Chapter 4
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Is This a Country?
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Before I left, the emperor of the empire was Alexander von Reinhardt.
To be precise, the eighth emperor of the Reinhardt line.
He had all sorts of nicknames.
The Sun King, the Sage Emperor of the Empire, the Architect of the Golden Age, and so on.
He was radical but wise, and above all, he knew how to take responsibility. Of course, half of that sense of responsibility was the result of me grabbing him by the collar and drilling it into him through rote education...
Anyway, he never gave up. During the Great War, as the crown prince, he boosted the soldiers' morale by spilling blood on the front lines, which allowed me to swing my sword freely until the very end.
That man forged the empire's skeleton from steel, and my comrades and I built it up brick by brick on top of that framework. That was this nation, the Reinhardt Empire.
But what was sitting in front of me now?
Reinhardt 15th.
The seventh-generation descendant at eight years old.
A fat, decadent, frightened mess who flopped around on the throne after just two slaps. A zero-responsibility disaster left to fester.
I let out not a sigh, but something closer to utter despair.
"Ha... fuck."
It was a curse straight from the heart.
"Bloodlines really mean nothing at all. How the hell did a mutant like this pop out of that guy's genes?"
The princess Elicia von Reinhardt flinched at my mutterings, while the emperor clutched his swollen cheeks and stammered.
"We've... heard plenty about the era of His Majesty the Eighth Emperor. Ha, but!"
The emperor bellowed as if he were the aggrieved one.
"How can you blame me for the changes in the nation's systems over time? The nobles' influence grows stronger by the day, foreign pressures mount relentlessly, and all I can do is...!"
"So you just let go?"
"Let go? I've done my utmost...!"
"Shut up. You wanna see my blood pressure kill me? This isn't the time to brag to the ancestor of your ancestors who saved the empire that you've royally fucked up the country."
"Lord Kasian... please calm down. His Majesty has his own hardships..."
Elicia fidgeted and tried to interject from the side, but I held up a hand to silence her.
"You stay quiet too. Before I tie you up for aiding and abetting and give you the same."
The princess flinched and fell silent. Her face mixed panic, shame, and a hint of guilt.
"Y-You bastard...! Even if you're a legendary hero, this is too much! To lay hands on the sacred body of the current emperor and insult me!"
He pointed at me with a trembling finger.
"This is treason! Imperial Guard! What are the guards doing? Seize this insolent fool at once...!"
Slap!!!
A crisp crack echoed off the office ceiling.
"Gahk!"
I grabbed the emperor rolling on the floor by the collar and yanked him up like pulling a prize from a claw machine.
"Hey."
"L-Let... guh...!"
"Do you have any idea what kind of country we handed over to you after rolling in the dirt for twenty years?"
"What...?"
"I'm dead serious. Just look at the empire right now... Agh, is this what you call a country?"
This wasn't even like gathering idiots and running a management sim...
"Enough! Release me! Disrespect toward the imperial family is blasphemy and...!"
"Blasphemy? While you reverently worship that sage emperor, he and I were sharing drinks, you little shit."
I dragged the emperor by the collar to the window. Instead of gliding over fine carpet, his shoes scraped across the dusty floor with a grating squeak.
"Look straight."
I smashed his face against the glass.
"See that? That clusterfuck of a landscape."
The view outside was a wreck. Gone were the streets where magic streetlamps turned night into day—no more bustling avenues. Only smoke rising from slums and crumbling walls remained as grotesque scars.
"When I left, there weren't any slums in the capital. The treasury overflowed so much that even if the people threw parties every day, we had to expand the warehouses. And in just five hundred years, you've squandered it all?"
"Th-That was... an inevitable flow of the times...!"
"Bullshit."
I smacked the back of his head again.
Thwack!
"Aaaagh!"
"I brokered peace with the elves so we'd all get along, and now you've let them act like your masters? I shared tech with the dwarves and set them up for riches, and now they treat us like beggars and cut ties? You just sat there and watched?"
"That was the previous emperors' doing, not mine...!"
The emperor whimpered like he was wronged. He wasn't entirely wrong. It might be unfair for one emperor to bear five hundred years of accumulated karma.
