Bad Born Blood - Chapter 151
Only Noblemtl
151
We sat the half-broken Ivan down on a chair and listened to his story. His handsome body was in a state of embarrassing disarray.
Ivan’s voice came from the terminal connected to the back of his neck.
-I have never seen the battle legacy of Arcane in person. However, I have stolen the records. It is a story from long before Noel Mulizka’s rebellion. It is said that there was a royal guard organization like the Royal Guard before. For some reason, the royal guard went mad, and the emperor at the time went out on a campaign alone and annihilated them.
“After hundreds of years, does that mean its power and legacy still exist?”
I asked. Ivan’s gaze turned to Francis, not to me.
-Hundreds of years are a lot to an individual, but even in terms of the era, not the universe, it’s just a flash. In any case, the power of the Arcane is an asset that is only passed down to the Emperor. Even I don’t know what it is… … I couldn’t help but constantly doubt whether I was the true successor. I’m not like the fools who can’t even suspect that they are the crown prince.
Despite Ivan’s venomous words, Francisk sat still. He was as empty as a broken jar. He seemed to feel powerless.
‘The reason Francesque was able to walk the tightrope with me was to confirm whether my father and brother really tried to kill me. After confirming the betrayal of my family, all revolutions were empty.’
Francesque had lost the drive to move forward. He was a man who had reached this point.
‘In other words, Francesque trusted and loved his family that much.’
Even in my memory, the Emperor and Francis looked like a very affectionate father and son. In any case, the Emperor and Ivan must have been ideal fathers and brothers to Francis.
“I didn’t know anything. Riley, that you were even in pain… … .”
Francis muttered.
– Understanding doesn’t change anything. I don’t even want your help. Look at you now. You’re already crumbling from this little truth. I’m afraid of my father. But if I give in to fear, I’ll just be eaten, so I have to stand up somehow. Those who stand up have two choices. Run away from the source of fear… … or eliminate it.
It’s the first time I’ve heard something I like. I sympathized with every word of Ivan’s words, but I didn’t show it.
“Ivan, tell me everything you’ve planned so far. You’ve probably thought of several alternatives in case things go wrong. Our relationship or our past doesn’t matter now. If you want to survive, you need to take out all your weapons and gather them in one place.”
-I’ve been saying this since a while ago, but you keep spouting out remarks that go beyond the perspective and thinking of a single individual. What have you got in your head right now? Even with Aki’s Victory, you lack experience in politics and intrigue, yet you’re at this level… … .
Ivan tried to probe me with sharp questions, but I didn’t even respond to his questions. If he knew that my time was limited, he might have changed his mind.
“Just answer the question. If what you say is true… …then if the Emperor himself steps forward, everything will be over. But if he doesn’t show up right away, that means it will take time, right?”
-I’ve told you several times that I don’t know the details. But it’s clear that there are various restrictions depending on the situation. It should only be used at important moments.
The Emperor’s power has its limits. We can only guess at what those limits are.
“Your Majesty, the situation has changed, so we cannot afford to wait for Heilas. We must lead the troops we have now and head straight to the palace. Even if we are short on strength, we must force our way through and strike before the Emperor moves. There will surely be more troops who will be drawn by Your Majesty and join us.”
– Or there is the option of exile. Francec and I have symbolism and legitimacy. Corana Bellato will welcome us too. It will be a bitter situation for my father.
Ivan had been talking about exile. It seemed like the best option for him at the moment. Before I could muffle his words, Francis opened his mouth.
“That, that won’t do. If we go into exile, the Accresia Empire will be split in half. Cora and Bellato will use us to divide the Empire. I, I have no intention of selling out our great Empire to an enemy nation. Even if we die here, that won’t do.”
Francis’ speech was strangely slurred, as he was mentally shocked. But even so, his words had a moral center.
In a time of peace, Francis would have been a saint. Of course, that doesn’t mean he was a good person.
Francis, too, was adept at using hypocrisy and pretense, plotting and scheming, and was even able to ignore petty sacrifices. But such vices were also the virtues of a ruler.
-Ha, ha. You’re really good. You’re acting all proud on your own despite being incompetent. If you don’t want to go into exile, then Luca’s judgment is right. If my fate is with you, then there’s only one way. Go to the palace as quickly as possible and subdue your father. Maybe your father doesn’t know how to use the battle legacy he passed down through his generations. It’s even better if it’s been a long time since you’ve actually fought.
