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Unlike before, the Imperial Palace was now crowded with many officials wandering around. Only a few people recognized Juan’s face; most of them were hired by Hela and Nienna.
“Hey, you. Come here for a second.”
Juan, who was on his way to visit Hela to talk about the current status of the reconstruction, was stopped by a sudden call. Juan had never seen the man who was beckoning to him from across the corridor, but he looked like a noble considering his fairly big size and expensive-looking clothing.
Juan pointed his finger at himself.
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Damn it… I can’t believe that none of the officials know where His Majesty is. It’s already been a couple of days since the incident occurred but it’s just ridiculous that a system hasn’t been set up yet.”
The person who felt the current situation to be most ridiculous was none other than Juan, but he decided to approach the man. The man grumbled and complained upon seeing Juan’s leisurely pace.
“Look. I’m Baron Molo of the Mandane family. My ancestor owned a large portion of the land in the surroundings of Torra. He offered one thousand horses to His Majesty and was then given his title as a noble. So you’d better be polite or…”
The man couldn’t finish his sentence as he looked at the approaching Juan. The man was quite surprised upon realizing that Juan was taller than he thought, but still didn’t seem to think that Juan was the emperor.
“One thousand horses, huh? That’s quite amazing. What’s the descendant of such a great guy doing here right now?” Juan asked.
“I’m on my way back from meeting Duke Henna. She won’t allow me to meet His Majesty no matter how much I ask… Damn it! She should give me at least one chance to meet His Majesty; it’s already been a few days since he entered the Imperial Palace… that way, we can save our own faces and His Majesty could also give us the support we… wait, why am I even explaining this to you?”
The man seemed to have a big mouth and was quite careless. Juan looked down at his own body, wondering if he looked so far apart from the emperor. He certainly looked very different from the ‘Portrait of His Majesty’ taught about by the Church. He wasn’t wearing a crown, was smaller in size compared to what the portrait showed, was wearing plain clothing, and had long black hair.
Above all, Juan had never made a public appearance except for the day when he first entered Torra. It was because there was a lot of more urgent work that needed to be taken care of. Thanks to this, the rumors about the appearance of the returned emperor were not much different from before his entry to Torra.
“Anyway. You must be a servant of Duke Henna or something, seeing that you have black hair. Shit, talk about women’s tastes… but I guess that’s not important. Do you know where His Majesty is? I don’t want to be rude and visit him out of nowhere, so I’d like you to deliver a message for me. I’ll give you this if you’re obedient.”
Molo held out a gold piece toward Juan.
Seeing this, Juan didn’t refuse, and instead willingly accepted the gold piece.
“I do know where His Majesty is.”
“I understand that you speak the way you do because you came from beyond the boundary. But you’d better change your tone if you intend to continue living in Torra. There aren’t many nobles who are as generous as me.”
“You’re actually the first person to point out my tone in Torra. Anyway, what message do you want me to deliver?” Juan asked.
Molo seemed to pause and think for a while before opening his mouth.
“Tell His Majesty that I wish to have a direct meeting with him because it is difficult for me to accept the rude and ridiculous demands of Duke Henna. Wait, no, no. Maybe it’s better to say that even the nobles who agreed to cooperate seem to be protesting against Duke Henna’s coercive attitude, so His Majesty’s intervention is requested.”
“That’s too long.”
“Jeez, talk about someone who is uneducated.”
“One of the people who taught me was a bit fucked up, so maybe that has had some effect on me,” Juan shrugged.
“Fuck… whatever. Long story short, just tell him that the nobles ask for a meeting due to Duke Henna’s unreasonable demands. That’s the message. If you deliver this message properly, I’ll give you two more gold pieces later.”
Juan held out his hand.
“I will, so just give it to me now.”
Molo glared at Juan and growled, but eventually took two more gold pieces out of his pocket and handed them over to Juan.
There was absolutely no reason for Juan to be greedy about such a small amount of money, but this situation was quite funny to him.
Juan grinned and looked at Molo.
“Don’t worry about the message being delivered. But what has Duke Henna done to anger all the nobles?”
Molo began to talk as soon as Juan asked, almost as if he had been waiting for that question all along.
“Oh my goodness. That bitch, no. That duke is being ridiculous under His Majesty’s name. She keeps asking for a huge amount of money saying that it’s for the reconstruction of Torra, but there’s no way the nobles can accept that kind of a ridiculous request. Who knows if Duke Henna will really use all of it for reconstruction? She might take advantage of the confusing times to steal all that money and run away to the East.”
