Chapter 27
Chapter 27
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 27
Chapter Title: I Won't Abandon a Single Citizen (3)
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An army deprived of its commander is like a ship adrift on the vast, endless ocean, utterly directionless.
Even that imperial army was now tangled up like flies caught in a spider's web, limbs completely bound.
It had been two full months since the princess's safety was held hostage, stripping away all their choices and leaving nothing but a tedious standoff.
Blackguard Territory welcomed an unexpected guest. A royal messenger dispatched by the king had arrived.
When I first heard the news of the messenger's arrival, I thought the war was finally over. I had no other choice but to assume as much.
We had captured the enemy's commander outright, utterly dismantling the imperial army's chain of command.
And since the captive was royalty, they couldn't simply discard her—they were forced into negotiations.
In such a situation, no matter how vast the gap between the empire and the kingdom, we couldn't help but hold the advantage at the bargaining table. An utterly obvious truth.
Unfortunately, however, I had forgotten a crucial fact: countless nations had crumbled precisely because they couldn't even manage something so blatantly straightforward.
"What in the hell is this bullshit?!"
A bolt from the blue. The letter the messenger had brought was thunder roaring from a clear sky.
The contents were absurd. Stripping away the needless flourishes, the core message was this...
They acknowledged the achievement but questioned its authenticity, demanding that the princess be escorted directly to the capital.
And all this while the imperial army and their elite knights were glaring daggers from outside.
In a turn of events that defied all imagination, even the royalist nobles were left speechless.
How on earth had negotiations resulted not in a ceasefire, but in an order to transport the princess?
"They want me to head to the capital with only the bare minimum escort? Are they telling me to abandon Blackguard Territory and march on the capital??"
"Might I presume to offer a word?"
In the stunned silence gripping everyone, Viscount Harban alone cautiously raised his hand.
He was the noble who had stepped in as the royalists' representative following Viscount Maxit's execution.
The moment I laid eyes on his face, a surge of fury boiled up inside me, but I forcibly suppressed it. He might actually have some inkling, after all.
"Do you have any guesses?"
"It seems His Majesty suspects you, Viscount."
"???"
His words hit like a mallet in the dead of night—I couldn't even muster a response. The sheer absurdity had clogged my throat.
Instead, I silently fixed Viscount Harban with a stare. Was this some elaborate mockery?
But his utterly earnest expression held my gaze without flinching, suggesting he had real grounds for it.
"Let's hear it, then. What's your basis for saying His Majesty suspects me?"
"The empire's Second Prince—their first envoy—visited this place initially, and he's still lingering nearby, isn't he?"
"Surely not because of that...?"
"Precisely. Regrettably, His Majesty appears to have fallen completely for the empire's wedge-driving schemes."
The great affairs of state are decided by the king. Ceasefire negotiations were a prime example.
Even during the Imjin War, Admiral Yi Sun-sin's exploits were legendary, yet peace came only through the courts' Gyeoyak Treaty.
The circumstances differed, of course, but the point remained: national matters were the king's domain.
And what did that imply?
It meant that if the king was an irredeemable dimwit, things could twist into this exact mess.
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was to soothe my seething rage, but Viscount Harban's next words shattered even that.
"Naturally, His Majesty would have been preparing for ceasefire talks. But then he heard the rumors of the empire sending an envoy straight to you..."
"Surely not just because of a rumor? I submitted a full report directly to His Majesty myself."
"No mere rumor would suffice, no matter how persistent. The empire's envoy who visited the royal castle must have worked their wiles."
"...So he's suspicious I'll hand the princess over on my own."
Confronted with an irrefutable truth I couldn't deny, my legs went limp beneath me.
I had literally toiled unto death for this. Countless versions of my corpse lay buried on that battlefield before I finally seized victory...
And now, that hard-won triumph was reduced to worthless scraps of paper in a mere two months.
"How the hell did the negotiations go so wrong...?"
"The empire's envoy no doubt relentlessly stoked suspicions. Insisting you and the Second Prince had struck some secret deal. And... they threatened him too."
"Threatened?"
"Everyone knows the empire commands a million-strong army. He must have caved to threats of unleashing it if she wasn't released."
"Even so—the hilt's in our hands! To fold so easily..."
