ââŠIâm not sure if itâs true or not, but thatâs what the rock says.â
This was one heck of a find. Mia massaged her temples in vain to stop the headache that was coming on.
As if to give her one last jab, the slab had one last line of writing on it.
| Forget not this duty, those of my blood. Ensure it remains engraved in memory. We are haters of everything that is. We are avengers, welding chaos and ruins. Forget not this duty, those of my blood, and fight on! Take revenge on the world. |
Mia stared at that last instruction.
Donât tell me about your strange obsessions, you old fossil!
When she learned that her so great-great-how-many-times-great grandfather had felt the need to offload such an absurd mission to his descendants, Mia wondered. Was it in her familyâs nature to be annoying to their children?
Still, as bad as this news was, it helped her put some puzzle pieces together. No matter how hard she tried during the revolution in Tearmoon, nothing went right for her.
She thought the Wind Crows, Sunklandâs best spies, were to blame because they were operating in Tearmoon, but she was wrong. Since the beginning, the empire had been home to agents of the Chaos Serpents who did bad things.
It had actually grown from one of them.
I doubt that every noble knows about the goals of the first emperor and has made it their mission to achieve them, but the empire has been around for a long time, and ideas can gain a lot of strength over time. I now understand why it was so hard to change things back then. Even more so if any of the Four Dukes is working with the Chaos SerpentsâŠ
Her first thought when she heard about this possibility was, âWhat?! How did they get that far up?!â
This new finding, on the other hand, put everything in a new light. It wasnât that the Chaos Serpents had tricked one of the Dukes. The first emperor was the one who fell under their spell, and as generations went by, his initial, burning ambition just faded.
The imperial family had just forgotten the beliefs of its founder.
And good riddance as well. Iâm glad we did. Why should we remember?
It wasnât a good idea. It could do a lot of harm and nothing good.
It would be silly to even think about it for a second. In fact, we might want to act like we never saw this⊠I think a lot of people would make a fuss if they heard about this. Strange rumours canât be stopped once they start to spreadâŠ
The first emperorâs ambition was, to put it bluntly, a huge pain in the rear for regular nobles. They were the ones who benefited from the system, so it makes sense that they would sometimes forget that they were told to change things. It was only natural that, over time, the voluntary part would become less important.
Even my dad probably doesnât know about this. Itâs hard to think of something  less conducive to enjoying the life he currently has now.
ForgottenâŠbut not irrelevant. Even though it was old, this order still had power. A noble on the way down could use this as a way to attack the current system in politics and criticise it.
It would be a huge shock to people who had never questioned their history or culture and took their own sense of right and wrong as a given.
Esmeralda is one person I should never show this to, for exampleâŠ
âW-What in the world⊠Is that you, milady?â
Mia almost lost her balance when she heard a voice behind her. She was thinking so hard that she didnât notice when someone else came into the shrine.
âMiladyâŠâ
Her loyal maid looked at Mia with worried eyes and helped a second person stand up by putting her shoulder under them.
âAnneâŠand Esmeralda? What in the dark moons are you doing here?â
âForget about that. What about the story? Is it true?â
Esmeralda pressed. Mia gave her a quick glance and then clicked her tongue.
Oh no, the last person I wanted to hear about this wasâŠ
Miaâs honest opinion about Alexis was that he and his will should go away.
Even if the story on the stone slab was true and the first emperor did start Tearmoon for the reasons it said, she didnât have to do what it said.
If I blindly do what this crazy ancestor told me to do, Iâll just end up back on the guillotine! Iâm not going to do that!
If there was a contest for the âmost useless thing in the world,â this stone slab would win hands down.
She really wanted to throw it into the water. Then, just to be sure, drop an anchor on it.
Why did it bother her so much? Was it because it might have sneaky effects on her people? It might cost the lives of soldiers in a civil war?
Of course not.
Because she always stood up for the Mia First principle. She wanted to eat candy all day and stay in bed. For her to live this way, she needed a stable empire.
So, she didnât want it to go through a revolution or fall apart.
Before she came along with her deliciously lazy ideas, her ancestorsâ ideas were little more than nonsense.
No, itâs worse than crap! They were dangerous.
The last thing on her mind was why her ancestors had started the empire so long ago.
I donât care about his revenge! To hell with killing people!
Even if someone gave her a brand-new guillotine today, she wouldnât use it to cut off anyoneâs head. She would use it to cut some hard-to-peel fruits open so she could get to the sweet juices inside.
