Welcome of the Loyalists
After the crew party ended, they cruised without incident and arrived at the Loltekan System, the territory of Duke Hamilton.
It had originally been a domain at the heart of the Giranlek Empire, but the rebels had turned it into the front line. Hundreds—thousands—of warships of every description now revealed themselves to welcome the Emperor’s party.
The numbers far exceeded those of the pirate war Jincheon’s group had once aided, and the quality of the armaments was several times superior. The truly surprising part was that these ships did not all belong to the loyalists; they were Duke Hamilton’s own forces. The other loyalist factions had been responding passively and were only now scrambling to assemble their armies upon word that the young Emperor had arrived.
"Wow……."
"Look. These are all loyal subjects gathered for His Majesty the Emperor."
Eirin guided Bendain to the finest vantage point aboard the Rastold Silverion. Bendain was still a child who had become Emperor overnight; he knew nothing of the Giranlek Empire’s true strength and lived in deep terror of the rebels. By showing him the army arrayed in their honor, she meant to erase that fear.
"For the record, this is not the full strength of the loyalists. These are Duke Hamilton’s private troops. The others will gather one after another."
In private they were mother and son, yet in public Eirin observed every formality due an Emperor.
Mother seems stricter than usual.
Until recently Bendain had felt warmth in Eirin’s eyes even on official occasions; lately that warmth had largely vanished.
She must want me to stand proudly before the other nobles.
She had always told him to hold his head high in front of the aristocracy, so he decided this was more of the same. He watched a beautiful planet whose green ocean covered half its surface draw steadily nearer.
"Come. We will soon enter the atmosphere; let us move somewhere safer."
"Yes, Mother."
"From now on you must address me as Empress Dowager. Understood?"
"Uh… yes, Empress Dowager……."
Bendain clearly disliked having to call his mother by that strange title.
"Escort His Majesty. I have something to check briefly."
"Yes."
The Imperial Guard—who doubled as pilots and personal protectors—left Eirin alone and withdrew to safety. The moment they were gone she sealed the protective bulkheads. The composed face of the Empress Dowager melted into restless anxiety as she waited.
Ziiing—
A mechanical door slid open and someone stepped inside. The restless Eirin spun around; the instant she saw his face, her expression became that of a woman in heat.
"You’ve come."
"Sorry—am I a little late?"
"Not at all."
Recognizing Jincheon, she slipped straight into his arms and wore a sweet expression she had never once shown the late Emperor. Throughout the voyage the two of them had stolen every free moment to exchange affection; Eirin now served Jincheon completely as her husband.
"Mm."
"Haah……."
Jincheon cupped her chin and kissed her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Eirin looped her arms around his neck and answered him.
Slurp—slurp—
Obscene wet sounds filled the air as their saliva-slick tongues rubbed together.
Squeeze!
"Hnnngh……!"
Jincheon seized both of her buttocks and kneaded them without restraint.
"Haa… haa…… Honey… I……."
"I want to as well, but half-measures are worse than nothing. If we only get each other worked up, there’ll be trouble later."
"…It can’t be helped, then."
Eirin accepted his reasoning and nodded.
Knead!
"Hahng!?"
Yet Jincheon only gripped harder and worked her flesh more thoroughly. She stared up at him, eyes wide with flustered protest.
"Ho… Honey……? You… shouldn’t……."
"Honestly, I hope trouble does come. Then we could ignore the civil war entirely and just leave together."
"Th-that… but I……."
Her sense of duty toward the Empire is still a little stronger.
He had tested her lightly, yet she remained the responsible Empress Dowager of the Giranlek Empire.
"Just kidding. Half."
"So half of it is serious."
"What I wanted was the woman named Eirin—not the Empress Dowager of the Giranlek Empire, and not the eldest daughter of House Tenenorn."
"You do have a way with pretty words."
"Pretty words? Strange. I thought I’d already shown plenty of action, looking like this."
He pulled her hips flush against him and kissed her again.
"Ah…… Umm……."
They held each other so tightly that body heat and heartbeat became one.
"N-now stop. There really is no time……."
"Just imagining I won’t be able to feel your body for a while made me lonely."
"Ah……."
Once they landed on the planet under Duke Hamilton’s control, secret meetings like this would become impossible. Aboard the Rastold Silverion they had shared the defense network and could meet whenever they wished; from now on escort and security would fall entirely to the Duke’s men. When Jincheon openly mourned the loss of those meetings, Eirin was seized by the urge to throw herself into his arms at once—especially because the usual confident smile had been replaced by an expression full of regret.
"Don’t worry. It’s only a temporary parting."
