Tyrant Serpina (4)
What in the world is going on...?!
For a moment Serpina stood frozen, stunned by the unbelievable scene unfolding before her eyes. Then she snapped back to her senses and hurled herself into the blazing mansion.
Inside she found only corpses—countless corpses. Most belonged to meritorious retainers of powerful houses, many of them faces she knew well. And not long after, she came upon two more bodies she knew even better.
"Sister Lilirose...? Brother Stadel...???"
As she stared, utterly lost, a familiar voice filled with hatred rang in her ears.
"Serpina...!!!"
She turned toward the source of that venomous cry—
Sidmid, blood pouring from his gut as though he were vomiting it, glared at her with pitch-black eyes.
"Serpina... you bitch... you bitch killed me...!"
No.
No, Brother. I—
She wanted to speak, yet her lips would not move.
"You bitch killed me!!!"
That's not true, Brother! I was only following Brother Algot's orders...!!
"You!!! You killed me, killed my little siblings...! Don't tell me you planned this from the very beginning...!!"
CRASH!!!
A chunk of the ceiling collapsed on top of him, cutting Sidmid's dying scream short.
"Eek...!!!"
Barely escaping the falling debris, Serpina next heard a woman's voice.
"Princess! Princess...!!"
"...Aria?!"
She rushed toward the sound—
There, amid the tangle of corpses, sat Algot, blood streaming from every part of his body, and Aria holding his hand.
"Serpi...na..."
"Brother Algot! You're alive?! Why... why did this happen...? What... what on earth happened here?!"
"I used my private soldiers... summoned my siblings... and killed them... with these hands..."
"...!!!"
"He brought soldiers of his own too... and ended up like this... Hah."
"Sidmid would have become a tyrant... and destroyed the empire... so I had to settle it... with my own hands... for the empire's sake..."
"Brother!!"
"The others were the same... chasing only their own glory... they would have ruined the empire sooner or later... Guh!"
With great effort Algot lifted his head and looked at Serpina. Those golden eyes that had always shone so keenly were steadily losing their light.
"Serpina... you... were different from the rest of us. You never coveted the throne... you truly cared for the empire... I always... knew that..."
"I'll bring soldiers right away, Brother! First we stabilize the situation and get you treatment...!!"
"Too late... I can't live any longer... I know that much..."
Serpina, Algot, and Aria beside him all understood instinctively. This was the final moment of his life.
"There's no one else, Serpina... Among those who carry Aingart blood... the only one whose hands are still clean... is you... So this worthless older brother... intends to leave everything... to you..."
"So I ask you... Take this fractured empire... and make it one again... Bring peace back to this world..."
After that, no more words came.
"...Brother...? Brother Algot...?!"
...He was dead.
Algot had passed the name of Aingart to her with his last breath and vanished together with his siblings.
"...Princess."
"Aria...?"
"Please... grant his final wish."
Even hearing those words, the idea of becoming emperor herself was so far beyond anything Serpina had imagined that she could only feel bewildered. Still, she assessed the situation as quickly as she could. The thought that she had to save whoever could still be saved drove her forward.
"No, Aria, you shouldn't stay here—come with me and get out of—!!"
Algot would surely have wanted Aria to live, so of course Serpina tried to take her with her—
Yet Serpina's eyes went blank and the rest of the sentence died in her throat.
The legs she had thought were merely folded beneath Aria... were gone.
"I'm finished, Princess..."
Only then did the light of life begin to fade from Aria's ruby eyes. Yes—she had kept herself alive through sheer superhuman will until Algot could speak his final words.
"Princess. Please... bring peace once more to this continent that has fallen into chaos... so that my little sister can live in peace as well. Build a unified empire again... This is my last request."
BOOM!!
The mansion was collapsing further by the second. If she lingered any longer, her own life would be in clear danger.
"Aria..."
"If someone like you... had become my sister-in-law... how wonderful that would have been... But with my lowly station... I couldn't... I'm sorry..."
"Aria...!! Aria!!!"
