NOVPUB#124
“The previous Emperor was an incompetent human being.”
With these irreverent words, Margrave Kassel’s tale of the past began.
“That man was bewitched by the magic nobles’ sweet talk and branded Count Gloucester, who was a loyal subject, as a traitor.”
“……”
“Even Korhonen, who protected the North, was pushed out of central power and had no choice but to shut himself in his own territory.”
The magic noble’s First Seat Buckenheim and Second Seat Nachtval.
It was a dark period when these two noble families, seated on either side of the previous Emperor, were eating away at the Empire.
During those gloomy times, three people first met.
The second son of Gloucester, Kalkas Gloucester.
The first son of Korhonen, Kassel Korhonen.
And the third prince of the Kalhyram Empire, Friedrich Franz Kalhyram.
Two sons of fallen noble families and a wandering prince from the frontier.
The three who met at the Imperial Youth Military Academy became friends through countless battles against monsters.
“We fought often. We would debate imperial policies in the trenches and discuss the Empire’s future sitting around in shabby tents.”
And when one side would get pushed too far, they’d immediately start throwing punches.
Though the Margrave laughed while saying this, I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh along or not.
“And on the day we took off our uniforms and returned to our positions, we made a vow.”
To change this rotten Empire from their respective positions.
And those who shared that vow continued to grow stronger and stronger.
“Franz, who outmaneuvered the incompetent princes, ascended to the throne while outwardly playing the fool who was supported by the magic nobles, while Kalkas and I inherited our predecessors’ imprints and prospered our respective territories.”
Korhonen restored the crumbling Great Wall, establishing an absolute defense line against monster invasions.
Gloucester rebuilt his fallen house together with his territory’s people, establishing a massive force that controlled the entire frontier’s contaminated regions.
“And Franz began sharpening his blade to directly confront the magic nobles.”
Those who held grudges against the magic nobles.
Those who opposed the magic nobles’ rule.
The descendants of houses that were annihilated after falling for their schemes.
The Emperor who gathered them all created two weapons to pressure the magic nobles.
The Imperial Intelligence Department.
And the Imperial Guard Knight Order.
“Franz expanded his influence by eliminating all enemies before him. Kalkas and I too were preparing for the Empire’s transformation while waiting for the right time.”
“Then, what about Maximilien…?”
“He was the son of Andrei, the knight the Emperor trusted most. And at the same time… he was the finest talent we had nurtured.”
After taking a brief breath, the Margrave continued speaking.
“A genius who possessed the greatest qualities of his generation from birth, surpassing his father’s strength even before his coming-of-age ceremony.”
“……”
“Despite that, he remained humble and sympathized with our will… He was truly an upright child.”
Just like you, Eugene.
At the Margrave’s words, I quietly averted my gaze.
It’s nice that you have expectations, but I’m not that kind of person.
“Maximilien. That child was a friend who grew up watching our backs.”
The Count raised his gaze upward and closed his eyes as if reminiscing about those times as he spoke.
“He admired our values of reforming the rotten Empire, and hoped his talents and strength would be used in the right place to change the Empire… He was a young man who held such hopes.”
That’s why they gave Maximilien one of the five magic imprints stored in the Imperial Archives.
[Wings of Crimson.]
And they planned to select the many talented individuals gathering around them to grant them the remaining imprints and create derivative imprints.
“If we had succeeded, we really could have reformed the Empire.”
The seven stroke imprint of Gloucester and Korhonen, and the five imprints stored in the Imperial Archives.
If they could utilize all of these to nurture talents, the Emperor’s faction would gain military power rivaling the magic nobles.
A plan they poured their hearts and souls into.
A blueprint to change the Empire.
However, that rosy plan was never realized.
Why?
The answer soon flowed from the Margrave’s lips as his expression hardened.
“However, we failed.”
“……”
“We couldn’t change the Empire, and Maximilien… we couldn’t protect that child’s happiness.”
Couldn’t protect?
When I made a puzzled expression, Count Kassel, after thinking for a moment, said.
