Chapter 254 - A Choice Between Two

Beloved citizens of the Empire!

We gather here today because so many stars have fallen. The Heinkel Kingdom became a plaything of evil, abandoning gods and humanity in favor of its own greed. History is a textbook meant to keep us from repeating the same mistakes, yet they ignored the records written in our ancestors' blood.

Because of them, we lost many knights and soldiers. Most grievous of all, our brightest star has fallen. My valiant younger brother, a great hero who could not tolerate injustice and drew his sword to march to war, died for his country at the hands of Demons.

My beautiful younger sister Olivia wept bitterly there, overcome with grief. Those who remembered his courage were filled with fury. And so I, Alexander Arken, boldly declare before you:

Citizens of the Empire! We have risen upon the flesh and blood of our ancestors to live in an age of prosperity. Never forget that the land overflowing with grain was made fertile by the blood of invaders and of men who were once someone's child, someone's father. Remember that the blood of ancestors who fought against injustice runs in your veins.

Our enemies lurk in darkness. Seeing them hide in crevices untouched by light, we thought them nothing more than the remnants of a defeated foe. Look at what that complacency has cost us! Our mistake has led so many to their deaths!

What, then, must we do? The answer lies in the light of Alte. Beneath Alte's light, justice is impartial and the weak are protected. We must show the Demons how mighty that light is. We must destroy every shadow where they can hide from it and wipe them out to the last.

This mission shall continue until every seed of the Demons has been eradicated, in honor of my brother, that great commander, Ureas Arken.

Arken Empire! May you endure forever!

My father, His Majesty the Emperor! May you endure forever!

Citizens of the Empire! May you endure forever!

* * *

“Alexander has outright declared war.”

It was ironic. When Ureas had set out for the Heinkel Kingdom, he had been the greatest threat to Alexander's position as crown prince. With his rival dead, Alexander must have been delighted to see his brother gone. The opportunity to exploit that death must have pleased him even more.

The killing of an imperial prince was no trivial matter, and it provided a justification. It lent Alexander's anger a legitimacy that allowed no room for interpretation. Valdrova alone had ever spilled imperial blood and survived.

Several things were apparent from this long-winded speech.

'The time has come for the nobles to choose between the two.'

Since the Doppler crisis, the lack of any reliable means of identifying Dopplers had led to repeated false accusations and purges. Some sought to exploit the chaos, and none did so more effectively than Grand Duke Gold. His aim was clearly to expand the forces beneath him and consolidate them.

Had Akkad Debelung not been dealt with, power over the Empire would most likely have been centralized under the grand duke. Even Alexander, whose weakness had been exposed, seemed to be under Grand Duke Gold's control.

But something unexpected had happened. Ureas had died.

A warmonger through and through, he had never taken a consort. His repeated conquests had produced countless illegitimate children, but every one of them had been eliminated before living past the age of three. No mercy had been shown, as though to demonstrate the importance of the imperial bloodline.

As a result, no descendants of Ureas remained, giving Alexander grounds to reclaim his standing as crown prince.

Didn't they say that even a cornered rat would bite a cat? This affair had made Alexander considerably more ruthless. Now that two opposing camps had formed, he seemed determined to settle the matter once and for all.

There was a reason he could be so brazen.

'Count Ruster.'

Count Ruster had said he had been ordered to kill Ureas. Though it was Ruster who had lost his life instead, the plot itself had certainly existed. And rumors of it were circulating among the nobility.

Only a month ago, they would have dismissed the story as common gossip. Now, the nobles seemed inclined to believe it. Instigating the assassination of an imperial family member was punishable regardless of motive or rank. Even the great Grand Duke Gold was no exception.

'That's why Alexander can afford to act so boldly.'

Alexander was forcing them to choose: bow to the grand duke, or join him.

'Ordinarily, they would go to Grand Duke Gold.'

But the rumors had become impossible to ignore, leaving them unable to support him blindly. That was also why the memorial services were being held almost simultaneously.

'In that respect, Grand Duke Gold really is a remarkable man.'

His trusted agents, Akkad Debelung and Oldin Ruster, were dead. The brutal deaths of those two men, who embodied his military might and his ability to resolve problems, had left an enormous void. Had he been any other duke or noble, his supporters might well have abandoned him without hesitation.

Waldemar Gold. A descendant of a war hero of old, now a grand duke even greater than his forebear. With the reputations of both past and present behind him, he enjoyed overwhelming popular support. Even the senior elders of the nobility fawned over him, while ambitious young men eagerly displayed their aspirations in hopes of becoming his confidants.

The nobility's support was important, but Ferda saw things differently. What mattered most was whom the Order of Altes, the state religion, would support.

'The Order seems inclined to join Alexander.'

Its influence would be difficult to demonstrate just yet. Its credibility had been fractured by the revelation that the pope had been an agent of the Demons. To restore that trust, it needed, above all, someone devout whose identity was beyond question and who could serve as its public face. Olivia was the person chosen.

