Chapter 45: Valoria Continent (V.C.)
’Ahhh... am I wrapped in blankets? It’s so warm, this feels nice,’ Tracy thought in her sleep, unconsciously wrapping herself even tighter in the soft fabric.
’I hope I don’t wake up from... wait. A blanket? I was sitting outside when I fell asleep!’ Tracy panicked, her eyes snapping wide open. She quickly looked around the unfamiliar room, her gaze eventually landing on Ian’s back. He was sitting quietly at a wooden desk by the window, entirely absorbed in reading a thick, leather-bound book.
’What do I do?! The Young Master must have carried me again!’ she thought, folding herself deeper into the blankets to hide her furiously blushing face.
"I didn’t know where the keys to your room were, so I just brought you into my room. I hope you don’t mind," Ian said, turning his head to look over his shoulder at her.
"N-No... no, there is no issue at all!" she stammered, quickly sitting up straight. "You could have just left me sleeping there on the stone stairs. I wouldn’t have minded at all! But instead, you carried me again and even let me sleep on your b-bed..." The mere mention of sleeping in his bed made her face turn as red as a tomato.
"Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything to you while you were asleep," Ian said, his eyes returning to the pages of his book.
"I know. I trust you," she said, pulling the blankets off and walking over to where Ian was seated.
"But... you could have also done something," she whispered softly to herself.
"Hmm? Did you say something?" Ian asked, his enhanced physical senses easily picking up her faint whisper.
"It’s nothing!" she squeaked, laughing awkwardly. ’I should really keep my opinions to myself next time. Phew, at least he didn’t hear me,’ she thought, wiping imaginary sweat from her forehead.
’This girl... she is so incredibly unpredictable. I should be careful around her and keep my guard up,’ Ian thought, staring at her with a deadpan expression.
"Anyway, what are you reading, Young Master, that has you looking so serious?" Tracy asked, peering over his shoulder with deep curiosity.
Ian looked at her for a moment before answering. "Well, while I was sitting in my family’s so-called meeting earlier today, I realized something. I actually don’t know much about the deep history of our kingdom or the factions currently in power."
’I guess the previous Ian really didn’t care about politics or geography since he was completely isolated and eventually dropped out of the academy,’ Ian thought to himself.
"Really? Could you tell me about it too, Young Master? As a common, uneducated girl, that kind of information is not easy to come by," Tracy said, her eyes sparkling with genuine interest.
"Are you sure about that? It might be a bit boring," Ian warned.
"It’s no problem at all, as long as you are the one telling the story," Tracy said, pulling up a wooden chair next to Ian with a bright smile and leaning forward.
"You sure don’t miss any opportunity, do you?" Ian sighed.
"What are you talking about?" Tracy asked innocently, blinking her large eyes.
"Nothing. Never mind."
Ian cleared his throat and looked back down at the heavy book. "To understand the history of our kingdom, we have to start with the history of our entire continent: the Valoria Continent. Long ago, around the year 465 V.C., this continent was ruled by four massive, overarching empires. They were the Vironian Empire, the Crimson Empire, the Obsidian Empire, and the Aurelian Empire."
He glanced sideways to see if Tracy was bored, but to his surprise, she was listening intently.
He tapped the old, yellowed page of the book. "These four empires ruled the continent, keeping each other in check. There were constant border wars between them in the past, but surprisingly, external wars weren’t what ended up destroying them. They were destroyed by their own people."
"Over time, the Crimson Empire destroyed itself from the inside out. They had a massive population of Mages, and those magic-users eventually caused a massive rebellion to overthrow the non-magical royalty. Nowadays, the ruins of the Crimson Empire are known as the Magic Empire, which is strictly ruled by the Nine Magic Towers, each controlling a different region. As for the gruesome details of that civil war, this book doesn’t really say."
Ian turned the page. "The Obsidian Empire and the Vironian Empire are the only two original empires that are still in one piece today, making them the oldest standing nations in the world. However..." Ian’s expression turned incredibly serious, "the book states that they are mortal enemies due to extreme racial purity laws."
"Racial laws?" Tracy asked, tilting her head.
"Yes. The Obsidian Empire is a nation for all races—elves, dwarves, beastmen—except for humans. Humans are strictly forbidden from entering, and any human caught inside their borders is put to death without a trial. Conversely, the Vironian Empire is an absolute human-supremacist nation. Any race that is not human is banned from their lands and faces the exact same bloody fate."
"That is so harsh... to hate each other so much that it’s even written in the history books," Tracy murmured, shivering slightly. "Do you know the details of why they hate each other?"
"The book doesn’t explicitly state the core cause, but it does mention that they actually used to be close allies thousands of years ago. I wonder what horrific event happened for them to be at each other’s throats like that," Ian said, flipping the page and showing Tracy a hand-drawn map of the modern continent.
"I see. Then... what about our kingdom?" she asked.
"Ah, yes. Our kingdom originated from the collapse of the fourth empire—the Aurelian Empire," Ian explained, tracing his finger over the map. "Around the year 604 V.C., a massive civil war broke out. The vassal Kings serving under Emperor Davies Aurelian the 50th caused a rebellion because they deemed him completely incompetent. The Emperor wanted to deploy his armies to assist the non-human Obsidian Empire in their war against the human Vironian Empire... all because he had fallen madly in love with a demi-human woman."
Ian sighed, reading the next passage. "Some rumors said he was bewitched by her magic, so his vassal Kings took matters into their own hands. In the year 610 V.C., the seven rebelling Kings won the war. They shattered the grand empire, dividing its massive territory into eight separate kingdoms. A large portion of that land became the Aurelian Kingdom, and another pieces of it became the Trillah Kingdom—the nation we live in today and others like Tessan kingdom in which we share the boarder with."
"That seems like a really stupid reason to completely destroy a grand empire... just because of one woman," Tracy said, a complicated, judging expression on her face.
"Well, it might not be the real reason. You have to remember, Tracy, history is always written by the victors," Ian said, closing the heavy book with a soft thud. "Maybe those seven Kings were greedy and had been plotting to divide the empire for a long time, and the Emperor’s romance just gave them a convenient political excuse to act. Or maybe the Emperor truly was blinded by love and doomed his own nation. We might never know the real truth."
