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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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The shout amplified by mana vibrated even the air inside the National Assembly.
Raphael Valliant felt a tingling sensation on his skin as he watched the soldiers occupying the assembly waver in an instant.
Jerome Morelle and Nicolas Nera, as well as all the Northern Army, were only looking at his face.
“C-Commander! The National Assembly has been surrounded by the Southern Army!”
Amidst the report that sounded as if it was coming from a distant place, Valliant slowly turned his head to look at his subordinates.
Within their eyes, the respect, admiration, and loyalty towards Raphael Valliant, the defender of the revolution, wavered.
The shock planted by Valliant’s gunshot sprouted on the soil of doubt created by Maximilien Le Jidor’s impassioned cries.
Finally, as things went wrong, the fear that even he himself might be branded as a traitor bloomed.
He had to handle the situation now.
If he didn’t say something here, those foolish and weak ones would crumble.
Valliant, who had opened his mouth to rein them in, soon closed it again.
But what could he do by reining them in here?
Would he take the assembly members hostage with those who had already lost conviction?
Or would he miserably flee and fall from a former hero to a traitor?
Valliant turned his back on his subordinates and slowly started walking.
The subordinates left behind stared blankly at their commander, who walked towards the assembly members without giving them any answer.
Then, one person threw down his gun and ran out of the assembly.
The defection that started with just one person quickly spread, and the Northern Army turned their backs on their commander and fled one by one.
It took only a few minutes for the entire force that had occupied the assembly to disappear.
Raphael Valliant had never once thought that he could be ruined by this coup.
When Lafayette had pushed through an agenda that could cause division in the National Assembly and left the capital, it wasn’t that he hadn’t considered the possibility of it being a trap.
However, Valliant believed in his own abilities even more, and he had a stable enough position.
After all, the only worthy opponent to him, the hero, was Pierre de Lafayette, so even if it was a trap, he thought he could sufficiently win.
In fact, judging by the timing of Pierre de Lafayette’s appearance, Valliant’s judgment was not wrong.
It was impossible for him to arrive in time to physically stop him.
He thought that if he could just overthrow the hollow National Assembly and seize power for the time being, Marquis Lafayette would try to compromise rather than engage in a civil war in the face of external threats.
And even if things went wrong, he could just pin the responsibility on Richelieu and make excuses.
However, his enemy was not only Pierre de Lafayette.
Richelieu, who was supposed to give him justification and take responsibility if necessary, was eliminated from the start, and Christine de Aquitaine had blocked him almost perfectly in the realm of political maneuvering.
Nevertheless, he had finally won.
No matter how skilled a political strategist, they could not single-handedly stop him.
What ultimately brought defeat to him, who was confident of victory at that point…
Raphael Valliant looked down at Maximilien Le Jidor, who was lying surrounded by the assembly members.
The assembly members surrounding him were wary of Valliant, who was holding a gun, but they still blocked the path between him and Jidor with their bodies.
Maximilien Le Jidor, despite his bloodied chest and gasping breaths, was still looking up at him with piercing eyes.
“Chairman Maximilien Le Jidor.”
To Raphael Valliant, Maximilien Le Jidor was nothing more than an incompetent hypocrite caught up in his own self-righteousness and stubbornness.
The National Assembly was a collection of blind fools who didn’t even know how to run a government, a group that would crumble as soon as he properly intimidated them with the military.
However, the ones he actually faced were not like that at all.
Those he had considered the most insignificant group, those he hadn’t even considered as enemies…
They had dealt him a decisive defeat.
Valliant slowly bowed his head to him.
“You have won.”
As soon as Valliant’s words were uttered, the door burst open and soldiers poured in.
Raphael Valliant turned around and came face to face with Marquis Pierre de Lafayette, who was holding a sword at the forefront.
“Marquis Lafayette.”
“Commander Valliant.”
Raphael Valliant burst into laughter.
If he had ignored the foreign invasion from the beginning and engaged in a civil war, competing with his military skills as a general, he was confident he would not have been defeated.
However, neither Lafayette nor he had any intention of destroying Francia itself, the means to their respective goals.
If he had abandoned his lingering attachment to Marquis Lafayette and started by killing him together with that black witch…
Belated regrets flooded in, but it was already too late.
The hero named Raphael Valliant had underestimated the Republic of Francia too much, and that’s why he was defeated.
Valliant smiled refreshingly, threw away his pistol, and raised both hands.
“I admit defeat. I surrender.”
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Give them a pretext with the division of the National Assembly, and lure their actions by leaving my position vacant.
To carry out this dangerous plan, the biggest problem was getting Hassan’s consent.
No king would be pleased to have the long-awaited treaty signing unilaterally postponed due to their own circumstances.
-King Krox places great importance on the friendship with the Republic of Francia, but above all, he has ordered to provide all possible conveniences to the Marquis who has made it possible.
However, Hassan agreed readily, to the point where even I was taken aback.
Thanks to that, I, who had gone all the way to Berry, was able to ride alone at night and leave for the capital, arriving in Lumiere late in the afternoon.
Upon my return, I was able to launch a counterattack with the troops of the Southern Army headquarters, which Christine and Gaston had protected.
