Chapter 111
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“A dictator!”
“Cromwell has been reincarnated! Drag that man out at once!”
“Strip him of the protection of the law!”
Spit flew from the mouths of those who claimed to be guardians of the Revolution, drenching Napoleon’s uniform.
The deputies made no attempt to hide their fury.
It took only a moment for words to degenerate into violence.
One man blindly swung his fists through the air.
Another grabbed Napoleon by the collar and tried to shake him.
The assembly hall became a madhouse in an instant.
“General, you have to get out of here……!”
“This way!”
While Napoleon stood dazed for a moment amid the uproar, a loyal grenadier hurriedly escorted him out of the assembly hall.
“At last…… this…….”
Perhaps it was because the deputies’ reaction had been so utterly unexpected.
Napoleon babbled incoherently, unable to form a proper sentence, his face repeatedly registering shock.
Torn uniform.
Disheveled hair.
Wounds carved into him by their rotten tongues had been layered over his person.
Instead of the Napoleon who was always composed, overflowing with charisma, and capable of leading soldiers.
Disappointment and shock at those who could not sympathize with the greater cause, along with disillusionment at the existence of forces still denying his will, had taken their place.
But only for a moment.
“Brother, snap out of it……!”
The person who approached Napoleon after he left the assembly hall was his younger brother, Lucien.
He was also the president of the Council of Five Hundred, though he had arrived too late to mediate the situation.
Merely by looking at his brother’s face, he could guess what kind of violent incident had taken place inside.
The age of men who were all talk was over.
What was needed now was not logical persuasion, but steel.
Though it had not been his intention at all.
Lucien drew his sword with a dramatic flourish.
At the ominous scrape of steel, every soldier’s gaze focused on him in an instant.
And.
“Gasp……!”
“G-General……?!”
“Lucien, have you lost your mind!”
The tip of Lucien’s sword was aimed at Napoleon’s heart.
But the blade did not thrust all the way forward.
“I swear! If my brother, Bonaparte Napoleon, seeks to oppress the freedom of France! I will be the first to pierce his chest with this sword!”
That powerful cry sent broad ripples through the surroundings.
The spark that had vanished from Napoleon’s eyes returned.
Color once again flowed into his pale face, and a cold killing intent like that of a bird of prey coiled around his entire body.
“Soldiers!”
Napoleon looked over the faces gathered around him.
Lucien, and Murat.
My brothers, who had fought alongside me in the Revolutionary Wars for ten years, steeped in the smells of gunpowder and sweat.
“I have devoted long years to France and to victory! And yet, do you know what those rabble inside called me? ‘A man stripped of the protection of the law’! Me, who seeks to save France! Your general!”
He paused, then drew in a deep breath.
“Can I trust you?”
A single sentence, steeped in cool composure rather than passion, pierced everyone’s ears. Those words became a fuse.
The human side Napoleon had shown moments earlier vanished in an instant, and in its place stood a living god to whom they could offer only fanatical loyalty.
“Long live Bonaparte! Long live the Republic!”
As he listened to the soldiers’ cheers that seemed to pierce the heavens, Napoleon slowly turned his head to Murat.
No further encouragement was necessary.
Joachim Murat, commander of the cavalry, grinned and tightened his helmet strap.
“Grenadiers, all forward! Let’s throw every one of those revolutionary peddlers out the windows!”
…….
…….
The deputies fled screaming, smashing through the windows into the garden and the darkness beyond. Their clothes were torn and caught on branches, while their proud denunciations turned into servile pleas for mercy.
And then, the empty assembly hall.
A place where the traces of the madhouse that had unfolded moments earlier remained intact.
Napoleon slowly walked through the ruins.
The click, click of his boots.
It echoed through the deserted assembly hall.
His footsteps soon reached the platform of the speaker’s seat.
The touch of the cold marble chilled his hand.
Then, heat enough to erase that chill began boiling up inside his chest.
The Revolution had become firmly established upon the principles that had set it in motion.
The Revolution was over.
And a new revolution would begin.
“I am the Revolution itself.”
Within the air cleansed of the stench of decay.
At last, the scent of the Empire began to flow.
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The fact that the black mages had tried to start a ‘revolution’ in a somewhat strange direction, and
the fact that an innovative experiment in physics—one that would have reduced His Highness the First Prince’s resistance to zero—nearly took place were naturally buried in darkness.
Thus, most people found vicarious satisfaction in Kim Yul’s latest chapter simply from the fact that Napoleon, after mulling over years of humiliation, had finally risen to the position of supreme ruler.
Of course.
“Uuumm……. Kim Yul? You don’t really mean this, do you, desuwa?”
Though she had experienced the incident somewhat on the periphery, Chloe, both a party involved and the publisher’s president, voiced the concern she naturally ought to have.
“……It sounds like you’re inciting a revolution. What on earth are Chloe and Kim Yul thinking……?”
That was the troubled sigh of Duke Schneisen after receiving a report on the whole affair.