But.
"You're the one who inherited that blood and sat on that throne! You turned the superpower we handed you into a punching bag, and now you're whining that it's everyone else's fault?"
I flung the emperor to the floor.
"Being weak isn't a sin, but being weak and deluding yourself with mental victories while slacking off? That's a crime. Got it?"
"Owww... owww..."
The emperor groaned, writhing on the ground. The mighty emperor cowering like a neighborhood punk who'd been beaten down.
Elicia, watching from the side, approached with a face drained of color.
"Lord Kasian... he is still His Majesty... this is troubling..."
"Troubling? What's troubling about it. More troubling than the country falling apart?"
"......"
"And if we're splitting hairs, I swore blood brotherhood with your founder. By the family tree, I'm like your great-great-great-grandfather's great-great-great-grandfather. Who the hell are you grandkids' grandkids to glare at me?"
Even a Confucian dragon possessing me couldn't argue with that. My palm stung. I'd hit so hard that my handprint was tattooed on the emperor's cheek.
"And this is the result. Ancestors unify the continent as sage rulers, descendants ruin the country as morons. Nice balance in your family history."
"We're sorry..."
Elicia bit her lip and bowed her head. Her slender shoulders trembled.
She knew it too. Not a word of mine was wrong.
"But... we truly had no choice."
"That's the part I hate most."
I stepped past the sprawled emperor toward her. She flinched instinctively but lifted her head.
"No choice, we suffered too, foreign pressures were too much—all that crap. Then what about me? My comrades?"
I held my hand out in front of Elicia's eyes.
"Did your great-great-great emperor breach the Demon King's castle because things were easy? Did I risk my life negotiating with demon legion commanders because I had it cushy? You think we waged war with full support?"
"......"
"Don't make excuses in front of me. Alexander's probably weeping in his grave just knowing you've run the country into this state."
Elicia clamped her lips shut. Her eyes reddened, but she didn't cry. She knew she wasn't in a position to.
That much, I liked. At least she was trying to act human.
"Get up, tubby."
"Eek...!"
The emperor shuddered.
"From now on, I'm taking command of the imperial army. You just stamp whatever. Arm hurts? Say so. I can stamp for you."
"Wh-What?! That's the emperor's exclusive authority...! Even a hero can't ignore the empire's laws...!"
"Laws?"
I chuckled and bent down to meet the emperor's eyes.
"You seem to be mistaken. The laws of this country? Alexander and I hammered them out together. Know that?"
"That's ridiculous..."
"We did it in a tent by candlelight, heads together. No ink, so we used monster blood for the draft, and that's the original. Back then, Alexander swore that once the war ended and he became emperor, he'd usher in an era of peace."
I continued.
"Article 1 of the Imperial Constitution: The emperor must be the shield of the empire and the sword of the people. I wrote that line. But you're not even a rice bucket for a shield, let alone a sword—you're worse than scrap metal."
"......"
"Before I impeach you physically for violating the constitution... or twist your neck off, shut up. Got it?"
I raised my hand again in pretense. The emperor reflexively clutched his head and curled up.
"I'm saving this country not because I like you lot. It's because I hate seeing the legacy my comrades and I bled for crumble, and I need travel money to get home."
I nodded toward the desk.
"Key to the imperial treasury. You have it? Hand it over."
"It's already been emptied by my predecessors—barely any money left! I swear! Empty enough to starve rats!"
That's bragging, you idiot. Proclaiming the national coffers empty like that.
"Who wants your pocket change? I don't care about your scraps."
"Then...?"
"I'm after the stuff I left in your care."
"Stuff you left? It's all ancient relics and rusted junk in there."
No use talking. I quietly raised three fingers.
"Counting to three. One."
"W-Wait! Let's talk...!"
"Two."
Red mana hummed around my fist. The emperor's face turned ashen.
"Thr..."
"Here it is!!"
The emperor frantically pulled a keyring from his bosom and offered it. Survival instincts on point. I took the jingling keys and nodded to Elicia.
"Follow me. Time to dust off my gear."
Time to customize my signature weapon.