No Regression for the Victor - Chapter 30

With trembling eyes, the prince asked.

‘…A war broke out just to rescue me that day?’

Strictly speaking, that wasn’t the only reason.

To fully understand the conflict between Osbrandt and Transis, you had to trace it back through their distant ancestors.

Wondering how he could make the prince give up, Marcel began a long explanation.

‘Even if the Duke no longer harbors any intention of harming Your Highness, Transis is out of the question. The two houses crossed a point of no return long ago.’

Marcel shared part of what he had witnessed firsthand that day as Osbrandt’s informant.

Originally, the Osbrandt Empire had been the united nation of two former kingdoms—Osbrandt and Transis.

The two kingdoms, both devoted to Erudite, the goddess of knowledge and civilization, pledged to join forces against the invasions of monsters and to repel foreign threats together.

They agreed to alternate generations, producing a shared sovereign in turn, and although their blood was not mixed, as children of the goddess Erudite they promised to treat each other as brothers.

That promise was broken only a few generations later.

Descendants from both houses began to insist that they alone should be Emperor in that generation, and the resulting war ended in Osbrandt’s victory.

From then on, their land was no longer called the Erudite Union, but the Osbrandt Empire.

Transis was demoted from a kingdom to a principality and lost most of its central territories, which it had once shared with Osbrandt.

The newly reorganized territory became what is now known as Quillan.

Because history is written by the victors, Osbrandt’s chronicles recorded only that Transis had violated the treaty, invaded south of the divided border with its soldiers, and started a war of aggression.

So it wasn’t entirely groundless for the Duke to claim that the fools of Osbrandt had stolen what was rightfully his, or to call them thieves.

From their perspective, both sides fought a brutal struggle for the throne, but because they lost, they were forever stripped of any claim to royal legitimacy—a grievance they had every right to feel.

All the residents of the Quillan Grand Duchy, lacking any sense of identity as citizens of the Osbrandt Empire, dreamt of restoring the Transis Kingdom and ground their teeth in frustration.

Three years ago, on that day, the Duke took the prince hostage and demanded the return of the central grain-rich region, once the property of the Transis Kingdom.

The Emperor knew that if he gave in to Transis’s demands, the Duke’s ambitions would not end there.

Would returning the land satisfy them? Of course not. It was obvious that they would soon come for even more, storming the imperial palace and demanding the restoration of the empire.

So, instead of compromising with the Grand Duke of Transis, the Emperor chose to destroy the Transis line entirely.

He led hundreds of thousands of troops into Quillan, set fire to the fields just before harvest, muddied the river until Quillan was devastated in a matter of days.

He declared that all property seized from the traitors would be given to the soldiers as spoils.

From noble houses to commoners’ homes, Quillan was plundered without distinction, and its people came to gnash their teeth at the very mention of Osbrandt’s name.

Marcel had watched a fellow, once an ordinary young man, become a different person entirely to snatch jewels from a Quillan noblewoman.

It was a hellish, miserable sight.

‘So give up. No matter what, His Majesty will use this opportunity to eradicate the Transis line.’

The prince still did not understand the weight of annihilation.

He could never comprehend, even in a lifetime, what it meant for all but the head of a house to be massacred, or the feelings of a lord forced to watch as his peaceful lands were reduced to a wasteland.

Though now the Duke seemed to be living a carefree, peaceful life in the countryside, if he discovered Mikhail’s true identity, there was no telling how he might change.

For the prince’s own safety, it was better to reveal the truth between the two houses and make him give up.