Chapter 185 – Snake Under the Feet (3)

“Your Majesty.”

Lenly quickly lowered his sword and knelt before Juan.

Meanwhile, Sina and Haild looked back and forth between Lenly and the Saintess; it was their first time seeing Ivy with Juan’s spirit inside of her.

The Saintess clearly looked different from the girl Sina had occasionally seen when she trained at a knight school. Most of the past Saintesses Sina had seen looked lethargic and depressed. However, the Saintess standing in front of her right now exuded the energy of someone who was born as a natural ruler.

“Juan?”

Juan, who had successfully transferred his spirit into Ivy’s body, looked toward Sina upon hearing her call.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Haild also belatedly grasped the situation and lowered his sword as well. historical

Then, Lenly looked at Juan and opened his mouth.

“Please forgive me, Your Majesty. I was concerned that maybe some of them might have returned.”

“All good. I’ve been thinking that I had sent quite a misleading combination of people by mistake. But these people are loyal friends of mine. There’s no need for you to worry about them.”

Sina was relieved to see Juan who showed up at the perfect timing. The last thing she wanted to do was to fight against someone who she had to rescue. Sina approached Juan and opened her mouth.

“Then I’ll take the Saintess with me and head out. Sir Loen can be rest assured while..”

“Oh, about that part,” Juan suddenly opened his mouth before Sina could finish her sentence. “I changed my mind about it. You don’t have to take the Saintess out of here.”

“What? But..”

The original mission was to rescue the Saintess who was isolated in the underground structure with the Captain of the Imperial Guards from danger.

‘But he is canceling the order as soon as we finally reached the Saintess..?’

Lenly also looked at Juan with a perplexed expression.

“Sina and Haild. Go help Lenly Loen to carry out the mission. I’m not forcing you to listen to my order, Sina. So you can go back if you want. But the Saintess will stay here.”

Only then did Sina realize Juan’s intention.

“I was wondering why you weren’t being so stubborn this time.. you were planning to trick Heretia like this in the first place, weren’t you? So you’re going to search through this underground structure yourself, huh?” Sina asked.

Juan grinned at Sina.

“The Saintess has no ability to perform any Grace, nor does have good physical ability. But I guess there’s no need to worry since there are three powerful people I can count on. I’m just borrowing her eyes for a little while. That’s all.”

“But Your Majesty..” Lenly muttered as if he was concerned.

But Juan didn’t seem like he was willing to listen to other people’s opinions at all.

“Relax, I won’t maintain the spirit transfer for too long. I respect the Saintess’ privacy since I’m using her body, and I will also get in trouble if Heretia finds out about what I’m doing. I’ll just borrow her body occasionally when I feel it is absolutely necessary. So protect her with all your might, alright?”

“...Do you even have the Saintess’ consent?” Sina asked as if she was suspicious, but Juan did not answer her.

There was no way for Juan to ask Ivy for consent from the outset, since it was impossible for Juan and Ivy to talk unless they met each other in person.

“The underground structure itself is one-third the size of Torra. According to Heretia’s estimate, everything can be done in two or three days if we ignore the useless areas. Show this map to the Captain of the Imperial Guards as well and check everywhere that you feel is necessary. If you really have no idea, wait until I transfer my spirit into the Saintess’ body.”

Juan did not seem to be open to any sort of counterargument at all. Lenly closed his mouth upon realizing that Juan was going to be stubborn. After all, Lenly and Haild were people who would be willing to accept any words spoken by Juan, even if he said that the sun rose in the west sky.

On the other hand, Sina felt uneasy about this situation, but had no choice but to accept it eventually.

“Alright then. I see that there’s no further disagreement here. Explain everything to the Saintess for me.”

“Uh, wait. We-we are the ones explaining everything to the Saintess?”

But at that moment, the Saintess shuddered and exhaled a long breath. The Saintess’ black eyes slowly turned into turquoise color as she opened her eyes.

Ivy looked surprised when she saw Sina and Haild who had appeared in front of her eyes out of nowhere. She looked around in confusion, then soon found Lenly making a bewildered face. Ivy had seen that look on Lenly’s face before. Ivy carefully opened her mouth.

“Did His Majesty visit again?”

“...Yes. It will take us more time before we are able to return above the ground because His Majesty left us with a special mission.”

Lenly answered cautiously, but Ivy didn’t seem particularly disappointed or angry.

