Do Your Own Revolution

#126

“Brigadier General Eugene. We’ve been waiting for you. This way.”

After three days and nights of travel, the Imperial Capital was in a much more chaotic state than expected.

And understandably so.

While they were looking for a pretext to strike the Republic, the Special Magic Unit had brought them the perfect spark.

Rumble……

“…outrageous! It’s such a barbaric act that it’s difficult to even speak of, Your Majesty!”

“Indeed. We must send envoys to the Republic and threaten them!”

“Dispatching an investigation team is also worth considering, Your Majesty. How can we even attempt normal dialogue with an opponent who conducts such inhumane experiments on prisoners?!”

The Emperor listened to their words with a serious yet pleased expression.

In contrast to the heated atmosphere of the assembly, the nobles gathered in one corner of the conference hall remained silent, simply observing the meeting.

“What does the Round Table think of this matter?”

When the Emperor who had been watching them spoke, the nobles gathered in one corner of the conference room broke into a cold sweat.

These were not the magic nobles themselves, but rather representatives from each family stationed in the Imperial Capital.

They were far too inadequate to handle the pressure from both the angry council members and the Emperor’s authority.

“Th-that is……”

“The families are currently not sending any responses.”

“Even though I specifically instructed them to respond, considering the gravity of the situation?”

“We-we deeply apologize, Your Majesty……”

Moreover, when this incident came to light, the Round Table’s response was nothing but silence.

The reports about the test subjects had been sent to the Round Table, and the meeting schedule had been shared, but the magic nobles showed no reaction.

“This is suspicious. Given how quiet they’re being…”

“They must have heard about the military integration plan. With fire under their feet, would they care about meetings like this?”

As I let my words trail off while taking my seat, the three-star general who occupied the seat next to me whispered.

Looking up at his face, it was Keiren.

This guy, when did he move to the seat next to me? He was definitely across from me earlier.

“His Majesty is now trying to completely separate the magic nobles and Knight Orders from imperial power. The military integration plan is being carried out unilaterally by the Emperor and military, and the other magic nobles must surely understand the hidden meaning behind these series of movements.” 𝙍Ἀ𝐍ȏβÊş

“But to ignore such a matter…”

“That’s precisely the problem. Setting aside their rash behavior, we can’t guess their intentions.”

Keiren was right.

The Emperor’s faction, emboldened by their victory, was proceeding rapidly with military integration.

The fact that they were holed up in their territories without any reaction during such times meant they were plotting something.

“But now that we’ve caught the opportunity…”

“It would be nonsense to stop out of fear of their schemes.”

The situation was practically guaranteed to involve some behind-the-scenes manipulation from the magic nobles.

However, the Emperor, seemingly unconcerned, slowly rose from his seat.

“It seems the Republic has learned nothing since the last war.”

“……”

“That our Kalhyram is no longer a puppet dancing to their power.”

Thud-!

After striking his royal scepter once against the throne he had been leaning on, the Emperor straightened his back and called for Keiren.

“Lieutenant General Keiren!”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Expedite the launch of the ‘Kalhyram Army.'”

At the voice that burst from the Emperor’s lips, those gathered in the conference room clenched their fists.

Unlike the magic nobles who sent representatives, the military leadership and imperial faction elders who participated directly in the imperial conference.

They were now looking for an opportunity to completely destroy the power base of the magic nobles.

And right now, that opportunity had arrived.

“In one month, our Kalhyram Empire will declare war on the Republic!”

Thunderous cheers filled the conference hall.

Military generals cheering for Kalhyram, elders praising the Emperor.

And in one corner of this crucible of excitement, representatives desperately sending communications to their masters.

“It has begun.”

The curtain rose on a war that would engulf the entire continent.

The Empire, the Republic.

The curtain of a great war where the fate of this world hung in the balance.

***

Hiss-!

About two hours after the meeting concluded.

After looking around the palace where people had filtered out, I leaned against a balcony in the quiet garden and lit a cigarette.

“Phew……”

The declaration of war would be in one month.

Before the upcoming battle, I was given about a week of leave after completing my mission in the North.

Of course, the same applied to the unit members who had exterminated the monsters on the western front.

Looking at the leave schedule, it seemed like I’d have time to get together with my friends after a long while.

While I was burning my cigarette in the outer palace garden.

“I wondered where you’d disappeared to, so you were here?”

Keiren walked over slowly and took his place beside me.

“My, it’s hard to even see my son-in-law’s face these days.”

“It goes both ways, Your Excellency.”

“Drop the ‘Excellency.’ Doesn’t it give you goosebumps when you say it too?”

“Lieutenant General, you feel the same way?”

How could someone who’s been a general for at least 10 years feel awkward about it?

Thinking that, I offered him a military-issue cigarette, and Keiren accepted it without hesitation.

Phew-

Cigarette smoke rose side by side.

Looking at the cityscape spread below our feet, Keiren slowly opened his mouth.

“With this meeting as the turning point, most of the integration plan is complete. All that’s left is to move the units according to the planned arrangement.”

In other words, Keiren’s oversight was coming to an end.

Now it was time for staff officers like Erich and logistics officers to be dispatched.

“A vacation after three months. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I went home.”

“What has Mari been up to these days?”

“How would I know? It’s been well over two months since I haven’t been home.”

Although I promised to visit once a month, there’s just no time with all the work.

Thinking of Mari’s face waiting at home, an indescribable fear rose from deep within my heart.

“Both you and I, Lieutenant General, are dead men walking when we return to the mansion.”

