For the heart - Chapter 43

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 43

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After raising the red smoke signaling the fall of Nurban and Beltia, Nina headed straight for Hamer.

It was the nation with the most and finest combat forces among the Six Small Nations, so she needed to lend her strength quickly.

When Nina arrived at Hamer with Casian, red smoke began rising from Hamer as well.

“Bern has conquered Hamer.”

“His skills aren’t bad, better than I thought.”

Nina entered the wide-open castle of Hamer.

Though it was a small nation, everything in Hamer was certainly refined.

The royal palace especially was too beautiful an architectural work to be closed soon.

‘Now it’s really over. With Hamer, Nurban, and Beltia fallen, the remaining three small nations will accept without much resistance.’

To think that continental unification would truly be achieved.

Even though it was a result Nina had accomplished with her own hands, she felt no great emotion.

From Arsed’s perspective, they would praise the great Emperor Rainer who unified this vast continent, but from the perspective of the conquered nations, it was merely a history of humiliation.

And she was the one who led the charge in delivering that humiliation.

Still, now she could stop the killing and dying.

And now she could truly reclaim what was really hers.

Though Nina’s face was half-hidden thanks to her helmet, Casian noticed her complicated inner thoughts.

The war would end, but the war within her might just be beginning.

When she entered the palace, Nina saw the armored king kneeling with both hands bound.

‘Did the king participate in battle himself?’

After the former king of Hamer died and his son Arvaeon Hamer took the throne, she had heard he remained unmarried despite being close to fifty.

He had devoted nearly twenty years solely to protecting Hamer from Arsed, which coveted the Six Small Nations.

But to think the king would even take to battle himself.

Nina glanced at Bern.

Even so, making the king kneel was too harsh a treatment.

Unable to miss Nina’s reproachful gaze, he approached and spoke quietly.

“He resisted so fiercely that we had no choice.”

His body was already battered beyond recognition.

Two arrows were embedded in his back, and blood continued flowing from his mouth.

However, his head held high and his eyes glaring at Nina still blazed fiercely.

“Untie his bonds.”

“Yes, Commander.”

At Nina’s instruction, two knights untied the King of Hamer’s bonds.

He struggled desperately to rise, bracing himself against the floor, but only spilled more blood from his mouth without managing to stand.

Nina had him seated in a chair at the table.

“Bern, organize the knights. I’ll finish things here.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Bern left with the knights.

Through the window, she could see Casian healing the wounded knights.

Cough, barely seated in the chair, he spat blood once more and wiped his lips with a trembling hand.

“Even in death, I will curse you bastards of Arsed. You made my sister Ernesa a murderer who killed the Emperor, and not content with that, made her an unfaithful woman who committed adultery.”

“….”

“I know it was just because you needed an excuse to invade Hamer. It was to break the alliance formed through royal marriage by sullying Hamer’s honor and the name of Hamer’s princess.”

Nina simply listened to what the King of Hamer was saying.

Long ago, the former Emperor Magnus Arsed formed a stronger alliance than with any other nation through royal marriage with Hamer’s princess.

After Ernesa Hamer became Arsed’s Empress, the entire nation rejoiced at news that she was with child, but as time passed and the birth approached, rumors secretly spread that she had committed adultery with Duke Desmont.

As if proving it true, she stabbed Magnus Emperor in the heart, the only weakness in his immortal body, and conspired with the Grand Temple, Grand Steward, and priests to make House Desmont the new imperial family of Arsed.

Rainer, the former Emperor’s brother who learned of this, prevented their usurpation of the throne and became Emperor.

Since almost no records of the former Emperor remained, this was the extent of the history Nina knew.

“My sister Ernesa would never commit such infidelity. She was more innocent and tender-hearted than anyone. If I had known she would die like that… I would have refused when Magnus Arsed requested the royal marriage…”

Tears of blood flowed from the eyes of the King of Hamer, whose light was gradually fading.

In an era of endless wars, Magnus Arsed wanted to solve continental peace through alliances.

Rather than bloody wars, he sought ways to end warfare by building trust based on close cooperation between nations.

Though born with an immortal body and Arsed being the largest and most powerful nation on the continent, Magnus did not want unification through force.

He sent letters to all nations inviting each country’s emperors and kings to Arsed, and quite many nations formed alliances with Arsed then.

And there, he fell in love at first sight with Princess Ernesa Hamer, who had come accompanying her elderly king and queen parents.

Magnus personally visited Hamer to request the royal marriage.

Hamer’s king and queen, who cherished their princess dearly, and her brother Arveon did not want to send her to a distant foreign land, but they could not stop their daughter who had already fallen in love with Magnus Arsed.

“I couldn’t even receive my sister’s body. You people… arbitrarily pinned crimes on her and even burned Ernesa’s corpse. My parents also passed away from the shock.”

She knew that a fire had broken out in the Empress’s Palace on the day the former Emperor died.

But this was the first time she heard that the former Empress’s body had been burned.

Having already discovered that her divine oracle was false, Nina could not easily deny his words.

However, the past he was grinding his teeth over no longer mattered.

“Your Majesty. Continental unification has now become irreversible. Please stamp the national seal on the declaration of submission. All citizens of nations that submit to Arsed will follow Arsed’s laws.”

Nina treated him with the courtesy due a king of a nation.

The conquest was already over, and all he could do was stamp the national seal on the declaration of submission.

Nina held out the declaration of submission from her breast to him.

“There will never be any enslavement of Hamer’s people. For continental peace,”

“…Ernesa…”

When Nina set down her sword and removed her helmet to pay her final respects, Arvaeon Hamer, whose life was slowly fading away, lifted his head to look at her.

“You…”

“…”

“Are you truly the Princess of Arsed, the daughter of Rainer Arsed…?”

“…Yes. I am Nina Arsed.”

Arvaeon Hamer’s eyes trembled pitifully with piercing sorrow.

Nina felt her heart ache involuntarily at the way he looked at her.

Though she had conquered countless nations, this was the first time she had seen such eyes from a king.

‘This is strange. Why, why is this happening?’

When she realized that the blue eyes of the King of Hamer looking up at her resembled her own so closely.

“Something… something went wrong…”

“What do you…”

He slowly shook his head and reached out his hand toward Nina. Then he firmly grasped her hand and pulled her close.

Nina was helplessly drawn to him.

Though he wasn’t in any condition to harm her, she felt a strange compulsion that she absolutely had to listen to his words in this moment.

Tears flowed down again from the king’s eyes as he looked up at Nina, who didn’t shake off the hand that held hers.

“Ah… Ernesa… This inadequate brother couldn’t protect you, and now I’m leaving without protecting your daughter either…”

With those final words, the king collapsed beneath his chair and drew his last breath.

Nina looked at the deceased king while still holding the King of Hamer’s hand.

A large tear fell from her eyes onto the King of Hamer’s face.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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