“I see. His Majesty.. should have been very disappointed in us due to many reasons, including Miss Heretia’s injuries, but I’m just grateful that he gave us another chance. The fact that His Majesty believes in us means that we still have a chance to be forgiven.”

Sina was relieved to see Ivy being convinced so easily, and she was also relieved that Ivy looked quite mature even after Juan’s spirit left her body. Other Saintesses Sina had seen so far all looked precarious, almost as if they were about to collapse at any moment. But Ivy didn’t seem to be like that—unless she used to be, but changed after everything that happened to her like many other people who got the chance to meet Juan.

Sina reached out her hand to Ivy.

“Saintess, I am Sina Solvane. It will only be a short time that we spend together, but I promise to do my best to serve you safely.”

***

“I went to the House of Peers meeting for the first time after a long time, and the age range of that group went up like crazy,” Heretia said as soon as she entered Juan’s room in a wheelchair.

It was Juan’s first time seeing something like a wheelchair, but he didn’t pay too much attention to it; he thought that someone smart from the Helwin family should have made it. Instead, he answered Heretia while continuing to look at the underground structure’s map to see if he was missing any hidden messages.

“Did you come here to complain about that part?”

“No. I want to give you a round of applause for blowing that rat’s head off. I knew there would be bloodshed either now, or later anyway. I’m actually rather surprised that you only killed one of them. But you should have also considered me having to talk face to face with old people who are even hard of hearing.”

Juan laughed quietly as he imagined the elderly people walking around with trembling legs while relying on a cane coming together and sitting at a House of Peers meeting.

“It seems like they decided to place the older people who might have met me before in the meeting. Perhaps they thought I would be more generous if I met someone I knew from before?”

“Or they are going after Duke Henna. They are either of similar age or older than even Duke Henna.”

“Well they thought wrong. Neither Duke Henna nor I are the type to get soft just for that sort of reason.”

“So you have no intention of revoking your previous order at all?” Heretia asked.

Juan looked back at Heretia upon hearing her question.

“The one about conscripting the nobles and taking away all their properties?”

“Yes. Exactly that one.”

“Do you want me to cancel it?”

“Well, your order included the Helwin family as well.”

“Are the Helwins innocent?”

Juan smiled and looked at Heretia, but Heretia couldn’t answer him.

“Everyone knows how Harmon Helwin died. Dismas and the head of the Helwin family found him and blew his head up. Until that moment, Harmon was looking into the conspiracy behind my death.”

Heretia frowned. Harmon had always been an alien to the Helwin family even during his lifetime. And even now that he was dead, he was making everything much more complicated—that applied to both, when the Church ruled the empire, and when the emperor was ruling the empire.

Heretia knew that wasn’t Harmon’s fault, but she couldn’t help but feel frustrated.

“Uncle Harmon would have died anyway even if we didn’t cooperate at that time. That’s the only thing the Helwin family could do to survive at the time. And yet the Helwin family still had to pay a huge price anyway. That includes my legs.”

“Are you asking me to excuse the Helwin family from my order in return for your contribution?” Juan asked.

“Is that too much for me to ask?”

“There’s one thing you need to know. I didn’t punish those nobles. They volunteered to dedicate their properties of their own volition. I thought that the Helwins were ready to sacrifice that much as well. No?”

“How could we work so hard without any self-interest? You should know this already, but the ones you have to be the most careful around are those who are willing to work hard without any rewards. They’re either a pervert or a big thief.”

“Harmon didn’t really ask me for anything.”

“Uncle Harmon was definitely more of a pervert. No, maybe he was actually a big thief. I bet that man must have been proud enough to think that the empire was his own work rather than the work of the emperor. Wasn’t it Uncle Harmon who built the system such that it can run even in the absence of the emperor?”

“...That I can’t deny.”

“Anyway, I’m neither a pervert nor a thief. And unlike uncle Harmon, I’m the head of the Helwin family. So I need to take care of my self-interest.”

Juan leaned back against the chair.

“Is that how much you hate having to give away half of your fortune?”

“Oh, I have no objection to that part. I do think that there are some procedural problems, but it’s bad to make any exceptions.”

Juan looked at Heretia, dumbfounded.

‘She stormed in here all of a sudden to nag at me, but now she is telling me to do as I planned?’

