I am the Monarch - Chapter 258: Hometown (1)

"The tea's fragrance is excellent, your highness."

Roan Lancephil formed a faint smile holding a teacup.

"I'm glad that you like it."

A beautiful voice that tickles the ears.
The owner of the voice was surprisingly Katy Rinse.
Now her old tomboyish looks couldn't be seen on her.
There had been a large change from the harrowing experience she endured during the throne succession war and the death of her older brother Simon.
Of course, it wasn't as if the person herself had become dreary either.
She still flooded with a bright energy and had the talent to make the people around her feel good.
In fact, the views of her attendants and maids whom served her were superb.
Katy put down her teacup and looked at Roan.

"I'm ready."

A firmly resolved expression.

'Coming to me immediately after the coronation ended means…….'

That there was a topic that urgent and important.

'I know well of how the royalties of ruined kingdoms are treated.'

Katy clenched her dress.
She strongly grasp her disintegrating heart.
It was something she had already resolved for.

'Ah…… it seems she's misunderstood.'

Roan guessed such Katy's thoughts and formed an awkward smile.
So that she won't needlessly worry further, he spoke up the main topic he had prepared.

"We haven't announced it yet, but we plan to move the capital, your highness."

Katy quietly leaned her ears.
Roan faintly smiled and added on.

"The new capital is the Mediasis Castle."

Katy nodded her head.
She heard well of and was familiar with the rumors about the Mediasis Castle.

'People say that place is a completely different world.'

They said that even at midnight the castle's inside was bright as the day.
Tall buildings and well-maintained streets, a place where the continent's every good gather.
A place where those who wish can learn words regardless of status nor age and where discrimination and oppression did not exist.
They were rumors that it was the best place to live under the sky.
As the capital of the new kingdom, the Amaranth Kingdom, it was a place that couldn't be more fitting.

"And so I have one request."
"A request?"

Katy asked ack with a puzzled look.

'A request…… what would one request of a ruined kingdom's princess……?'

There was none that readily floated up.
Roan, in a calm voice, added on.

"Please become the Lord of the Miller Castle here.."
"Eh? T, the lord of the castle?"

Katy widely goggled her eyes.
A greatly shocked expression at the absolutely unexpected words.
Roan cheerfully smiled and nodded his head.

"The Rinse Kingdom has ended, but princess's life has not. What do you think of living a new life as the lord of the Rinse Special District's Miller Castle?"
"Rinse Special District……"

Katy murmured with a slightly dazed expression.
Roan's words continued on.

"I don't plan to denounce even the Rinse's history, your highness. Since, as I announced in the coronation ceremony, the Amaranth Kingdom was born on top of Rinse's foundations."

His voice was gentle but held power.
Tears welled on her large eyes.

"Now princess's status is the Special District Miller Castle's lord and an honorary d.u.c.h.ess. That is the Amaranth Kingdom and my thought and offer."

Roan quietly stared at Katy's face after finis.h.i.+ng his words.

'Katy Rinse……'

There were a number of reasons why he didn't execute her or exile her outside the kingdom.
The first was to bring together through Katy the n.o.bles and citizens of the kingdom who still supported and missed the Rinse Kingdom.
If Roan, who was the new monarch of the new kingdom, did not mistreat her and instead look after her with care, then the factions who possibly held rejection towards Roan too couldn't help but quell their feelings.

'Furthermore, the kingdom's unification will be achieved far quickly if Princess Katy actively supports me.'

The second was because of Katy's contributions.
She had supported Roan during Roan and Simon's war, and after Simon had died, she had spread across the entire kingdom a letter written in her name to publicly denounce Simon's fiendish deeds and side with Roan.
Thanks to her, Roan was able to be recognized not as a traitor but as a savior of the kingdom.
The third was her relations.h.i.+p with Aily.
Although Aily and Katy were step-sisters, their relations.h.i.+p became notably close as they weathered through the throne succession war.
The two people understood and pitied one another.
They felt a personal sense of kins.h.i.+p of the ones who safely survived the fight of a family dying and killing each other.
In such a situation, Roan who loved and was loved by Aily cutting off Katy's head or exiling her wasn't an easy decision.
The final fourth was in fact because of Pierce.

'In the last life, they were a couple who intensely loved each other. Of course, in this life too they show plenty enough possibility to become so, and……'

Roan pulled up his mana and scanned the presence outside of the reception room.
The tip of his lips subtly rose up.

'He's tightly glued to the door.'

Outside the door stood Pierce.

'At any rate, he's a guy that listens amazingly well to orders at least.'

Roan had once given Pierce an order to protect Katy's side when there was nothing special.
The guy right now was dutifully carrying out that order.

'No, is it not because of my order but because of his feelings?'

Pierce and Katy too were searching their feelings for each other as they experienced the repeating wars and battles.

'At the very least for him, I can't kill Princess Katy.'

