The Hawk Spreading Its Wings - 1
Savoring a quiet cup of tea alone in the clubroom is one of life's little joys. Drinking with Margeta is nice, of course, but sometimes solitude isn't so bad either.
Truth be told, she had mentioned she would be busy today, so I simply stayed put.
Peaceful.
In the world before I transmigrated, there was a saying: Saeongjima—when something bad happens, something good is bound to follow. Life never hands you nothing but misery. How beautiful a thought that is. After all I've endured, I deserve to enjoy this modest happiness.
Unfortunately, the reverse holds true as well. When something good happens now, disaster is sure to strike later. Hoping for nothing but good fortune every day of your life is a shameless wish. The total sum of happiness is finite; there's no way around it.
And I trust my luck.
It's about time something blew up.
My fortune crawls along the floor, so I'm certain some mess is coming. Unluck is still luck, I suppose. Knowing misfortune is on the way brings a strange peace of mind. Damn it all.
Thankfully, the Academy itself—more precisely, the club—is utterly calm. I don't have to worry about anything exploding from within. The problem is that quiet on the inside is no guarantee of quiet on the outside.
Two of the groups that looked ready to tear the Academy apart in the original story have already shown up. The remaining three are due any day now.
Please, just let them all have vanished.
When Luise rejected every last club member, the original plot went up in a glorious blaze of light and ceased to exist. I don't know the original content, but what romance-fantasy novel has every male lead getting dumped instead of accepted? So yes, the original is definitely dead.
The tear-soaked heartbreaks of five men collapsed the original story. By that logic, shouldn't the five villains vanish for the sake of balance?
I've already crushed two of them. Isn't that enough?
I even feel a little wronged. It's not like I was planning to take out all five for free. In half a year I've personally forced two of them off the stage. Hoping the remaining three stay quiet is a perfectly modest wish, isn't it?
And because the wish is modest, the odds of it coming true are modest too. Lunatics with terrorism on the brain aren't about to say, "Oh dear, you've been rejected. Our hearts go out to you—we'll just be on our way," and leave like gentlemen.
Damn it.
In this romance fantasy the romance has gone to hell, but the irritating fantasy side is still running at full capacity. If anything, it seems to have absorbed the romance share and is flaunting an even more deranged presence.
With a sigh I glanced at the communication orb on the desk. A message from the Intelligence Director was waiting.
The message had arrived out of the blue yesterday. Just the other day I had heard that, of the remaining three, the Five Pillars were the quietest.
Shit.
Looking at it again is still horrifying. "Dove faction fallen from power"—anyone can smell an incident brewing in that sentence.
Weaklings.
They slap the name "Dove" on themselves and then perform at dove level? What are we supposed to do? When you fall from power, the rest of them become uncontrollable.
I dry-washed my face several times under the weight of complicated feelings. The Five Pillars, who had at least been manageable and quiet, had overnight become dangerous elements.
In my heart they had already been potential terrorists, but now they were an eyesore even through the Empire's official gaze.
What do I do?
Seriously, what do I do about this.
My head ached. Until now the Empire had been anonymously funneling money to the Five Pillars. The more that group—opposed to the formation of a single Uven state—grew and thrived, the more a potential rival for the Empire simply disappeared.
The problem was that the recipients of the money had been the Dove faction. If we had carelessly backed the radical Hawk faction and they had self-destructed through one catastrophic blunder after another, we would only have thrown cash into a black hole. But who could have guessed the Doves would fall from power?
Upon receiving the Intelligence Director's message I had hastily contacted the Minister of Foreign Affairs, only to be greeted by a man wearing the face of pure enlightenment.
"I've never raised a hawk before, you see. Preparations will take quite some time. Ha-ha. Doves only know how to eat and are no help at all."
The Dove faction the Empire had supported for decades had suddenly collapsed on his watch as minister. The thought of the Emperor's scolding must have left him dizzy.
But what was truly driving the Foreign Minister mad was something else.
"A hawk is a hawk for a reason. I'm worried they'll fly off somewhere before we even begin to tame them."
"I share the concern. They're far too vicious."
The Foreign Minister was losing what little hair he had left for the exact same reason I was worrying.
It wasn't as if the Empire had snubbed the Hawk faction for no reason. No matter how you looked at it, if those people seized the initiative the only future I could see was them screaming about eight-cylinder power, slamming into a wall, and exploding.
If that happened the Empire would lose the shackles holding the Uven Allied Kingdom back, and I would face a high chance of getting swept up in the insane Hawk faction's Academy demolition project.
