The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 384 Tyrant (11) - The Vote Approximately 10 years ago from now. That is, around the time the idiot Alondre was 10 years old and Trisha was 5. Unable to bear the sight of the Emperor doing no work at all, squandering his time in endless pleasure, and recklessly draining the national treasury, a certain official offered this earnest advice. 「Your Majesty, tax revenue is dwindling day by day and the finances are worsening. At this rate, the treasury will soon run dry!」 The minister's meaning was essentially, "So please cut back on the extravagance and tend to domestic affairs a little!!" but Mihail — the headless Emperor who, at the time, still had his head — arrived at a bizarre conclusion. 「Tax revenue is insufficient, you say? Argh! Isn't that because there are so many thieves in this nation! Depose the feudal lords who are of no use to the Empire, and seize all their territories as property of the imperial family!!」 It was truly a blazing command. If asked just how blazing, it was blazing enough to set the whole nation ablaze. Of course, Mihail had his own logic, in his own way. After all, imperial authority was strong in the Empire. In other kingdoms, even the king couldn't freely order around places like a duke's or count's household, but in the Empire, it was possible. More than anything, unlike the central nobility who held official posts and worked within the court, the feudal nobility didn't particularly work for the imperial family. So then, if he simply got rid of all the feudal nobility and monopolized their tax revenue, wouldn't the money just pile up! If Mihail had possessed just a little more sense, he might have wondered why previous emperors had left the feudal nobility in place, how he would secure the manpower to manage those lands after telling the landlords to clear out, and whether the power of the imperial family — which he himself had ruined over four years — would really remain the same as before; but a person capable of considering such things in the first place isn't called an incompetent ruler to begin with. After all, isn't it true that a capable person is capable in a direction one can understand through common sense, while an incompetent person is incompetent in a direction common sense simply cannot grasp? Despite the desperate pleas of principled officials, the Emperor stubbornly pushed his pig-headed will through to the end, and in the end, the land confiscation decree was carried out. And, as if it were a given, it failed. To begin with, for the imperial family to seize a noble's territory meant that its administration, too, had to be shouldered entirely by the imperial family and the government. Even if the government and the nation's uppermost echelons were teeming with nothing but capable people, it would still be a staggering burden to the point of choking for breath — let alone the fact that Mihail's government, following its master's example, was full of people incompetent on a historic scale. No — to be precise, they were capable, truly capable, but their capability was specialized in satisfying personal greed and political maneuvering. As a result, the dispatched administrators split largely into two types. One type was those who at least tried to run their territory reasonably well, but made a mess of things due to limited discretionary authority, administrative capacity, and manpower shortages. The other type had no real interest in managing the territory in the first place, and were simply obsessed with squeezing the land dry to bribe their superiors. The former were called incompetent even though it wasn't their own incompetence but the fact that things fell apart because instructions came down too late even after reporting to their superiors, while the latter, despite abusing all manner of overreaching authority, were praised as capable. It was only natural, then, that the former died out quickly while the latter took their place. Or else the former simply switched careers to become the latter. The loyalty and patience of the plundered commoners was rapidly exhausted, and the scent of rebellion began to waft strongly across the entire Empire. At first the Emperor had ordered harsh suppression, but as rebellions kept springing up no matter how many were crushed — like some endless game of whack-a-mole — his nerve gradually shriveled, and he had one of the children of his elder brother Fried, who at the time sat in the position of Crown Prince, killed and pinned all the blame on him. The Emperor had never once coveted things like bribes — rather, it was the greedy Imperial Prince who had orchestrated this whole affair — so claimed the imperial family's mouthpieces, singing praises of this tragedy, the Emperor's resolute decision, and his mercy. Mihail, as if doing them a great favor, installed the former owners of the territories — the feudal nobility — as administrators of their own lands and then extended a hand for reconciliation, but the nobles weren't so spineless as to