“Hmm. Fair enough.”
“Wait, wait. Tell His Majesty that we are more than willing to hand over the money if His Majesty really needs it. We are also people of the empire, so of course we will do what we can. But um… don’t you think we have some face to save? We are nobles and hold high status within the empire. But we haven’t even seen His Majesty’s face yet. If we are ready to sacrifice this much for His Majesty’s sake, His Majesty should also give us some face.”
Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Of course, we understand that His Majesty is very busy because he is dealing with the postwar situation. But isn’t that what politics and governance are all about? Just look at how things are now. Even the internal system is so messed up that… oh, don’t deliver this message, by the way.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll forget about it anyway,” Juan grinned and held out his hand.
Molo gritted his teeth and glared at Juan, but soon grabbed out another gold piece from his pocket again.
***
Hela greeted Juan with only her eyes from her seat when she saw him entering the room. Juan had been in and out of Hela’s office quite often now and had allowed her to omit unnecessary greetings.
However, this time Juan pretended to frown and scolded Hela.
“How dare you? His Majesty is here and you’re not even going to stand up? We’ve got quite a messed up system here.”
Hela had a dumbfounded expression on her face and asked a question instead of standing up.
“Your Majesty, did you eat something poisoned by any chance? I understand that you are eating the same food that the patients are eating. If you say something ridiculous like that, we might have to examine the entire food storage. So please tell me that you didn’t eat anything wrong.”
“I can’t even make a joke, huh? Anyway, I just met a hilarious guy on my way here.”
Hela took a glance at Juan upon hearing his joyful response. Juan rarely made such an expression unless he was in a really good mood. Hela soon recalled the man who had just left her room, causing her face to become distorted.
“Did you come across Baron Molo? He was badgering me to let him talk to Your Majesty, but it seems like he eventually got what he wanted. It’s okay to just ignore him. He is weak anyway. The other nobles are just encouraging him from the back to avoid all the consequences, but he doesn’t understand that. He thinks he’s so powerful because of that, but he…”
Hela stopped talking and suddenly raised her head. Her eyes were full of frustration.
“Did you kill him?”
“Even you think of me as just a ruthless killer? I did consider killing him for a second, but eventually, I let him go. I wanted to make a judgment after listening to your side of the story. Well, it is true that I met Molo, but Molo doesn’t know that he already met ‘His Majesty’. Anyway, he told me that you’re asking for too much.”
“Asking for too much? Hah,” Hela’s expression distorted once again as she continued to speak.
“I was working on the reconstruction of Torra, but I found out that there weren't enough resources, food, or medicine. So I looked into the cause—it turned out that the nobles had stockpiled huge amounts of goods outside Torra because of the rumors that Torra would soon turn into a battlefield. When everything ended without a battle, they began to resell everything in small quantities little by little with crazy high prices.”
“Ah. There are still people like that, huh?”
“All I told them was to immediately resell the items they bought at the right market price before I send the soldiers to take everything away. Then they began to badger me to allow them to meet Your Majesty.”
“Why didn’t you let them meet me?”
“Because I don’t know what would happen if I did. Who knows how Your Majesty would trample on the bugs that are stockpiling during wartime? But the problem is them stockpiling. There aren’t that many nobles who are stockpiling. Their real purpose is to meet Your Majesty.”
Juan immediately noticed the nobles’ intentions.
“Ah. They want to establish their positions by meeting me in person. They want to give up a large portion of their property and ask me to recognize their existing property and authority in return… something like that, right?”
“That’s exactly right. Those who used to live luxurious lives under the rule of the Church want to live the same way even if their ruler changes.”
“With the lives of the citizens as the collateral,” Juan grinned.
Hela frowned and looked at Juan’s smile with worried eyes.
“But you shouldn’t kill them.”
“I don’t have to kill them with my own hands. If I just tell Anya about what’s happening, she will…”
“You can leave it alone and I can solve it in my own way. The urgent issues can be solved by sending the military to seize the stockpiles the nobles bought, and the rest will be taken care of on its own when the economy in Torra, which has ground to a halt due to the war, goes back to normal. The merchants will come back to Torra when it becomes publicly known that the war is over.”
“No, no,” Juan shook his head. “Why on earth are you trying to take care of things so peacefully? There are too many nobles right now. They cooperated with the Church and froze the economy just to cause harm to the empire. The number they killed is probably no less than the number of people killed by the Church.”
