＜ Episode 124 >
The wedding preparations were progressing step by step.
Of course, all work related to treason must be completed before that. I gave him enough time for a year, but one year was actually tight.
The atmosphere of fear does not go away easily just because the investigation is officially closed and the trial and execution are all completed.
Of course, it wasn’t just a wedding. As I’ve said time and time again, I was going to hold an international conference at the wedding reception.
The agenda is the European Economic Community.
It is an economic community of great powers to fend off the coming storm of the Great Depression.
In the first place, it is impossible to introduce something like the euro, except for the military color that is likely to have various problems in the first place.
In fact, it is difficult to convince others that the Great Depression is coming, so the response will not be that great.
Except for the UK, except for children who are British puppets like Greece, Italy and Portugal, only France, Germany, Scandanavia, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Republic of Turkey, Spain, Austria, Hungary, etc. are invited.
Of course, I don’t think they’ll all join. But even if you only get one half, it’s much better than the original history.
This wedding can be said to be a wedding armed with thorough political intentions from start to finish. Most of the events were prepared for the purpose of showing off national power and promoting patriotism, and even the selection of a honeymoon destination was the same.
USA.
To be precise, Olga and I are going to the United States for our honeymoon as well as traveling around for technical cooperation and investment.
Still, it might be a cry to claim that it is a honeymoon because it is an overseas business trip that usually goes at the time when a couple goes on their honeymoon.
As I was checking the schedule again, I heard a knock.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
It was Olga, a slightly pitiful voice.
I didn’t even tell him to come in, but after a while the door opened and a woman in a dress appeared.
“Have you figured out a way to persuade our Majesty?”
“…………”
Olga silently shook her head.
“Your father will be a little angry with you, but it will subside later.
she said softly.
But her shoulders were trembling.
she has a good heart
However, the number of people she has sent as a dew of death so far… is incomparably small compared to those who died during the purge in the original history, but it is a number enough to terrorize the whole of Russia.
But she volunteered and became a disgrace. As the eldest, as an older sister and as an older sister.
as an empress.
He focused on himself the accusations that would fall on others. I know it’s for others, but I couldn’t help but worry.
Like a hermit crab with a thick shell, like a tortoise with a crooked neck, she hid herself in a hard shell, but I know her because I have seen her closely since childhood.
That she is good inside.
In fact, looking at the results alone, it is difficult for me to avoid being accused of abandoning my wife and children for power and advancement. But no one criticizes me like that.
Externally, I was also a thorough victim, and when I returned from the front line, the world had changed.
And the more it went on, the more Olga’s reputation fell.
But she was smiling.
So I was even more anxious.
How messed up her insides must be. She’s not the only one who can say things like that carelessly.
People don’t change that easily.
“At least, there was a problem with the ghost marriage, so I blew away all those who were fighting, but first of all, there is a problem with the right to succession. Originally, when the war with Japan was over, you were going to liberate your hometown and make him the king of your hometown, but that’s a bit too far-fetched in terms of time. So I devised another way. Maria Theresia was also the queen of Bohemia, but if you were only the Archduke, I thought I would give you a spare crown…”
“Olga.”
She stopped talking and looked at me.
“Are you okay?”
“……”
Then she looked out the window.
You can see the chilly blue sky of Moscow.
“The human heart is not like the heart.”
“If that were the case, I would rather have passed it on to me in the first place.”
At least I’m used to swearing. As long as I’m sure I’m right, it’s sometimes necessary to plug my ears and push.
I have that certainty, I don’t know ‘why’ I was chosen, or for what purpose the one who called me here called me.
But, whether it be a god or a demon who summoned me to this place, I have no intention of always doing what they want. If what I do ultimately conforms to their will, it is unavoidable.
At least as long as I live, I won’t live as someone’s puppet. I have free will, and I will live solely according to my will, according to the goals I have set.
Therefore, I act, and I have no fear because I predict the consequences of that action.
But she is a different story. She doesn’t know the future, so she’s not sure about her actions.
You can’t ignore everyone who insults you, put a bullet in the foreheads of those who spit in your face, and crush those who lie on the road into a caterpillar.
Therefore, she can become a saint, but not an iron-blooded lord.
No matter what kind of reforms are made, there are reactionaries that follow them. If you can’t overcome them, you can’t even reform.
Of course, people can change. There are no people who change all the time. She too, this situation would not have been possible if she had been the woman of the past.
“I didn’t know I was so greedy.”
“……”
“Are you angry at first? Then I just had to give up, I thought so, but it didn’t work out the way I thought it would. Then I heard the story, and a little… I did it my way.”
What should I answer, no, I am hoping for an answer.
“Yeah, should I say I did it? I just did it, I did it my way. It’s not that I didn’t know that I was going to be cursed, but… I thought it would be a bit sad if I even cursed at you, that’s all.”
She continued with a shadow on her face.
“It’s okay though, because we reconciled, and because we made a promise. Even if it’s impossible to completely go back to the way it used to be, I’ll be able to walk somehow. Tomorrow… it will be better than today.”
***
Time passed quickly.
Some said that they were going to promote a new light cruiser project equipped with six twin 6-inch guns and heavily armed with 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, and they fought with the momentum to fight while holding the head of an opponent who no longer had a head to fall off. After breaking the budget, I wrote about what a light cruiser was, and when I saw the displacement, was it a heavy cruiser or a light cruiser?
Someone was finally reviewing and signing the execution order, someone was plotting a sinister plot to take over the blue-chip American Hollywood studios, and someone was GRU! shouted OPEN UP! in Russian.
So the time has come.
February 16, 1919.
