187
The Emperor was growing weak.
This was something that had been foreseen from long ago, and it was also something that could not be stopped.
An uncountably vast amount of time had passed since God created the world.
Now that an eternity of time had elapsed, it was unreasonable to claim that His power was still ruling over the world.
To the extent that God’s creations took control of the world, the God who created them gradually weakened.
This was a natural cause-and-effect and providence.
However, the Emperor opposed accepting such providence.
He sought to deny the correlation between the weakening of God’s power and the weakening of his own power.
Furthermore, he believed that the weakening of God’s power itself meant the end of God’s existence.
God does not exist.
The Emperor judged so, and sought to become God himself.
Therefore, war had to happen.
He had to claim victory in the war.
He had to tear down the temple and bring back all the holy relics they possessed.
If so, I will undoubtedly be able to become the God of this world.
The Emperor looked down at his own hands.
Hands made to imitate a middle-aged human.
His memory of what his scales were like, what his true body was like, was now faint.
He was sick and tired of it now.
“Your Majesty?”
At the adjutant’s words calling him, the Emperor scattered his thoughts and raised his gaze.
“The war is bound to happen anyway, so I do not know why on earth they are struggling like that.”
“That……”
At the Emperor’s nonchalant words, the adjutant added:
“I think so as well. However, it is because that fellow, the leader of the Specters, keeps wandering here and there, inciting the people.”
The adjutant spoke while wiping away his cold sweat.
“Claiming that his own body is the harm caused by war, and furthermore, that it is no different from Your Majesty having made him this way……”
“Haa.”
The Emperor let out a sigh and held his forehead.
Jan.
He was one of the test subjects whom the Emperor had favored.
Since he was a fellow who had no trouble receiving the injection of his blood and flesh, at least.
Therefore, he had thought that when time passed, he would undoubtedly be reborn as a new existence, but that fellow betrayed him.
He ran away.
The Emperor thought that although he was the one who was betrayed, he did not know why that fellow was feeling rage toward him.
He shook his head.
“You may ignore him.”
“T-That, but,”
“That fellow’s horrific appearance might be able to capture their attention for the moment. But that is all. What can a mere single person do?”
The Emperor’s words were correct to some extent.
What could a mere single person do?
However, what if it were not a single person?
What if it were a majority?
If so, what would happen?
“Y-Your Majesty!”
Right then, there was someone pounding on the door.
The adjutant said he would teach that rude fellow a lesson right away, but the Emperor stopped him and let the knight who pounded on the door enter.
“What is the matter?”
The reason for daring to pound as if to break down the Emperor’s office would have to be clear.
If not, he would end up compensating with his death.
However, the knight who entered appeared confident.
This was an appearance that revealed this was truly an unavoidable situation.
“P-Please look outside the window.”
“Mm?”
“People are swarming in right now……!”
The Emperor, with a grimace, approached the window at the place the knight was pointing to.
And the moment he looked out the window.
“……Goodness.”
He could feel the back of his neck pulling with heat.
For,
“We oppose the war!”
“If you want to fight that badly, Emperor, go out and fight by yourself!”
“Go by yourself, damn it!”
—it was because dozens of people, led by Daphne, were marching toward the Imperial Palace.
Ah…… that crazy dragon-like person.
***
The reason Daphne was able to lead the people was exceedingly simple.
First of all, Pauline stepped forward and spread the story to the crowd that ‘the nobles are opening relief centers,’ and thereby created an atmosphere where it was fine even if one did not participate in the war.
Several individuals planted by the Emperor said that they nevertheless had to participate in the war, but secondly, with Jan’s appearance, their mouths were also shut.
Right at that moment, Daphne appeared.
In the middle of the plaza, grandly.
And she spoke.
“Do you have two lives?”
These words made the people burst into laughter, but the next words made them keep silence rather than burst into laughter.
“Is that why you do not think of the family members who will be left behind alone?”
Family.
Yes.
Family.
If I were living alone, if there were not a single person I loved in this world and there were only me, then even if I went out to war and died fighting, there would only be a reflection on my own life, and there would be no emotions other than that.
