I Admit My Guilt
I admit my guilt.
There exists a novel infamous as the ultimate king of tragic stories, titled The Ailam Empire Has Fallen.
Its author’s pen moved with such mad brilliance from beginning to middle to end that once you picked it up, you could not put it down.
The highly plausible and immersive tragic developments, carried by that outstanding writing, were more than enough to leave countless readers suffering aftereffects.
And that immersion quickly turned into collective cursing aimed at a single character.
The root cause behind the Ailam Empire’s fall was none other than the treacherous scoundrel named Landor.
Slender build, a face so handsome he could become the ace of any host bar, glasses, and squinty eyes.
With a look like that, you could immediately tell what kind of bastard he was.
Landor was the man who used his silver tongue to wrap the aging emperor around his finger and become his closest aide.
Then, wielding that power, he swallowed every single profitable interest in the empire for himself.
Yet the senile emperor never noticed and even entrusted his most beloved youngest daughter to Landor.
The invincible Karia.
The youngest Grand Master, the empire’s strongest swordsman, a monster among monsters whom history itself would struggle to match.
Her body was strong, but her mind was weak.
Having lost her mother early and nearly been assassinated multiple times by political rivals, the young princess carried deep mental instability.
The emperor believed that placing her beside the trusted Landor would help stabilize her emotions.
It was the worst possible judgment.
Landor raised young Karia splendidly.
As a fine weapon for his own use.
With his serpent’s tongue and meticulous gaslighting, he brainwashed her until she would smile and drive a blade into her own heart at his word.
In the end, during the novel’s latter half, she became the vanguard of the Hideous War Landor incited and turned into a butcher who slaughtered countless people.
She died fighting for Landor in the final battle.
And Landor? He was captured by the protagonist, the righteous crown prince Adran of Gold, and suffered a gruesome public execution so horrific it was hard to imagine anything worse.
“Landor.”
I was staring into the mirror, touching the face of that vile, treacherous scoundrel I had wanted to tear apart more than once, and muttered blankly.
“Why this bastard, of all people, for reincarnation?”
I clutched my head and let out a lamenting cry.
At the sound of my long sigh and complaint, rustling came from behind.
When I turned, an unparalleled beauty lay naked on the bed, her vivid red hair scattered across the white sheets as she slept.
And beneath the white sheets, near Karia’s legs, another vivid red stood out clearly.
That’s right.
Last night I had taken the princess’s virginity.
Though it had been closer to Karia forcing herself on me, the fact that I had taken her first time remained unchanged.
In the original novel, this was where the true downfall began.
Believing her love had finally been fulfilled because of this night, Karia came to regard Landor, whom she already trusted more than family thanks to the gaslighting, as more precious than her own life.
She became someone who would do anything at his word.
The Iron Blood Coalition, the empire’s strongest fighting force under her command, followed their legion commander, and the civil war eventually broke out.
Defeated in that war, Landor suffered the public quartering as described.
“Aaaah! No!!!”
The gruesome, horrific end of Landor depicted in the novel no longer felt like satisfying justice to me.
Shit!
That’s the execution I’m supposed to suffer!
My shout startled the sleeping Princess Karia awake, but I paid her no mind.
I had zero desire to be gruesomely killed in that kind of bad ending.
To survive, I had to force a happy ending.
“Landor, how is it? Delicious?”
Princess Karia asked while looking at me.
When she smiled, the whole room seemed to brighten.
Could there really be such a beautiful woman in the world?
In normal times I might have started thinking about what to name our grandchildren, but right now I had no mental room for such happy fantasies.
“Yeah…… I just have some things to think about.”
At my stiff reply, Karia dismissed all the servants attending the meal and tightly grasped my hand.
“Did I…… force you yesterday? Is that why you’ve started to dislike me?”
This girl was completely misunderstanding the situation.
What man would dislike a beauty this pretty taking the initiative?
Though Karia had started it by force, I had enjoyed the latter half as well.
Seeing me momentarily speechless as memories of last night’s heat resurfaced, Karia seemed to have misunderstood again.
“I can do any play Landor likes. Whenever you want, anytime. You can treat me like a whore…… I don’t mind. I…… I can’t live without you. Only Landor. Landor, I love you. Please…… please like me back.”
She looked ready to drop to her knees if I so much as frowned.
I could now understand just how smooth Landor’s silver tongue had been.
Even if childhood traumas had left her mentally broken, to gaslight the imperial princess until she was brainwashed into dying without him……
If only he had used that talent to contribute to the empire!
Instead he started a damn rebellion!!
In truth, while Karia was a villain in the novel, she was also a pitiful character.
Not a single person in her life had ever loved her sincerely.
Her father the emperor was a workaholic who could not be called a good father even as empty praise.
Her mother died early.
Those around her were rivals jealous of her talent and desperate to kill her.
The one who reached out to Karia, whose mind had been shattered from a childhood filled only with assassination attempts and no love, was none other than Landor.
She was simply a princess destined to live an unhappy life and die.
I suddenly felt sorry for the trembling Karia before me.
“Is someone like me all right? I’m ten years older than you.”
“It doesn’t matter!!”
Let’s see.
