Episode 33
When Glenn arrived after being called, the Emperor’s desk was already covered with scattered notes and documents.
Kaien was hunched over them, glaring at them intensely, so much so that he didn’t even notice Glenn enter.
“I greet Your Majesty.”
“Forget that. Look at this.”
Kaien’s voice was sharp, so Glenn nodded and stepped closer to look at the desk.
“Are these battle records?”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve just asked me, I remember all of it.”
Kaien didn’t respond. Instead, he kept slipping colored notes between the papers.
These were also battle records.
“You still don’t see it?”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Neither did I.”
Kaien had grown up in the violent war zone of Rubeo.
Naturally, he came to believe that Rubeo was always a cruel and blood-soaked land. Even after becoming Emperor, nothing really changed about that belief.
“What about this?”
He added more colored notes to the desk, and it looked like a map of Rubeo’s battles had come to life.
Glenn finally started to see something, too.
“The black notes are official battles recorded as territory disputes, the yellow ones are the barbarian sneak attacks, and…”
“Yes, the red ones are when they came with mercenaries.”
By using different colored notes, Kaien clearly highlighted the differences between the battles.
“Why didn’t anyone notice this before?”
There had been too many battles in Rubeo to count.
The notes on the desk only covered the battles that happened after Kaien became Emperor.
“This is…”
Glenn was too shocked to continue speaking.
“It doesn’t end here.”
Kaien flicked the first battle note with his finger.
“The first battle after I became Emperor. The knight commander was wounded.”
“Yes. But we won.”
“Right. We always win against the barbarians.”
He flicked a few more notes.
“This one too. And this one! We’ve always won.”
Even though the land was once chaotic, Count Hayer and the knights worked hard to rebuild it.
Kaien joined in that effort.
But no matter how much they improved Rubeo, the barbarians always showed up at the worst time and ruined everything.
“Glenn, do you remember the battles before I became Emperor?”
“The knights bled for them. Of course, I remember.”
“Then tell me—what changed after I became Emperor?”
Glenn stared at the messy desk.
“The number of battles dropped sharply.”
That was expected.
The Empire kept winning, after all. No one questioned it.
“But… I didn’t realize there were so many officially recorded territory disputes.”
Normally, small skirmishes wouldn’t be counted as official battles.
But ever since Kaien became Emperor, those battles started getting recorded.
“Strangely, only after I took the throne?”
Official records of territorial disputes made the Emperor look weak.
No matter how many battles Kaien won, those records made him look bad in history.
“This must be Duke Nigel’s doing. He probably bribed the Imperial Record Keeper.”
“I don’t care about that. There’s a deeper problem, isn’t there?”
“Your Majesty?”
“The Empress asked me.”
Glenn blinked in confusion. He didn’t expect her to be mentioned.
“She asked why the invasions never stopped.”
Hearing that, Glenn couldn’t help but chuckle.
It sounded like something a sheltered palace lady would ask.
“Well, because the Empire expanded too far into barren land. The barbarians—”
“We always won. We cut down barbarians and mercenaries again and again. So why do the invasions keep happening?”
“Because they regroup and come back. Isn’t that obvious?”
That’s what everyone thought—including Kaien.
Even Glenn didn’t understand why Kaien was suddenly so serious about this.
“I told her that. Then she asked again—‘Are the barbarians and mercenaries increasing endlessly?’”
“W-What? That’s… impossible…”
Glenn started to laugh, but then stopped, his face turning serious.
“Yes.”
He finally understood what Kaien had realized.
“We keep winning. They keep dying. So why does it seem like they’re growing stronger and attacking more often?”
Alicia’s question had sounded so simple, like a child’s curiosity.
But it pierced straight through a truth everyone had missed.
“Do they multiply endlessly or something?”
“Of course not…”
Glenn’s voice wavered. Kaien slammed his fist on a red note.
“Where do the mercenaries even come from? Did the barbarians find a gold mine after I became Emperor?”
Rubeo was known for endless bloodshed and war.
That belief stopped people from ever questioning it.
It was the perfect lie.
“They’re born raiders. So they—”
“Then someone must be helping them. Paying mercenaries. Giving them weapons.”
A terrifying truth had come from a simple question.
“Your Majesty… if this is true… it could be considered treason.”
“It is treason. And we both know who would do it.”
Kaien swept everything off the desk in anger.
“I’m extremely disappointed and furious.”
“Your Majesty… I should’ve realized this…”
“No. We were all blind.”
So many days on the battlefield had made Kaien forget how to think about peace. He had fought like a machine, never once stopping to question why the war never ended.
“I… gave up on the idea that we could ever fully defeat them.”
He hated admitting it, but the battles had become routine. He only focused on defense, assuming more would always come.
“I got too comfortable winning a little at a time. I turned Rubeo into a forever battlefield and forgot my original goal—to end the war completely.”
His clenched fist showed just how angry he was at himself.
“Everyone who died in those battles since I became Emperor… they didn’t die fighting enemies of the Empire. They died because of the Empire itself!”
A statement an Emperor should never make—but Kaien didn’t care. He was too overwhelmed by rage and disappointment, whether it was aimed at Duke Nigel or himself.
“Your Majesty, this is my and the knight commander’s fault. I—”
“No.”
Kaien cut him off in a low voice.
“This is all because of those disgusting traitors.”
If Kaien were truly the brutal, bloodthirsty Emperor that Duke Nigel claimed, he wouldn’t be this calm right now.
“And it’s my fault too—for being so used to war that even the Empress saw more clearly than I did.”
He had fought so many battles that he stopped thinking. And that blinded him.
“We forgot what truly mattered. And the enemy used that against us.”
There would be time later to blame himself. Right now, Kaien knew exactly what he had to do.
“But their luck has finally run out.”
Now that he could see the truth, he could turn the enemy’s tricks against them—and maybe, finally, end this long war. Maybe he could even leave the battlefield behind forever.
“Your Majesty… forgive me, but… do you think the Empress might have intended something by her question?”
Kaien’s expression darkened.
“You’re asking if she’s trying to manipulate me?”
“No, Your Majesty. I just mean… this is a serious matter. What if Lucan told her to ask in order to stir things between you and Duke Nigel?”
Kaien let out a scoff and glared at Glenn.
“Let’s be clear. The Empress is not Lucan’s puppet. If you want, you can watch her all you like. But I swear on my honor—she had no hidden motives.”
Kaien had never defended anyone, let alone a woman, like this. Glenn couldn’t say anything more and bowed his head.
“I know you’re loyal. But if Lucan had a plan, he would’ve given her a better line to say. Not a childlike question about barbarians and mercenaries multiplying.”
“That’s true…”
Alicia had simply seen the truth—no schemes, no manipulation.
If there had been, she would’ve said something more carefully crafted.
“She saw something that not even I saw.”
Kaien had already forgotten that this was the same woman who had yelled “Stop!” at him.
“She even showed kindness toward the people of Rubeo.”
The smell of blood and dust from battle faded with the warmth he felt from being in her presence.
“At the very least, she’s a warm-hearted person.”
A soft smile touched Kaien’s lips
Glenn had nothing more to say.
He still wasn’t sure what kind of person the Empress really was—but he could clearly see that her warmth now lived inside the Emperor.
