Chapter 115
In truth, looking back, there had been many moments when Theodore should have suspected Aria.
First, when Kyle Leopold was exiled.
Regardless of Kyle Leopold's behavior during his wastrel days, Theodore carried out the exile immediately without properly investigating.
The next was when she started meeting other men.
After Kyle Leopold was exiled, men began appearing around Aria because of that incident.
Every man Aria met thought of her as his own. Oblivious Theodore failed to notice.
The third was Aria's birth.
She was a fallen noble who had lost her estate and parents after being accused of treason. Despite all the people around him pointing out her background, Theodore never suspected Aria to the end.
If someone lost both their parents and all the people of their domain because of a false accusation, it was only natural for them to harbor a desire for revenge... but Theodore thought Aria was a special person.
Perhaps that was why.
Even at this moment, when no one had come to the cabin where he was supposed to meet Aria, and when it would have been reasonable to suspect her at least belatedly... he had not felt even the slightest suspicion.
His first thought upon seeing the dusty cabin, which showed no signs of habitation, was simply to wait.
"Perhaps Aria hasn't arrived yet."
Come to think of it, that was entirely possible. This was a small village near a major city, not a major city itself, and it was more than a hundred kilometers from the capital.
Even without much magical training, the Crown Prince's physical abilities, thanks to his golden bloodline, were naturally superior to those of an ordinary person.
It was obvious that Aria, an ordinary person, would take far longer to travel than he did.
"I suppose I'll wait a little longer here."
Could something have happened to Aria on the way?
Theodore was not considering that possibility at all.
There was an escort unit assigned to Aria in the Imperial Palace. Aria would surely have brought them with her, so he saw no reason to think anything could have gone wrong.
In reality, Aria had never intended to meet him and had gone out leaving all her escorts behind because she wanted only to flee somewhere quiet. But the Crown Prince did not know that and merely thought he should wait a little longer.
The escort knights who had accompanied him initially thought nothing of it either.
It wasn't as though Theodore doing something strange was a rare occurrence.
And so Theodore began living in the cabin.
The first couple of days were fine. Compared to the Imperial Palace, which was always noisy, complicated, crowded, and splendid, the cabin overlooking the forest was incredibly quiet and peaceful.
It was also pleasant to see clean, natural food instead of the greasy, spice-laden dishes of the Imperial Palace.
For Theodore, who had spent his entire life in the Imperial Palace, this was a fairly novel experience.
"Hmm, it really is nice being close to nature. I think I understand why Aria wanted to meet me somewhere like this..."
For two days, Theodore focused on enjoying the unfamiliar atmosphere as he stayed in the little cabin.
His thoughts began to change two days later.
It was nice to leave the city for a few days and stay in the countryside for a change, but anyone would have trouble adapting if they were told to live in the countryside for the rest of their life.
That was exactly the kind of emotion Theodore began to feel.
At first, it was simply that he missed the soft bed in the Imperial Palace. No matter how carefully it had been furnished, a cabin was still a cabin.
The bed in the cabin was uncomfortable and hard.
Of course, it was far better than the beds used by commoners... but Theodore had lived in the Imperial Palace his entire life.
Unable to get used to the feel of it at all, he eventually failed to sleep properly that night.
Still, if that had been the extent of it, he could have endured.
The real problem began then. The moment he realized how uncomfortable things were, one inconvenience after another began coming to mind.
After the bed, the next thing he found uncomfortable was the food.
In the Imperial Palace, he could eat meat every day if he wanted. No matter how badly the Empire was deteriorating, the Imperial Palace was still where all the Empire's supplies and logistics converged.
But this was a small provincial city more than a hundred kilometers from the capital.
These people were already living under exploitation by the nobles. With a war breaking out on top of that, seeing meat in the village was almost impossible.
Even the meat they managed to procure did not meet Theodore's standards.
"Was meat always this tough?"
There was a world of difference between dishes made from the finest meat by the Imperial Palace's skilled chefs and low-quality meat hastily grilled over a fire.
The poor hygiene also played a part.
Small cities had no proper water or sewage systems. The things Theodore had enjoyed thoughtlessly while living in the Imperial Palace were by no means necessities here.
Moreover, forests had long been breeding grounds for all sorts of insects. In April, when all living things awoke from their winter slumber, the cabin right beside such a forest was the insects' greatest target.
After being bitten by insects while sleeping on the uncomfortable bed, Theodore finally realized that something had gone seriously wrong.
