WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 114: The Rift of Time (4)

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The Elandor Empire had several great houses that had helped found the nation.

They were the founding contributors who had settled in the capital, Archandia, alongside the First Emperor and established the kingdom, and the families they belonged to.

House Lucent was undoubtedly among the foremost of them. It was a prestigious house with the longest history. Even before the Kingdom of Elandor was founded, they had ruled a small nation of their own. They assisted the First Emperor in opening a new chapter of history. While the families of the other founding contributors received new names and surnames from the Emperor, House Lucent alone retained its original surname.

It was meant to show that they would not forget their roots.

That was also why they were the Emperor's most prominent opposition. They were the only house capable of keeping the Archandia Imperial Family in check. Being able to offer blunt counsel that no other family could give was one of their privileges.

Even House Lucent had one head of the family whom they considered a shameful stain they wished they could erase.

"Alfred... Lucent..."

Elysia blankly murmured the old man's name as if repeating it to herself. She seemed devastated to learn that the aged mage before her was one of her distant ancestors.

"As far as I know, Alfred Lucent was one of the worst traitors in Imperial history, a man who attempted to assassinate the Emperor. Is that correct?"

Kyle asked in her place.

Alfred Lucent. He was famous enough that even Kyle had encountered his name in books several times.

Three hundred years ago, while the Kingdom of Alenos in the south was collapsing from civil war, he had been the Empire's greatest archmage. He had been the head of Elandor's most distinguished and ancient house. Yet after a single mistake, he had vanished from the world, a greedy loser erased from history.

"That is the official story."

Alfred accepted it calmly. Despite hearing himself called one of the worst traitors to his face, he did not seem bothered in the slightest.

"The official story?"

"That is right. I was a traitor, but not because I attempted to assassinate the Emperor. It was because I learned an Imperial secret that I was never meant to know."

"Then why?"

"Because the Imperial Family spread that story. I learned a secret known only to the Emperor and a very few others, so naturally I became an eyesore. They disposed of me using the convenient pretext of attempted regicide. I had no choice. To save my house and its people, I had to quietly accept death."

After that, Alfred slowly began to reveal the truth of that day.

Secrets entirely different from what the history books recorded, things only someone who had been there could know.

Once he had fallen out of the Emperor's favor, there was no other way. House Lucent denied all ties to Alfred and declared that he would be executed. The executioner was none other than his eldest son and heir, Raymond Lucent. In exchange for pursuing the fleeing Alfred alongside a wyvern knight and killing him with his own hands, House Lucent had been allowed to survive.

That was the official account, but the truth was completely different.

"I did not flee. I simply waited for death. I waited for my head to fall by my son's hand, before the Commander of the Celestial Knights."

He continued in a calm voice.

"Some members of the house objected. They wanted to seek asylum in the Federation. I stopped them. I bargained for the house's survival with my own head, directly with the Emperor. He said he would allow it if I took every secret with me and died quietly."

"But you, no, sir..."

Elysia suddenly interrupted. Compared to before, she seemed to have gathered herself somewhat. Still, she could not hide the tremor in her voice. It would have been stranger if she had remained calm when one of her distant ancestors, recorded as one of the Empire's worst traitors, was sitting before her.

"You are wondering why I am alive?"

Elysia pressed her lips shut.

"You must have come from the future after my death. Was I recorded as having died a traitor?"

Kyle hesitated briefly before answering.

"...Yes."

"I see."

"How are you alive?"

"I did not die. More precisely, I fell into this place just before I died. Learning the Imperial secret was not the only crime I committed. There was something else just as important."

"What was it?"

"A fragment of Prisia's Dragon Heart."

Alfred looked straight into Kyle's eyes.

"They knew I had discovered the Imperial secret, but they did not know that I had secretly taken the Dragon Heart. I destroyed every record concerning the research into Prisia's Dragon Heart at the time. I kept it hidden until the end, then gave it to my son in secret just before I died, without the wyvern knight noticing. Then, as if it had been waiting for that moment, the Dragon Heart went berserk..."

His voice trailed off.

Kyle focused on the word Alfred had just used.

Berserk.

He had fallen into the past because the Dragon Heart went berserk.

Had something similar happened when the rift resonated with the Dragon Heart? The rift had only been a medium, while Kyle and Elysia had fallen into the past entirely because of Prisia's Dragon Heart.

"Is this Prisia's Dragon Heart?"

Kyle took a pendant made of a white jewel from inside his clothes. Alfred's golden eyes, so similar to Elysia's, widened.

"That is it, yes!"

