novelraw Chapter 168 : Chapter 168
Chapter 168 : Chapter 168
168
"It is completely in ruins."
The capital surrounding Belmain Royal Castle in my memory had been a place brimming with life.
The former Chairman had once told me that Akarind Academy used to be a world-renowned institution.
That story was not entirely bluster — apparently, just a few decades ago, Akarind Academy truly had been a prestigious school with instructors and a curriculum good enough to lead the world.
But as time passed, they never updated that curriculum, and the instructors grew old or fell ill.
And so Akarind Academy had eventually deteriorated into a backwater, third-rate academy.
In that sense, the capital of the Belmein Kingdom was a perfect mirror of Akarind Academy.
It was the scenery of an old, commonplace city, filled with architectural styles that had been fashionable perhaps a hundred years ago.
By Imperial standards, it had the quaintness of some rural barony, yet even that alone had been a source of pride for the subjects of the Belmein Kingdom.
All of that scenery was now destroyed.
"......"
It felt different from when the Kingdom of Namress had been invaded by monsters.
There, hundreds of thousands of monsters had swarmed in and created chaos.
But here, a single demon had laid waste to everything.
The shock was compounded by the fact that this was a place I knew — a familiar landscape, now in ruins.
Perhaps because of that, the students also looked slightly more dazed than they had during the Namress incident.
"Mom! Mom!"
"......Hyung."
"Where is Grandma? Dad! I can't see Grandma! Huh?"
"Sis! Mom, Mom is......!"
Among the students who had volunteered to come, many were from the Belmein Kingdom.
This had been the most competitive year by far.
And naturally, many of those who had made it through that competition were from the capital.
They would stand before their demolished homes, screaming and searching for their missing families.
The other students silently helped with the menial work at their sides.
They cleared the houses, treated the injured, and rescued people.
"Bring the wounded here!"
The priests dispatched from the Holy Kingdom played a major role.
To be precise, they were people who had come as "volunteers" rather than on an official dispatch — a political distinction.
Since they had come in the wake of the trouble I had caused in the Holy Kingdom, official support was out of the question.
Still, as people carefully selected and sent by the Saintess herself, they had adapted well to Akarind Academy and demonstrated their abilities in many ways.
I surveyed the scene before approaching Lord Murray.
"......Good grief."
The Lord was gazing at the Royal Castle — or rather, the ruins of what had once been the Royal Castle.
The Royal Castle had collapsed more devastatingly than anywhere else.
It was where the Iron Eater had first been engaged, and where vast quantities of iron had been stockpiled.
It would have been stranger if any buildings were still standing.
"I never imagined the destruction would be this severe."
"Have you heard the rumors?"
"Which ones? The ones about how the King, the princes, the knights — everyone who had gathered to crush our little Academy — were wiped out en masse?"
Lord Murray spoke through clenched teeth.
A razor-sharp anger was compressed into his voice.
His expression was, in fact, extremely grim.
"How, how could this......"
"Are you angry? At whom?"
Lord Murray opened and closed his mouth several times, starting and stopping as though trying to form words.
I remembered our first meeting.
Even with his body soaked in alcohol, he had asked whether he might one day return to the Royal Castle, and whether I could teach him the sword so he could.
Before he was a lord, he was a knight.
Even as someone was being sent to replace him, he loved his kingdom, and he had always wanted to prove himself and set the kingdom right again.
So it was possible he resented me — the one who had devised and set all these machinations in motion.
Why did you make them assemble an army?
Why did you make them gather weapons?
Why, of all times?
Why?
"......I truly resent myself."
But he directed his fury at himself rather than at me.
"The King. The pack of sycophants who infested this court. And the fools who only looked out for themselves, never seeing beyond their own little world. I despise them."
He understood well enough.
All of this had happened because a building had been erected on a rotten foundation.
It was a debacle born of a corrupted royal court that could not properly see the demons, or the world.
If, for example, there had been even a single knight in this court who could wield Aura?
