The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 53 – Governing Council (1)

The council members stared at Anya with a confused look as she the start of another governing meeting. The governing council had already decided to comply with the Order of the White Crow’s decision.

“We should’ve been attending the council meetings as one of the organizations responsible for Hiveden, but we have always had to vacate our seats due to internal circumstances. However, we couldn’t turn away and do nothing when the whole city is about to fall in danger because of us. So we risked getting caught to visit the council and came today,” Anya said.

“Ah, um, I see…”

Ardin bowed his head to Anya with a puzzled expression as he accepted her apology. His puzzled expression was not only due to the fact that Anya was being polite unlike he had anticipated, but also because he couldn’t quite understand what she was talking about.

‘She is apologizing for vacating the seats and getting the city in danger because of them?’

The Order of Huginn not attending the governing council meeting was nothing new. The Order of Huginn had the strongest influence in Hiveden\'s governing council out of all the organizations, but they had never revealed themselves on the surface and only controlled the council from behind the scenes by threatening and conciliating the low ranked organizations.

This was only natural as the Order of Huginn had to remain hidden from the empire’s surveillance. Even Ardin had only met Anya a few times despite his status as the chief of the governing council.

‘So why is she apologizing for it now…?’

At that moment, Ardin came to his senses as he understood what the Order of Huginn’s intention was.

“We are planning to devoutly fulfill our duties as a member of the governing council from now on. We will do our best to help.”

Ardin realized that Anya was trying to invalidate the governing council’s decision to comply with the Order of the White Crow; she was basically suggesting that the governing council’s decision was illegitimate, considering that it was made without the approval of Order of Huginn. In other words, the Order of the Huginn was trying to force Hiveden to side with them and fight against the empire.

“H-hmph! S-sir Anya? N-no, Dame Anya? Um, Miss Anya? I-I don’t know what I should call you by. Is there any name you prefer to be called?”

“You can call me anything you want since I am yet to receive an official position or a title.”

“T-then Miss Anya it is. Miss Anya, unfortunately, the governing council of Hiveden has already made its decision. Although the result of the decision may not be to the satisfaction of the Order of Huggin, I would like to let you know that we had no choice but to choose to comply for the best case scenario…”

Crash!

A loud noise echoed inside the assembly hall. Everyone’s eyes turned to the old knight standing behind the tall man. A heavy hammer was stuck under the old knight’s feet, breaking the marble floor.

“My apologies. I dropped it by mistake.”

“Please be careful from now on,” Anya gently warned the old knight.

However, not a single person in the assembly hall believed that it was a mistake. It felt as if the old knight was suggesting that he could crack their heads open just as easily if they talked gibberish.

“I apologize for my colleague’s rudeness. Please be generous and forgive him. Can you continue from where we left off?” Anya asked Ardin.

“...I-it was the best case scenario we could think of, but now that I think about it, perhaps we can come up with a better decision! I was just about to ask if the Order of Huginn had any suggestions to get through this situation.”

The other council members all glared at Ardin with a reproachful look. Meanwhile, Ardin started to regret taking the place of the chief of the governing council without realizing the weight of the burden that came with it, but it was too late. Ardin was dealing with the Order of Huginn, who had been risking their lives to fight against the Order of the White Crow for decades. This meant that Ardin was no match for the Order of Huginn—there was nothing that Ardin could do to resist them.

“I appreciate you asking for our opinions. The Order of Huginn believes that the Order of the White Crow must recognize the autonomy of Hiveden which was legally approved by the empire, and they should try their best to provide security for the citizens to live a safe daily life, rather than making unreasonable judgments with a dogmatic attitude for the sake of getting more achievements,” Anya answered with a bright smile.

Ardin was speechless at Anya’s perfectly prepared words. In fact, it was exactly what he should have said in front of Ethan. However, it was difficult to frankly state his opinion in the face of a Templar’s sword, as Ardin was not as powerful as the Templars.

Even though Ardin agreed with Anya, he couldn’t tell her to go and tell Ethan the same thing herself, since Anya would gladly go and tell Ethan that such is Hiveden’s decision. If that happened, there would be no turning back from having an all-out war with the Order of the White Crow. Ardin wondered if that was what the Order of Huginn was hoping for.