"..."

"Hah... So you truly had it. I thought it might be possible, but..."

After receiving the Dragon Heart from Kyle, Alfred turned the white jewel over in his hands. Even beneath the soft yellow light inside the house, its pure white radiance did not lose its color. It flickered in accordance with the overwhelming current of mana swirling inside it.

It was something that could never be seen in a fake.

"Now I am curious as well. I believe I have told you enough about who I am, so let me ask in return. Who are you two?"

Alfred returned the Dragon Heart to Kyle and looked between them.

"I..."

Elysia hesitated and glanced at Kyle. He gave a small nod, telling her to do as she pleased.

After a moment, Elysia opened her mouth with a resolute expression.

"Elysia Lucent Archandia."

"What...?"

"That is my name."

"Lucent Archandia... Are you my descendant, born between House Lucent and the Imperial Family?"

Alfred looked even more shocked than he had when he saw Prisia's Dragon Heart. His gaze naturally moved to Kyle, who was seated beside her.

"Then you are..."

"Kyle Baldrick."

"Baldrick? Baldrick is surely..."

"It is the surname of Asherad, the first king of Hailen. It was bestowed directly by the Royal Family."

"As far as I know, there is only one reason anyone would be granted the Hailen Royal Family's surname. Are you the Commander of the Knights of Ash?"

"It is a meaningless position now. At least in the era we came from, the Knights of Ash no longer exist."

Alfred's lips parted.

The absence of the Knights of Ash, Hailen's royal knight order, could only mean that the country had fallen.

"Why...?"

"The Empire invaded."

"And so it fell?"

"Yes."

"That is impossible. Hailen is gone? The Hailen I knew was not a country that could fall so easily..."

Alfred sighed in genuine grief.

Hailen was the only kingdom in the north, older even than the Elandor Empire. It had been founded by its first king, Asherad, who united the tribes scattered across the region.

A nation with such a history had fallen.

At the hands of Alfred's own homeland.

"What era did you come from?"

With a heavy expression, Alfred looked at Kyle and Elysia.

Kyle answered at once.

"Roughly three hundred years after you fell into the past."

"Three hundred years... I see. So that much time has passed."

Alfred groaned and held his forehead.

"If the two of you are traveling together, then House Lucent..."

Elysia avoided Alfred's gaze. An indescribable despair filled the old man's wrinkled face.

"Was it destroyed?"

"...Yes."

"Why?"

"For the reason you have guessed. It fell out of the Emperor's favor. By my era, House Lucent had already been steadily losing power as the Emperor's opposition."

"So ruin could not be avoided in the end."

Three hundred years was a long time.

It was enough time for several nations to rise and fall. In that span, it was entirely possible for Hailen, which had endured for more than a thousand years, to be destroyed, and for House Lucent, the Empire's greatest founding house, to be wiped out.

It was simply difficult for a man who had once led House Lucent to accept.

Silence lingered for a while. No one spoke first.

The soup that had once been warm grew cold in the silence.

Kyle picked up the spoon he had set down. When he scooped up a mouthful and brought it to his lips, he could taste the cold soup. It was not particularly good, but Kyle quietly finished what remained.

Clink.

Kyle set down his spoon.

At the same time, Alfred and Elysia, who had quietly resumed their meals like Kyle, put down their utensils and raised their heads.

"Perhaps because I have heard too much all at once, I am rather confused."

Alfred swallowed a sigh with a complicated expression and rose from his seat. He floated the three empty bowls with magic, placed them in a corner of the kitchen, then brought three cups of cool water.

"One of you is my descendant, born between House Lucent and the Imperial Family, and the other is the last Commander of the Knights of Ash... No matter how I look at it, this does not seem like a simple coincidence. I have never cared much for the word fate, either."

He sat down again and drank deeply from his cup.

Kyle stared quietly at the cup before him. Elysia also seemed lost in thought, as though she needed time to organize her thoughts.

"Sir. No, Duke Alfred."

Kyle was the first to speak.

"Hm? Go on."

"What do you think of the Empire?"

Kyle did not dance around the subject.

Alfred's eyes widened. A moment later, a faint smile touched his lips.

"You are quite direct."

"..."

"What do I think of the Empire...? It is complicated. But I do not think of it kindly. There was a time when I believed myself to be the Emperor's loyal servant and a pillar of the Empire. Not after learning the truth."

"Then do you resent it?"

Kyle stared directly at Alfred.

The old mage did not avoid his gaze. He only smiled bitterly.

"Resentment..."

