The Empire's Chaotic Labyrinth (1)
Meanwhile, as Yohan worked to heal Eclipse's wounds, the North had fallen into complete chaos.
And all of it had begun after the lightning-fast week-long visit by the man now called not the Lord of Steel, but Grand Master Yohan, along with the Grand Duke's daughter Karalin—who had become an object of longing for the people of the North—and the connections they had forged in the capital.
The actions Karalin showed upon her return to the North were precisely what the citizens of the North had been yearning for.
But how had Shagalor intended to end that goodwill visit?
With treason. Rebellion. Assassination.
Her arrogant attitude had left every faction in the North seething with rage.
After all, while the Vitagarte family was, by structure, a royal house that nominally stood beneath the Emperor yet above all others, within the North—the territory of the Grand Duchy—they could strut before any noble house they pleased. Yet…
Just as a household head who had lost his power would be treated like a dog in his own home, a king who had lost the support of the people he ruled was likewise regarded as nothing more than rotten meat in a dog’s bowl.
No matter how tightly they gripped the North from within and without, it was simply the way of the world that they could not control every sporadic uprising that erupted beyond the Grand Duke’s direct gaze.
The first card the royal family had no choice but to play was, naturally, the exile of Shagalor—the Grand Duke’s consort and the pig who had orchestrated all these events from behind the scenes.
As everyone knew, after Yohan’s groundbreaking suicide performance that urged Lexus to repent and put an end to the crisis, Lexus had flown into a rage as if he had watched his own son die. He made his decision.
The ignorant Shagalor received back the exact slap she had given the returned Northern hero, Gorgo.
Moreover, on the eve of her departure to her family home, the County of Alderlight, the couple exchanged these additional words:
He was saying that he could have used this as justification to sever every neck among her maternal relatives, and she should consider herself fortunate that he had not.
But Shagalor had words of her own.
In short, she was asking why he was suddenly changing his position after happily accepting the plot.
Yet Lexus’s blame-shifting excuse came out without the slightest hesitation, bold as brass. It was enough to leave even the shameless Shagalor dumbfounded.
But Lexus merely tilted his head as if he found Shagalor even more incomprehensible.
In truth, their contexts were completely different. Shagalor’s argument had been that they were even—hadn’t he also wanted her dead? Yet Lexus countered that he had sent her knowing she wouldn’t die, so how could that be the same? Their conversation ran on parallel lines.
Of course, no matter how much Lexus trusted Yohan when he did such a thing, the fact that he had inadvertently pushed his own daughter into a situation that shattered her spirit remained unchanged…
This mad, senile old tiger of the North seemed never to have once realized that the idea “as long as she doesn’t die, it’s fine” was wrong.
Because Lexus truly, sincerely believed that if he had been in Karalin’s position, no matter how much his father acted like a lunatic, he would have simply survived and let it slide without a second thought.
Well, the real Karalin—who had received harsh training from her father—actually thought that way, so he wasn’t entirely wrong…
In any case, the one thing this mismatched conversation revealed was clear: even though Lexus appeared to have repented after listening to Yohan, his way of thinking had been that of a mad psychopathic tyrant from the very beginning. Had he been born on some other Earth, he would have earned the nickname “Brain Emperor”—a complete lunatic.
At any rate, Shagalor, rendered speechless by a husband even crazier than herself, had no choice but to depart. Yet she still had one last hope to cling to.
‘How many rights and interests have I fed them over the years? The vassals under me will not betray me…’
Even if they did this to her, they would surely leave her son Abel—who had nothing to do with the matter—alone. Once that dying tyrant finally perished, they would carefully consider who stood closest to the center of power and secretly slip her money on her way out. She had boldly predicted as much.
But no matter how long she waited, bags packed, sitting imperiously in the royal family’s inner quarters… not a single person came.
If one were to summarize the situation, a single word sufficed.
Shagalor had become a stray dog.
Although it was impossible for bold individuals who would directly offer remonstration to suddenly appear after she had purged all opposing factions and driven them from the royal palace, they had all turned their backs on her, even if only indirectly.
And that was no different from her entire world collapsing.
Politics was a cold thing. She had boldly extended help whenever the lords beneath her needed it, all to secure her position as mistress of the Grand Duchy… yet in the end, she had been stripped of everything useful and discarded.
If she had known this would happen, why on earth had she spent the past several years driving out every useful person in the palace, killing them, and resorting to such extreme measures as tearing out entire bloodlines just to seize power?
Why had she struggled so desperately to drive out the threatening Karalin?
In the end… in the end, everything here changed with a single word from her husband.
Well, Shagalor had known that much, which was why she had honed her beauty—the only weapon she could wield.
At that moment, she suddenly looked into the mirror.
She discovered that she had transformed into an old, hideous witch.
While making those brutal decisions, the venom had naturally seeped into her face and aged her.
How horrifying that truth was to Shagalor, perhaps no one in the world could truly understand. Not even their chief god, the Moon Goddess, would be any different.
Even if Lexus died and Abel inherited the Grand Duchy, she might be released. The only way to reverse this situation was to aim for that, but for her—who had already lost both youth and vitality—nothing would remain even if she succeeded.
It wasn’t certain, but according to the rumors spread by the maids… that night, only the deranged laughter of a madwoman who had fallen from the highest place in the royal inner court echoed through the halls.
“…Mother, Mother—”
And Abel, who had secretly watched all of this from a distance, felt something twist inside his heart.
No matter how much of a bitch she was, she had been the only person in his life who truly stood on his side—the one who had given birth to his body. The moment he saw that creator twisting grotesquely, he cursed the fate he had been born with, the blood of a twisted monarch.
At the same time, he recalled the face of the Lord of Steel, who had ignored his pleas that day long ago, and only thoughts bordering on lust filled his mind.
‘I want to become a woman. I should have been born a woman. If I had, there would have been no talk of me becoming the successor, Sister would have become the Grand Duke… and I wouldn’t have had to go through any of this.’
Was it because he had inherited his father’s madness intact?
No. This was nothing more than an escape born from a weak mental state that simply wanted to run away. A perversion that would never be tolerated in this era. A mad mental illness.
“Yes. Besides, if I had been a woman, the Lord of Steel would surely have protected me… Yes. He definitely would have. If I were a beautiful woman like my sister, that man… would not have passed over pitiful me. He definitely wouldn’t have. Definitely. Definitely. He would have desired me without any conditions, just like the love my sister receives as a matter of course. He would have caressed me with those large hands. And I would have thought of nothing else…”
Having reached such thoughts, Abel—who was already broken beyond repair—thought this:
“Wow. Now that I think about it, it’s funny. A world that drives me away just because I’m a man—wouldn’t it be better if a world like that just didn’t exist? All I need is for someone to love me.”
He chuckled.
“…Huh. If I just kill everyone except that person… then maybe he’ll only look at me. And perhaps he’ll abandon that cruel heart, take pity on me, and love me…?”
And if Yohan had seen this, he would probably have thought:
Although this development—Abel harboring such feelings—had never once occurred in the original history, setting that aside… it was simply so physiologically repulsive that he would feel pure, unadulterated terror.
But Abel’s condition had grown that serious.
“Yes. It’s not too late. If I just become a woman now, everything will be fine. That was exactly what I lacked…! If it’s magic, it might be possible. No, it is possible. No matter how many forbidden tomes I have to dig through, I will definitely find a spell that turns me into a woman—. That’s all I need, right—?”
Having resolved to become her, the first thing Abel decided to do today was to grow out his hair.
While desperately wishing to become even more beautiful than Karalin.