Thanks to such various reasons, Katy, despite being a princess of a fallen kingdom, was able to retain her life and earn a special status.
Of course, these weren't merely Roan's thoughts.
Ian, Swift, and others too made the judgment that Katy becoming the Miller Castle's lord was far more beneficial to the good of the kingdom.

"How does it sound, your highness?"

Roan asked in a gentle voice.
Instantly, the tears welled on Katy's large eyes fell like marbles.
She quickly brushed away the tears with the back of her hand and stood up from her seat.

"Your majesty."

Katy sharply shook her body and deeply bowed her back.

"I will accept that purpose as your majesty's subject."

It meant to accept Roan's offer, no, consideration.
"Thank you very much, your highness."

Roan brightly smiled and stood up from his seat.
He did not particularly spoke down to her.
He turned his head and looked at the door.

"Pier……"

The instant his words reached about that point.

Boom!

The door abruptly opened.

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"You called, your majesty?"

Pierce hurriedly entered and formed an awkward smile.
Roan stared at that look with an amazed expression and soon slipped out a laugh.

"You remember my order, yes?"
"Of course, your majesty."

Pierce straightened his pose and nodded his head.
Roan slowly moved his steps and walked up to Pierce.
He lightly tapped Pierce's shoulder and then exited out of the reception room.
It was a strong tap heavier and warmer than a thousand words.
That day, Katy Rinse's appointment as the lord of the Miller Castle was proclaimed.
The Miller Castle's citizens, even while regretful at the fact that the capital was moving, were moved at Roan's deep and wide consideration.
Few citizens and public figures who still hadn't forgotten the Rinse Kingdom and held opposition to Roan Lancephil and the Amaranth Kingdom also couldn't help but exclaim at the news of such announcement.
Especially Duke Francis Wilson, who resisted to the end, was said to let out a deep sigh at a drinking gathering with his close-aids.

"So the monarch I've yearned for so much was here……"

It was a rumor that the belated sigh continued throughout the night.

Roan, after founding the kingdom and climbing to the throne, chose funeral ceremony for the fallen soldiers as his first proper and public act.
No, it wasn't a funeral just for the fallen soldiers but everyone who had lost their lives during the war.
There wasn't even the discrimination between allies and enemies.
It was a funeral for all.
The funeral ceremony was held solemnly but also grandly.
The coronation ceremony and the declaration of the kingdom's founding could not even be compared.
Roan considered the funeral for the dead more important than his glorious ceremony.
Roan's such decision wasn't merely at this one time.
He, each time up to now when the battle ended, made solace for the dead.
Due to that, everyone knew that Roan's sincerity wasn't false.

Pbabababam! Pbam! Pbam! Pbam!

The Milta Military Band, no, the Amaranth Royal Band's funeral march solemnly echoed.
Although it was a funeral for all the fallen, the ones they paid especially more attention to were of course the fallen allies whom they had fought together with.
Roan had separately ordered Ian and had made a graveyard on the plain outside the Miller Castle's south castle gate so that the remains of the fallen soldiers could be buried.

It was a s.p.a.ce for the true warriors, true soldiers, true comrades, just for them.

"We will not forget the blood they have spilt. It isn't such that a one person is a hero. They all are heroes."

Roan's voice rode the wind and spread far and wide.

"Going forwards, we do not know who may also spill their blood and fall for the kingdom and its citizens. Let there be glory to them all."

Roan a.s.serted and a.s.serted again.
Thanks to that, the Miller Patriot Circle, together with the Lancephil Hall of Heroes, became one of the places where any Amaranth Kingdom's citizen would wish to be buried in.

They were words to be pa.s.sed, and pa.s.sed further through generations.
The funeral ceremony ended solemnly.
Originally, afterwards was the turn for the announcement of political, administrative, and military reforms and the merit awards as well as the office and status conferment ceremony of the founding retainers.
But.

"Let us do it at the capital, Mediasis Castle."

Following Ian's suggestion, the major ceremonies and announcements were all pushed to the back.
Instead, they spurred on their capital transfer preparations.
Because they already had finished all of the preliminary works during the winter, it did not take a long time.
Roan quietly stared at the legion filed outside the north castle gate.
Truly a majestic appearance.
The giant flag soaring the highest roughly fluttered with the wind.

His heart elated.
At that moment, Austin and Ian walked up.

"The preparation for the departure is finished, your majesty."

Now the time had come to leave for the new capital, Mediasis.
However, Roan did not easily answer and momentarily faltered.
Austin, who had shared a long time together with him, noticed that look.

"Something on your mind, your majesty?"

At those words, Roan exhaled a short sigh and then formed a faint smile.

"There is a place I wish to visit before going to the capital."
"Where is that, your majesty?"

Ian carefully asked.
Roan turned his head and looked towards the west.

"Lare Village."

A damp and watery voice.
Ian lightly creased his forehead.

"Lare Village, your majesty?"

He definitely had heard of it before.
However, the memory didn't readily floated up.
A feeling like he hadn't spoken them outside his mouth before.
That was also the same for Austin.
Roan looked at the such two people and spoke in a small voice as if to whisper.

