Chapter 83: Turbulent (3)
Chapter 83: Turbulent (3)
While the Emperor wore a smirk, Ardal walked over briskly, rummaged through the stacked documents, pulled out a bundle, flipped through a few pages, and then took out a pen. He revised the details on the spot and let out a pointed sigh.
"Haa... Three royal ceramics...."
He drew two harsh lines through the count of royal ceramics, wrote a new 3, and returned the report to its place, grumbling.
First the conference room, and now this—smashing precious ceramics, of all things.
The Emperor styled himself a tyrant, but even he had always set certain lines for himself and acted accordingly. Lately, however, he was acting strange.
The questions that had been building up as he committed acts the Emperor Ardal knew would never have done before recently mingled with rapidly accumulating dissatisfaction and began spilling out one after another.
"Are you aware, Your Majesty, that you've been odd lately? At this critical juncture, you zone out at every spare moment. Sometimes you become excessively sensitive. When I check what you're looking at, it's just empty air. It's as if...."
Abruptly, Ardal's movements halted.
In the strange stillness, his pupils dilated, and the hand stopped in midair trembled violently.
He turned his head and stared at the Emperor. Whether the Emperor was daring him to say it, or planning to feign ignorance until he pinpointed the right answer, the Emperor remained silent.
"......As if you're seeing things."
"......."
Receiving no answer, Ardal became certain instead. And he knew where it stemmed from.
"You didn't summon a physician, did you."
Guilt, wearing the mask of responsibility.
"No."
"Ha...."
Forgetting all of what was called rudeness, Ardal pressed a hand to his forehead.
Ardal could not understand the Emperor. Eduardo Desert was the most inexplicable human being among all the people he knew.
Yes, human.
A word so ill-suited to an Emperor who performed flawlessly in combat, paperwork, and even daily life—he chewed on it, then gave a bitter smile.
In the end, he was human too.
"Are you still capable of distinguishing friend from foe?"
"For now."
"Yes. You absolutely must. The moment Your Majesty loses that discernment and swings your sword at your allies, the imperial authority will be replaced."
He meant that he himself would personally take the lead in replacing the Emperor.
The Emperor clearly understood the meaning yet said nothing. Because he knew that, for Ardal, the top priority was the 'Empire.'
Among all these people filled with nothing but greed, wasn't it not so bad to have at least one like this?
"Are His Highness the Crown Prince and Her Highness the Imperial Princess aware?"
"The Crown Prince knows."
"Then it is highly likely Her Highness the Imperial Princess knows as well. Was there no request for you to undergo an examination? ...No,"
Of course there was. He had to change the question.
"Does Your Majesty still have no intention of receiving an examination?"
"I do not. More than that, Chancellor,"
As if he no longer wished to discuss the matter, the Emperor changed the subject firmly. Ardal, about to say something, closed his mouth at the Emperor's next action.
More precisely, because the Emperor pointed to a spot on the map.
"As you know from attending the meeting, the next war opponent has been decided: the Kingdom of Srahan. I intend to attack this region first, so the documents summarizing this region's characteristics...."
"Are you serious?"
The expression vanished from Ardal's face.
Cut off mid-sentence, the Emperor raised his head. Their eyes met in the silence.
Those splendid golden eyes, like a beast's, held a fierce will as always and blazed intensely, offering their very soul as fuel.
Ardal, who had been watching him wordlessly, slowly parted his lips and drove out the silence.
"Even though your condition is not good."
"That is the domain of the mind, not the domain of the body, is it not?"
"The mind inevitably affects the body."
Like all the other nobles, Ardal was not pleased with this war.
The Kingdom of Ireon was one thing, but was there truly a need to poke other kingdoms and make unnecessary trouble? Of course, given that the Emperor's goal was continental conquest, such things probably didn't even cross his mind....
Above all, Ardal disliked the reason the Emperor had set his sights on continental conquest in the first place.
So when he confirmed that the Emperor's condition was poor, he had secretly expected that, even if the plan wasn't canceled, the war would at least be postponed.
"So, Chancellor, are you telling me to overturn a plan that has already been through a meeting?"
"......However."
He knew that would be an act of disregarding the nobles who attended the meeting.
But still.
"This is madness."
A voice rigid and hard flowed out.
The Emperor held a significantly large share of the Empire's military strength.
There was a reason for the saying that the Empire's de facto first hero was the Emperor. The Emperor was the strongest among those who possessed a Hero's Fragment.
Yet he was insisting on pushing through with a war when his condition—someone who was a core asset both as a commander and as a warrior—was not good.
War was a dangerous thing where countless lives could evaporate in an instant with a single misstep.
What would happen if the Emperor's condition worsened, causing him to lose his sense of reason and issue wrong orders, or swing his sword without distinguishing friend from foe?
"I know."
"Then why on earth...!"
"Well...."
As if lost in thought, the golden eyes quietly lowered. Long eyelashes cast deep shadows.
The Emperor, who had been silently taking in the fragments of the broken ceramic on the floor, soon lifted the corners of his mouth and looked at the Chancellor.
An inscrutable voice crept out softly.
"A madman is about to do something mad—does he need a reason?"
Bang!
At the ensuing noise, the Emperor, who had been laughing languidly, immediately withdrew his smile. His golden eyes lowered to the hand that had slammed the desk, then rose again to capture its owner.
Looking expressionlessly at the Chancellor's face, clenched as if about to explode, the Emperor asked in a low voice.
"What is the meaning of this, Chancellor?"
"If you're going to go mad, go mad quietly. If you want to die, go die somewhere quiet instead of sacrificing blameless imperial citizens! If you want to self-harm, don't drag the Empire into it—carve up your own body instead!!"
