The Peace Delegation
What truly made an aristocrat an aristocrat was, more than likely, the time-honored customs handed down through generations, alongside the vast wealth and power amassed across their storied history. Yet the ultimate foundation allowing those customs to endure had always been their sheer talent. Whether in terms of raw martial might—such as physical prowess and mana—or sharp intellect, nobles were fundamentally blessed with innate gifts. Whether they were blessed because they were nobles, or nobles because they were blessed, I could not say. Regardless, that was the reality. Naturally, the higher one's pedigree among the aristocracy, the greater that blessed talent proved to be.
The Fron Empire embodied this tendency to an extreme. Each and every member of the ruling imperial house was treated as a decisive strategic weapon, and the vast majority were actively deployed to the front lines.
Not that our kingdom is much different, I thought.
Noble blood paired with martial might that ranked among the finest in the empire gave every imperial royal tremendous influence. Each commanded immense power, often keeping private retinues or treating the imperial army as their personal playthings. In peacetime, such authority was kept under strict control, but the Fron Empire was currently embroiled in war on multiple fronts—including against our own Kingdom of Remus—meaning the throne had no choice but to humor the very royals who personally bled on the battlefield.
Even so, as long as the Emperor stood at the pinnacle of power, the lines of authority were kept reasonably straight. The problem was that half a month ago, the Emperor passed away. And as if lying in wait for that exact moment, barely a single day passed before an imperial relative with a regional power base fled with the Golden Seal—the supreme symbol of imperial authority—and raised the banner of rebellion. What happened to the empire after that? A complete, unmitigated shitshow, naturally.
The moment that happened, every front line across the empire unilaterally ground to a halt. The Crown Prince bypassed the late Emperor’s funeral entirely to declare his accession, but the rogue royal who had absconded with the seal staked a rival claim to legitimacy. With the backing of several influential regional clans, the empire plunged straight into a civil war. Fighting multiple foreign powers simultaneously was bad enough, but having the sovereign drop dead, sparking an internal war of succession on top of it? If they failed to bring this under control, it would take a miracle for even the continent's greatest superpower to avoid ruin.
Tossing all dignity to the wind, the Crown Prince immediately rallied every soldier at his disposal and ordered his niece, Adelheid—the Great General of the imperial army—to march forth and crush the rebellion. Meanwhile, our kingdom, which had been buckling under the exhaustion of war and desperately fishing for a way out, seized on the empire's turmoil to push for a peace treaty.
And so, they sent me.
“Pri—no, Young Master.” Bell called out to me in a hushed tone, having evidently been eavesdropping on the drunks as well. “Could that really be true?”
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely something we need to verify.”
Glancing across the tavern, I spotted a table of men who looked like ordinary travelers but kept their eyes fixed on us. When I darted my gaze toward the drunken patrons, the escorts sent by General Lucius gave a silent nod. Within minutes, they smoothly wandered over, joined the drunks at their table, and began drinking alongside them. I hardly had time to feel pleased by the general’s knack for picking sharp men.
“Whether what they’re saying is true or total bullshit, we’re in trouble either way,” I murmured. “Hannover… isn’t that quite far from the rebel-held territories?”
Until I was dragged out here, I hadn’t paid the slightest attention to imperial geography, but Hannover had certainly not been among the regions I heard the rebels had occupied.
“Hannover… is the name of a major city in the western empire,” Bell answered. “The rebels are entrenched along the western frontier, where the frontline against the Holy Alliance once lay. That puts Hannover roughly halfway in between.”
“…Then we’re completely screwed. Our fundamental premise just went up in smoke.”
“Why do you say that?”
“If the subjugation force is stationed in Hannover rather than on the western border, it means they aren’t actively fighting the rebels, whatever the reason. Whether the civil war is over or has merely reached a lull, the empire has caught its breath. Why do you think we rushed all the way here in such a desperate hurry?”
“To exploit the empire’s chaos and broker an end to the war on the most favorable terms possible…!”
“Right. But this means they aren’t in chaos anymore.”
Our kingdom hadn’t lost its mind and packed such laughable, meager gifts because we thought we could swagger in and act tough. They had hastily slapped together the barest formalities and dispatched us as fast as humanly possible, desperate to force a handshake of reconciliation before the empire could wrap up its civil war. Hell, I was practically kidnapped and bundled out of the kingdom before receiving my actual written orders halfway down the road.
“…I suppose you really are royal after all, Prince,” Bell remarked.
The source of her astonishment seemed slightly off the mark.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that? It’s not that hard to figure out. Just what kind of useless parasite did you take me for?”
“That is hardly what matters right now. Please return your focus to the empire.”
“Look who’s dodging the subject…”
Cunning little thing. Whenever the ground shifted beneath her, she always wriggled away by changing the topic.
