Chapter 97: The Hero Who Wears a Crown

In later years, people had many different judgments about the final years of Miguela II of the Kingdom of Delanmaya—that is, about Miraze—with some saying he had grand ambitions but little talent, some saying he was obstinate and self-opinionated, some saying he was mean and ignorant… Overall, most of these judgments were negative.

In fact, the highest praise I ever heard about this man came from my friend Fred.

Even though he was an enemy we could never forgive, Fred still honestly and objectively told me what he felt about this man, after that battle of revenge:

“If he had been willing, he would have become an outstanding politician, a fine general, a flawless social activist, the best orator… His intelligence, his boldness, and his insight were all among the finest of anyone I have known; any of these abilities, if possessed by a single person, would make him a man of note.”

“Unfortunately, he never correctly recognized his own worth; instead, he took pride in the thing that had the least value—his bloodline.”

“Because of that, he buried his own brilliant talents.”

“Although I pitied him, because he was merely a man swallowed by his own ambition.”

“But because of the crimes he committed, I will never forgive him…”

…

Now, the gates of Morning Light City stood wide open before us; this city had just lost its master.

In the drifting wind and snow, this beautiful city with a glorious history was as fragile as a thin piece of crystal, so fragile that even light could easily pass through it.

Riding through the streets on horseback, I saw no pedestrians.

Many parts of the city were still ruins; from under the thick snow, one could sometimes see large patches of charred black, which should have been the remains of the catastrophe when Miraze first reached the peak of power .

Looking at them, I could not help wondering: when Miraze proudly looked at the human tragedy he had created with his own hands, did he ever think that he too would, like the broken tiles and ruined walls before me, turn in an instant into forgotten history?

And what about us?

What would become of us?

Facing this scene, even Fred was somewhat at a loss: What are we doing? Where are we to go? Strictly speaking, we could probably now truly count as regicide “rebels.” Strange, isn’t it? We came back here for revenge and for our own honor, yet we confirmed the guilt Miraze had pinned on us. In that sense, did we truly win this battle?

After settling the army, I accompanied Fred out of habit to the mansion of the Military Affairs Office—after all, we were still soldiers, and here we should be able to get what we needed—but of course, the master here was no longer Marquis Meneval, but a little-known marquis named Slar von Swift.

His front door was tightly locked.

Fred signaled a soldier to call out, but no one answered.

The doors and windows of that tall building were tightly shut, like a huge tomb.

Fred was somewhat agitated, and he ordered the soldiers with us to force the gate open.

The order was faithfully carried out. Before long, we entered the gate, crossed the front courtyard, walked around a lifeless corridor, and arrived at the door of the front hall.

Pushing open the door, what met my eyes was a hall in complete disorder, with chairs toppled on the floor, tables overturned to one side, glass and crystal pieces shattered on the ground, and papers and documents scattered everywhere, as if it had suffered a plunder.

“Is Marquis Swift here?” Fred asked loudly. “I am Duke Frederick Ka Guderian.”

A soft sound came from upstairs; it sounded very strange.

We followed the sound upstairs and saw a middle-aged man whose face was deathly pale, huddled in a corner with a woman and a child in his arms.

Judging by their clothes, they should be the masters of this building.

“Please, my lord, please show mercy!” the marquis cried in despair. “I did nothing. I know nothing about what His Majesty… His Majesty did. I am only a nominal Minister of Military Affairs; I have done nothing!”

The “His Majesty” he spoke of must have been Miraze; when he mentioned that word, a layer of despair flashed through the eyes of the nobleman before us.

His wife held his shoulder; her auburn hair hung disheveled over her head, and her clothes were so wrinkled that one could hardly tell she was a noble lady.

The boy looked no more than ten. His young heart could not understand what was happening; he only knew to lie by his parents and cry loudly.

“Even if you must kill, please kill only me, my lord. I beg you to spare my wife and child. For Daremoth’s sake, my eldest son has already died on the battlefield…”

Fred let out a long sigh.