"In the end, the Emperor tried to kill you. House Lucent, your own house, was destroyed because it spoke against the Emperor."

"..."

"The same is true for me. The Knights of Ash were disbanded, and Hailen vanished into history."

"What are you trying to say?"

"We need the power to oppose the Empire."

Kyle said it clearly.

"Even considering that we must first return to our original future, that makes it all the more urgent. So tell us. What exactly is the Imperial secret that forced you to choose death?"

Once he finished speaking, Kyle sat quietly and waited for Alfred's answer.

The old mage looked away from Kyle's unwavering eyes and turned to the side.

Elysia, with golden eyes and platinum hair that resembled Alfred's, wore an expression just as determined as Kyle's. It was obvious that she shared his thoughts.

She was Alfred's descendant, an Imperial Princess with the blood of House Lucent.

And Kyle was the last Commander of the fallen Hailen's knight order.

Under normal circumstances, they would never have met. As an Imperial Princess, Elysia would have had no reason to leave Archandia, the Empire's capital. If Hailen had fallen to an Imperial invasion, the royal Knights of Ash would have fought on battlefields without a day's rest.

Yet they traveled together.

Their relationship was far from ordinary.

The old mage, seasoned by a long life, could tell that at a glance. That sort of trust could not be built overnight. It only formed after crossing the line between life and death together again and again.

So if these two wanted the Emperor dead and the Empire destroyed...

Perhaps...

"Let me ask you one thing first."

Alfred, who had been repeatedly running his fingers along the cup that was still half full, finally spoke.

"The Kingdom of Elandor became an Empire less than five hundred years ago. But Prisia died far earlier than that, a thousand years ago. As you know, Prisia was different from ordinary Dragons. The title Progenitor Dragon does not only mean she was the first Dragon. It also carries the reverence of saying that no other Dragon could ever compare to her."

"I know."

"Then have you ever considered this?"

After pausing for a moment, Alfred continued.

"Why did the First Emperor establish a kingdom while he had Prisia, a being with such power, at his side? Was the nation's strength insufficient to proclaim an Empire? But he had the Progenitor Dragon, a guardian Dragon no other being could approach, even until every other Dragon had died. Does that make sense?"

"..."

"The Kingdom of Elandor became an Empire only after it began taming wyverns in earnest and founded the Celestial Knights. Before then, it did not have the means to even speak of becoming an Empire. That was true even while Prisia was alive. Why do you think that was? Was Prisia weaker than the stories say? Why was the Archandia Imperial Family so obsessed with wyverns? And why did they not tame wyverns while Prisia was still alive?"

Kyle instinctively tried to speak, but he could not force a sound past his throat.

There was nothing wrong with Alfred's words.

Prisia was the strongest Dragon in history.

Then why was the Empire stronger now, relying on wyverns, than it had been when Prisia was alive?

The first and last Dragon.

Considering that even an ordinary Dragon could destroy a small nation by itself, it was impossible to understand by common sense. If the First Emperor had wished, he could have unified the entire western continent and founded an Empire rather than the Kingdom of Elandor a thousand years ago.

The same applied to taming wyverns. If he had used Prisia's authority, which could wield even a small measure of Time Magic, it should not have been difficult.

Why?

"Prisia is not the Empire's guardian Dragon."

As if shattering those questions, Alfred added calmly.

"She never was. From the beginning, she was a victim whose life had been forcibly held in the First Emperor's grasp."

Kyle felt himself go speechless.

Elysia was no different.

Alfred's words were that shocking. It felt as though everything they had learned about the history of Velia had been directly denied.

Ah.

Kyle blankly looked up at the ceiling.

Come to think of it, there had been more than one strange thing.

Prisia, known as the Empire's guardian Dragon, was exceptionally favorable toward Kyle. She appeared in his dreams often. She had saved Kyle and Elysia when they nearly drowned in the Pargon Strait.

It made no sense, considering that Kyle was the final Commander of the now-disbanded Knights of Ash and the Empire's sworn enemy.

If Prisia really was the Empire's guardian Dragon.

"It seems you have some idea."

Kyle moved his lips soundlessly. Elysia was much the same. Neither of them could escape the enormous shock.

"Above all, every Emperor in history has been the First Emperor."

Alfred drove the final nail into them.

"The moment they ascend the throne, their existing self disappears, and the First Emperor's personality is gradually imposed upon them. Monsters wearing the human skin of descendants passed down through generations. That is the First Emperor's secret I learned, and the Empire's greatest shame, which he was desperate to conceal. A secret that must never be revealed to the outside world."

Footnotes:

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