The entire nation already knew how she served the weak without ever losing her smile. The deeper anyone dug, the more stories of her kindness emerged; the occasional flaw was treated as a trace of her remaining humanity. The clergy calculated that if such a woman qualified as a Saintess, there would be less resistance when they sought to establish a theocracy.

The religious leaders probably suspected that Olivia's innocence was a mask.

'But they can't fathom how deep it goes.'

They would never realize that even their supposed understanding was the product of yet more layers of her design. Olivia would have them dancing in the palm of her hand.

'As I thought, Grand Duke Gold has to fall for the Empire to falter.'

How could he land a blow on that old man? He was considering that very question when someone arrived.

“I greet you, Lord Regent. Regina Fallon at your service.”

Garnet Swallow—or rather, Regina Fallon of the merchants' guild—paid her respects. The public face of the merchants approached with decorum, dressed like a wealthy member of high society.

“These are the minutes of the latest regular citizens' meeting. I'll provide a separate summary as well. If you find any issues, you may raise them with the administrator.”

“The administrator must be very busy.”

“Between the refugee problem and discrimination, she seems to have her hands full.”

Those were perennial problems. She would never use that much work as an excuse to send a representative in her place. Sure enough, among the documents was a sheet bearing a conspicuous black label.

A black mark. It meant she was handing over this document not as Regina Fallon of the merchants' guild, but as Garnet Swallow, head of the covert division that handled matters in the shadows. Documents from the covert division were on an entirely different level from the usual petty complaints.

“You are aware that some magical engineering rifles and magazines went missing, correct?”

Garnet had mentioned it before. During the cleanup after the siege of the Heinkel Kingdom, they had discovered that several rifles were missing. In the chaos of war, where men advanced over corpses, losing supplies was only natural.

But that was not the kind of loss she meant. She was referring to the reserve equipment loaded into the cars in case of an emergency. Unless those supplies had sprouted legs, they could hardly have wandered off on their own. This was unquestionably theft.

Ferda nodded silently.

“We've finished tracing the entire route by which they were smuggled out.”

A satisfied look crossed his face.

“They took the bait.”

Ferda had promised to supply enough magical engineering weapons to equip Ureas's personal guard. He had made it sound as though he were giving in to persistent pressure, but he had intended all along for some of those weapons to go missing during the siege.

They were the most closely watched weapons in the Empire, and any seasoned commander would have recognized their value after seeing them in action. They would have tried to get their hands on them even at the risk of their lives.

Ferda had two main reasons for deliberately allowing the leak.

'Innovation.'

History was a curious thing. Looking back, the past seemed so primitive that one could scarcely believe such an age had existed. In the history of mages, there had been a time when the 4th-tier spell Magic Blast was hailed as divine magic. But as they reached greater heights, they came to believe that 8th Circle magic was the pinnacle of human attainment.

'That's exactly how knowledge works.'

It tore down the world he knew and built a new one in its place. If it ceased to be the exclusive preserve of the nobility and reached the lower classes, the resulting upheaval would be immense. What the Empire needed, after standing on the pillars of the past for so long, was a powerful shock.

“So, have we had any results?”

“It remains to be seen whether they're meaningful, but things have certainly moved in the direction you hoped for, Lord Ferda.”

“Meaning they haven't ended up in the hands of the imperial palace or the great nobles.”

“Correct. They were taken toward the sewers in the slums.”

The rifles had probably been stolen so they could be dismantled, their technology copied, and new devices developed independently. This was among the most dangerous crimes of all: even the slightest involvement could see three generations of one's family exterminated.

They could not afford a careless move that risked implicating anyone at the top. The research would therefore be conducted under the guise of a criminal organization, making it easy to cut ties if necessary. The slums were an ideal location.

'After all, even if there's a massive explosion, it won't be nobles who die.'

That was how trivial and meaningless human life was.

“So, did you manage to identify those organizations?” Ferda asked.

She answered with utter confidence, as though the very question were an insult.

“Yes. I've compiled complete personal details on the local gangs and everyone involved in the research.”

Ferda had no particular expectations. Did stuffing a fish trap with bait guarantee a big catch? He read through the list assuming that whatever fish had entered his trap would be minnows.

And so—

“Hmm?”

—what he found was more than satisfying. He had landed an enormous fish.

'This is why I arranged the leak.'

Escolaia was said to occasionally produce geniuses who could turn an era on its head, but true genius would shine even in a filthy sewer.

“Has someone caught your eye?”

“Yes.”

Ferda recalled a woman from before his regression. While Burnel Marquis had been pursuing his ambitions by using magical engineering to make mere household goods, she had been the visionary who turned the field in earnest toward weaponry. The woman who had created the first magical engineering grenade.

Using components she assembled in a junkyard, she would create high-explosive weapons to assassinate nobles. When she was arrested, she called herself by this name:

'Gae Bolg.'

A spear that could pierce anything, she said. In time, she would become a godmother of crime who shook the entire Serdes Continent.