There is no way it would have been actual. If the imperial family had been so weak, the dynasty of the empire would have changed several times. Ivan knew that, so he tried to go into exile without any plan.
‘The power of the emperor is real.’
Assuming the worst, we had to move.
“Your Majesty, can you maintain the image of an ideal monarch as you have done so far? No, you must.”
-Fransec will do well when he goes out there. He is a human being who has been groomed for that role. Just like you, Luca, were trained as a fighting machine.
“… … Then you?”
– A will that is not controlled by darkness. A spirit that can pursue its purpose without going crazy in any situation. You don’t know how terribly I was educated. Even when I’m driven to this situation, the snakes in my head are still whispering and flicking their tongues, and in a corner of my heart, a vile poison is creatively seething.
I snorted cynically.
“No matter what kind of person you are, you have failed.”
-The possibilities are endless as long as you don’t die. Nothing ends as long as you don’t give up while you’re alive. That’s the universe. For me, the only failure is death.
Frankly, Ivan’s deep story touched my heart. His values were very similar to mine. If the circumstances had been better, I would have felt a sense of kinship and connection. Maybe I would have been a good fit to be his watchdog.
I didn’t give unnecessary answers because I was afraid that I would become attached to Ivan for no reason.
Instead, he tapped Francis on the shoulder, which was a bit presumptuous.
“I will go out first. Let’s go to the palace. I don’t know the pain Your Highness is going through. In fact, it seems pathetic that you have collapsed like this. However, please hold out until morning. If you are truly the crown prince.”
I too have to hold on. I just hope that my head doesn’t break down until tomorrow morning.
Woohoo, woooooo.
Even now, the sound of Ivan and Francis speaking was painful. Excessive inferences and interpretations came in like noise.
“I’m fake, Luca.”
“Those who follow you believe you are real. To them, you are the crown prince and the future of the empire.”
I got out of the command vehicle without listening to Francesque’s answer.
Thud.
I stumbled as soon as I got out.
Even in the wind and rain, I felt that people’s eyes were on me. I could tell without even looking.
* * *
Currently, Akbaran’s communications and networks are extremely unstable. This is due to the storm and the fact that civil war is imminent following the riots, so security agencies such as the Information Security Department are controlling information.
But complete control was nearly impossible. Imperial communications and networks were intricately fragmented for the sake of secrecy, and there were many external networks outside Imperial control.
-… … As the successor to the Empire, I will personally go to Your Majesty and ask Him what our Imperial Family and Empire exist for. If the answer is different from what I think, then I will… … to restore the Imperial Family’s old banner.
Francek’s speech was broadcast via unauthorized communication. It was a kind of pirate broadcast. Since it was sent from the command vehicle as a base station, the transmission range would be narrow.
Swaaaaaaah.
It was pouring down rain. The storm was at its peak. I wanted to vomit because of the rippling auditory vision every time the rainwater hit the ground. The back of my head was hot even though the cerebrospinal fluid had turned into a coolant.
I rested in the command vehicle and controlled my senses through meditation.
Francis’s troops were heading towards the Arc de Triomphe, the main road leading to the palace.
Creak.
The vehicle stopped. Francek opened the vehicle door first and checked the situation outside.
“It’s the Arc de Triomphe! It’s the Imperial Palace!”
“But those guarding the palace… … .”
“Be quiet. We have the crown prince.”
My hearing was so sensitive that I could hear the voices of soldiers far away.
‘We’re almost there.’
I can’t see far with my auditory vision. I only knew that I could see the Arc de Triomphe because someone else told me about it.
I tried to remember. I had been to the Arc de Triomphe during the Franciscan procession. At the time, I had just thought it was a beautiful piece of architecture.
‘Is Heilas dead? Why haven’t I heard from him yet?’
Anxiety was creeping up on me. It was the worst-case scenario I didn’t even want to imagine. Without Heilas, there was no way for Francec to succeed.
‘because…….’
I raised my head and looked in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe. Even without the function of the eyes, human habits do not change easily.
My auditory vision was vaguely capturing the outline of the Arc de Triomphe. Once I could see the outline, my brain drew the image of the Arc de Triomphe from memory and made the shape clear. The versatility of the human brain is truly amazing.
“Hey, it’s the guards. Hey, there’s the guards after all! Damn it!”