Simply buying time would have inevitably tilted the scales toward the kingdom.
The empire was hemorrhaging resources just maintaining their garrison here.
Moreover, their arch-rival alliance wasn't idly twiddling thumbs from afar.
Yet somehow, like Ma Su from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he'd handed over a commanding position on a silver platter...
There were limits, even so. But unexpectedly, my mind cooled with startling clarity.
Until now, I'd only half-believed it for lack of proof—but this confirmed it.
'An empire invasion on one front, and a king persecuting his own vassals on the other... an utterly incompetent ruler. That scenario seems overwhelmingly likely.'
I hadn't set foot in the capital yet, so certainty eluded me, but the signs pointed squarely there.
The empire at the gates, and him prioritizing his throne first? Case closed.
But as the ancients said: Know yourself and your enemy, and you'll win a hundred battles. With the scenario in rough outline, I now knew exactly what to do.
"Dispatch an envoy to the imperial camp."
"Even protesting through an envoy might be too late by now..."
"This isn't about protesting. We all need to survive, don't we?"
"You mean..."
"Trade with the Second Prince, using the princess's safety as collateral. And once that's done..."
Escorting the princess to the capital was impossible with the imperial army blatantly camped outside—not to mention a master swordsman in their ranks.
Even if feasible, the troops stationed in Blackguard Territory would be massacred without question.
But hunkering down changed nothing—except handing them pretext for treason charges.
In other words, if the territory was doomed to fall anyway, better to propose a deal ourselves and slip away intact.
"Abandon Blackguard Territory. March to the capital."
Above all, a commander must remain ice-cold and decisive.
The sole wildcard was Defeat Regression...
But if my hunch held, it wouldn't trigger this time.
It wasn't the sort of deal that activated it in the first place.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Cain Blackguard. The man who rent apart the heaven-spanning net with his valor and brilliant intellect.
Who could have imagined a talent of that caliber lurking in such a forsaken borderland? It was his utter defeat, born of presuming to measure his enemy's worth on a whim.
Thanks to him, Princess Morgana had enjoyed two months of relative calm.
Admitting defeat was never easy—but once accepted, the rest surprisingly was.
Acknowledge your errors, reflect upon them, and mend yourself into someone better.
Morgana had spent her two months in captivity honing precisely that.
'A fruitful time. If there's any regret, perhaps it's that I never spoke directly with Sir Blackguard.'
Of course, aware of her status as a prisoner, she hadn't dared request it.
Even so. The empire's Third Princess and a commander at that—yet he hadn't visited even once in two months?
Recalling it now, Morgana found herself unconsciously pouting.
"Not that I'm particularly disappointed or anything, of course..."
"What are you muttering to yourself about?"
"...Your Highness the Second Prince."
Beneath his platinum locks, those inscrutable slit-eyes curved into a smile.
It was a sly, foxy grin—but laced with unmistakable concern.
Morgana let out a sigh. What manner of man was Sir Blackguard...? A man of honor wouldn't stoop to beastly acts.
If anything, his total absence had left her feeling a touch... No, that wasn't the point.
"I didn't expect Your Highness to come in person."
"When it's no mere stranger, but dragon-blooded kin taken captive? This demands priority above all else."
"I see. Then pray tell—what deal have you struck?"
No explanations were needed. The flow of events alone painted the picture clearly.
A negotiation that could have dragged on for years had wrapped up in a mere two months.
Sir Blackguard had even personally escorted her into the imperial camp. That screamed some manner of bargain.
In response, Second Prince Oren shook his head with a weary sigh, as if the whole affair bored him.
"Kin of superior blood is truly a blessing—save for their utter lack of charm or adorability."
"This is wartime. I'm the commander entrusted with 50,000 imperial troops by His Majesty. Here in enemy lands, my authority supersedes even yours."
"I know that full well. But it's too weighty a thing to voice from my own lips."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Why weary my tongue with explanations? You'll know soon enough tomorrow."
Morgana sighed. She had no time to waste sparring with this sly fox.
Freed at last, her mind whirred into overdrive. If she could just start over from the beginning, slowly and methodically, victory was assured.
That was what she believed—right up until the next day, when Blackguard Territory's gates swung open and she beheld the sight with her own eyes.