Chapter 176 - Respect and Humiliation (4)
For a moment, Ernest thought he was seeing things.
But even after checking again, it was definitely the letter from his father that he had been waiting for over half a year.
He almost opened the envelope right there, but suddenly came to his senses and rushed off to his room.
Seeing Ernest dash away so excitedly, everyone else tilted their heads, puzzled.
Back in his room, Ernest turned on the lamp.
He was so eager that he tore off the wax seal with his hands and pulled out the letter to read.
"To Ernest."
The handwriting was so neat it was almost uncomfortably precise.
Ernest, who had learned to write from Haires, also had orderly, machine-like penmanship, but Haires's writing looked almost eerily lifeless.
Yet, there were rare moments when even Haires's writing seemed to carry a strange warmth—as when he wrote his son's name.
That's why, just from that short line, Ernest could tell without a doubt that this truly was a letter from his father.
"It's already been half a year since I last contacted you. I should have sent a letter much earlier, but circumstances didn't allow it. Since the war began, I've been under protection in a place completely cut off from the outside world for certain reasons. I was able to receive some news from outside, but that was all."
Ernest's eyes narrowed.
Even as he was happy to receive the long-awaited letter, he picked up on the fact that his father's so-called "protection" had really been, in effect, a form of confinement over the past six months.
"I was able to hear news about you as well. Because of the distance and the chaotic wartime situation, it took a long time for information to reach me, so it was only today that I heard you almost faced a Court Martial. I was relieved to hear you were cleared of all charges. Thank goodness."
It had been nearly two months since Ernest had almost been brought before a Court Martial for killing Bailey.
After breaking through the Bertagne Forest, a backlog of undelivered letters finally reached them all at once.
That meant the Empire's information control had been loosened for a time.
Of course, since the war was ongoing, it was likely that some information control was still in effect, and having the Imperial Postal Service operate independently would have been inefficient.
Personal letters were probably delivered alongside regular supply runs.
Even so, it was odd that it had taken two months for news of the incident at the 2nd Corps Headquarters to reach Grimman, and for Haires's reply to make its way back.
Ernest thought back over the supply schedule from the past two months and easily worked backwards to estimate the dates; he realized that Haires had heard about his situation about a month and a half—or possibly up to fifty days—after the incident occurred.
Say what you will about the Empire, but when it came to logistics, their performance was nothing short of phenomenal.
The Logistics Corps worked themselves to the bone, constantly on the move.
So for information to have traveled this slowly meant that someone along the line had deliberately controlled the flow.
Even from these casual lines in a letter, Ernest could skillfully infer the kind of situation Haires had been facing.
"In connection with that matter, I received a letter from the 2nd Corps Chief of Staff. A soldier from the 2nd Corps Headquarters personally delivered it to me, no less."
Reading that, Ernest felt a deep sense of relief swell in his chest, and let out a long sigh.
He was so glad he'd asked Heinz for help.
Brigadier General Heinz Hartmann, the 2nd Corps Chief of Staff and the grandfather of Ernest's friend, had personally sent a subordinate to find Haires.
'Hartmann really is something else. When it comes to backing you up, there's no one more reliable.'
Thinking of his friend Ferdinand, whose thick skull could rival a boulder, Ernest couldn't help but marvel at the Hartmann bloodline.
When you're trying to persuade him, he's so impossibly stubborn that it feels like actual violence might be necessary—but when he's on your side, that stubbornness becomes pure trustworthiness.
"It must've been the Central Intelligence Agency."
Based on Haires's situation, the involvement of Big Hartmann—the 2nd Corps Chief of Staff—and the fact that Haires didn't explain everything in detail, Ernest surmised that his father had probably been confined by the Central Intelligence Agency.
He couldn't know the exact reason.
But if he had to guess, considering how much Ernest was promoted as the "Son of a Hero," it was likely they were also keeping a close watch over his father, the "Hero Haires Krieger."
It probably wasn't just about protecting him.
More likely, they wanted to prevent a living Imperial hero—one who had received the Noble Heart Medal—from causing any sort of scandal or getting swept up in some unintended incident that might tarnish his distinguished name.
"I also heard you refused a transfer and chose to stay on the front lines for your friends. I wish you were somewhere safer, but I respect your decision."
Haires had known that Ernest voluntarily chose to remain at the front.
Come to think of it, it seemed the Central Intelligence Agency had also helped clear him of suspicion when he was investigated for allegedly killing his superior officer.
If that was the case, a lot of things started to make sense.
Even so, Ernest sensed a strange undertone in Haires's letter.
'He's definitely worried about me, but at the same time, for some reason, he feels oddly distant.'
Haires might have always appeared blunt and oblivious, but as a father, he was caring toward Ernest.
While he had always respected Ernest's decisions, he had also always worried about him.
Ernest especially hadn't forgotten how, after he'd been injured saving Sebastian during the first Silver Horseshoe Tournament, Haires had quietly scolded him as he watched over his son.
That had happened under the strict supervision of the Imperial Military Academy, and even though everything worked out fine in the end, Haires didn't let it slide.
But now, when the war wasn't even over—when his son was heading to the front lines to fight life-and-death battles—how could he let it go so easily?
'Medicine?'
Above all, what unsettled Ernest the most was that Haires didn't say a single word about Ernest's heart medication.
Haires had always kept precise track of both the amount of medicine Ernest took and when he would run out, making sure to send more before his supply was gone.
He had sternly told Ernest several times that he needed to keep taking the medicine for the rest of his life.
Yet now, Ernest had gone five months without any medicine—not only had Haires not sent more, he hadn't even mentioned it.
At this point, Ernest was starting to doubt whether it had really been heart medicine at all.
