Chapter 26
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: The Black Forest and Lilia
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Pop.
The faint humming vibration of the crystal orb came to a stop. Helena's flushed red face and the apricot-colored skin visible through her thin silk dress evaporated into thin air like mist.
Once the white light faded, the orb returned to its cold, transparent state as a lump of glass, reflecting the silence of the room.
I released my grip on the pedestal holding the orb. The lingering warmth of mana in my palm was quickly absorbed by the chill of the marble floor.
"Hoo."
As I exhaled the breath I'd been holding, the thick iron chain around my neck tightened against my chest with a clink. My knees throbbed. The time spent prostrated on the floor in tension had gnawed away at my body.
Cold sweat beaded on my forehead, trickling down my brow and blurring my vision.
In my mind, calculations raced nonstop as I reviewed the dice roll from moments ago.
The Black Forest. A vast expanse attached to the eastern edge of Argent territory—so immense it was overwhelming.
On the map, it occupied a considerable swath of the empire's southeast, looking impressive enough. But in reality, it was abandoned land teeming with magical beasts and overgrown with poisonous plants, forsaken even for pioneering.
A harsh wilderness where not even a single road could be carved out, let alone farming. The imperial administration had given up on tax collection and left it to rot—a so-called "shitty plot of land."
In contrast, the Emerald Plains Helena had initially demanded were different. That was the empire's lifeline, its breadbasket.
Handing it over would be tantamount to choking the empire's neck—a line Duke Karls would never tolerate. Hell, he'd probably lop off my head the moment I suggested it.
This is the best I can do.
I wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand. This was the result of racking my brains all through the previous night.
Helena needed a justification. I'd gone mad and sparked an army uprising, so she needed something to compensate for that insanity.
A trophy to parade before her nobles and soldiers. The title of "cession of imperial territory" was more than enough to save face.
Even if it held no real value, the mere act of redrawing the map's borders counted as a political victory.
And for Karls? He needed justification too. He'd spared me because of Helena, but executing a deposed emperor now felt off, and keeping me alive bred future troubles. So?
Imprisonment.
Lock me away in that Black Forest. Formally, it would be ceded to Roselia, effectively banishing me from the empire—and handing Helena the deposed emperor as her prize.
Of course, to preserve Karls's dignity, there'd have to be some fine print about "sparing my life."
From his perspective, it was like picking his nose without lifting a finger. He'd dispose of the headache emperor and avert war to boot. No reason to refuse.
I had my own calculations, of course. Better the forest than endless anxiety in a dungeon, wondering when death would come.
Magical beasts? Wild animals? Still better than an underground prison stalked daily by poison-wielding assassins.
That forest would be dangerous even for assassins. Without an army, crossing it was near impossible. There had to be some way to survive.
And it would become Helena's territory. Under the pretext of surveillance... or perhaps... Instinct suddenly stirred. The one place she could walk into of her own accord.
No, above all, that place held what I'd encountered in the game...
Creeeak.
The heavy oak door swung open with a screech of hinges. Cool air from the corridor flooded in, brushing against my sweat-soaked back.
I slowly turned my head. Backlit against the doorway stood the silhouette of Duke Karls.
He didn't cross the threshold, merely leaning on the doorframe as he scanned the room's air. The orb was dark, and I was slumped on the floor. To him, I must have looked like a pathetic defeated soldier.
Karls strode over with steady steps and stopped before me. The toe of his silver boot entered my view. Arms crossed, he looked down at me, suspicion and impatience swirling in his blue eyes.
"How did it go?"
His voice was low and dry, stripped of emotion—or so he tried—but the slight uptick at the end betrayed him.
Impatience to confirm whether Helena would truly accept peace, or if this was all just the mad emperor's stalling act.
I lifted my head to meet his gaze. Through my disheveled hair, my eyes were weary but unwavering.
"Bought one more day. Tomorrow, it ends."
The wind sweeping over Argent's walls carried the dry scent of earth mingled with the metallic tang of rusting iron.
A gust from the wall's edge whipped Lilia von Argent's golden hair into disarray and tugged roughly at the hem of her thick velvet cloak.
