Do You Wish for the Empire to Fall?
Early graduation.
Celia clenched her molars without realizing it.
Instructor Cheren had just said it. Leon would graduate early within the year at the latest. Without fail.
It was something she had never imagined. More precisely, the thought had never even reached her.
Of course. Why hadn't she considered it sooner?
For Leon, it was only natural. He was a man with no reason to linger at the Academy.
The thought made her dizzy. If Leon left first — if he graduated a full two years ahead of schedule — what about her, left behind?
They were still only halfway through the first semester of their first year. Originally, two and a half years had remained until graduation.
That was why she had never drawn up a concrete future. Deep down, she had vaguely assumed she would have three full years with Leon.
Now that deadline had been yanked forward in an instant. The real number had dropped.
Six months at most. After that, they would part ways.
No.
Despair closed in on her. She hated it. She hated it more than she could bear.
Of course, their connection wouldn't be severed. The friendship they had built wouldn't simply vanish. They would each simply go their own way.
But only after imagining the separation did she understand.
Simply falling away from his side — no longer being able to watch over him, no longer seeing his face or hearing his voice every day —
That was something she could not accept. Not at all.
She hadn't even properly confessed her feelings to him. She still wasn't sure whether he would accept those feelings or not.
But those were secondary concerns. What mattered was the desire to remain at his side — the certainty that parting would be unbearable.
She had never thought deeply about her career path. She had planned to graduate from the Academy first and figure it out slowly afterward.
From this moment on, however, her path was decided.
To do that, first…
— Of course, meeting the conditions for early completion is no easy feat. However, you already possess more than enough capability.
Capability. Capability, was it?
She had never felt her talent lacking. She had never neglected her training.
But… had she given it everything?
Had she devoted herself above all else? Had she pushed her given talent to its absolute limit?
…No. She hadn't.
"…"
Her grip tightened.
Celia clenched the shaft of her spear. Livgium felt lighter than it ever had before.
In truth, Celia's talent and resolve had been perfectly prepared all along.
The only thing she had lacked was a catalyst — fuel in the form of a dream and a purpose that would set her ablaze.
Now that the final piece was in place, all that remained was for her to burn brilliantly.
Leon was currently following a messenger from the Imperial Palace.
The Emperor had summoned him.
Apparently, they intended to let him use the First Imperial Treasury access pass included among the honors he had received the day before last. That was why he was ditching the Knight Commander's lecture to go.
When the Emperor himself called, no Knight Commander in the world was going to be a problem. Besides, hadn't Cheren just said the lectures were pointless for him anyway?
He passed through the inner gates and arrived at the Imperial Palace. This made three days in a row of seeing it.
They swept past the annex and straight into the main building without hesitation. He climbed two full flights of stairs.
Curiously, their destination was not the audience chamber, but the Emperor's private office.
What a strange guy.
A massive golden door stood before him, knights posted on either side.
The knights conducted a body search. They didn't lay hands on him, of course — they simply held magical instruments up to scan him.
Even so, one could hardly walk into a private audience with the Emperor bristling with swords. Leon had to disarm.
Once the check was complete, word was sent inside.
Moments later, the heavy doors swung open of their own accord, untouched by any hand. Leon stepped through.
It was a spacious room steeped in antique elegance — refined and dignified.
"Come in."
The Emperor greeted Leon from behind a long desk. As always, his face looked languid and tired.
No one else was visible inside.
"…"
Leon found his mouth hanging slightly open.
What the hell is this guy's deal? Is it really okay for an emperor to live this unprotected?
Amazingly enough, it was a private audience.
At least on the surface. A royal guard might well be hiding somewhere, concealing their presence.
Even so, granting a near-private closed-door meeting to someone he had barely spoken with, from the very first proper encounter — that alone spoke to the Emperor's near-mad boldness. Leon was a martial artist who could kill an ordinary person with a single pinky finger, after all.
Hiding his bewilderment, Leon dropped to one knee.
"Leon of House Crusif greets His Imperial Majesty."
"Rise."
The Emperor gestured toward the chair in front of him.
"Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Once Leon sat, the Emperor spoke again.
"Strangely enough… when I look at you, I feel a peculiar sense of familiarity. Or is it kinship? Whatever it is, oddly enough, nothing you do rubs me the wrong way. I find myself warming to you."
An abrupt declaration of goodwill. Unsure how to respond, Leon simply said,
"Ah. Yes. Thank you, Your Majesty."
"Haha! Would you look at that. You've got nerves of steel."
The Emperor pointed a finger at him and burst out laughing. Leon had no idea what was funny, but he laughed along to match the mood.
"Ah, right. What would you like to drink? Coffee? Tea? Juice?"
"Coffee would be fine, Your Majesty."
"Very well. And a word of warning in advance — don't get up to follow me. Stay in your seat."
