Chapter 74
When Edward opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the white ceiling of a hospital room.
The room was filled with such a strong smell of disinfectant that it made his head spin. Edward instinctively reached for his throbbing head, then realized that something was wrong.
He was certain he had moved his arm. Out of habit, he moved it to touch his throbbing head.
Yet there was nothing in his grasp. Nor was there anything touching his head.
Something was wrong. The moment he realized that, Edward was startled and sat up.
... ?
The hospital room looked very different from the ones Edward knew. It was an entirely white space, without even a hint of luxurious design.
An unfamiliar landscape stretched out beyond the window.
The heart of the Royal Navy, which could be called the pride of the East. It was not Iron Port... but a futuristic city filled with skyscrapers.
At first, Edward could not recognize where he was. It was far too dense, lively, and futuristic to be a city from the same era.
Only the plumes of smoke rising from the industrial district in the distance told him where this was.
There was only one place in the entire Empire that could produce smoke like that.
"Is this... the South?"
It looked completely different from the South he remembered. Compared to the Eastern capital, it seemed at least an entire era ahead.
As Edward stared blankly at the view, he decided he needed to see it from a little closer and tried to get up.
No—he tried to.
"Urgh!?"
But his legs would not obey him.
Only then did he finally see his own condition.
His arms and legs... were gone. At first, he could not accept reality when he saw the neatly bandaged limbs, as though they had been cleanly torn away.
"A dream?"
That was all he could think of.
Until the memories from before he lost consciousness came back to him.
The grand ducal castle filled with water mist. The fallen mages, and himself standing unsteadily while muttering.
The sudden arrival of the Southern Grand Duke, Kyle, and the expression on his face as he looked at Edward as though he had accidentally stepped on an ant while walking down the street.
And then...
His own arms and legs flying in every direction before his eyes.
Only after finally understanding the situation did he try to use magic and mana to restore the body parts he had lost.
But the magic would not activate either. It felt as though the 9th-tier magic he had wielded all his life had vanished.
"W-what...!"
He could no longer even sense the vessel that held his magic. It was as though another 9th-tier mage had utterly destroyed it.
There was nothing left for him now.
The title of Eastern Grand Duke had surely already passed into someone else's hands, and the 9th-tier magic he had once been so proud of had disappeared long ago.
He had even lost the right to move as he pleased. He had been placed in a wheelchair and could only go wherever someone else took him.
Before Edward could even regain his senses, he was loaded onto a transport vessel and taken to the Center.
"Kyle Leopold!!!"
His enraged voice never reached the Southern Grand Duke.
He was no longer a grand duke, and therefore his words held no value whatsoever.
Even so, Edward still could not let go of his attachments.
"No, I... I'm still... I must be useful."
Having been pampered his entire life, he could not accept the fact that he had become useless. Cold reason no longer mattered to him.
He began to imagine absurd possibilities.
"I'm... I'm the rightful Eastern Grand Duke. I'm still very useful. The Center would never abandon me. Even if I have to survive by becoming the Center's dog, I'll... I'll tear that bastard's throat out..."
But that hope was quickly shattered.
Imperial Center. The Hall of Judgment.
In the hall lined with Imperial judges, the verdict against Edward was handed down.
"Criminal Edward. You are charged with causing the outbreak of civil war and injuring Imperial nobles."
"W-what are you talking about?! Kyle Leopold started the civil war first..."
"Ahem. Silence in the courtroom."
The crimes brought against him were grave.
The crime of attempting to overthrow the state and split the Empire by starting a civil war. The crime of summarily punishing nobles of the Empire's sacred Seventeen Families and other important Imperial nobles, among others.
Crimes carrying sentences of life imprisonment or worse were listed one after another.
The Center had abandoned Edward.
"That Edward fellow might still be useful..."
"Ha, didn't you hear the orders from above? They said to use him as a sacrificial pawn to placate that Kyle bastard. Don't do anything strange and fall out of favor."
After being treated as an obstacle by Kyle, he was now being treated as a discarded pawn by the Center.
The last hope that had allowed him to endure—Aria—had abandoned Edward.
"W-wait! I can explain everything! First, Lady Aria..."
"I'm sorry, but Lady Aria is ill right now. She said she doesn't want to meet anyone."
Aria had come out for him even when she had a cold. There was no way he could fail to understand what it meant for her to say that.
In the end, there was nothing left for Edward.
The person he had mistakenly believed loved him had used him and thrown him away, while the Center, which he had believed was on his side, treated him as a discarded pawn.
Only after being imprisoned with neither his proud magic nor even his limbs did he finally understand.