Watching Aria's life gutter out, Serpina's world went black—
And when she came to herself again, what awaited her was the will of House Aingart.
The unwanted crown of the final victor in the succession war.
Yes.
She had placed that unwanted crown upon her head.
She had crushed, again and again, the uprisings that kept erupting from those who refused to accept the outcome.
All of it so she could rebuild a unified empire.
All of it so she could carry on the will of Aingart that had been thrust upon her.
"You asked me, did you not? That the chance of successive rebellions was extremely low. Yet I can feel it. Living every day sensing the malice that spreads through the air toward me... for someone like me, continuous uprisings by rebel armies are nothing strange."
She laid the iron plate over her face even thicker and accepted the epithet of tyrant that now felt like destiny itself.
In exchange for atoning for the original sin of House Aingart, she reached for absolute power.
Whether she liked it or not, the moment she took that will upon herself—everything had to become something she herself had done.
A puppet who merely received power after being tossed about by events was far less suited to rule over people than a tyrant who had planned everything and finally succeeded in slaughtering them all.
The sole survivor of House Aingart, the golden-eyed witch who had bathed herself in the blood of every brother and sister.
And so... wearing a cold smile, Serpina brazenly lied to Swen.
"Of course. I eliminated with my own hands both Algot, the strongest candidate for the throne, and Sidmid, who had clashed with him most fiercely. Naturally I earned their hatred. Yet in a situation where the previous king had passed without even properly designating an heir, having two or more people carrying Aingart blood was extremely dangerous. Chaos did break out in the end, but had it been delayed any longer the empire would surely have vanished from history altogether."
After that Serpina continued in a calm, unshaken tone.
"For someone like me—the youngest, with no faction of my own—to ascend the imperial throne, purges were unavoidable. If I had no followers, I simply had to kill everyone until only those who swore loyalty to me remained. A ridiculously simple matter, was it not? So I cleaned house. Because I was the one who had to wear the crown."
It was nothing more than a trivial story of that level.
And yet.
For some reason, Serpina... wanted to ask the man standing before her a question.
"Swen."
"Yes."
"Do you not despise me?"
Swen answered carefully.
"...That is rather sudden."
"I am a woman who killed her own blood with her own hands. Solely for the emperor's seat. Because I had no foundation, I smashed every foundation that existed. To seize the empire, I shattered the empire—that is who I am. With a record like that, I can hardly complain no matter how many rebel armies rise against me."
She let out a bitter laugh as though mocking the situation itself, then painted a shameless smile across her lips.
"I have taken countless lives. Of course I am hated beyond measure. If you look carefully, there is a high chance that even someone close to you bears a grudge against me. I... had to live that way. Is it not strange that you do not despise me?"
Yes.
Being hated by everyone was familiar. Once she had inherited the will of Aingart, she had believed no one would ever understand her.
So why was she forcing an answer from Swen of all people?
What answer was she hoping to hear from him?
Swen lowered his head for a moment in thought, then finally parted his heavy lips.
"I..."
"I do not despise you."
At my answer Serpina smiled as though the reply had surprised her.
"You say such pleasant things, Swen. If this is simply you fulfilling your duty as a retainer, I almost want to praise you for it."
She was putting on a strong front, yet there were many odd points about her manner.
First of all—why was she telling me this story?
Was she trying to say, I am this terrible a human being?
That she was the sort of woman who carefully selected and committed every possible evil deed?
And therefore that I should despise her for it?
No.
On the surface it might look like a "loyalty test"—something along the lines of Will you still serve me even knowing this?—yet I could not shake the feeling that she herself was not fully aware of the true intention hidden behind bringing up such a tale.
Rationally speaking, there was no need to raise such a heavy subject right now.
Which meant her current state was heavily swayed by emotion... and from there the natural question arose: Why had she become so emotional?
The answer was obvious—because the expression on Serpina's face as she spoke those words looked so terribly sad.
No matter what words left a person's mouth, the eyes could never lie.
Until now the basis for every judgment I made had been my Intelligence of 100. Though its range was limited, when I asked it always spat out the correct answer. All I had to do was follow that answer.
