Chapter 77

The silhouette rising from the western mountain became increasingly closer.

Rudi looked up at the sky, tears streaming from his green eyes.

“I knew you were alive.”

Emperor Jeilliris flew through the sky, her platinum hair fluttering in a black dress.

Beside her, Valenciaunos, dressed in a tattered coat, was gleaming with vertically slit golden eyes like a reptile.

“You… defeated the dragon?”

Duke Sigmaine murmured in a voice filled with confusion and disbelief.

At that moment, he sensed his defeat.

He had called the Emperor into the magical realms and deliberately pitted her against corrupted mercenaries to induce an interesting battle, all while drawing his sword to suppress his true feelings.

He had spent enormous sums over the past year preparing the sealing stone to bind the Emperor’s magic, the magic of the Great Mage, and even used a dragon in the magical realms.

Given these circumstances, he had no chance of defeating the Emperor.

“Duke, your expression says you have much to say.”

Jeilliris landed among the evergreens after soaring through the blue sky.

“The magical realms and the dragon were not easy opponents. However, I have returned and stand before you.”

Sigmaine reflexively took half a step back.

Valenciaunos let go of the Emperor’s hand and spoke.

“Your Majesty, it has been an honor.”

“You are the first to hold my hand since my ascension.”

“Should I capture that traitor and subdue him?”

“Yes. Duke, bring the traitor Sigmaine before me. The charge is attempted assassination of the Emperor.”

Though he wore only a black coat where his proud white uniform had been, he still exuded his characteristic sense of pressure.

The shine and madness of his vertically slit golden pupils seemed even more intense.

Valenciaunos drew his broken sword, pushing off the ground and charging forward.

“Criminal Sigmaine, you are to appear before the Emperor upon receiving the imperial decree!”

Sigmaine instinctively drew his sword in resistance.

He was a strong opponent, incomparable to the newly colored Valenciaunos wielding the mana blade.

There was no way he could be defeated by a broken sword.

Thus, when Valenciaunos threw the broken sword at him, he surprisingly managed to deflect it without becoming flustered.

“What filthy behavior! How did you come out of the magical realms?”

Upon hearing the question, Valenciaunos laughed cruelly.

Throwing the sword was merely to buy a moment’s time.

Before long, a faint golden heat haze flickered in front of his hands and face.

The haze formed the shape of a dragon’s head, and Valenciaunos signaled with a gesture.

Snap!

“Dragon… language?”

Whoosh!

The dragon’s head breathed flames.

Though the armor worn by the Duke was of the highest quality, nullifying all magic below the 5th circle, the incantation was a power beyond the constraints of circles.

“AAAH!”

Surrounded by flames, Sigmaine screamed in agony.

Valenciaunos strode forward and seized the Duke’s nape, snatching his sword and withdrawing the flames.

Seeing the burning Duke handled so casually with bare hands, Rudi and Tenitia widened their eyes, while Sererassie clenched her teeth.

Withdrawing the flames and maintaining them in the air felt so natural.

It was certainly akin to scattering lightning.

“How can this be!”

The Duke tried to shake off Valenciaunos’ hand with his mana-enhanced physique.

However, Valenciaunos’ forearm remained immovable.

Instead, he pressed down on the Duke’s strength head-on.

The Duke drew a dagger and stabbed it into Valenciaunos’ side.

The light brown mana blade ignited sharply.

Yet, Valenciaunos showed no sign of flinching, silently absorbing the blow.

Clatter, clatter!

Dark-red scales glowing with a golden sheen rose up like armor, blocking the dagger.

It had cracked but was not breached.

The Duke stared at Valenciaunos in disbelief.

“Dragon?”

Valenciaunos let out a slight laugh as he dragged the Duke and made him kneel before Jeilliris.

The Emperor created a stone throne from the ground and sat down.

“Do you have any questions or things you wish to say?”

Sigmaine couldn’t grasp the situation.

Everything he had hoped for was about to come to fruition.

The Emperor was supposed to die, he would possess the claim to the throne, and his sister was about to return.