“Don’t push, kids! There’s a guard!”
The commotion grew so loud that it almost became a children’s song.
“I told you there wouldn’t be any guards! I told you there wouldn’t be any!”
About a hundred guards were guarding the Arc de Triomphe. This is not strange. Originally, the guards were responsible for guarding the palace and protecting the imperial family.
‘You need Heilas to move them.’
Even within the Guard, only a very small number of people knew about the coup. In fact, they had to move more cautiously than the military.
This was due to the nature of the guards. The guardsmen had an obsessive loyalty to the imperial family.
‘The Royal Guard is a carefully selected group of people from all over the empire. Those who are loyal by nature receive training that borders on brainwashing. In addition, those who do not meet the standard through periodic psychological tests are eliminated from the cadet process.’
There were few cases where people thought as freely as Nana Ilay. Ilay cheated on the psychological test, and I was able to distance myself from obsessive loyalty because I expanded my thoughts through Archie’s Bigtima.
The majority of the young guards are blindly loyal to the Emperor. It is not easy to go against their instinctive loyalty.
But as the period of service gets longer… … human impurities increase and the once solid loyalty fades. Those who are not like that are quickly eaten by the Legion.
“Re, it’s Legioneeeeeeee-!!”
Without saying a word, they all started shouting.
The guards of the Arc de Triomphe stood guard. Legions were emerging from behind the curtain of rain. There were ten of them.
‘The Legion of Ten.’
… … A frontal breakthrough is impossible.
No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t win. The hundred or so guards were practically like an iron wall. If the Legion was there, we wouldn’t have a chance of winning.
“Luka, come with me. I’ll have to try to persuade you.”
Francesque said, mustering up his courage. I shook my head quietly.
“It’s no use. Your Majesty, you know the real fighting machines that protect the imperial family. Those guards right now are no different from them.”
“… … So you’re talking about those who only listen to their father’s orders.”
Those I arbitrarily named Shadows didn’t even seem to have official names. Or maybe only the Emperor knew about them.
‘Judging by the reaction, it seems that Francesque doesn’t even know that the Shadows are former Royal Guardsmen. He can only guess that they are some kind of special forces unit.’
Francesca was truly a man of the sun.
“Once an order is given, only the immediate superior can move a soldier. The guards who receive orders and go on a mission will stop them even if the opponent is the crown prince. Like Lieutenant Colonel Cassert who guarded the checkpoint. Lieutenant Colonel Cassert was also a former guard.”
Francesque showed his impatience by lightly biting his knuckles. We were waiting for a call from Heilas.
Beep, beep, beep.
My terminal rang. Judging from the sound pattern, it was the guards’ code.
Chijik, Chik.
The screen was coming out of the terminal’s hologram. The communication was not smooth, so it looked like it would turn off at any moment.
-Yes, I am Captain Heilas Custoria… … .
Heilas’s communications were the guard’s internal network. It seemed that they had somehow revived the broken guard network.
There was a commotion even at the Arc de Triomphe in the distance. Since it was a network of guards, they too would be hearing Heilas’ voice.
Rattling.
There was a sound over the phone.
-Levadas Adnoa, Aki Young, Ben Castora… … .
Heilas spat out the names one by one.
-… … Do you remember these people? Those who I thought died from the overuse of the Legion are lying at my feet right now. I will show you them one by one from now on.
I have no vision so I can’t see the holographic screen, but I can see what Heilas is doing.
The corpses of the shadows will be shown on the screen. It will be hard to tell who is who due to their eerie exoskeletons, but if it’s Heilas’s word, everyone will believe it.
– I confess my fault. I handed over my comrades who were incapable of recovery to His Majesty the Emperor, and they were transformed into something inhuman. Our guards are merely in the process of becoming battle machines. They are a group that will soon disappear when even the intermediate stages are no longer needed.
There was noise.
-But it seems that time has come sooner than I expected. We have become unnecessary to His Majesty. And it is not only the Royal Guard that has become unnecessary… … .
I heard a rustling sound and it seemed like the screen was being pointed somewhere else.
-The guards and military were ambushed during a meeting to suppress the riot. The mastermind behind this was His Majesty the Emperor… … .
Communication was in danger of being cut off. The temporarily restored network signal was weakening.
Heilas’s declaration was soft, but its repercussions were enormous. He chose civil war and division. When this tiring storm ends, the empire will be weakened.