Chapter 14 :

Episode 14 — The Bystander’s Choice (2)

As everyone expected, the honor of winning the hunting competition went to the 1st Prince.

The rumor that he would not inherit the imperial throne would now die down in an instant.

He proudly walked before the emperor and knelt on one knee.

Even after seeing the giant bear and werewolf he had hunted, the emperor did not say anything in particular.

It was a scene not very different from last year.

People were overwhelmed by the inhuman appearance of an imperial family member.

Following tradition, the 1st Prince would state his wish before the emperor, and the nobles would line up to offer the resources and troops needed to fulfill it.

What had the 4th Prince, who won the previous competition, wished for again?

Yes, he had asked for the authority to wipe out the nomads of the border region who kept coming and going into the Forest of the Sun.

This time, the duke thought he would wish for the development rights to the Zendal region, where a gold mine had supposedly been discovered a few months ago.

Then the noble who discovered the gold mine in that region, along with the other nobles and merchants who had invested in its development, would either go bankrupt or suffer great losses, but no one would resist.

Everyone waited nervously for the 1st Prince to open his mouth.

"Your Majesty, recently, thieves and vagrants have settled around the temple in the capital that serves Great Emperor Sierra, lowering the dignity of the temple and threatening public order. I dare request the authority to resolve this matter and reorganize the ruined aesthetic of the temple."

For a moment, murmurs arose around them.

The nobles were puzzled, but soon seemed to accept it to some extent.

Because his wish, though sudden, was justified.

Among the murmuring crowd, the duke had to quietly despair.

He clenched his fists tightly.

There was no way he would not know which temple in the capital the 1st Prince was speaking of.

Because he had never once forgotten that enormous building that had given him nightmares.

Duke Feedus knew who the vagrants and thieves the 1st Prince referred to were.

He was saying that he wanted to sweep away the cluster of shacks where orphaned children and the sick had gathered to live.

Perhaps he would request support from the duke’s residence, not far from that place.

Then the loyal Duke Feedus would have to generously provide him with resources and several soldiers to sweep them away.

And in the business that followed afterward, he would go through the same process.

The bloodied face of the small child, which he had believed had faded somewhat, came vividly back to him.

In truth, from the moment he discovered the child’s corpse, there had been one question that had never left the duke’s mind.

Was it really something that had to be done that way?

The duke already knew the answer.

That the reason there were so many vagrants around the temple where he had found the child was because of the temple expansion project ordered by the imperial family.

Dozens of nearby houses had been demolished, and an enormous temple building had been erected.

The people who lost their homes and jobs were cast out onto the streets and committed crimes.

Many children lost their parents that year.

As the temple collected more offerings, the number of vagrants increased even further.

The duke also knew that, to unfamiliar foreign peoples, the empire’s borders were little more than coercion to them.

It was the empire that had suddenly attacked the lands of the foreign peoples, and it was also the Abiran Empire that killed them on sight, without even giving them a chance to enter as slaves.

Unlike other wars, when the emperor lightly said that he wanted to wipe out the seed of the foreign peoples, the duke carried out that order without a word.

He did not think it strange.

Not once had he ever thought that it was too far removed from his own values.

While carrying out orders, he did not feel even the slightest thing resembling pain, not even once.

The duke knew that the countless other orders he had thought he had accepted and carried out were the same as well.

No matter how much flowery language was attached, the things he had done were no different from what he had done to Tollin in the forest today.

Knowing something was unjust, yet dressing everything up as if it were righteous.

Noticing it, yet pretending not to know and closing one’s eyes.

And regarding that as honor.

He also knew that if he stayed still again here, the same thing would repeat.

The duke shut his eyes tightly.

This time, what flickered before his eyes was his young son. And through it came the sound of a sneer.

—How fitting of the retainer of a duke who devotes his soul to loyalty toward the imperial family.

He knew the voice lingering in his ears was an illusion, and yet the voice did not stop.

—Duke, I sincerely hope you will be proud even then. Proud of your son, who obeys the imperial family’s orders in any situation.

‘Can I endure that?’

The duke knew the answer to that as well.

* * *

The emperor slowly raised his head and answered.

"If there are no objections, I shall gladly permit the winner his rightful privilege."

"Thank you."

The 1st Prince bowed his head once and waited for the applause that would soon pour out.

But the sound he expected did not come, and only silence lingered.

When he turned around in puzzlement, the person who entered his eyes was someone he knew well.

The former commander of the Imperial Knights, who had been somewhat better than the other insects.

He knew that the man had retired quite some time ago now.

That very man was slowly walking forward under everyone’s gaze.

"Do you know what you dare to do right now, Duke?"

At the 1st Prince’s question, asked as if he found it absurd, Duke Feedus respectfully bowed his head and said,

"Your Imperial Majesty, and Your Highness the prince, I, Agony Feedus, head of the House of Duke Feedus, dare ask permission here and now to step down from the position of family head and appoint my aide, Tollin Crisa, as acting head of the family."

"What is this…."

The 1st Prince tried to raise his voice as if angered.

"I shall allow that as well."

But at the emperor’s indifferent permission, he soon closed his mouth.

After Agony paid his respects to the emperor, he briefly turned back and looked around.

Everyone was looking at him with anxious eyes.

Thinking that he himself would be no different, he slowly opened his mouth toward the emperor.

"I shall repay with my life the crime of interrupting the sacred ceremony of the two who are the sky and sun of the empire."

A gasp came from the audience.

There was no one there who did not know that this was practically the same as requesting a death sentence.

"Ha! There is no taking back your decision, Duke."

Irritation and ridicule appeared on the 1st Prince’s face at the same time.

The duke raised his head while saying that he fully understood.

