While Crow wept in his room, Iris visited her mentor, Eldia, at the latter’s private chambers.
“My mentor— No, Eldia,” she cried, glaring at the empress under the dim light of the fireplace. Throwing etiquette to the wind, she growled, “How dare you accept Crow’s proposal!”
Sure, maybe it was a crime to be disrespectful to the empress, but did Iris care? No. Status, honor—none of that mattered. Even her gratitude for having been entrusted with the ultimate aethereal arm, Excalibur, was cast onto the back burner.
“I know that, while I was away, Crow suggested becoming the emperor’s father—that is, your husband—to dethrone the emperor and lead the country to peace. And you accepted! How could you?!”
Indeed. It had been announced during mealtime earlier that such an arrangement had been made between Eldia and Crow, all while Iris had been on patrol duty at the estate.
“What the hell?! Don’t fuck with me, you...you...!” Iris trailed off, sobs of anger and sadness escaping her as she grabbed Eldia’s slender shoulders and glared at the empress.
But, well...
“Iris, Iris. Blame me all you like. But you understand, don’t you? This is the path of righteousness,” Eldia replied, unflinching.
Choked up, Iris found herself unable to speak.
Accepting Iris’s sorrow and condemnation of her actions, Eldia gazed at her pupil and continued, “Crow is a wise man. Surely he grasps the current state of the empire. We’re on the brink of collapse, Iris.”
Eldia let out a deep sigh as she continued. She could almost hear them—the sounds of the nation collapsing, like a decrepit building falling apart. “The dark magus organization, Wanpurgis, has created a situation in which a great number of aetherborn are flooding in toward the imperial capital. By itself, that’s already a major problem,” she pondered aloud.
The chaos among the people was unprecedented. Before the attack by Wanpurgis, the denizens of the capital and its adjacencies had completely forgotten the terror of living in a world rife with aetherborn. Spanning several hundred kilometers around the capital, the inner zone had once been a sacred area, free of monsters. Surrounded on all sides by a massive wall, it had remained peaceful—until now.
“The myth of peace has been dispelled. Though the people haven’t risen in revolt yet, who knows what might happen if even just one weak aetherborn breaches the capital?” Eldia mused, her face turning pale.
It was a frightening prospect, no doubt about it. Unlike Crow and others from the outer zone, the people of the inner zone had never seen a single aetherborn. The degree of panic that would ensue defied imagination.
“And despite this, my son, the emperor, is still only concerned with oppressing the common folk! I know, I know that as a mother I shouldn’t be saying such things, but how could I possibly have given birth to such a child?!” Eldia lamented, frantically tearing at her hair.
“Eldia...” Iris trailed off. Seeing the empress at her breaking point left the knight at a loss for words.
Eldia was at her limit too, having spent much of her life watching as her child, born from a loveless union, did nothing but bring misfortune to his own people. “And then, that blasted dragon appeared!” she bemoaned. Nidhogg, Blight of the Heavens, who was supposed to have been sealed away by the royal family, had descended upon the inner zone. News of its arrival and subsequent subjugation had spread like wildfire among the people.
“First, its appearance sowed chaos among the populace. Then, its defeat at the hands of a single young man shocked them. If that was all there was to it, this would’ve been cause for celebration, but...”
Reality was not as simple as that. Many wondered about young Crow’s victory over the dragon. Why had he been sent to hunt it alone? As those who knew of the event had begun looking into this matter, they’d discovered that Emperor Zilsonia himself had forced Crow to fight the dragon alone, specifically forbidding him from bringing allies.
Thus, distrust toward the emperor was at an all-time high. Even when aetherborn had threatened the inner zone, the old man’s only concern had been with destroying a young man. He was an incompetent who’d unwittingly brought back a beast meant to be sealed away. A wretched old man whose sole aim was to prevent commoners from moving up the ranks.
Now his true nature had been laid bare in the eyes of the people.
“Our nation is on the verge of splitting apart. It’s teeming with those who call for the dethronement of the emperor—with no regard for the chaos that would ensue—and with those who seek to take the throne for themselves. Even in the face of the aetherborn and an organization of dark magi lurking in the shadows, people’s hearts are torn!”
Eldia would seize upon any method to overturn this situation.
“You understand, don’t you, Iris?” Eldia asked.
