Chapter 180 - Montpellier! Oh, Montpellier! (2)

When he first heard the Queen's plan, Montpellier thought it was quite a plausible scheme.

He even marveled when he was dragged out to the square like a dog while tied up, as the royal palace's new Chancellor announced his public execution, listed his crimes, and denounced the Emperor's wickedness.

'Since they made such a grand spectacle out of this, the other side won't be able to just pretend they don't know. For the sake of the Empire's prestige and the Emperor's dignity, they will have no choice but to rescue me.'

Even while enduring an entire day tied to a pillar in the square without a single sip of water, he did not waver.

Everything was going according to the Queen's plan, so he considered his hardship and humiliation to be part of that plan as well.

"Filthy imperial dog!"

"Serves you right after acting like a king all this time!"

"Haaack! Ptoo!"

However, having lowly commoners who usually couldn't even meet his eyes come up to hurl insults and spit in his face was an unbearable insult, no matter if it was for the sake of the grand undertaking.

"How dare you..."

"This pig-like bastard still hasn't come to his senses!"

When he couldn't hold back his anger and glared sharply, a woman who appeared out of nowhere doused him in shit water.

At the sudden, piercing stench, Montpellier's mind simply went blank.

"He's completely lost his mind!"

"Serves him right!"

He could hear the lowly bastards giggling, but he couldn't even yell at them. Even as the shit water trickled down his face and seeped between his teeth, he couldn't even close his gaping mouth.

He just stood there blankly like a madman.

He felt no sense of reality.

The crowd of people hurling insults, pointing fingers, and giggling, the mockery etched on the faces of the royal soldiers and knights who were supposed to guard the sinner, and his own wretched state soaked in shit water—none of it felt real.

The night wind blew. Unlike the breezes of the Empire, it was a biting northern wind that pierced the flesh.

The chill digging into his shit-soaked body was a very realistic problem, unlike his mental state.

The cold that felt like it was tearing his skin apart brought him sharply back to his senses.

"H-Hey there. I'll freeze to death if I stay like this. At least give me some dry clothes. If not, then please start a fire."

Having endured as much as he could, he begged subserviently.

Neither the soldiers nor the knights paid any mind to his pleas.

Instead, they mocked his stupidity, saying he still hadn't realized his current situation.

They had expressions that said they genuinely wouldn't care if he froze to death just like that.

Even if the soldiers didn't know, he thought the knights would be aware of the Queen's plan, but they showed no sign of knowing anything at all.

Even so, up until that point, he believed they were hiding the truth to maintain secrecy.

He was even curious to see what kind of expressions they would make once they learned that his suffering was self-inflicted out of a spirit of self-sacrifice.

Turning a blind eye to the cold and painful reality, Montpellier waited for the sun to rise in his delusions.

The night deepened.

By now, the crowds that had swarmed like flies were gone, and only the soldiers and knights remained.

While he was enduring the cold with his teeth chattering, a man with a cloak pulled down tight approached him.

"You bastard who deserves worse than being beaten to death! I'll grind you up, drink you, and chew you to pieces!"

Unlike the insults of the ignorant crowd, this curse was laced with a deep, earnest resentment that made Montpellier's eyes snap open.

"Haaack! Ptoo!"

The man who spat on him quickly turned and vanished.

However, he felt like he had seen the face of the man who fled so hastily somewhere before.

'It couldn't possibly be the Grand Marshal.'

He soon shook his head.

There was no way the Grand Marshal, who should be incredibly busy right now gathering the knights and commanders to review the plan to wipe out the Imperial Knights, would come alone in the middle of the night without an escort. He figured his dimming eyes were now starting to see hallucinations.

Then someone else appeared.

"The tears shed by the kingdom's people because of you could form an ocean, so tears of blood shall fall from your eyes. I pray that when the sun rises tomorrow, you die a truly agonizing death."

As he poured out curses in a low voice, the sharp jawline briefly revealed beneath the cloak was exceedingly handsome.

That handsomeness and the pleasant, melodious voice that tickled his ears reminded Montpellier of someone he knew very well.

"Are you by any chance Kirga—"

SMACK!

Before he could even finish his sentence, his vision flashed.

"I am not Siorin Kirgayen!"

The man suddenly flew into a rage and slapped his cheek a few more times.

He couldn't even complain about why he was being hit if he wasn't him. Montpellier just watched as the man hurriedly disappeared from the spot.

A similar situation occurred several more times after that.

The assailants who appeared in the middle of the night all had their cloaks pulled down tightly as if they had made a promise, and whenever he tried to look at their faces, they would get startled and hit him.

While getting slapped and kicked like that numerous times, dawn broke.

The citizens of The Capital swarmed in like a hive of bees to watch the execution. The nobles residing in The Capital were also sitting on nearby terraces with a good view of the square, watching in his direction.

A delayed wave of humiliation rushed over him.

Still, he held it in.

Because this present penance was the only way to repay the sins he hadn't fully washed away even after defecting to the kingdom. If everything worked out well, his merits and sins would be weighed, and he might even receive a reward.

He dreamed of a bright future amid the curses of the crowd.

At least, he did up until that point.

"Before the execution, administer one hundred lashes so that the sinner may reflect upon the harm he has caused the kingdom!"

Even when the Queen, who personally appeared at the execution grounds, ordered this unscripted flogging, he thought it was also part of the plan to make the situation more dramatic.

'They'll just pretend to hit me and be done with it. My role is to act out the pain as believably as possible.'

That was what he assumed.

However, that thought did not last long.

WHACK!

Along with a dull pain, his vision flashed brightly.

"One!"

Only after hearing the executioner's belated shout did he realize that he had actually been struck mercilessly.

"Agh!"

A delayed scream burst out of him.

WHACK!

"Two!"

