novelraw Chapter 185: Krafte War - The Victor and the Vanquished (3)
Chapter 185: Krafte War - The Victor and the Vanquished (3)
Episode 185. The Krafte War - The Victor and the Vanquished (3)
Hearing Eris’s answer, Kaiserin Cecilia slowly closed her eyes.
“I see. So that’s how it is.”
Then she slowly opened them—
“……Erisliste Lilianne De Francia.”
She said, her face weary and pathetic.
“……Queen of Francia, Your Majesty.”
“Please speak, Kaiserin Cecilia.”
At Eris’s reply, Cecilia asked slowly.
“As the queen and Saintess of a neighboring country, will you attend my husband’s funeral?”“……As a queen chosen by the people, I cannot give you a ready yes. Still, if I receive permission, I will gladly attend.”
Hearing Eris’s answer, Cecilia was silent for a while before opening her mouth.
“You are cruel.”
“Pardon?”
As Eris blinked, her face uncomprehending, Cecilia gave a faint smile.
“You have triumphed in the end. How pathetic I am for not being able to congratulate you sincerely, and how… you do not even show anger toward me.”
Cecilia stopped, as if about to say something, and reached her hand out to Eris.
“Ah.”
Eris flinched, but Cecilia only gave her a light embrace.
“I will wait, little sister.”
If only she had been someone Cecilia could freely envy and hate.
If she had, Cecilia would have sworn revenge with hatred in her heart and found her driving force.
If only she had left her heart behind when she was abandoned in her homeland.
If she had, she would not have felt sorrow at the death of a husband who had only ever whispered love to secure his own position.
Coming all this way, having shed so much blood.
What detestable affection remained that made her worry for this innocent Saintess, even while wishing she would come for a husband who was long dead and could not even rot?
The pleasure and satisfaction of the moment those who despised her as an empress from Francia first praised her, and the youthful vow to become the greatest empress of all, were all that felt distant.
To an astonished Eris who did not know how to react, her half-sister, who was of a similar age to her mother, whispered as if in prayer.
“Please, do not ever change.”
*
Mittelmark, the capital of the Krafte Kingdom.
The peace treaty was signed, and the surviving soldiers of Krafte returned home.
Their strict discipline and imposing momentum were gone.
Having lost the pride and honor granted in exchange for being raised into the strongest army at the cost of their humanity, they were nothing more than common stragglers.
Wounded, scarred, and weary soldiers returned feebly to the city.
With as many who did not return as those who did, the city was submerged in sorrow.
There were some among them who praised Crown Prince Heinrich for saving Mittelmark and pushing back the Northern Allied Kingdom and the Rebel Army.
But there were no longer any who praised the great king, nor any who looked upon the mighty Krafte Army with pride-filled eyes.
Only families who, despite receiving death notices, could not believe it until they saw it with their own eyes, came out to greet the returning procession, weeping as they searched for sons who would not be there.
Karl II let out a hollow laugh at the sight of the city streets.
It wasn't that he didn't know.
His actions were simply those of a tyrant.
Actions taken not as the King of Krafte, but to be remembered in history as a great and illustrious general.
If even that ended in defeat, he was naturally nothing but an object of blame.
But even if he knew it in his head.
To personally see those who had praised and cheered for him turn to send him cold glares of resentment and distrust.
“How futile.”
Karl II just laughed emptily.
*
Having disbanded the army, Karl II returned to his detached palace.
Arriving at the second floor where he always spent his time, Karl II slowly stepped out onto the balcony where he always looked out.
In the place where he always spent his time, he stood as always, leaning on his command baton with both hands.
With nothing around but a training ground and barracks, the detached palace was utterly desolate.
Always, he had prepared for war here.
Always, he had prepared for a challenge here.
For even when he defeated The Empire, he had considered it an incomplete victory.
Dreaming of a greater, more magnificent victory, he had waited for the challenge of a lifetime.
Never once settling for reality, never once standing still, he stood ramrod straight in this place.
And so, the detached palace, which had no war to prepare for, no challenge to await,
and was now devoid even of the army that had trained itself to the extreme, eroding its humanity for his dream,
was no longer a place for him.
No longer the Great King, Karl II planted his cane, which was no longer a command baton, on the ground and slowly turned his back on the balcony.
And he came face to face with his nephew.
“Do you have any regrets, Your Majesty?”
To Crown Prince Heinrich’s question, Karl II answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“No, We have no regrets.”
Heinrich was silent for a moment, then asked again.
“In that case, have you found your answer, Your Majesty?”
Karl II let out a snort.
When Kaiserin Cecilia began to lead the peace negotiations, he had scoffed.
He thought that a woman who had barely managed to hold together an empire on the brink of collapse after losing a political war was once again doing something unreasonable for political reasons.
He believed there was no way they would agree to peace negotiations in a war they had all but won.
He had seen the feast of steel and blood in the burning streets of Barua.
He had seared into his eyes the blood spilled by Francia, the morale that filled their gazes.
He had seen Marquis Lafayette, who ultimately shattered all the elite troops he had prepared, even the hidden dagger, head-on and handed him defeat.
But the worthy adversary Karl II had acknowledged took the hand of the Kaiserin he hadn't even considered a proper rival, and in the end, signed a peace treaty.
Because of that, The Empire was saved.
The Krafte Kingdom was also saved.
Though he thought he too must fulfill his responsibility for those who had fulfilled theirs to him, as one who had endlessly chased victory and honor, he did not want to accept such an end.
With a perfect and total victory before his eyes, why make such a choice?
After achieving victory against this Karl II, against the strongest army led by humanity’s strongest general, why settle for reality?
So he went to the one who defeated him and sought an answer.
Recalling his conversation with Pierre de Lafayette, Karl II slowly nodded his head.
