Naked sushi, or nyotaimori.
A decadent method that was popular in Japan during the bubble economy era, where food is placed atop a woman’s naked body and eaten.
I had only heard that such a thing existed a few times, but I never thought I would see it with my own eyes.
“How is it? I heard this exists in the Island Kingdom. It’s quite something, is it not? Truth be told, the Empire found it too difficult to directly rule that kingdom across the sea, so we ended up smashing it and turning back, but I always wanted to continue dominating it deep down. It had so many fascinating cultures, you see.”
The Crown Prince spoke as if regretful.
“From what I gather, this was a form of entertainment enjoyed by the nobles of the Island Kingdom. What is placed atop her are the finest dishes of the Island Kingdom. The moment that thought occurred to me, I found it amusing to recreate it directly using the body of that nation’s princess. I prepared this especially for you, my friend.”
Maximilian raised his chopsticks and urged me to partake with an incomparably solemn and warm smile.
Princess Himiko was trembling faintly with her eyes squeezed shut, overwhelmed with shame and terror, but she didn’t dare make a sound before the Crown Prince, holding her breath.
“Enjoy yourself without reservation. In this Empire, there are few talents worthy of receiving such treatment as you.”
“...I shall partake gratefully, Your Highness.”
I picked up my chopsticks with my head bowed deeply.
A terrible nausea welled up in my throat.
The Emperor, the Crown Prince—the powerful of this Empire were truly beings I could neither understand nor associate with.
I wasn’t such a good person either, but at the very least, I didn’t take pleasure in tormenting people.
Leaving aside that it was a meaningless act, there were things one person could do to another, and things they simply must not.
‘...But why are they treating me so well?’
The contrast between that kindness and that sadistic cruelty left me breathless.
“I was told this food is called sushi. It is rice topped with raw fish. Do try it.”
I picked up a piece of sushi and put it in my mouth, but I couldn’t taste a thing.
It would have been delicious sushi that I would have enjoyed on any other day, but now it merely felt like chewing blood-soaked rubber.
“Eat well and cheer up. The harder you work, the more this Empire shall prosper. Remain my excellent subject in the future as well.”
Gazing alternately at the Crown Prince’s solemn face smiling so warmly at me, and at Princess Himiko’s tears as she trembled naked, I swallowed a cold resolution deep inside.
That someday, I would overturn this entire situation.
#
After finishing the suffocating dinner with the Crown Prince, I returned to my quarters and collapsed onto the bed without even washing.
“Haah....”
Staring blankly at the ceiling shrouded in darkness, I struggled to untangle my complicated thoughts.
Every truth I had learned today was nauseatingly disgusting.
Even conceding a hundred times that it was resultatively the right decision, the Emperor’s process seemed truly on the level of a psychopath.
The Crown Prince who trampled on human dignity and used a foreign princess as living tableware, yet smiled at me with boundless benevolence and solemnity.
No matter how much ability and character were separate things, I felt horror every time I saw those who did not treat humans as human beings.
No matter how much the state lavished favor and extravagant treatment upon an individual, the moment I turned my head slightly, countless people were trampled beneath their feet, weeping blood.
‘If I just shut my eyes tight and play dumb...’
Yes, if I just shut my eyes tight and only ate the sweet candy they offered, perhaps I alone could live happily and grandly in this Empire, without a care in the world.
If I gained the Crown Prince’s trust and became a high-ranking official, and married the Second Princess Chloe as planned, I would even hold the tremendous power of being the Emperor’s son-in-law.
At that point, even if being a fake prince was exposed, only the Sterling Kingdom would be destroyed, while I personally would most likely survive somehow.
However, the last remaining shred of conscience prevented me from thinking that way.
‘Happiness built atop other people’s blood and tears... I simply cannot endure living like that.’
The conscience I had thought lay at the very bottom of my soul was rebelling fiercely.
In my previous life, among countless career paths, why had I chosen to enter the Department of Public Administration?
It wasn’t merely to rise to a high position and live in comfort and luxury by myself.
It was because I had the aspiration to contribute to creating a slightly more rational, better society—a better country.
Even though I had come to this world, I had never once abandoned that thought.
‘I don’t want to be some hero who saves the world... but at the very least, I should live like a proper human being. I don’t want to become a villain like that.’