“Maximilien had a wife.”
“……”
“Beatrice. A radiant child like the morning sun who would greet us with a bright face whenever we visited the Leonhardt mansion.”
As he spoke, the Count slowly opened his palm.
“Franz gifted her the dress she would wear to her wedding.”
The scenery reflected in his eyes seemed to be viewing that radiant scene from back then.
“I gifted the flower that Maximilien would pin to her chest.”
“……”
“That fool Kalkas kept teasing Andrei and making jokes, and though Andrei was embarrassed, he couldn’t hide his smile. We argued for a long time about what to name their first grandchild, what wallpaper to put in their house, and what alcohol to buy them.”
A gentle smile bloomed on the Margrave’s face as if he had returned to that time.
“Ah, yes. That was truly…”
“……”
“Truly, a joyful time.”
But that lasted only briefly.
When Margrave Kassel opened his eyes, as if waking from a fantasy, he looked at his own hands.
Instead of the clean, unscarred hands from back then, what was before him now were old hands ravaged by illness.
With his smile gone and an expression sunk in regret, Count Kassel slowly clenched his fist and spoke.
“We declared it was the Republic’s assassins.”
“……”
A disjointed statement.
But I could easily grasp its meaning.
“The magical power reaction that clearly belonged to House Nachtval, the assassin’s personal information after death, and even the interrogation results… Everything pointed to the magic nobles’ doing.”
Even though we knew… we couldn’t punish them.
Looking at the Count’s face as he said this, I slowly opened my mouth.
“It was because of the war with the Republic.”
“That’s right.”
The Republic, stirring to swallow the Empire whole.
With their advanced technology and weaponized monsters at the forefront, they ruthlessly violated Imperial territory in an unstoppable advance, and the Empire needed excellent mages to stop them.
However, magic imprints, which could be called the heart of mages, were monopolized by the magic nobles.
Even if they tried to utilize the five magic imprints from the Imperial Archives, most of the imprint specialists needed to create lower magic imprints were in the magic nobles’ grasp.
“The Empire is a nation of knights. We tried to overturn that value by nurturing the Imperial Guard Knight Order, but…”
“The Republic wouldn’t wait for the Imperial Guard Knight Order to grow, would they?”
Hearing my words, Margrave Kassel explained what happened then with a dejected expression.
The one who ordered Beatrice’s assassination was the current Duke Buckenheim.
However, if they tried to charge and punish him for murder, he threatened to withdraw the Knight Order that was on the frontlines.
Gloucester, whose system wasn’t fully established, and Korhonen, who was focused on northern defense, couldn’t provide much help to the Emperor who was backed into a corner.
“In the end, Franz… had no choice but to make a decision.”
It was a story that made me crave a cigarette.
Resolving the injustice of one cherished subordinate versus driving countless Imperial soldiers to their deaths.
A cruel binary choice with no escape was thrust before him.
And in the end, the Emperor…
Had no choice but to turn a blind eye to Beatrice’s death. 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙥𝙪𝙗.𝒄𝙤𝙢
“The series of assassinations were the work of Republic spies, and the perpetrators have all been subdued. Franz ended the incident with those words.”
“……”
“We surrendered to our enemies and… shattered the faith of the boy who had grown up admiring us.”
After that incident, they said Maximilien began to change.
He started spending more time shut in his room, mumbling to himself.
He burned Republic forces like a demon, spending each day without speaking to anyone.
The only person Maximilien would meet was a single person.
Only Randall Dean Clark, a defector from the Republic.
“When that long and tedious war finally ended, Maximilien had become a different person.”
“……”
“The upright and dignified knight who championed honor and faith was gone, replaced by someone who acted like a jester, constantly smiling and engaging in eccentric behavior.”
He lived drowning in alcohol and drugs while ignoring his knights’ advice, and frequently associated with non-noble individuals while distancing himself from the Imperial family.
He didn’t hesitate to contact dangerous individuals – ideological criminals, political criminals, anti-establishment criminals.
