Volume 9 Epilogue (2/2)

”Since Father treats me as already dead, going by how His Majesty the emperor rates me, I am currently no one. If I die, cut off my head, throw it to the side of the road, do whatever you please.”

”I understand,” Rogue spoke as though his throat were clogging up. ”However, if Your Highness were to die before this is over, both Odyne and this senile old fool would already have lost our lives. I am ready to obey any of your orders, but that request alone I have no mind to fulfil.”

What the old general was saying was that - if you die, it will be at the last. That was only natural, since if Gil died, then their goal, their cause, their future, their honour - everything would already be lost to them.

It was not only s.h.i.+que; be it Rogue or Odyne, from now on, if a sword or a bullet were to approach Gil Mephius, they would give themselves as his s.h.i.+eld and would fall as corpses at Orba's feet.

When I die - Orba had his soldiers carry s.h.i.+que to the communal burial ground. While he saw him off for the last time, he murmured in his heart - when I die, it will have to be at the summit of that mountain of corpses.

Gilliam had said it. For a slave, being freed meant being able to choose their own death.

Which meant that Orba had yet to be freed.

No, he who should have been released once, had come back of his own accord to be bound by invisible chains.

I can't choose how I die anymore. I can't just die at my own convenience anymore.

”I really did something stupid.”

While Orba muttered to no one in particular, his gaze happened to fall to where some of the corpses were lined up.

A boyish face covered in pockmarks.

The rifleman who was the same age as Roan, the one Orba had spoken to. A member of Odyne's division had just stooped down to take the gun from the hand which would no longer move. Not because he was organising mementos, but because he was tearing from the dead the weapons and armour that still seemed usable.

Instinctively, Orba was about to go and stop him.

In the end however, he neither called out to the soldier nor ran up to him. The soldier who had wrested the gun away knelt beside the next corpse and started stripping off its armour. Tears were trailing down his withered-looking cheeks.

A few minutes later, Orba entered Birac castle. The lord of Birac, Fedom Aulin, immediately came rus.h.i.+ng up to him, his breath ragged. His face bright red, he offered his greetings to the Imperial Crown Prince.

”It's been a while,” Orba returned his smile and answered composedly. ”Fortunately, you were willing to listen to my call. As expected, there are none more concerned about this country than Lord Fedom Aulin.”

Fedom was, of course, the one who had tightly closed Birac's gates and obstructed Folker's retreat. Almost immediately after he had entered Apta, Orba had sent his page, Dinn, to Birac. The letter he had entrusted him with had contained the name 'Orba', which got Fedom to move. After all, Fedom himself was at the origin of Orba becoming the crown prince's body-double.

Fedom now thought up some pretext or another and invited Orba to his chambers. And once it was just the two of them,

”You, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Fedom drew up to him so forcefully that he was almost grasping him by the neck. His somewhat overly-plump cheeks were quivering. ”What's the meaning of this? You were running away up until now, pretending to be dead? I did not give you permission for such selfish behaviour and...”

”Right, selfish behaviour is no longer permitted. But that goes for both of us.”

”W-What?”

”Let's speak frankly, Lord Aulin. After I faked my own death, the emperor announced Gil Mephius' death to the whole world. Which means that the real Gil is no longer in this world. You knew about it and you were plotting to use me, not as a body-double but as Gil himself, in order to seize the real power in Mephius. Am I wrong?”

”T-That's...”

”You and I now share the same fate. I've already been prepared for this for a long time. Fedom, now that things have come to this, don't go believing that you can choose your own death.”

Rather than being disadvantaged by the distance between them, Orba tossed it aside in front of Fedom.

He resembles him. Unable to say another word, Fedom experienced that thought for the second time. Although their facial features were absolutely identical, it was not an impression that he would ever have regarding the real Gil Mephius.

The smile that Orba now wore on his slightly pale face was exactly the same as Emperor Guhl Mephius'.

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