Ch.821The Pain of the Inheritor

======[ Eleonora ]======

Fatigue robs one of intellect.

After discovering six errors in the documents she had written, Eleonora deeply felt this truth as she tore up the papers with an irritated sigh and discarded them.

“Haaaa…”

She covered her dry eyes with her hands to block her blurred vision and sank deep into the backrest of her chair.

It felt like her consciousness was sinking into a deep abyss. Swamp-like fatigue was weighing her down.

‘How did I end up in this situation….’

The reason was obvious. So obvious that she didn’t even need to think hard about it.

‘I should never have gotten involved with that woman.’

A woman with the grandiose nickname of “variable of fate.” Haschal Median Aishan-Gioro von Landenburg.

Feirus had been focusing on her, claiming she was the key to realizing the apostles’ secret wishes, but…

‘Why should I care about that?’

Unlike other apostles who needed to break Heaven’s Wall to fulfill their secret wishes, Eleonora honestly didn’t care whether Heaven’s Wall was destroyed or not.

Her reason for taking Feirus’s hand was to escape her position as little more than a broodmare, and to take revenge on Isabella who had sold her off, the King of Panam who had violated her, and ultimately on Panam itself.

And that goal was already half-achieved. Though not by her own power.

After Eleonora took the hand of Feirus, who had suddenly appeared promising to save her, King Danon lost his will and became her servant.

Though his obscene behavior remained unchanged, he had been reduced to a puppet who couldn’t lay a finger on her.

Until then, Eleonora believed that her opportunity had finally come—a chance for revenge that she had only dreamed of with her powerless body.

‘…But they died. Both Isabella and Danon. At the hands of that woman Haschal.’

They say it only takes a moment to destroy what took great effort to build.

Since Haschal, the swordswoman who first crossed the wall in the current era, defeated the ghost sword Valenstein, all of Eleonora’s plans had collapsed overnight.

Isabella, whom she had sworn to take revenge on someday, suddenly started a civil war and was soon suppressed. King Danon, whom she had planned to torture for a long time after making him watch his country’s downfall, was killed after causing an accident no one had asked for.

For Eleonora, who had been steadily pursuing her own goals while using King Danon as a shield, this was a fatal loss and an utterly empty conclusion.

If she could have at least remained in Panam, it would have been possible to intervene in the succession war and plunge Panam into chaos, leading to its self-destruction, but…

Thanks to her meddlesome brother, she couldn’t even attempt her plan to destroy Panam through civil war.

‘Leopold….’

Eleonora furrowed her brow as she recalled the face of her blood relative whom she had reunited with after many years.

Leopold Wittelsbach.

He had been too powerless when she needed him, and now that she had given up on him, he had become excessively competent and was using that competence to interfere with her.

Eleonora understood that Leopold was acting out of genuine goodwill and concern, but the result was that he had stripped her of power and thrown her into the jaws of a beast.

‘Now you’re doing unnecessary things….’

As a result, every day had become a continuous stress that felt like sawing through her nerves, and Eleonora couldn’t help but feel resentment.

—-

“The budget for reorganizing the knights—”

“The preparations for the coronation—”

“We need to reform the administrative organization as soon as possible—”

“Administrative exam? What is this—”

“Regent Elnora, the nobles of the Empire have sent letters of protest—”

“The Church of Astraea is requesting permission to build a cathedral—”

Eleonora’s days were literally like warfare without swords.

Ever since the culprit behind this situation, Haschal, had left with her knights to subjugate monsters despite Eleonora’s desperate dissuasion.

‘I told her that the current peace is merely the calm before the storm, and we should strengthen our forces as much as possible while we have the chance.’

It was an irrefutable truth.

Eleonora couldn’t tell whether Haschal was speaking from knowledge or just babbling with a barbarian’s intuition, but the prediction that the world would become more chaotic was clearly true.

The goal of the apostles, excluding herself, was to break Heaven’s Wall to fulfill their secret wishes. This was an act that would inevitably bring chaos to the world.

To break Heaven’s Wall, they needed to fill the Holy Grail with the souls of countless victims, and each time Heaven’s Wall broke, the world would face tremendous upheaval.

