The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 174

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 174
* * *
Coronation Anniversary Day.
As expected, Pejin was summoned into the Imperial Palace.
Half-reclined on the sofa, Pejin leveled a complaint at Esmeralda, the Emperor’s nephew and Lian’s younger sister, who kept fussing over him in worry.
“Sit down. You’re making me tense.”
“I really thought you were going to die…….”
“I’m not dying. Do I look like someone who’d go that easily?”
“Death can come for anyone, anywhere.”
Faced with Esmeralda’s warning—spoken from the depths of losing her youngest brother suddenly one day—Pejin found himself at a loss for words and clicked his tongue. Then he pointed out, for no particular reason, the wine glass she held.
“How old are you, already drinking?”
“I’m nineteen. Plenty old enough to drink.”
“And here I thought that little thing would never grow up.”
“Well, I’m going to marry.”
“You can’t bring just any man. You need my approval.”
“Why would I need your approval? I need our brother’s approval.”
“I’m as good as your brother. We practically raised you together. Marry someone both Lian and I approve of.”
“There’s no man in this world who could pass both your standards.”
As he played along with grumbling Esmeralda, the Emperor’s sons and nephews—young nobles of Pejin’s generation—came pouring in. All of them were drunk, and they startled at the sound of Pejin’s voice.
“Why does your voice sound like that?”
“Is that from the factory explosion too?”
The moment this crowd began smoking here and there, a dry cough seized him at once.
When Pejin pulled out his handkerchief, blood was smeared on it.
“Blood—you’re bleeding!”
A princess rushed over in alarm. Pejin clicked his tongue and spoke.
“Your Highness, worry about yourself…… Ah, I’m not doing well either.”
He feared he might collapse in the middle of the Coronation Anniversary Ceremony.
Well, not that it mattered much.
His back was damp with cold sweat. For the first time in a while, he’d dressed in his police uniform instead of comfortable patient clothes, and his body felt heavy, making everything harder.
He spoke to Esmeralda, who was watching him with concern.
“Looking at me like that puts me under pressure.”
“But you’re sweating so much…….”
“Still, I have work to do.”
At his words, the First Prince, Wilra Lilihil, placed a hand around Esmeralda’s shoulders and spoke.
“Don’t pity him. It’s thanks to those injuries that he’s being treated as Imperial Family today.”
“Why do you have to talk like that?”
“It’s true he’s overstepping. Being in a room with only the Imperial Family.”
Wilra, aware that when he eventually inherited the throne he would need to check the Police Chief’s power endlessly, was perpetually frustrated at his inability to make Pejin look foolish.
Pejin spoke with a weary expression.
“I’m not overstepping, so please just leave me alone. Your attention only makes me more tired.”
As he was complaining, a voice calling the Imperial Family members rang out.
“Before the ceremony begins, the Imperial Family must offer their greetings from the Balcony!”
Following that procedure, the Imperial Family members went out onto the Balcony to greet the waiting citizens of the Empire.
When Pejin was left alone, lying on the sofa, the Empress approached him.
“Pejin.”
“Your Majesty.”
“Don’t get up. Your condition still isn’t good, I hear?”
So saying, the Empress sat him back up and lingered at his side for a moment. Then she wrapped her hand around his forehead and spoke.
“You have quite a fever.”
“You’re being too kind to me. My self-pity will only get worse.”
At his murmured words with eyes closed, the Empress smiled, then continued.
“You know, Pejin.”
“Yes?”
“April’s ship has reached Polana.”
At her words, Pejin answered casually.
“I see. Since her family trades, Polana is a good choice.”
“Did you hear what cargo she’s buying? August was curious about it.”
“I don’t share details about her work. In fact, April herself didn’t know exactly where the ship would go—she left it to the captain’s discretion based on sea conditions.”
“Mm.”
The Empress nodded in understanding.
Pejin was well aware that every question the Empress was asking now was actually an inquiry the Emperor had about April.
Just as he’d expected, the Emperor was curious about what cargo would be loaded onto April’s merchant vessel. And it wouldn’t take him long to get that answer.
After the Empress left, Pejin forced himself to rise.
He had to get up.
To be of help to April.
* * *
Miller agreed without protest to Heidi’s words that she would attend the Coronation Anniversary Day. Partly because he couldn’t have refused, but also because he seemed to think it necessary to maintain good relations with the Imperial Family.
As Miller saw Heidi off, he spoke.