The 1st Prince looked at the emperor.

He was still looking down at this entire series of events without much change in expression.

Even in this moment, Duke Feedus felt trust, faith, and reverence for him welling up within himself as he waited for his sentence.

The emperor gave such a duke one glance and opened his mouth toward the executioner.

"I sentence him to summary execution."

No one could make a sound.

The duke quietly bowed his head once more and accepted it.

* * *

The execution was carried out quickly.

Following tradition, the 1st Prince, whose ceremony had been interrupted, instantly trapped Duke Feedus inside a giant pillar made of water.

For the first time, in front of a summary execution at the hunting competition, the people realized anew just how cruel this tradition was.

Since, according to the condition that he had to be alive because he had to be thrown off the cliff alive, the 1st Prince did not kill the duke.

He merely tightened around his throat as much as possible, as if venting his anger at having the ceremony interrupted.

And by lifting him high so that everyone could see, he made him into a spectacle.

At the naturally suffocating sight, some could not bear to look properly and lowered their heads.

In a situation where he was trapped in the pillar of water and could not even breathe properly, Duke Feedus opened his eyes wide to remember the final moments of his life.

The first thing that entered his sight was the 1st Prince, who had raised his hand and was moving the water.

He was looking at him with eyes gleaming from both excitement and anger at this situation, where he was simply killing a legendary figure of the nation in front of everyone.

As if he found the sight of the duke unable to breathe refreshing, there was even a thin smile hanging at the corners of his mouth.

Perhaps he will become the next emperor.

By then, he will probably feel no emotion even when killing people, just like the emperor sitting there indifferently.

Next, the duke took into his eyes the lord he had followed for over thirty years.

Even as he displayed the drowning of an old veteran who had devoted his entire life to the country, he did not seem to show any particular change in emotion.

It felt as if the duke himself had become an insect.

The emperor was killing him indifferently, as if crushing an ant underfoot.

That was somewhat funny, so even as he felt water filling his lungs, a faint laugh escaped him.

Ridiculously enough, his heart, which had been roiling madly all this time, was quiet.

Only then did he feel as if his eyes had opened a little.

Until now, he had spoken as if he knew so well about the weight of life and about fate, but before them, his own life, too, was no different from that of an insect.

There had been no meaning in being something like the noble sword of the imperial family.

The pain of this belated realization was compressed together with the water pressure and pressed down on the duke from every direction.

His strength was gradually leaving him.

As his body went limp, the 1st Prince began shaping the pillar enveloping him into a sphere.

The sphere that trapped him shrank to a diameter about as tall as he was and slowly moved.

It seemed he was going to drop him from the cliff according to tradition.

Yes, this is the end.

Although perhaps his entire life until now had been meaningless time, the duke thought that in the final single moment, at least, he had made a choice he was not ashamed of.

At the same time, his young son, who would be left behind, came to mind, and even as he was dying, worry came first.

"Your Grace!!!"

At the familiar voice coming from behind at that very moment, the duke turned his head with difficulty.

It was Tollin.

His reliable aide and young friend who had been with him for a long time.

For a brief moment, he was surprised by his sudden appearance when he should have been resting inside the barracks, but then the duke looked at him with an apology for leaving behind too many burdens at the very end.

Several difficult years would probably be waiting ahead of him.

At least until the young duke inherited the family, that would be so.

But as always, Tollin would do well.

His clever friend would take good care of his remaining son, and his intelligent son would show Tollin the greatest respect he could.

Something different from the future he had imagined until now would unfold, but the duke thought that it would not be unhappiness.

Thinking that made his heart feel a little more at ease.

Though perhaps it was simply that his mind was growing distant because oxygen was no longer reaching his brain.

"The summary execution of the criminal Agony Feedus shall be carried out."

At the imperial aide’s shout, the 1st Prince snapped his fingers.

And the duke fell at high speed.

Only then did the pile of stones the 7th Prince had given him come to mind.

It probably had not been his intention, but thanks to this bag, it seemed he would be able to go in one blow without needlessly lingering.

Perhaps because it was the final moment of his life, even though he was clearly falling at a speed that would never come again, there were things that caught his eyes as if time had slowed.

For example, a person with black hair and black eyes.

The duke frowned slightly at the face he did not particularly want to see.

It was the 7th Prince.

The one who had mocked him in the forest today was quietly watching him from among the people.

If not for what happened today, perhaps Duke Feedus might have made a different choice.

Perhaps the one who had pushed him forward had been him.

‘Yes, in several ways, thanks to the 7th Prince, perhaps I am going comfortably at the end.’

Thinking that he should not resent him, the duke looked at the 7th Prince one last time.

He was gazing at the duke with a strange expression.

He opened his mouth and whispered toward him.

'Not yet.......?’

For a moment, the duke focused on reading the shape of his mouth, and his body plummeted downward out of people’s sight.

He was so disoriented by the resistance against gravity caused by falling at an unbelievable speed that he could not think straight.

Many thoughts rose and faded all at once.

Among them was the thought of the 7th Prince, who had looked at him without any emotion, like the emperor, among the people mixed with all kinds of emotions.

Did he know what would happen today?

‘Could it be that was why he gave me this bag and told me to carry it around all day, so I would fall quickly?’

‘So I would go in one clean shot?’

‘If so, I am truly grateful enough to cry.’

What bothered him most of all was the prince’s final murmur.

Surely….

'Not yet.....'

Not yet......

'You cannot die.'

I think he said I cannot die?

The 7th Prince’s words, which almost seemed like a curse, made doubt raise its head, but the consciousness maintained by the duke’s mental strength lasted only until there.

Because he soon fainted.

At the same time, a faint blue light burst out from the bag he was carrying and wrapped around him.