Episode 49
A few days passed quietly, as if nothing had happened.
That fiery moment between Kaien and Alicia stayed only in their hearts.
The palace itself carried on, calm and fast-paced as always.
“Your Majesty, new news has arrived from the commander of the knights.”
Glenn, who had been dragged out every night as Kaien’s sparring partner, looked exhausted but still did his duty as a loyal knight.
“Your Majesty?”
The problem was Kaien.
He kept zoning out, unlike before.
He was staring out the window of his office until Glenn had to call him again.
“What did you say?”
“It’s a new report from Rubeo’s commander.”
Glenn placed the letter on the desk.
Kaien stretched his long legs out and lazily unfolded them, but soon his face twisted with anger.
“Why isn’t the situation getting any better?”
The report said Rubeo was still fighting barbarians who had hired mercenaries.
They hadn’t even been able to finish preparing for winter.
The news soured Kaien’s mood.
“Well… because you and I are here, Your Majesty.”
Glenn’s blunt answer hit the mark.
Kaien had been staying in the palace, using the Empress’s illness as an excuse.
He hadn’t once mentioned returning to Rubeo.
Since he usually never stayed this long in the capital, the troops there must have been unprepared.
“Pathetic. Just because two of us are gone, they fall apart like this?”
“With respect, they’re not just ‘two of us.’”
On the battlefield, Kaien’s towering figure stood out, cutting down enemies wherever he went.
“If it were two ordinary knights, yes. But Your Majesty’s absence can’t be replaced even by ten men.”
Kaien was a natural-born warrior.
And Glenn—though not at Kaien’s level—was the second-best fighter, his strength obvious to anyone who’d fought alongside him.
“Besides, I dare say I’m worth at least five men myself. So the commander’s struggle is understandable.”
“Tch.”
Kaien clicked his tongue, annoyed, and tossed the letter back on the desk.
“Your Majesty, if this battle drags on, the people will suffer through winter. All the work you’ve done to settle them there will go to waste.”
Glenn had noticed a change in Kaien.
The man who once casually gifted pinecones to the Empress now seemed distracted—obviously lingering here because of her.
“Your Majesty, if this continues—”
“Don’t talk circles like a noble. Say what you mean.”
Kaien’s black eyes seemed to pierce right into him.
“Rubeo’s revival has always been Your Majesty’s dream, as well as the people’s.
That dream is close to reality—if we handle things right.”
Glenn knew well what Rubeo meant to Kaien.
It had once been the young prince’s exile, but as he grew, it became his dream, not his chain.
“There’s no need to remind me. Rubeo’s revival will happen.”
Rubeo was a harsh land where nothing grew, taken forcefully by the former Emperor.
Disputes over the borders never stopped.
But Kaien believed that if it could be stabilized, its location would make it greater than any trading city.
“Of course. But the timing matters.”
“The knights can handle it without me.”
“But the people will grow uneasy.”
Under Kaien’s command, settlers had built a fortress, dug wells, and experimented with crops.
Exempted from taxes, they stayed, had children, and began to call Rubeo home.
“You always said, Your Majesty—land isn’t truly imperial territory until people call it their home, not just because we shed blood for it.”
“If they need to see me with their own eyes just to stay… then they were never my people.”
The cold words silenced Glenn.
He knew Kaien wasn’t just being stubborn over a woman.
“The knights can push back the enemy. But here… there are things only I can do. And for that, I needed you.”
“I understand.”
This all began with Alicia’s innocent question—why Rubeo kept fighting and winning, but the enemies never seemed to run out.
“And today, Your Majesty, I’ve brought the answer.”
Even after being worn out from sparring until dawn, Glenn had kept his task in mind.
He pulled a map and papers from his coat and set them on the desk.
Kaien opened the map and saw marks on the western border, with detailed reports written in Glenn’s careful hand.
“…These bastards.”
Kaien’s low voice trembled with anger.
“I suspected as much. But I didn’t think they’d go this far.”
He slammed the papers onto the desk.
The map showed the mercenaries’ camps in the west.
The documents detailed information gathered by the commander and secret agents sent from the capital.
“Mercenaries from the west. Weapons from the north.”
Kaien gave a bitter laugh.
“So they’ve been buying killers with dirty money… to slaughter our own people?”
Glenn said nothing.
If he spoke, Kaien might draw his sword and march straight for Duke Nigel.
“That’s just how the capital nobles are.”
“No. As corrupt and stupid as they are, even they had a line they never crossed.”
The Darius Empire was the oldest on the continent.
Families like Duke Nigel’s had always been part of it.
When Kaien’s father lost his mind, those nobles took power in his place.
“I even understood why they opposed my coronation back then. I was too young, too weak.”
Kaien’s strength was that he could admit his weaknesses.
For a ruler—especially an Emperor—that was rare.
“They shamelessly claimed I wasn’t fit to rule. But at least back then, it was advice, given in the name of the Empire!”
His father’s madness had left a legacy of corruption and arrogance in the nobles, Nigel above all.
Kaien had accepted that as something to fix, slowly, with time.
“But this… funding our enemies with gold and weapons—this is no different than slaughtering our soldiers themselves!”
Every battle at Rubeo had been won, but men had died.
And Kaien, though he never showed it, never forgot their blood.
“To betray humanity itself… how could they, in the name of nobility?”
He let out another bitter, angry laugh.
This wasn’t politics anymore.
This was outright treason.
“To think they’d go this far—kill the very people struggling to live in that harsh land.”
His voice dripped with despair.
Kaien had given his life to Rubeo.
To discover that the true enemy wasn’t just outside barbarians, but his own nobleman—Duke Nigel—was unbearable.
“They’ve been killing our own people all along.”
His fist slammed the desk with a thunderous crack.
Realizing how many had died while he stayed blind, he felt not just fury but crushing guilt.
“And all the while, they must have laughed at me, fighting on Rubeo’s frontlines.”
His breath shook with rage.
“This is not your fault, Your Majesty. You read the report. They crossed the line because they feared you and Rubeo.”
The abandoned prince had grown into a true Emperor.
The barren land had grown into a dream of a great trading city.
“For something done out of fear… It’s bold, isn’t it?”
“Nigel doesn’t want to give up his near-regent power. But Your Majesty has become a true Emperor, stronger than he imagined.”
Kaien already knew.
When his father went mad and cast him aside, no one believed he would survive.
“Nigel only got involved in the last couple of years. He probably didn’t believe in Rubeo before. But now that you’ve brought it so close to revival, he panicked.”
Yes, Kaien was the only rightful ruler of the Empire.
Whatever power Nigel held for years would vanish once the real Emperor reclaimed his throne fully.
“If Rubeo becomes a thriving trade city, all the merchant groups under Nigel’s thumb will lose big.”
For Kaien, Rubeo was more than land.
Its success would shatter the very foundation of the capital nobles’ power.
“No matter how powerful the nobles are, their power depends on money. The more they grew, the more money they needed.”
That had been Kaien’s plan.
Once Rubeo thrived, he could return to the capital and reclaim everything.
Nigel’s fears had been justified.
“In fact, the fact that Nigel stepped in at all proves how much of a threat you and Rubeo have become.”
Kaien slowly nodded.
“Nigel wasn’t wrong about one thing.”
Now, the arrow Duke Nigel had fired at him had circled back—aimed squarely at Nigel himself.
