RAMHM Chapter 127

The last will of Empress Letina was conveyed through the lips of Crown Prince Bardenaldo.

Vincento stiffened and fell silent.

'May my son, Crown Prince Bardenaldo, the most brilliant light of my life, rightfully inherit the imperial throne. And may he cover his younger brother's flaws, becoming my glory—Letina's glory—that will endure for generations to come.'

The pure voice rang out calmly.

The Emperor, who had arrived late, broke into sobs at Letina's will emerging from the Crown Prince's mouth.

The moment Bardenaldo's gaze met Rhodness's eyes—already swollen from crying too much—his lips, which had hesitated, quietly parted again.

'Rhodness Casmir de Ronteaux. Protect your elder brother. Ensure that Crown Prince Bardenaldo ascends to the imperial throne without incident. Make your brother, my only light, into an emperor, so that my name may remain in glory for posterity.'

Young Rhodness's eyes wavered miserably.

At the phrase 'your brother, my only light,' Rhodness drew in a breath and bit his lips hard without offering any objection. His expression bordered on resignation.

Rhodness nodded, his tightly pressed lips replacing any vow that he would no longer weep.

Bardenaldo, who had been watching that small trembling chin, said nothing more.

No one gathered in that room doubted Letina's will. No one except Vincento.

'I spent my entire life striving to become Emperor, Mother.'

Gazing endlessly at Letina's face—dead as if merely sleeping—Bardenaldo silently begged for understanding that he had no choice.

The hundred-day funeral for Empress Letina began.

Compared to Rhodness, whose desperate attempt to hold back tears was painfully visible, Bardenaldo remained composed.

Instead, he headed each night to the imperial secret archive—a place permitted only to the Emperor and Crown Prince.

Bardenaldo had recently developed an intense interest in mana stones.

Was it because of his precarious position, made unstable the moment Empress Letina died?

Unable to bear watching his mother's corpse decay, he had clung to rumors about mana stone coffins.

After seeing records about mana stone coffins that preserved corpses, he had even secretly asked Novian to look into them.

Vincento assumed it was only natural that the still-young Crown Prince could not accept his mother's death.

Though the Crown Prince had spoken a will entirely different from what Vincento himself had heard, he still seemed pitiable.

Even if Bardenaldo had told the truth as it was, the Crown Prince was Bardenaldo, and House Winster would have supported him above all else anyway. Nothing would have changed.

And as the hundred-day funeral was drawing to a close.

Visiting the secret archive as usual, Bardenaldo stumbled upon a record hidden very deep within.

『Founding Emperor Kyrphos is a traitor.』

It concerned the Founding Emperor Kyrphos—the one who had unified multiple kingdoms to transform Ronteaux into an empire.

『The ugly story hidden behind Kyrphos's achievements. The one who unified Ronteaux into an empire was not Kyrphos, as history records. Originally, the first Emperor was his elder brother Kaldaeon, and his younger brother Kyrphos cut down his brother on the battlefield and made himself Emperor. Before being the founding Emperor, Kyrphos was a traitor.』

Bardenaldo could not even blink as he continued reading.

『The symbol of the Ronteaux imperial family is not the blue eyes of the traitor Kyrphos. Kaldaeon's red eyes are the true symbol of the Ronteaux imperial house.』

He dropped the book from his hands and collapsed where he stood. He could not breathe, as if someone had seized his throat.

The children with red eyes who had been born one by one throughout imperial history like foreign objects.

When they were offspring of imperial consorts or bastards, they had been mercilessly abandoned or killed—did this mean that those children had actually possessed the legitimacy of the true founding Emperor?

'That's impossible.'

The guilt he had felt precisely because he loved his younger brother crumbled instantly.

His mother's will became a swamp named suffering, slowly consuming him.

'Red eyes' possess the legitimacy of the true founding Emperor.

That sentence became a massive greatsword, gouging through his mind.

Bardenaldo read the record over and over, remaining there until dawn broke, then hid the book away.

Though the book was clearly paper, it would neither tear nor burn, rotting Bardenaldo's insides.

Having hidden the record in his bedroom and grown anxious over it, Bardenaldo eventually killed the maid who had been his first love when she discovered the record while cleaning and showed signs of suspicion.

At first, he suffered from guilt, but as time passed, he grew numb.

Certainly, she had been a maid he cherished deeply.

Yet when he laid her in the mana stone coffin Novian had obtained and looked down at her, his heart felt strangely peaceful instead.

Rather than watch her prattle on even slightly about his legitimacy, about his qualifications, the maid lying dead and quietly waiting for him was far more lovable.

Her death came to him not as eternal separation, but rather as meaning he could keep her by his side forever.

Thus the maid who had been his first love was the first to be displayed in the secret room beneath his bedroom.

Mana stone coffins were created one by one. People filled them one by one.

Each time the number of keys in his hand increased.

He was swept up in the feeling that his allies—those who would give him no disappointment, no despair—were increasing one by one.

Was it from that point onward?

He no longer grieved over anyone's death.

The moment he re-interred Letina's corpse in a mana stone coffin, evading the Emperor's eyes as soon as the hundred-day funeral ended, he even made quite a resolute vow while embracing the coffin.