Even if I patched together whatever ragged reasons I liked, in the end I was guaranteed to win—an absurdly convenient battlefield.
But.
Right now I was not judging the situation with any such "infallible prediction."
The subject of judgment was my own intuition.
The part of me that simply felt, This is how it is.
By my own will alone, I answered her.
"No. Even if I had never served you, Lady Serpina, even if I had simply met you and heard that story, I do not believe I would have despised you."
"...Why?"
I lowered my head and answered slowly.
"Because I trust my lord... I trust you, Lady Serpina."
"...!!!!"
I looked at her as her pupils widened in shock and continued.
"I apologize if that answer seems a little off-kilter, but this is hardly the first or second time I have been like this, is it? I hope you will be generous enough to understand."
"Swen..."
Serpina said nothing more. She simply stared at me for a long while...
Then she turned and once again took the lead.
"I hope you will have no cause for regret, Swen."
"I will not regret it. Everything is my own decision."
Honestly.
I had begun to suspect that perhaps she had simply... taken everything upon herself.
My grounds were only circumstantial, yet there were quite a few of them.
The things she had said that night we drank together, and the way she was now listing her own evil deeds as though pleading—both pointed in the same direction.
To me her appeal sounded like a roundabout way of saying, I didn't actually do it...
And so I had blurted out the somewhat mismatched reply, "I trust you."
"I know well what it is to be lonely. Carrying a truth you can tell no one... and walking forward with it entirely alone... is a desperately solitary thing."
Just what was the truth she was hiding in her heart?
What had happened to her?
How had she become the empire's heir, and by what cruel twist of fate was she unable to become the unifier of the continent?
All manner of thoughts were churning through my mind when—
"We are here."
Serpina stopped walking and spoke.
What lay before her eyes... were four nameless graves.
"This place is...?"
"As you can see, graves. ...Those buried here are my blood kin."
"!!!"
"Algot, Sidmid, Stadel, and Lilirose... My brothers and sister rest here."
"Is that... so?"
"Do you find them shabby for royal graves? It cannot be helped. The tombs of those who were once revered tend to become holy sites. In the first place, almost no one besides me even knows that the people buried here are them. No—"
Serpina looked at me and smiled faintly.
"Now there are two of us, Swen."
"..."
"After my bedchamber, you certainly have a talent for taking my 'firsts.'"
She chuckled softly at that, then her tone grew serious once more.
"I come here every time, before and after purging a rebel army. You could say it is my way of asking them to remember and look after those who cast their lives aside to follow their will, once those souls reach the other side. Well, for all the fine words, it may simply be me running from the weight I must bear."
Having said that, Serpina slowly turned her head to look at the graves...
Then she bowed her head in silent prayer.
Her golden hair spilled downward, drawn by gravity toward the earth.
It was full of contradictions.
She had killed her siblings to seize the throne, yet she was secretly mourning them at hidden graves?
If, as she herself said, the tombs of the revered became holy sites, then never building graves at all would have been far more rational.
And yet she had secretly laid her brothers and sister to rest in this sunlit place.
And.
What did it mean that she was showing this only to me?
Perhaps she still had not managed to say the words she truly wanted to say to me.
If so, what story could that be—
No.
I lightly brushed aside the thought that had almost pulled me into deeper contemplation.
What mattered was that she had brought me here.
And that she had told me alone something she had never told anyone else.
I remembered vividly the night I had spent with her.
I could not recall every word I had spoken while drunk... yet I still remembered the state of mind I had been in then.
I had wanted to stay by her side. I had.
And I still did. Even now I wanted to stand beside Serpina, who looked as though she might collapse at any moment.
For now, that was all I needed to think about.
Unifying the continent, whatever reasons she might have for bringing me to a place like this and saying such things—I set them all aside.
The moment I did, my tangled thoughts cleared.
I slowly closed my eyes beside her and offered a silent prayer of my own, forming a question that could never reach the dead who were already gone.
What on earth happened to Lady Serpina?
Of course no answer came... Only the quiet sound of the wind brushed past my ears.