He might have been fine despite all of this if only Aria had been there.
But Aria still had not appeared by the time chaotic March ended and the first day of April arrived.
Even so, the Crown Prince waited for about another week, convinced that Aria would surely come.
And finally, on April 10, he realized it.
Aria had abandoned him.
"No, that can't be true."
Theodore denied it to the very end and ordered someone to find out what was happening in the Imperial Palace. Only then did he belatedly think that he needed to return to the palace.
So he sent out the knights who had followed him all the way there to find out what was happening nearby.
"Find out what happened to those Southern rebel bastards! We need to prepare to return to the Imperial Palace."
However, the knights he sent out did not return even by evening.
By then, it had been two weeks since the Imperial Palace fell. News that a new regime had already taken power had spread throughout the Central region.
Once the knights learned that, they fled without hesitation. They had realized that the situation had already deteriorated beyond hope.
The sooner they fled, the better their chances of survival. The knights had no intention of continuing to look after the incompetent Crown Prince.
The Empire's ruler was no longer the old Imperial family. The Crown Prince had long since been stripped of his authority, and since he was no longer even the Crown Prince, there was no reason to continue serving him.
Theodore realized that even his knights had abandoned him the following day.
Once the knights had left, there was no one left in the cabin to prepare his meals. Theodore, who had spent his entire life being waited on by others, finally realized it.
There would no longer be anyone who treated him as the Crown Prince.
The reason the knights had fled was obvious.
If the knights who had gone to find out what was happening had run away, then the news must have been the kind that would not be good for him. And there was only one piece of news that could make even highly loyal knights abandon him.
The complete destruction of the Empire. The South's victory.
They were loyal to the Crown Prince, not to Theodore himself.
"...I can't accept this."
Aria had abandoned him. Even his knights had abandoned him. All he had left was a single bag of gold coins.
They said that even a mere insect's intelligence shot up in an instant when faced with death. At last, Crown Prince Theodore understood what was happening.
The sight of flamboyantly dressed knights looking around for information had already been conspicuous enough.
And being conspicuous meant that a Southern Army pursuit unit would soon be on his trail.
"I can't accept this."
Kyle Leopold. That womanizing idiot was going to bring him to his knees? No, that could never happen.
He had no intention of letting himself be captured. Somehow, he would make it to a foreign country. If he could just get overseas, he could survive.
And he would begin his revenge from abroad.
The great powers would recognize his value as the Crown Prince of the Empire.
The North? It would already be sealed off. Besides, the small city where he was hiding was far too distant from the North.
He quickly got to his feet, gathered his money, and went outside, planning to find other nobles who were hiding somewhere and flee overseas with them.
"The Southern bastards will be searching the North for a while anyway."
Most of the nobles must have tried to flee north. Therefore, the Southern Army's search would be concentrated in the north.
He would use that opening to slip quickly toward the East. The Southern bastards hadn't anticipated this either.
Thinking that, he hurried along.
However, the Southern Army's pursuit was faster than he could have imagined.
***
A knight who looked high-ranking while wandering around a small city was bound to attract attention. Word of him soon reached the Southern Army's Imperial Guard.
The appearances of the two escort knights matched the descriptions of those captured in the Imperial Palace. Thanks to that, they were able to quickly infer the Crown Prince's location.
"Hmm, you mean he's heading south instead of north?"
The 17th Division's reconnaissance unit had already picked up his trail. Some were even arguing that several ports in the East should be closed.
But...
"No. In a situation like this, we should open an escape route instead."
An encirclement strategy is completed by opening an escape route for the enemy. They had to make sure the enemy did not realize that the place they thought was an escape route was actually the entrance to a fish trap.
"Open some of the eastern ports."
A few nobles had already fled east. They seemed to think that if they escaped in that direction and went overseas, we would be too distracted by the North to find them...
But even if they fled that way, they were already in our hands.
The South's administration was far faster than the Empire's, and the Southern Army was no paper tiger like the Imperial Army.
The plan was simple.
"At least let them board a ship bound overseas."
We would leave the nobles alone as they liquidated their assets, obtained a ship of their own, and attempted to flee overseas.
And the moment that ship left the harbor and entered the open sea...
"We'll seize it—or if they resist, blow the whole thing to pieces with naval guns."
We would blast the ship apart with naval guns, haul in whoever survived, and make sure they stood trial.