Chapter 16 : The Memorial Address and the Emperor’s Shadow
Just before the memorial service.
The audience room of the chapel.
I gave a bitter laugh.
“Ha ha ha.”
“This is far too great an honor for me.”
“Would it not make a better picture if Your Eminence or the Grand Master of Raphael delivered the address instead?”
The Archbishop of Pendragon smiled like Santa Claus and dropped a bomb.
“This is not my will, Your Highness.”
“It is His Majesty’s command.”
……Excuse me?
“His Majesty instructed us to inform Your Highness only after your arrival, lest the matter weigh too heavily upon you.”
“I beg your pardon, Your Highness.”
No, wait.
You people.
What if I had not prepared something in advance, just in case?
Fine.
Every crisis is an opportunity.
“Very well.”
“If it is His Majesty’s command, how could I possibly refuse?”
“However, since I must prepare in great haste, I would be grateful if each of you could grant one small request of mine…”
Bingo.
I immediately brought up the manpower shortage of the Order of the Red Knights.
The Archbishop, looking apologetic, promised to send capable medical priests and pilots.
As for the Grand Master of Raphael, perhaps he wanted to restore the honor of his order after it had been dragged through the mud during the Atlantic War.
Back then, because of a certain incident involving Bianca, who had commanded the First Army—Shin Hyuga Shaing in the original story, meaning Akito’s older brother, though in this world, she had been gender-swapped into his older sister—the First Army had collapsed after Bianca died in battle, and the previous Grand Master had taken his own life.
Whatever his reasons, the Grand Master promised to scrape together talent not only from his own order, but also from the Holy Knight Orders of Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel, and send them to Area 11.
And then, a short while later—
I couldn't believe my eyes.
Charles himself had arrived.
What the hell was he doing here, coming all the way from Pendragon?
Even the Archbishop and the Grand Master of Raphael looked as if they had not known.
Schneizel wore the expression of a man chewing on something foul after learning that I would be delivering the commemorative address.
As for Geneviere, who had come all the way here from her post in Area 8 while she had the chance, apparently prepared to create a fait accompli with Schneizel even if marriage itself was impossible, she looked at Charles’ arrival with a hopeful gaze.
I took out the speech I had prepared.
“Before you, I cannot lie.”
“Today, we have gathered to honor those who sacrificed their lives in the last war.”
“Upon their blood, we gained something we may call victory.”
“Yet behind that victory, we must ask ourselves whether those who sacrificed themselves have truly been repaid as they deserved.”
“We must ask whether those who will continue to fight for the Empire are still being treated justly.”
“When those who stand above have the generosity to discover raw gemstones,”
“when those who form the Empire’s waist can connect high and low while striving upward by their own strength,”
“and when the subjects who form our soil can feel the Empire’s protection even in the lowest places and still harbor at least a small lion’s heart,”
“only then will Britannia truly be able to soar.”
“When that day comes…”
“May all truly hail Britannia.”
“Amen.”
Applause erupted.
The Archbishop’s sermon followed.
Charles merely laid flowers at the cemetery, left behind a single sentence, and returned straight to Pendragon.
“Britannia may bleed, but it does not yield.”
A short while later.
The banquet hall.
The gathering had been hosted by Renato El, the Grand Master of the Knighthood of the Pampas—Schneizel’s maternal uncle—but not a single drop of wine was served.
Only beef and salad kept circulating.
Anya lifted a glass filled with water and whispered,
“No wine, and nothing but meat… a conservative faction performance of victimhood.”
I raised my glass.
“Then, to the dead.”
The two meritocratic Grand Masters immediately raised their glasses after me.
The conservative side watched the mood for a moment, then followed a beat too late.