"That very place……"

A homesick smile hung on the tip of his mouth.

"Is my hometown."

"Haahm."

An old guard guarding an old castle gate yawned droopily.
His entire body sagged under the warm spring sunlight.

'I should take a nap as soon as my rotation ends.

He slightly slipped up the helmet he had deeply worn above his head.
At that moment.

"Shane! Hear your helmet properly."

With a deeply sunken baritone voice, a guard showed up.
Shane who was droopily sagging snorted and shook his head.

"Doesn't sound like something someone late to his hours would say, though?"
"Then what am I supposed to do about suddenly getting a stomach ache?"

The one laying out an excuse with a bold expression was Vogel.
The two people, with their backs leaned on the walls of the castle gate, looked at each other.

"The war should have all ended, right?"
"Can't tell. This hay bale of a place is far away from the war, after all. And it's been a few months since the merchants bringing the news of the war stopped coming here as well."

Shane curtly answered at Vogel's question.
Vogel roughly scratched his neck and made an odd smile.

"Will the Rinse Kingdom really end? No, had ended?"
"Who knows…… according to what the last merchant said, it does look like it cracked to at least two or three or had fallen……"

Shane twitched his nosed and soon shook his head.

"What's that got to do with us? It's just the place we pay taxes to changing."

Vogel spew out a laugh at those words.

"As expected, you really are a native of this Westend Region."

Westend Region.
The place located in the furthest west even in the Aps Barony, located in the western end of the Rinse Kingdom that now disappeared into the past, was the very Westend Region.
A region located in the most secluded and remote place in the kingdom, it was also a place completely isolated from the world.
Due to that, the residents of the Westend were slow to the news like the throne succession war, the horrid civil war, and the foreign invasion, and were at a state where they still hadn't heard even the news that the Rinse Kingdom had disappeared and the Amaranth Kingdom was newly founded.
At the very least, the Vally Castle Shane and Vogel were guarding was located at least in the east in the Westend Region and was a place that could hear the news of the world the earliest.

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"Yeah and you're a Westend native too."

Shane twisted his lips.
Vogel tapped his chest with his right hand.

"I'm different. I'm going to leave this place and go to the Brunner Castle."
"Brunner Castle? For what?"

Shane creased his brows.
The Brunner Castle, as the capital of the fief, was a place three times larger and more bustling than the Vally Castle.
Vogel deeply breathed in.

"Of course I'll have to enter the fief regiment and raise an achievement. The time like now when the kingdom is troubled is a chance, a chance. I can earn wealth and honor if I raised a big achievement in the war."

He tightly clenched his fist.
Shane clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"Tch tch tch. You don't know how precious your life is. If a country b.u.mpkin like you go to the battlefield, it's immediately a corpse……"

The moment his words reached about that point.

"Eh?!"

Vogel who was shaking his head back and forth at the irritating nagging widely goggled his eyes.
His gaze continued towards the eastern end.

"What is it?"

Shane creased his face and turned his head following Vogel.

"Hm?"

Suddenly, his eyes too roundly widened.

"What is that?"

Slightly flabbergasted faces.
The two people stared at the eastern plain.

Psssssshh.

A dust cloud rose along the horizon.
It was a bizarre scene not even once they had seen until now while working as the castle gate guards.
The dust cloud slowly approached closer.
The two people, unable to even move freely, merely blinked their eyes.
At that moment, the dust cloud lowly settled like a fog and giant flags soaring towards the sky showed up.

"W, what does it say?"

Shane who was illiterate grilled Vogel.
Vogel, who in his own way had a dream and a goal, had little by little learned the words from numerous merchants.

"W, wait a bit…… A, A, Ama……"

Vogel laboriously recalled the letters within his head and read out the words written on a flag.

"A, Amaranth Kingdom?"

A head-tilting looking even after reading it.
Shane creased his forehead.

"Amaranth Kingdom? And just which kingdom is that a kingdom attached next to? Are you sure you read it right?"
"P, probably? It definitely does look like it's written like that though……"

Vogel nodded his head with a bewildered look.
At that moment, a warhorse jumped out below the flag.
A warrior wearing a brilliant suit spurred his horse and quickly raced up.
The closer and closer the warhorse approached, Shane and Vogel's eyes also slowly turned bigger.

"S, Sir Baron Aps?!"

The two people spasmodically shouted.
Even if they didn't know of Amaranth Kingdom, they could instantly tell the ident.i.ty of the horseman frantically racing up.
He was Baron Chuck Aps, the fief lord of the Aps Barony that included the Westend Region.
Chuck feverishly spurred his horse.
Literally, he arrived in front of the castle gate in an instant.
The instant Shane and Vogel tried to straighten their backs and salute, Chuck shouted at the top of his lungs.

"It's His Majesty the King's visit!"

end.

Translator: CSV
Proofreader: Deathwing

PR Note: I am sorry for not posting last week. I had something going on in real life so did not have time to proofread.

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