novelnext Chapter 198 : Spring of Arfe (2)
Chapter 198 : Spring of Arfe (2)
Edel, who had quietly listened to me the entire time, suddenly spoke.“I have something I need to discuss with Carter alone.”
She was asking everyone else to step outside for a moment.
As Alvin and Lea left the Command Control Room, Edel spoke immediately.
“Killing that bastard is my responsibility. I have no intention of placing that burden on you.”
“He's still your family. I thought it would be better if personal feelings weren't involved...”
“Personal feelings...”
She slowly shook her head with an indifferent expression.
“If you're not worried that I'll put too much passion into killing that bastard, then it's fine. I've killed him several times before.”
“You're not even trying to hide it anymore.”
“Why? Is that a problem?”
Looking exhausted, Edel leaned back and asked,
“You're a Transmigrator, aren't you? Another person's soul inside Eugene Carter's body. Am I right?”
“You're actually going to believe what that crazy Chairwoman said?”
“I'm not believing her. I'm trusting my own instincts. They may have only led to failure, but after regressing over a hundred times, my intuition has become frighteningly accurate.”
Her composed reaction made me curious as well.
“...What exactly was it that gave you your resolve, Edel?”
Edel Ribenia's guiding principles were saving the nation and insight.
That was true regardless of her regressions.
Born during the Empire's age of turmoil, peace had always been the ideal she pursued.
The ones who instilled that conviction in her were Emperor Ludwig and the First Prince, Ruel Ribenia.
Her innate disposition fully blossomed through those two devastating losses.
From then on, Edel lived for the nation and its people.
Sometimes she achieved results worthy of that resolve.
Other times, she walked away empty-handed.
One thing, however, remained certain.
Among them all, Edel was always the last to be saved.
The moment even one of Fransia, Rubia, Michelle, or Karen lost her life, Edel's salvation disappeared as well.
Even in dozens of endings where all four of them survived and were saved, Edel alone remained unsaved.
That was why, back then, I described her like this.
A heroine so selfless that she mistakenly believed saving everyone else meant she could save herself.
That became one of the greatest obstacles to saving them all.
The Empire's main heroines were all similar in one way or another.
But among them, Edel cared the least about her own life.
If even an Edel without regression was like that, then what about the current Edel, who had repeated death and regression over a hundred times?
That was also why I wanted to minimize her involvement in this assassination operation.
But I didn't have the courage to tell her that honestly.
So instead, I asked about her motivation indirectly.
“...I did have one once.”
Her answer was astonishingly calm.
“My love for the nation of Ribenia. My sense of responsibility as a member of the Imperial Family. My father's constant teachings. My eldest brother's requests and wishes. The bright smiles of the citizens. The sight of villages destroyed by Beast Monsters and enemy nations. All of those things awakened my mission.”
“But after more than ten regressions... even those powerful motivations gradually faded.”
“After that, it became self-validation.”
“To prove that the mission I chose... and everything I sacrificed for it... hadn't been wrong.”
By the time Edel finished speaking, her lips had become completely dry.
I quietly looked into her eyes.
“......”
I knew what caused the pain and despair hidden deep within those hollow eyes.
I knew what she had thrown away...
And what sacrifices she had made...
For the sake of a single ending.
No one else knew.
But I did.
Someone mocked it as a meaningless journey.
One without value.
One without reward.
A complete waste of time.
No...
Perhaps everyone mocked it.
That had been my ten years.
And Edel's dozens upon dozens of regressions.
Even so, I had no choice but to continue.
Time that had already passed would never return.
If I'd regretted wasting it, I would have quit during my first or second year.
The journey I chose was one to prove who I was.
To someone else, this world might have been nothing more than a game.
But to me...
It had been salvation.
I chose one person.
I watched their ending through to the end.
Then another.
Then another.
There had been countless bad endings.
Yet the grand finale was always a happy ending.
If I could reach the end of this story...
Then surely what awaited me there would be a happy ending as well.
I was living for the sake of reaching that happy ending.
That was why I spoke.
“Our starting points may have been different, but we've dreamed the same dream and experienced the same despair.”
“That's who we are.”
“We're still in the middle of the journey. I don't know when we'll reach its end either.”
“But one thing is certain.”
“The destination awaiting both of us... will be the same.”
“So now... just a little.”
“Please let go of yourself.”
“Free yourself from the obsession that's been binding you, and reach out your hand, Edel Ribenia.”
Just as I had truly resolved to fight alongside everyone.
Now it was her turn to entrust that resolve to us.
“Because we're prepared to risk our lives as well.”
“......”
At my unwavering plea, Edel stared at me without saying a word.
Her eyes had already grown moist.
Her face had flushed bright red.
Even so, without letting a single tear fall, she steadied her breathing.
“This... might be the last time.”
Her dry lips trembled.
She clasped both hands together before her mouth as though offering a prayer.
“Failure is unacceptable.”
“One failure is the same as a hundred failures.”
“There won't be another chance.”
“I'll make it work somehow.”
“......”
“That's why I came here.”
“......”
What kind of change had those words brought over her?
Edel let out a shaky breath, swallowing back her tears again and again.
“...I know you have no obligation to do this.”
“I know that just because we share the same goal doesn't mean we have to make the same sacrifices.”
“I know.”
“But even so...”
With trembling hands, she grasped both of mine.
“Just this once...”
Then she left behind a brief plea.
“Please help me, Eugene Carter.”
The tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes finally rolled down both cheeks before collecting at the tip of her chin.
I released her hands for a moment...
Then firmly held them once again myself.
I had heard that plea hundreds of times.
Now it was finally my turn to answer it as one of her companions.
There was no need to think about what to say.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
Because my answer had always been the same.
“You have always been this Empire's hope.”
Overwhelmed by emotion, Edel struggled to steady her breathing as tears streamed down her face.
She couldn't understand why she had become so emotional.
The moment she looked into his eyes, filled with unwavering conviction, tears had simply begun to fall.
That was all.
As she gazed at her own reflection in his pitch-black eyes, she finally understood why.
'...I see.'
This man's eyes resembled her own from the past.
Eyes that carried an indomitable will which never gave up, no matter how much despair stood in the way.
After being worn down by endlessly repeating time, she had long since lost that gaze.
Looking into his eyes, she saw herself.
The self she had never consciously acknowledged until now.
Her past...
And her present.
'...So that's what my eyes used to look like.'
When had they lost their light?
When had she started thinking,
'This regression won't be any different anyway,'
and stopped giving it her all?
She always insisted there wasn't a single person in the world she could trust, carrying everything on her own.
So why had she never objected whenever people sneered,
'How can one person change the world alone?'
If one person couldn't change the world...
Then all she had needed to do...
Was reach out her hand.
And yet...
Only now, at the very last moment...
Had she finally realized such a simple answer.
How could she have been so foolish?
Soft laughter escaped between her self-deprecating thoughts.
It felt as though every burden she had accumulated inside herself had been swept away all at once.
She felt unbelievably refreshed.
When she laughed...
Eugene laughed as well.
For quite some time, the two of them continued laughing as though they had both been enchanted.
By the time their hearty laughter echoed outside the room, Edel called out firmly.
“You two, come back in.”
“We're continuing the strategy meeting.”
.
.
.
Operation: Assassination of Crown Prince Abel Ribenia.
Objective:
Assassinate Abel Ribenia before the coronation ceremony this Saturday, leaving the Imperial Throne vacant.
Target:
Abel Ribenia.
Operation Time:
Before dawn on Friday the 22nd.
Assassination Method:
Any means available, including poison, strangulation, direct execution, and more.
“I considered killing him in broad daylight... but we absolutely can't leave any witnesses.”
“What about blowing him up from long range? We could prepare conditional explosion spells throughout his usual routes...”
“It must not look like a terrorist attack targeting the entire Imperial Palace.”
“If it does, even if the operation succeeds, the backlash could be severe.”
“The Commander is right.”
“We have to eliminate him as discreetly and quickly as possible without identifying the culprit, while simultaneously proceeding with the selection of the next Emperor.”
“If we don't want the culprit identified, we can't leave behind any evidence.”
“And if we want to stay hidden, our location becomes limited...”
“From infiltration to escape, everything has to be completed within one hour.”
Taking out the map of the Imperial Palace she had brought, Edel marked several key locations before continuing.
“At 20:00, every entrance is sealed and the Barrier activates, so we have to infiltrate before then.”
“The residences and bedrooms of the Imperial Family are protected by an additional Alarm Barrier, so we'll need to infiltrate this area beforehand and remain hidden nearby.”
Up to that point, the operation sounded relatively straightforward.
The real problem came afterward.
“The Barrier protecting the Emperor's bedchamber is a Detection Barrier.”
“Whenever the Emperor is inside, it continuously detects and displays the number of people within a two-hundred-meter radius.”
“It updates every fifteen minutes.”
“If the number of people differs from the pre-recorded count, an alarm will sound throughout the entire Imperial Palace.”
“All Internal Affairs concerning the Emperor fall under the authority of the Chief Imperial Steward.”
“Georg isn't the kind of man who would overlook a flaw like that.”
Emperor Ludwig had always advocated a modest lifestyle, choosing to use a bedroom within the Grand Palace instead of the Emperor's private bedchamber.
That day eleven years ago had been no different.
He simply finished his work and retired to his room as always.
He never woke again.
Because it was absolutely forbidden for mere servants to move the Emperor's sacred body, he remained in that same bedroom for over ten years.
The Empire's finest physicians and healing mages had all been summoned.
Yet none of them had achieved any improvement.
Even the Emperor's personal physician had very little left to do.
Checking his condition each day...
And preventing bedsores.
That was all.
This time, those circumstances had allowed Abel to approach him so easily.
Ordinarily, even that would have been difficult.
Holding up two fingers, Eugene folded them down one by one as he spoke.
“So we have two choices.”
“Complete the mission and escape within fifteen minutes...”
“Or eliminate the fifteen-minute restriction itself, giving us enough time to complete the operation.”
As he looked toward Edel, she pondered for a long moment before speaking.
“...Destroying the core disables the Barrier. That's common knowledge.”
“The core of a Detection Barrier is normally located at its exact center.”
“But in the case of the Emperor's bedchamber, it's located beneath the lowest level.”
“But we can't destroy the Barrier.”
“The moment it's destroyed, personnel tracking will stop.”
“They'll realize something is wrong almost immediately.”
“Then the solution is...”
“Not destruction.”
“Reconstruction.”
This time, unlike Eugene earlier, she raised one finger and continued.
“Before those fifteen minutes are up...”
“We alter the core of the Detection Barrier.”
“And designate ourselves as excluded from observation.”
“That's our only option.”