The endlessly stretching plain of rough dust and dirt had, before I knew it, begun to change into a paved road, its surface fitted seamlessly with enormous stone slabs cut into perfect lines.
As we approached the Empire’s mainland—and, among it, the area near the capital—the scenery beyond the window was casually shattering every notion of cities I had known throughout my present life.
Only in the very heart of the great cities from my previous life—places like Seoul, Tokyo, or New York—would one be able to see a sight surpassing this.
“……Incredible. Truly.”
Enormous stone buildings soared so high they seemed to pierce the sky, while vast waterways spread between them like a spider’s web, serving as the veins of the entire city. Hundreds of merchant ships traveled along those waterways.
The crowds filling the streets differed in hair color, skin color, and style of dress.
An immense number of merchant caravans from all across the continent, along with the carriages of splendid nobles, packed the roads.
If the capital of our Sterling Kingdom was, in its own way, a romantic seaside resort, then this place was a vast metropolis where all the wealth, power, and desire of the continent were being violently sucked into a single point.
I narrowed my eyes and looked out over the scenery beyond the overwhelming city walls.
Then, as the murmur of the people coming and going through the streets reached my ears, an interesting question occurred to me.
I turned my head toward Amber, who was riding beside me at a slower pace.
“Sir Amber. With so many people of different nations and races gathered here, what language is mainly used in the Empire? It seems a little different in accent from the language used in Sterling.”
At my question, Amber answered with a proud smile.
“Ah, throughout the Empire—and of course in the capital as well—we basically use the common tongue of the continent. There may be slight differences in accent, but with the language Your Highness is speaking with me now, you should have no problem with everyday communication or conversations with nobles.”
“I see. Then, by any chance…… is there a unique language used separately only by the Imperial Family, apart from the common tongue?”
Amber blinked at my question, then gave a small nod.
“There is. It’s an ancient tongue handed down from the early days of the Empire’s founding, when it was still a very small nomadic tribe. But it isn’t used at all in daily life, and its grammar is bizarre and complicated beyond comparison with the common tongue, so even within the Imperial Family now, there are probably very few people who can speak it perfectly.”
“Not even the imperial family uses it?”
“Yes. It remains only in official rites or very old secret documents of the Imperial Family. In truth, it’s close to a dead language. Since I serve under our commander, Her Highness the First Imperial Princess, I only know a few unit chants and some crude words.”
‘A dead language, huh…’
The blood of a liberal arts student who had once dug into Latin for a general education class began to boil in a strangely familiar way.
I stroked my chin, my eyes gleaming.
“That is quite interesting. Then could you teach me just a simple greeting in that ancient tongue?”
“A greeting? Why all of a sudden…… Ah, well, it isn’t difficult. What would you like to say?”
“Mm. Nothing too grand. Something like, I offer greetings to His Imperial Majesty, or I pray for peace upon His Imperial Majesty.”
Amber tilted her head, but then looked up at the sky for a moment, searching her memory.
Soon, from her lips came a pronunciation utterly different from the smooth sounds of the Western-style romance fantasy language I had known until now—rough and wild, yet carrying a strange sense of pressure.
“Ezen Khan tand, amar amgalangig ailtgaya.”
‘…That’s Mongolian, isn’t it?’
I was inwardly startled, but I tried not to show it as I asked,
“What does it mean?”
“Translated literally, it is a very old greeting meaning that one reports peace to the great emperor, the master of all things.”
“Ezen Khan tand…… amar, amgalangig…… Hmm, the pronunciation is not easy at all.”
It was an unfamiliar pronunciation that seemed like it would twist my tongue.
But I did not give up, and practiced it dozens of times under my breath.
Amber looked at me as though wondering why I was doing something so pointless, but she did not particularly try to stop me.
#
A few hours later.
At last, having arrived at the heart of the Empire—the majestic Imperial Palace built of enormous obsidian and marble—I was guided straight to the emperor’s audience chamber without even a moment to catch my breath.
“……!”
The imperial guards lined up on either side pushed open the massive black steel doors, and the instant the interior of the grand audience chamber came into view, the strength nearly left my legs as I walked.
I had thought the audience chamber of the Sterling Kingdom was fairly grand and dignified in its own right, but compared to this place, it was on the level of some local noble’s modest reception room.
On the dizzyingly high ceiling, a vast fresco depicting the Empire’s history of conquest spread out in overwhelming fashion, and the blood-red carpet laid across the floor stretched through a corridor dozens of meters long into the distant depths.
On both sides of the corridor stood rows of high-ranking imperial nobles and ministers, easily numbering in the hundreds.
All of them were staring at me—the flimsy hostage of a defeated nation dragged into the jaws of death—with gazes mingled with curiosity and contempt.
The overwhelming killing intent and pressure radiating from that space pressed down on me until I could barely breathe.
‘Don’t cower, Ian Harper. If you cower, you’ll be devoured. If you lose in momentum, it’s over.’
I recited that like an incantation inwardly, while maintaining, on the surface, the perfectly noble and elegant gait of royalty as I walked along the red carpet.
And finally, at the end of that distant corridor, I reached the throne situated atop a dais decorated with enormous gold and obsidian.
As I bowed my head before the throne, a firm voice sounded above me.
“Raise your head.”
When I lifted my head, I met the eyes of the man seated upon the throne—the emperor of the Great Empire—for the first time.
‘That man is……’
The actual emperor, who had only been described in the text of the novel, was somewhat different from what I had imagined.
He was a middle-aged man of moderately large build, with a body so solid and fierce that it seemed like that of a beast of prey even beneath his clothes.
Beneath his narrowed eyes was a dark but very neatly trimmed beard, and above all, like the eyes of First Imperial Princess Victoria, his chillingly clear and intense violet pupils flashed as though piercing straight through me.
But the most surprising thing was his attire.
I had assumed that an emperor would naturally be dressed in formal robes adorned with blinding gold, jewels, and splendid epaulettes, but he was wearing only a very plain, deep black uniform, with no decorations or medals of any kind.
Yet from that simple attire, I instead read the chilling essence of power.
An overwhelming being who truly stands at the pinnacle of power does not need to prove he is emperor with gaudy gold ornaments or embellishments.
After all, even if he merely sits there breathing quietly, everyone knows that he is the emperor.
And in the enormous audience chamber, where a deathly silence had settled, I slowly uttered the unfamiliar pronunciation I had practiced for days until my lips were bitten and my tongue felt worn down—clearly enough for the entire chamber to ring with it.
“Ezen Khan tand, amar amgalangig ailtgaya.”
“……!!”
In that instant, the air inside the audience chamber changed.
The shoulders of the old, arrogant ministers lined up on either side of the throne flinched, and several military officials widened their eyes as though doubting their own ears.
The emperor reacted as well.
The hand of the emperor, who had been resting his chin on it and looking down at me in boredom, slowly—very slowly—came to a stop in midair.
“…Prince of the Sterling Kingdom.”
A low, oppressive voice sounded as though scraping across the floor of the audience chamber.
I slowly straightened my upper body and looked directly into the emperor’s eyes, where violet light gleamed—not arrogantly, but without avoiding them.
The emperor’s narrow eyes curved sharply with interest and deep wariness.
“How do you know the words you just uttered?”
“On the way here, I heard from the knight who escorted me that there existed an old language once used by the Imperial Family, and I asked to be taught, Your Majesty.”
I answered while tightening my lower abdomen so my voice would not tremble.
The emperor narrowed his eyes and lightly tapped the armrest of the throne.
Tap, tap, tap. The sound rang out in a steady rhythm, tightening around my heart.
“Why did you do such a thing?”
“……Pardon?”
“I am asking why, in your miserable position of being dragged here as a hostage, you went to the trouble of awkwardly learning and offering a greeting in the ancient tongue of an enemy nation you knew nothing about.”
The murderous pressure emanating from the emperor’s body was so intense that I felt the illusion that the oxygen in the space had grown thin.
If I had been an ordinary hostage, I would have slammed my head to the floor here, shed tears, and begged to be spared.
But while desperately suppressing my madly pounding heart, I placed as relaxed a smile as I could manage on my lips.
“As Your Majesty says, I am indeed a hostage detained by the Empire in place of the Sterling Kingdom.”
“……”
“However, I was not dragged here in chains. I stepped into this great Imperial Palace with my own feet…… and so, before I am a hostage, I am also a guest who has entered Your Majesty’s territory.”
“Hm.”
“Is it not only proper that a guest invited into the house of a great master should strive to offer his first courtesy through that master’s roots?”
When my answer ended, a heavy silence pressed down upon the audience chamber, so deep that not even the sound of a needle falling could be heard.
The one who broke the silence was the emperor.
“……Ha.”
A short breath slipped between the emperor’s lips, then soon turned into laughter.
“Kuh, hahahaha! Hahahahaha!!! Well now, what an amusing fellow you are!”