Obviously, this poor man, who did not understand the situation, saw Fred’s visit as an act of purging Miraze’s remaining forces.

That could not be blamed on him. Whether from history books or literary works, people could easily draw such a conclusion: the change of power is always accompanied by bloodshed.

Moreover, only about a month ago, this conclusion had already been presented to everyone along with bloody facts.

It seemed that this former Minister of Military Affairs could not provide us with any help.

After leaving behind the words “I will not kill you,” Fred led us away from that place.

For the rest of the entire day, we visited no fewer than twenty noble officials in power. Some, like Marquis Swift, had dismissed their attendants and maids and were sitting at home waiting for the butcher’s blade to come; some had fled the capital first; and even many who thought they were bound to die had taken action before we arrived, ending their own lives needlessly with a rope, a cup of poison, or a short sword.

The country completely disintegrated along with the officials’ desperate foolishness, and every function of the state stopped operating.

Military affairs had no one in charge, the quartermaster’s office was empty, and perhaps a few old and weak soldiers were guarding the warehouses, but they obviously did not know how to allocate the supplies, and we did not know where to replenish troops; civil affairs were ignored, and even the public order of the capital was not managed—though indeed there was no real need, for the citizens of the capital, having suffered so many upheavals, had learned to protect themselves by staying indoors, afraid of being dragged into a political murder, and even in the daytime few pedestrians could be seen on the streets of Morning Light City; as for finances, that was even more of a joke: when the country was collapsing, the city ruined, trade stopped, and only war and death remained, even if a mountain of gold were placed before us, how could we use it?

Perhaps when the Winston or the Cretans came to attack the city, one could throw large pieces of gold at the enemy’s heads like bricks and stones—that was the greatest use I could think of at the moment.

What was even more fatal was the war.

Having lost the entire military intelligence system, we had no idea how far the war had progressed, where the Winston and the Cretans were, and how we should meet them.

They could appear outside the city walls at any time, while we could only sit here and wait.

We stood at the heart of this country, watching it die little by little.

The most terrifying thing was that what was dying was not just its body and land, but its soul—the spirit of unity and struggle that had been passed down generation after generation since the three heroes founded Delanmaya.

Five hundred years ago, when the Delanmayans were still nothing but a group of homeless wanderers roaming the Farvill Continent, they met the legendary wandering warrior Dedotan, the peerless archer Lansenreel known as the “Free Hand,” and their most loyal comrade, the “Sovereign Knight King” McEnscar.

It was these greatest heroes who led the homeless wanderers through trials that nearly wiped out their race again and again, and found a homeland for them on a continent surrounded by powerful enemies.

Sadly, the lives of Dedotan and Lansenreel stopped forever at the moment just before their dream became reality, and McEnscar became the leader of this land.

To remember the comrades who had fought side by side with him, McEnscar put the initials of their names into the name of this newborn country, and placed his own letter last, to show his respect for his comrades.

Thus a brand-new country was born—Delanmaya, a land that never forgets its comrades.

Although this history had passed many years ago, although the rulers of this country had degenerated into depraved men no different from the nobles of other countries, this history was forever engraved on this land, where every clod of soil was stained with blood, and it became the spiritual pillar that made the Delanmayans proud.

Whether we were willing to admit it or not, Miraze’s sudden death ended the passing down of a heroic bloodline and, in an instant, drained the spiritual backbone of the Delanmayans, leaving them without a last support, with nothing to lean on.

Indeed, even we who had defeated Miraze now fell into an inexplicable emptiness and panic, not knowing where we were going.

“Damn it, are all the men in this country dead? Can’t we find even one good man who will stick to his post?” Dakla roared in the room, his voice almost lifting the roof off.

“You can’t blame them, my dear friend. If we were in their position, perhaps we would do the same.” Poirot tried to comfort us, his voice tired.

It was shameful, yes, but I must admit that for a brief instant, the thought of surrender rose in my heart—surrendering to the Winston, or to the Cretans, to whichever side in this war, to end this cruel and absurd war.

