Chapter 30
Aria’s first impression of Kyle Leopold had been that he was a truly useless man.
An illegitimate son of the imperial family, and blood of the Southern Grand Ducal House.
Aside from being lucky enough to be born with wealth in his hands, Kyle Leopold was an ugly man with nothing to boast of.
A man who could do nothing, yet had a filthy high opinion of himself.
A pathetic man who didn’t even bother to maintain himself, yet still tried to hit on pretty women.
In other words, exactly the kind of person easiest to exploit.
As expected, Kyle Leopold moved exactly as Aria intended.
She gave him just enough room and kept just enough distance. Then Kyle confessed to her at a banquet where everyone could see.
Aria coldly rejected him, and...
Smack-!
Humiliated in front of everyone, Kyle reacted exactly as she had expected.
"How dare a nobody like you...!"
A third-rate villain’s line, as a bonus.
Aria, who fell in a heap before everyone’s eyes, shed tears in a pitiful display.
Thinking back on it, it had been a perfect setup.
Enough to make even Charles Raymonz, the eldest son of the Western Grand Ducal House, fall for her at a glance.
Kyle Leopold, who already had more than enough karma piled up, was driven out of the center, and she thought she would never see him again.
But...
"I hear the atmosphere between the West and the South is rather grim?"
"They say words like war and such are being thrown around... frightening things."
"Oh my, it’s fine. It’s all beyond the Arbel Mountains, after all."
Not long ago, unsettling rumors had begun spreading through the imperial social circle.
It was a situation Aria couldn’t understand by common sense.
"How can the Empire’s South possibly... the West...?"
At first, she thought the Southern Grand Duke had changed.
The South Aria knew was a place that didn’t even have a proper army.
For such a South to wage war against the West. Something was going wrong.
And then she kept hearing even more absurd news after that.
The Western fortress had been destroyed.
She heard the wyvern corps had been defeated by the South’s new weapon.
She heard the South had declared war on the West.
"What on earth is going on?"
In a hurry, Aria ran to the crown prince and asked him what was happening.
However, the indecisive crown prince had not properly grasped how serious the situation was.
"Ah, you mean the matter between the West and the South? No need to worry, it’s just something beyond the Arbel Mountains."
"Are you worried about that? Aria, you really do have such a kind heart."
"But you seem more interested in the Western and Southern Grand Dukes than in me... I might get a little jealous, you know."
After being told that much, there was nothing more she could do.
The Western Grand Duke suddenly went silent, and only word came that the South had won the war.
And then contact came from the South.
"His Excellency the Western Grand Duke, Charles Raymonz, says he will be coming up to the capital."
When she first heard those words, Aria let out a sigh of relief.
As long as the Western Grand Duke was alive, that was fine.
The plan to split the Empire and ignite a civil war could proceed without a hitch.
"No, it might even be better than before."
Contrary to expectations, the South had begun increasing its military buildup.
The crown prince’s so-called "peace of our age" was nothing but a facade, and the East and South were also gradually pulling away from the center.
The Empire’s internal situation was more precarious than ever.
If, when the civil war properly broke out, they sent the Western Grand Duke back to the West. If they stirred up chaos in the South’s rear like that.
They could bring about the destruction of both the Empire and the South.
In that sense, Charles Raymonz still had some value left to exploit.
If she could keep Charles Raymonz close and manage him well, she could make the civil war even more chaotic.
Aria came to the harbor with those expectations, and—
"...Hello, Aria."
She met Charles Raymonz, seated in a wheelchair with a haggard expression.
The Western Grand Duke’s authority, his ability as a ninth-rank aura user, his handsome face. Not a single thing about him remained intact; he was a near-dead man.
The Southern Grand Duke’s message was simple.
"Anyone who defies me will all be made into this."
Seeing Charles Raymonz, unable even to stand and walk on his own, Aria’s expression froze.
***
Humans never let go of hope until the very end, even in the harshest situations.
Because hope was the driving force that allowed humans to live through any circumstance.
Charles Raymonz, who loved war yet feared death more than anyone, desperately clung to the last remaining hope.
Aria.
Because if she was the only refuge in a life stained by fighting and war, then she would not abandon him.
He had once ridden wyverns, and the body once called the Empire’s greatest knight had become a cripple that could barely move, but.
Still, Charles believed.
Because he remembered what Aria had once told him in the secret garden of the imperial palace.
"Aria. If I weren’t the heir to the Western Grand Duke, but just an ordinary commoner. Could we still have met?"
At that question, Aria answered without hesitation.
"Puhuhu, of course."
Beautiful platinum-blond hair reflecting the moonlight. Translucent silver eyes shimmering. In the secret garden where fireflies were in full bloom, Aria had definitely said that.
"I believe in fate."
