Princess Mia’s Status
“Is… Is this all true?”
“…I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but that’s what the rock says.”
This was one heck of a find. Mia massaged her temples in vain to stop the headache that was coming on.
As if to give her one last jab, the slab had one last line of writing on it.
Forget not this duty, those of my blood. Ensure it remains engraved in memory. We are haters of everything that is. We are avengers, welding chaos and ruins. Forget not this duty, those of my blood, and fight on! Take revenge on the world.
Mia stared at that last instruction.
Don’t tell me about your strange obsessions, you old fossil!
When she learned that her so great-great-how-many-times-great grandfather had felt the need to offload such an absurd mission to his descendants, Mia wondered. Was it in her family’s nature to be annoying to their children?
Still, as bad as this news was, it helped her put some puzzle pieces together. No matter how hard she tried during the revolution in Tearmoon, nothing went right for her.
She thought the Wind Crows, Sunkland’s best spies, were to blame because they were operating in Tearmoon, but she was wrong. Since the beginning, the empire had been home to agents of the Chaos Serpents who did bad things.
It had actually grown from one of them.
I doubt that every noble knows about the goals of the first emperor and has made it their mission to achieve them, but the empire has been around for a long time, and ideas can gain a lot of strength over time. I now understand why it was so hard to change things back then. Even more so if any of the Four Dukes is working with the Chaos Serpents…
Her first thought when she heard about this possibility was, “What?! How did they get that far up?!”
This new finding, on the other hand, put everything in a new light. It wasn’t that the Chaos Serpents had tricked one of the Dukes. The first emperor was the one who fell under their spell, and as generations went by, his initial, burning ambition just faded.
The imperial family had just forgotten the beliefs of its founder.
And good riddance as well. I’m glad we did. Why should we remember?
It wasn’t a good idea. It could do a lot of harm and nothing good.
It would be silly to even think about it for a second. In fact, we might want to act like we never saw this… I think a lot of people would make a fuss if they heard about this. Strange rumours can’t be stopped once they start to spread…
The first emperor’s ambition was, to put it bluntly, a huge pain in the rear for regular nobles. They were the ones who benefited from the system, so it makes sense that they would sometimes forget that they were told to change things. It was only natural that, over time, the voluntary part would become less important.
Even my dad probably doesn’t know about this. It’s hard to think of something less conducive to enjoying the life he currently has now.
Forgotten…but not irrelevant. Even though it was old, this order still had power. A noble on the way down could use this as a way to attack the current system in politics and criticise it.
It would be a huge shock to people who had never questioned their history or culture and took their own sense of right and wrong as a given.
Esmeralda is one person I should never show this to, for example…
“W-What in the world… Is that you, milady?”
Mia almost lost her balance when she heard a voice behind her. She was thinking so hard that she didn’t notice when someone else came into the shrine.
“Milady…”
Her loyal maid looked at Mia with worried eyes and helped a second person stand up by putting her shoulder under them.
“Anne…and Esmeralda? What in the dark moons are you doing here?”
“Forget about that. What about the story? Is it true?”
Esmeralda pressed. Mia gave her a quick glance and then clicked her tongue.
Oh no, the last person I wanted to hear about this was…
Mia’s honest opinion about Alexis was that he and his will should go away.
Even if the story on the stone slab was true and the first emperor did start Tearmoon for the reasons it said, she didn’t have to do what it said.
If I blindly do what this crazy ancestor told me to do, I’ll just end up back on the guillotine! I’m not going to do that!
If there was a contest for the “most useless thing in the world,” this stone slab would win hands down.
She really wanted to throw it into the water. Then, just to be sure, drop an anchor on it.
Why did it bother her so much? Was it because it might have sneaky effects on her people? It might cost the lives of soldiers in a civil war?
Of course not.
Because she always stood up for the Mia First principle. She wanted to eat candy all day and stay in bed. For her to live this way, she needed a stable empire.
So, she didn’t want it to go through a revolution or fall apart.
Before she came along with her deliciously lazy ideas, her ancestors’ ideas were little more than nonsense.
No, it’s worse than crap! They were dangerous.
The last thing on her mind was why her ancestors had started the empire so long ago.
I don’t care about his revenge! To hell with killing people!
Even if someone gave her a brand-new guillotine today, she wouldn’t use it to cut off anyone’s head. She would use it to cut some hard-to-peel fruits open so she could get to the sweet juices inside.
