The Emperor's Decree
“We’ve arrived.”
Caden, seated across from me, gathered the documents he had spread out as he spoke.
Just as he said, we waited only a short while before a servant opened the carriage door and announced our arrival.
As befitting the imperial palace where the Emperor of the Empire resided, the building that greeted us was more magnificent and splendid than any structure I had ever seen, overwhelming even my discerning eye.
“I shall report to His Majesty myself, so please go to your rooms and rest. He likely will not summon you today. Tomorrow at the earliest, I should think.”
Caden beckoned to one of the maids standing nearby.
“Please guide these two young ladies. As for the rooms… the eastern wing should do, so they do not attract unnecessary eyes.”
The maid, receiving what was closer to a command than a request, stepped up beside us. Caden turned back to us and spoke once more.
“Then I shall take my leave first. Rest well, and if you wish, you might even tour the capital. Being the capital, it is full of sights, food, and diversions—enough to make for quite the pleasant diversion. Farewell.”
Despite our far lower status, Caden offered us an excessively polite bow before departing.
Left behind, Cielian and I were guided by the maid who had received Caden’s orders.
“I shall show you to your rooms.”
With a gentle voice and every step radiating refined grace, the maid led the way, and we followed.
The room I was shown to was larger and more lavish than any I had ever stayed in. Not a single ornament looked inexpensive.
While we each entered our rooms and unpacked, the same worries that had plagued me on the journey rose again to churn through my mind.
Would the imperial household truly fail to investigate the status of someone granted an audience with the Emperor?
Perhaps they had already finished looking into my identity.
The identity of Elicia Frentz that had been crafted for me was nothing more than a crude fake, slapped together by a third-rate assassin guild with a handful of coins.
A shoddy cover meant only to hold up for the brief time needed to complete an assassination without being discovered.
My flimsy false identity stood a very high chance of being exposed with laughable ease before the imperial family’s intelligence network.
If it came out that I had been an assassin, or that I was impersonating a noble, I would already be sitting in a dungeon awaiting the date of my execution—or whatever punishment they chose.
So for now, there was still room to hope I had not been found out.
Instead, when I faced the Emperor, I would have to be careful not to raise even the slightest suspicion.
That was why I once again turned over in my mind the background of Elicia Frentz that I had already memorized again and again.
“I shall guide you.”
The first day passed in a haze neither Cielian nor I could quite recall. The next day, the same maid who had shown us to our rooms came to fetch us.
I changed into the most formal of the clothes Yuri had given me and followed the maid.
The weapons I had brought were already in the custody of the imperial guard.
Thus we arrived at the audience chamber.
We had not stopped by Cielian’s room, and she was nowhere in sight, so it seemed the Emperor intended to see us separately.
As if arrangements had already been made, the maid gave a light knock and opened the door without waiting for a reply, stepping inside.
As expected of the Emperor’s audience chamber, opulence overflowed from every surface.
And among it all, the most striking figure was the woman seated at the center.
Whether it was because I knew she was the Emperor, or because radiance simply flowed from her very being, she sat there and somehow swallowed every bit of the surrounding splendor into herself.
“I greet His Majesty the Emperor.”
I dropped to one knee and offered my respects to the greatest sovereign on the continent.
But the words that left the Emperor’s mouth were nothing I had expected.
“Drop the useless formalities and come a little closer.”
“Your Majesty…”
It was a rather undignified way of speaking for an emperor. Yet her presence, her voice, somehow made even that casual tone sound noble.
The middle-aged woman standing beside the Emperor called out as if to rebuke her manner of speech, but the Emperor paid her no mind whatsoever.
“Ah!”
I had lifted my head just a fraction to look around when a startled cry slipped out of me unbidden.
Fearing that raising my voice might earn me a charge of startling the Emperor—and thus the loss of my head—I hastily clamped both hands over my mouth, but the water was already spilled.
“Hmm? What is it?”
Fortunately, the Emperor’s mood did not seem particularly soured.
“It is nothing, Your Majesty. Only that the person standing beside you is someone I met once before…”
The middle-aged woman at the Emperor’s side was the mother of the lost child Cielian and I had encountered earlier in the streets of Felches.
“Ah… heh heh heh…”
The Emperor turned to the middle-aged woman beside her and spoke.
“Isis. The benefactor who found your daughter is right here. Heh…”
Unlike the Emperor, who kept chuckling at whatever amused her, the expression of the woman called Isis did not look pleased at all.
“…It is good to see you again. A pleasure.”
“Ah, yes. Hello. I never imagined you were someone of the imperial household. Is your daughter well?”
“Bwahahaha!”
Isis glared at the Emperor, who was now outright clapping and roaring with laughter, before she opened her mouth.
“…Very. Well. Indeed. That is the problem.”
I distinctly heard the sound of teeth grinding, but… I must have misheard.
“Heh heh… Well, enough of the jokes. The reason We summoned you is nothing particularly special.”
I had no idea what the joke had been, but the Emperor moved straight into the main topic.
