Chaise a la Reine

as well as the people of that territory to fend for themselves.
Is that the glory you speak of?

A cynical thought came to mind for a moment.
But, as always, that thought lingered in his mind and then faded away.

No matter if it didn’t, he was still a dying person.
Despite being a man who didn’t even hold rational compassion within him, he was still his father.
Even though he was a person who cared more about entering the capital than the cost of his dying mother’s medicine, even though he was a person who always blamed others without ever realizing what he has done wrong… He was the only blood relative of Eugène left in this world. 

‘… Father, please stop and rest.’

Eugène pulled his hand out of the man’s grasp.
The father reached out again to grab Eugène, but the weak strength of a patient suffering from a lung disease could not hold his young son.
Eugène pulled up an old blanket, covered his father’s body, and took the bowl of soup.

From his father’s throat came the wheezy sound of sputum along with the sound of his metal-like breathing.
The skin, which had become pale due to the disease, was like a blank sheet of paper, and the blue blood vessels flowing under the thin skin were clearly visible.

‘Don’t forget, Son.
Never… You must never…’ 

The dying voice was slowly losing strength.
The light faded from his eyes, and his white, fine hands slid off the old blanket.
The man fell asleep again.

Rattle-Rattle.
The cold wind of midwinter shook the window sill.
There was no longer any warmth in the hearth where the embers had almost extinguished.
The attic of a dirty and shabby boarding house.
In the middle of a room that Eugène barely managed to obtain by earning his wages, a man, who was one of the most prominent noblemen in the east, laid ill.

The man, who lost all of his many friends and lovers, had dried up like the dead branches in late autumn and was slowly dying as he recounted the splendid old glory that existed only in his heart.

What a wretched end of the one who desired the irreversible.
Eugène knew it wasn’t just the disease that was killing his father.
The trap of despair and loneliness set by himself.
The father was actually dying from all of it.
All his resolutions to Eugène were nothing but stubbornness that he endured until the very end. 

It was because of the war thirteen years ago that Count Amieux, who was a Margrave in the Amieux region, was demoted to Baron, two ranks lower than his original rank.
The Second Landrienne Revolution, which was later referred to as the ‘Landrienne’s Disgrace’ by imperial historians, was the biggest defeat they had to face since the founding of the empire in the war of conquest waged by the Eastern Empire, Shaak.
In that humiliating war, the Estina Empire lost its Emperor and suffered the loss of the entire eastern plains, as well as the eastern part of the Bern River.

In that war, Count Amieux, who was located in the northern part of the Landrienne region, was also deprived of his territory.
Not only was the fief taken away, but only the lord’s family narrowly escaped, leaving behind his vassals and the people living in that land.

Surprisingly, Count Amieux was not the only one who made such a choice.
Almost all of the eastern nobles who had been deprived of their territory made the same choice.
Only one person, Margrave Renault, was imprisoned as he struggled to protect the people of his territory.

According to the imperial law, nobles who lost their territories to the enemy would have to face rank demotion.
Furthermore, if one had failed to fulfill their duty as a Margrave, not only would they have to face the demotion of their peerage title, but the sentence of beheading must also be borne.
Originally, Eugène’s father, Count Amieux, would not have been able to escape from such a situation.
If Empress Éloïse, who became the Empress after the demise of the late Emperor, had not shown mercy. 

Fortunately, for the eastern nobles who had lost their lands, Empress Éloïse, or now Empress Mother, was also from the eastern nobility.
She was the only daughter of Margrave Renault, who was the only one who died while defending his position in the Second Landrienne Revolution, and she was also a woman so religious that rumors circulated that she would have become a nun if she hadn’t caught the eyes of the Crown Prince.

She had already been deeply involved in political affairs since the accession of her husband, Armand IV.
Being the devout woman she was, she showed mercy by saving the lives of the eastern nobles who were supposed to be beheaded and replaced the punishment by demoting their peerage titles down to two ranks, instead of only one.

However, some eastern nobles deeply resented the Empress Mother for making such a decision.
The main reason they hated the Empress Mother was that she did not pity the situation of the eastern nobles, who were from the same faction and lost everything, but even punished them.
They wanted to receive a different form of punishment than the Empress Mother’s, and what they insisted on was the so-called ‘responsibility theory’.

Their so-called ‘responsibility theory’ was based on the idea that the eastern nobles should be given a chance to make up for their mistakes.
In other words, their main argument was that they should not demote their titles on the pretext of the previous day’s matter, but on the contrary, give them military status worthy of their titles to offset their responsibility for their crimes by reclaiming their lost lands. 

Eugène’s father was one of the key advocates of the responsibility theory.
In order to make his claim a national policy, he poured out all of his scarce fortunes and devoted his entire life and passion to it.
Thanks to that, he became a laughing stock.
Once regarded as one of the most respectable nobles in the east, he was now called a pathetic complainer who made excessive demands and couldn’t get out of it of his delusions and was treated as a blockhead who didn’t know how to give up.

The public treatment of the fallen noble was harsh.
However, Eugène thought that such a worldly sentiment was rather natural.
The arguments of his father and his sympathizers were overly shameless.
Even if they were powerful people, it was not unreasonable that the world did not deal with them when they were making such claims in a situation where they had already lost their foundation and collapsed.

If you don’t give, you get nothing.
No, society’s logic was that it was difficult to receive as much as you give.
Yet they did nothing but wish.
That is why the actions of the eastern nobles, who did not know or acknowledge the reality, were pathetic.
Their claims were nothing short of foolishness, and the world was not easy enough for such foolishness to prevail.

I don’t think I can follow your will, Father. 

Eugène quietly stared at the man who was ending his life in such a shabby manner and shook his head.
It was something he could never say out loud, but his determination was already firm.
Whatever his father’s wishes, Eugène had no intention of carrying on his will.
Even if his father made it his dying wish, the choice would be the same.

Eugène was extremely realistic, unlike his father, who was blinded by his former glory.
He clearly distinguished what he could and could not do, and he had no greed to covet whatever was out of his reach.

There was only one thing Eugène wanted.

He just wanted to survive. 

He wanted to survive and live like a human being.
A life without shame and pain.
A life where he wouldn’t have to dig through the trash to learn and work to the point his nails break just to eat.
He simply wanted a life that would suffice for being human, nothing more.

Sixteen.
At a young age, Eugène had already realized how bitter life was.
You must neither believe nor wish for anything more than what you have achieved with your own abilities.
To sit in one place doing nothing and waiting for others to adjust to you was as futile as expecting the sun to revolve around you.

That realization was the only lesson his father left him.
It was also the most valuable legacy of his father.

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