“Hey, I’ve been keeping quiet to listen until now, but…” suddenly, Yuldrick, the Captain of the mercenaries, spoke up.

Ardin looked at him with delight. Ardin hoped that stupid idiot with a bald head and empty brain might say the things that were on his mind.

“Didn’t we say that the decision has already been made ? We wouldn’t be stuck in this situation if it weren’t for the Order of Huginn anyway. I mean, Hiveden would be safe if the Order of Huginn simply left the city,” Yuldrick continued.

Ardin was impressed. Although he did want Yuldrick to honestly speak out his mind, he didn’t think Yuldrick would be that direct.

“Yuldrick is right. We have our connections in the capital anyway. Even if the Order of the White Crow attacked us, we all have our ways out of the situation. But cooperating with the Order of Huginn would basically be cutting off our ties with the capital,” Celpha, the ponce of the prostitution industry, added words to support Yuldrick.

Ardin hadn’t expected Celpha to also speak up against the Order of Huginn, but he gladly accepted the pleasant surprise.

“I agree. We had no choice but to listen to the Order of the White Crow since we had no way to find you guys and we were walking on eggshells. But now that you are all here, I’ll be upfront. Isn’t the Order of the White Crow your enemy? There is no reason to turn this peaceful city into a battlefield,” Gino, the owner of the Casino, was the next to speak up.

At this point, Ardin was frustrated; he didn’t expect Gino, who was known to be clever to join the others in provoking the Order of Huginn.

Ardin realized that the members of the council were delusional and believed that Ras was a gentleman who could be persuaded by polite words. As a noble, Ardin had learned history and knew that Ras was far from being a gentleman; in history, Ras was a General, a Captain of a knight order, as well as a meticulous slaughterer.

『You were right, Juan,』 the tall man, who had left all the talking to Anya, muttered all of a sudden.

Everyone flinched at the strange voice composed of magic. Ardin had an ominous premonition to see the unidentified man break silence with unintelligible words. The tall man was giving off an ominous aura more so than the scary looking old knight and Anya, who had never erased a sinister smile off her face from the moment they met.

Yuldrick stepped up to Ras, as if he gained confidence from the other council members agreeing with his opinion.

“That’s right! Don’t bother interfering and making things more complicated for us! Or are you scared to fight the Order of the White Crow? I guess you aren’t as powerful as they say you are.”

As Yuldrick approached Ras, the old knight grasped his hammer and strode forward.

The mercenaries roughly grabbed their weapons behind Yuldrick’s back. In an instant, over fifty weapons were pointed toward just three people. The tension in the assembly hall rapidly reached a boiling point.

In Yuldrick’s opinion, he hadn’t acted thoughtlessly. Even if he was speaking up against the Order of Huginn, he had somewhat calculated the possible result.

‘In any case, they came because they needed our help. They have no reason to waste strength by fighting us when the war with the Order of the White Crow is just around the corner. If we manage to hold our ground fearlessly, they might just promise us to leave us out of the war. That would be good enough for us.’

Yuldrick was a little intimidated at first, but thought the Order of Huginn wasn’t too impressive after all—Yuldrick had even assisted the Templars to fight against the undead of the Order of Huginn once. Besides, there were more than fifty armed guards on stand-by inside the assembly hall, and there were ten times more guards outside; just three people would have no chance against such numbers.

“Then it’s just the three of you that are in opposition?” Anya asked with a cheerful voice.

Yuldrick frowned and glared at Ardin and Opert, the head of the smugglers. He already expected Ardin to be a fence sitter, but he didn’t expect Opert to agree with the Order of Huginn.

“Hmmph, scared rats that can’t even give voice to their opinions. So what’re you gonna do about it, you heretic bastards? Take a majority vote? Your opinion will be outnumbered by three against two. Oh, you’re not gonna tell me that you’re going to include yourselves in the vote, are you?” Yuldrick snickered.

“I know how to count, Mr. Baldhead. But I’m afraid you are misunderstood. The Order of Huginn doesn’t make decisions based on majority votes,” Anya replied.

“What?”