“We simply wished to see your faces once.”
“Pardon?”
I blurted the question without thinking, only realizing my mistake a moment later and snapping my mouth shut. The Emperor, once again, did not seem to mind.
“We wanted to look upon the Hero of this generation and her companion.”
“…I was under the impression that Cielian is not yet the official Hero.”
Strictly speaking, Cielian was still only a Hero candidate, not the Hero herself. She would truly become the Hero only in the moment the Holy Sword chose her.
Of course, with no other candidates remaining, I could understand why the Emperor spoke that way.
“And I also have my doubts as to whether my own skill is sufficient to join as a companion of the one who will become the Hero.”
“Hmm. With your grades, We would not say your skill is lacking. And We give you Our word—you will become Cielian’s companion and set out to subjugate the Demon King.”
Her tone was utterly certain. Did the Emperor somehow know that one of my worries was precisely the prospect of following the future Hero to fight the Demon King?
Even now I still could not decide whether I would be able to refuse if Cielian asked me to join her as a companion.
For my own safety, refusing was clearly the right choice. Yet the moment I pictured Cielian’s face, I knew I would almost certainly accept the offer.
I could not help wondering whether the Emperor had taken even that into account when she spoke with such conviction.
“That aside… Elicia Frentz?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Hearing my name, I bowed my head once more in respect.
“The sole survivor of House Frentz… Well, We offer Our deepest condolences regarding your family’s affairs.”
I swallowed hard without meaning to.
The very thing I had been fretting over ever since the summons to the imperial palace now stood right before me.
All I could do was pray that the Emperor had not noticed my false identity. Please let the imperial intelligence bureau have done a sloppy job.
“Do not worry overmuch. Your identity is far more solid than you think.”
For some reason it felt as though my innermost thoughts had been read, and I flinched inwardly, though I kept it from showing on my face.
“Besides, there was no real need, yet someone went to considerable lengths to polish every detail. Someone who cares for you a great deal.”
What did that mean? At a glance it almost sounded as if the Emperor knew about my fake identity… and yet also as if she did not.
She was clearly saying something, yet I, the person concerned, could not make sense of it.
The one silver lining was that she did not seem inclined to make an issue of it.
“Well then, Elicia Frentz?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What is your goal? Personal safety? Wealth enough to live in leisure for the rest of your days? Or perhaps honor that others will look up to?”
The first thing that sprang to mind at the Emperor’s words was, of course, the personal safety she herself had mentioned at the start.
But right after that, another thought tore through my mind.
Elicia Frentz.
The debt I owed her.
A debt no one else knew of, one I had no real need to repay—yet why would it not leave my thoughts?
It was like a binding vow, a kind of promise and oath all at once.
In the end, whether by my own will or not, the words left my mouth.
“The restoration of House Frentz.”
Even after speaking them I was not sure I had done the right thing, yet I could at least feel a certain lightness settle in my chest.
“Hmm… That is rather unexpected. We did not think you would be the one to bring it up first. As expected, you are an interesting one.”
I was curious what she had expected and what she found so amusing, but of course I kept my mouth shut.
The Emperor rose from her chair and walked toward me.
I could not remain standing at the same eye level as the Emperor, so I dropped to one knee once more in respect.
“Your Majesty.”
Isis tried to stop the Emperor’s approach, but the Emperor merely raised a hand to halt her and continued forward.
“Elicia Frentz. We make you this promise. You will one day set out to subjugate the Demon King. This is neither conjecture, nor command, nor prophecy—it is a single, absolute fact. Should you succeed in that subjugation, We shall not only restore House Frentz as a count’s house, but elevate it to a marquisate.”
The Emperor stretched out her hand and laid it atop my bowed head.
“There are proper rites and procedures, of course, but what use are such things? In the end, Our word and Our will are the rite and the procedure themselves.”
The playful note that had lingered in the Emperor’s voice until moments ago vanished, replaced by a solemnity greater than anything else in the world.
“Sole survivor of Frentz. In this moment, We bestow upon you the rank of count. Bear in mind, however, that what We grant is only the status of count itself. The full restoration of House Frentz as a count’s house—and further, as a marquis’s house—shall come only after the Demon King’s defeat.”
At the Emperor’s unexpected words I nearly lifted my head to look up, but her hand resting on my hair kept me still.
“Well, what We can give you now is, as We said, nothing more than an empty title that will at least keep others from slighting you. Once the Demon King is defeated, We shall provide every support needed to rebuild your house, so do not worry. Of course, by then power and wealth will flock to you so thoroughly that you may wonder whether you even need the support.”
With her tone light once more, the Emperor withdrew her hand from my head and returned to her chair.
“Your grace is boundless, Your Majesty.”
I offered the deepest possible respect and raised my head to look at her, but she did not even answer—merely waved a hand in dismissal.
The entire affair had been so far beyond anything I had anticipated that even after leaving the audience chamber and returning to my room, I sat for a long while unable to make sense of what had just happened.