"But will you be all right? If that happens……."
If they were to resume their trysts, she would inevitably have to distance herself from the one person she held most precious.
"It’s fine. That child no longer faces any real danger; there is no need for me to stay by his side."
Her affection for her own child is already cooling. A side effect of taking me as husband—pitiful from the boy’s point of view, though.
Having swallowed Chiwoo’s soul and gained a measure of control over souls, Jincheon had inscribed tattoos upon his women. When the mark declaring them his bitches was etched onto the lower abdomen near the womb, those women could give and receive pleasure only among others who shared the same tattoo. In short, Jincheon’s brand was carved into both body and soul. On Earth the tattoo had let him sense their locations no matter the distance; out here among the stars he wondered how far that link still reached. Once the mark was set they remained his until death, yet the conditions were strict: the woman had to offer him both body and heart without reservation. With such a seal already in place, her love for her former husband’s child was bound to fade quickly.
"Have you worked out the details of the reward I mentioned?"
"Yes. The nobles will raise no objection on that point."
They had already coordinated every plan for future secret meetings and the exact compensation Jincheon would receive. All that remained was to perform the exchange in front of everyone as if it were pure theater.
"Atmospheric entry is almost upon us… Ah……."
As the planet of green oceans loomed close, Jincheon drew her waist in one last time and gave her a short, deep kiss.
After a safe atmospheric entry and descent through the stratosphere, the Rastold Silverion followed the Duke’s fleet toward a great city.
Waaaaaah——!!
The moment the ship settled at the city’s dock, a roar of cheers rose from countless citizens. Outwardly they dressed no differently from people on any other world, yet chips implanted at birth fixed their status for life. Those chips tracked location and movement; if a commoner used a Bio Device to read material hostile to the monarchy, or gathered in numbers beyond the allowed limit, the chip issued a warning and the offender was arrested or shot on the spot. It was an irony of progress that technology had only hardened the caste system. As a result the people of the Giranlek Empire had accepted this order for generations. The nobles, for their part, did not simply squeeze their subjects dry; they developed their domains cleverly enough that the common folk never quite felt the loss.
"As expected, it isn’t the political system that matters—it’s the people."
Jincheon had lived centuries in Murim, yet he had been born a twenty-first-century modern man. The sight before him confirmed what he already knew: no perfect system exists, and everything changes with the character of those who hold power.
When the Emperor and the Empress Dowager appeared on the deck of the Rastold Silverion, the cheers swelled even louder. After a short interval the crowd parted left and right, and an escort unit in immaculate dress uniforms advanced toward the flagship. At their head rode a magnetic-levitation parade vehicle so lavishly decorated it looked ceremonial; from it stepped a strikingly handsome middle-aged man even other men would call dashing. He raised one open palm; every escort halted in perfect unison. A stranger might have sworn the entire force was mechanical.
"I am profoundly sorry for my lateness, Your Majesty the Emperor! Had I been in the capital, the rebels would never have dared run wild! All of this is my responsibility!"
Before the eyes of the entire throng the middle-aged man dropped to one knee and begged the young Emperor’s pardon—public proof of absolute loyalty.
"Rise, Duke Hamilton. Without you we would have fallen into enemy hands or become so much space debris. That we stand here alive is entirely your merit."
Young Emperor Bendain delivered the textbook lines his mother had drilled into him. It was the classic noble ritual of mutual gilding: the Emperor publicly elevated Duke Hamilton so the people would see him as the Empire’s guardian. The populace, long steeped in loyalty to the Giranlek crown, roared even louder.
Once the formal “greeting” ended, Duke Hamilton seated the Emperor and Empress Dowager in the parade vehicle. Naturally the vehicle carried shields strong enough to survive a bomb that could level the entire plaza.
Haa. Maybe I shouldn’t have left them behind.
Moving with the Imperial Guard, Jincheon found himself missing Heliane and Calsira, whom he had left aboard their transport “just in case.” He understood the political necessity of spectacle, yet outside the business of conquering women he preferred everything direct and concise. If he could at least keep both hands on Heliane and Calsira, the boredom would be bearable. He sighed as he watched their transport peel away with the other ships to dock elsewhere.
Under Eirin’s quiet direction the young Emperor smiled as brightly as he could and waved to the crowds. Some citizens wept or trembled with emotion simply because their eyes had met his. Had Jincheon been American or European he might have been stunned by the depth of the conditioning.
Looks exactly like North Korea.
But for a man raised in Hell Joseon—trapped between the sea to the south, the brainwashed socialist paradise to the north, the radioactive nation to the east, and the garbage heap of Earth that was China to the west—the spectacle was nothing new.