All intelligent species would regain the power of ancient times and plunge the world into turmoil, and monsters would appear more frequently and in stronger forms.

In addition, the main gods of humanity—or “false gods” according to Feirus—would also begin to intervene directly. Like Astraea, who had bestowed stigmata upon that barbarian half-breed woman.

Chaos was inevitable.

Therefore, strengthening their forces in preparation was an absolutely correct decision as the queen of a nation.

The problem was…

‘That good-for-nothing wench…! She should have done her work before leaving…!’

Perhaps it was that all the work that had exploded with the approaching coronation had been dumped on Eleonora.

—-

Haschal had pushed the veiled Eleonora onto the civil officials who would become Hestella’s high and low officials, transferring all administrative authority and responsibility to her.

Despite not even having held her coronation yet, she had established the absurd position of regent and even given her the alias Elnora.

It was an action that couldn’t be accepted by common sense.

It was already sufficiently abnormal for the owner of vast lands who would soon become queen to dump all governance on someone else, but the woman who appeared as regent was even a stranger of unknown identity who hid her face.

If not for the stigmata engraved on Haschal’s body, suspicions would have erupted that a witch had seduced her to take over the country.

So who could have accepted this? It wouldn’t have been strange if all the civil officials had strongly opposed it.

However…

“What’s the problem with entrusting tasks I cannot do to someone more competent than me? If you have complaints, request a trial by combat. If we duel in the name of Lady Astraea, the goddess will determine right from wrong. Don’t you agree?”

Faced with the timid opposition of the civil officials, Haschal smiled and declared while revealing the blade of Durandal, which had now become her symbol.

If they wanted to oppose Elnora-Eleonora becoming regent, they should defeat her in a duel for making such a decision.

It was an absurd condition.

But who could protest that this was unfair against Haschal, who was the queen-to-be, the Empire’s First Sword, and even the Saint of Order?

“If Your Highness’s will is so firm… we have no choice.”

The officials’ resistance had to fade as quickly as rabbit mating. Fists are faster than law. Moreover, the fist looming before them was the fastest in the Empire.

“Richelieu, you were wrong…! The sword is indeed mightier than the pen…”

They had no choice but to accept the suspicious parachute appointment of Regent Elnora with a long sigh.

Eleonora, too, had no choice but to assume the position of regent that she never wanted.

At least up to that point, it was something Eleonora could somehow endure. Although she was forced to take on the responsibility of regent, she still had a way to salvage the situation.

‘I’ll pretend to be incompetent. If I mess up all the work terribly, I should be able to step down from the position of regent. Additionally, the reputation of that half-breed wench who forced this will also be tarnished.’

Furthermore, there was a possibility that Haschal, deciding that an incompetent advisor was unnecessary, would exclude her from all duties. For Eleonora, it was the best strategy with nothing to lose.

However.

“—You all seem to have many complaints? Well, I can’t say I don’t understand. After all, a woman whose status and abilities have not been verified at all has suddenly appeared and become your superior. It’s impossible to trust her. But then, what should we do…?”

The words that Haschal uttered after scanning the faces of all the officials one by one shattered Eleonora’s plan from the roots.

“I know. We should give her a chance to prove her abilities. How about… one month? If Regent Elnora fails to demonstrate abilities that satisfy you within a month, I will dismiss her for deceiving me about her incompetence and imprison her in the underground dungeon. Is this acceptable?”

All the civil officials agreed to this proposal.

As long as the Saint of Order trusted this woman called Elnora, there was no need to verify her status, and if she could prove that she had abilities befitting the position of regent, there would be no reason to oppose her as they did now.

“Uh…”

Except for Eleonora, who suddenly found herself at risk of being thrown into an underground dungeon.

—-

In other words, the reason Eleonora was now trapped in this paperwork hell was because of Haschal’s proposal.

Since she would be thrown into an underground dungeon if she showed incompetence, Eleonora had no choice but to somehow produce results.

And fortunately, she was quite competent. The administrative officials who had once looked at the parachute regent with eyes full of contempt and suspicion now pushed all documents to her, begging for solutions.

As a result, even before the promised month was over, Eleonora had gained the support and approval of all civil officials, establishing herself as an unshakable power.

‘The work… the work never ends…!’

Whether she had desired such a position or not.