Chapter 278: Changes

Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav

I casually tore open the letter’s seal before I discovered that it was actually the highest-level magical seal of all, inscribed into the gray letter with wax runes. If anyone other than the letter’s intended recipient had opened it, the letter within the envelope would have destroyed itself or possibly even exploded.

“Cherry? I don’t know this name. Yep, you’ve never mentioned it before.”

Although Little Red was continually shaking her head, there was laughter in her eyes. Even though dragons typically looked down on needing to lie, based on my understanding of her, her expression meant that she was waiting to see something interesting, and asking her would be meaningless.

And, so, I unhesitatingly opened up the letter’s envelope ever so slightly and put it down on the table. Then, I stood at the doorway, and used a hand of ice to open it up from a safe enough distance… Haha! I’m too smart! If only the bomb disposal technicians in my previous world had magic techniques like mine, there wouldn’t need to be so many sacrifices.

“Wahahahaha!”

I completely ignored that dragon who was intending to watch me make a fool of myself and laughing to the point of clutching her stomach. For some reason, when I saw this name Cherry that resembled an elven name, there was an itch in my mind that seemed to be instinctively warning me that this name was trouble and that I should be cautious.

In order to avoid any traps, I carefully hid behind the door and canceled my magic hand of ice the moment I used it to open the letter, and then…

“Are you joking with me? Nothing actually happened!”

There was no sudden flash of white light, nor was there the wailing of a banshee. There was definitely no explosion and not even some floating white or green powder. At the very least, shouldn’t it contain a death curse? For a scare letter to not even contain a single trap, how unprofessional.

“Hahaha! You’re so funny; just what are you doing? Facechecking the bush? Using your own feet to check for traps?” [1]

Alright then. I decided to continue ignoring that dragon who was rolling around on the floor in laughter as I picked up the letter only to see a few simple sentences.

“The ancient elven language? Someone’s actually using this language in this day and age? Let me think; how do I read this again?”

The letter was written in the ancient language of elves that had long since gone extinct. It would have been normal for the letter writer to use the common human language or the dragon language, but what was with using the ancient elven language? Was this Cherry an archaeologist?

The words were written quite beautifully and cleanly. It was evident that a female wrote them, but the content was so perplexing that I couldn’t understand at all.

“…You dare to return?”

When I read this out loud to check my grammar, I was certain that I hadn’t made any mistakes translating the ancient elven language. But why was it that I still didn’t understand what the letter writer meant? Was this supposed to be a complaint aimed at me?

But, just as I finished speaking out loud, the letter suddenly glowed white, and then…

“Damn it! It was actually the type that activated upon reading it out loud!”

*Boom!*

The letter indeed exploded. Well, at least the explosion wasn’t a powerful one, but it brought a strange smoke with it. When the smoke finally dissipated, I was covered in something blue all over.

“Cough—cough—she actually intentionally used the difficult ancient elven language to fool me into reading it out loud which would cause the letter to explode. So evil! Cough—cough—cough.”

I didn’t know what this trap was made of. Even the dust I coughed up was blue. The only part I could feel lucky about was that I could sense this trap was apparently non-toxic.

“Hahaha! I knew it!”

The female dragon behind me was rolling around on the floor in laughter even more vigorously. She seemed to have expected this.

And what accompanied this trap was a sudden flash that jumped outside the room. Apparently, with the letter’s opening, something left that informed the trap’s setter that this letter had been activated as she planned.

And at the same time that I was smeared with blue all over, a small pendant dropped onto the ground. This was a heart-shaped sapphire that was glowing with a clear radiance, just like the moonlight.

Seeing all this, I knew that this was only the beginning. The truly troublesome part would probably be waiting for me down the road.

“Such a targeted trap aimed just for me; it’s impossible to believe that she’s someone I don’t know…”

Since I was unable to recall who Cherry was, that made me even more worried. All of this was obviously aimed at me personally, so it could only be someone highly familiar with me. Why was it that I couldn’t recall this name at all?

Well, not having any impressions of someone was normal since after so many lives, I’d already forgotten so many things even about myself. But, for even my memory library to not have any records, that was quite abnormal.

After thinking about it extensively, I came up with only two possibilities. Either at the time, I hadn’t started recording my diaries yet… I could basically ignore this possibility, though. That left only something that I intentionally didn’t want to record, not wanting to remember certain things, hoping that I would completely forget about it after reincarnating.

“Well, if I can’t recall it, I’ll just stop bothering. Since it was something I intentionally wanted to forget, it’s obvious that it’s better to not remember.”