She clutched the cloak's collar with her gloved hand, standing motionless as she stared out at the plains below.
Her blue eyes were coldly sunken, her pale skin maintaining a cool porcelain texture, unmarred even by the north wind.
Filling her view was an endless red sea.
The army of Roselia Kingdom.
Red flags and tents blanketed the ground thickly up to several kilometers from the walls.
A distance far beyond the reach of our siege engines or magic...
Thousands of spear tips and shields gleamed under the morning sun, menacing like the scales of some colossal beast.
Each gust of wind sent countless flags fluttering in unison, their roar crashing against her eardrums like waves.
The mingled whinnies of horses, soldiers' shouts, and rumbling cart wheels formed a vast murmur, yet the enormous mass stood eerily still.
Three days had passed.
This was the moment when the red wave, charging fiercely as if to storm the gates, had come to a inexplicable halt.
Lilia placed her hand on the railing. The cold granite chill seeped through her leather glove into her palm. Her eyes narrowed.
Something's off.
Siege weapons lay assembled but unused, and no chants from the magic corps echoed.
Only heavy silence filled the open space between walls and camp. With Queen Helena's temperament, she'd have declared war and battered the gates on day one.
She was a fiery woman, fiercely proud, and above all, her cause in this war was just.
Her cause.
Lilia's lips twisted ever so slightly. Batanias von Atria. The empire's deposed emperor. The man who had summoned her to the palace and reached out with filthy hands.
The memory lingered like an unpleasant stain. The palace's opulent yet suffocating reception room.
That sticky, clinging gaze. The damp hand groping for her wrist. She'd refused in the end and fled back to her territory. Then came the emperor's warning—and her brother the Archduke's rebellion.
That incompetent, lust-addled emperor had insulted Roselia's queen too, sparking this mess. An inevitable outcome.
So why had they stopped?
The fury-driven army that crossed the border now stalled for three days before a single wall. Her brother, Duke Karls, was in the capital. Had he pulled some strings?
Or had that imprisoned emperor thrown another wrench into things?
"The wind is cold, my lady."
An elderly knight commander's worried voice came from behind.
Lilia didn't turn.
"Readiness status?"
"Impeccable. Soldiers on three rotating shifts, monitoring the walls twenty-four hours. Magic detection stones at full power. Not even a rat could sneak through."
"Their stillness is no excuse for us to slack. Roselia's Red Thorn Knights excel at ambushes. Keep arrows nocked until we discern if this silence is the calm before the storm or mere deception."
Her voice mirrored her brother Karls's—low and resolute. An emotionless, businesslike tone. The knight commander bowed and withdrew.
Lilia turned her gaze again. This time, not straight ahead, but east.
Where Argent's fertile plains ended, a dark blue shadow crouched.
The Black Forest.
A colossal woodland so dense it seemed to devour light itself.
Even in broad daylight, it brooded in perpetual twilight, exuding an ominous aura.
Twisted ancient trees tangled into a massive barrier, pale mist coiling serpent-like above them.
When the wind blew from the forest, faint scents of rotting leaves and an unknowable beast's musk drifted over.
A landscape she'd seen since childhood, yet today the Black Forest drew her eyes like never before.
As if someone—or something—in that darkness was watching her, or the walls, with a strange gaze.
The red army's silence and the Black Forest's gloom. Two alien presences held their breath with Argent between them.
Unconsciously, she clutched the fabric at her chest. Not quite anxiety, but a warning from her heightened senses.
The world's board was twisting in unseen places.
What was her brother in the capital doing now? That deposed emperor...
A trumpet blared long from the red camp below the walls. Not an attack signal—a languid call marking shift change.
Lilia tucked her disheveled hair behind her ear and drew in a cold breath. The chill air filling her lungs cooled her head.
Lilia is way too pretty. Could you pull off the runaway ending with her?
As far as I know, impossible. Even when Argent falls, she sticks around and dies with them instead of running.
Huh? Lilia dies super early. Right by the Black Forest. Guess you picked Argent start lol. You're not doing runaway ending—you gotta escape from there first lol