Interlude: Nacht der kurzen Messer (1)

Though Kim Yul, still going about life as a small-time citizen, hadn’t given it much thought, the Empire was a rather enormous country.

Especially if you looked for the country in Earth’s history that most closely resembled the Empire’s power structure.

It could be said to resemble England, the vilest and most wretched country in all human history.

Like any absolute monarchy, the Empire’s emperor couldn’t possibly oversee everything himself.

In the long, arduous history the imperial people called the ‘Unification War,’ unification had not been completed by some white-horse-riding emperor appearing to finish the job; far more of it had been the product of tedious, sinister political alliances and betrayals.

So naturally, it had taken a form closer to local rule by the nobility than to centralization.

A constitutional monarchy had emerged, divided into an upper house that collected the nobles’ opinions and a lower house that collected the citizens’ opinions.

The emperor was not exactly pleased with a situation in which his own power was constrained.

So whenever he felt like it, he would encourage the lower house from behind the scenes and quietly work to restrict the privileges granted to the nobles.

Even now, rumors were circulating that former Assemblyman Asterik, who had long since suffered a total loss of status, had been cured of Orange Bottle disease the moment the emperor sent a separate letter praising his service...