As Expected, You Truly Are the Emperor's Sword
The banquet hall was dazzlingly opulent. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling like stars, casting brilliant light, while the long tables groaned under mountains of rare delicacies gathered from every corner of the empire. Whole beasts roasted to a golden hue, soups heavy with the aroma of exotic spices, fruits and confections stacked like towering spires. A thousand years of imperial wealth and excess had converged in this single place.
The imperial family members, each clad in lavish formal attire, reveled in that abundance.
…All except one.
Victoria von Roseria.
Seated at the farthest end from the head table, she had nothing before her but a single, glaringly empty plate.
“……”
Victoria stared quietly down at that empty dish. She had known from the start that this would happen. It was exactly what she had endured before her regression. There was no reason to be surprised or shaken by it now.
…Or so she told herself, steeling her heart.
“Oh dear. It seems our youngest sister’s plate is empty?”
From the head of the table, Octavian’s voice rang out. It sounded ostensibly concerned, yet beneath it lay an unmistakable undercurrent of glee. Every eye in the banquet hall turned toward Victoria at once.
“What are the servants doing? How can the princess’s plate be empty?”
At Octavian’s gesture, a servant hurried over in a fluster. But just as the man moved to serve food, Octavian lightly raised a hand to stop him.
“No. Wait a moment.”
He curled the corners of his lips upward.
“Now that I think about it… there’s really no need. For one of such lowly blood, these precious imperial dishes… might they not be a bit too much?”
“……”
“Especially for a lowly bastard whose mother’s identity isn’t even known. Don’t you all agree?”
Snickers leaked out from various corners of the hall. The other princes and princesses hid their mouths behind fans as they mocked her.
“My, my, youngest princess. That seat suits you so very well. Hoho.”
“If an empty plate is too embarrassing, why not beg your older brother for a little mercy?”
“Just look at that arrogant face. Still holding her head high without knowing her place…”
“Considering what her mother was, even this treatment is more than she deserves.”
Those jeers struck Victoria’s back like arrows.
“So, my dear youngest sister. That empty plate before you is the seat most fitting for you. Or, if you truly wish to eat…”
Octavian smiled with feigned benevolence.
“…would you like to kneel before this older brother of yours and beg for even a single scrap?”
“……”
Victoria said nothing. She simply clenched her hands tightly in her lap. Her nails dug into her palms, drawing beads of blood. Yet even that pain was nothing compared to the weight crushing her chest.
…I must endure.
Victoria gritted her teeth. She had to endure this much. If she let rage ruin everything here, she would only walk the same path as before her regression. This body was no longer an empress. She was no longer the wicked woman who had burned everything for the throne. She was simply a woman who wished to protect one man.
…So endure, Victoria.
Even as she repeated these words to herself, why did one person’s face keep rising in her mind?
…Kyle Rowenheim.
The man she had encountered in the corridor earlier that day. His image kept flickering before her eyes.
──God is for the people! For the empire!
I must devote myself immediately to preparing for departure!
That resolute face as he had shouted those words and departed… that back of his.
…Ah.
Victoria’s heart ached with a sharp pang. Even though this body had offered to prepare a meal for him. Even that warm, simple meal, he had refused. Declaring that he would not be bound by personal affection but would instead devote his entire being to the people and the empire, he had set off toward the border to face the monstrous beasts.
…How very like him.
Even in this miserable state, seated before an empty plate, Victoria found herself smiling faintly without realizing it.
Yes. That was the man known as Kyle Rowenheim. Honest, upright, a man who never spared a thought for his own safety… the one most worthy of being called the Emperor’s Sword.
‘…As expected, you truly are the Emperor’s Sword.’
What if… just what if.
What if that man were not the emperor’s sword, but this body’s sword?
Would he have stood beside this body in this very place, before this wretched empty plate, and leveled his blade at those arrogant fools? Would he have shielded this body as he had done in the corridor?
…It was a pointless thought.
Victoria gently shook her head, trying to dispel the futile fantasy. He was probably fighting monstrous beasts at the border by now. There was no way he could be here.
Therefore, this humiliation was something this body had to endure alone.
“Why do you not answer, my youngest sister?”
Octavian’s voice grew noticeably colder.
“Even though your older brother has graciously given you a chance out of mercy. Are you truly unable to cast aside that paltry pride of yours? You, a mere bastard?”
“…Mercy, you say.”