“But Your Majesty, most of them are large landowners. If we are planning to seek their cooperation in the reconstruction, we…”
“Hela. I’m pretty disappointed right now. Most of the people I should’ve killed ended up running away, so all those that are left are trivial losers. I am seething with rage. Did you think I came here either for power or to rescue the poor people of the empire? No. I came here to punish the guilty bastards.”
“...I still don’t think the nobles committed a crime they need to die for.”
“Go and tell the nobles.”
Juan said with a cold smile.
“I’m willing to accept their request for a meeting.”
***
The atmosphere of the House of Peers meeting was cold.
It was the first meeting that was going to be held since the emperor had entered the Imperial Palace. Fortunately, the building housing the House of Peers itself was not damaged by Telgramm. But the sight of the vacant seats here and there made the remaining nobles shudder.
Among them, the highest number of vacant seats belonged to the meritorious faction, and it included Heretia’s seat.
Most of the people at the meeting were those who had to run away outside of Torra to avoid the war. They had run away even before the treason against the Pope was conducted, but these nobles were as sensitive as the rats inside the ship when it came to their ability to take care of themselves at dangerous times.
None of them truly wished to return to Torra, which had not yet been restored, but they came to fill their seats when they heard that they would be able to see the emperor.
“I understand that the Helwin family isn’t here. But apart from that, why didn’t the Ilde family come to the meeting?”
The nobles looked over the empty seats to check who had died or fled. Rumors about Heretia Helwin losing her legs to Telgramm were already widespread. However, when Imil Ilde also did not show up to the meeting, the only remaining person who could represent the nobles of the House of Peers was Rhymer.
“The Ilde family is part of the religious faction. They must be somewhat responsible for what happened,” Rhymer replied without much concern.
As Rhymer said, there were quite a few among the religious faction who did not attend the meeting even when they were given the opportunity to meet the emperor. This was because they were afraid of being branded as traitors, since the Pope confronted the returning emperor until the very end.
“I heard His Majesty was quite merciful. It is said that there are less than ten thousand victims of the battle.”
“It is true that the number is small considering that it is a consequence of overturning the empire. But the number itself isn’t small at all. Besides, you should look at what happened to the knight orders. Didn’t you see what happened to the Order of the Black Lotus and the Order of the White Lotus? That’s so much worse than just dying.”
“That’s true, but… but this is His Majesty we are talking about.”
Most of the nobles wanted an emperor who was benevolent and compassionate in the hopes that perhaps they could live a stable life under a generous ruler rather than a violent monarch.
There were a few incidents that went against their expectations, but they still believed the returned emperor to be generous just like the emperor they once knew.
“I guess we will have to wait and see. But it’s a relief that we were given a chance to meet His Majesty in a meeting like this.”
“It’s all thanks to me,” Molo shrugged and smiled.
Rhymer nodded with a bitter smile. He did urge Molo to badger Duke Henna, but he didn’t actually expect a meeting with the emperor to take place. Rhymer had also secretly shown his intention to meet His Majesty several times through Hela and Nienna, but he was given no response.
‘But I didn’t think that out of everyone, Molo would succeed in arranging a meeting.’
“Baron Molo has made a great contribution. His Majesty will be able to gain loyal subjects and strong support from this incident. It is certainly worth saying that Baron Molo is the number one contributor.”
Molo smiled widely upon hearing Rhymer’s words. He used to be and still was such a simple man. Rhymer allowed Molo to have a seat next to his own today, but Molo wasn’t a useful enough man to keep by his side in the long run.
At that moment, Hela Henna entered the House of Peers. Hela quietly glanced around the nobles and declared in a calm voice.
“His Majesty is entering. Everyone, please stand up.”
The nobles all stood up at once and looked at the entrance to the House of Peers.
Soon the door opened, and Juan walked into the House of Peers. The nobles were surprised by Juan’s young appearance, but soon humbly bowed their heads.
At that moment, Rhymer frowned upon seeing Molo standing there with a dumb look on his face without bowing his head. It had been a long time since imperial etiquette became nominal, so not a lot of people knew of it. Yet Molo’s attitude was still overly ignorant.
“Hey, Molo. What do you think you’re…”
Then Rhymer noticed that Molo’s eyes were wide open to the extent of bulging out.
Juan looked around at the nobles and soon made eye contact with Molo. Juan lifted the corners of his lips.
“Ah, there’s the guy. Your message has been well delivered, so don’t worry.”