CHAPTER 170
Could the world really screw me over this badly?
Starting from the Commander-in-Chief election, all the way to the Emperor writing a will naming the 1st Princess as his successor.
From one to ten, it felt like the world was doing everything in its power to piss me off.

Right, I'll just die.
I'll revive even if I die, but I'll just die for now.

"Hmm, but isn't it a good thing if Her Highness the 1st Princess becomes the Emperor-ssumda?"

As I was venting my stress in a string of complaints, Lululio questioned my reaction.
We had stood on the 1st Princess's side and made a deal with her.
So she was asking if it wasn't a good thing for that same 1st Princess to become Emperor.

It was a valid question.
If you looked at the situation purely in one dimension, it certainly seemed that way.
However, once you knew the truth, there was no issue more problematic than this.

"The 1st Princess said it herself. By having me revive the Emperor, she would prove he wasn't brainwashed and suppress the factions trying to slander the Imperial Family."

This is where the problem arose.

"But since the Emperor personally recognized the 1st Princess in his will, the 1st Princess no longer has any reason to revive him."
"Why is that-ssumda? She can still break the brainwashing rumors and keep the 1st Prince in check by reviving the Emperor, can't she-ssumda?"
"It's the exact opposite. That would just give the 1st Prince's faction an excuse. An excuse for those who were crushed by the Empress's trolling to rise again."

For the 1st Princess, the biggest problem was likely the 1st Prince.
She would absolutely want to avoid him making a comeback.

"More importantly, if the Emperor comes back to life, the will becomes completely invalid."
"...Ah."

Hearing that, Lululio finally made a face of understanding.
A will is, by definition, words left behind before death.
In a situation like this, if the Emperor came back to life, the existing will would naturally become nothing more than a piece of scrap paper.

"On top of that, there's a very real possibility the Emperor could change his mind."

People can flip their words as easily as eating a meal.
There was no guarantee the Emperor wouldn't do the same.
Especially an old man whose mind had been wandering back and forth due to illness.
He could suddenly change his mind and choose someone else entirely.

The 1st Princess would know this fact incredibly well.
She was a woman who saw straight through the core matters of the Imperial Family.
There was no way she hadn't considered this possibility.

Above all, if the Emperor revived, the 1st and 2nd Princes' factions wouldn't just sit still.
They would mobilize every means possible to persuade the Emperor.
In other words, the absolute best-case scenario for the 1st Princess was for the Emperor to not come back to life.

‘It's become the exact opposite of the original plan.’

Even for the 1st Princess, this situation must have been completely unexpected.
She probably never imagined that the Emperor, who heavily favored the 3rd Prince, would suddenly push her to become the next Emperor.

‘No, actually... maybe that's exactly why the 1st Princess was chosen.’

The Emperor, who favored the 3rd Prince in his later years.
He must have known about the Empress's paranoid personality disorder.
If the 1st Prince became Emperor, her madness might have extended toward the 3rd Prince.
But if he chose the 2nd Prince—who was also male—the 1st Prince's faction wouldn't stand for it.
After all, age and the influence of being the first to become Crown Prince played a massive role in succession.

And right then, the 1st Princess must have caught his eye.
The title of the first female Emperor.
Like the 1st Prince, she was the eldest among the siblings.
And she had achieved massive accomplishments despite being a woman.
By choosing the 1st Princess, he could prevent multiple disasters.
So the senile Emperor, in his final days, chose the 1st Princess for the sake of the 3rd Prince.

That was the only conclusion that made sense.

‘Fuck.’

If he was going to die, he should have just died quietly.
He twisted things so badly it was a complete and utter disaster.
All without even realizing that his misguided choice was going to tear Gladion into three pieces.

Gladion would suffer through chaos for decades to come.
Even if the 1st Princess managed to take the throne, the 1st and 2nd Princes' factions would spark rebellions everywhere.
Naturally, they would claim the Emperor was manipulated by Black Dawn and made the wrong choice.
On top of that, they would definitely claim the 1st Princess was also colluding with Black Dawn.
They would never let go of an excuse to drag her down.

‘Internal conflict and civil war.’

I could vividly see the Empire being engulfed in the flames of war.
And I could also clearly see Black Dawn blooming amidst those flames.

‘Was even this part of Black Dawn's intention?’

The possibility of the Emperor's brainwashing was real.
But no matter how cunning Asheria Eve was, could she have deduced the situation this far?
She might have had some intentions mixed in, but she couldn't have predicted the spontaneous actions of humans to this degree.
They were probably just as baffled by this situation as we were.

"Harua."

Then, Aranseol's voice called out to me.
When I raised my head, not only her, but everyone was looking at me with worried eyes.

Right, of course.
I was the center here.
The people gathered here were all brought together by their ties to me.
For me to make an expression like this in front of them would only foster excessive anxiety.

If I had become their representative, I needed to take responsibility.
Making others anxious was an act unworthy of a leader.

