XXV: The Great Northern Empire
THE Ronzan Empire was a large, powerful country that controlled all of northern Ares. On a map, it was about the size of all the countries in the center of the continent put together. However, the cold climate meant that when winter came, anything and everything froze over, so it wasn’t particularly suited to human habitation, and was sparsely populated relative to its size. Still, it boasted the greatest strength in Ares, with the largest and best-trained military force on the continent.
The Empire’s history was steeped in blood. At first it had been just one country among many in the north, with regional leaders who repeatedly engaged in long, bloody conflicts over the throne. In the early days after the country’s founding, everyone would swear loyalty to and coalesce around the king once the position was occupied, but eventually even the crown came to be drawn into the region’s ubiquitous power struggles. By the middle period, all those who ascended to the throne were quickly assassinated. Then, new kings would take every possible measure to defend against assassination, only to be killed in a rebellion. Finally, in an ironic twist, the country’s leaders stopped seeking the throne altogether out of fear for their lives. This resulted in a long power vacuum called the Great Interregnum.
After more than one hundred years of this, something strange happened: the noble who seized power—a man named Ronza—installed a serf on the throne as his substitute.
This serf had nothing, not even a name. However, his neck was as thick as his head; according to one story about him, he had survived being hanged. He possessed inhuman physical strength, and it was even rumored he had killed a monster with his bare hands. As a matter of fact, the serf had fought and resoundingly defeated a monster in front of Ronza, without using any weapons. Upon seeing this, the noble had made him king, believing that this man would survive the position. Ronza knew he was the one who held real power, and that it didn’t matter who sat on the throne as long as they didn’t die.
Nevertheless, this serf who had been made king thanks to Ronza’s whims was still the target of assassination attempts. And just as Ronza had hoped, the man was unfazed, actually killing many of the assassins who came for him. He could survive ingesting poison, his flesh turned aside all blades, and with his own hands he strangled the soldiers, knights, and nobles who plotted uprisings against him.
Ronza was satisfied. His puppet king was invulnerable, and because the serf had become the symbol of authority in his stead, he was never the target of assassins’ daggers himself.
However, one day he noticed something odd: before he knew it, none of the nobles who had once disparaged the king as a lowly serf were laughing anymore. On the contrary, all of them now knelt before the king. Afraid of his utter invincibility, they had sworn their loyalty to him.
“What a bunch of fools, to bow down to a serf,” Ronza ridiculed them as they stood before the king. Then, he derided the king he himself had installed: “You’re nothing but a boneheaded serf. All you’re good for is physical strength.”
In the very next moment, Ronza’s head was crushed. The king had punched him with a fist like a cannonball. None reproached him for this, not even the soldiers who had served as Ronza’s bodyguards.
After that, the king forcefully took Ronza’s daughter as his wife, was adopted into the family as Ronza’s son-in-law, and took on the name Ronza himself. This was the genesis of King Ronza. The kingdom’s name was changed to Ronza as well, and this northern country with its once unstable authority was now brought together under a single serf.
King Ronza ruled with fear and violence, and he forced his vassals to fight in front of him. The outcomes of these harsh matches were decided based on the death of one or the other contender, and those who won were given titles. For that reason, the country’s hierarchy was determined based on strength; it was said that once, a criminal on death row had been made a general.
As it happened, this country that later became the Kingdom of Ronza had a secret. Food was scarce in the extreme northern environment, and the region had been beset by famine many times. At some point, it had become the custom to eat monsters in order to stave off starvation. This was seen as an embarrassing, backward practice, so it was kept a secret from foreigners. While the people of the north had always been naturally large and well-built, they were also abnormally strong, perhaps because of this monster-eating custom. Some of their descendants lived in the center of the continent as well—Wan Hu of the Hundred, known for his giant stature, was one of them.
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NOT satisfied with ruling just one country, King Ronza invaded other nations one after another, standing at the head of the army himself. Each person in this army was a powerful warrior, having been selected by the king for their strength. It was said they were more like a horde of bandits than a military force.
This horde of bandits, led by their invincible king, steadily swallowed up the countries of the north, and it was rumored that neither swords, arrows, nor spells worked against them. Finally, northern Ares was unified, and King Ronza became Emperor Ronza, while the Kingdom of Ronza became the Ronzan Empire. In pursuit of warmer land, Emperor Ronza finally planned a military campaign to the south, but it was then that he reached his limit.
Fear and force alone were not enough to consolidate his vast territory, and uprisings began to occur in various regions. Emperor Ronza spent the rest of his life knee-deep in putting down internal rebellions. He was skilled at war, but indifferent to politics and economics, so there was never an end to the unrest.
Emperor Ronza had many children, among them the next emperor, a man named Oulei. His mother had been a famously beautiful princess of Ulug, a country the Kingdom of Ronza had conquered. Ulug had been small in size, but many of its citizens possessed great beauty, and they were well-versed in business and trade. They were also well-educated, with a deep understanding of politics.
Oulei steadily promoted Ulug friends and relatives, and the internal administration of the Ronzan Empire stabilized. However, Oulei himself took after Emperor Ronza; just like his father, he ruled over others with fear and force. He had promoted Ulugs for no reason but to solidify his own power base.
In this manner, Ulugs became essential to the Empire of Ronza, and much of the imperial family came to be handsome men and beautiful women with Ulug blood. The current emperor’s daughter, an imperial princess, was also known for her beauty.
Her name was Cassandra.
Cassandra was famous in the center of the continent as the Swordmaster, but none knew she was also a princess of the Ronzan Empire. This was partially because she had never told anyone, but it was also because of the treacherous mountain range that lay between the Empire’s territory and the central countries, which made traversal difficult. Plus, after the Ronzan Empire’s political situation had stabilized, it had attempted to invade the south many times, repeatedly coming into conflict with the central territories. As a result, the people of the central continent despised the Empire, viewing its citizenry as nothing but a bunch of troublesome brutes. Under these circumstances, there was little traffic between the north and the center of the continent, and hardly any exchange of information.
However, the Ronzan Empire always watched the center like a hawk, waiting for an opportunity to make the region its own.