Counting Miraze’s remaining troops, we had fewer than forty thousand soldiers in total, with morale at rock bottom.

Sending them to face powerful enemies from two directions head-on was no different from sending them to their deaths.

“So… we are cornered…” I murmured to myself, making only a small sound.

But in this quiet environment, my voice was enough for every friend around me to hear clearly what I said.

My words seemed to strike a chord in them. Rodrick and Kelsey lowered their heads and said nothing, and the rest all looked dejected.

“There is no need to be so discouraged, friends. We have not reached a dead end yet. As long as the enemy has not killed us, the war is not over.” Suddenly, Fred’s voice sounded among us. “Remember the battles we once fought? Remember our dead comrades? If we admit defeat now, then what was everything we did for? Aren’t we warriors who once performed great deeds?”

“If we must die, then I would rather die on the battlefield like a true warrior, for a reason worth giving my life, to protect our land and our people!”

It was like a heavy punch right on my nose, almost making me cry with shame.

Fred’s words grabbed the cowardly, useless tavern keeper from inside my body, kicked him far into the corner, and slowly a soldier named Jeff Gid stood up from within me.

He looked down on me, mocked me, and made me see my own smallness and my friend’s nobility.

“You are right, Fred. As early as on the Greenleaf Plains, didn’t we already know that such an ending would come? We are soldiers, aren’t we? We have a soldier’s honor. Just as you said, we have a reason worth sacrificing for. Then let us fight to the last moment like true soldiers!”

“Fight to the last moment? Jeff, I only knew you were a stingy merchant. You never told me you were also a great hero…” At that moment, the door was pushed open by a pair of fair hands, and a familiar voice we had not heard for a long time sounded in our ears.

Although he was saying harsh words to me, they carried a friendliness I could not refuse.

“Hugh Enrique, you profiteer, how are you here!” I rushed forward and gave the newcomer the warmest hug. He was exactly the merchant friend who, at our most dangerous moment, had risked his life to extend a hand of friendship to us.

The life-saving debt we owed him could never be repaid.

“The moment I got Bink’s message, I hurried over. You bunch of desperadoes actually refused my good will. Did you really think you were immortal deities who could win even against enemies several times your number?” Hugh pushed me away and suddenly said angrily to Fred.

“I’m sorry, Hugh. We had a reason we could not resist…” Fred defended himself with a guilty conscience.

Hugh had once tried so hard, at no cost spared, to save our lives. For such selfless help, you could only accept it, because if you refused, it would be an insult to that friendship.

And we truly had refused him.

“… For Riley, right?” Hugh’s voice also lowered.

He shook his head, trying hard to push this sad feeling out of his mind, and barely forced a joking expression before continuing: “The maddest thing is, you actually won. God, Fred, I really suspect Lady Luck has slept with you… ah, Millia, you don’t need to look at me like that. I meant she took out insurance.”

“I know what you need most right now, friends. The Winston have reached the southern part of the Centuria Plains, about five days’ journey from here. If you count the cities in between, at the latest fifteen days from now, seventy thousand Winston troops will be at the gates of Morning Light City.”

“As for the Cretans, two days from now they will reach Silver Shield Castle. The entire southwestern part of Delanmaya has already been completely occupied by them. Their total troops have reached nearly one hundred thousand, and that number is still growing. My god, if they were not yet adapted to the northern winter, they might have occupied this place by now.”

“The strangest thing is that in the middle reaches of the Maen River in the west, the Cretans have already made contact with the Winston. They have not fought each other; instead, with tacit understanding, they use the Maen River as the boundary and advance eastward side by side. What do you think of this, Fred?”

There was no need for Fred to explain further; even a fool like me could see what the rulers of those two countries were doing.

A conspiracy—another vile conspiracy brewed in the palace. This war, set off by a clownish court farce three years ago, had originally been a scheme by two great powers to carve up Delanmaya.