However, the Emperor was not dead, the claim to the throne was beyond his grasp, and the revival of his sister was now a distant memory.

“How… did you defeat the dragon?”

“It was not a great dragon but a lesser dragon. If it weren’t for the magic seal, I could have managed it alone.”

“How did you close the magical realms?”

Jeilliris clicked her tongue lightly, as if she had much to say.

“Due to vast thunderclouds, it was difficult to strike at the core. At that moment, a certain magician outside pulled all the thunder away. Thanks to that, I was able to burn with the flames of Duke Valencia and my own aura. It was just moments away from your plan succeeding; how unfortunate.”

The Duke’s jaw dropped.

The Emperor’s gaze turned toward Sererassie.

Sererassie smiled, her gold and silver shifting playfully.

That was her way of taking responsibility for her bloodline.

The Emperor spoke.

“It seems it is now my turn to ask. Why did you rebel? Did you wish to become Emperor? Or perhaps to become the king of an independent nation? Did I order you to send a hostage? Or raise taxes? You should not have done anything to earn the ire of nobles like yourself…”

Trailing off, she smiled sadistically.

“Why do you induce your family’s downfall?”

The Duke tightly closed his turquoise eyes and spoke.

“Sigmaine.”

“Huh?”

“You still do not remember.”

“Was she your sister?”

Jeilliris’ face contorted as she spoke.

There was a deep resentment in her voice.

“I remember. Brown hair with turquoise eyes. A sadistic woman. She would come down every day, insisting I try this drug or that. It was pure chaos.”

Flames of rage ignited in Sigmaine’s eyes.

“Do not insult my sister! She was not such a person!”

“Indeed.”

Jeilliris coldly interrupted.

“The Sigmaine I know was that kind of person. Consider yourself fortunate that I delivered her a swift death.”

Sigmaine showed a disbelieving expression.

He seemed to age ten years in an instant.

“Have you awakened from your vain dream?”

The Emperor declared coldly.

“Now see what kind of atrocities you have committed against your own family. Tell me why I should not burn your territory to the ground. I will show you what the end of one who has incurred the Emperor’s wrath ought to be.”

Jeilliris cruelly laughed at Sigmaine, who appeared horrified.

“…I had originally intended to do that, but Duke Valencia wept and pleaded. So, all sins will end with you. Be sure to shed tears of gratitude for the mercy of the Emperor and the Duke.”

Sigmaine closed his eyes tightly and bowed his head.

It was a great mercy to have preserved his family.

Jeilliris handed the sword “Yurigeor” to Valenciaunos.

Valenciaunos received the familiar sword with a look of reverence.

He had often wielded it as the Emperor’s executioner, standing in for the Emperor.

It was, after all, the role of the one called a “bandit.”

It felt as if only a few months had passed.

Valenciaunos raised the translucent sword high into the sky.

Swish!

Sigmaine’s head rolled on the ground.

* * *

The territory of Duke Purioaito was a kingdom with nearly 200,000 city inhabitants.

Having killed the king of such a place, the aftermath could only be overwhelming.

However, Jeilliris quickly managed the administrative officials, utilizing her unique charisma and assurance that she would not dismantle the Duke’s territory.

“I remain not for revenge, but to govern.”

She sent home the knights and vassals who responded to the summons, lifted the conscription order, and sent termination letters to the mercenaries and free knights.

A few resisted, but once Tenitia took action, it quieted down before long.

After all, rebellion was something one could only engage in while alive.

“Collect all the leftover mushrooms. Just don’t go too low; there could be another dragon around.”

“The castle is too vast. Please refrain from such jokes.”

Sererassie was headed to the now-closed magical realms with Herain and the court sorcerers of the Duke’s territory to harvest reagents.

They had to gather the blue mushrooms before they lost their effectiveness.

“Herain, do you need more?”

Herain bowed his head like a devotee welcoming a saint before Sererassie.

“Faster! Look at how slow you are!”

She scolded her disciples and students mercilessly.