“Originally, Franz and Andrei should have reined him in, but…”
“They wouldn’t have had the leisure to do so.”
The magic nobles, whose influence had grown after the war, constantly pressured the Emperor, and the Emperor’s authority was diminishing day by day.
The tragedy of losing his beloved and their unborn child.
Maximilien, who kept dwelling on this, finally took action.
“Maximilien raided the Imperial Archives and stole the five magic imprints stored there.”
“……”
“After stealing the imprints, Maximilien created an organization called the Revolutionary Army.”
Hiding his noble origins, he gathered non-noble mages and began hunting magic nobles.
“And when His Majesty saw this…”
“He gave up everything and shut himself in the archives.”
The Imperial Guard Knight Order, dissolved into nothing but an empty shell.
Failed reforms and expanding magic nobles.
His friends who hadn’t matured enough.
And decisively, the guilt of betraying the expectations of the boy who had admired him and ruining everything.
The Emperor, who had been called the Iron-Blooded Monarch, was completely broken.
“……”
Click.
In the moment of awkward silence.
The Count, who dispelled the atmosphere with a quiet clap, spoke with a bitter smile.
“That’s all for the old stories. This old man’s ramblings went on longer than expected.”
“No. It was… quite interesting.”
It truly was.
The past of major figures I hadn’t heard in the original work.
The tragedy that occurred before the game began, and the catalyst for the Emperor’s downfall.
All of it had been revealed through Kassel’s story.
‘And the story that unfolds after this is… the original story of [Revolution Empire].’
The Emperor who collapsed under the pressure and quietly waited for his predetermined death.
And he was killed by Maximilien, whom he had personally nurtured.
By the hands of the dream-filled boy who had admired him and betrayed him.
That tragedy was the beginning of the original story.
The trailer of [Revolution Empire].
“Huu…”
With a faint sigh, I looked at the imprint engraved on my right hand.
‘Now I understand everything that happened.’
Why the Revolutionary Army didn’t reject the Republic’s help.
Why the revolutionary government in the original work so easily became the Republic’s puppet.
Why they could so easily abandon the protagonist who tried to change the Empire.
It was simple.
The Revolutionary Army organization he created wasn’t made up of people who wanted to change the Empire.
Revenge against the magic nobles.
It was Maximilien’s spectre, created solely for that purpose.
‘That’s why they didn’t think about the world after overthrowing the magic nobles.’
Their ideology and thoughts about changing the Empire were just empty echoes, temporary measures to gather public support.
What they truly wanted was simply revenge against the hateful magic nobles.
Only to burn their enemies.
An organization that exists through hatred loses its way the moment the object of that hatred disappears.
Their original ideals disappear, and they wander searching for the next target to burn their unspent rage.
And what approaches them is the true evil watching from the shadows.
The great evil of the Republic, waving its black hand toward them.
The revolutionary government that became the Republic’s puppet, intoxicated by the gold and power they brought.
The exploited Imperial citizens, and the Emperor’s vanished prophecy.
And the destruction that visits them.
“Now that you’ve heard this entire story, I’ll ask you the question I’ve prepared, Brigadier General Eugene Lorentz.”
As I was mulling over the Margrave’s story, the Margrave who looked at me slowly opened his mouth.
“You are the blade we couldn’t fully nurture, the one to change the Empire.”
“……”
“Therefore, we pray that you won’t follow the same path as Maximilien.”
After taking a brief breath, the Count asked me.
“So I ask you.”
“……”
“What do you seek to achieve by taking this Empire into your hands?”
It wasn’t a question I could answer carelessly.
Words I couldn’t rashly promise or be confident about.
But I steadied my heart and slowly answered him.
One minute, five minutes, twenty minutes.
By the time the tea in the cup before me had gone cold, I finished my answer and silently met the Count’s eyes.
A momentary.
But at the same time, a long silence.
“If that is your answer, then I too must give you something befitting it.”
Only after swallowing that silence did Margrave Kassel open his mouth toward me.
“About what your imprint, [Wings of Crimson], contains.”
