Faust and his companions soon found a nearby café and settled in. In a private room of the late-night establishment, Faust and Seraphina were left alone together in a separate booth — at the Imperial Princess's request, clearly to discuss something she wished to keep confidential.
Though Viviana was reluctant, Faust asked his childhood friend to step outside for the time being.
Any other intelligence he could share freely with Viviana, but Faust had a feeling that what Seraphina was about to tell him concerned the Wheel of Fate — and that was not something he could share with a Witch.
Beneath the warm amber light, Seraphina stirred her rich café au lait with a silver spoon, resting one cheek in her hand as she spoke slowly.
"I recall that the Kingdom of Aurum was once a province of the Empire. After it gained independence, did your people come to resent the Empire for what it had done?"
Faust took a sip of his hot drink.
"I was born after all that, so I'm hardly in a position to speak of forgiveness on behalf of those who suffered. But as things stand now, the people of Aurum are less consumed by hatred of the Empire than they are by fear of eventual retribution."
Seraphina let out a short, derisive laugh.
"Ha. Most of the peripheral provinces under Imperial rule are the same. They see us as callous tyrants, living in perpetual dread, as though the Empire exists solely to oppress them."
And doesn't it?
Faust nearly said it aloud. In the eyes of the world, the Radiance Dynasty was an unabashed conqueror and aggressor. Wherever the Imperial boots had trodden, they had left devastation in their wake — not quite draining marrow from bone, but certainly overturning whatever order had existed before.
"That's probably the common view by now," he said instead.
Seraphina's gaze turned distant, and she kept dropping cubes of sugar into her coffee.
"But long ago, the Empire was not like that."
"From the time of the founding Emperor onward, the Imperial house held to only one guiding precept. The principle our House of Radiance carried was singular: to forge a unified Empire, and to lead humanity toward eternal glory."
"Wielding the extraordinary power of the Imperial bloodline and the manifest destiny of the Empire, we expanded without restraint, bringing warring nations together under a single banner.
We built schools and hospitals, cleared farmland, repaired roads and bridges, and let the people recover and flourish. You govern a kingdom yourself, so you know well enough that none of that is especially difficult to accomplish."
Faust nodded in genuine agreement.
The productive capacity of this world was astonishingly high. Even in the most pastoral of nations, as long as outright war was avoided, there was simply no reason for any shortage of resources.
"But enduring peace was never permitted. No matter how hard the Empire worked, at regular intervals something would inevitably go wrong, stirring unrest somewhere within the Empire's borders and unraveling all the progress that had been made."
"The Empire could only suppress one crisis while pressing forward into another, forever exhausted from running between the two."
Probably what you get for swallowing so much territory so quickly, Faust thought. Given the rate at which the Empire had expanded, a certain degree of indigestion was only natural — no great mystery there.
But then Seraphina laced her fingers together, propped her chin on them, and said, "Some of that might still have an explanation. But what about the Demon Front in the west? Are you aware of it?"
"I've heard of it."
By all accounts, it was a vast wasteland the Empire had encountered when its expansion reached the western border territories.
The moment the Imperial frontier brushed against it, an endless torrent of demons and monsters had poured forth from those mountains and forests, launching a relentless assault on the Radiance Dynasty.
After that, the Dynasty's previously unstoppable expansion had slowed considerably, its energies largely consumed by the ceaseless waves of demonic incursion.
"To counter the demons that kept coming without end, the Empire built defensive lines, devised countermeasures, and continually refined its weapons. Eventually it deployed the ultimate heavy artillery."
Faust immediately thought of the Empire's signature weapon. "The Earth-Shattering Cannon?"
"Exactly. The weapon capable of splitting mountains and tearing open the earth."
Seraphina continued, though the color in her face grew darker with each word.
"And yet even after massed cannon fire had scoured every last inch of demon-held ground, even after those obstructing mountain ranges were leveled, victory still never came. Worse than that, the situation deteriorated. Stronger and more overwhelming waves of demons surged forward in response."
"It was as the Empire was falling back, step by step, that Lord Lian conveyed a revelation to us: the blade surpasses the gun."
"Against demons and monsters, the Earth-Shattering Cannon could never stem the tide. It would only drive it into greater frenzy."
Faust sat back, the pieces clicking into place. "I had no idea things had gone that far."
It was something that had puzzled him for a long time. The Empire had already climbed quite high on the technological ladder.
Its artillery, vehicles, and airships were all well-developed. And yet every kingdom seemed to look right past that fact, stubbornly clinging to cold steel. Even the Empire itself had been steadily cutting back on its firearms battalions.
Back then, Faust had chalked it up to collective conservatism. He had told himself that once he got started, he would build a proper modernized army and give those feudal knights a lesson delivered by gunpowder.
My lord, the times have changed!
Or so he had believed. Now it seemed the times had not changed in the slightest.
Seraphina clenched her fist and brought it down on the table with restrained force.
"So the Empire had no choice but to send flesh and blood to hold back the tide."
"It needed the wrenching partings of lovers. It needed the burning blood of heroes. It needed sacrifice upon sacrifice, tears upon tears.
Only by offering up the precious emotions humanity reveals in the face of catastrophe as sacrifices would the tide recede. And from that point on, hundreds of thousands fell every year. The Demon Front became a festering wound the Empire could never stop bleeding from."
"Most of the blood taxes and exploitation imposed on the other provinces were, in the end, just to fill that hole."
The Imperial Princess gave a self-deprecating smile.
"It was only after my own awakening that I learned the truth from Lord Lian."
"Ha. This is fate, isn't it. We have been toyed with by fate all along. Everything we have done is meaningless. We are simply repeating the same cycle, over and over again."
Faust turned his porcelain teacup slowly in his hands. He could understand the princess's helplessness and indignation, but he did not share her fury toward fate.
To him, fate was simply an underlying mechanism. Rather than resenting it, what mattered was understanding it.
"Most of the awakened Children of Men, once they come to believe in fate, display some degree of bitterness. For a Child of Men, that's understandable enough. You, on the other hand, barely seem to care. You're already thinking about how to make use of fate instead."
Seraphina's emotional control was formidable. Her indignation lasted only a moment before composure returned.
She drank down the rest of her coffee in one go, rose to her feet, and extended her hand to Faust.
"Prince of Aurum, because you are the ally Lord Lian has chosen, I owe you complete honesty."
"Our purpose is to follow Lord Lian and break free from the cage of fate — to liberate humanity from this unending cycle of despair and grant us true freedom at last."