meekly bow their heads and say, "Oh my, is that so? So it was the former Emperor's child who was in the wrong! We misunderstood!" The strength of the territories, weakened by years of plunder. A patriotism that, however much they might hate the Emperor, could not bring itself to hate the Empire itself, to which their ancestors had pledged loyalty for generations. Tangled together with the pragmatic calculation that if the Empire itself were blown apart, the imperial nobility too could not remain unscathed, these feelings never quite reached the point of outright military rebellion, but loyalty and duty toward the imperial family had half withered away. In particular, the nobles of the border regions far from the imperial center were administrators in name only — in practice, they had reverted to acting as the true masters of their own territories — and naturally, their resentment toward the Emperor and the current imperial family ran bone-deep. From the imperial family's perspective, touching them outright was tricky since their power was subtly considerable, and even if they somehow managed to crush them, it seemed like another nationwide rebellion would just erupt as before, forcing another round of whack-a-mole — so they couldn't touch them; from the nobles' perspective, it was a subtle standoff too, unable to touch the throne because it was still the imperial family, yet lacking the strength to overturn everything outright. "Wow, seriously, how is it even possible to make such a mess and have it turn out this messy?" Trisha suddenly felt a budding respect, growing rapidly, for Fried, her father from her original world. Honestly, she hadn't exactly been the type to respect her own father all that much. Because her father had been the breathing-and-nothing-more type of Emperor — one who dumped all the work onto his ministers, who kept adding new women one after another without a second thought even though he plainly already had children, and who focused on simply maintaining the status quo rather than building any great achievements. It meant that, while their personalities weren't a bad match and she did feel a human sort of fondness for him, he was, in many respects, too flawed a figure to go around respecting and admiring as someone great. And yet, now that she'd come here and seen what this man who called himself her uncle had done after ascending to the throne, her own father was a wise ruler beyond even comparison. Truly, discerning capable and loyal subjects and gathering authority into their hands — that too is a kind of ability. Indulging in laziness and lust while never once crossing the truly dangerous line — that too is a kind of ability. A breathing-and-nothing-more Emperor? There were far, far too many useless rulers in this world who couldn't even manage that much! "The imperial family, the military, the bureaucracy, the commoners — all of it is a mess. And on top of that, we're practically on a war footing with foreign enemies…." How could anyone possibly go off and play around in a situation like this? No matter how empty-headed you are, if the water's rising up to your waist, shouldn't you be doing something about it? A ruler who just keeps playing around thinking "it'll probably be fine" and "surely the country won't actually collapse" — did such a thing really exist in reality? Trisha felt an urge to kill. She was certain that cleanly disposing of this man would carry no guilt at all. So she said to Alondre. "Brother, let's send his head flying." To which Alondre replied. "If we're going to do it, let's do it 'properly.'" *** An old man lived within the imperial palace. Not from the previous Emperor's time, but the First Prince from two reigns ago. In other words, a man who, despite being born with the advantage of being the Emperor's eldest son, had lacked the character and ability to keep that position and had to yield the role of heir to his younger brother. But even being that kind of man, since he was, for the time being, the eldest living elder of the imperial family, he still wielded considerable influence in his own right, and it would be no exaggeration to say that it was thanks to the backing of this "Great Elder" that Mihail had been able to safely steal his nephews' positions and become Emperor. And this Great Elder did not consider the current crisis to be all that serious. He had been fairly rattled by the news that Emperor Mihail's head had been taken and that the 6th Rank deployed to suppress the incident had joined the enemy, but he still thought things would be fine for now. 'Fried's brat has quite a bit of venom in him, it seems. There's bound to be a storm of blood. But that's as far as it'll go.' Mihail's children would die, surely. First Imperial Prince Dmitri, and the other imperial family members too, would all die. But that's as far as it would go. It could well be said that there was no possibility the imperial family members outside Mihail's direct line — especially the Great Elder himself — would come to any harm. This wasn't him leaning on some vague sentiment like "surely he wouldn't go so far as to kill an elder of the same family." This was purely and thoroughly a matter of practical self-interest. 