"Fate?"
"Yes! People bound by fate meet no matter what happens—what a romantic thing to say, don’t you think?"
Charles still remembered Aria’s tiny hand as it suddenly grabbed his that day.
"Even if we had met as ordinary commoners, I think we would have become good friends."
"Because that’s what fate is like."
Even though Aria called Charles her "friend," he had no doubt that the name would soon change into something closer.
She had even said that he was her destined match.
So...
"...Hello, Aria."
Charles greeted her, firmly believing that Aria would accept even this version of him.
But the reaction that came back was unexpected.
"Oh, uh... yes. Hello."
A reluctant smile. A reluctant greeting. Eyes trembling with unease, gaze directed somewhere other than at him.
Aria wasn’t looking at Charles at all.
It made sense.
To Aria, Charles was a hunting dog, and a hunting dog that could no longer hunt was no longer needed.
Charles’s heart sank, and he hurriedly continued speaking.
Clinging to the thought that surely, surely...
"W-well, haha, I look pretty pathetic, huh? It’s been a mess for all sorts of reasons... that bastard Kyle Leopold..."
"Ah, I see...?"
But the more they talked, the more obvious it became that he was forcing the conversation.
Aria clearly wanted to end the conversation, cutting him off whenever she could.
What finally shattered Charles’s heart was Aria’s next line.
"Um, but... I’m sorry, I have something urgent to do. Let’s meet again and talk later...!"
Charles couldn’t stop Aria as she quickly walked away.
"Aria... Ah!?"
Thunk.
He desperately tried to get up, but that was all. Sprawled on the ground, Charles couldn’t even lift himself without help.
Only then did Charles understand why Kyle had spared his life.
"...Ah."
Left behind on the dock was only a man who had lost everything.
***
"We’ve received a report that the 'gift' has arrived. Would you like to see how it turned out?"
"No. I think I can guess without looking."
In the original 'Mona Joh,' Charles lost everything and was discarded.
I don’t think this time will be much different. Aria approached Charles solely for her own purposes.
"This should be warning enough."
The Western Grand Duke? Don’t even think about using him.
The West now belongs to us in the South. I’ve personally taken care of anyone who might interfere in the West.
"Lucilla, what happened to the Western nobles who fled?"
"The elite guard is tracking them. About 60% of the fleeing nobles have been arrested or killed so far, and the remaining 40% are believed to have fled abroad or escaped to the imperial capital."
"That’s enough. Withdraw the elite guard for now."
If we involve ourselves abroad or in the imperial capital, it will draw far too much attention.
Anyway, the corrupt nobles who abandoned their base in the West have no way of returning there.
"From now on, we need to focus on developing the West."
The "peace of our age" had bought time for the South.
Time to produce new weapons, build up the army, and train the soldiers.
For now, the Eastern Grand Duke Edward still hadn’t made a move either.
So now was the time to stabilize the West.
"Just in time, there’s a report from the West. It was submitted by one of our accountants stationed on the western border."
"An accountant?"
"It concerns the western natives."
Ah, now that he thought about it, there were natives.
The main troublemakers who always stirred up trouble on the western border. They had been unusually quiet for a while, but now they were showing their heads here.
"It’s about the border... and a proposal the natives sent to one of the Western lords is attached."
"A proposal?"
Even the word proposal felt suspicious from the start.
So these raiders were saying they wanted to make a proposal to a Western lord.
Anyway, with the Western leadership recently changed and the corrupt nobles all swept away, there were all kinds of gaps.
Did they think the West had grown weak because of that?
At least officially, the West was still the West, and the South was still the South.
The natives, who probably didn’t understand politics very well, might just be thinking, 'Ah, the West lost the war,' or 'The West is weak.'
Were they trying to exploit the opening left behind after the South’s elite army made a single strike?
"Give me that."
The contents of the proposal were even more absurd.
They knew that due to the recent series of clashes between the West and the South, the Western army had weakened significantly.
They could use this chance to carry out large-scale plunder, but they would specially refrain from doing so.
Instead, hand over the wealth we demand.
"...Did the other frontier lords receive proposals like this too?"
"Yes, that is my understanding."
"Those barbaric bastards have lost their minds."
Crack-
He stood up, crumpling the paper with both hands.
He had deliberately left the natives alone. He’d thought there was no need to go stirring up trouble.
And now they were pulling tricks where we couldn’t see them?
"Leave them alone for a moment and they start thinking they’re in charge..."
Before expanding to the East, the center, and the North, we needed to clean up our rear first.
And this time, there was no need to keep the enemy alive just to worry about public opinion.
Public sentiment wouldn’t drop just because we killed raiders who kept wrecking the border whenever they got the chance.
It was time to show those raider bastards what a machine gun tastes like.