“……It seems my brother’s actions have rather gotten under Ulysses’s skin. Should I send him a reward in the name of the imperial family……?”
That was the Second Prince, who had enjoyed it as a reader but felt his conscience prick at the ominous word ‘revolution.’
“How truly…… interesting.”
That was the First Princess, who smacked her lips and began taking a serious interest in Kim Yul.
Amid a flood of varied reactions, most of them bordering on concern.
Fortunately, no external pressure of any kind was brought to bear on Kim Yul.
Therefore.
“Hmm…… Shall I highlight the administrative side this time?”
Kim Yul dropped another bombshell.
An achievement Napoleon himself had been proud of, one that had a profound impact not only on France but on generations to come, and that remained at the heart of France until shortly before Kim Yul’s transmigration.
The episode Kim Yul chose as a small bit of catharsis before writing the next violent dopamine scene
was the compilation and implementation of the Napoleonic Code.
* * *
A heavy atmosphere hung over the salon.
What kind of people were capable of idly gathering at a salon from broad daylight, leisurely reading novels, and discussing their contents?
Of course, as in every era, there were a few impoverished shut-in lumpens who were also aspiring men of letters.
But most were nobles.
That meant quite a few people knew about the currents of change sweeping through the Empire, as well as the incident that had occurred not long ago—officially, a ‘memory that did not exist.’
To those who knew the general outline, naturally,
“Everyone is equal before the law…… All privileges based on birth or status are to be abolished……. That is a somewhat, quite, very radical and extreme opinion…….”
It did not feel like a phrase that merely reflected the era depicted in a novel.
If the author Ulysses really was the ‘newly appointed hero’ of rumor,
it could also be interpreted as an oblique expression of dissatisfaction with the current imperial family.
But there was an entirely opposite perspective as well:
“The idea that inheritance rights should be distributed equally among all children as well—hem, ahem. Surely not…… to drive out the First Prince…….”
“The timing is rather suspicious, so that may indeed be the intention. If so, could it be that the imperial family’s influence was involved in the novel itself from the beginning……?”
“Shh, lower your voice! Even if there’s no one in the salon during the day……!”
The abolition of primogeniture and equal inheritance.
And, going a step further, the separation of church and state.
Given the Holy Kingdom’s recent conduct, one could also take it as an indication that the author personally—and, by extension, the Empire as well—was expressing discomfort.
And when testimony after testimony began emerging that the First Princess, Second Prince, and new hero had worked closely together in the process of expelling the First Prince,
the seemingly radical content of the novel might perhaps serve as a signal flare, allowing people to gauge the Empire’s sweeping reforms in advance.
Those thoughts began slowly spreading from the salons
to the nobles and intellectual classes.
* * *
Of course, Kim Yul had his own calculations.
The compilation of the Napoleonic Code,
the establishment and entrenchment of a national education system,
and the heroic aspect of contributing to the spread of liberalism—he highlighted all of these.
He had even officially acknowledged the connection to his previous work by bringing Beethoven in as a reaction machine and having him shower praise on Napoleon’s every move, but
all that buildup
was meant to set up a dramatic twist:
the coming war with Austria,
followed by his proclamation as emperor and coronation.
Unfortunately, that shocking twist had begun spreading quietly through the betrayal of someone in his inner circle:
“Daughter, what exactly is Kim Yul writing?”
“Eh. I shouldn’t tell you this, desuwa. But you’re my dad, and besides, the plot has been a little unsettling lately, so…… umm……”
Fortunately, unlike her loose lips,
her father, Duke Schneisen, was a man capable of carefully judging what should and should not be said outright.
And.
If the story really did unfold exactly as written, the opposition—who were gradually beginning to voice the inevitable accusation that it was a challenge to, or an insult against, imperial authority—would surely pour forth their objections.
Then.
Duke Schneisen immediately thought of a neat solution.
Before any situation arose in which his loyalty might be questioned,
all they had to do was turn him into a loyal subject.
And judging by the way that daughter of his carried on and spoke, it seemed he ought to start seriously considering Kim Yul as a prospective son-in-law as well…….
They said one could never know what lay even an inch ahead in the future of a short-lived species,
but there was no harm in making preparations little by little, ahead of time.
.
.
.
Two days later.
A group of people dressed in dazzling finery descended on Kim Yul’s mansion.
At the unexpected visit from such high-ranking personages, Kim Yul was bewildered, but followed their instructions, performed the proper formalities, and eventually unrolled the scroll he was given.
[You, Hero Kim Yul, have rendered outstanding service in crushing the conspiracies hanging over the Empire. In recognition thereof, we hereby grant you the rank of baron.]
“I’m a male author, though.”
At Kim Yul’s bewildered remark,
Historie, who had been sitting demurely beside him like an aide, sighed and whispered into his ear.
“It means baron, not male author, Kim Yul.”
“Two barons……?” A Tin Can punch landed squarely in Kim Yul’s side, and only then did he return from the memories of the ravine and face reality.