Mari, who had already become a proper lady of the house, wielded absolute power among the mansion’s people.

“When we arrive, you go in first. A mage should be more resilient, right?”

“Isn’t Mari a mage too?”

“That’s exactly why I’m saying this.”

If I go in first, I’m really dead.

After this exchange, Keiren and I both sighed deeply enough to sink the ground.

“I have 600,000 imperial troops under my command, but I’m always a criminal when I go home.”

“I know what you mean.”

What good is commanding ten thousand mages when I’m at the bottom of the power hierarchy at home?

No, wait. With Keiren here, maybe we’re tied for last.

“…It feels like a dream, come to think of it.”

After a moment of trading such trivial jokes.

As I stared blankly at the cigarette smoke rising to the sky, Keiren looked my way and spoke.

“My daughter, who I thought was so fragile, has grown into a proper lady, and now she’s grown strong enough to protect herself.”

“……”

“Thanks to that, I was able to restart the revenge I had given up long ago… and make it this far.”

Revenge.

Hearing those words, I recalled Keiren from the original story.

A madman who repeated malice and slaughter, driven insane by the grief of losing his daughter.

A completely opposite image from now, as he smokes a cigarette with a relaxed smile.

“When you say revenge……”

“For my dead wife. Anna’s revenge.”

As if noticing it would be awkward to ask directly, Keiren spoke first.

“It was a monster attack. There were far more than reported.”

“……”

“The Buckenheim Knight Order, which should have stopped them, refused to deploy, saying they wanted to suppress the imperial army’s spirit.”

Keiren’s face hardened slightly, as if recalling that time.

“Half of the unit I was commanding at the time lost their lives. Throwing away their own lives to protect the wounded… That’s how we succeeded in an impossible defense.”

For a moment, images I’d never seen flashed through my mind.

A young officer cutting open the belly of a dead monster and taking something out.

Keiren’s figure, weeping while holding a corpse covered in monster fluid.

“Is your revenge directed at the monsters, Lieutenant General?”

“It was, right after I lost Anna.”

When I first met him, Keiren was active on the eastern front.

The cradle that endlessly produced monsters while covered in contamination.

Keiren jumped into that front line and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of monsters that had made their nest there.

‘And with those military achievements, Keiren gained his position as an imperial army general.’

Even as an abandoned child, Keiren was a member of Duke Buckenheim.

And Duke Buckenheim and the military were practically nemeses.

Nevertheless, the imperial military leadership at the time couldn’t help but acknowledge Keiren’s achievements on the eastern front.

He had killed enough monsters to overshadow the fact that he was the blood of their nemesis.

“But after years of killing monsters, I suddenly realized.”

“……”

“These things are just beasts raging without reason… like natural disasters.”

Keiren’s eyes sank heavily as he looked at the city landscape.

His gaze fell on the White Quarter, the upper-class residential district in the upper part of the imperial capital.

At the Duke Buckenheim’s crest fluttering in its center.

“Anna met her fate at the hands of monsters. But what killed Anna was the Knight Order that drove us into death’s door…”

The crest of the family he belonged to.

“Duke Buckenheim.”

Anger filled Keiren’s eyes as he looked at the red lion crest.

“They drove me and my troops to death’s door, drove Anna to her death, and if that wasn’t enough, they even tried to harm my daughter Mari.”

“You mean what happened at the funeral.”

The assassin’s blade held to Mari’s neck.

By stopping that, Keiren tore up the resignation letter that had been sitting on his desk.

He turned the military leadership into his own faction and began striking down magic nobles and the Republic indiscriminately.

The turning point that lit a fire to dying embers.

The result was the Keiren Buckenheim I was facing now.

He was the Field Marshal of the new Kalhyram army to be born.

“It seems this old man has overheard unnecessary words.”

“…!”

I hurriedly turned my head at the voice from behind.

The Emperor, alone outside the palace.

Seeing him, Keiren immediately bowed his head.

“Your Majesty. Without even bringing guards…”

“Don’t worry. Andrei’s eyes are watching.”

The Emperor said this and spoke while looking at Keiren.

“It reminds me of when I first saw you.”

“……”

“You cursed me, calling me an incompetent emperor, a coward who submitted to the magic nobles.”

What’s this now?

Keiren, you actually said such harsh words to the Emperor’s face?

And now such a person is the Emperor’s closest confidant?

“I unintentionally learned the reason. I’m sorry.”

“It’s already ancient history, Your Majesty. Please don’t mind it.”

After this brief exchange.

The Emperor looked at me and spoke with a gentle smile.

“Since you met Kassel, you must have heard all about this old man’s passionate past.”

“Yes. I heard everything.”

The Emperor, Gloucester, and Korhonen.

How they tried to change the empire, and how they failed.

The fact that their unfinished work now rests in my and Keiren’s hands.

And what this imprint given to me contains inside.

“Letters came from Korhonen and Gloucester. Official signatures stating that the two Margraves will support you in the upcoming rapid changes.”

Saying this, the Emperor extended his wrinkled hand and handed over documents.

Margrave Gloucester, Kalkas Gloucester.

And Margrave Korhonen, Kassel Korhonen’s names were written on the documents.

If I take on even this, I won’t be able to run away anymore.

While thinking this and checking the documents, another document came into my hands.

“Your Majesty. This is……”

“That document is what I’m giving to you.”

The most insignificant. But at the same time, probably the most important thing.

Muttering this, the Emperor looked at me with a gentle smile and said.

“The will of the Imperial Emperor, Friedrich Franz Kalhyram.”

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