Chapter 48
A sudden, awkward silence fell over the room.
The cause was none other than Young Lady Arshakh's—no, Camilla's—bombshell declaration.
'Well, I figured *something* like this would come up eventually.'
The content itself wasn't particularly shocking.
If she'd suggested gas chambers or flaying them alive, I might have been taken aback, but the general idea of wiping them out was inevitable.
Even if not to my extent, there are plenty of men here who've spent years dicing with death, countless times brushing against the afterlife. Many have lost fingers, eyes, even limbs in the process.
After going through hell like that, it'd be stranger *not* to have a bone-deep grudge.
If no one had shouted about tearing them apart and burning them to ashes, *I'd* have been the shocked one.
But Camilla's different.
She's barely over twenty. The only battles she's ever fought were probably social skirmishes.
A noble daughter who's never had to lift a finger, raised in comfort...why is she so bloodthirsty?
"Um...Young Lady Arshakh?"
"Yes, Your Excellency?"
Addressing her with the formal title used in public, after a moment's hesitation, she replied.
"Do you perhaps harbor a grudge against your parents? You shouldn't speak so lightly about killing your own family."
"Ah, you wouldn't understand, Your Excellency. I'm a bastard."
"Oh..."
Another bombshell, dropped before I could even brace myself.
With her sudden revelation of a family secret, I was left speechless, unable to retort.
...Wait a minute. So she's a bastard, but she's treated as a legitimate daughter and uses the family name?
According to The Kingdom’s succession laws, illegitimate children cannot inherit their father's name unless they're adopted by the legal wife. Doesn't that contradict her previous statement?
I was about to ask how that was possible, but she added an explanation just then.
"To be precise, I'm *about* to become a bastard. Thanks to my father, who can't keep his dick in his pants, just like the Crown Prince."
"What do you mean by that?"
"My birth mother, the legal wife of the House of Archduke Arshakh, passed away five years ago. Before her funeral rites were even over, my father brought home a new woman. Along with my half-sibling, no less."
"A half-sibling...?"
"Yes. The damn Archduke was having an affair while my mother was still alive. And as soon as he became a widower, he tried to bring his mistress into the house."
Oh, um.
What a tumultuous family history.
With her confessing in such a resentful tone, I couldn't bring myself to tell her to let it go.
Kais had said Archduke Arshakh was a valuable informant and that we should offer him protection and Support.
He was the one who first leaked the truth about the War, the truth the Nobility had been keeping under wraps.
So, we were planning to push him forward as a symbol of how well we'd treat those who joined our side…but it looks like I'll have to give that up.
If I had to choose between the Archduke and Camilla, the latter is far more important. Both politically and emotionally.
"As you all know, the order of succession for titles, regardless of gender, prioritizes birth order, correct?"
"That's right."
"Because I, the eldest daughter, exist, my younger sibling can't inherit the title. So my parents are desperately trying to invalidate my mother's marriage. They're trying to demote me to a bastard."
The Royal Family adheres strictly to the principle of primogeniture, but the Nobility of The Kingdom are different.
Since women can hold titles, the title is passed down to the first-born child, regardless of gender. Though, usually, men inherit.
The System is surprisingly flexible, with plenty of loopholes and ways around the rules.
If they negotiated with the Royal Family and made a deal with the Church, they could easily elevate the second child's position in the line of succession.
Their insistence on invalidating the marriage suggests there's something more to the story.
I feel bad for Camilla. To have her very birthright denied because of her womanizing father and greedy stepmother.
"I've suffered all sorts of indignities for the past five years. Being looked down on by servants, having my hair pulled and being slapped by my younger sibling, having my mother's keepsakes stolen, being engaged to a seventy-year-old man… If he hadn't died of old age, I would have actually married him!"
"...You've been through a lot."
"It was absolute hell. I even almost went to *actual* hell several times thanks to assassination attempts. My family's chaotic situation is about 40% of the reason I entered politics. Debating with strangers is far more enjoyable than walking on eggshells at home."
Camilla shrugged nonchalantly.
