The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 196 – Recovery (1)

Slam!

Juan stormed into the House of Peers and strode across the nobles.

The nobles froze on the spot and stared at their emperor; however, they couldn’t see his expression, since the speed at which he walked past them was too fast. The nobles were frozen stiff with just the aura the emperor was giving off today. Some of the weak-minded nobles even helplessly slumped to their seats.

Meanwhile, Juan went straight toward the seats belonging to the nobles from the religious faction.

The nobles from the religious faction had a feeling that the emperor must have found out about something, since they were forcibly brought in by the Imperial Army without any notice, but they thought that there was some room for compromise and making excuses, considering that they were called to the House of Peers instead of being brought into an interrogation chamber.

Then, one of the nobles carefully opened his mouth when Juan stood right in front of the nobles from the religious faction.

“Your Majesty, we know nothing about what has happened recently and…”

Splat!

With a light popping sound, the head of the religious faction noble at the very front flew across the room., causing even nobles from the other factions to be drenched in blood and brain fluid in just an instant.

One of the nobles who inadvertently caught something that was flying toward him realized that it was a head upon making eye contact with the wiggling eyeballs, and directly fainted.

Meanwhile, the corpse of the noble from the religious faction floundered and collapsed without its head.

From that moment, everyone in the House of Peers hastily moved to escape while screaming—it was chaos; however, that didn’t last long.

A sudden and intense murderous intent locked onto them as if they were frogs who were faced with a snake.

While being too scared to breathe, let alone run away, the nobles had no choice but to look at the emperor as he slowly approached them.

Splat! Splat!

The heads of nobles flew off one by one every time a popping sound echoed throughout the room. Juan did not use any weapons and neither did he use his flames or magic. He ruthlessly slaughtered the nobles amidst the silence using his bare hands, almost as if he didn’t care about being drenched in their blood and flesh.

The nobles had never imagined their lives would end so easily, and the only thing they could do was gasp for breath and tremble in fear. There were no more screams, no more resistance, and no more outcry—they were all pointless once the nobles realized that they were nothing but pigs at a slaughterhouse.

After a long time, half of the nobles at the House of Peers ended up on their seats in the form of diced meat.

Juan was neither breathing heavily, nor was he even sweating. The emotions usually seen from ordinary people after killing others were nowhere to be found in Juan—he looked exactly the same as when he first came in. The only difference was that he was covered in blood all over now.

Then, Juan slowly opened his mouth.

“There was an attempt to commit treason.”

The nobles who survived the slaughter froze and listened to Juan’s words in horror; it was true that rumors of such an attempt had been secretly circulating among the nobles.

“These were the people who had joined the treason or had been offered to join and then showed positive reaction toward the offer.”

Chairman Rhymer was relieved that he had been consistently ignoring the invitations and visits from the nobles from the religious faction, but at the same time was horrified when he imagined what would have happened if he hadn’t ignored them. He had heard the rumors of an attempt at treason, but he had been doubtful about whether those who had witnessed the emperor’s power would really be so reckless.

“The disposition of the families of the people who joined the attempt is being undertaken by Nienna as we speak.”

At that moment, someone burst open the door and charged inside. It was Hela.

“Your Majesty! I was preparing to defend Torra. But the meeting for the House of Peers was suddenly called to…”

Hela hastily entered the House of Peers building with a pale expression, but immediately flinched and came to a stop when she saw the scene inside. She tried to say something to Juan, but soon froze up; she too was swept away by the murderous intent that filled the air like the other nobles.

“I saw a lot less blood than I expected during the process of getting back my throne,” Juan said as he looked at Hela. “Perhaps it was because all my acquaintances around me tried their best to avoid mass destruction as much as possible. I am quite grateful for their hard work. I do not enjoy slaughter, but there is one thing that everyone should keep in mind.”

Juan twisted his lips and continued.

“So many soldiers died, but almost all of the nobles remained safe. I think this is quite remarkable, since I have a feeling that the nobles might have driven the soldiers and commoners to death, not knowing how precious their lives were. So as the emperor leading the people, I thought that teaching all of you a lesson was absolutely necessary.”

Juan picked up one of the body parts scattered on the floor and showed it to the nobles.

“Can you tell that this piece of meat was once a noble?”

The nobles could not answer.

Then the rest of the pieces of flesh scattered on the floor began to stick to the piece in Juan’s hand as soon as a subtle flame rose.

The nobles opened their mouths in shock and stared at the sight as if they could not believe it. They wanted to scream upon seeing the pieces of meat gradually taking form.