It was the first day my wedding was scheduled, both in my previous life and in this life.
***
The wedding of the imperial princess of a great power. It goes without saying that if it is a wedding of a person in power who is practically an empress, it does not end with a domestic event.
Besides, when it comes to weddings, it’s common for relatives to appear… There’s no way anyone doesn’t know, but European royal families are all relatives.
Therefore, it was inevitable that guests from all over the world would come.
Diplomats flocked to the United Nations General Assembly to the extent that I thought it would not be like this, and there were many cases where the heads of state took their own steps.
Of course, there are some countries that our side unofficially requested that we attend in the first place.
Thanks to you, I was hesitant to receive various guests.
“grandee.”
“your majesty.”
“…Yes, you have grown a lot.”
“Your Majesty has changed a lot, too.”
After being imprisoned in Yekaterinburg for a year, the tsar returned to health not long ago by train.
But it felt like something had changed. I wondered if that was the person I knew.
“Before I came here, I was forced to visit St. Petersburg for a while.”
“sorry.”
“I’m sorry, I have to say I’m sorry.”
Nicholas II shook his head and looked at me.
“I don’t know when I grew up like this, and the guy I picked up at that time is big enough to put Russia on a rock and snatch my daughter.
The Tsar, who spoke in a slightly remorseful voice, continued to speak softly.
“I look old too.”
“Your Majesty is still correcting.”
“No, I have a feeling from my stay in St. Petersburg and Moscow, something is not right.”
When I gave him a look of incomprehension, Nicholas II answered.
“Don’t try to tell me what that feeling is, because the later you know, the better.”
“your majesty.”
“I came back to the place where I had lived all my life, but I felt like a foreigner. Perhaps, on the contrary, I was forced too much.”
His reign ended in 1917.
Now, the timeline itself has changed, but maybe he himself knows it, or…
“It’s the child’s time, I was a little angry that he tried to take power by making my sister cry…”
“Have you met Nikolai?”
It has been over two months since I have not been able to visit Tatiana. Of course, I didn’t even meet Nikolai.
“I came to hug you. He cried as soon as he saw my maternal grandfather, you filthy bastard.”
Tsar shook his head.
“This is the last year.”
“The word…”
“After the wedding, I will announce my abdication. If I had decided earlier, I would have been able to hold the coronation together, but after I came to attend the wedding, I was convinced.”
It was difficult to understand what had happened in the meantime, but I remained silent.
In fact, if that yangban had insisted on regaining power, it would have been the same for both me and Olga, so it was rather fortunate.
“it’s okay. After all, the coronation ceremony had to be held separately.”
“Is there anything else?”
“It’s because of the marriage issue. Olga saved me a crown.”
“Crown?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s a ghostly marriage… Your hometown is a little difficult right now, is it the Czech Republic?”
“Well, yes. There is a problem of succession rights, but as a treaty, it was supposed to be passed on to the royal family… When I get married, I am of the royal family, but I want to get the crown to get married, but I can have it after I get married, so it’s a bit troublesome.”
“What is it, after getting married and before having children, the coronation ceremony can be held. Wasn’t the right to succession a problem in the first place?”
Easy to say, usually not a problem. Right now, the Czechoslovak side has not only received a lot of complaints, but after threatening and soothing them, the coronation ceremony was finally confirmed in the form of enthronement with the recommendation of Russia and the consent of the Czech people.
As it was quite unprecedented, there were quite a few anti-protests, but once in a while, they were enforced.
“Nicky.”
Then, a voice was heard.
“Billy?”
Nicholas II, with a very startled expression on his face, strode closer to him and embraced him.
“How much is this!”
“Haha, hasn’t there been a position in the meantime, ah, Grand Duke, congratulations on your wedding?”
“thank you. majesty.”
Wilhelm II laughed wildly, saying that after his abdication he was locked up in a corner of the castle and no one was seeing him, but he did not know when he came out.
“But when will His Majesty…”
“Oh, my sons and daughters are going, so I can’t not go.”
Wilhelm III did not come directly because it was difficult to leave the country due to chaos. Instead, I sent my two younger brothers, but my father seemed to have sent them as well for fear of lowering the rank.
“From next year onwards, we will be able to live as before, while the emperor is still in power, or after the abdication of the emperor, he’s not just a member of the royal family.”
“Have you decided? I think our era has ended with the last great war, isn’t it now the age of young people?”
The two laughed and chatted as if they were old friends.
“By the way, didn’t I say that I grew sweet potatoes?”
“Oh, that’s it? It’s ruined, the cold wind blows once, uh…”
I let the two of them have a conversation and slowly fell in, then I tilted my head.
No matter how much I thought about it, nothing was going to change that yangban, what is it?
***
“I’m glad I don’t have to get blood on my hands.”
“That method worked.”
“It worked, but anyway, I’m glad it really worked, I took a breather, I was going to try suicide if it really didn’t work out.”
“Yes?”
“Even if you don’t die on the spot, if the death of one person is directly related to the death of the murderer, and if you kill someone knowing that, that is companion suicide.”
To say that it was a joke, the other person was a person who was far from a joke.
As if he had even read the thought, his purple eyes turned to the other person.
“Did you think it was a joke?”
“……!”
I couldn’t even unconsciously deny it. Like a rat in front of a predator, like a prey in front of Medusa, his tongue just stiffened.
“What is the significance of our existence, is there any need to re-tell?”
“no.”
“Always think and act.”
The agent, stiff enough to say yes, I see, almost collapsed on the spot as soon as the purple gaze passed him by.
It felt like a cobra swept past my ankle.