A Warning to the Imperial Family
The first reason the North went to hell: the eldest and second sons enrolled at the Academy and got completely seduced by the central empire’s sword-spirit nonsense and empty talk of honor.
Second: the knights the imperial family planted on those two leaked northern intelligence, and the drooling imperial bastards fed that information straight to the barbarians.
Third: and of all the worst possible timing, the Snow Ghosts invaded. The Grand Duke of the North threw his life on the line to stop them—and died.
Fourth: the moment the Snow Ghosts withdrew, the barbarians attacked. They goaded the two brothers with talk of honor that under normal circumstances wouldn’t even register, and—yahoo—off went their heads!
Last: the weak, talentless third son, the one the family had already cast out, finally returned… only to be pushed around by the imperial knights until Black Heart Castle fell.
To “save” the crumbling North, the heroine and one of the male leads—Crown Prince Baron—appear with a grand ta-da! Northern Normalization Beam!
That’s the novel’s plot, written as the center taking over the North.
I still remember tearing into my sister—my household-registry mate—for turning the entire North into idiots just to make the heroine and the crown prince look good.
I offered her the last scrap of sibling affection I had left by giving proper feedback, and she repaid me with a fist to the face. Rot in hell.
“This is unjust!!”
I looked down at Velos and his subordinate knights, forced to their knees in front of me, and let a rotten smile curl across my face.
“Unjust? Then what exactly is this letter packed with every scrap of northern intelligence?”
“Th-that is…”
“Were you trying to put a leash on the grand ducal house that guards the northern barrier?”
“Ah…”
“Tsk. Sir Jester.”
“Yes, Grand Duke.”
“Confiscate every piece of equipment issued to these men and ship it all back to the center.”
“Understood.”
“And one more thing.”
I pulled out a single letter and handed it to Jester.
“Deliver this as well.”
“This is…”
What else? A polite little warning to keep their children on a shorter leash.
The empire that shone like the sun—that was the Pragahegh Empire. A nation that had unified the continent through honor and the sword.
A single letter arriving at the empire’s very heart was enough to summon the entire imperial family. That alone was unprecedented.
“You absolute imbeciles!”
Emperor Caesar Pragahegh roared down at the crown prince and princesses kneeling before him.
“Not content with planting your personal retainers in the North, you used them as spies? Have you all truly lost your minds?!”
The princes and princesses glanced back at the knights prostrating themselves behind them, foreheads pressed to the floor as they begged for mercy.
Those were the very knights they—or their siblings—had embedded in the North.
“Baron!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Caesar summoned the First Prince, Baron, to stand before him and thrust the letter into his hand.
“Read it.”
“This is…”
“A letter from the newly appointed Grand Duke of the North, Victor Walterheim.”
The letter itself was lengthy, yet its message was brutally simple.
To His Imperial Majesty of the Pragahegh Empire,
The recent incident is most regrettable. The North’s trust in the Imperial Family has struck absolute bottom. We sincerely hope such an affair never occurs again.
In particular, regarding the actions of Crown Prince Baron—who first requested the intelligence and then incited the other princes and princesses—the North expresses the deepest possible concern…
— Victor Walterheim, Grand Duke of the North
Baron’s lips pressed white as he reached the final lines.
“You utter fool!!!”
Crack!
The hand that struck him was wrinkled and frail, yet Baron made no move to dodge the emperor’s slap.
“And the rest of you are no better! We can barely hold together as one, yet you create this chaos among yourselves! Did you truly believe that if you manipulated the North however you pleased, this throne would simply fall into your laps?!”
Boom!
Caesar slammed his fist onto the arm of the throne, then let out a long, heavy sigh and rose to his feet. He fixed the Imperial Court Count with a cold stare.
“Behead every knight the North has expelled and convey our formal apology to the Grand Duke of the North for this affair.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
“And one more thing.”
Caesar’s jaw clenched as he glared at his eldest son—the one he had been grooming as the next emperor.
“Baron. You severed the Roeyental ducal house’s connection with your own hands, and this is the best you could manage afterward?”
“…”
“I am deeply disappointed.”
With a sharp turn of his cloak, Caesar strode from the hall. The remaining princes and princesses whispered among themselves and quickly put distance between themselves and Baron. Left alone, Baron drove his fist into the wall.
“Damn it all!!!”
“Baron?”
“…Elysia?”
At the sight of the soft rose-pink hair of the girl who had approached behind him, Baron hastily hid his bleeding knuckles.
“F-forgive me. I showed you an unsightly side of myself.”
“Baron, are you all right?”
“I am fine. But the northern salvation you dreamed of… it seems it will have to be delayed. I am sorry.”
Elysia shook her head and drew him into her arms. The warm, gentle heat made Baron’s eyes sting.
“It’s all right… If we all work together, everything will surely turn out fine.”
“…Yes.”
After confirming the half-hearted apology and compensation the imperial family had sent, I smiled.
That’s right. Act up and I’ll pull a full retreat and leave you hanging—hard.
Of course, if I actually abandoned the border right now, it wouldn’t just be the empire that collapsed; the entire continent would burn. So first things first.
“I need to get the North back on its feet—fast.”
I had already removed the imperial spies my late brothers had planted, yet the North was still crawling with people who had ties to the imperial family. If I didn’t clean house thoroughly, there was no telling when the crown prince and the heroine would come marching north.
“Hah… my head hurts.”
“Grand Duke.”
“Sir Jester.”
Jester offered me a gentle smile as he set down a cup of tea.
“This is the blend the previous masters of the house favored.”
“…Sir Jester.”