Finally, as the last piece of flesh was completely gathered, the noble who had just died was ‘revived.’ The noble began to scream and then went on a rampage as soon as he was revived. No one knew what he went through or what he saw after his death, but it was a terrible scream that shook everyone’s soul.

But the scream soon died down when Juan slammed his head on the desk. The resurrected noble had to die again less than three seconds after his revival.

“I don’t know. To me, it looks like the nobles are just like the other ordinary people; they scream when they suffer or are scared.”

Juan crushed the body with his palm.

“Let me say this once again. I don’t like this kind of slaughter. But I can do it as many more times as needed to those bastards who think that only their own lives are precious.”

It became difficult for the nobles to breathe every time Juan looked at those who were still alive.

“I feel the need to rewrite the definition of nobles. I introduced the old-fashioned system and stuck to it in the past for the sake of peace and unity. Maybe Harmon Helwin could have made improvements to this system if he was still here. But he is dead, and I have returned.”

The aftermath of the treason did not simply end with the punishment of the traitors. What they did in their attempt to commit treason not only angered Juan but also left him with concerns that the system that he had set up in the past could be destroyed at any time. Juan figured that he must organize and rearrange everything from the very beginning.

“A noble is someone who takes the lead on the battlefield. It refers to the first person to open their storage to the public when a famine occurs. It refers to the person who is the first to help when they meet a person in need. Nobility is not determined by blood, but by action.”

Juan scanned the faces of the remaining nobles one by one, then finally stopped when he saw Hela.

Hela was looking at Juan with bloodshot eyes.

“If you wish to claim to be a noble in the future and wish to be involved in politics within the House of Peers, you’d better keep everything I just said in mind. If there’s another bastard who doesn’t follow those words, I will come and check myself whether they are a true noble or not.”

***

“By any chance, have I ever been a disappointment to Your Majesty?”

Hela followed Juan as soon as he came out of the House of Peers building.

Juan shook his head, dumbfounded at the sight of Hela scolding him immediately after following him, unlike how she was frozen speechless by his murderous intent back in the House of Peers.

“Don’t think of me as someone on the same level as those bastards. My history on the battlefield is no less than that of Your Majesty’s. I’ve seen much worse things than what happened back there,” Hela said.

“I know. I’ve never felt disappointed in you nor have I thought that you weren’t good enough. To be honest, there are fewer than five people in the House of Peers that I consider to be true nobles. That includes you and Heretia.”

“Then why do you keep ignoring my advice, Your Majesty? I already had the plan to sentence them to a severe punishment. There was no need for Your Majesty to be so cruel and invoke the fear and complaints of the nobles. Is it Your Majesty’s intention to rule the empire with fear and terror?”

Juan raised his hands, surrendering.

“I was planning to discuss with Heretia to reorganize the feudal system anyway. As you know, there has only ever been the Imperial family or Church at the center of humanity until now. What I did was something necessary—though I will admit that I needed to vent a bit.”

“Vent?”

The moment Hela was about to say something, Juan opened his mouth.

“Anya’s gone missing and Dilmond is dead.”

Hela immediately shut her mouth at the news.

Hela and Anya hadn’t known each other for long. Even if they had the opportunity to talk to each other occasionally, Hela had always been dissatisfied with Anya’s blind respect and faith toward Juan. But it was only recently that Hela acknowledged that Anya’s blind respect and faith might be something necessary to Juan.

Someone had to be there to do something illegal, deal with the insults, and take the blame in order for Juan to remain a ‘noble emperor’. Anya was perfect for such tasks. On the contrary, Hela decided that she would give Juan advice so that he would not go astray even if he ended up hating her or being annoyed by her.

It was a hard job to do, but Hela thought she had to at least come up with a system before she returned to the east. Anya’s help was absolutely essential for Hela’s plan, but now she was missing.

“...Dilmond was the deputy of the Order of Huginn, right? But how did he… wait. Was the carriage coming from the south a trap? Is the reason why we were preparing for a defensive battle related to that?”

Pavan and Hela were preparing to defend Torra at the time when Anya was fighting Iolin. Hela couldn’t help but be nervous, since it was her first time seeing Juan act so urgently. She even wondered why a person who became the emperor after killing the gods would suddenly be so nervous.

But on the other hand, it made perfect sense why he was so nervous. Juan was almost the only person who had ever properly faced god. Fear toward something can only be understood by those who have confronted something.

“Yes. Iolin was about to be resurrected—perhaps that was their means of committing treason. It makes sense that they thought they had a good chance of winning if that was their plan. But Anya stopped Iolin’s resurrection. Diamond protected her when she had fainted, but he eventually died and it looks like Anya has been abducted. A search party has been organized by the Order of Huginn and we are preparing for a hostage negotiation request that we might receive.”

