I woke up in the small nap room I’d been provided.
Yesterday, the upper floors of Tachyrinn had been sealed off. The ladies-in-waiting had already left, and since Prince Wald had moved his personal chambers down to the lower floors as well, there was no one left to occupy the ladies’ quarters.
Even if he were to show up now with two glasses and a bottle of wine, his entry upstairs would be barred.
Tears I hadn’t noticed I’d been crying trickled down from the corners of my eyes, wetting my ears. I buried myself under my blanket and took a moment to wipe my face before sitting up.
This morning marked the fourth day since we had lost Croway to a sea of flames.
At this point, we were skirting danger by remaining in Tachyrinn—we were honestly better off abandoning it soon. However, there had been no end to the stream of soldiers who had managed to return here from Croway.
Even though the window in this room was located fairly high up on the wall, it still let in the bustling din from outside.
My clothes had gotten somewhat disheveled in my sleep. Straightening myself out, I picked up my jacket from where I’d laid it out over my blanket and pulled it back on. I could tell my feet were a little swollen, probably because I’d gone to sleep without taking my boots off, so I drank a potion first thing after getting out of bed.
It didn’t make me feel any less hungry.
I untied the ribbon binding my hair and carded my fingers through the strands to tug the knots out. I paused for a moment, feeling the frilly white fabric in my hands, but tied up my hair again and quickly finished my morning routine.
Thinking I’d have a quick, simple breakfast, I had just left the nap room when someone called out to me.
“Why, if it isn’t Kariya. Good morning, lad. You look to be heading off to breakfast, so how about you let this old man join you?”
I turned to look in the direction of the voice. “Oh, General Orlin! Good morning. I’d be happy to have breakfast together.”
The mustached man smiled softly at my greeting, though even that couldn’t quite dispel the exhaustion from his face.
After a long moment, he spoke as though he’d just remembered something. “Ah... Now that I think about it, I still haven’t had the chance to explain what had happened in Tariyth to you.”
Orlin arranged for our meal to be sent up to an empty room near the war room. There, we broke our fast with only each other for company. As he sipped the steaming after-meal tea that had been brought up once we’d finished our food, the general spoke in a low, grave tone, as though he were admonishing himself.
“Did the Empire girl tell you what had happened?” he asked.
“She told me what she knew from her perspective, yes. But I’d like to hear Tiuccia’s side of the story as well.”
“It’s not as though it’s a secret. Just a shameful incident for us all. There’s no use discussing what happened, so no one will bring it up if they can help it. Either way, I’ll let you judge for yourself who was in the right.”
The steam rising from his tea dampened his mustache as his gaze drifted into the distance.
“Six years ago, the Fourth Prince, Erinor, was sent to the Raghion Empire under the pretext of studying abroad. He was six years of age at that time. Tiuccia hadn’t had any disputes with any of our neighbors for a while, so the situation had been deemed stable. Incidentally, an old friend of House Tiuccia—you might know him as the master-at-arms who tutored Nadar and His Majesty in swordplay—had passed away some years prior, but even so, Tiuccia got on well with their branch of the adventurer’s guild.”
Returning to the topic of Erinor, Orlin explained that the convenience of the teleportation portals had convinced the king to arrange a diplomatic visit to Raghion.
If any issues were to arise, the teleportation portals would allow him and his entourage to return to Tiuccia immediately. So with the young crown prince, Nadar, and a select few transmigrators from the Tiuccian branch of the guild in tow, the king had sojourned in the Empire to strengthen the two countries’ political ties. The intention had been for the trip to last half a year.
Orlin’s eyes crinkled with a touch of nostalgia as he continued his story.
He had personally remained in Tiuccia at the time, so he had been able to observe the entire disaster from start to finish from the crown’s perspective.
Back then, the king had a younger brother. Though the prince had been many years the king’s junior, he had been diligent in his support for the royal family. His wife had passed away young, but she had left him a single son. Betrothal had been promised between that boy and Princess Catharine.
