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Bermuda Chapter 137
🕑 Added 2024-06-06 11:13:40 +0000 UTCChapter 137
Contrary to Kenis's concern, Leonardo quietly listened to Alec's words without showing any particular reaction.
But in fact, his inner self was quite flustered.
It was like Alec Siles, who had been confined in a solid glass wall for observation, suddenly looked straight at him and threw a stone at the glass. It wasn't an ideological shock, but a shock that someone would openly say such things.
Alec, who had likewise been observing his reaction, finally threw a question that could be called blatant.
"Do you know what methods later monarchs in this situation usually use to strengthen their power and prove their legitimacy?"
At Alec's words, Kenis only rolled his eyes back and forth. He would have readily answered earlier, but he seemed to find it uncomfortable and even fearful to engage in a conversation with this atmosphere.
Because of that, the one who answered Alec's question that nearly went unanswered was Leonardo, who had been silently holding his breath.
"War. And concealment."
At Leonardo's voice, the gazes of both people were focused on him. Leonardo continued calmly.
He said that if a monarch only wins a war against another country, his power rises vertically and the patriotism of the people pierces the sky. On top of that, if he gains control of the media, ostracizing opposing forces or brainwashing people is a piece of cake.
Afterwards, in order to govern the interior, the monarch places loyalists in key positions, secretly creating eyes and ears, and instead of dirtying his own hands, he moves proxies like pieces on a chessboard to deify himself as an unapproachable being.
He added that the image of an absolute monarch, once established, becomes the truth even if it hides or distorts facts, and makes it "justice" that no one can deny the legitimacy of.
Leonardo would have been talking about the "monarchs in this usual situation" that Alec gave as an example, but listening to his words, it was inevitable that someone naturally came to mind, along with the imperial dynasty of Raina Logia that had repeated wars, big and small, throughout history.
Kenis was deflated, and Alec stopped walking for a moment to quietly observe Leonardo. Leonardo also stopped and stared at Alec.
It was only a few seconds, but a suffocating exchange of probing followed.
Eventually, Alec, who had been narrowing his eyes, said as he closed his elongated eyes,
"Good answer. This is an almost specific answer, as if you have ruled or directly observed it from the side?"
He deliberately probed with a meaningful remark, but no further answer came from Leonardo.
"As you said, the ruling power of a monarch who has won a war is incredibly strong beyond words. War has also been the means chosen by this empire's imperial family for generations to seize power."
"..."
"With that mighty power they've grasped, they appropriately distort facts that don't help strengthen their status, cover up the achievements and records of previous monarchs who had legitimacy before, granting an even more solid legitimacy to the new monarch. Fabricating the weakness of the previous monarch with the story of a hero who couldn't kill the witch and ran away, hiding the original truth—."
—Beep!
At that moment, a sound suddenly came from the coordinate system Alec was holding. The gazes of the three people simultaneously turned towards it.
Seeing the coordinate system with the blinking sensor, Alec's narrow eyes gradually expanded. The pupils hidden behind his always smiling eyelids were slowly revealed.
In those pupils Leonardo saw, there was a hint of madness and rapture.
Alec abruptly took out a map from his backpack. Then, he turned direction and started walking hurriedly somewhere. It seemed like some new information would come out, but at his sudden interruption and movement, Leonardo and Kenis also hastily followed him.
He was laughing.
Unable to hold back the laughter spilling out even as he hurried with the map and coordinate system in hand, he continued speaking to those following behind.
"All this time, I have been studying the empty spaces in such hidden history."
Ahead of the path Alec was walking, the dense trees thinned out, and the light obscured by the leaves strongly poured down from above. At the same time, beyond the tree trunks standing in front of them, old structures began to appear, with a particularly artificial and alien feeling as there were hardly any trees around them.
Leonardo could instinctively tell that the place Alec had been searching for was right there.