He was not a special person.
"Ha, hahaha..."
Only an empty laugh echoed through the cold prison.
And two people were quietly watching him from afar.
"Even so, weren't you two once playmates when you were children, Your Highness?"
On the other side of the crystal ball sat the ruler of the North, the shield responsible for the Empire's northern frontier: Siegfried von Schwerk.
With an appearance more like a bear than a human, he asked in a deep voice,
"Are you sure it is all right to deal with him that way?"
"Yeah. It's frustrating, but apparently it is best to let that Kyle Leopold bastard do as he pleases for now."
The Crown Prince of the Empire, First Prince Theodore, was running the Empire in place of the bedridden Emperor.
The conversation between the two men who actually governed the Empire took place behind closed doors.
"Well, if that is the case, I will not object. Still, I am a little concerned by such an aggressive course of action from the Southern Grand Duke."
Siegfried stroked his chin as he sorted through what he had heard from the Crown Prince.
The Southerners were expanding their power at a frightening pace. And behind that expansion were advanced firearms and artillery.
The West and the East had fallen in a mere year. If things continued like this, it might truly become a prolonged civil war. They needed firearms like those of the Southerners.
Of course, their mighty Imperial Army would not lose, but minimizing casualties was still preferable, so he had decided to ask for this favor.
"I see."
Aside from those final words, which were practically an excuse, the Imperial Family's condition certainly did not seem very good.
The indecisive Crown Prince could not properly see the situation, but the power of the firearms Siegfried had witnessed while personally guarding the northern defensive line was beyond anything he had imagined.
If the Empire had to face firearms that could turn ordinary infantry into mage-level combatants, it would be unable to fight properly.
"How much time do you think remains before the battle begins?"
"About four or five years."
"Hmm... Exactly the right time."
If this had been only the Center's problem, Siegfried would have remained uninvolved.
But it was painfully obvious whom the Southerners would target after swallowing up the Center.
By then, it would be too late. Even the thirty million people of the North and the heroes of the northern defensive line could not catch up with the tide of history once it had turned.
'That cannot happen.'
In Siegfried's eyes, the Empire of today was far too weak.
The Empire had to return to the days a hundred years ago, when Kaiser III ruled with an iron fist. It had to reclaim the glory of the era when every nation knelt at the feet of the Imperial Emperor.
But Crown Prince Theodore was not the sort of person who could accomplish that.
Then what about Kyle Leopold, the Southern Grand Duke whose power was rapidly growing?
In Siegfried's eyes, Kyle Leopold was not a man suited to an iron-blooded Empire either.
'The Labor Standards Act? What an idiotic idea.'
Welfare softened people. The warriors of the North were forged physically and mentally through suffering, and only those who survived could become great Northern warriors.
Factories were for the weak who fell by the wayside during that process. Why should the strong sacrifice themselves for such weaklings?
If you had a strong army, should you not use it to launch wars of conquest?
Even when there was not enough capacity to convert every industry to military production, Kyle Leopold had already begun restoring civilian industry.
'That is why he will ultimately be unable to defeat our North.'
Because Kyle Leopold was not a warrior.
The soft Southern army would be swept away by the Northern army, armed with powerful resolve.
The North was a land of fighters, as it had been since ancient times. There, children were tested from an early age for their usefulness as soldiers.
Children who passed the tests were granted the honor of becoming warriors, while those who failed became components for the factories.
'How could Southerners who have lived comfortable lives ever defeat such a powerful army?'
To survive in the North, where attacks came without end, everything in the grand duchy had to be sacrificed for the army. As a result, one idea naturally became fixed in the minds of every Northern Grand Duke throughout history.
The state exists for the army.
Because a nation could survive only if it had a mighty army.
"Good. We will support you with the blueprints and manufacturing facilities for the new weapon we recently developed: the 15-round bolt-action rifle."
That was why Siegfried readily agreed to provide the weapons support.
Their firearms were technologically inferior to those of the Southerners, but they still possessed sufficient performance to stop charging infantry.
No matter how powerful the Southerners were, there was no way they could break through a front line defended by firearms.
The result would be a long, tedious battle that consumed nothing but supplies.
After several years, when both the South and the Center had been thoroughly weakened, he would strike them both at once with the powerful Northern elite army.
He would sweep away the two exhausted regions, which had lost the strength to fight, and take control of the Empire himself.
To restore the glory of the Empire from a hundred years ago once more.
And to establish colonies like the overseas powers, with a powerful army at the forefront, fulfilling the dream of a wealthy nation with a strong military.