"?"
Without warning, the Emperor rose from his chair and walked to one side of the room.
Step. Step.
Arriving at a table set against the wall, he picked up two cups.
Then he fitted filters over them, took out the ground coffee, and began boiling water.
"…"
Leon was speechless.
Serving tea to a guest with one's own hands was not inherently strange.
But among the nobility, it was something that rarely happened. With servants available, why would one of high birth soil their own hands with water?
And yet here was the Emperor — the apex of the class hierarchy — brewing coffee with his own two hands.
Leon decided then and there that whatever eccentric thing the Emperor did next, he would simply roll with it.
Clink.
At last, the Emperor set a cup of coffee in front of Leon. Steam and aroma rose in gentle curls.
"Thank you. I'll enjoy it."
Coffee prepared by none other than the Emperor himself. Leon took a sip. Whether it was the quality of the beans or something else, it tasted rather good.
"I'm a man who thoroughly despises pointless etiquette, dignity, empty formalities, and the like. More precisely, I find keeping up with that sort of thing a pain."
Leon nodded. That much was obvious.
"But necessary courtesy must still be observed. Serving tea to a guest falls under the category of courtesy that must be kept."
"A most reasonable view, Your Majesty."
The Emperor drained some of his own coffee, then said,
"I'm not a man with time to spare, so I'll cut straight to the point."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"The official reason I called you here today is, of course, to let you make use of the First Imperial Treasury. But as you've no doubt already guessed, that isn't all. I have business with you."
"And what might that be, Your Majesty?"
"Before that, I'd like to ask you one simple question. A yes or no will suffice."
"I am listening."
At the shift in the Emperor's gaze, Leon straightened his posture.
"Do you wish for this nation — the Latia Empire — to fall?"
"?"
Leon tilted his head and answered at once.
"No."
All that buildup for a question like that? Who in their right mind would sit in front of the Emperor of the Empire and say they hoped the Empire would collapse?
And the answer was sincere, besides.
In truth, Leon didn't particularly dislike the Empire as a nation. He certainly didn't want the country to disappear.
Objectively speaking, the Empire was the best place to live in this world.
For one thing, its national power was overwhelming, so the overall quality of life for its citizens was relatively high.
Just look at the other nations on the continent. The eastern kingdoms, for instance, or the northern republics.
The reality in those places was nothing short of dark fantasy. Their people lived grindingly hard lives.
They were squeezed dry by vicious lords day after day, plundered by monsters and bandit gangs. Class stratification was so extreme that being born a commoner made rising in the world about as likely as plucking a star from the sky.
Royalty and nobility busied themselves stuffing their bellies while commoners scrambled just to survive one more day.
The upper ranks were corrupt. Administrative capacity was nonexistent. Civic consciousness, educational infrastructure, hygiene, technology, medicine, the economy, public safety — all of it was abysmal.
And the Empire?
It was fair to say its civilization was at least several centuries more advanced than any other nation's. And the gap was still widening.
The Empire's magical engineering technology was, without question, the finest in the world.
Leon felt that, given enough money, Imperial magical engineering was essentially indistinguishable from twenty-first-century science. The casual projection of recorded footage into midair was proof enough. The image quality was good. There was sound.
While a kingdom's air force struggled to tame and ride drakes, the Empire fielded airships. The technological disparity was simply overwhelming.
In some respects, it even surpassed twenty-first-century science. Warp gates and the Tower of Illusions were prime examples.
And that wasn't all. Society itself had advanced well beyond the medieval.
A class system existed, but it lacked the extreme chosen-people mentality of the kingdoms. A clear illustration was the commoner admission rate at Elprime Academy.
Even a commoner could rise far enough through ability and effort. That was the kind of country this was.
Of course, the Empire had its corrupt corners too. Nobles buying and selling children at the Full Moon Auction, for instance.
But was it truly as bad as the kingdoms? Leon didn't think so. The Empire was the only nation that legally prohibited human trafficking in the first place.
The Empire was vast, and with that vastness came inevitable pockets of corruption. A human society without a dark side was impossible. No society had ever managed that.
Tallying all of this up, Leon's answer was no.
He had always considered himself extraordinarily lucky to have been reborn as Leon Crusif.
Third son of an Imperial ducal house. A mid-to-low Expert-rank body. A starting point with nothing lacking.
If he had begun as some commoner in a random kingdom? Leon was certain his life would have been far less entertaining than it was now.
In the end, even enjoyment required a functioning society to exist. Having fun in a ruined world was no easy feat.
And so—
"The Empire falling? That is something I absolutely do not want, Your Majesty."
"…Hmm."
Click.
The Emperor removed the crown from his head and set it on the desk.
Then, with an easy expression, he said,
"Indeed. The truth."