Not that we can just thrash them one-sidedly, either.
The Five Pillars are awkward to touch. They aren't rebels like the Third Glory, nor are they the kind of continent-wide aggro magnets like the Twilight Cult. They aren't fringe-of-the-fringe like the 5th Empire, and they aren't the utterly uncompromising type like the Red Wave.
For one thing, the Five Pillars are a fairly established organization inside the Uven Allied Kingdom; they have real bulk. In politics they roughly occupy the position of the number-one opposition party. That makes them far harder to casually smash than the other groups.
Besides, even with the Hawk faction in charge, the fact remains that the Five Pillars are still the shackles binding the Uven Allied Kingdom. From the Empire's standpoint we simply cannot kill them with our own hands. What a filthy tangle this is.
"They're still quiet for now. Seems the hawks are worn out from hunting the doves."
"That's a relief."
"But we never know when they'll recover their strength. Be careful yourself. Hawks are vicious creatures."
"Yes, Your Excellency. I'll keep that in mind."
Recalling the conversation with the Foreign Minister, I toyed with the communication orb.
At least the Dove faction hadn't been completely useless chicken-doves. Right—if they'd taken that much money and still failed to even twitch properly, could they even call themselves people?
Anyway, the Hawk faction seems drained from purging the Doves and isn't rampaging immediately. A small mercy, if it can be called one.
Is Later the problem?
The reason they're warning even me about the Hawk faction going berserk is probably because of Later. They must have scraped together every scrap of Hawk-related intelligence the Empire possesses and tried to predict their next moves.
Once those people catch their breath, how will they approach Later? A flashy terrorist attack? Or recruitment?
I'm going crazy.
I know nothing, so no answers come. Damn it—all this trouble because of those dove bastards.
I resent the Dove faction that caused this mess. If they hadn't fallen from power I wouldn't have to worry like this. Those bastards. Honestly, I always preferred hawks to doves.
...I should just stay still.
When the Hawk faction resumes activity, the Foreign Ministry or Intelligence will tip me off. No point wasting mental energy. I'll wait.
Today, after long deliberation, I gave up on meeting Karl. The decision hurt enough to make my chest ache, but for the sake of Karl's future and mine I had to endure it. And for the sake of Lady Luise's future as well.
I need to be certain.
I bit my lip lightly. We weren't even engaged yet, and already something like this was happening.
But what could I do? A man who looked good in my eyes would look good in others' eyes as well. I could understand it fully. I had steeled myself for this from the beginning.
Father has multiple wives, so Karl might do the same. Even His Grace the Golden Duke has twelve. If Karl wants other wives besides me, I am prepared to respect that willingly. What matters most is Karl's heart.
But the first is me.
I can accept there being several. What I cannot accept is being pushed aside. Even if Karl desires Lady Luise, I have no intention of surrendering the position of first.
I came first. I am the first. I was the first to like Karl, the first to show him my heart, the first to whom he opened his past. That "first" is something I will never yield.
She doesn't seem greedy, though.
Fortunately, Lady Luise did not appear to be eyeing my place.
Judging by the way she cleared the people around him, it is certain she holds feelings for Karl. But that is as far as it goes. She has not confessed those feelings to him.
If she had received a confession from Lady Luise, Karl would have reacted in some way—either by telling me the truth, or by staying silent and watching my mood instead.
It was nothing.
Karl spoke of Lady Luise's matter as if it were simply something that had happened. Karl would never deceive me, so nothing truly happened.
In that case I can afford to be generous. If Lady Luise is reading my mood and holding herself back, I am willing to accept her.
The fact that she pushed away club members who included a prince and a royal heir shows her sincerity toward Karl. And Lady Luise's disposition was decent; she was not particularly rude either.
I still don't know for certain.
Of course, the idea that Lady Luise is restraining herself is only my conjecture.
She might be secretly aiming for my place without Karl noticing. I have not seen Lady Luise with my own eyes; everything is secondhand through Karl. So I need to confirm it myself.
That is why I gave up my precious time with Karl and moved in person. Clinging to the present could mean losing the future forever.
A Valenti must never be slow.
Decide with care. Act with speed. Like a hawk diving from the sky. Like the crimson hawk that is the emblem of House Valenti. That is the teaching Father gave me.
Following that teaching, I moved myself to grasp Lady Luise's true intentions.
If—if she is eyeing the position of first—
I don't know what I might do.
I will not let it slide. In the name of a ducal house I will crush her.
Whoever dares to covet what belongs to this Margeta will find no forgiveness.