I directly decided to forget about all this, which caused Little Red who still wanted to see my antics to become displeased.

“You sure live such a carefree life. If you can’t remember, you’re just going to give up on remembering? Such an envious lifestyle attitude you have. Aren’t you worried at all that there’s going to be some trouble waiting for you if you can’t remember?”

“…There’s nothing I can do about it if I can’t remember. Besides, if this Cherry person wants to come looking for trouble, even if I remember, won’t she still come looking for trouble anyways? It’ll only add more to my plate. Since she’s an enemy, I’ll just have to deal with things when the time comes. Isn’t she simply an ‘old acquaintance?’ The number of old acquaintances I have that want me dead could probably make a long enough line to reach from here to the western ocean. Why would I be afraid?”

Although I said so, I secretly increased the defenses around our rooms. Of course, it wasn’t entirely just to guard against an unknown threat.

When the next morning arrived peacefully, I was reassured slightly. Although the dragon knights acted quite respectfully towards Lilith, and knights were typically a bunch of dullards that only thought about knightly chivalry in their tin can brains, we were still technically in enemy territory, and we needed to take extra cautions. Being on guard was something absolutely necessary.

And as we talked to the dragon knights, I obtained information about the Bardi Empire that I had really been lacking. Local domain lords’ information was too outdated compared to the dragon knights who received updated news from the capital every single day.

With the ambitious tyrant ruler Orloss still perfectly holding on to his power, the current Bardi Empire was indeed in Orloss’s grasp. However, even if everything appeared calm on the surface, there were torrents brewing in secret. With the old emperor continually increasing in age, the situation in the Bardi Empire only kept increasing in complexity.

Although Emperor Orloss was still considered the overwhelming authority, just about everyone hoped for his death. This especially included his ten or so still living adopted princes. Although they all seemed pure and kind on the surface, they all had large factions of their own and were waiting to fight it out for the throne after Orloss’s death. Of course, none of them dared yet to make any military moves—yep—at least on the surface. Some of the princes’ wives’ families seemed to be trying to butter up the military factions, though.

As for local domain lords? Does it even need saying? There would forever be insolvable conflicts between centralized royal authority and local domain lords. Although Orloss’s method of forcing all the domain lords to send him their eldest sons to the capital as hostages was quite effective, it also worsened the relationship between the royal authority and the domain lords.

This method had been put into practice for twenty years now, and the first batch of domain lords’ eldest sons had already grown into adults. However, those that returned to their domains to inherit the position of domain lord were pitifully few. This wasn’t because of Orloss refusing to let them go, but instead because most domain lords had chosen their second sons that weren’t hostages at the capital.

No second son? They would just do their best to give birth to a second son, then. As for the second sons who got to be the domain lord, they wouldn’t have any feelings of friendship whatsoever towards their older brothers that should have legally been the domain lord. Those that truly welcomed a firstborn son back to inherit the domain lord title were fewer than few.

The overwhelming power that the royal authority possessed had caused many complaints to accumulate. And since all these complaints had accumulated, they would definitely explode one day, sooner or later.

After Emperor Orloss’s death, no matter who it was that managed to seize the throne, there would be no way that person would have sufficient authority to suppress all the domain lords any more. It could be said that due to the overly centralized power of royal authority, all the domain lords had been repressing their ambitions for the past several decades. They were all looking forward to this emperor, who was pressuring them from above, to die of old age so that they could rise up again.

Simply judging by how everyone was reacting to the emperor’s alliance with the undead, there were plenty of internal disagreements in the Bardi Empire just on this topic alone. Although Orloss used his authority to forcibly suppress most nobles’ distaste for this, the lack of total unity on this subject caused plenty of internal factions to be formed.

Apart from all the Gods’ churches that directly broke with the Bardi Empire, the fiercest reaction regarding the undead were from the royal mages.

The first day that an official announcement was made regarding the alliance with the undead, the head royal archmage, Wenst, decided to take a sick leave. All the other royal archmages also began to shut themselves inside and work only on researching magic. The dragon knight Archduke Halent and his dragon knights leaving the capital as a form of protest was already considered to be a softer form of protest compared to some.

While Halent and his dragon knights were using their own method to protest their dissatisfaction against Emperor Orloss’s policies, at the western border, there was a group of dragon knights that remained loyal to the emperor. These dragon knights were about to enter the battlefield and begin taking revenge upon the Mage Country.