“Still… isn’t this suppression moving absurdly fast for a civil war?”
The Emperor had passed away fifteen days ago, the rebellion had erupted the very next day, and the Crown Prince had immediately mobilized to crush it. We had moved at breakneck speed the moment the news reached our ears, departing within three days, and had only just reached the vicinity of the imperial capital today. Word was that the subjugation force numbered close to ten thousand. Given the time required to march an army of that scale, the claim that they had reached the western frontier, fought the rebels, and were already on their way back in under two weeks defied belief—no matter how exceptional imperial logistics might be.
“There are roughly three possibilities,” I reasoned. “First, something happened on the march and they never arrived. Second, the rebels were so pathetic they collapsed in less than a day. And third… the subjugation force defected straight to the rebels.”
“Wouldn’t the first be the most realistic?”
Bell’s question was a reasonable deduction, but it reeked of wishful thinking. If the civil war was still underway and bogged down by complications, the Imperial Palace would be even more frantic, making it harder for them to brush aside our offer to resolve at least one of their pressing problems.
“If it’s the second, the civil war is already over, which invalidates our entire rush… Though even if we’re at a disadvantage, we might still manage to broker peace somehow,” I muttered. “But if it’s the third… the empire has effectively split in two, and I haven’t the slightest clue how we’re supposed to navigate that…”
The more I chewed on it, the worse my headache flared. Why on earth was I the one agonizing over this? Damn that wretched kingdom of ours. However few idle royals they had to spare, if they were going to treat me like dirt and ignore me my entire life, they shouldn’t have dumped this kind of responsibility on my shoulders. A single misstep would put the Kingdom of Remus in an impossible bind—to say nothing of the head currently resting on my own neck.
If only I had remained completely in the dark, I wouldn’t be suffering like this. I should have thrown my weight around as a prince like General Lucius and Bell suggested, demanding a proper guest room from the local lord. We had stopped at a common inn simply to wash away the exhaustion of travel, yet all we had gained was twice the headache.
“So what you’re telling me is that the rebels tore themselves apart from internal strife? And the ringleader was assassinated before the subjugation force even got close?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The following morning, the report delivered by the guards who had stayed downstairs drinking with the patrons was an absolute spectacle. I had suspected something was off, but the rebel instigator had apparently been far more reckless and impulsive than anyone could have imagined. He had bolted with the Golden Seal without a shred of a master plan, and the subordinates swept along in his wake eventually realized their leader was nothing more than a power-hungry fool—and promptly slit his throat.
“Good grief…”
History was littered with fools whose grand ventures began with bravado and ended in pathetic whimpers, but experiencing it firsthand was bewildering beyond words. That assassination had apparently taken place about a week ago.
“Then why the hell hasn’t the subjugation force returned yet?”
“Well… it is said that the rebel remnants suddenly declared their allegiance to General Adelheid and offered her the Golden Seal of their own accord.”
“They did what…?”
Like master, like retainers. Those rebel bastards had a singular, terrifying talent for impulsively screwing over everyone around them.
“Don’t tell me the Crown Prince actually believed that?!”
“Word of the new Emperor’s reaction is only rumor for now, but… the mood in the capital is reportedly far bleaker than when the civil war first erupted, and they are already demanding conscripts from neighboring fiefs. The ten thousand soldiers sent with the subjugation force comprised over half the capital’s garrison, and they were the cream of the crop…”
“…”
I thought the tide was merely going out, only to find it was the harbinger of a tsunami. That was our exact predicament. Taking advantage of chaos was one thing, but this was pure, unbridled anarchy. Getting any closer wouldn’t yield us an advantage—it would swallow us whole.
“Your Highness… should we turn back?”
Even the general, a man who would normally roar with laughter while charging into an enemy encirclement, spoke of retreat with a face like he was chewing dirt. That alone said everything. This had spiraled miles past the line of what an ordinary general and an expendable prince could handle. I wasn’t the crown prince; taking it upon myself to make a call on a matter of this magnitude was sheer madness.
Yet, if I turn back like this, will my head actually stay on my shoulders?
If the Crown Prince felt slighted—convinced we were merely testing the waters during their internal strife instead of bowing before him immediately—and decided to hold a grudge later, our kingdom would inevitably offer up a scapegoat. And the first heads on the chopping block would be mine and General Lucius’s for turning back on our own authority.
Knowing that all too well, the general watched my face with an ashen complexion.
After a long silence, I surveyed our surroundings to ensure no stray ears were listening, then forced the words from my throat.
“General, do you wish to keep the head resting on your neck?”
“…Your Highness?”
“I want to live. If things go south, I’ll die first, so I won’t force you to follow me. Just don’t stand in my way.”
“…What are you—”
They dumped this rotten duty on me anyway. If we're going to die, we might as well all go down together.