The Emperor-centered parade ended at the gates of Duke Hamilton’s palace; ordinary commoners were not permitted farther. The architecture was medieval European, the interiors lavishly decorated with exotic planetary flowers and treasures. Medieval pageantry and science-fiction opulence blended into a single luxurious whole. Waiting inside were throngs of nobles.
"We congratulate Your Majesty the Emperor on your safe return!"
They dropped to one knee in unison. The boy who had first looked startled now felt confidence bloom on his face as he realized every one of them was his subject. Even a well-schooled child would normally freeze or flinch in such a moment; that he accepted the homage as natural suggested genuine imperial talent.
Tedious greetings and protocol followed. At last the moment Jincheon had been waiting for arrived.
"We now begin the distribution of meritorious rewards."
Honor for those who had died securing the Emperor’s escape; material rewards for those who had sacrificed themselves along the hard road. The Imperial Guard, for whom rank meant little, received prize money. The crew of the Rastold Silverion each rose one military grade. In the Giranlek Empire noble titles and military ranks were separate; once the two had been identical, but not every noble made a competent commander, so a professional army and its own hierarchy had been created. Naturally a ceiling limited how high commoners could climb; the upper ranks remained the preserve of high nobility and their sons.
Following the Empress Dowager’s cues, the young Emperor granted tangible rewards to the living and posthumous honor to the dead. Finally it was Jincheon’s turn.
"Lastly, Jincheon—step forward."
"Yes."
Beatrix, who knew exactly how frivolous the man could be, watched him with a taut face, ready to bark a reprimand at the first insolence. Instead Jincheon sank to one knee, eyes steady, posture devout.
"Oh."
"Those are fine eyes."
"Presence for a mere mercenary."
The nobles were startled by the aristocratic dignity radiating from a hired sword. Part of it was the deliberate leakage of an absolute being’s aura. Jincheon’s women all agreed that when he simply kept his mouth shut he projected weight and grace; the instant he opened it unnecessarily, the dignity evaporated.
What’s with that guy? He was never this character before.
Beatrix, who had seen only his worst sides, felt genuine disorientation at the transformation.
Bendain recited Jincheon’s deeds: timely supply runs when stores ran dry; single-handedly holding off an enemy knight order so the main force could break through; always the first to charge and claim glory whenever battle erupted.
"Because you saved Us in Our most desperate hour, for that merit a noble title and—"
"I must briefly commit an impropriety, Your Majesty."
"Hm?"
Jincheon’s solemn voice cut across the boy’s words.
"I am sorry, but I must decline the noble title and territory promised as reward."
"This insolent—! How dare you before His Majesty—!"
"Enough."
Beatrix sprang up, certain he was angling for something greater; Eirin stilled her sister with a glance.
"As the one who issued the original commission, I will ask. Why refuse?"
Speaking in the Emperor’s stead, Eirin posed the question. Jincheon delivered the lines they had prepared.
"When I aided His Majesty in that darkest moment, the desire to become a noble was certainly present. Precisely for that reason I have no wish to receive the rank in this fashion. Even I can see it was merely seizing a fortunate opportunity."
"Then state what you desire."
"Grant me the chance to earn true merit."
"A chance?"
"I will achieve glory before every eye, end the rebellion, win universal recognition, and only then accept a noble title with pride."
"Hmm……."
Eirin’s brows drew together as she appeared to weigh the request.
"A mercenary who knows his place."
"A low-born sellsword who understands honor."
"Is he truly a mercenary? Or a fallen noble from some other empire?"
The assembled lords looked openly nonplussed at a hired blade who spoke like a knight of dignity rather than a vulgar opportunist. Beatrix was the most astonished of all.
"…Very well. The bestowal of title and territory is rescinded. But do not refuse the credits already promised; those are your rightful due."
"Yes. I will not refuse that much."
"And in place of the canceled peerage I shall give you the opportunity you seek. Duke Hamilton."
"Yes, Empress Dowager."
"Have your technicians remodel their mechas. The Imperial treasury will cover every cost."
"Yes? Empress Dowager, I—"
Jincheon started in genuine surprise, but the Empress Dowager raised a hand and silenced him.
"Did I not say I would grant you the chance to earn merit? You acted with honor; I answer in kind. Duke Hamilton?"
"I shall arrange it at once."
"Good. The distribution of rewards ends here."
Eirin stepped back. The ceremony concluded; Bendain was formally proclaimed the legitimate heir of the Giranlek Empire. The nobles acknowledged him as Emperor and swore their fealty, and with that the true civil war of the Giranlek Empire began.