“As I have already told you, Grand Duke, I am retired. In my youth I could have subdued every last one of those men myself. Now even a single opponent is a struggle.”
“…”
“As a knight, this old man’s time is finished. Therefore—”
“I understand. Butler Jester.”
“Thank you.”
Aside from the knights who had died alongside my father, the remaining northern knights were all far too young. We desperately needed a central pillar to lead them, and yet Jester had been declared permanently retired.
Haa. This is bad.
I was debating whether I needed to scrap every plan I had already drawn up when Jester spoke again.
“Grand Duke. Do you require a sharp sword?”
“No.”
I tilted my head at the sudden question.
“Then what kind of sword do you need?”
“A knight who obeys his master’s orders without question—someone like you, Sir Jester.”
“…”
Jester nodded once.
“As it happens, there is someone who fits that description perfectly…”
“Who?”
There was talent like that still left in the North? Who the hell is it?
“My daughter.”
“…Ah.”
Don’t tell me.
“Ruche von Helm. My late-born daughter.”
My head throbbed. How could I possibly forget her? After the heroine Elysia crushed her first love rival—the villainess—her next opponent was none other than the North’s final knight and the leader of the rebel army.
I thought she was some distant relative’s daughter or granddaughter. She’s his late child?
Suddenly the sheer rage Ruche directed at the heroine’s party made perfect sense. They had destroyed the North and driven the father she had served until the end to his death.
But right now, she’s on my side.
“Very well. I’d like to meet her.”
“Yes. I shall bring her at once.”
“I refuse.”
“…”
“Ruche.”
“Father. I will not serve a man who knows nothing of honor.”
Ah, right. She got gaslit by the Academy’s honor cult too.
“…Haa.”
Raising children really was this difficult. She had no idea what was in her parents’ hearts.
She’ll only understand after her father is dead and the North has collapsed.
Honor was a luxury the North simply could not afford.
“If you insist…”
Shing!
Ruche drew her sword and leveled the tip straight at me.
“Then defeat me.”
“Oh…?”
Immediate insubordination?
“…”
“If you can, I will acknowledge—”
“You worthless child!!!”
Crack!
“…Eh?”
Ruche’s face flushed crimson with pure shock as she stared at her father, who was glaring at her with murder in his eyes.
“Fa…ther?”
“I sent you to the Imperial Academy so you could become useful to the North, and instead you swallowed the howling honor-nonsense of those central knights and drew your sword on the Grand Duke?!”
“I-I only wanted to act with honor…”
Oh, Jester’s wrinkles just got deeper. I quietly took a half-step backward.
“Even so, this insolent—!”
Crack!
“Ghk!”
Clean hit. Jester’s open palm slammed squarely into Ruche’s face and sent her crashing into the wall right beside me.
At that level, retiring him feels like a waste…
“Hoo… hoo. Grand Duke.”
“Mm.”
“Would it be acceptable if I took a week’s leave?”
Jester, who had never once missed a day of service at the Walterheim estate, was asking for vacation.
“I will straighten out this child’s warped head and return.”
“A week? That’s far too short.”
I flashed a bright smile down at Ruche.
“Take a full month and rest thoroughly. Winter is ending, after all.”
“…Thank you.”
Jester dragged Ruche out of the mansion by the collar. In a month’s time, a fully re-educated Jester Mark II would be delivered to my doorstep.
“Well then, in the meantime…”
I picked up the envelope sitting on my desk, stamped with the seal of the Imperial Academy.
“Shall we study for the Academy entrance exam?”
The Roeyental ducal house was a founding family that had laid the empire’s foundations alongside the first emperor. For long centuries the imperial family and the Roeyentals had strengthened their bond through political marriages. However—
“Lady Cecilia.”
“…”
“His Grace requests your presence.”
The girl with pure silver hair and amethyst eyes that looked carved from jewels—Cecilia Roeyental—rose from her seat and walked toward the duke’s study.
Knock, knock.
“Father.”
“Come in.”
When the door opened, the master of the Roeyental ducal house—her father, Wolfgang Roeyental—stood gazing out the window.
“Is something troubling you?”
“Does it look that way?”
“…I apologize, Father.”
“For what, exactly?”
“Because of my own inadequacies, the engagement with Crown Prince Baron was broken.”
Wolfgang’s brow furrowed the instant the words left her mouth.
“How many times must I tell you that was never your fault?”
“Father.”
“Enough.”
He cut her off and sat, studying the girl who was both the jewel of the Roeyental house and the daughter he would not trade for the world. Remembering the humiliation she had suffered made a venomous heat rise from the soles of his feet until his eyes turned sharp.
“Hoo…”
He could not show such an expression in front of his kind-hearted daughter. After everything she had endured, he only wanted her to see good things for the rest of her life. That was a parent’s heart.
“Cecilia.”
“Yes, Father.”
“You need not obey anything Crown Prince Baron says.”
“…”
“He is no longer your fiancé.”
“But—”
“Are you afraid?”
“…”
“Haa. If only… if only I had realized a little sooner…”
“No, Father. It’s not your fault.”
Her words made Wolfgang feel as though his heart was being torn apart. He wanted nothing more than to drag the crown prince and his entire faction—who had branded this gentle girl a villainess and ordered her banished from the capital—before him and tear them apart with his bare teeth.
“Very well, then.”
For generations the Roeyental house had been the imperial family’s closest ally. But the imperial family had been the ones to shatter that relationship first.
“Go to the North.”
“Pardon?”
“The North will protect you.”
And so Wolfgang decided to stake both his daughter and the fate of the Roeyental house on the new winds beginning to blow from the North.