Episode 62. The Rebel Army
When Binaeril arrived in Essen, the war at the royal palace was already raging.
Everywhere in sight, clashing weapons and dead soldiers filled his vision.
Binaeril quickly understood the situation.
The noble faction’s soldiers, each bearing their house crest upon their chest, held the advantage, while the guards and knights defending the royal palace were at a disadvantage.
‘An assault by the noble faction? Was the attempt on Rike’s life all part of their plan as well?’
There was no doubt the noble faction had stormed the palace while he was away.
One soldier spotted him and approached Binaeril, who was standing motionless.
“Hey, who are you!”
On the soldier’s chest hung the crest of House Papen.
Without hesitation, Binaeril fired a magic bullet, blowing off the approaching soldier’s head.
His corpse collapsed, losing its head without even letting out a final scream.
“The Princess’s guard mage is here!”
“Capture him!”
“Kill the mage!”
He had no intention of hiding himself, so Binaeril’s identity was discovered at once.
Since most had already entered the castle, there were not many troops remaining outside the inner keep.
Thanks to the rest he had taken while returning to Essen, he was more than enough to deal with the soldiers.
Before long, corpses began piling up around Binaeril.
Seeing Binaeril take lives with ease, one with each shot, the soldiers grew fearful and fled, hiding themselves.
“Kuk…….”
When he pierced the fourteenth soldier’s chest with a wind hole, no one was left to attack Binaeril.
Binaeril prepared to enter the castle.
That is, had it not been for the new arrivals.
Orderly troops were newly entering from the outer castle gate.
Binaeril counted their numbers and gulped.
One hundred.
One hundred soldiers were marching toward the royal palace.
They were different from the ragtag soldiers Binaeril had just faced.
Their march in perfect order was reminiscent of a well-honed blade.
Binaeril checked their military flag and the crests emblazoned on their chests.
It was a house he had never seen before.
Were these soldiers also part of the noble faction?
At the vanguard of the troops, a man riding a white horse was leading them.
A middle-aged man with a balding head.
A man notable for the long scar running across his left eye.
The man who halted before Binaeril raised his fist, bringing the column to a stop.
As the soldiers all stopped at once, the commotion and screams of Essen Royal Palace could be heard.
The commander of the hundred-strong army heard this and asked.
“Essen is different from usual. What is happening? Who in the world are you?”
It was a dignified tone imbued with solemnity, one that commanded others naturally.
Binaeril spoke proudly without flinching.
“I am Binaeril Dalheim, guard mage of the Second Princess. Who are you?”
At the word “mage,” a quiet ripple of surprise spread among the soldiers.
But the commander was not among them.
He twitched his eyebrow but once, that being the full extent of his surprise, and opened his mouth.
“I am…….”
“You must flee!”
Court Count Hans Brante, who had burst into the audience chamber, shouted.
Regent Charlotte asked back with a surprised expression, demanding to know what was the matter.
Boom!
The sound of the inner keep’s gate collapsing rang out.
The sounds of servants and maids inside the royal palace screaming and fleeing in terror could be heard.
The interior of the castle instantly fell into chaos.
Regent Charlotte intuitively grasped the situation.
“The rebels?”
Court Count Brante nodded urgently.
“The noble faction has joined forces and is attacking with soldiers. You must escape quickly!”
Sylvia appeared, roughly opening the door to the audience chamber.
She too had grasped the situation and run straight to the Regent.
“Your Excellency the Regent, you must flee.”
When the three had gathered in the audience chamber, one more woman arrived, trembling with anxiety.
“Your Excellency the Regent? What is going on?”
It was Lady Vivian Dux.
For some reason, she had remained at the royal palace even after the banquet ended.
Her face too was filled with fear and unease.
“Lady Vivian, why are you here?”
“I came after hearing the commotion downstairs. Your Highness, what in the world is happening?”
She was the daughter of Duke Dux.
