Chapter 115

Chapter 115
## Chapter 115

“Are you talking about the matrimonial pact between Calix and Grimaldi from all those years back?”

To Lucian’s knowledge, that specific event was the solitary instance where the imperial bloodline had merged into the Calix ancestry.

Norbeck, however, let out a derisive snort at Lucian’s comment, as if the suggestion were beneath him.

“I have no desire to assert my status through such a minor detail. The right I am referring to is far more primal and absolute.”

“And what exactly is that?”

“Is it possible you are truly ignorant of your own family’s origins?”

Norbeck spoke with his head held high, casting a patronizing gaze down at Lucian.

It was evident he was intent on goading him by hiding behind riddles and vague implications.

Lucian responded to this transparent attempt at manipulation with a brief, mirthless chuckle.

“I will give you exactly ten seconds.”

“Excuse me?”

“If there is something you need to say, say it. If not, I am walking out that door.”

Norbeck gaped at Lucian, looking genuinely stunned.

This concerned the very creator of their lineage. Any typical nobleman would have been desperate for answers, plagued by sudden uncertainty regarding their own birthright.

“…Do you possess no noble spirit? To think you wouldn’t even attempt to uncover the truth behind the foundation of your house!”

“If you’ve got nothing of substance, then don’t bother. Your date with the headsman is fast approaching, so you should focus on making sure your neck is presentable for the blade.”

Lucian turned away the moment the words left his lips.

Seeing him actually depart, Norbeck scrambled to the iron dividers. Observing Lucian’s steady, uncaring pace, he realized the man truly wouldn’t look back until Norbeck’s head was separated from his shoulders.

“I am speaking of the era before Grimaldi ever became the sovereign family!”

“Interesting.”

Lucian stopped in his tracks, his interest finally sparked.

Walking back to the cell door, Lucian gave a slight nod of his chin, signaling for the man to proceed.

Though he shivered with the shame of being commanded, Norbeck began to whisper a forgotten chronicle of the ancient past.

“Long before our predecessors settled within Asagrim, during our time as tribal wanderers, thirty-five clans inhabited the frozen northern wastes. Grimaldi and Calix were two of those names.”

As Norbeck told it, existence in those icy plains was a brutal struggle.

Provisions were eternally lacking, and raiding others was a necessity for survival; even then, the specter of starvation was constant. The winters grew more lethal with every passing cycle, to the point where thick pelts that offered warmth one year were useless against the frost of the next.

“Every clan saw the writing on the wall. To stay was to perish from the elements and the famine. Yet, despite that certainty, no one had the courage to attempt a trek to a new land.”

“Was there some formidable foe blocking the path?”

“No. It was simply that the cold had turned so lethal that traversing such distances was seen as a suicide mission.”

The rate at which the northern frost intensified was unnatural.

If a traveler attempted to revisit a path they had walked easily a decade prior, they would undoubtedly freeze solid. If that were the case for seasoned warriors, it was a death sentence for the vulnerable and the young.

While the masses huddled in fear, a single figure convened the clans and spoke.

—If we remain here, we are ghosts. I shall guide the tribes and take the point of the formation. Those who wish to risk this journey with me, pool your rations and follow.

This wasn’t a gesture of selfless charity, but a cold bargain: in exchange for facing the brunt of the danger, he would claim a portion of their dwindling food.

Most of the northern tribes mocked the idea, but eight chose to gamble on his leadership.

So began the desperate Exodus of the nine tribes.

“As feared, the frozen wastes were unforgiving. Within the first month, half of the nine tribes were wiped out. By the second month, half of the survivors were gone. Among the casualties was the very chieftain who had proposed the trek.”

On his deathbed, he handed the command of the unified tribes over to his closest companion.

That friend, now the acting leader, guided the remnants of the nine tribes forward, mourning his comrade even as he marched.

Finally, just as the last of the food vanished and the people were failing from exhaustion, they noticed the biting air had begun to soften.

“The nine tribes reached their destination. They claimed a land where greenery and wildlife flourished, and where one could find sustenance. However, the territory was already inhabited, and the locals saw these newcomers from the wastes as hostile invaders.”

Even though this land was paradise compared to the north, it was still a rugged, harsh territory. Because resources were tight, the locals were determined to drive the outsiders away.

Realizing they needed a solid front, the nine tribes decided to crown a single monarch.

“The choice came down to two men. The son of the chieftain who had started the journey, and the friend who had seen it through to the end. In a stroke of luck, the friend stepped aside for the son, preventing a civil war.”

The true crisis began after the coronation.

The people refused to follow the new king’s decrees. Regardless of his commands, they slacked in their labor or ignored him entirely. Yet, whenever the friend who had declined the crown appeared, they were as industrious as could be.

“The king eventually saw the truth. Stepping aside hadn’t been an act of loyalty, but a calculated insult. It was a message that the people’s hearts had already shifted, and he was being told to hand over the power voluntarily rather than wait to have it taken.”

The king despaired over his powerless state. If he stayed the course, he was a figurehead at best and an assassination target at worst.

Ultimately, the first monarch of the nine tribes surrendered the crown to his father’s companion with his own hands.