The first-night incident happened when Karia was around nineteen, right?
I recalled the novel describing her as having just come of age when she was assaulted.
She was barely in her late teens.
I squeezed her hand tightly.
“Take care of me, Karia. I won’t disappear from your side from now on.”
I hesitated for a moment over whether to say the next words.
But in the end, as someone who had been an avid reader of this novel, there was one thing I had always wanted to tell Karia.
“I love you too, Karia.”
Landor had never once told Karia he loved her in the original story.
He had only ever said things like “Do this because I need it” or “I need you.”
I wanted to make this pitiful woman happy.
“Ugh!……”
At my gentle voice, Karia finally burst into tears.
I gently pulled her trembling shoulders, sobbing like a child, into my arms and held her tightly.
She clung to me and cried for a long, long time.
It was the cry of someone healing from a painful past, and at the same time it sounded unbearably happy.
Yet the man holding her could not smile happily.
If it had been the original Landor, he would have worn an incredibly wicked grin, but I could not even manage that.
‘Now what? I’m seriously fucked.’
From the moment Landor slept with Karia, this novel began hurtling toward the peak of tragedy.
In short, if I followed the original plot, neither Karia nor I could be happy, and I was guaranteed a gruesome quartering.
I had to create change right now.
The first emperor of the Ailam Empire was said to have taken a dragon as his bride and fathered descendants.
Though the legend was so ancient that its truth could not be verified, one thing was certain.
Those who transcended humanity, called Dragon Incarnations or simply Incarnations, were born into the imperial bloodline across generations.
This generation had three Incarnations.
Adran of Gold, born with wisdom and a sense of justice.
Karia the Invincible, born with martial prowess and leadership.
Selene of Grace, born with beauty and keen observation.
Each held firm power bases, and their struggle for the throne formed the latter half of the novel.
But there was another force besides them: Duke Pelling.
Using his vast territory and military, Duke Pelling planned to seize the capital and become emperor once the three Incarnations destroyed one another.
It was later revealed that he had attempted to assassinate Princess Karia countless times and had greatly contributed to turning the empire into chaos during the Hideous War.
He was a bastard who had contributed to the empire’s fall nearly as much as Landor.
“Forgive my impertinence, Your Majesty!! Minister of State Landor’s tyranny has reached the heavens!”
Naturally, Duke Pelling’s favorite scenario was the three Incarnation candidates fighting each other to mutual destruction, not one of them gaining too much attention.
The emperor had ordered the seventeen-year-old Karia to launch a northern expedition.
It was an extremely difficult mission: to clear the monster horde that had begun overbreeding two years ago on the Limnakal Plains in the north.
Yet the invincible Karia lived up to her title, leading two hundred thousand Iron Blood Coalition soldiers and returning after two years with not a single monster left on the plains.
It was an achievement beyond imagination, and Duke Pelling was displeased.
If one of the Incarnation candidates received excessive attention, it was bad for his position.
In the audience hall where all imperial state affairs were conducted, Duke Pelling began openly targeting me, Karia’s closest aide, calculating that attacking the princess directly carried too much risk, so he would weaken her faction by striking at her financier and strategist instead.
“Minister of State Landor has monopolized most of the capital’s major merchant guilds! Furthermore, he has levied excessive taxes on them and pocketed a portion for himself. His crimes are grave! Your Majesty, I request that you punish Minister of State Landor!!!”
The emperor, whose eyes had grown dim and judgment dulled, raised his voice in anger at the words.
“Do you have evidence?”
This was Landor, said to have coated his tongue with both honey and oil.
The senile emperor currently trusted me completely.
It was an excellent skill at wrapping an emperor around one’s finger, befitting a treacherous scoundrel.
“Yes, Your Majesty, I do!”
As if long prepared, Duke Pelling had his subordinates bring forward a series of accusation documents against me.
The emperor frowned as he examined the presented papers.
He wanted to cover for me, but the evidence was so solid that his mood had soured.
“Minister of State Landor, step forward.”
The emperor called me out.
Then he looked at me with an openly gentle tone.
“What do you think of these accusations?”
It was not an interrogative tone.
Even though the amount embezzled was beyond imagination, his manner suggested he was willing to forgive.
In the original story, Landor pinned everything on a merchant he employed as a scapegoat and escaped with the skill of an oiled eel.
He would put on a tearful “I knew nothing” act, the emperor would be completely fooled, and all charges would vanish.
But following the original plot might save me for now, yet my future would still end with being torn apart in the square.
Last night I had stayed up racking my brain until my ass bled, deciding exactly how to change the story.
“Your Majesty the Emperor.”
“Yes. There must have been some misunderstanding, right?”
“Everything I am accused of is true.”
“???????”
Choking sounds echoed throughout the audience hall.
The emperor looked stunned, Karia looked stunned, and even Prince Adran and Princess Selene wore shocked faces.
But no one could match Duke Pelling’s expression.
After watching the duke’s dumbfounded face, eyes blinking in shock, with a slight smile, I pressed my forehead to the floor before the emperor.
“I confess to all my crimes!! Please execute me, Your Majesty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The struggle to escape the quartering-and-gruesome-death ending had begun.