“That is just… I see.”

Hela could now understand Juan’s anger. There was no way he couldn’t be angry at the attempt to use a god; he knew better than anyone how terrifying the gods were. On top of that, he lost two of his subordinates he was quite close to. Even Hela herself would have exploded out of anger.

Yet Hela bit her lips; she felt that all this was even more reason for why Juan shouldn’t have behaved that way at the House of Peers.

Hela stopped in the middle of the hallway and Juan looked back at her.

“I understand Your Majesty’s anger. But Your Majesty did something that wasn’t supposed to be done. Bringing the dead back to life in front of the nobles was especially disgusting and…”

“I didn’t bring anyone back from the dead.”

“I’m sorry?”

“All I did was stimulate the body fragments by lumping them all together. Humans can be made to move and make sounds with just that. You can try catching a dead frog and experiment with it yourself or ask Opert if you don’t believe me. On the other hand, true resurrection is a difficult task with the power that I have now. It’s not about a lack of power, and more about the rules of the world. However, I’m sure that I could do it if I got my original body back,” Juan shrugged.

Hela looked at Juan for a while and answered briefly.

“I hope you don’t do that.”

“I don’t really intend to do something like that anyway. But what if I did? Would you punish me?”

“No way. How could I? I have no intention of making Your Majesty bear such a burden.”

Juan made eye contact with Hela instead of answering her. Hela’s gaze was calm.

“I already owe Anya, so I’ll bear the burden. Your Majesty, please do as you please. However, I would appreciate it if you could acknowledge that there are people who have expectations and hopes for all of your actions.”

***

“I’ve caught all the rebels.”

Nienna had a complicated expression on her face when she saw Juan lying in a negligent position on the throne inside the audience chamber of the Imperial Palace.

Juan leaning his head against the handle of the throne while he lay across it did not look so comfortable, nor was it good for his spine. However, Nienna figured that it would be pointless to point out health problems to the emperor, someone who was even capable of restoring his limbs that were cut off.

While Nienna was contemplating whether or not she should nag at Juan, Juan was spinning and playing with the black ring placed on his chest. It was a ring found in the hands of Iolin who had turned into ash. Juan did not wear the ring. After all, Iolin had already engraved the name of the ring’s owner on the ring in gold.

“Dad, did you hear me?”

Nienna gave up on pointing out Juan’s posture and opened her mouth again, causing Juan to turn his head toward her.

“I did.”

“I have caught all the rebels and their families, burned what should be burned, and taken back what should be taken. What should I do now? Should I kill them all and hang them on a pole to display them on the walls?”

Harmon, who had created the Imperial Code, only said that he would dispose of the traitors in an extreme form, but did not set a specific norm. However, the law code, which had many concrete systems, had all kinds of terrible examples as annotations due to the gathering of many scattered systems. What Nienna had just mentioned was the most lenient of the punishments listed.

Juan pondered for a moment and asked a question.

“Are there children among those that you caught?”

“Of course there are.”

“I won’t ask them for their faults. Send the children who have not yet become adults to orphanages and interrogate the adults—quietly cut off the necks of those who are found to be involved, and deprive those who do not seem to have joined the treason of their property rights and conscript them into the military.”

“Are you talking about sending them to the Punishment Unit? I’m not very fond of that idea. Joining the military should be honorable and proud. It shouldn't be made into a punishment.”

“I’m not very fond of the idea of the Punishment Unit either, but I want to avoid the guilt-by-association system as much as possible. One’s lost honor should be recovered by themselves only.”

In fact, Juan thought it was right not to punish them all, except for those who were directly involved in the treason attempt. But the anger lurking in his heart did not allow that.

Even so, it was such a generous decision that Nienna looked surprised at his suggestion.

“Why? I heard that Hela was quite merciless to the nobles. Is it your strategy to show generosity when Hela is being ruthless?”

“Wait. What did Hela do?”

“Hela brought the Imperial Army and chopped up the nobles in the House of Peers right in front of the uninvolved nobles. I thought it was about time she tamed them properly. I mean, everyone knows that Hela had a hard time in the east. It’s rather surprising that she managed to endure it so well until now.”

Juan couldn’t quite understand Nienna’s words, nor could he understand why such a rumor had spread in such a short time. But he soon realized Hela’s thoughts and what she meant in the hallway of the House of Peers building.

Juan rose from his seat.

“Where is Hela right now?”