“Observe what kind of relationship Pejin maintains with the Imperial Family and report back.”
Heidi committed that request to memory and arrived in the Empire.
Her feelings toward Pejin were now terribly complicated.
He was no longer the small boy she remembered, the one who had been endlessly fragile before her.
Yet inevitably, the moment the explosion erupted in the wedding hall and he rushed toward his nephew Joshua kept overlapping with that image.
The Empire had made elaborate preparations for the Grand Duchess. They had given up one of the Imperial Palace’s Balconies, from which the Coronation Anniversary Ceremony could be observed.
Heidi looked down at the Palace Garden, which was thronged with crowds.
The scale was extraordinary. A garden incomparable to the Grand Duke’s Residence, and a number of spectators equivalent to the entire population of Right Island pressed down upon her.
There were many Palace Guards protecting the long carpet the Emperor would walk across, but the number of police managing those spectators was, quite literally, overwhelming.
Heidi’s gaze turned unconsciously toward the Chief of Security commanding these police.
Power the Emperor himself could not wield carelessly.
It was exactly as Pejin had described.
The Rasa police were all military police graduates from the Military Academy, existing for the Emperor’s sake, thoroughly armed.
Dressed in the distinctive black coats unique to the police, just as the Grand Duchy Police were, that group’s presence pressed not only upon the citizens of the Rasa Empire, but upon Heidi’s own heart as well.
As the Coronation Anniversary Ceremony began, the spectators fell silent, and ceremonial cannon fire shot up into the smoky, haze-filled sky.
The Emperor, mounted on a White Horse, began to pass over the carpet laid in the direction of the Palace.
She had heard that this twentieth-year ceremony would proceed on a particularly grand scale, but she hadn’t expected this much military force to be deployed.
The Coronation Anniversary Ceremony was serving its role perfectly—a display of the Empire’s and the Emperor’s overwhelming power.
Even the nobles who feared the Emperor seemed intoxicated by that spectacle. The Emperor dismounted and entered the Palace building, soon appearing on the central Balcony.
The citizens discovered that among the Imperial Family members standing behind the Emperor, who had now become visible as the doors opened, was Pejin Dieusz, who had regained consciousness.
At the cheers of the Imperial Palace’s citizens, Heidi felt a chill run down her spine.
But it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The fact that someone from the Grand Duchy was standing in that position.
Miller was right. Pejin would become the most crucial bridge between these two islands.
* * *
The Emperor, having finished preparing his speech, turned to look at Pejin. And he embraced him tightly.
“Listen well—this speech is for you too.”
“When have I ever failed to listen to Your Majesty?”
“There have been times. When you’ve been in love.”
So reproached, the Emperor turned and began his speech.
– Today, standing before you is my beloved hero, Pejin Dieusz. Overcoming the constraint of his origins from the Grand Duchy, he rose to the position of Chief of Security faster than anyone. Fortunately, God knew that His role for Rasa was not yet complete, and returned him to me.
Citizens of Rasa!
Thus God stands on our side.
Beyond this island, on every ship that crosses the sea, He will stand beside each and every one of our young people aboard. And protect them.
Young people living on islands are inevitably filled with ambition to rule the sea.
I have now reached the age where I must step back and yield that place to such young people, yet that ambition is no different from what I carried when I first stood in this position twenty years ago.
We must cross the sea.
Young people of Rasa, like this Chief Dieusz whom God has returned to us, must harbor such dreams.
We adults must believe in those young people’s dreams.
Today, I, August Lilihil, Emperor of Rasa, pledge to my citizens and to our youth:
We shall venture forth onto the sea.
We shall venture forth onto the sea.
We shall venture forth onto the sea!
Pejin thought it would probably be today.
After the Emperor’s speech concluded, journalists abandoned covering the Coronation Anniversary Ceremony and rushed back to their newspaper offices.
To the left of Left Island was the Open Ocean. If one meant to rule, advancing rightward was inevitable.
The Emperor’s current speech contained the ambition to step upon Right Island and advance into the seas further to the right.
This was clearly a warning to Right Island and an exhortation to citizens to prepare for war.
There would likely be public resistance, so war wouldn’t begin immediately, but the speech was strong enough that a declaration of war could come at any time without surprise.
Pejin closed his eyes for a moment. And he thought of his assigned task.
Here, in this place, he must create chaos and delay war as long as possible.
Until April held the reins she was meant to grasp.

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