'Then they could have dealt with the Iron Eater before it ever grew this powerful.'
Pan and Rozalin had fought the beast even at the enormous size we had encountered it, and neither had lost their sword.
If the creature had still been at its weak, early stage — far from that level of power — a single knight of that caliber could have handled everything.
But the kingdom could not manage even that.
They had no mages, no true ability — only the experience of exterminating ordinary monsters.
"What are we supposed to do now?"
I sighed and looked at the Lord, whose eyes had grown dark and heavy.
"The rumor I was trying to tell you about was something else."
"What, then?"
"There is a surviving royal."
Murray's startled gaze turned to me.
***
The Imperial Prince Leferil had studied at the Imperial Royal Academy.
He had invited Cassian and the students of Akarind Academy under the pretense of an Academic Exchange Conference, only to be humiliated.
The important point was that even a prince enrolled in an academy once they reached the appropriate age.
How much more so for lesser royalty?
"As it happens, among the royals, there was a student of school age."
"You mean Princess Charlotte Belmein?"
Charlotte Belmein — the youngest of the King of Belmein's children.
She had been brilliant from a young age, showing a talent for academics, and had ultimately enrolled at the Imperial Royal Academy.
By my recollection, she had enrolled five years ago, which would make this her graduation year.
"Word is she heard the news and is rushing back. She should arrive soon."
"I see. So not all the royals are dead."
"Well, in the current state of things, the Belmein Kingdom's collapse is essentially a foregone conclusion."
With the royal court this weakened, it was inevitable that the kingdom's key nobles would rise up.
Outright rebellion was not the only concern.
The Belmein Kingdom was harsh terrain.
With monster ecosystems established throughout the kingdom, periodic extermination was necessary.
The royal court held power precisely because of that military capability.
But with that military capability gone, the weaker provincial lords might very well pack up their territories and defect to other nations.
"Do not make me angrier right now. I am trying very hard not to resent you. Just give me the answer first."
"Crown Princess Charlotte as Queen, and you assume the position of Knight Commander immediately."
"......"
To maintain the Belmein Kingdom, they needed to normalize the royal court as quickly as possible.
"But can a princess run the royal court by herself in these conditions?"
"The princess is in her graduation year, correct?"
Which meant something like this was possible.
"She enrolls in graduate school."
And as it happened, that same graduate school was home to a great archmage, as well as the lord who ran Akarind Academy City.
They could discuss affairs of state and exchange all manner of opinions.
Furthermore, as a graduate student, she would naturally increase her interactions with student teaching assistants, and in the process could directly commission students as knights.
"She could also issue monster extermination requests to students under the authority of the Crown."
"......Good lord, are you actually a demon?"
"Pardon? Is it not a rather good plan?"
"It is a good plan, yes, but one person's entire life is being thrown into a pit for the sake of it. Graduate school, of all things."
"Oh, come now. You are learning from me as well, my Lord, but I am not that wicked of an advisor, am I?"
Lord Murray stared at me in silence for a long moment.
Hmm?
Excuse me, looking at me wordlessly at a time like this is a bit......
"If you ever develop a grievance against me, you must — you absolutely must — tell me."
"What?"
"You are a terrifying man. No, I already knew that, but now I know it even better. Truly, truly terrifying."
"Ha ha, surely not, that cannot be right."
"Truly, truly, unbelievably terrifying. Honestly......"
I spent some time playing a game of tag with Lord Murray as he tried to flee from me.
Why? What for?
***
Three days passed.
Princess Charlotte Belmein — the sole surviving royal of the Belmein Kingdom — arrived at what had been the Belmein Kingdom's capital.
And after hearing our entire plan, she asked in return.
"The world is already finished. It is garbage. Now that demons have started appearing, humanity has no future. So what is the point of all this talk about power in some third-rate kingdom? Let us just let it collapse."
The look in her eyes was sincere.
Where on earth did this nihilist come from, calling herself a princess......?