He wanted to curl up, but he couldn't move an inch, so he had no choice but to take every single blow.

"... Ten!"

His skin burst open from the merciless flogging. Every time his flesh split apart, his belief that the current situation was just a staged act also began to crack.

"Twelve!"

'Could they really be planning to go through with the execution like this?'

"Thirteen!"

'They couldn't possibly be thinking of getting rid of me and the Imperial Knights at the same time, could they?'

"Thirty-five!"

Amidst the severe beating that knew no bounds, he gradually became unable to trust the Queen's promise.

And he belatedly regretted it.

'What on earth was I trusting to willingly put myself in this situation? From their perspective, I must be an enemy they'd want to grind up and drink.'

He was astounded at his own naivety in genuinely believing that they would accept him as a noble of the kingdom once they dealt with the Imperial Knights.

He must have lost his mind. It was obvious that with his territory burned down and him left stranded without any backing, his desperation had narrowed his vision.

Otherwise, he would never have entrusted his life to those who viewed him as their nemesis.

"Nobles of the kingdom. I will give you a chance to vent your resentment."

At the Queen's clear voice, the executioner withdrew his rod and stepped back.

Then, the kingdom's nobles stepped forward as if they had been waiting and took the rod.

"Because of you, my family suffered such severe hardships!"

"You wicked bastard! Because of your snake-like, glib tongue, I had to live my whole life being mocked!"

Their grudges were deep, but the blows from the nobles who had lived their entire lives without ever using physical strength were so light they might as well have been tickles compared to the executioner's.

Montpellier's hope revived once more.

Even if they couldn't help but be merciless at first, he figured they were finally going to just put on a proper show from now on.

Thus, about thirty blows were knocked off the tally.

That was when Grand Marshal Bielefeld stepped forward.

The old man refused the rod handed by the executioner and stated he would use the cane he held in his own hand.

The weak beating of an extremely elderly man was all too predictable, so the marquis secretly cheered, thinking he'd get off easy for a few more strikes.

The marquis took off his coat. And the body revealed beneath the coat was absolutely not that of an old man.

Striations of muscle and prominently bulging veins were etched into the flesh revealed by his tightly rolled-up sleeves.

"W-Wait..."

WHACK!

The marquis didn't even list his grudges. He simply swung the cane.

With just that single strike, Montpellier realized that Marquis Bielefeld hadn't been seated in the position of Grand Marshal simply due to his age and loyalty alone.

He didn't know for sure, but the man had to be an expert in swordsmanship; just one blow was enough to make him feel faint.

WHACK! CRACK! WHACK!

After silently striking him three times in a row, the marquis draped his coat back over his shoulders and turned around.

"I am the same as all of you, for the hardships the Royal Family has suffered because of that man are immense. Do not speak ill of me, thinking that a person who is Queen has stepped out in front of the people to wield a rod."

The Queen said this, then stepped down from the platform and personally took up the rod.

"Because of you, His Majesty the King shed tears of blood for countless nights! Because of you, the rightful heir of the Royal Family had to bear false accusations and endure years of disgrace! Because you sowed discord and corrupted the righteous spirit, my brother died in such vain! Even if I chew your flesh to pieces and drink your blood, it would not appease my heart!"

The Queen's strikes were just as fierce as her resentment-filled scolding.

"The sins you have committed all this time are innumerable! How could you ever hope to live! Even if you die, you will never die in peace!"

It hurt far too much. It hurt more than the executioner's flogging, more than the Grand Marshal's beating.

It hurt so much that he couldn't even let out a scream.

But the fear was even greater than the pain.

The Queen's eyes were incredibly cold. Looking into those pupils that were like a biting blizzard from the north, his mind went completely blank.

Imperial Knights, promises—none of that even crossed his mind anymore.

All he could do was groan like an animal and tremble.

And then he lost consciousness.

When he regained his senses, the Queen was standing on the platform, looking down at him. The flogging must have finished while he was unconscious, as the executioner was holding a cold blue axe instead of a club.

"Carry out the execution!"

Montpellier tried to beg for his life, to demand that they keep their promise even now. But no matter how or where he was hit, he couldn't muster any strength in his body.

"P-Please spare me..."

"What did you say?"

He barely managed to part his lips, but it was just a feeble sound that even the executioner right in front of him couldn't hear.

"Behead the sinner, Cliang de Bourgogne Montpellier!"

At the Queen's stern command, the executioner spat into both hands and adjusted his grip on the axe. Then, he hoisted it high so that the cold, blue blade pointed upward.

"Ah..."

'Montpellier. You fool, you are ultimately going to die miserably like a dog.'

SWOOSH!

The moment he heard the sharp sound of tearing air, he instinctively squeezed his eyes shut.

But as time passed, there was no pain.

He slowly opened his eyes.

The executioner, who had been raising his axe to strike down his neck just a moment ago, had retreated quite a distance away with an arrow embedded in his forearm.

"We've come to rescue you."

Then, a soft voice entered his ears.

"Ah..."

Montpellier was overjoyed.

It was distinct Imperial language. Not the clumsy Imperial language spoken by the kingdom's people, but the Bourgogne language spoken by mainlanders.

"Apologies for doubting you. Truth be told, until just a moment ago, we suspected that the Ambassador might have been swayed by the kingdom."

The ropes were untied. Freed from the pillar, his body collapsed. Right before he tumbled ungracefully onto the floor, he caught a glimpse of his savior's face.

It was the very same knight he had run into on the streets of The Capital the day before.

The knight supported him. In his ears, he could hear the sound of Imperial Knights and The Capital's knights clashing swords.

"Get some rest. When you wake up, you will be in the Empire's territory."

The noises that had been buzzing in his ears gradually subsided.

And like that, Montpellier lost consciousness.