Then what should I do?
Should I join hands with the Northern Grand Duchess, that witch who had whispered of staging a coup?
‘No. Absolutely not.’
I shook my head firmly.
The Northern Grand Ducal family was ultimately of the same Argenheim bloodline as the current Imperial Family.
Their fundamental nature could not be so very different. Moreover, when I recalled those sordid acts of hers—recklessly rummaging through others’ minds, plotting to bring down the Emperor and Crown Prince to usurp their place—the Grand Duchess could never be someone to compromise with.
If that witch were to seize the throne, she might give birth to something far more terrible and grotesque, to the point that the current Empire would look like a saint in comparison.
‘Both the Imperial Family and the North are rotten.’
In the end, there was nothing grandiose I could do right now to overturn the world.
Survival comes first.
‘...For now, it’s pushing forward with Chloe.’
That path alone was the sole foothold allowing me to survive the Emperor’s whims and, someday, gather the strength to overturn this damned board.
I pressed my throbbing temples and closed my eyes.
For now, I would focus only on what I could do immediately. I decided to set aside complicated thoughts for the moment.
‘It might be better if Victoria became the next Emperor.’
After pondering for a long while, I sank into a heavy slumber.
The next day, in the office of the Emperor’s Chief Aide, located deep within the Imperial Palace.
Count Grey, the Emperor’s most reliable right hand and the highest authority in imperial administration, quietly received the thick dossier handed to him by his secretary across the desk.
“Your Excellency. I have brought the documents you requested.”
“Hmm, thank you for your trouble.”
Even as she handed over the documents, the secretary cautiously asked a question, as if she simply couldn’t understand.
“But Count, no matter how much I think about it, I have my doubts. Why would someone as busy and high-ranking as Your Excellency bother to look through the graduate roster of some Academy in the southern backwaters of the Sterling Kingdom, instead of the Great Empire’s Academy?”
At the secretary’s question, Count Grey smiled faintly and opened the dossier.
“Just an old man’s personal curiosity. Do not trouble yourself over it.”
With a leisurely hand, he began flipping through the pages of the roster.
‘He wasn’t an ordinary one from the start. He greets using imperial archaic speech that even I can’t manage...’
Every time he saw the youth meeting tirelessly with the Emperor and deepening the depths of his favor, he had thought him a curious fellow.
He had dismissed it as nothing significant—after all, it just meant the boy was good with words and skilled at pretense—but every time he heard the recent rumors from the Crown Prince’s palace about Ian Sterling’s astounding administrative abilities, he found it remarkable.
How could the Sterling Kingdom, a southern backwater, possess such outstanding administrative knowledge?
No matter that he was royalty, how could he have known such things in that remote rural corner? He had simply grown curious about its roots.
Flip, flip.
Count Grey’s hand, which had been turning the pages of the roster, stopped at a certain page.
His gaze fixed on a name ranked somewhere in the middle of the graduate list.
[Joseph Sterling]
“Hm.”
Count Grey let out a short, hollow laugh.
Because he saw the name of Joseph, First Prince of the Sterling Kingdom, pathetically stuck at the middling grade range.
‘Well, it’s not an Academy that gathered all the geniuses of the continent, and if this is all he could manage at a mere Sterling Kingdom Academy... his academic achievement is pathetic.’
Inwardly sneering at the level of the Sterling royal family, he wondered where exactly Ian would be, and continued flipping forward through the pages.
Two pages ahead, at the very top of the roster gathering the highest-ranked students.
Count Grey’s hand stopped dead.
“...”
His pupils quivered slightly.
The name that had seized the highest honor—the name of the one who had graduated with the most overwhelming grades in the Academy’s history—was clearly embedded at the very highest place.
[Valedictorian: Ian Harper]
“...”
Count Grey held his breath and stared intently at that name.
‘So here he is. Wait... no, could it be someone else?’
Flipping back through the pages, he recalled that Ian was twenty this year, and checking the year, he confirmed this was indeed the right page.
There was no other Ian on the same page.
Then it should be this fellow, but why would the Sterling Academy valedictorian’s name be...
“...Harper?”
Count Grey tilted his head and muttered.
His sharp eyes narrowed to slits, and a cold doubt began to press down heavily on the air of the office.