“Yes.”
He cannot understand Pierre de Lafayette.
He cannot dare to deny that Erisliste Lilianne De Francia is a wise ruler, but he cannot sympathize with her either.
The perfect victory they speak of is the very antithesis of the path he has pursued his entire life.
That is why he has no regrets.
Their path is one he cannot and must not pursue.
And yet, they are the victors, and he is the vanquished.
Therefore.
“We do not regret Our path, but they are right.”
Karl II looked at Heinrich and said slowly.
“Thus, this defeat, this failure, is also Ours. We have fulfilled Our duty, Heinrich.”
Suppressing the desire to die on the battlefield, without taking his own life, he signed the peace treaty and returned home, bearing the full resentment of the people.
By doing so, Heinrich's reign could at least escape from his shadow.
“I know, Your Majesty.”
A moment of silence passed, and this time, Karl II spoke first.
“Wittenfeld, did he pass peacefully?”
Heinrich did not answer.
-You are not even from Krafte. With such ability, why do you serve Us, who have only just been crowned? It may have a foundation, but this country is still just a border territory in the north of The Empire.
-It is the nature of a capable man to have the greed to display his abilities and achieve something, rather than settling for reality. I am the same.
Karl II still remembered vividly those eyes, filled with that greed and ambition.
-With all due respect, I saw that Your Majesty also possesses such qualities and greed. If one wishes to be a protagonist who changes the course of history rather than being swept away by its currents, should one not naturally serve someone like Your Majesty?
-Hahaha, good! Then let us change history together!
Without Wittenfeld, the Krafte Kingdom would not have become a great power comparable to The Empire so quickly.
Some of the technological innovations that made the Krafte Army the strongest were his ideas.
For such a man to have died in a fire in a basement due to an unforeseen accident while carrying out withdrawal operations in an imminently invaded Mittelmark.
He couldn’t have gone peacefully.
Karl II let out a smirk.
“Futile, so futile.”
And yet, that is the one and only life one has.
Karl II slowly leaned on his cane and approached not the throne, but the long table set up for strategy meetings.
He could not reach it.
And yet, he challenged it.
He did not win.
And yet, he fought.
If so, then that was the life he had wanted.
“……I am tired, Heinrich.”
“Rest, Your Majesty.”
Karl II sat in the place where he had spent his entire life discussing wars and battles and holding strategy meetings.
When he closed his eyes, he saw countless soldiers from his entire life, who had discussed strategy with him and crossed battlefields, looking at him.
Karl II smiled in satisfaction and spoke to his soldiers.
Well then, let us begin the meeting.
*
Heinrich slowly approached the table.
Karl II is smiling, no longer breathing.
After a quiet silence, Heinrich slowly removed his hat and paid his respects to his lord.
After looking down at Karl II for a while, Heinrich considered calling a servant, but soon decided against it.
The Great King would not want to be disturbed during a strategy meeting, so it would be best to leave him be for a while.
Heinrich turned his back, leaving the Great King as he was.
A great general, a selfish tyrant, who chased a dream only for himself his entire life, then drowned, embracing that dream.
Regret does not suit him.
A sense of betrayal does not suit him.
-Wittenfeld, did he pass peacefully?
Thus, Heinrich remained silent.
Instead, Heinrich was enraged.
While he was fighting a desperate battle to protect Mittelmark, a fire had broken out in the basement of the capital’s government building.
Everything had burned to a crisp, and only charred corpses, impossible to identify, remained.
Because those who were lucky enough to escape testified that Wittenfeld and his subordinates had been organizing materials in the basement, it was simply assumed that the unfortunate chancellor had burned to death with them.
However.
After winning the battle later, Heinrich, who was the first to visit the scene to mourn the chancellor who had served the royal family for so long, saw it.
The blackened lump of charcoal, collapsed right in front of the iron-barred door, its hand clutching a dagger as if nailed to the floor, and.
The words he had scratched onto the floor with a knife until his last moment.
-Wittenfeld was a demon
The writing was a complete mess.
So much so that one could immediately picture him desperately carving it with the feeling of vomiting blood amidst the immense pain of the burning heat.
Come to think of it, there were many unnatural things.
Despite being the chancellor of a nation, he always approved of the Great King's wars. He supported the militarization of Krafte more than anyone and, in fact, contributed to it in part.
He was an incredibly convenient and genuinely competent man who was a great help to the Great King, but anyone who truly cared for Krafte's domestic affairs should have at least opposed this war.
Many of the stepping stones he found, even the information given to the enemy, were things he could not understand how they were obtained.
All those suspicions were merely covered up by the trust in him as the heroic chancellor of Krafte who had assisted the Great King since the beginning of his reign.
And yet, if he had been a demon from the start.
Then everything makes sense.
Although it was in decline, The Empire, which had maintained a precarious stability, was thrown into great chaos by the rise of Krafte.
Most of the munitions that armed the Krafte army were purchased from Abyss Corporation. It was also Abyss Corporation that profited the most from The Empire’s chaos and Francia’s civil war.
Although he won against The Empire, the Great King, unable to achieve a complete victory due to the limits of his nation’s power, further accelerated his military buildup.
However, even then, the Great King’s war objective was clearly The Empire.
Although the Great King had hoped to turn his arrow toward Francia after The Empire fell, Wittenfeld clearly had a large stake in it.
The suspicion that his country might have been propped up by the demons' needs, by the demons' help, from the very beginning.
There is only circumstantial evidence; this is nothing but a suspicion.
No, it must remain a suspicion.
As the new king of Krafte, Heinrich walked down the corridor of the detached palace with darkly blazing eyes.
Nevertheless, if that is the truth.
When those demons one day pay the price for their evil deeds, the military state created by their arrogance and deception will turn its gun barrels on them.