She was on the verge of scraping up every mycelium.

Rudi had received treatment directly from the Emperor and fainted momentarily from gratitude.

She meditated for an hour or two each day and spent all her other time by Valenciaunos’ side.

Valenciaunos had collapsed, vomiting blood as soon as he returned to the Duke’s territory.

He had not risen from bed for even a second in the week following.

When Rudi wiped his body with a cold towel, steam rose from the heat of his fever.

And after a week, the bandit Duke threw off the covers and concentrated on searching through the Duke’s ledger for the embezzled funds he had hidden away.

Everything in Purioaito belonged to the heir, but what was not recorded in the ledger belonged to whoever found it first.

“I knew this would happen.”

Rudi took every piece of clothing from the luggage he had brought then filled it with bright jewels, laughing brightly.

“You’re quite thrifty. However, what I need now is not jewels but workers.”

This was what the Emperor had said while dragging the Duke’s ears.

Having been deprived of sleep for nearly a week, Jeilliris had become very ferocious, and Valenciaunos lay flat at her feet.

“What is the matter? Just command me.”

“It concerns the succession issue.”

Duke Sigmaine had a first daughter, a second son, and a youngest daughter.

According to the Emperor’s assessment, the elder was a warmonger, the second was greedy, and the youngest was cunning.

“Who would benefit the imperial family by becoming the next Duke?”

That night, the youngest daughter visited Valenciaunos’ bedroom.

* * *

“Valen. Should I kill him? Or throw him out the window?”

Rudi asked, pressing a magic talisman to the youngest daughter of the Duke’s temple and a dagger to her neck.

I sighed deeply upon seeing the strangely thinly dressed brown-haired girl.

Now I understood why Jeilliris spoke of her as cunning.

“First, let go. Let’s hear you out.”

“But I brought a dagger…”

“What?”

Rudi poked his hand into her clothes and pulled out daggers from various places.

How many did she bring?

As I stared blankly, the Duke’s youngest daughter exhaled a heavy sigh.

“Your Excellency, the Duke. I trust you understand how much courage it takes for an unmarried young lady to visit a man’s bedroom at this hour.”

“Anyone hearing would think I called you here. Who would do that for long?”

“I’ll be straightforward. If you make me a Duke, I will offer ten thousand gold coins to the imperial family.”

“!”

That was a significant sum.

If it could be diverted from taxes to slush funds, it would be far more useful.

“Your sister and brother could make the same promise.”

She shook her head.

“They will not keep it. No, they have reason not to.”

I smiled with satisfaction.

“Oh? Now I’m curious. Tell me.”

“My sister is the firstborn of a concubine. Being the firstborn, if she receives recognition as a Duke once, afterward, there would be no justification for the imperial family to intervene as long as she pays taxes properly. My second brother is the same; he is the legitimate son.”

“What about you?”

“I am the third child of another concubine. Without the imperial family’s power, I cannot rise to power, and if I do not comply, the imperial family can always lend their strength to my sister and brother to dispose of me. Isn’t that a good leash?”

Hearing her bold and wicked scheme, I recalled a girl with a missing leg.

“Very well. That sounds reasonable. Those young ones are rather astute these days.”

“I… will be twenty-two in a few days. I believe you are still seventeen, Your Excellency. Was there a misunderstanding on my part? Or do I look younger than I am?”

“Rudi, let her go.”

The next day, I received approval from Jeilliris and declared the Duke’s youngest daughter as the new Duke.

They were all capable and ambitious young individuals.

If that’s the case, it would be better to have someone who could be easily manipulated by the imperial family.

The first order of the new Duke of Purioaito was to appoint the second brother as the governor of a trading city and the first sister as the commander of the fortress.

Surprisingly, both left without any complaints.

“Before the snow melts, explore the inside of the magical realms with Count Roboros. If you like it, feel free to pledge loyalty next year.”

Then, the day before we returned to the capital, I proposed a small deal to the new Duke.

“Gladly.”

The end of a tumultuous year concluded with a secret pact made in a private chamber.