Dragon descendants had a special status. First of all, most of them were half-dragons and could be considered both dragon and human. Yet since they spent most of their lives growing up in a human empire, they were quite attached to their identity as humans during their “growth period.” As they had the status as knights, they felt it was only natural for them to participate when their emperor gave the command to go to war.

If at all possible, I didn’t wish to see an all-out war between two mega-empires, especially since the Mage Country was intimately connected to me.

That strange Quest I received a while back that forced me to choose between improving my Reputation level in either the Mage Country or the Bardi Empire was probably evidence, even way back then, that the upcoming war between the two countries was inevitable and that I would have to choose a side.

I could already guess that when I arrived at the Cloud Tower to continue this so-called main storyline Quest, I would likely be forced to formally choose a side in this war and participate in the battle.

“I hope that these dragon knights here won’t join the war. That would escalate the war’s level immediately. The undead invasion is already beginning, and the longer we stall for time, the better our preparations will be and the greater our chances of victory. Both countries sending in all their high-level combat strength immediately will only benefit the undead that are going to come sooner or later.”

I was considering about more than just these issues. Giving the Bardi Empire over to the Undead Emperors seemed like too much of a waste. Since the Bardi Empire had an unstable internal situation, perhaps something would change from within if I managed to stall for time. For example, if Emperor Orloss finally suddenly died, there was a high likelihood of the new ruler directly turning against the undead.

[Congratulations to Host for activating the secret side Quest: Prevent the dragon knight squadron from entering this meaningless battle.]

[Quest Requirements: Stall this dragon knight squadron from entering the battle as long as possible. If you successfully stall them for three months, that will complete this Quest.]

[Quest Reward: A clue to the location of the former Dragon Queen Molly. Quest Failure Punishment: Little Red’s anger. System Reminder: Just continue wasting your time doing side Quests. You want Fate Points? Never!]

It would seem that many things related to the main storyline Quest of the two major countries at war could be activated as side Quests. Although there weren’t any Fate Points as rewards, based on what I knew, I couldn’t leave even a single small detail uncovered in order to properly finish a major storyline Quest. Accumulating as many benefits as possible would leave me on the safe side and would be the most reliable way of all to win.

Something worth mentioning was that although many people rolled eyes at us in disbelief when I warned them about the upcoming undead invasion, after the undead truly arrived, these countries still pretended to act mute and deaf about it on the surface but secretly sent us many envoys hoping to receive relevant information and assistance from us.

Of course, I exaggerated things as much as I could and pointed out all the undead invasion points that were recorded in history. As for whether or not anything would be changed, that would have nothing to do with me.

In “history,” the Bardi Empire was one of the largest invasion points of all. After the undead launched their full-scale invasion, the mega-empire formerly known as the Bardi Empire was completely destroyed in the short time of only three months. This was doubtlessly something unimaginable, but after organizing everything that I knew about the Bardi Empire I learned of the many internal and external threats to it. I suddenly felt like it being able to survive three months would be incredible already.

History didn’t record in detail what happened to the dragon knights, but there were records stating that after the Bardi Empire succumbed to the undead, large amount of bone dragons appeared… If I extrapolated based on the current situation, then even if these dragon knights didn’t die against the Mage Country, they would probably die later against the undead’s invasion. It was to be expected that every single one of them would die off.

But, right now, it would be no easy feat to stop these dragon knights from entering battle. After all, we were still foreigners to them and could even be somewhat considered as enemies. Even if Lilith tried convincing them, the effectiveness of her words was unknown. And since they were Bardi’s knights, as long as Emperor Orloss formally gave an edict for them to fight the Mage Country, there would be no reason they could refuse unless Halent and the others wanted to be labeled as traitors to the empire.

“…Especially since they’re going to be under the impression that it’s all for justice and to take revenge for the Mage Country’s premature attack. Unless, of course, we can prove that the Emperor is already insane or has committed some crimes that severely go against their code of chivalry.”

But when I realized this, I laughed out loud. Didn’t Orloss commit plenty of such crimes?

“Kasolan’s Tears will be the best evidence of all; it seems that I need to go have a chat with Halent. Right, the dragon knights would probably join the battle against the Mage Country to take revenge for that forbidden spell. But why do I feel like this isn’t the Mage Country’s style? I should investigate this as well.”

Note:

[1] ED/N: Urban Dictionary explains “facechecking the bush” well. I quote: “In a video game, to gather information on an area hidden in fog of war by charging in. To check for enemies with your face. Seems to have originated in League of Legends where vision-obscuring bushes allow champions to wait hidden from view in very close proximity to their opponents.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep