Chapter 22: Royal Capital: Obscene Gaze
Bang!
After a heavy blow, not only was the sword in his hand knocked away, but Xiao Yun also fell off his horse.
"careful!"
In a split second, Kairusha, who was fighting with him, reached out and firmly grabbed Lucien, who was knocked off the horse, and put him back to the ground.
“You have to learn to control your horse like you control your own limbs.”
"But--"
"Don't say but to me. You don't have the right to say 'but'."
Kairusha dismounted and sternly told Xiao Yun: "Unless you want everything your brother has done to be meaningless."
"I--"
"Your brother is widely admired, and countless people are willing to sacrifice their lives for him. However, this does not mean that the day you raise your flag, a large number of troops will immediately be willing to follow you."
Kairusha sat cross-legged, his face as firm as a rock.
"No matter how tyrannical and incompetent Edmund may be, as long as he remains the legitimate emperor and supreme commander of the Solar Empire, and as long as the empire's generals have not betrayed him, he will always possess absolute military superiority."
"The love of believers cannot be turned into a weapon to defeat the enemy, but the swords and arrows of the army can kill people with great force. If those who love him take up arms for him, they will only be cut down and killed in droves by Edmund's army like reeds on the battlefield."
"I can imagine the scene you described... My brother has become the god of death, leading his followers to destruction..."
Xiao Yun closed his eyes, as if he saw a future with corpses everywhere and rivers of blood.
"So you must become stronger, and learn how to train and command the army—"
Kairusha paused and said, "The Knights of the Holy Land of Denos and the Holy Guard Knights, these two armies have gorgeous armor but are very poor in actual combat. I can wipe them out with 500 men."
"So bad? But I remember—"
"You mean to say that Yaris defeated Edmund's three Paladins with his Guards Knights in a military exercise last month?"
"Yes."
"That's because Yaris's military talent far surpasses Edmund's, and the military exercises are very short, only one day at most."
Kairusha showed an expression of emotion.
"In terms of military strategy alone, I'm no match for him, but once we get to the actual battlefield, he's no match for me. He's simply too weak. He doesn't have the stamina to sustain the long hours of commanding battles, nor is he able to personally visit the front lines to boost the troops' morale."
"A real battlefield is ever-changing. Any slight loss of strength in a commander could lead to the destruction of the entire army. Morale is also constantly affected by various subtle factors."
"Two years ago, I commanded a battle with him. He caught a cold and developed a high fever right after arriving at the camp. However, every time he woke from his coma, he would immediately make the most accurate and incisive judgments based on the battlefield situation after hearing the battle report, issuing orders that were more advanced than mine. It was as if the god of war lived in his head..."
Xiao Yun listened intently to Kairusha's description of his brief time with Yaris in the army. He could not imagine that such a weak man like Yaris could command thousands of troops and make strategic plans.
But thinking of how Yaris had taught him swordsmanship with ease, and how he remained calm and composed when attacked by the "thing" possessing the Three Palaces, Xiao Yun felt again—
"I really want to know what great achievements he could have made if he had a normal, healthy body. Unfortunately, this question will never be answered. He is destined to be a beautiful living doll for people to admire... Fortunately, while fate took away his health, it also gave him you as a gift."
"I?"
"Yes and you."
Xiao Yun was stunned.
He looked at Kairusha.
The man who was strict to the point of being inhuman when teaching now had a smile of praise on his face.
"Before I met Yaris, I had heard of your name. I thought that although you wouldn't become as manic and irritable as Edmund, who had lived in Yaris's spotlight for years, you were inevitably inferior and cowardly, especially after hearing that you ran away from home to avoid the heavy workload of the Royal Academy..."
"I never thought... you'd be such a quick learner, intelligent, confident, opinionated, and approachable. If Yaris is a gorgeous, elegant Rosa Marie, requiring countless hours of nurturing and care from a gardener to bloom, then you're a fragrant wildflower with limitless potential, blooming vibrantly without any watering."
"I originally thought that Yaris wanted to pull Edmund down and push you up because he loved you so much, but after spending some time together, I think his choice of you has nothing to do with you being his brother. He chose you simply because you are suitable to be emperor."
"My brother thinks I'm special because I'm his younger brother—"
(And the wisdom of China’s five thousand years of civilization flows within me…)
"Don't underestimate yourself. Yaris's judgment is never wrong."
Kairusha interrupted Lucien and said thoughtfully, "Three years ago, Alfonso, then an unknown mercenary, met Yaris because of John Dill. Afterwards, Yaris told me that Alfonso would become the most powerful man in the Western Continent. I didn't believe him, thinking he was deceived by Alfonso's sweet talk. But... in just two years, Alfonso went from being a wandering mercenary to a feared mercenary king, and now he's on the verge of owning his own country."