In the end, he exploded.
A chill entered the Emperor's eyes, but Ardal, utterly fearless, burst out with his rage without restraint and poured out all the words he had been holding back.
He was angry—because he knew what the Emperor's goal was, and because he cared for the Empire more than anyone.
"Your Majesty is well aware that the soldiers sacrificed in war are also imperial citizens. Yet why do you insist on pushing the war forward! Is fulfilling your responsibility after death the end of it all?! Why do you exclude the option of not waging war at all?! Why must imperial citizens be sacrificed and the Empire exploited for your personal objectives?! Why on earth!!"
"Chancellor."
"Responsibility, fine. It is something a human being ought to bear. But... but why,"
Did you think the Emperor's first priority was 'responsibility'? No. The Emperor prioritized responsibility, but it was not his first priority.
If the Emperor truly regarded responsibility as his top priority,
"Is your responsibility for something else greater than your responsibility to the imperial citizens and the Empire?!"
He would have prioritized the Empire and its citizens over his responsibility to his dead siblings.
For him, the first priority was....
'Guilt.'
One might say responsibility was a second place with no first place. In the first place, 'guilt' was the kind of thing that couldn't even be put on the list.
The Emperor was prioritizing guilt, under the name of responsibility.
In the end, he too was just a weak human, swayed by guilt.
"Chancellor."
"......."
Ardal did not answer.
The Emperor, who had been watching him gasp for breath in silence, soon spoke slowly, savoring each word one by one.
"What is it that I have said?"
"......Ha."
The conversation had come full circle and concluded like this in the end.
It was impossible to know whether those words meant, 'We are the Empire, so we will not neglect the Empire. Therefore, do not worry,' or simply, 'We are the Empire, so shut up and do as you're told.' But regardless, the conclusion was one.
As the Emperor willed.
Ardal, who had been quietly glaring at the Emperor, rummaged through the document files stored on the bookshelf, took out one of them, placed it on the desk, and slid it over.
"......I already prepared it. The characteristics of the region Your Majesty mentioned."
"......."
"Do you think I've only observed Your Majesty for a day or two? I was expecting at least this much."
What judgment he would make, which route he would take if waging war. Everything.
[We are the Empire.]
If anyone other than 'Eduardo Desert' had uttered those words, Ardal would have left without mercy, even if that person were the one who had taken him in.
Usually, anyone who said such a thing was a hopeless tyrant destined to be recorded in history books forever, and such a tyrant could never properly rule a nation.
But Eduardo Desert was....
"Do as you please, Your Majesty, whatever it may be. In any case, I lack the capacity to stop you...."
Because, as long as you don't abandon the Empire, I will turn a blind eye to most things.
He quietly swallowed the rest of his words. As if knowing his thoughts, the Emperor, who had been flipping through the documents, raised his head and met his eyes.
'......Yes.'
You do know, don't you?
That if you ever let go of the Empire, you will no longer be Emperor at that moment.
That I, for my part, will mobilize all my capabilities to cut off your head and hang that head on the castle wall.
Ardal met the Emperor's eyes for a moment, then quietly averted his gaze.
A heavy silence flowed.
On this day, the Empire declared war on another bordering kingdom,
and several kingdoms, which had been watching the Empire's movements with suspicion as it kept trying to wage war without the other side having done anything particularly wrong, rushed into a wartime footing as if realizing something.
It was the moment that heralded a bloody storm across the continent.
* * *
Currently, there were four official Heroes in the Empire.
The three Heroes who emerged against the backdrop of the Eight-Year War, and the fourth Hero who was later recognized for additional meritorious deeds.
The three Heroes of the Eight-Year War were those who survived to the very end among the countless who appeared, were called heroes, and ultimately died and were forgotten, thereby protecting their names.
As such, their achievements were immense.
The first Hero, with the Emperor's powerful backing from the war's outset, rose to the position of commander-in-chief and led the battles,
the second Hero distinguished themself from the war's early stages, cutting down enemies relentlessly and piling mountains of corpses to build their fame,
and the third Hero served as a vanguard from the early-to-middle stages of the war, revealing a brutal true worth that left not a single intact corpse behind.
Stigma Primiro was the second among those Heroes.
"The Kingdom of Ireon has already surrendered?"
"Yes."
"If they were going to do that, I don't know why they provoked us in the first place. Vermin-like bastards."
Disgust flickered in the eyes of the man dressed in cool, refreshing garments somewhat removed from imperial attire.
It was an unavoidable reaction for someone who despised the weak.
As if unwilling to waste his attention on defeated foes whose aftermath was already settled, he uncrossed his legs.
He roughly flipped the bloodied sword he had been holding upside down, stabbed it downward, rested both hands on the pommel, and propped his chin. A low voice followed.
"So, why has His Majesty summoned me?"
"He commanded you to prepare for war."
"War? The war hasn't already ended... Don't tell me."
The man's eyes widened.
His surprise was brief; as if gaining certainty of something, he twisted his lips.
"Kuh-hat."
"......."
"Ku-hah-hah-hah-hah!!"
A clear, refreshing laugh spread across the sky.
Having laughed like that for a long while, the man, still with a laughing face, moved his lips.
"As expected of His Majesty."
Finally.
Stigma murmured to himself in a barely audible voice and let out a few more chuckles.
He had expected the Emperor wouldn't end the war like that. The Emperor's movements during the Eight-Year War had seemed as if he had continental conquest in mind all along.
The Emperor's movement toward continental conquest itself was not what pleased him. Stigma was rejoicing at the fact that he could participate in the war.
More precisely, that he could earn merit.
'This time for sure.'
He would request the extermination of his family as recompense for his achievements.
Like that bastard back then.