<Episode 93>
“……Yes?”
I whispered blankly, doubting my ears.
“If it’s Hacardella…….”
It’s my maternal grandmother’s home country.
The country that my ancestors ruled, the land loved by the Water Spirit King.
“Why…?”
I looked up at Idris, muttering in a daze.
Why would he send me there?
How could one act so cruelly without harboring any ill will?
What does he mean by that?
“He said that was the most appropriate time.”
I felt my face crumble uncontrollably.
Idris added with an embarrassed look on his face.
“The King of Wisdom plans things with all variables in mind… so following his will would be the wisest choice.”
“……The wisest choice, you say.”
What is the name of this emotion that dominates me right now?
I muttered softly and thought.
To follow that wise choice my mother, Mariette, died bearing the blame and stigma of the world.
……Am I supposed to see my grandmother’s motherland getting destroyed so cruelly with my own eyes?
Suddenly this thought occurred to me.
Mother….how must Mariette have felt when she was given such a harsh mission?
“……You said that only the mind can be moved to the past. If you cannot answer the question of what the identity of the power is, then please explain exactly how to move the mind.”
I tried to push away the anguish that was surging within me and spoke in a firm voice.
“To put it in simple terms, Should I say you would possess someone from the past? The Grand Princess will melt into a person from the past and carry out all missions.”
“……Into whom, exactly?”
I hope that I will not have to watch the miserable sight of the country getting ruined for a long time.
That was the only wish I had, pushed to the limit of my limits.
“……I don’t think I can dare to tell you that. After you go to the past, you will share the memories of the possessed person, but I think a brief explanation of the situation at that time is necessary, so I will begin now.”
In the end, I can’t have a say in anything again, right?
I gave up and waited for Idris to speak.
“The country that led the Duchy of Hacardella to its destruction is the current Kingdom of Nisha.”
“……What did you say?”
Again, I was shocked by the information that was like a bolt from the blue and asked back.
Then, I remembered what Mekaila told me before in passing.
‘The Forest Kingdom of Dryas, along with the Water Principality, were on the verge of destruction under the pressure of the Kingdom of Nisha for several decades before the start of the disaster.’
But the situation was so urgent then that I tried to ignore it and leave Litera.
“Nisha……destroyed my maternal grandmother’s motherland?”
In an instant, countless indescribable emotions crossed my mind.
I recalled the time when I was angry at the emperor who abused his son because he was blessed with darkness.
The time when I covered up the sins of Ashmed and tried to save him.
The time when I harbored no hostility toward Riat, the king of Nisha who favoured the Dark Spirit King, but rather secretly pitied him and gave him affection….
“Your Highness, please calm down first and listen to what I have to say.”
“…How can I calm down? How!?”
All these times and others the extended until now, in which I had sympathized with the dark spirit masters, was now paradoxically becoming a surging sense of betrayal and anger towards myself.
Without even knowing anything.
My grandmother’s homeland was destroyed by none other than the Kingdom of Nisha….
How could I have not even known that?
Even if there were no records left behind, if I had tried, I could have easily found out……!
“The past is just the past. And the present king is…….”
Idris, who was speaking urgently to me as I buried my face in my hands and vented my anger, stopped talking for a moment.
“……Grand Princess Edith.”
He carefully placed his hand on my shoulder and I slowly raised my head.
The boy was looking down at me with complicated eyes that were filled with a multitude of truths.
“I don’t think I can tell you any more. I will use my power right now, so please….I hope you have a safe trip.”
I looked up at him, letting out a trembling breath.
The boy opened his mouth and began to murmur in a spirit language that I could not understand.
Rattle-!
At that moment, I looked at the ground beneath my feet.
Just by looking at it, a pure white light that was enough to turn someone’s hair white surged from beneath.
The same pattern I had seen in the Temple of Wisdom rose from the light and wrapped around me.
“…….!”
My vision turned white, and I was crushed by a feeling of oppression that I could not bear with my mind at all.
Eventually I lost consciousness.
***
In a mountain path with rain falling intermittently.
A woman, who was climbing the steep mountainside precariously, let out a small scream and stumbled.
Her hair, as dark as the sea, was soaked in rainwater and flowed limply down below her vision.