“I-I do,” Iris replied tearfully, nodding. From the moment Eldia, former bearer of the holy sword, had presented a ring to Crow, Iris had understood perfectly.
“Crow Titus is a hero. A dragonslayer. Taking him as my husband and making him into a symbol of this nation is the best course of action!”
At those words, before Eldia’s golden gaze, Iris fell silent.
Compatibility with the holy sword Excalibur required a heart strongly attuned to justice. And Eldia, so compatible with the sword that it had stopped her aging altogether, would do anything she deemed to be right, even at the cost of shattering her disciple’s heart.
“Crow is a smart man. I’m certain he understood my gift of the ring as a tactic to protect the nation. If he hadn’t liked the idea, he could’ve simply taken it in stride and returned the ring. I left that path open. But he...”
The young swordsman had accepted the ring. Iris knew how intelligent Crow was. He must’ve come to a realization about how to best bring the nation together.
“Oh, Crow,” Iris lamented, recalling how, during their meal together, Crow’s face had frozen when Eldia had announced their plan.
At first glance, one might’ve thought he’d just been shocked, but no. He had worn, without a doubt, the look of a man who had resolved to sacrifice his life. He’d been bracing himself for what he had to do so firmly that he hadn’t been able to move a muscle.
“Forgive me, Iris. I know this is cruel to you. You love this man. And so, if you cannot find it in your heart to forgive me, I would have you cut me down—right here, right now,” Eldia declared.
Iris, however, made no movement to reach for the holy sword. How could she cut her mentor down? It was the emperor’s fault for causing such unrest in the nation that his mother had had to resort to this.
Not only that, her dear Crow had consented to Eldia’s plan.
“I, Iris Zehirete,” she began, dropping to one knee even as her tears continued to fall in large drops, “vow to do everything within my power to make Crow Titus—the Dragonslayer—emperor of Lemuria!” With determination, she made a resounding pledge, a knight’s oath, to establish Crow as the new pillar of their nation.
Even if that meant she could never be with the man she loved.
Buuut—
“Empress Eldia told me to, like, ‘show the people justice by scolding Zilsonia in place of his deceased father!’” Crow said with a long sigh, rolling around on the bed. “Man, doesn’t that mean she’s asking me to chastise a much older man in front of a bunch of folks?! Dude, I don’t wanna do that! That’s awkward!”
Completely unaware of Iris’s resolute vow, the man at the center of it all was fretting over something completely superficial! Moreover, Crow, from his own perspective, had just been joking that he’d scold the emperor in place of his father. But somehow everyone had taken him seriously! He had no deeper awareness of the danger the nation was in, nor did he know that Eldia was at the end of her rope.
So while he might not have been the absolute dullest tool in the shed, he was the unparalleled gold medalist of incorrect assumptions.
And he doubled as the champion of awful timing to boot.
This present situation was the result.
“C’mon, Empress Eldia! A joke’s a joke! Why so serious?!”
This twice-crowned king of idiocy had decided to pull a gag that could be interpreted as a marriage proposal right as things were reaching a critical point—and Eldia had seen no other means to bring the nation together other than marrying his idiot ass.
And so, from Eldia’s perspective, he’d looked like someone who was willing to become her fiancé, pass judgment on the emperor, and become the new leader of the nation.
Good job, genius.
The nation was at its limit, on the brink of a terrible, explosive future. It was the worst possible time for this utter, abject moron, at the limit of his stupidity, to turn to a justice-loving widow, also at her limit, and go like, “What’s wrong? Wanna talk?”
And now the history of the empire was about to take an absolutely ridiculous turn.
Future historians might record this as the moment a grand step forward was taken, when in reality it was a stupid, meaningless act—on par with an old man unconsciously tapping his foot.
“Man, I was at a shop one time, and this young manager was giving an older part-timer a real hard time, and that was so awkward. What will I even say?” Crow—the man, mind you, who could dictate the future of this nation—continued to fret over matters so shallow a bacterium couldn’t drown in them.
And thus, after several minutes of rolling around, worrying about this and that, thinking of his (late) friend Fukashi’s words, he finally was out like a light.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Oh, Crow,” said Iris. “Giving up your life to bring a nation together... Are you trying to become a savior?”
“Forgive me, young man,” said Eldia. “But this country will be saved, thanks to you!”
“Wahhh!” said Crow. What a turd.