'I will become your only light, Mother. So please watch closely. Watch me prove that you were wrong. That the record was wrong. That no one but me can take my place. Future generations will remember you as Ronteaux's saint, as the mother of Emperor Bardenaldo.'

Afterward, Bardenaldo selected two candidates for Crown Princess to fill the 'insufficient legitimacy' that only he knew about.

Princess Adrienne Pirreta of Pirreta territory, which had been the capital when Ronteaux was still a kingdom.

And Doris Castagna, daughter of Duke Castagna—the western king who had laid the foundation for the current empire, and an ancient great noble.

When Bardenaldo received reports that Adrienne, unlike the favorably disposed Doris, was closer to Rhodness than to himself despite being a Crown Princess candidate, his heart sank.

She was a princess who had not sent him a single letter despite being nominated as a Crown Princess candidate.

By that time, Bardenaldo had grown twisted in proportion to how much time had passed.

The more Rhodness yielded to him without complaint, the more he sacrificed, the more strangely his heart distorted.

Yet somewhere in his heart, a tiny bit of guilt toward Rhodness still remained.

Certainly it had been there.

But the moment Rhodness revealed desire to him for the first time, the moment he thought he might lose Adrienne Pirreta—a woman with legitimacy—to Rhodness.

'I don't know about anything else, but I can never yield Adrienne.'

The moment he heard that word 'yield.'

Bardenaldo's heart twisted to the point where it could twist no further.

A sensation like wringing out a dry rag without mercy dominated his entire body.

For the first time, Bardenaldo felt intense murderous intent toward Rhodness.

Young Rhodness, who spoke so casually about yielding or not yielding to him—the one who would become the next sovereign—seemed unbearably arrogant.

He suppressed the killing intent and smiled even more gently instead.

Then he pressed down hard on Rhodness's not-yet-fully-grown head with his hand. Like trapping an insect just before crushing it within his own shadow.

"Shall this elder brother help you?"

From that day forward, Bardenaldo resolved to make Rhodness clearly recognize his position.

And he decided to give Adrienne Pirreta the position of 'the Crown Prince's mistress.' Through death, of course, not life.

He could not give the Crown Princess position to Adrienne, who liked Rhodness. If he lacked legitimacy, he need only obtain it. Whether through her life or her death.

'I am the Crown Prince. I am the only one fit to become Emperor. Mother made a mistake. That bizarre record is fake. The ghost story will soon become the 'real legend.'

'The ominous prince with red eyes, Rhodness, summons monsters.'

Without any guilt whatsoever, he spread ghost stories about red eyes to the people like legends.

He tacitly approved when Novian created a rebel army from prisoners on death row to torment Rhodness.

At the same time, he helped without hesitation in planting mana stones in the west to make monsters appear.

'Even lies, if repeated continuously, eventually become truth.'

Like Letina's will as conveyed through his own lips.

He need only transform the ghost stories about red eyes into plausible legends.

It had all started the moment Rhodness went to the battlefield to ask the Emperor for Adrienne's hand.

Like people who had been submerged in deep water and escaped, those inside the cave gasped for breath as they emerged from Bardenaldo's past.

"Awakening magic today is out of the question, it seems."

Despite the heavy atmosphere, Rotsy spoke lightly.

Rotsy walked slowly to stand precisely before Rhodness.

Then she looked up at those red eyes, colored by shock, and grinned.

"Handsome Prince. You have magic, don't you?"

The darkly rippling gaze met Rotsy's eyes precisely.

"I don't know how you reached such a level alone in Ronteaux, where magic is forbidden, but it's impressive. That's something you're born with. You even fooled me. To think you could hide magic of that magnitude. But I could tell when you killed the monsters. The monsters only clung to you, Your Highness. Like moths flying into a flame without knowing they would die."

Rotsy's deliberately relaxed voice gradually grew resolute.

"You are truly the legitimate heir. Red eyes are not a symbol that will destroy the nation, but the symbol of the most powerful magic that will save it."

People's mouths fell open at the words emerging from Rotsy's lips.

"That magic which the coward Kyrphos could never possess. Just as Kaldaeon, the true founding Emperor, summoned monsters but ultimately subjugated them all to establish the nation. The red eyes that will become the sun of the world. The light that will burn monsters to death with the brightest radiance and save the world."

Rhodness let out an empty laugh. His eyes, gleaming darkly, twisted and curved.

The light that would save the world? He was merely a human agonizing without being able to save even himself.

"Who are you to say such things? How can you speak to me with such certainty about this sudden record?"

"Because I wrote that record."

"Rotsy...!"

Adrienne cried out softly and covered her mouth.

"You may believe me. My name is Rotsy Casmir. Not a shaman, but an archmage who has lived for thousands of years to reveal the truth of the ancient kingdom."

A voice that was neither woman's nor man's settled low in the cave. It rang auspicious, like the voice of an absolute being.

"Rhodness Casmir de Ronteaux. Your name was surely bestowed by divine oracle—Casmir, the name given only to those with the most powerful magic, as your second name. Just as I received it, and Kaldaeon Casmir de Ronteaux before you."

The corner of lips curving smoothly upward shone beautifully even in the darkness.

"Your magic. Your power. It is not power meant to kill people, but power to kill monsters and save people."