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In the National Assembly.
Raphael Valliant, who had declared his surrender, did not resist at all as the soldiers bound him.
The one who had made me believe that I had to side with the Republican Army to survive.
The one who had defeated me as the defender of the revolution and the hero of the Republic, receiving the praise of the people of Francia, was now being dragged away as a traitor of the revolution and a rebel against the Republic, receiving hateful glances.
I didn’t know what fate awaited him in the future after my execution.
In a Francia without me, in a Republic without me, did he walk the same path as this?
I stared at Valliant’s back as he was dragged away, then turned my gaze.
The Northern Army soldiers who had surrendered to us had openly told us about what had happened inside the National Assembly, and I immediately ordered to find Eris.
However, Eris was treating the injured who had been hurt during the process of subduing the Northern Army.
Even if they found her immediately, it would take time for her to arrive.
Would we make it in time?
I looked at Jidor’s complexion and the amount of blood loss as he lay on the floor, and thought it would be difficult.
Maximilien Le Jidor was lying on the floor, completely pale, struggling to breathe.
As if he was forcibly holding on with his last flame, even though it wouldn’t have been strange if he had died long ago.
Jidor’s mouth slowly opened, emitting a feeble sound.
“Please step aside.”
“Chairman.”
To the young assembly member who tried to dissuade him, Jidor smiled weakly and spoke again.
“I beg you, Talleyrand.”
Talleyrand looked at me for a moment, then bowed his head to Jidor and stepped back with the other assembly members.
As Jidor gestured to me, I bent down and approached him closely.
“Marquis.”
“Chairman.”
Jidor’s lips, which had turned completely pale, twitched as he tried to say something, but he couldn’t make a sound for quite a long time.
“Chairman, I have ordered to bring the Saint…”
As if my words were a signal, he calmly opened his mouth despite his body being on the verge of death.
“I thought the Republic had to be morally impeccable.”
The voice that came out of the mouth of the man who had shouted to protect the revolution until the end was so feeble that it seemed like it would go out at any moment.
“I believed that sacrifices were inevitable for that, and that such actions would ultimately lead the Republic to a more righteous path.”
As he spoke, Jidor had a dry cough, but he continued with a strained voice.
“I was wary of you. I feared you, who shook the meaning of the revolution with your very existence, who could not be controlled by the laws of the Republic.”
Jidor laughed in despair.
“However, it turned out that those who had been passionately discussing reforms had sought the hands of demons to harm innocent citizens and Countess Aquitaine, and the one we had brought as your rival to stand against you tried to seize the Republic.”
Tears flowed from the eyes of the man who had believed that the absence of selfish desires made him moral, and that being moral made him righteous.
“Marquis, was I a hypocrite?”
“……”
When Christine had fallen and I had poured out my seething hatred, I had said those words.
Holding his collar with my blood-stained hands, the same hands that had committed the same acts as them, I had denounced him as a self-righteous hypocrite, spewing anger.
He was undoubtedly self-righteous.
He was someone who had been convinced that only his beliefs were right and had tried to sacrifice those who went against those beliefs under the pretext of inevitability.
But how could I, who had done the same thing while venting my anger at them, dare call him a hypocrite when he had fallen while protecting the Republic until the end without compromising his beliefs?
I slowly shook my head.
Upon hearing my answer, Le Jidor slowly raised his hand and grasped my arm.
I felt a question at the trembling transmitted through his arm.
This person was afraid.
“Marquis, the Republic…”
What?
“…Was our revolution worth defending?”
-If this is the only way to maintain order, it’s better to let it crumble.
I finally realized how heavy the meaning of the words I had uttered in anger had weighed on him.
To me, their so-called revolutionary government was nothing more than the lesser evil.
It was a group filled with contradictions that I had reluctantly chosen because there was no alternative, a group that I could barely tolerate while deceiving even myself.
I had feared them, who had stained even the innocent with blood in the name of the revolution.
I had despised them, who had tried to sacrifice those who didn’t follow their demands by branding them as counter-revolutionaries.
I had hated them, who had unhesitatingly committed evil while preaching justice with their mouths.
I had abhorred them, who had upheld the noble banners of liberty, equality, and fraternity without upholding a single one of them.
However, they had been constantly changing.
They had chosen to compromise with us nobles and accepted us as members of their assembly.
Even when their justice was directly denied in the vote, they had accepted defeat while upholding their beliefs.
It was because it was a government composed of such individuals that it was possible to join hands with Krox.
The present that those of the past had faced, the present was always a little better than the past.
“…Was I able to prove it?”
The man who had sentenced me to death in my previous life gasped for breath, seemingly about to go out at any moment, and begged for an answer.
I looked at the National Assembly members who had remained in their seats even when threatened with guns and swords, and who were now standing a short distance away, looking at Jidor.
I slowly answered Jidor’s question.
“…If they do not betray the spirit of the revolution, I will continue to protect them.”
The trembling I had felt in Jidor’s hand grasping my arm ceased.
I watched as his hand, having lost its strength, slowly fell away.
Had he heard my answer?
As I turned my gaze back to Jidor’s face, his mouth was smiling.
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