“We follow our Captain’s commands.”

At that moment, the tall man slowly raised his waist to stand up. The man was already taller than most people while he was sitting down, but his head almost touched the ceiling when he stood up.

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People’s faces turned pale at his abnormally huge appearance. Then, a composed voice even darker than the black robe he is wearing came out of the man.

『This city’s seed was sown by me. So I’ll have to reap it if I must.』

***

Juan didn’t follow Ras to the council meeting, but remained underground. He was in a room in the Order of Huginn’s hideout. The room wasn’t too spacious and it had a large tank where the cold water from the melted ice caps of the Laus mountain flowed into. The inside of the water tank was softly glowing with a green light, and Juan stared at the source of the green light.

‘You’ve done an absurd thing, Ras.’

What Ras had been working on in the underground of Hiveden was not simply turning it into a hideout or making it a supply house; he was doing something much bigger.

The source of the green light illuminating the large tank was the heart of Mananen McLeir, the god of mana. To be exact, it was an incomplete replica of the real heart that resided inside Juan’s dead body. As far as Juan knew, it would be impossible to separate Mananen McLeir’s heart from Juan’s body.

Mananen McLeir’s heart had been the final part that made the emperor. With the mana heart, Juan was born the real emperor.

Juan realized that Ras had been trying to create inferior replicas in the underground of Hiveden; the mages from the magic tower collected the cells of Mananen McLeir who had been buried under the tower, and imported the necessary parts from beyond the border, all in order to create the replica in the underground of Hiveden.

Considering the illegal nature as well the complications involved, Hiveden was the optimal choice of location.

‘How absurd of him.’

Juan clicked his tongue. Juan could understand why Ras had clung on to making the replica, but no one could handle its power. It would be considered a huge success if this crude replica could perform even half as good as the original, but it would be a problem even if it was successfully made. It would be no different from trying to revive a god, not to mention that there would be no one that could handle the replica. Ras was already overwhelmed by the essence of Nigrato inside his body, and putting the replica of the heart inside him would be the same thing as putting a red hot metal inside a cup overflowing with water—the metal would shatter into pieces, water would explode and spill, and the cup would break.

However, Ras didn’t seem to be concerned about the consequences.

‘...Perhaps it’s because of me.’

There would be no way that Ras didn’t know of the consequences; he probably left the heart as the last resort. And in the midst of completing the replica, Juan appeared.

‘Is that why he wants to protect Hiveden from the Order of the White Crow so badly? To give me the heart?’

Juan’s lips began to tremble. Juan could easily imagine what might have happened in the terrible future if he hadn’t returned from death. Juan began to think of the reason why he had revived. Until now, he didn’t think deeply about the reason, and only considered it to be a horrible coincidence—this was because Juan didn’t know the exact capacity of his power and what he was capable of.

However, he started to suspect that his revival was planned by someone’s intention.

Juan dipped his hand in the large tank. The cold water melted from the Laus Mountain’s ice caps was lukewarm due to the heat emanated by the heart replica. Juan had to acknowledge the effort and willingness of the Order of Huginn to have made it this far, and this was only possible because they were in Hiveden.

The development of humankind was promoted through free research.

Humankind is equal, and the gaps are gradually narrowed.

Religion needed to be excluded for humankind to become independent to expand.

These were the forms of the empire which Juan wished to create, but it was impossible, at least in the current state of empire.

However, hope was sprouting from the seed that Ras had sown in this city. Juan knew that seeds could sprout even in vomit, but he didn’t know if it could grow strong or not.

‘You are dying, or are perhaps already dead. Yet you still admire life, Ras.’

Although it was ironic that Juan found the values he had been pursuing all his life among the swindlers, thieves, slave merchants, smugglers, and prostitutes of Hiveden, he could understand what Ras was trying to say, and why Ras couldn’t give up on this city.

To Ras, this city was a seed he had sown, and this replica heart was a sprout. It would take a long time for the seed to break open and sprout; it might even be a painful process.

However, Ras seemed to believe that all was worth it.

“Alright.”

Juan stood up. He decided to trust Ras’ judgment.

“I’ll wait and see how things will shape up in this damn city.”