I raised my hands and roughly scrubbed my face.
I gathered all the anxiety and complexity into my hands and forcibly brushed them away.
I changed my expression.
Just doing that shifted my mindset a little.

"Listen closely, everyone."

What was the most important thing right now?

"The 1st Princess is going to try to kill me."

The atmosphere in the room instantly froze at those words.
They might wonder if she would really go that far, but this was reality.
The 1st Princess did not want the Emperor to come back to life.
Therefore, the very first thing she needed to do was eliminate me.

Just by killing me, the possibility of the Emperor reviving disappeared.
That alone would solidify her position as the Emperor.

"I don't know how she plans to navigate this situation moving forward. But one thing is certain: I have just become an incredibly massive obstacle to her."

I knew this because I had seen the Imperial Family with my own two eyes.
The 1st Princess was someone who could cut off any personal, private feelings she had toward me at a moment's notice if it was for her goals.
She would gladly try to kill me.

"But Harua, you are a Saint recognized by the Holy Church. Even the Gladion Imperial Family cannot treat you recklessly," Aigis added, suggesting that my interpretation was too extreme.

She was right; I was someone recognized as a Saint.
I was also a figure who had achieved multiple accomplishments alongside the Regular Army.
If she killed someone like me, the 1st Princess would undoubtedly lose the public's favor.
The 1st and 2nd Princes would fiercely bite at that weakness, too.

"But it's a different story if Black Dawn kills me."

Death can easily be tailored to fit anyone's tastes.
Even in modern society, there were countless cases where deaths were packaged differently from the truth.
Civic awareness that was closer to the Middle Ages.
A world where magic existed, making evidence tampering incredibly easy.
Faking a death in this world wasn't difficult at all.

"Of course, in my case, even if I die, I'll just come back to life."

It wasn't like I was immune to death.
If my torso was completely dismembered and buried in the ground or dumped in the deep sea, that was still death.
The 1st Princess would try to eliminate me and frame it as Black Dawn's doing.

What did that mean?

"Black Dawn is going to try and make contact with the 1st Princess."

Black Dawn knew this fact better than anyone.
So they would eagerly step forward, offering the exact deal the 1st Princess would love the most.
To Black Dawn, I was always a massive headache.
If they could eliminate me while simultaneously joining hands with the Emperor of Gladion, there could be nothing better for them.

Honestly speaking, it made my stomach churn.
The situation was such a total mess that it made me wonder if the Emperor really had been controlled by Asheria Eve.
The Emperor's enemy was the Empire's enemy.
The entire Empire was about to become my enemy.
I knew exactly how massive of a crisis that was.

Therefore.

"I am going to go see the 1st Princess."

"Wait, you're going to see Her Highness the 1st Princess in this situation? Harua, you just said with your own mouth that she is going to kill you!"

Babiyen cried out urgently.
Just as she said, it was like walking straight into the tiger's mouth.
However, the Empire would soon become the tiger's den anyway.
In that case, it was better to strike first before the tiger's den was fully complete.

"I'm going to make a deal with the 1st Princess."

Ultimately, what the 1st Princess wanted was for the Emperor to not revive.
As long as I catered to that, the possibility of a deal was open.
The problem was how much she would trust me.
After all, I could break the promise and side with the 1st or 2nd Prince.
If that was going to happen, it would be better for her to just eliminate me.

But you could also think about it the other way.

"I am the only one who can prove the Emperor wasn't brainwashed."

The Emperor's death was a scheduled event anyway.
He was dying of illness, destined to leave this world soon regardless.
In a situation like that, what if I declared that the Emperor died immediately after being revived?

The public would have no choice but to believe it.
They didn't have Resurrection Magic, after all.
Naturally, the possibility of the Emperor reviving would vanish forever.
And I could just say that the Emperor, during his brief revival, only said one single sentence:

Let the 1st Princess succeed the throne.

Like that.
Of course, it was easier said than done.
The 1st Princess would likely continue to keep me in check moving forward.
But she wouldn't refuse an offer that could suppress the rebellions the 1st and 2nd Princes would inevitably cause.
Because she, too, would want to avoid the Empire being split into three.

"That's a very optimistic theory. It relies entirely on Her Highness the 1st Princess's goodwill," Vanessa, the one most closely tied to politics here, pointed out.

Everything ultimately hinged on the 1st Princess not losing her mind and accepting my proposal.

"The persuasion is up to me."

It wasn't like I planned to walk in blindly.
I had the insurance of my body part that I always left with Ririran.
Plus, I had no intention of heading to the Imperial Palace alone.
I needed insurance on a level that would make even the 1st Princess hesitate to touch me.

"Therefore."

I planned to secure that insurance.
The person the Emperor favored the most, and in a way, the person currently in the most dangerous position.
And the person who, if the Emperor were to revive for even a moment, could make him declare that the words written in his will were the absolute truth.

"We need to get our hands on the 3rd Prince.
The 3rd Prince, Leoli Gladion.
We need him."