Chapter 261: The Tin Knight and The Banquet of Madness
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 261: The Tin Knight and The Banquet of Madness
The terms ‘founding contributor’ and ‘to boil the hound after the rabbit is caught’ were often treated as a pair.
Indeed, the key figures who contributed to a nation's founding were bound to possess exceptional ability, great renown, and intense drive. While these elements were invaluable in the process of establishing a country, they were apt to become obstacles when it came to strengthening the monarch's authority.
Of course, not all founding monarchs simply purged their contributors. Some took great care of them, vowing they would never commit such a betrayal.
However, a significant number of such rulers met their end by being devoured by the very contributor factions they had allowed to grow powerful enough to threaten the throne, often within a few generations.
As if to prove that was the very nature of power.
In that sense, the relationship between the Arcturus Imperial Family and the Lennart Ducal House could be considered a rather rare case.
The Imperial Family did not purge the Ducal House, and the Ducal House, in turn, never rose against the Imperial Family.
The reason this was possible… to put it bluntly, could only be described as luck.
There were plausible reasons, of course—the unbreakable bond of loyalty between the first Emperor and the Lion Duke that never wavered in their lifetimes, or the shared understanding that with so many external enemies after the Empire's founding, internal strife would only lead to mutual destruction. But even these could not be called the fundamental reason.
After all, had there been just one emperor among their successors consumed by paranoia and insecurity, or just one duke who harbored excessive ambition, the relationship between the two families could have shattered at any moment, regardless of such safeguards.
The fact that such a misfortune had not occurred even once, allowing the two powers to coexist for nearly 200 years, was difficult to describe with any word other than 'luck'.
But unless one rigs the dice themselves, good rolls cannot last forever.
The premature death of the Iron Blood Emperor was, in essence, a critical failure of the dice.
He had been a wise monarch, politically adept enough to check the Lennart family's excessive influence over the military, yet instead of simply stripping them of their power, he skillfully balanced the whip and the carrot by offering commercial interests and absorbing them into the ranks of civil officials.
The Lennart Duke, too, was well aware of how fatal it was for a single family to control a nation's military might and had concurred with the Emperor's will for reform.
It was far more beneficial for the Imperial Family and the Ducal House to compromise than to engage in a life-or-death struggle.
But the Emperor was dead, and his children, who should have succeeded him, had perished in a series of accidents, leaving only the young Crown Prince.
The Empress, made sensitive by successive challenges from other royals and internal political strife, raised her quills like a hedgehog. This display of hostility provoked a backlash from the Ducal House.
The Guardian Lord of the State, Duke Lennart, understood this political climate all too well, and thus he also understood the frustrations his kinsmen felt.
Still, this time, they had clearly crossed the line.
“—Are you in your right mind? Declaring independence as a duchy?”
It was a clear sign of disrespect.
As the Duke, who had always treated the head of the Council of Elders with the courtesy due a family elder, spoke to him so informally, the kinsmen gathered in the office flinched in spite of themselves.
That was not all.
When the Duke released the aura he normally kept intentionally suppressed, the more faint-hearted among them could not even meet his eyes.
This was a different concept from mere physical might.
Even the head of a mere merchant company develops a certain dignity and presence after commanding hundreds of subordinates as if they were his own limbs. Duke Lennart was a man who had stood second only to the emperor, commanding the Empire's countless officials and leading it to prosperity.
The sheer force of presence from this great minister, who had held the Empire together and prevented its collapse while the throne sat empty after the Iron Blood Emperor's death, was so formidable that even the head of the Council of Elders, who had been denouncing the Duke with a shameless face, couldn't help but stiffen.
But it was only for a moment.
Looking at the signed petition on the desk, the head of the Council of Elders regained his composure.
A leader of a group must prioritize the group's interests and safety over what is right or wrong.
As long as the Duke tried to perform the two roles of 'Chancellor of the Empire' and 'Head of the Family' simultaneously, he could never win against the head of the Council, no matter how brilliant he was.
For the voice of the Council's head was not merely his personal opinion, but the will of the majority of the family.
“Is there any reason we can't?”
“What did you say?”
A smirk touched the lips of the Council's head.
“Our departure from the Empire doesn't just mean the ducal territory is leaving. It means the territories of the families directly and indirectly under our command, our collateral branches overseas, the talents we've nurtured through our dojos, the merchant guilds we've sponsored. And above all, the military. It means all of them will secede from the Empire at once. I can't say for sure, but we could probably carve off about thirty percent of the national power.
The loss to the military's strength would be far greater than a mere thirty percent. With strategists, generals, and elite soldiers all gone, do you think they can stand against the Magic State by hastily arming peasants with spears?
The court mages? The Empress's personal forces? I doubt those organizations, with less than fifty years of history, could possibly fill our shoes.
Chaos will erupt on all fronts, public order will crumble, and with each domain locking its gates, the economy will plummet. Won't it be quite a sight?”
The Duke's eyes grew sharper, as if he could tear the Council's head to shreds with his gaze alone.
“It is natural for people to gather around the powerful, and just as natural for them to scatter when that power shows signs of wavering. Do you truly believe they will all come scrambling to follow if the Lennart Ducal House declares independence?”
“We won't know until we try. Our own family, which has served the Imperial Family for hundreds of years, has been cast aside like this. Do you think other families won't feel anxious? They may laugh at us now, but when they think about it calmly, they'll realize. There's no guarantee they won't be next.”
“And for that, to protect the family's well-being, you would plunge the Empire into a pit of chaos?”
“And why shouldn't we?”