“What followed is the standard legend of the founding. The commander of the nine tribes conquered the locals and united the land into a sovereign state. He became the sovereign, the forefather of the Northern Royal Family.”

“Quite the tale.”

If Norbeck’s account held water, the Grimaldi line weren’t true northern natives as the annals suggested. It meant they had sanitized history to hide the fact that they were once savage outsiders from the deep frost.

To another man, this might be a slur against his house, but to Lucian, it sounded like nothing more than an old man’s bedtime story.

“I have heard your legend. However, I fail to see how this connects to your supposed claim to the throne.”

“Because the blood of that original king flows in me.”

“What?”

“The man who first guided the nine tribes through the Great Migration was the first ancestor of Calix.”

“…Ha.”

A dry, hollow laugh escaped Lucian.

So, if one went back to the tribal beginnings, it meant Lucian’s forebear, Grimaldi, was the master manipulator, while Norbeck’s was the discarded heir of the first leader.

After a long silence, Lucian voiced his genuine reaction.

“Have you lost your mind? You are trying to claim a right to the crown based on a tribal dispute from before the Northern Kingdom even existed? Has senility finally claimed your senses?”

The critique was blunt and almost crude, but it was the only logical response.

Lucian had never suspected that Norbeck’s greed reached the throne itself. He had assumed the man wanted to be the premier lord of the North, but the king?

Norbeck’s voice, thick with suppressed rage, cut through Lucian’s disbelief.

“And what about you? The Northern Royal Family is a ghost story from a millennium ago. Yet you enchant the masses by preaching about the ‘Pride of the North.’ If a thousand-year-old specter can dictate the present, why is my claim any less valid?”

“….”

Lucian found himself momentarily silenced.

It wasn’t because Norbeck had a point, but because he finally saw into the man’s soul. He was looking at a person who had spent his entire life nurturing the secret fantasy that he was the rightful king.

In a time of absolute peace or total chaos, that fantasy would have died with him. In peace, rebellion is suicide; in total war, survival is the only goal.

But a strange, middle ground had arrived with Lucian’s rise. It was stable enough to dream, yet unstable enough to think dreams could come true.

To the man behind the bars, this uncertainty looked like his one and only shot at destiny.

“….”

Lucian looked at Norbeck with a quiet intensity.

Had the world truly descended into the chaos originally predicted, Norbeck might have been forced to be a sensible leader to save his skin. Instead, he was just a broken old man clinging to a fever dream.

Lucian let out a heavy breath and turned away from Norbeck, who continued to glare.

“You are a truly miserable man.”

“…!”

Norbeck’s gaze faltered under the weight of that comment, which carried a sting of genuine pity.

A second later, a roar of fury erupted alongside the clanging of metal.

“You arrogant whelp! Someone like you! How dare you look down on me…!”

Lucian ignored the shouting at his back as he exited the dungeon. It felt unnecessarily cruel to point out to a man who had lost everything that his grand destiny was just a hallucination.

A few days later, the public execution of Norbeck was carried out as planned.

The prisoner waited for the end without showing a shred of fear. The game was up; there was no point in begging for a life that was already forfeit.

Still, even at the threshold of death, a single curiosity remained.

‘How will they react when I am gone?’

Would they celebrate his demise, or would there be those who felt a pang of loss? He wanted to know the unfiltered opinion of the common people, those without political agendas.

In a sense, the reaction of the masses was the final grade for any ruler.

‘No matter what, I will not grovel at the end.’

With his resolve set, Norbeck stepped out with a dignified stride when his time came. He carried himself like a man with a clear conscience, but the crowd remained unimpressed. They simply stood there, waiting for the event to conclude.

“He spent his life taking everything he could, and this is how it ends.”

“It’s a win for us. Word is the taxes are being slashed. We might actually have something left over now.”

“What a shame. He let greed get the better of him in his final years, and look where it got him.”

“Is it sad, or is it just justice?”

The majority of the witnesses were former subjects of Calix. To them, Norbeck hadn’t been a monster, but he hadn’t been a savior either. He did his job, but he bled them dry with taxes and forced them into service. They weren’t going to throw a party for his death, but they weren’t going to weep for him either.

“Heh.”

A weak, empty sound left Norbeck’s throat as the whispers reached him.

In that instant, his proud posture collapsed, and the spark left his eyes. He looked like a man whose final pillar of support had vanished, or someone who had just been jolted awake from a pleasant dream.

“A miserable man… truly, a miserable man.”

“Move it. Don’t stop now.”

A guard gave him a shove as he stood there, haunted by the words Lucian had spoken in the cell.

Norbeck climbed the steps to the block like a ghost, taking one last look at the sea of faces. The eyes watching him were devoid of both hate and love. There was only the stoic acceptance of people who knew their master was simply being replaced.

‘Heh, it would have been kinder to die while I was still dreaming.’

Before the headsman and his heavy blade, Norbeck went to his knees and bared his neck. The sunlight glinting off the metal was blinding.

Staring at the shimmering reflection on the floor, Norbeck whispered.

“Truth is a heavy thing to bear….”

The sound of the blade followed.

Despite the finality of the act, there was no great roar from the crowd. And so, without the sound of applause or the sound of sobbing, the old dreamer left the world behind.