Now that the cause of this war had gradually been forgotten, the sinister schemers who had brewed it finally tore off the last fig leaf and openly revealed their greedy desires.

“Now, the only retreat is in the east—all the way east along Mount Uzzig, to the Holy Fox Highlands, which border the Moonstream Forest. Oh, right, it seems there is also an army of nearly ten thousand people in the Umberlian Valley. Their commander is… Pesin… ah, no, Pek… oh, right, Pekra, Colonel Pekra. He…”

“What did you say?” I threw myself at Hugh again and shook his shoulders hard. “Colonel Pekra is still alive?”

In that instant, I seemed to see Red Flame’s expression turn a little unnatural, as if he was very sensitive to “Moonstream Forest,” a place name I had never heard of. But the news that Colonel Pekra was still alive made me so happy that I overlooked his expression.

“Let go of me, you rude bartender…” Hugh’s face turned red, as if his bones had been shaken apart. “That fellow is certainly alive. That damned old man ran up a huge debt with me for military grain and cotton-padded clothes. If he died, I’d lose a lot on this deal. Look, these are the IOUs he signed. Collecting the debt is also the main reason I came here…”

Hugh pulled out from his bag a large handful of IOUs signed with Colonel Pekra’s name and seal. From the IOUs, we could see that Pekra’s handwriting was neat and forceful, not at all like a man in danger.

Although Hugh tried hard to put on his professional merchant face, I knew this was definitely not the real Hugh Enrique. No one could provide a large amount of military grain and supplies in a nearly certain defeat without enough patriotic passion.

“Thank you, Hugh, thank you. You have brought us the best news we have had in a month…” I said with sincere gratitude.

“As long as you remember to pay off the debt in time.” Hugh muttered, and then was silent for a little while. An unnatural flush appeared on his face.

He lowered his head, as if making a very difficult decision, and then suddenly said loudly to Fred: “The most serious problem, Fred, is that no one is leading this country. You have already seen the capital. The people are demoralized, and the soldiers cannot fight. In other cities, I guarantee, the situation is even worse. Miraze is dead, and this country has become masterless land. It is not that no one wants to resist, but they do not know whom to obey, nor do they know who can help them…”

“Fred, I am a Delanmayan. I don’t want to watch our land become a vassal of foreigners. I need help—not just me; every person on this land who still has spirit and courage needs help. And the one who can help us is only you!”

“Courage, wisdom, honor, charisma—you have everything, my friend. You lack only one thing: the reason that makes us have to follow you.”

“You do not yet have the… status that matches your responsibility!”

“Delanmaya needs a hero who wears a crown, Fred. That is you. It can only be you!”

It was like a thunderclap striking my eardrums.

The friends around me were all too shocked to say a word.

No one had expected that our merchant friend would actually make such a request: to usurp the throne and make our friend a true king.

I really didn’t know that beneath Hugh’s frail body and profit-obsessed exterior there hid such enormous ambition—something we, as soldiers, had never even thought of.

But after we weathered the great shock of hearing this request for the first time and thought it over carefully, we suddenly felt this suggestion was only logical: no matter what reasons we had, King Miraze had indeed died at our hands.

Fred was now the most prestigious and the most powerful man in Delanmaya.

He was Delanmaya’s undefeated banner. If someone had to lead this country out of the danger of destruction, it could only be him.

Somehow, without knowing it, we seemed to have walked to the side of the king’s throne.

Although we had jokingly called Fred “King,” although he possessed every quality needed to be a good king, although this was his dream, the lifelong promise he made to his friends, I had never truly imagined him in the position of a king.

I hated the rulers sitting at the peak of power. They were greedy and stupid, treating their own soldiers and people like weeds, despising them, trampling on them, ignoring their lives and dignity.

Even if His Majesty Miguela I was not the kind of cruel monarch I had imagined, his incompetence had already been proven by the war.

I had once thought that this country would be better and happier without nobles and without royal power.

In any case, I could not connect my friend with that kind of image.