"So, I'm going to take this opportunity to kill my parents and sibling and take the title for myself. I'm tired of being a victim."
"I understand. But let's leave it at that."
If she keeps talking, the atmosphere is going to turn toxic. Enough is enough, young lady.
After listening to her harrowing tale, I calmly expressed my refusal.
"However, I'm afraid I can't immediately execute the Nobility as you suggest. Unfortunately, that method won't work."
"Why not? We rounded them all up to get rid of them, didn't we?"
"Well, that's true, but..."
I pointed out the flaw in her logic, a flaw she'd overlooked in her excitement.
"The Kingdom is a nation governed by law and possesses a judicial system. What will happen to the system's credibility if we execute them without due process?"
Even in this era, where high status allows one to be pardoned for illegal acts and to run rampant, using power to cover up misdeeds…
We cannot simply ignore established laws. Institutions only hold meaning when they are utilized.
Especially for a faction like us, who seized power based on the justification of incompetence and tyranny of the existing ruling class.
There’s something called a line that must be drawn, so to speak.
"....So, you're saying we should leave them be and not kill them?"
"That's certainly not what I'm saying."
I immediately refuted Camilla's words.
The existence of a line meant that all sorts of tricks could be employed within its boundaries.
"We need to follow procedure. First, we need to establish grounds to justify the arrest of the nobles."
Firstly, the situation of arresting all the nobles without warrants needs to be transformed into a legal detention measure.
While we have reasons to arrest them, it hasn’t been officially acknowledged yet.
"To be certain, it's better to create a law. Let's pass a new bill in the Assembly soon. The content... something about permitting immediate and unconditional arrest for Treason."
"You intend to treat the nobles as traitors?"
"Aren't they? They're the ones who concealed the cause of the decade-long Great War and exploited the Commoners. Some even contributed to that cause."
The surest way is to frame them all as traitors. Unlike ordinary criminals, there's less room for backlash, no matter how roughly we handle them.
If we add a retroactive clause to the law, it will be more than enough to cover up what we did in this Coup d'état.
Deploying troops everywhere people gathered can be spun as blocking escape routes, and the nobles' apprehension as arresting traitors and their accomplices.
Our actions can be packaged as 'somewhat drastic, but unavoidable decisions to maintain social order.'
"The quorum for the Assembly is over 60% attendance, so there shouldn't be a problem with legislation."
"We'll pass it immediately at the next meeting."
"I'll leave the drafting of the details to you. I don't have time to worry about that."
Once we've created the charges like this?
The next step is the trial. Giving them the proper punishment for their sins.
By having a public judicial body prescribe the punishment, we can kill or imprison them freely.
However, there was one problem.
"We need to bring them to trial somehow...."
"Will that really work? Most judges are also nobles."
"Exactly. It's obvious they're all in cahoots. A proper verdict is unlikely."
There's a term called "Robe Nobility."
They don't possess their own territory or independent forces, but it refers to the Blue Blood who have expanded their families by inheriting judicial/administrative positions for generations.
The administrative branch has less of a monopoly since new Personnel are recruited and replaced every year...but the judiciary is the opposite.
It's a small organization with strong elitism and exclusivism, so it seems they care a great deal about bloodlines. I heard that over 95% inherit their positions for generations.
And, like proper Blue Bloods, Robe Nobles are incredibly diligent in intermarriage and networking. It's practically passive for each person to be connected to at least 10-20 families.
In this situation, a fair trial is impossible, so my subordinates’ worries were not unfounded.
"You're right."
"Then--"
"But I'm not planning on holding an ordinary trial, am I?"
Therefore, my choice was not to use judges.
"Huh? Does that make sense?"
"Of course it does. We can use a jury."
The jury System is a legitimately recognized trial method in the Kingdom.
It seems the System hasn't been used in the last 100 years, but since it exists in the regulations, there's no problem utilizing it.
"Bring all the captured nobles to a public trial. Designate the attending citizens as jurors and let the majority rule decide the verdict."
Decisions based on public opinion lacking expertise. An Environment where biased information can be unilaterally provided. You probably get the picture by now, right?
We're going with the kangaroo court meta.