“Besides, if the Helwin family is willing to come forward and dedicate half of its properties, the other nobles won’t take issue with the procedure. It seems that everyone thinks of me as something similar to the founding contributor,” Heretia shrugged.

“Then what is it that you want?” Juan asked.

“I just want you to give us some of the businesses. Something like an unfair business stake that used to be held by nobles of the religious faction, you know? I’m not asking for too much. Perhaps Ilde family’s stake is enough, since they ran away leaving behind all their properties.”

Juan didn’t know where and how much stake the Ilde family had. But Juan didn’t intend on putting his hands on their stake, and was planning to hand it over to a subordinate cooperator anyway. It didn’t really matter to Juan if that subordinate was Heretia.

“Do as you wish. But as far as I remember, the Ilde family is a family that used to be involved with slave trades,” Juan said.

“In fact, the reason why I want their stake is that I want to clean up the slave trade business. I bet someone is going to take over it if it is left unattended. The Church has allowed so many illegal businesses that we need someone to sort them out and take care of them.”

Juan looked at Heretia with a dumbfounded look.

“I feel like you might also be a pervert or a big thief.”

“There’s a lot of things where money will come out other than that as well. I’m especially interested in the business of smuggling goods from beyond the boundary. Oh, of course, it will be an official trade rather than smuggling once I take over.”

Juan stared at Heretia for a while. He couldn’t imagine what the big picture Heretia was drawing looked like. Heretia was definitely similar to Harmon, but also very different from him. Heretia was both a merchant and a statesman, and she was also an adventurer while being the head of a famous noble family. She was certainly a different type from Harmon, who sat in the middle of Tora to manipulate it by reaching out even beyond the Imperial border.

“But I still feel like the Helwin family should pay a little more price.”

Heretia’s face stiffened as she stared at Juan.

“A little more price? What price?” Heretia asked.

“The head of the Helwin family should serve as the Grand Duke,” Juan smiled. “A friendly Grand Duke would be better than an emperor who doesn’t even show his face.”

Heretia’s mouth widened upon hearing Juan’s words, then she glared at him with suspicious eyes. She then shook her head, but soon started sighing.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you,” Heretia only replied after a long time.

“I thought you would accept the position right away.”

“You should make a decision after more consideration. Discuss with Duke Henna and General Nienna about it as well.”

“Why would I need to do that when I’m the emperor? I haven’t seen a better Grand Duke candidate than you. Besides, I can’t stay in Torra forever. I bet the nobles would prefer a politician who was sitting in the same meeting room as them until yesterday rather than a crazy emperor who recklessly beheads the nobles.”

Heretia frowned; she had a feeling that something was off about Juan’s self-mocking tone. Perhaps it had something to do with what he did at the House of Peers meeting.

Unlike before, Juan didn’t try to actively govern mankind, nor did he try to unite them as one. Rather, he was deliberately acting as if he wanted to destroy his own public image.

After thinking so far, Heretia felt like she could understand Juan’s thoughts. In the end, Juan confirmed that mankind would collapse miserably if he disappeared. Even if he became an emperor and had compassion for them like before, it would collapse once again as soon as he disappeared.

Rather, the existence of ‘the emperor’ itself became the basis for harm.

Juan may want to make the existence known as ‘the emperor’ itself absent. That would be an easy job, since the empire would still run just fine by doing what the Church had been doing until now. However, it was a hard thing for Juan to do. However, it might be easy for other people.

Heretia sighed and then opened her mouth.

“Juan. You don’t know how lovely and cute you are.”

“...What?” Juan glared at Heretia with a distorted expression.

“You are looking at me like I’m talking bullshit all of a sudden. People like you. They are scared of you, but they also admire you. The charm of the emperor is also a power of the emperor, don’t you think? You seem to think that you can be hated and feared by people if you try, but being hated is just as hard as being respected.”

“Did I offend you that much by offering you the position of Grand Duke? Enough is enough. Stop making fun of me.”

“No, I’m happy that you offered the position to me. But my point is, you’re not good enough to be evil. If you did something that really suits you, you would have succeeded without ever being caught by me.”

Heretia smiled and turned the wheelchair as she continued speaking.

“Even if you try to purposefully cover yourself in mud, people around you will never let you do that. You trying to put up a front is actually kind of cute to watch from the side. People like Hela Henna are worse, because they have a strong disposition of ‘a bad-tempered but actually super sweet grandmother.’ So be careful of her.”