Chapter 355: What’s the matter, already in love?
For a long moment, Faelith remained lost in thought, her slender fingers tapping absently against the polished armrest of her chair.
Vassalage was not common in the Eternal Forest—quite unlike what one saw across the rest of the continent.
Not that there was any shortage of leaders willing to accept the vassalage of a defeated enemy. The problem, in fact, was quite simple.
When someone gained a vassal, their power grew by an enormous margin relative to their neighbors. With this newfound strength in hand, they became capable of securing a second vassal, a third, a fourth.
And so, everything snowballed—big, fast, and unstable.
Sooner or later, these vassals would band together and, in a bloody civil war, wrest their freedom back.
When that didn’t happen, the outcome was even simpler: all the neighbors would join forces to crush their new common enemy.
Kingdoms had indeed been born in the Eternal Forest, but none lasted very long. None of the countless city-states allowed them to endure. Whenever a Lord dared to declare unification, the outcome was always the same.
In her six hundred years of life, Faelith had witnessed this cycle repeat itself too many times to count.
She had seen wars in which tens of thousands of soldiers marched through the forest. On the western plains, conflicts of that magnitude were not even uncommon—many of the city-states in the area were metropolises with millions of inhabitants.
She would like to believe Ethan was just another one of those.
Still, she found herself unable to do so.
Her gaze followed his broad back as he rose from his seat, his shoulders firm and protective while he led his delicate wife, Alice, pressed close to his side.
Side by side, they walked until they came to a stop before the podium.
She listened intently to every word Ethan spoke. The love with which he announced Alice’s pregnancy. The strength with which he declared Goldenveil’s future.
A future of glory and conquest.
Every city, village, and settlement, every fortress and Lord who thought himself too powerful to be challenged, would bow his head. Every corner of that forest would be Goldenveil’s territory, ruled by him, ruled by his people.
A world where even a village wouldn’t need walls, where an ordinary citizen could run a farm in the middle of the forest without fearing monster attacks.
A world where merchants wouldn’t need large escorts to travel, where the people wouldn’t have to live in fear—neither of monsters nor of tyrants.
That was the world Ethan was fighting to create. That was the world for which every sword in Goldenveil had been forged through blood and sweat.
It was an idealistic world.
A world without tyrants, ruled forever by a just man—a man who would ensure that all beneath him were just as well.
Well, it would be more accurate to say it was a world where there would be only a single tyrant.
But were tyrannical decisions made by a single man for the protection of the people truly tyrannical?
Was a tyrant who sacrificed the elites for the sake of the common people the same kind of tyrant as one who sacrificed the common people for his own sake?
Ethan, in fact, considered himself a tyrant.
He knew he was an authoritarian leader, and that the very laws he enacted were subject to change with a single thought of his.
He had no interest whatsoever in granting democracy to those people—why would he diminish his own power?
He saw himself as the central figure, and he counted on his brilliant wives to help him rule for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
He would ensure a peaceful Goldenveil, guarantee the happiness of every child, and place hot food on every family’s table.
To Faelith, such promises were nothing more than foolish idealism.
And yet, there she was—resting in a seat that should have been reserved only for great emperors, observing an army whose armor and training were simply unlike anything ever seen before, anywhere.
The entire city of Goldenveil was an absurdity. From the colossal walls to the luxurious homes of every citizen, from the smallest alleyway to Ethan’s own palace.
Watching Ethan lift Alice into his strong arms, kiss her on the lips, and announce her pregnancy to the world, Faelith smiled without realizing it—in the same way that Aerick, a Lord under Ethan, was smiling beside her.
"Do you think it’s worth it?" Faelith asked, turning her face slightly toward Aerick. "To sacrifice all my power to Ethan, without even putting up a fight?"
Aerick turned to face her upon hearing her words. "Yes." He didn’t hesitate for even an instant.
"When I bowed my head to Ethan, I had the choice between surrendering or dying. But today, after having served him, even if that weren’t the choice, I would still bow my head to him. It’s better to be a laborer under Ethan than a Lord with unlimited power anywhere else."
He wasn’t exaggerating.
His life now was incomparable to those days when he was still an independent Lord, before becoming a ruler of one of Ethan’s territories.
His son now had access to an infinitely superior education, and his wife even looked ten years younger and more beautiful—thanks to elven beauty treatments and Goldenveil’s own magical density.
That density also spread to the vassal cities, albeit at an efficiency of only twenty percent.
Even so, twenty percent of Goldenveil’s magical density for each city under his rule was still absurd in and of itself.
"Hm..." Faelith remained silent, watching Ethan approach her with a broad smile on his face, shortly after announcing the start of the games.
Duels—both between men and between beasts—began to unfold in the arena below. But she paid them no attention whatsoever, her beautiful eyes focused solely on Ethan.
"What’s the matter, already in love?" Ethan teased, returning to his seat beside her.
Faelith opened her mouth, but no words escaped her lips.
She looked away toward the other wives standing with Ethan, who burst into collective laughter.