Her slender body and unusually pale complexion gave off a sense of fragility at first glance, but her silver eyes sparkling brightly contained an unwavering will and determination.
‘You’re the last princess of the honorable Hacardella.’
The woman gasped for breath, thinking of last words of the man that still lingered in her mind.
‘I was a subject who served Her Highness the Duke of Hacardella, the mother of the princess. Now that Her Highness has passed away, according to custom, You must inherit the title.’
‘……The country is no different from being ruined, and all authority and honor have been taken away by them.’
She quietly answered, holding onto the cold bars of the window with difficulty to support herself.
‘What good is a title that no longer has meaning?’
The middle-aged man shook his head and said.
‘No, it’s not meaningless. Her Majesty, the late Duke, didn’t give up until the last moment.’
The Kingdom of Nisha, which had been harboring malicious intentions and eating away at the country for decades, finally mobilized its troops and invaded the Duchy of Hacardella a month ago.
The Duchy of Hacardella, which had already been in decline due to its history of never having fought a bloody war with any country, collapsed helplessly under the schemes of a cruel and cunning foreign country that had been engaged in war and plunder since its founding.
Her mother, who was the Duke of Hacardella at the time, instead of fleeing the country with her family and close associates, went to the final battlefield and met an honorable but cruel death.
As the first princess of Hacardella and the heir to the duchy, she was captured by Nisha’s soldiers and reduced to the status of a prisoner shortly after barely completing her mother’s final will.
The Crown of the Spirit King, a treasure received by the founder of the Duchy of Hacardella from Naiad.
From the beginning, what Nisha had been after was the relic of the Spirit King that had been passed down in the Duchy of Hacardella.
Their country was trampled underfoot in order to take it away and ruin it mercilessly.
Nisha’s soldiers, who had been interrogating the woman to tell them where the water relic was, gradually increased the level of their threats when she refused to open her mouth.
‘…..Because of the torture they inflicted on me, I can no longer even summon lower spirits. Even if Mother had not given up…..What could I do?’
Even standing was a struggle, requiring them to rely on something to support themselves, due to the artifacts the soldiers had forcibly implanted into their bodies that suppressed the flow of mana.
Every time she tried to summon a spirit, she would be hit with excruciating pain, and would have to clench her teeth to relieve the pain.
In such a desperate situation.
No matter how firm her will was…. how could it not slowly crumble away?
She bit her lip in agony and looked down at the man kneeling before the bars with eyes filled with despair.
‘I have sent the water relic far away so that it will not fall into their hands, so there is nothing more I can do. So…. Prime Minister, please leave the prison before they return.’
The man kneeling before her in a bloody and miserable state was the prime minister of their ruined country.
Just seeing him in that state caused waves of unbearable anger to surge through her, and her despair grew stronger and stronger.
She turned her head away, closing her eyes.
‘Your Highness, do you know that? Even though the lord to whom I swore allegiance has passed away…’
But Nihala, who was probably the last prime minister of the Duchy of Hacardella, looked up at her with eyes filled with determination and did not run away, but continued speaking.
‘The lineage of Hacardella has not yet been broken.’
‘……’
At that firm and confident voice, she slowly opened her closed eyes and looked down at him.
‘The second princess survived and escaped safely. And the first princess, although she was held captive by them and suffered hardships……is still alive in front of me.’
The prime minister, whose eyes were red as if he was overcome with emotion, spoke each word forcefully.
‘I have sent word to the knights of Hacardella who are the last to survive, to cause as much trouble as possible. Nisha’s soldiers will not be able to come here for a while, so hurry out of the prison and get away from here.’
The prime minister put a small piece of iron down on the blood-soaked floor.
It was the key to the prison where she was trapped.
‘……Then, the Prime Minister.’
She asked in a shaking voice, barely able to suppress her trembling heart.
‘Me? I have to stay here and buy some time.’
‘……’
‘Your Highness, don’t hesitate. This is the last tribute I can offer to Her Highness the Duke.’
The prime minister of the ruined country, trampled in shame under the feet of cruel foreigners, knelt down on both knees before the princess of the ruined country standing in front of the prison gates, and despite his bloody and miserable appearance, he looked up at her with eyes full of unwavering conviction and gave her one last piece of advice.
‘Please escape safely and work with the second princess to prevent the complete destruction of Hacardella.’