Victoria slowly lifted her head. Her crimson eyes stared straight at Octavian at the head of the table. Her gaze was as sharp as frost, utterly unsuited to her miserable position.
“Is mocking your sibling over a single empty plate the mercy of which Your Highness the Crown Prince speaks? How very fitting of you, older brother.”
“…What?”
“After all, even with that great vessel of yours, you still fear this youngest sister so much. What else is there to do?”
The banquet hall stirred. The lowly-born princess seated before an empty plate had dared to throw sharp words back at the crown prince.
“Fear? I, fear someone like you, a bastard?”
Octavian’s lips twisted.
“How laughable. To be so proud of the lowly blood you inherited from your wretched mother.”
“Is that so?”
Victoria did not so much as blink.
“At least this body is not so pitiful as to feel superior only by trampling a sibling with an empty plate.”
“……!”
“If older brother finds such delight in an empty sibling’s vessel, then by all means, enjoy that pleasure while it lasts. …After all, one never knows how long that seat will remain yours.”
In an instant, the air in the banquet hall froze solid.
…Those were dangerous words. For ‘that seat’ clearly referred to the throne that Octavian so desperately coveted. Coming from the mouth of a bastard princess, it was far too sharp—and far too precisely on the mark.
Octavian’s face twisted hideously.
“…You wench.”
The relaxed smile vanished, replaced by his ugly true nature. He shot to his feet and violently snatched up the plate before him.
“Let’s see just how far that mouth of yours can run.”
Then he hurled the food at Victoria’s feet.
Crash!
The priceless plate shattered, and the exquisite dishes tumbled across the floor, staining the hem of her skirt.
“If that mouth of yours is so clever, then get down there and eat it off the floor like the lowly beast you are. That is the table that suits you.”
“……”
“Like a dog. Just as your mother did.”
Victoria’s fingertips trembled violently.
…Endure it, Victoria.
She clenched her teeth and swallowed the humiliation. The food scattered at her feet, the soiled hem of her dress—she could endure it. This much was nothing.
…But then.
“Ah, that’s right. I nearly forgot.”
Octavian clapped his hands as if something had just occurred to him. That insidious smile spread across his lips once more.
“I have prepared something especially for you at this gathering today, my youngest sister.”
At that moment, a chill ran down Victoria’s spine.
…She knew. This body knew exactly what was coming next. Before her regression, right here, right after those words, that event had unfolded. An empty plate had merely been the beginning.
The day when, before the eyes of all, her dignity had been utterly crushed and something inside her as a human being had been broken forever.
Just recalling it made her entire body shake. Octavian gestured. From the direction of the banquet hall doors came the sound of something being prepared.
…Ah. Once again, that hell was about to begin.
But suddenly.
The noisy banquet hall began to fall silent as if by magic. Laughter died out one by one, glasses stopped moving, and the murmuring voices gradually hushed.
Someone must have dropped their wine glass. The sharp sound of shattering crystal rang out unnaturally loud in the growing silence.
Victoria opened her eyes, not understanding what was happening.
…There was a smell.
A thick, metallic stench that had no place in this lavish banquet hall. The scent of blood, cutting through the perfume and the aroma of delicacies.
Drip.
Drip, drip.
The sound of something falling to the floor. Victoria slowly turned her head toward the source.
At the entrance of the banquet hall.
A man stood there. No one had seen him enter. He had simply appeared at some point.
His entire body was drenched in blood. From his torn armor, dark crimson droplets fell steadily onto the marble floor.
“H-Hiiik──!”
“W-What is that…”
Screams and gasps erupted throughout the hall. The imperial family members turned deathly pale and stumbled backward. Even Octavian’s previously relaxed face drained of color.
A blood-soaked figure resembling a grim reaper had suddenly appeared in the middle of the splendid banquet. Everyone present held their breath, frozen in place.
…However.
Victoria was different. To her eyes, that bloodied form held no terror at all. On the contrary, it felt achingly familiar.
…She knew it. This body knew that appearance well. Before her regression, that man had always returned from countless battlefields looking exactly like this. Covered in the blood of his enemies and his own, yet never broken. With those piercing eyes that no one could approach.
To others, the sight might inspire fear, but to Victoria it was the most reassuring and longed-for sight in the world.
“…K-Kyle…”
A trembling voice slipped from Victoria’s lips. The fantasy she had dismissed as pointless. The man she had believed could not possibly be here.
He was standing right before her eyes.