Then, he met her. A certain young woman—a transmigrator.
“From what I could tell, they seemed to be quite intimate with each other. Even back then, the state of the royal bloodline and its few heirs had been a concern, and the prince had been eager to revitalize it. He courted the young lady quite ardently, and she herself didn’t seem to mind his advances. Together, they painted a charming picture,” he explained.
The prince had then brought her back to Tariyth, a town under his governance. Some time much later, he returned to Altiuccia with great excitement—a child had taken root in the woman’s womb.
As His Majesty was still in Raghion at this time, the prince had reported the news to his brother by way of crystal ball and then had the young lady’s name engraved on the Right of Rule as his wife.
“It was that night...that she chose to take her own life. Then, following that, we discovered that she had been betrothed to another transmigrator.”
“Are you saying no one had known she was engaged?” I asked.
“Aye, that was the way of it, though the guild thought us liars. House Tiuccia was thrown into turmoil after that; it was well and widely known that the guild would take punitive action in any event involving a woman of their own. Though the prince had not done the deed himself, he feared her suicide would be ruled an act of violence by the guild, and so he held a council at his castle with other members of the royal family to determine what ought to be done. Then, during those talks, transmigrators attacked Tariyth in reprisal.”
The general closed his eyes in remembrance. “The stars rained down on Tariyth Castle that day...”
He continued. “I saw the sight with my own eyes, having been en route from Altiuccia to Tariyth at the time. The prince, his son, all the royals in attendance and their escorts, and even all the servants who worked in the castle perished. Their attack left not a single person alive. All told, there had been two hundred and forty-five people in the castle. And two hundred forty-five people died in an instant, in the name of revenge.”
I vividly recalled the bright way Iluma had tried to reassure me as she’d explained what had happened.
“While the event is regularly referred to as a tragedy, the guild stopped at destroying the castle. The people of Tiuccia weren’t to blame for what their royals did, after all.”
Back in the world of Golden Dawn, NPCs weren’t living, breathing people. They were just AI, run by computer code.
But this world wasn’t a game.
Had the guild been fully aware of this, yet still chosen to carry out their “punishment”?
Had those damned “players” really understood the weight of their actions?
“Every Tiuccian who had borne witness to those events had been killed in the guild’s act of retribution, so the truth of the matter has long been lost to us. But it was still a fact that a transmigrator woman had lost her life in our care, so Tiuccia accepted full responsibility. The country officially apologized, and we did what we could in reparation.”
“As for the guild, remarkably, they had transferred the old master-at-arms from his responsibilities at the branch in Tiuccia, putting it under the administration of the SS-tier transmigrator who had been the woman’s fiancé. But that branch didn’t remain in operation for long—displeased by their headquarters’ decision not to punish Tiuccia any further after the tragedy at Tariyth, all transmigrators withdrew from our lands. It seems that now they’re intent on carrying out their ‘justice’ from Khrasiel. They claim that the woman’s soul will never find peace unless the entirety of House Tiuccia is eradicated.”
General Orlin’s shoulders drooped as he hunched his back. He looked to be no more than a tired old man, aged well beyond his years.
He didn’t speak for a long while. When he found his words again, he sounded as desolate as he looked. “Tell me, Kariya... Have we really committed such a terrible crime? I’ve heard there’s a saying in your old world that whosoever saves a life saves the world, but whosoever ends a life has destroyed it. At any rate, after what happened, Tiuccia lost face on an international level.”
He continued. “Our own people were quite unhappy as well, claiming that we had invited punishment from the gods for the fool prince’s ploy to claim the girl as his own. Of course, the crown had also offered reparations to the citizens who had lost their loved ones in the attack on Tariyth, and the king and crown prince had been working tirelessly ever since to atone for the house’s crimes. But we have not yet earned forgiveness, not even after six years. Are our sins truly so great?”