Like guillotine, like empire. It has nothing to do with why something was made. What you do with it is what matters.
There were, of course, people who wouldnât or couldnât understand things like that, and the worst of them was standing right in front of her.
Why did Esmeralda have to come at this moment?
She has the worst luck, I swear.
Mia really knew her âfriend.â
Esmeralda liked to follow the rules of being a noblewoman and what her parents had taught her.
She isnât always as smart as I am. Itâs too easy to get her to do something.
âHow⊠How can this be⊠The first emperor?â Esmeralda whispered as she ran her shaking hand along the carved stone.
âLook, Esmeralda, you donât have to be so serious about this. Itâs all right.â
Mia stopped talking when she realised no one was listening.
âOur great empire was built for this? To follow the orders of the first emperorâŠâ
Oh no, this is not good. I canât get her attention! She is now in her own world.
Mia was scared when she saw Esmeralda and her empty eyes.
Aaah! Sweet moons! She also likes to be in charge a lot. She will give a lot of weight to a message from the first emperor. Iâm definitely at a disadvantage in this situation!
After all, Mia was not the king or queen. She was just a princess. Also, she and Esmeralda were related, and they treated each other with the same respect as, say, distant cousins. When it came to royal weight, the first emperorâs words were much stronger than hers.
Hnnngh⊠If I donât do something, Esmeralda will also turn into a Serpent.
Mia didnât think Esmeralda or the House of Greenmoon had anything to do with the Chaos Serpents at the time.
It had to be another house that took the crazy ideas of the first emperor to heart. I mean, neither my father nor I got any of this from our parents. We are the royal family! Could you stop trying to reach some crazy goal from a few hundred years ago that we donât even care about?
The biggest problem was that the words of the first emperor could turn Esmeralda, who was innocent at the moment, into someone much less innocent.
Mia had to make sure that didnât happen.
After thinking about it for a moment, an idea came to meâŠ
Thatâs it! If my word as a princess isnât enough, Iâll just inflate my status.
In terms of power, she couldnât beat the first emperor, but power wasnât the way to win this battle. If the rules were changed, she would have the upper hand.
âListen, EsmeraldaâŠâ
Mia walked up to her friend and looked her in the eye with a soft smile.
âI know that what the first emperor said means a lot to you. More than my rank will ever do. Because of this, Iâll say this in a different way. Would you be willing to hear what I have to say? As Mia, your best friend, not the princess.â
She knew that the âprincessâ she held was a bad bet when it is against the first emperorâs authority. So she tried a different tactic and approached her as a âfriend.â No, a best friend, to be exact.
Even though Esmeralda said in public all the time that Mia was her best friend, Mia rarely agreed. She was now making it official, though.
âIâm ready to make it official that youâre my best friend, you know? What do you think?â
Even though it was from the first emperor, an order from him still had a lot of weight. There wasnât any doubt about it.
It could be argued, if not proven, that every noble in Tearmoon should hold him in the highest regard and be proud to do what he wants.
When faced with the words of the first emperor, Esmeralda wasnât the only noble to act like she did. Many nobles did the same thing out of loyalty to the throne, taking the first emperorâs words at face value.
âLoyal to the first emperorâ wasnât a special status, to put it simply. In fact, it happened all the time. Even so, âPrincessâs best friendââŠ
That had a nice sound to it.
It was a very rare title, mostly because of problems with logistics. Only one person could hold that title at a time.
Mia might have a hundred people she meets for tea, but she couldnât have that many best friends. There was one title that stood out as better than the other. Miaâs final blow came after she had made it clear how serious her new position was.
âNo matter what the first emperor may have been thinking when he set up the empire, they donât mean much now. Thereâs something much more important.â
âF-Far more important?â
âTo rule over a happy, peaceful people. To live a golden life, that was the golden rule. The best way to make sure that every time someone wants something sweet, they can get it right away. The way to a perfect world where you can roll around in bed all day without getting in trouble for it. That was a good goal for the future. If the Tearmoon Empire was really made for such a bad reason, then the mandate is officially over as of right now.â
She smiled as her voice faded into the walls of the cave.
âSo, Esmeralda, what do you say? Instead of following the first emperor, why donât you follow me? Free yourself from the chains of an ancient oath of fealty to him⊠and make a stronger bond of friendship with me, your best friend,â she said with the kind of smile that slick salesmen and evil businessmen use.
She emphasised the last three words, âyour best friend,â to remind herself that this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make the title official.