After all, since running out of the pills, he hadn't collapsed clutching a weak heart or found himself gasping for breath.
Instead, his mind had cleared, and his ability to think had noticeably sharpened.
He knew the letters were being censored.
Letters were screened at the Imperial Military Academy and even at the Imperial Postal Service, so there was no way that correspondence from Haires to Ernest would go unread.
But even so—would Haires really value Ernest's military career so much that he would hide something as serious as his son's life depending on that medicine, and refrain from sending more simply because of the censors?
"When I made it home after a long while today, the place was a mess, covered in dust. I'll be sure to clean it thoroughly, so you won't have to waste time on chores when you return.
I hope that the war ends soon and you come back safe and sound.
—Haires."
Still, reading these ordinary bits of news from Haires put Ernest ever so slightly at ease.
Even though everything else seemed to have fallen apart, at least a small piece of his childhood seemed to have survived unchanged.
The anxiety in his chest lingered.
There were unanswered questions.
But even so, just having read Haires's letter made it feel as if the suffocating pressure on his chest finally let up a little.
As for the Central Intelligence Agency, there was nothing Ernest could do about it right now.
The same went for the medicine—at this point, there was nothing more to be done.
Ernest didn't even know what the medicine had been made of, and Haires had been strangely silent about it.
He couldn't imagine ever going back to the days when he took that medicine.
Those pills had been truly horrible.
Even now, whenever he felt a headache coming on, memories of those days haunted him.
So Ernest decided to focus on what he could control.
That meant writing a long, tightly packed letter—six entire pages of letter paper—to his father, who had been out of contact for so long.
And, although perhaps not as much as Ernest himself, he knew he should share the news with Robert and Marie, who were also worried about Haires.
Suppressing his anxiety, while allowing himself to feel a measure of joy, Ernest wrote his father a letter.
***
As soon as dawn broke, the 5th and 6th Divisions left Narvaing and began heading southwest.
Belliang had surrendered and been successfully colonized; now, all that remained was to guard the border with Konchanya.
Neither Konchanya nor the Empire wanted to fight, so there would likely be no major battles—just minor skirmishes, tense standoffs, and mind games.
Racing alongside the bountiful, golden wheat fields at the height of harvest, the Imperial Army was still relishing the taste of victory.
"The former King of Belliang has taken his own life."
But the very next day after leaving Narvaing, news reached them that left everyone on edge.
The man who, just days ago, had been the king of a country, had apparently taken his own life—unable to bear the shame once the 5th and 6th Divisions departed Narvaing.
And not by drinking poison or any means that would preserve his body, but by shooting himself in the head.
He was no longer the King of Belliang.
Belliang had become an Imperial colony, and he had become nothing more than an old man from a noble family of distinguished bloodline.
The Empire did not recognize the Belliang royal family as royals, only as the highest-ranking among local nobles.
However, the nobles of Belliang still regarded him as their king, and so this news was certain to cause a massive stir.
Still, from the Empire's perspective, there was one bit of relief in all this: he had signed Belliang's surrender as king, and the nobles of Belliang had followed suit, surrendering to the Empire as well.
If he had taken his own life before signing the surrender documents, things might have become much more complicated.
"What's the point in doing something as pointless as suicide when it's all over anyway...?"
Robert, born a commoner who placed no value on things like honor or glory, muttered gloomily after hearing the news. It was a sentiment shared by common soldiers who now worried about the possibility of an uprising by the independence army.
"Seriously, he should have shown some restraint. No matter what, how could anyone do something so barbaric as king?"
In contrast, the officers from noble families, nobles by birth, clicked their tongues as if this outcome had been inevitable. Even rural nobles were willing to risk their lives in duels for their honor, so to see the king of a nation—not even an imperial royal—forced to lower his head and sign a surrender with imperial flags, lieutenant generals, lowly second lieutenants, and even ordinary soldiers present was a disgrace.
Now, even if an independence army does rise up and throw Belliang into chaos, there would be nowhere to air their grievances. This was trouble the Empire had brought on itself.
"Belliang had already lost all ability to wage war as a nation, even before surrendering. They're not going to take any military action right away."
Ernest cautiously speculated about the ripple effects of what had happened.
"But the nobles and landlords, who've already grown deeply resentful of the Empire because of land reform, will be even less cooperative now. It'll be at least another decade before land reform actually gives power to ordinary people and tenant farmers. Until then, the Empire will have no choice but to continue its colonial rule of this land through the nobles and landlords who have governed here for so long. It might be fine for now, but sooner or later there's bound to be problems. It was truly a foolish thing to do."
While complex political maneuvering and social dynamics still often escaped him—since reading people's hearts was a skill he had yet to master—Ernest had a keen insight when it came to situations where human nature played out in more straightforward ways.
And since the other nobles had reached the same conclusion as Ernest, the Imperial Army could only worry about when the fallout from all this would finally descend upon them
All anyone could do now was hope that the Empire would handle things properly and establish complete control over Belliang.
But before the shock had even worn off, yet another piece of dreadful news arrived.
Konchanya, which everyone had assumed would avoid war, had deliberately mobilized its troops and seized the Western Plains of the Bertebras Mountains.
Judging by the fact that they weren't launching a full-scale attack, it seemed they weren't looking for an all-out war, but from the Empire's perspective, this was hardly welcome news.
Nothing in this world ever seems to go smoothly.
Ernest understood that all too well by now, but it was as if the world insisted on teaching him the same lesson by making things as difficult as possible.
Everything felt so battered and dented from every direction that, ironically, it almost seemed like things were rolling along smoothly now, just because everything was equally squashed.
Honestly, there's nothing about war that ever goes the way you expect