"Maybe it's just a coincidence?"
"No, it's not a coincidence, at least not for me."
Kairusha murmured, "...If I didn't have absolute trust in him, how could I possibly promise to help him just because he threatened me with death? To betray my brother and send my own people to war?"
"During military exercises, sacrificing one unit for overall victory is not difficult, because exercises are just exercises. But on a real battlefield, taking your own people to a foreign country to participate in a war that has nothing to do with your own country's interests and may not return requires the courage to die and the determination to win."
"Must die...must win..."
Xiao Yun murmured.
Something is quietly sprouting inside me.
Kairusha nodded, took the wine pouch from the page, and gulped down a mouthful of the liquor. "The first time I met him was four years ago, at his eighteenth birthday party. You left him the day before the party."
"I'm sorry, I was..."
"I don't mean to blame you. I'm just telling you what I saw, heard, and thought."
"That day, I entered Silver Moon Palace for the first time. The overwhelming aroma and the constant chatter drove me crazy. Before the banquet even started, I ran to the garden to relax. I unexpectedly ran into him by the fountain, silently shedding tears at his reflection in the water."
"I thought she was some princess being forced into marriage, so I rudely approached her, saying she was even more beautiful than the owner of the Silver Moon Palace, known as the most beautiful woman in the Western Continent. I asked her if she was in trouble and that I could be her sword to slay any villain who stood in her way of happiness."
"She didn't say anything, just looked at me quietly. It wasn't until I tried to imitate the Knight of the Central Plains and offer her the Sword of Loyalty that she suddenly smiled, stood up, and disappeared into the sea of flowers behind the fountain."
The corners of Kairusha's mouth curled up slightly, and he was obviously savoring that dazzlingly beautiful smile.
"Unfortunately, this beauty didn't last long... At the banquet that followed, I witnessed a scene I'll never forget... What I mean by unforgettable isn't seeing the beautiful princess by the fountain appear before me as the palace's master, but..."
Kairusha took another sip of his drink.
Under the influence of alcohol, he said the following words.
"I was indeed surprised to see him appear as the master of the palace. The princess I vowed to save was actually the owner of this place. Moreover, he was so beautiful in his attire. The jewels adorning his gown couldn't steal his brilliance, but instead made his face look even more gorgeous, so gorgeous that it was dazzling."
"But soon, I began to fear. I saw him standing in the middle of the crowd, dressed very tightly, his entire body wrapped in a formal suit, with only a small part of his neck exposed, close to his chin. The ring he was kissing was worn on a glove. But the way the people around him looked at him... it wasn't like they were looking at a person at all, but rather... the way they looked at a beautiful, rare object, something they wanted but couldn't touch, filled with desire..."
"I'm a man too, and I can sense that the men's gazes at him, though seemingly respectful, are actually filled with greed and vulgarity. Compared to men, the women's gazes are obviously much more normal, without that kind of lewd, twisted, and disgusting feeling."
"There may be people more beautiful than him in this world, but no one has ever faced more disgusting gazes than he has. I even thought for a time that fragility and short life were not a curse, but a protection given by God to prevent him from being tortured and harmed by the many people who wanted his body after he lost the protection of divine power."
"Of course, if he were just a beautiful flower for people to admire, I wouldn't have cared so much about him and been so helpless all these years."
"I once sneaked into his room and asked him to come with me. I took him away from this stone city full of disgusting gazes and desires, to the vast grasslands, and to be a truly living person."
"He refused."
"He said he hated these looks even more than I did, but he couldn't leave. He couldn't abandon the people who worshipped him because of stories passed down from generation to generation and who regularly donated their hard-earned money to the temple to support him."
"Most of them are stupid, blind, and superstitious, and their worship of him is not unrequited. But as long as they need him and regard him as a spiritual pillar, he has an obligation to sacrifice his entire human being for these lower-class people who have a harder life than he does, and live like a statue."
"And he loves you very much. If I had taken him away from the capital, he wouldn't have been able to command the Magic Guild to protect you while you were wandering away from home."
"I understand how he feels because I've been trapped by similar emotions for a long time."
"So, even if he schemes against me and uses me, is arrogant, selfish, and jealous, likes to manipulate the fate of others, and keeps muttering things I don't understand... I will still help him, because I know he is not someone who would destroy the country for his own selfish desires."
Kairusha put down the wine bag and patted Xiao Yun on the shoulder: "And you are the one he chose, the only one he believes can make him happy."
"If he feels that the reign of the Yula Dynasty and Edmund should end, then it must end."
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