The Axe-Mad Emperor Ascends as a Saint
I…
…I was the child of an emperor.
Even though I had been born to a commoner concubine for a mother.
Treated no better than a bastard whose very existence was denied.
I spent my childhood never knowing a father’s love, yet that cold truth could not erase the blood that flowed through my veins.
Therefore, no matter how low my station, I was undeniably one of the empire’s many imperial princes.
Yet in the blood-soaked political wars of the imperial palace, the only path available to a bottom-tier prince was to flee to the frontier battlefields teeming with the Demon King’s armies and monsters—before I had even reached adulthood.
But for me, that was an opportunity.
…I was a natural-born warrior with a body of steel.
For the sake of my homeland, the Orphen Empire.
To earn recognition from my father, His Imperial Majesty, who resided far away in the imperial capital.
And above all, for my own survival.
I harvested countless fools who bared their teeth at the empire without fear, wielding two axes in both hands. After enduring more than twenty winters, my shoulders and chest had become studded with stars of faint light like the night sky. My axes grew ever sharper. Comrades and subordinates who wished to walk the same path as me began to appear.
Thus, after more than a decade of traversing countless battlefields, leading the frontier legions and proving my loyalty to the empire, word arrived from the empire’s distant heart.
My great father—His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of the Orphen Empire—had been unable to cast aside the outdated custom of primogeniture. He had passed the throne to my frail eldest brother and then departed this world.
Naturally, the palace jackals who had been waiting for this moment swarmed my brother like a pack of wolves. He had suffered from a congenital heart condition since childhood and was physically weak. Moreover, because he stood at the very top of the line of succession, he had endured endless political checks and possessed almost no power base. There was no longer anyone left in the palace noble enough to protect him from those jackals and uphold our father’s will.
So my brother desperately looked outside the palace for someone who could help him. A loyal subject who had devoted himself to the empire more than anyone, a man of strong character who would not be blinded by lust for power. Even if that person happened to be a half-brother connected by blood, despite having a different mother.
If I were in his position, I would have asked for that person’s help too.
And that is exactly what my brother did.
Thus I was able to return to the place of my birth—the imperial capital, Gracion.
To another battlefield reeking of blood from those sacrificed to lies, hypocrisy, and conspiracy. Together with the army that had shared life and death with me on the front lines.
…I was the emperor’s blade.
Upon returning to Gracion, I received orders from His Imperial Majesty, who had ascended the throne through legitimate bloodline and lawful succession. I began eliminating the rats hiding within the palace one by one. It took considerable effort to completely eradicate those traitors who employed methods even more vile and petty than the demonkin I had faced on the frontier. Yet their wills were weak and insignificant, and neither my twin axes nor my army hesitated for even a moment.
After months of purging, on the day when those who had harbored vain ambitions could no longer hold their heads high, my brother summoned me.
That day, hundreds of thoughts swirled chaotically through my mind, making it nearly impossible to remain sane. There were countless historical tales about hunting dogs that had outlived their usefulness, and their endings were always the same.
I had no desire to become such a foolish dog.
By then, most of those permitted to carry weapons inside the palace were my own soldiers, and the entire world knew of my brother’s frailty. My preparations were complete.
And so, on the day I headed to the emperor’s bedchamber for a private audience with my brother… he told me he would hand the throne to me.
When I muttered “Why?” like a fool, my brother simply smiled gently and answered. His illness had already progressed beyond any hope of recovery. Thanks solely to me, he had been able to protect the empire’s legitimacy from the traitors. He could not allow a nation preserved with such difficulty to be plunged once more into chaos by the sudden death of a frail emperor who had no children. Therefore, while his mind was still clear, he would pass this position—under the name of a legitimate emperor—to the one who cared for the empire more than anyone else.
I simply knelt before the true emperor, regretting my cowardly and foolish thoughts, and listened reverently to his words.
My brother. The only family who had ever believed in me, aside from the mother who had passed away when I was young.
His Imperial Majesty Verius Kyrie Granes, the great emperor of the Orphen Empire, spoke in a voice that remained calm and dignified until the very end. Then he set off on the long journey to stand beside the noble spirits of the empire.
And.
Thus.
Finally.
I became emperor.
It had been a truly long and arduous journey. With these two arms and two axes, I had protected my homeland, the Orphen Empire, from the invasions of impure forces that crossed the borders during the empire’s chaos. I had wiped away the empire’s old filth—those blinded by lust for power and vain ambition who sought to harm the only family that had acknowledged me. At long last, I had reached it.
The position was so unmistakably legitimate and just that no further words were needed. Upon the imperial throne of the Orphen Empire sat none other than this Agilien Yanska Granes!
———
Yet the ecstatic, sweet dream did not last long.
After my brother passed the throne to me, riffraff began popping up all across the empire. Fools who interpreted the fact that the lowest-ranked prince—whose blood was mixed with that of a commoner—had become emperor as meaning “anyone with power can challenge this seat.”
Of course, that didn’t matter. I had already anticipated as much. All I had to do was hammer into those idiots, just as I had always done, exactly how vast the difference in strength was. It was an easy task. There was nothing in my life I had done more often or done better than splitting open the skulls of those who crossed the line with my axes.
But the problem wasn’t me.
…No. Perhaps it was my own complacency, disguised under the name of trust.
It was a truth so hard to believe. Among my precious comrades—those I had never doubted would walk the same path as me—there were defectors.
At the celebratory banquet held after we successfully suppressed the treasonous faction that had been lurking in the capital. While I raised my glass high to the sound of the musicians’ strings, offering congratulations and praise to my comrades. A group of traitors blinded by greed joined hands with the cancerous lumps of the empire we had been rooting out. They drove cold daggers of dishonor and downfall into the backs of the comrades I had once trusted enough to entrust my life to on the battlefield—and into my own back.
After my vision turned red, my reason was consumed by rage and madness, and I swung my axes in a fleeting, bitter nightmare, I remembered very little.
Only my arms, shredded like freshly butchered meat. My legs, pierced by poisoned arrows and refusing to move no matter how I struggled. My beloved axes, abandoned by their master and pathetically embedded in the ground. The faces of the traitors who hid far away, trembling in fear yet unable to conceal their filthy smiles. That was the extent of my final, brief memory.
And so.
In such a hollow manner.
…I fell to the bottom once again.
The only difference from before was that I had plummeted into an empty abyss where only a darkness so deep and pitch-black that I could not tell whether my eyes were open or closed remained by my side.
Having thrown away the chance to soar after overcoming every adversity. Having betrayed the expectations of the brother and comrades who had believed in me. Having failed to uphold my duty to protect my homeland. I would probably never see the light again….
———
……!!
I thought so, but suddenly someone’s shout pierced my ears so sharply that I reflexively shot upright.
“……Huh?”
A sound like a fool talking in his sleep slipped from my lips and scattered into the air. The chill that wrapped around the surrounding atmosphere touched my skin directly, and countless sensations of wrongness slammed into the back of my head.
First of all, how was I even alive?
And what in the world was this hard, pitch-black stone box I had woken up in?
Where were my axes, and where the hell was this place?
…And why did my voice just now sound so thin and high-pitched, like a girl’s?
And who were these unidentified crowds surrounding me on all sides, shedding tears while offering prayers and kneeling in worship?
“T-The Saint… The Saint has resurrected!!”
“The Saint has resurrected to save us!!”
“Uwaaaaaah!!!”
“…What?”
…And that was how I became a saint.