Like guillotine, like empire. It has nothing to do with why something was made. What you do with it is what matters.
There were, of course, people who wouldn’t or couldn’t understand things like that, and the worst of them was standing right in front of her.
Why did Esmeralda have to come at this moment?
She has the worst luck, I swear.
Mia really knew her “friend.”
Esmeralda liked to follow the rules of being a noblewoman and what her parents had taught her.
She isn’t always as smart as I am. It’s too easy to get her to do something.
“How… How can this be… The first emperor?” Esmeralda whispered as she ran her shaking hand along the carved stone.
“Look, Esmeralda, you don’t have to be so serious about this. It’s all right.”
Mia stopped talking when she realised no one was listening.
“Our great empire was built for this? To follow the orders of the first emperor…”
Oh no, this is not good. I can’t get her attention! She is now in her own world.
Mia was scared when she saw Esmeralda and her empty eyes.
Aaah! Sweet moons! She also likes to be in charge a lot. She will give a lot of weight to a message from the first emperor. I’m definitely at a disadvantage in this situation!
After all, Mia was not the king or queen. She was just a princess. Also, she and Esmeralda were related, and they treated each other with the same respect as, say, distant cousins. When it came to royal weight, the first emperor’s words were much stronger than hers.
Hnnngh… If I don’t do something, Esmeralda will also turn into a Serpent.
Mia didn’t think Esmeralda or the House of Greenmoon had anything to do with the Chaos Serpents at the time.
It had to be another house that took the crazy ideas of the first emperor to heart. I mean, neither my father nor I got any of this from our parents. We are the royal family! Could you stop trying to reach some crazy goal from a few hundred years ago that we don’t even care about?
The biggest problem was that the words of the first emperor could turn Esmeralda, who was innocent at the moment, into someone much less innocent.
Mia had to make sure that didn’t happen.
After thinking about it for a moment, an idea came to me…
That’s it! If my word as a princess isn’t enough, I’ll just inflate my status.
In terms of power, she couldn’t beat the first emperor, but power wasn’t the way to win this battle. If the rules were changed, she would have the upper hand.
“Listen, Esmeralda…”
Mia walked up to her friend and looked her in the eye with a soft smile.
“I know that what the first emperor said means a lot to you. More than my rank will ever do. Because of this, I’ll say this in a different way. Would you be willing to hear what I have to say? As Mia, your best friend, not the princess.”
She knew that the “princess” she held was a bad bet when it is against the first emperor’s authority. So she tried a different tactic and approached her as a “friend.” No, a best friend, to be exact.
Even though Esmeralda said in public all the time that Mia was her best friend, Mia rarely agreed. She was now making it official, though.
“I’m ready to make it official that you’re my best friend, you know? What do you think?”
Even though it was from the first emperor, an order from him still had a lot of weight. There wasn’t any doubt about it.
It could be argued, if not proven, that every noble in Tearmoon should hold him in the highest regard and be proud to do what he wants.
When faced with the words of the first emperor, Esmeralda wasn’t the only noble to act like she did. Many nobles did the same thing out of loyalty to the throne, taking the first emperor’s words at face value.
“Loyal to the first emperor” wasn’t a special status, to put it simply. In fact, it happened all the time. Even so, “Princess’s best friend”…
That had a nice sound to it.
It was a very rare title, mostly because of problems with logistics. Only one person could hold that title at a time.
Mia might have a hundred people she meets for tea, but she couldn’t have that many best friends. There was one title that stood out as better than the other. Mia’s final blow came after she had made it clear how serious her new position was.
“No matter what the first emperor may have been thinking when he set up the empire, they don’t mean much now. There’s something much more important.”
“F-Far more important?”
“To rule over a happy, peaceful people. To live a golden life, that was the golden rule. The best way to make sure that every time someone wants something sweet, they can get it right away. The way to a perfect world where you can roll around in bed all day without getting in trouble for it. That was a good goal for the future. If the Tearmoon Empire was really made for such a bad reason, then the mandate is officially over as of right now.”
She smiled as her voice faded into the walls of the cave.
“So, Esmeralda, what do you say? Instead of following the first emperor, why don’t you follow me? Free yourself from the chains of an ancient oath of fealty to him… and make a stronger bond of friendship with me, your best friend,” she said with the kind of smile that slick salesmen and evil businessmen use.
She emphasised the last three words, “your best friend,” to remind herself that this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make the title official.
