The Emperor’s Escape

Running away from home was easy. This was because no one blocked my path. In fact, while crawling through a dog hole to exit the Imperial Palace, I was even told to “watch my head.” The owner of that kind concern was a guardsman stationed outside the hole. If they knew the hole was there, why didn’t they block it instead of guarding it?

The answer lay in my memories. His Majesty Kaian was a greedy man who wanted both the thrill of an escape and the security of the Imperial Fortress. For the record, this dog hole was located right next to the West Gate of the palace to avoid wasting security personnel. Your Majesty Kaian. I understand the sentiment behind digging this hole, but since you’re around thirty now, how about using the door? I used it too, but in my case, it was because I wanted to feel what it’s like to escape the Imperial Fortress for the first time in my life, so it’s different. It is different… probably.

Anyway, I successfully ran away, sent off by the gentle and kind guardsman.

For the first time since I was born, I stepped outside the Imperial Fortress on my own two feet.

I navigated the streets with familiarity, yet everything I saw was foreign. Owners of lined-up stalls called out loudly to attract customers, and people dressed in low-quality but clean clothes passed by, browsed items, or made purchases. I stood for a moment, watching them buy accessories or tobacco cases instead of just daily rations. The lives of commoners in the capital were, by the standards of my previous life, severely lacking, but by the standards of this world, they were doing quite well. This, too, was an achievement of His Majesty Kaian. I lightly patted the head of my slate-gray hood and moved on.

In truth, I wanted to sightsee more… but I hadn’t come out for a breath of fresh air; I was a runaway. If I didn’t leave the capital quickly, I would end up facing Isaac, who would have come looking for me with an awkward expression. The thought of receiving a gaze from Isaac, tainted by all sorts of misunderstandings, was horrific.

Let’s go quickly. Fast. I hurried my steps.

Still, I really couldn’t help myself when I saw a ribbon dyed with flower water that resembled the color of Sierra’s eyes. The same happened when I discovered pressed rose bookmarks and ornaments for a sword hilt. I bought them for seven copper coins and tucked them safely into my shirt. After that, I truly didn’t look away once and went straight to the horse market.

“Going to the West?”

The merchant with a large mole under his nose asked. I stared at the single long hair growing from that mole and nodded. Why did he leave that there without plucking it? The merchant touched the hair, carefully, as if making sure it wouldn’t break or be pulled out.

“A mercenary? You’re a bit late.”

I nodded again. The merchant started twirling the hair around his finger. I struggled to look at the horses behind him rather than his finger and that hair. But the horses he was selling were all more or less the same. Any choice would lead to a similar result. Once I confirmed that, my eyes went back to the hair. Anyone in this situation would be forced to look at it. It wasn’t that I was strange.

“Hmm… Let’s see. The ones fit for a long journey are already sold out.”

The merchant turned around. I let out a small sigh looking at his fleshy back. Out of the mediocre horses, he grabbed the reins of a relatively large black horse and came to me. The hair he had twirled around his finger was now curly. I wanted to pluck it out.

“Just give me five silver coins.”

Seeing me just staring at him, he must have thought I was hesitating to buy, so he added with a scowl.

“Wouldn’t it be better to get going quickly rather than wasting time to save a few pennies? Besides, even if you look around, you’ll struggle to find a better one than this.”

Take it or leave it. At his added words, I pulled five silver coins from my pouch and handed them over. The merchant snatched the money away and pressed the reins into my hand. I looked at the ugly black horse wearing a saddle that looked like it would crumble into dust. The merchant spoke as if he were doing me a favor.

“Buy a new horse there when you return. There will be plenty of masterless ones, so it shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“I suppose you’ve heard some things?”

I added a polite ending to the informal speech that had come out of habit. Instead of pointing out my clumsy speech, the merchant answered the question fluently.

The mercenaries who went to the West are meeting their ends in succession. Even so, the reason they keep going is because they are paid for every orc they kill. At first, it was one silver coin for three orc heads, but now they say they give one silver coin for a single orc head.