But at this moment, I had to admit that the existence of a king had an incomparable meaning: that crown symbolized a country’s dignity and gathered the hope and courage of all the people living on this land.

All this might not appear so obvious in ordinary times, but when war came, when the danger of national subjugation and extinction came, it would show its power.

It was not a power that reason could measure, nor a power that a weapon held in the hand could replace; it was the fire of a people, growing in their hearts, burning continuously without end.

At this moment, who could be more suitable for this role than Fred?

We stood there, looking at our great friend with expectation and passion.

I had decided—no, we had decided—that if the land under our feet had lost its life, then we would give it a new life.

If this heroic epic had completely ended, then we could begin a new heroic journey.

This people needed a soul, a heart that could let it be passed down forever.

“Do it, Fred!” Dakla’s voice was always so loud, and it stirred people’s spirits.

“Isn’t this exactly your wish? Likewise, it is also Tommy’s wish. Become a king, the best king, and protect your people.” Rodrick said earnestly.

No one could doubt his sincerity, just as no one could doubt his courage.

Roll said nothing. With both hands, he carried the exquisite crown that had been removed from Miraze’s head and placed it on the table before Fred.

The crown still had specks of mottled blood on it, as if telling of the unavoidable sacrifices on the road to becoming king.

Millia suddenly stood up, lightly kissed Fred’s forehead, and then stood at his side.

At this moment, she no longer represented herself, but, as the messenger of the Supreme God among us, silently supported the birth of the new king.

Poirot stood opposite Millia. With his left hand that bore a divine sign, he picked up the crown, handed it to Millia, and she then placed it in Fred’s hands.

Fred hesitated for a moment, then, under our gaze, slowly lifted the crown, as if that delicate jeweled object weighed a thousand tons.

In fact, its weight was far more than that. Attached to it were the last hope of a country about to perish and the heavy mission of a people refusing to submit.

Here and now, it was related only to responsibility, only to sacrifice, only to duty, and had nothing to do with power.

“So heavy…” the young leader suddenly said with a sigh. “In many dreams, I dreamed that a pair of heaven-given hands placed a crown on my head. That crown was very beautiful, set with many shining gems. Holding it was like holding all the stars in the sky in my hands. At that time, I felt it was very light, very light…”

He held the crown facing himself and gently stroked with his right hand the large obsidian in the very center of the crown.

That was a warrior’s stone that symbolized courage.

Only in the land of Delanmaya would this crystal, formed only in volcanic lava, be used as a symbol of royal authority…

“I never knew my dream could be so heavy, so heavy that I could not lift it with my own hands alone. If not for you, my friends, I would have had no chance to approach my dream, and no courage to bear this responsibility…”

After gazing at it for a long time, Fred finally slowly raised both hands, letting the crown rise above his head…

“It is you who made me myself, made me Fred Guderian, the person I always wished to become. I am willing to bear this heavy responsibility, because I know I am not alone. By my side, there are people who will forever support my courage and faith and will always stay with me…”

The crown fell, passed through a layer of black hair, and came to rest above a strikingly heroic face.

Even the most particular person could not deny that this crown suited our friend perfectly, as if it had been waiting there for four hundred years, precisely in order to be placed on the head of such a man…

“… Those are my friends, you who are standing right in front of me…”

Fred lowered his arms and stood there with tears in his eyes, seeming both kind and mighty, both compassionate and grand, as if a divine being descended from heaven had found its own reflection in the mortal world.

For a moment, I could no longer control myself. I slowly drew my side sword, used it to support my body, knelt on one knee, and bowed deeply.

The man before us had conquered me—not only had he conquered my feelings with his friendship, but he had also conquered my heart with his greatness.

In that instant, I seemed to have the awakening of a knight, feeling deeply that my heart had found a place to belong, and my loyalty had found a direction it could follow forever.

I was not the only one who knelt on the ground.

This was perhaps the simplest coronation there had ever been.

But the one born in this coronation was the greatest among countless great kings.