Duke Dux was widely regarded as the leader of the noble faction.
But the Regent knew.
Duke Dux was a neutral figure who had extended his hand to neither the royalist faction nor the noble faction.
Could her father be involved in this raid?
Looking at Vivian’s expression full of fear, it was hard to imagine that could be the case.
Regent Charlotte surveyed the assembled people and asked.
“Where is Baronet Dalheim?”
Sylvia answered her question.
“He left to obtain an antidote for the Second Princess.”
“Where on earth?”
“He… said he was going to meet Marquis Siller.”
The Regent shuddered at that name.
Viktor Siller!
He was the one who had advocated sending envoys to the Holy Kingdom during the Grand Council.
‘Was all of this for this?’
With the intention of assassinating her and her sister, then storming and occupying the royal palace?
The envoy dispatch had merely been an excuse to buy time.
“Your Excellency the Regent! I know it is difficult, but you must flee. There is a secret passage in the castle leading outside. Before the enemies gather here, hurry!”
Court Count Brante pleaded with her.
Holding the young Regent’s hand, he looked on the verge of tears.
“Friederike, how is your sister…?”
Sylvia shook her head.
“She is not improving at all.”
She could not leave her fallen younger sister behind like this.
It was no different than telling her sister to die.
Her younger sister was the only family the Regent had left.
“I will remain.”
“Hah!”
The Court Count let out a groan of despair.
“Sylvia, take my sister and escape through the secret passage. Take Court Count Brante and Vivian here with you as well.”
“I cannot go anywhere leaving Your Highness behind!”
“What do you intend to do?”
Sylvia too hesitated at her command.
The conflicting loyalties—the feeling that she could not leave the Regent behind as things stood, and the duty to protect the Second Princess—clouded her judgment.
While they each wrestled with their thoughts, the commotion drew closer.
The area outside the audience chamber quickly grew noisy.
It was evidence that the rebels had reached the floor they were on.
Soon, they appeared.
The thick scent of blood.
Soldiers reeking of death, with swords, spears, and blades soaked in blood, spotted the people in the audience chamber and shouted.
The people’s screams gradually subsided. That would mean there weren’t many resisting soldiers left.
The first to enter the audience chamber was Marquis Felix Papen.
He wore light armor, but not a single drop of blood stained his entire body.
Following him, the soldiers of House Papen entered the audience chamber and lined up to the left and right.
Soon after, Count Manfred List, his soldiers, Viscount Walter Hartman, and others entered.
As dozens of soldiers stormed in, the spacious audience chamber was filled in an instant.
The thick smell of blood on their blades and spears assaulted the nose.
The last to enter was Marquis Viktor Siller.
“Viktor……!”
“Your Excellency the Regent, are you well?”
Marquis Papen greeted her.
His tone was light, as if he had stepped out for a stroll in his front garden.
But he could not hide the faint joy of victory seeping through it.
The Regent suppressed her emotions and maintained her composure.
They would want to see the Regent enraged and despairing.
An emperor must remain steadfast, she told herself, and answered dryly.
“Marquis Felix Papen. You did not return to your territory.”
“I had business remaining at the royal palace.”
“Is your business slaughtering the capital’s troops and spilling blood?”
“No. That is a secondary matter. We have come to take the position that should have been ours.”
“You want me to prepare a place in the underground stables? There is no place to yield to diseased beasts like you.”
It was a scathing condemnation. But Marquis Papen laughed it off smoothly.
“I thought it was you sisters who had fallen underground. I heard you committed suicide from the royal palace with your sister, yet you look fine? That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Was that your doing?”
“That was me.”
Marquis Siller, who had been silent, stepped forward.
With the occupation of the royal palace all but complete, he calculated that boasting of his contributions before the other nobles would be advantageous in the subsequent struggle for the throne.
“I was the one who ordered the assassination of the princess sisters. It can be said that I, Viktor Siller, made the greatest contribution to the first step of the new empire.”
“Why, Marquis Siller?”
The reason the noble faction couldn’t attack the royal palace immediately after the emperor’s death was a matter of justification.
Ordering assassinations in secret and biding their time was all because of that.
Marquis Siller brought forth their justification.
“Since the previous emperor took to his sickbed, the empire has been declining both internally and externally.
The First Princess, who styled herself as the emperor’s proxy, has proven her incompetence all this time, and the Second Princess has wandered outside the empire, not even caring about her homeland.
Moreover, she has joined hands with Elfenbein and plotted betrayal; as a vassal who thinks only of the country, I could no longer stand idly by.
It ends now. Albrecht shall now rise as a new empire.”
A group of nobles nodded, expressing their agreement with his opinion.
It was a plausible pretext.
Regent Charlotte and her close associates knew it was all nonsense.
Hidden behind that justification was nothing but their own ambition. Nothing else.
“Fine words. The empire’s decline is due to you nobles’ antiquated thoughts, unable to turn away from past glory.
Monsters are appearing throughout the land, and the people tremble in fear, yet it is because of scum like you who worry only for your own safety.
The exchange with Elfenbein was an unavoidable choice to make Albrecht safer. Do you deny this?”
Despite the Regent’s heated speech, the sardonic sneers did not fade from the faces of the two marquises.
“That is merely your excuse. There is no reason to hear more.”
Marquis Siller turned his gaze toward the members of the noble faction lined up behind him.
Marquis Papen and Marquis Siller nodded simultaneously.
“Execute the traitorous princess who has betrayed the empire.”
“Yes!”
At this moment, there was no sense of guilt about committing treason in the minds of the nobles in the audience chamber.
Everything was for the empire’s future.
They were loyal subjects gathered under that justification.
Sylvia stepped forward to block them.
She chanted strength and acceleration magic and faced the knights, but before the forces overwhelming her with numbers, it was a feeble struggle.
“Offer your necks obediently!”
Just as the necks of the Regent and her vassals were about to fall to the drawn swords of the knights.
Someone appeared, shattering the window of the audience chamber.
Lady Vivian shouted.
His head was soaked with blood and sweat, and his garments were torn like a beggar’s, but
he was unmistakably the princess’s guard mage. Binaeril Dalheim.
“Let the shadows bind you!”
The knights who were about to strike down with their swords were blocked by an invisible force, their movements sealed.
The knights’ shadows stretched out like sticky slime, seizing their limbs.
“What are you doing! Cut their necks at once!”
The soldiers who had stood back rushed at Binaeril, but Binaeril’s reaction was faster.
“Kuaak!”
“Urk!”
Even iron armor was torn like paper before Binaeril’s magic bullets.
Chest, between the eyebrows, solar plexus, navel.
Each magic bullet claimed exactly one life.
“Baronet Dalheim!”
Marquis Siller spat out Binaeril’s name.
Binaeril took out a potion bottle from within his clothes. Then, handing it to Sylvia, he said:
“Give this to Rike. Please, quickly.”
Sylvia caught on, took the antidote, and ran.
Friederike’s sleeping chamber was directly connected to the audience chamber.
Binaeril looked around the room and shouted.
“Traitors, cast aside your weapons and surrender. Those who resist will be summarily executed.”
Sunlight poured in through the broken window, illuminating Binaeril.
Regent Charlotte, Vivian, and Court Count Brante felt as if they were looking at a savior.
“What nonsense is that? You mean to face all the soldiers here alone?”
The royal palace began to grow noisy again.
From the lower floors of the royal palace, the sound of military boots shaking the ground and people’s screams began to echo once more.
A confused murmuring spread among the nobles who could not grasp the situation.
Boom!
The door opened, and a man entered.
“Where is my daughter!”
Vivian looked at the familiar face and called out.
Duke Torben Dux revealed himself in the royal palace’s audience chamber.