“Who is paying for that?”

“The Duke there.”

The number of the Western Desert orc horde is estimated at twenty thousand. Even if mercenaries handled only a quarter of them, it would be five thousand silver coins. Five thousand silver coins was more than the annual budget of a wealthy Earldom. Even if the Rotenmeyer family had accumulated wealth as a branch of the Imperial family, it was by no means a small expenditure.

Furthermore, to maintain the morale of the knights and soldiers, they would have to provide some level of compensation, even if it wasn’t the same amount as the mercenaries. I frowned while estimating the total amount the Rotenmeyer family would have to pay for the lives of the orcs.

I had clearly ordered the Western nobles to “actively participate in the war.” They should have followed my command by offering their family’s knights and soldiers, or, if they were too stingy to send them, they should have paid the wages for the mercenaries to fill those spots.

But it seemed the Westerners had done nothing.

My head throbbed. I thought only the Northwest and the South were the problems, but the West was also running according to its own whims. And Kallios was bearing all the consequences.

“By the way. There’s a rumor that what’s actually there isn’t an Orc Lord.”

I climbed onto the horse’s back. The merchant, who had been talking excitedly, smacked his lips as if he were disappointed and bid me farewell.

“Right. Get going quickly.”

“Yeah. But… mister. You should pluck that nose hair. Why grow it out like that?”

Behind my back as I rode off, the merchant shouted. Whether the hair on that mole was a lucky hair or whatever, what did I care? I thought I’d feel relieved after telling him to pluck it, but my chest felt heavy as if a stone were pressing down on it. I repeatedly kicked the horse’s belly with my heels to urge its leisurely pace.

It took exactly twenty days to reach the Rotenmeyer fief. If I hadn’t sold the lazy black horse halfway through and swapped it for a high-spirited brown horse, it would have taken about three days longer.

The atmosphere of the castle upon arrival was chaotic and heavy. I rubbed my face against my collar to wipe away the dust from riding without rest and looked around the streets. Mercenaries were sprawled out everywhere, drinking, crying, laughing, or sleeping. Most were wounded. The smell of blood and pus drifted from them. It was a scent that wouldn’t exist if the wounds had been properly cared for.

Doctors, healing mages, and even people who looked like priests moved in and out of temporary tents set up in the square without rest. It wasn’t that the wounded weren’t being treated, but rather that there were so many of them that it was overwhelming. I passed the temporary tents after a quick check.

Certainly, twenty thousand orcs is a large number, and an Orc Lord is a threatening monster. But seven thousand five hundred soldiers and seven knight orders were not a small force either. I couldn’t understand why the inside of the castle was in such a mess.

As I crossed the residential area, temporary tents appeared again. In front of the largest tent, mercenaries holding orc heads were standing in line. The orc heads piled like a mountain behind the tent were… honestly, horrific. It looked like a scene plucked straight from hell. I stroked the mane of my horse, whose pace had slowed from exhaustion. Seeing them calculating the price of orc heads, I knew I was almost there. Let’s hold on just a little longer.

[Must you go?]

I heard the Guardian’s question again, the one I’d been hearing throughout the journey. I straightened my body, which was sagging from accumulated fatigue. It was a question that sounded more like a worried attempt to stop me than a trial.

Where would the Guardian be watching me from right now? I looked up at the sky. While the stench of blood and rot from all sorts of things pervaded the ground, the blue sky was loftily clear. I looked away from the white pieces of cloud that I would have thought pretty if I had seen them from the spire window. If I had wanted to avoid this, I would have done so when I saw the mess Kallios was in. I didn’t answer.

I rubbed my eyes, hoping the scene before me was a fatigue-induced hallucination.

But no matter how many times I rubbed and looked again, the situation didn’t change.

A group of knights in shining silver armor and a ragged Kallios stood facing each other. It was clearly a confrontation. I sent them here to fight together, so what the hell are those b*stards doing now?