However, most people had families.
They had mothers and fathers, they had brothers and sisters, they had wives and husbands, and they had daughters and sons.
If they were to die leaving them behind, how would it really be?
What thoughts would those left behind come to have?
“For the person who dies, death is easy. If hit once by an arrow or pierced by a sword, one comes to die. The pain will be momentary, and death will come quickly.”
Daphne continued her words.
“However, to those remaining, death is by no means fast. It will take a long time to accept your death, and even if accepted, it will take a long time to forget it, to overcome it. No, they might come to be unable to do so for the rest of their lives.”
The crowd falls quiet.
Hearing Daphne’s sincere words—that is, not lip service that enumerates reasons why a war should not break out, but words genuinely for their sake—they could feel their hearts growing heavy.
“Will you bestow that grief upon your families?”
Daphne was speaking about the lives and grief of the people, not speaking for her own benefit.
“Only those who will bestow such grief, go out to war.”
At that, the people began to scatter rapidly like chicks that saw a kite.
Those remaining among them were those who were moved by Daphne’s words and wanted to babble about the Emperor’s absurdity.
“How can His Majesty the Emperor attempt to send us to a dead end!”
“It is obvious! Is he not trying to place the soldiers in front to make them arrow shields and just watch from behind!”
“Money, money! That damned money!”
Having become in a further heightened state while exchanging the same opinions with one another like that, they soon spoke toward Daphne.
“Lady Daphne! Is there really no way to stop it?”
Daphne smiled brightly while listening to the words of the person Pauline had planted in advance.
“There is. Why would there not be?”
Daphne raised her hand and pointed at the Imperial Palace.
“Let us go.”
And then she spoke.
“To piss off the Emperor.”
***
And, now.
Daphne, standing in front of the main gate of the Imperial Palace together with dozens of people, was clenching her fist tightly and shouting to overthrow the Emperor.
“Denounce the Emperor who drives innocent people to a dead end, denounce him!”
“Explain yourself, tyrant who announces war at will, explain yourself!”
What is that.
Seriously, what is she trying to do?
Do they say one cannot speak when too dumbfounded?
The Emperor was so absurd that he could not bring himself to say anything.
No, does that even make sense in a monarchy?
In this world where even if tens of thousands of lives fly away at a single command of the Emperor, people come to accept it as such, for a thing like that to……
“Since Lady Daphne originally has no common sense.”
Right then, an unfamiliar voice was heard from right behind the Emperor.
The Emperor did not bother to turn his head to look at him.
Because he knew very well who the owner of that unfamiliar voice was.
“Are you saying that Daphne is a senseless fool?”
At that, the owner of the voice, Shio, burst out laughing and answered:
“Ah, not that kind of common sense. That is, she is somewhat lacking in the conventional sense that people normally know. Even now, she simply thought that the war was absurd, and is merely opposing it according to that thought.”
Only then did the Emperor turn his head toward Shio, and lifting his lips, he let out a dry laugh.
“It has been a long time.”
“No, we saw each other a little while ago, didn’t we?”
Shio raised his eyebrows.
“Ah. At that time, you couldn’t look at me properly because you were teasing the warrior. Right?”
“Right now, it seems to me that you are teasing me.”
“Why do you keep doing that to the warrior. Are you coveting his body too?”
“Shiosen. That mouth,”
“How about cutting it out a bit, I wonder.”
Shio looked down at the Emperor with a stern expression he had never shown even once before.
“Hey.”
And then he spoke while putting strength into each and every character.
“Don’t act up while blaming the wrong thing and die; stay quiet for a bit.”
It was a fierce threat of the magnitude one could never have imagined coming from Shio, who was always beaming with a smile.
However, the Emperor—
“Puhahaha!”
—began to clutch his stomach and laugh.
Haha, hahaha!
The Emperor, who laughed for a long time, wiped the tears formed at the corners of his eyes with his finger from laughing too much and said:
“Your temper is the same as ever. I thought you had changed recently, you know?”