Fierce emotion filled the voice of the Council's head.
“Rather, this old man wants to ask you. Why must only our bloodline be sacrificed? When a foolish wench from the Imperial Family runs wild and points a sword at us, why are you meekly offering your neck instead of sternly rebuking her? Is your loyalty to the dead Emperor so precious? Precious enough to force unilateral devotion from all your kinsmen?”
“Lennart is also a part of the Empire.”
“No, it is because of Lennart that the Empire exists.”
“Even if we suffer losses in the short term, in the long term, a strong Empire benefits us as well.”
“Isn't that 'long-term benefit' contingent on the Imperial Family keeping its faith? This old man, for one, cannot trust them.”
“If you cannot trust, we will all perish together.”
“No, there is an easier and more certain way.”
The eyes of the Council's head burned with a viscous heat.
“—The Lennart family and the Imperial Family can become one. Then we wouldn't have to waste our strength on things like independence, would we?”
CRASH!!
“Are you discussing treason before the Chancellor of the Empire?!”
“I was merely urging the head of the family to make a wise choice. But it seems the head who represents the bloodline is not present here.”
CLANG! SHING!
As if that were the signal, the outside immediately grew chaotic.
Shouts, the clash of swords, screams.
The office door was suddenly thrown open, and a guard, covered in blood, shouted in a desperate tone.
“Y-Your Excellency! You must flee—”
Thwump!
But before he could finish, a blade lunged from behind and pierced through the guard's chest.
As his body fell to the side, armed youths poured into the room.
A moment too late, the other guards inside the office drew their swords, but they were hopelessly outnumbered.
In that moment, as a sense of crisis gripped the guards and the certainty of victory settled upon the traitors.
Swish!
Without any warning, the head of one of the traitors flew into the air.
The traitors looked around in terror, but they saw nothing.
And in the next moment, someone else's neck was severed.
There was no visible form, no sound, not even a hint of a presence.
Yet, one by one, people were dying in this bizarre phenomenon.
A name escaped the traitors' lips, laced with fear.
“Conrad…!”
The Iron Blood Emperor's pocket knife.
The head of the guard.
A warrior who had earned the title of one of the strongest through his mastery of ambush, stealth, and assassination alone.
His very existence could be described as the ultimate deterrent protecting the Duke.
What good were dozens of elites? If they could not detect him, they would only be slaughtered one-sidedly.
In a single instant, the office was bathed in a sea of blood. Just as the assassin's blade was about to finally reach the head of the Council of Elders—
“—Yoo-hoo.”
A small shadow leaped in with a distinctly playful voice and blocked Conrad's sword.
Conrad quickly created distance, trying to hide in a blind spot again, but Hilda's two eyes never lost sight of him.
KAKAKAKANG!
Conrad's insidious sword clashed with Hilda's wild-horse-like blade, and brilliant sword energy bloomed like a flower.
The duel between the two warriors was so fierce that neither could be said to have the upper hand, but unlike the smiling Hilda, Conrad's face was etched with anxiety.
In a situation where they were overwhelmed by numbers, if Conrad, their last bastion of hope, was also tied down, the outcome was obvious.
Just as the guards swallowed, resigned to their deaths.
The Duke stepped forward and stopped them.
“Stop.”
“Your Excellency.”
Stepping forward as if to shield his downcast guards, the Duke looked over the faces of the traitors one by one.
Among them were those who glared at him with venomous eyes, but there were also a fair number who held a look of desperation.
The humiliation and backlash from public criticism and ridicule.
The fear that they might lose everything if things continued this way.
To those who were cornered, or believed they were, there was no point in speaking of things like 'the bigger picture'.
The crack beneath his feet, which he had been too busy coordinating the affairs of the entire Empire as Chancellor to notice—or rather, which he thought he had paid attention to, but it hadn't been enough.
The Duke acknowledged his miscalculation and his failure.
But, even so, he had to speak.
“Everyone, stop. If you go any further, it will truly be irreversible.”
The eyes of some of the youths pointing their swords at the Duke wavered.
Conversely, there were those who did not waver.
“Pretending to care about us now… isn't that a bit shameless?”
Flick!
Shaking the fallen Conrad's blood from her sword, Hilda spoke.
The girl's body was covered in all sorts of wounds, but her violet eyes shone with unparalleled clarity.
Her nature—to grow stronger and surpass her limits in the midst of battle—was astonishingly similar to a certain collateral-line girl from the kingdom.
“Grandfather.”
Hilda asked, as if seeking permission.
The head of the Council of Elders replied.
“Leave him alive.”
“Okay.”
A sword swung, and silence fell.
As the Chancellor, Conrad, and their men were dragged away, the head of the Council of Elders and his allies began issuing orders with perfect coordination.
“Be careful that the Duke's confinement is not leaked to the outside. Many of the court officials are loyal to the Guardian Lord personally, not to the Lennart family. Also, order the military to seize command. We must bring as many key units as possible under our control before the Empress's side can respond. However, delay contacting the Nemea army commanded by Werner. We must create a situation where the family will be finished if we don't win, whether he likes it or not. Only then will he reluctantly join our cause.”
“The Empress! We must capture that wicked wench first!”
“Secure the two princesses first. Their guard is relatively lax, and if the Crown Prince dies, the princesses' children will become the sole heirs to the Empire.”
“Hurry! We must capture the royals and, in their name, declare the Witch of the South and the court mages traitors!”
“Now is our chance, while their forces are focused elsewhere on some test or whatever!”
Amidst greed and madness, the second act of the banquet began.