“Go back.”

Kallios’s voice rang out clearly.

“The reason I am letting you go is not because I fear your strength or what you possess.”

Among the group, a knight standing in the back scraped the ground with the tip of his sword. While the Commander-in-Chief of this subjugation force and the master of the castle was speaking, he dared. Even if a dog barked at his side, he wouldn’t behave that way. A knight next to him nudged him in the side, and they began to snicker and laugh among themselves.

“It is simply because I know whose hands your lives are in.”

[Leave the castle within the day.] Kallios ordered. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and dismounted from my horse.

“You certainly have a difficult way of saying you don’t want to be hated by His Majesty.”

Whatever was so funny about those words, laughter erupted as if they had timed it. Even street thugs wouldn’t act like that. Knights, and not just any knights, but those of the Imperial Guard, the best among knights, were acting this way. I’m going crazy, seriously. Even as I approached, those guys didn’t stop talking.

The “me” those knights were talking about was a fool drowning in his first love, and Kallios was the concubine who had bewitched the foolish Emperor with his face. Well, whatever. Sure. The Duke of Rotenmeyer is a handsome man capable of conquering the world with his face. However, I declare… His Majesty Kallios is more handsome. For men, age is a weapon, and the power of grooming cannot be ignored. If our Kallios gathered everyone in the world and smiled, world peace would arrive. Conquest is easy, but peace is hard. Therefore, my brother is the best.

Good. I’ve calmed down.

I let go of the sword hilt I had been gripping.

They spat out all sorts of useless… advice or insults, saying that favor is fleeting, that out of sight is out of mind, and that someone like him would be forgotten soon. The knights then turned around. Toward me. Actually, they turned toward the inner castle of the Duke, but since I was closer than the castle, let’s say they turned toward me. They wore expressions of what is this?

Kallios, who had only seen me once here, seemed to recognize me, but these knights can’t even recognize their own master? I sighed and took off the hood that I had been wearing low over my nose.

There are only two people on this continent with red hair and red eyes. One is Kaian, and the other is also Kaian. Since the former has been in heaven for about 500 years, I am the only one currently.

There was no point to the effort I put into deciding what to say after revealing my face. I had intended to tell these damn knights to “kneel,” but the moment they identified my face, the knights collapsed and knelt like falling dominoes. Unlike Kallios, who looked like a beggar covered in orc blood and dust, dust billowed and clung to their sparkling clean silver armor. After scanning them thoroughly, I looked at Kallios and commanded.

“Ten heads per person. First come, first served for five people.”

My neck already felt stiff thinking about how many people died and how many were injured because these b*stards insisted they couldn’t take orders from a concubine of illegitimate birth. The memories of “Emperor Kaian” insisted that insubordination in a war situation meant summary execution. But if I did that, who would catch the orc horde camping out there in the desert?

“Why are only you guys going?”

I called out to the guys who were scurrying toward the castle gate. It seemed the entire knight order had caused this mess instead of helping my child. I intended to save only five out of the five hundred across the five knight orders. No, seriously, these wretched people. Even if they don’t like Kallios, how can knights, who have pledged their lives to the Emperor and their swords to the protection of the Empire, just sit there polishing their armor while watching their citizens die?

“Emperor Kaian” and “Grand Duke Kaian” shouted for summary execution together. But I suppressed the inner voice. Let’s think of the orc horde. The orcs… solving that is the priority for now.

I sighed as I watched the backs of the knights running toward the inner castle instead of the desert. Kallios was still standing in the same spot, looking at me.

I wanted to help, but instead of helping, I ended up just adding more of a burden. It made my stomach churn to think that those parasites hadn’t worked and had just wasted food at Kallios’s home. Did the Guardian say I would regret it knowing it would turn out like this? Kallios slowly approached me and knelt down.

“Has it been a month?”

“It has been 26 days.”

“It’s been almost a month. But… were you counting?”

He answered by kissing the top of my foot instead.