'Ascending the throne alone doesn't mean it's over. Bluntly put, isn't an Emperor without a single loyal faction of his own nothing more than a training dummy? And this fellow, weak in support precisely because he cut down the Emperor's own head with his own hands — lay a hand on the imperial family too? Absolutely impossible.' The ministers Mihail had favored would naturally resist Alondre; the loyalists from Fried's time, already crushed, had next to no influence left within the court; the feudal nobility would view him through tinted glasses for the mere fact of being imperial family; and the commoners wouldn't care in the least about the legitimacy of Alondre's cause. In other words, if Alondre wished to become Emperor, he could never touch the imperial family — and especially never touch the Great Elder himself, that family's representative! The Great Elder was certain of it. And then, exactly half a day later. "— People of Eizern. I am Alondre Arcandel Eizern. A member of this nation's imperial family." The broad plaza before the main gate of the imperial palace. At the sight of Alondre, who had bound and subdued the countless members of the imperial family and then abruptly begun a speech, the Great Elder's certainty shattered. *** When Alondre had first said, "Come cut off the imperial family's heads," Beatrix and the other feudal nobility had been doubtful. "Of course, you likely know little about me. In truth, it doesn't matter if you don't. So just take it that I'm some obscure, forgettable member of the imperial family, and listen." Next, when Alondre had said, "Help me capture the imperial family members in the palace," Beatrix and the other feudal nobility had still been doubtful. "Among you now, there must be many who have grown disillusioned with the Empire. There must be many who think of them as nothing but trash who make a habit of plunder and crime." "There must also be many who have simply resigned themselves, thinking that no matter what, those people are never punished by anyone — that this nation's imperial family is sacrosanct, untouchable." "— That is wrong. Today, I will prove that fact to you myself." Next, when Alondre had said, "Seize the imperial family members and have them stand ready in the plaza," Beatrix and the other feudal nobility had slowly begun to feel bewildered. "Bring the criminal forward!" "Mmph!! Mmph mmph!!! Mmmmph!!!" And now, having watched the oldest living member of this nation's imperial family bound and howling like a beast, the feudal nobility's heads were starting to spin. "Rastier Nella Eizern." "You forcibly seized the land and buildings of the common people, and beat those who protested, calling it blasphemy against the imperial family." "You forcibly dragged a woman who plainly had a husband into your own palace to keep as a plaything, and when you grew tired of her, cast her aside without mercy." "After borrowing money from wealthy merchants of this nation, you had one killed for the sole reason that he hadn't 'taken the initiative' to erase the debt — even though he never once said you needed to repay it." "Beyond this, there exists a cumulative criminal record of 482 comparable offenses." As Alondre raised his hand, Kirie cast a spell. Countless ropes suddenly appeared out of thin air, one end tied to the blade of the guillotine above the old man's head, the other ends tied here and there across the plaza, pulled taut. The people stared at those ropes as though entranced by something. "Now, let us begin the vote." "If you believe his head should be cut off, cut the rope!" "If you believe he should be spared, leave the rope be!" It was a viciously irreverent choice to offer. So irreverent that, under normal circumstances, merely hearing such words would have made people tremble and shudder. But there was a strange power in Alondre's voice. It carried a magic that made one turn away from every deception, every pretense, every thought of consequence, and simply, purely, answer the voice of one's own heart. The old man who had lost his land, the husband who had lost his wife, the daughter who had lost her father — their eyes all held a strange heat. Someone swung a knife. Someone brought down a stone. Someone even tore at it with their bare hands. Each time, the rope snapped far too easily. As though physical force didn't matter at all — only the choice itself did. The countless people in the plaza made their choice. They chose, and chose, and chose again. The guillotine, with no more strength left to hold it up, came crashing down. Swish! Spurt! A spray of blood surged out. Not the noble body of a member of the imperial family, but the body of an old and wretched criminal convulsed, then went limp. Alondre spoke. "Let us begin the next vote." In the midst of the pool of blood. The people roared with fervor as they welcomed their new Emperor.