Officially, the Hero is said to have chosen mutual destruction with the Divine Sword, Lord Badel, for the sake of the Empire. Therefore, the truth of that day was one of the Empire's most secret shames, something it could never reveal.
“It is merely my own speculation, based on reading the books in the library.”
Dale answered, processing his own experiences into a rational suspicion that could be inferred from historical records.
“Thinking rationally, it just doesn't make sense.”
He was dragged to a world he didn't know, forced to raise his sword for a country he didn't know. While undergoing countless horrific physical modifications.
In such a situation, could there truly be any room for patriotic feelings toward the Empire?
“Fortunately, the Hero is dead, and the Empire has yet to overcome the aftereffects of the unification war. The repercussions of those aftereffects are more severe than the Empire initially imagined.”
There is no doubt about the talent for sword and magic bestowed upon Dale.
“Nevertheless... the Empire will not stop until it achieves the ambitions it desires.”
But the ability to so accurately perceive this nation, where countless desires are intricately entangled, is another matter entirely.
‘Could it be that this child possesses a wisdom of years that cannot be explained by talent alone?’
After a long silence, Lord Black asked.
“Are you trying to deny the Empire's justice?”
“Father, do you truly believe that the justice the Empire pursues is right?”
Dale asked in return, recalling the countless people who had to die by his hand in the past.
“......”
It was a question that didn't even need an answer.
Just as Dale was 'Duke Sachsen's son,' Duke Sachsen was also 'Dale's father'. And the father he had watched for ten years was by no means a man who would affirm the Empire's justice.
“In your library, Father, I have read countless books recording the Empire's history.”
Dale began to speak.
“The Empire's justice is, in the end, the justice of an oppressor who uses violence to seize and trample powerless nations.”
He skillfully disguised the experiences of his past life as 'historical records' written in books.
Lord Black, too, was someone who understood this fact more keenly than anyone. In the past, House Sachsen could justify its existence as the Empire's shield against the Demon King's Domain.
But now that the Demon King has been defeated by the Hero and the shield's value has disappeared, the power held by Lord Black and the Black Magic Tower is far too dangerous to the Empire.
For the power to command armies is, after all, the power of a ruler.
A powerful mage can wipe out an entire army alone.
A necromancer of the same level can single-handedly raise an entire army.
Let alone Lord Black, who is said to have reached the pinnacle of that very necromancy......
“Then, in your opinion, what path should our House Sachsen take?”
Thus, Lord Black spoke.
“Our House Sachsen can never coexist with the Empire.”
Dale answered.
“At this point in time, our House Sachsen is the 'greatest danger' the Empire harbors.”
Lord Black surely knew this as well. No, rather, Duke Sachsen himself was the one in the Empire who understood that truth most profoundly.
“The Empire's ambitions will not cease, and after the war, they will move to purge internal threats.”
For this moment, he had endured and endured for ten long years.
“Therefore.”
To utter these very words with his own voice.
“——We must destroy the Empire.”
“......”
For a moment, it felt as if the very air had transformed.
An ominous, dark magic power surged through the room.
“Do you know what you are saying right now?”
Duke Sachsen asked back with a stiff expression, dismissing Dale's words as the characteristic recklessness of a child.
“I am not suggesting we raise an army and stage a rebellion with our own hands right now.”
But Dale quietly shook his head.
“Ten years.”
After shaking his head, Dale spoke.
“Ten years?”
“Until the Empire overcomes the aftereffects of the unification war and turns its blade on our House Sachsen.”
Even now, the resistance groups across the continent who have declared separatism for their homelands' independence.
The feudal lords who, like Duke Sachsen, worry that the Empire might turn its blade on them.
The economy is shrinking, the people are suffering from the ravages of war, and the number of bandits who have lost their homes and turned to plunder grows by the day.
Even though a considerable number of years have passed since the continent's unification, the aftereffects of the war are only growing more severe.
“Until then, we will build the strength to protect our family against the Empire.”
——Could these words truly come from the mouth of a ten-year-old child?
“We must help the resistance forces operating in the shadows, rally the nobles, and furthermore, win over the urban bourgeoisie to seize control of the Empire's economy.”
And Dale explained his plan in its entirety.
From the dim light of dawn to the midday sun hanging high in the sky, and further still, until it set in the western sky. A plan he had painstakingly devised since the very day he was born in an infant's body, all to bring down this nation.
A way to protect House Sachsen from the Empire's clutches.
“......What do you think?”
Dale asked at the end of his story. Outside the window, a violet night sky had already unfolded. It was deep night.
Duke Sachsen remained silent.
“Truly.”
After the silence, Duke Sachsen suddenly burst into laughter.
“The limits of your talent are impossible to fathom.”
As if he were greatly pleased.
“It seems you can see a landscape beyond, one that even I cannot perceive.”
Even showing a hint of ecstasy.
“The fact that you are my son makes me so very proud.”
Without hiding his fatherly pride.
“Because I am your son, Father.”
Dale, too, smiled softly.
“From now on, you are not merely the eldest son of the ducal house, nor just a ten-year-old child.”
Duke Sachsen nodded.
“From now on, I will treat you as a head of the house who will one day lead House Sachsen.”
Duke Sachsen said.
“Your age, even the fact that you are the eldest son of the ducal house, does not matter.”
“......Father.”
“I will simply listen to and respect your words as an equal head of the house in leading our family.”
Realizing the weight of those words, Dale bowed his head.
The qualification to speak with his father, Duke Sachsen, as an equal—person to person, head to head.
“Therefore, your words will be the words of House Sachsen.”
This was the day he had been waiting for.
“Your actions will be the actions of House Sachsen.”
The day he would be treated not as a ten-year-old child, but as a proper heir of the ducal house.
“Your will shall become the will of House Sachsen.”
——The right to move the power of House Sachsen with his own hands.
For that, he had paraded the title of 'prodigy' and endlessly displayed his talents. His achievements, his actions, his words—all of it had been groundwork laid in waiting for this very moment.
But he never imagined that time would come so soon.
“Do not hesitate. Speak, Dale.”
The sensation of gears, long stopped, finally clicking into place ran down his spine.
“At this very moment, what decision will you make for our family?”
“You said you would treat me as an equal head of the house, Father.”
Therefore, not a shred of hesitation remained.
“Then please grant me permission to undertake the 'Trial of the Tower' in the Necropolis.”
The Trial of the Tower. Understanding the meaning of those words, a slight tremor crossed Duke Sachsen's face.
“Not as the son of Duke Sachsen, but as the 'chief disciple who will inherit the legacy of Lord Black'——”
The greatest black magician on the continent, the young genius he took as a disciple, breaking his own vow.
“I will prove before everyone that I am the most rightful heir to inherit 'Lord Black's Domain'.”