As if responding to that prediction, Alec spoke in a voice filled with joy,
"And the reason I came to this place is because this Elder Millie Peninsula is one of those empty spaces in history."
The coordinate system in his hand informed them that they were gradually approaching the coordinates marked on the map with each step they took. Watching it, Leonardo stared at Alec's side profile, visible at an angle, once again.
When the tree shadows on his face gradually disappeared and full light began to pour down, the coordinate system made a sound once more.
—Beep, beep!
The three of them stopped walking, and Leonardo turned his head to face forward. Then, he could realize that they were standing at the boundary between a wide-open space in the middle of the forest and the woods.
Ahead, there were structures spread out widely, much more elaborate and complex in form than those seen in other places, and a thick red sunset flowed down over them, heightening the serene and eerie atmosphere.
Among the structures, there was one that particularly drew the eye. It was the huge stele that rose in the center, reached by following the curved path stretching between the aligned structures and walls on the left and right.
Alec approached that stele without hesitation. It wasn't a long distance, but for him, reaching the front of it felt like an eternity.
The stele was covered in moss and vines, looking like an ordinary wall that could be easily passed by, but there was something strange about it.
From its central location among the structures, the columns and statues erected on either side, to the sight of Alec Siles unable to take his eyes off it, it gave the impression that something was out of the ordinary.
Thanks to that, when they reached right in front of the huge stele, Leonardo, who had been examining where Alec's gaze was directed, could also discover the peculiar characters visible between the vines.
'Ancient language?'
Raising his eyebrows slightly and looking at it, Leonardo's pupils rolled towards Alec next to him. Alec Siles was staring up at the stele with a face filled with joy, his eyes wider than ever before. Then, with his gaze fixed, he asked the two people on either side of him,
"Have you ever wondered even once while coming to subjugate the peninsula?"
At his question, Kenis, who was to the right of Alec, also shifted his gaze to him. As the gazes of the two turned towards him, Alec took about four large steps back, moving away from the stele. Then, when the stele in the center and the columns on either side of it came into full view, he said,
"The imperial citizens in the south are suffering so much due to the outbreak of monsters on the peninsula, and during that long time when the military and the Council shifted responsibility to each other, the creatures were increasing in number. Have you never had doubts about why successive emperors have only neglected the situation until it became like this, without forcibly carrying out the subjugation long ago?"
Kenis swallowed dryly upon hearing Alec's words, and Leonardo's lips, who had been making a confused expression, parted slightly.
Neglected?
He had never once thought that this place had been neglected.
He had only thought that the creatures reproduced to the point of being difficult to handle, leading to a vicious cycle that couldn't be eradicated at the root, and everyone avoided it. The idea that it was being intentionally neglected by someone's will was something he hadn't considered.
Therefore, Alec Siles's words were like striking the perspective he had been seeing with a stone. That action soon created fine cracks, shattering the existing perspective into pieces, simultaneously widening his view a little more and presenting a new perspective.
And at that moment, Leonardo suddenly recalled the image of Cordelia expressing her resentment towards the military and the emperor, who didn't come even when she requested support before entering the peninsula.
Her determined yet sorrowful face, holding back tears, and the words she had said quickly flashed by.
'It seems that after disbanding the private armies of the aristocrats, His Majesty doesn't even see the people of territories with knightly orders as imperial citizens.'
'Otherwise, even as imperial citizens are suffering and dying day by day because of the monsters, he wouldn't only give orders to my family to protect the territory and border ourselves.'
"..."
He tried to sort out the numerous tangled threads in his mind, stepping through the situation bit by bit with a somewhat dazed expression. It felt like too many things had suddenly poured out.
Eventually, when his confused eyes turned towards Alec, Alec grinned and opened his mouth once again.
"You asked me how I was certain of the queen's existence."
He stretched out his arm towards the huge stele in front of them and said,
"The answer to your question is also right here."
Comments
Jesse Gibson
Ah shit
