Why did that bastard Maro have to stand in my way over and over and over again?
Even I was finally fed up.
I’d take him behind the gym and… oh wait, he’s already dead.
The Grand Chamberlain’s monologue began.
"Tell me, who do you think allowed us clones to escape in the first place?"
Ah, I see. It was Maro.
"Back then, Mitsusada schemed to assassinate his father and seize the throne. He could no longer bear the thought of more fratricide. So, he released the experimental clones and turned them into his personal pawns."
Now that was a surprise.
To think Maro possessed enough intellectual capacity for something as advanced as ethics…
"However, my original blackmailed Mitsusada, who was his classmate at the Officer Academy at the time. Apparently, he had known of my existence and had been monitoring me from the start. They were teenagers. He likely intended to extort him."
A shocking fact was brought to light.
Maro was a senior at the Officer Academy. A literal Senior Maro.
What should I do… the Grand Chamberlain's story wasn't registering in my head at all.
"What is the matter?"
Seeing me visibly shaken and breaking into a cold sweat, the Grand Chamberlain seemed concerned.
My mind was now occupied by nothing but the fact that Senior Maro existed.
"Oh, yeah, right. Continue."
Both Melissa and Ren had turned pale. Their heads were likely filled with nightmares of Senior Maro as well.
"Y-Yeah. Cornered, Mitsusada ordered me to kill the original. I had Mitsusada lure the original out. Mitsusada was irritated. You see, I had sworn loyalty to Mitsusada. I was possessed by a sense of mission—I believed I had to make him into a strong Emperor. That is why I entrusted the murder of the original to Mitsusada."
Ah, uh, so Maro was a senior… and, uh, Maro killed the Grand Chamberlain’s original…
Wait, what? Isn't that a massive incident?!
But wasn't the original's neck snapped…?
"Yes… at that moment, Mitsusada awakened. To ESP. Do you understand what it means to awaken to ESP? The Imperial Family had long since intermingled with commoners. What 'noble bloodline'? Don't make me laugh. How are they any different from us clones?!"
He probably didn't know about the Fairy—Imperial Princess Luna—or the Elder.
Five hundred years ago, Espers had definitely entered the bloodline. And it was led by the Imperial Family itself.
In the first place, commoner blood would have been flowing in freely.
Even Ren, who was of the Beast Race, had a Duke for a father. Why did Blood Purists uphold such impossible ideals? It was a lost cause. Procreation is a biological instinct. Unless someone was as much of a picky eater as Maro, it was absolutely impossible to keep a line 'pure.'
"But… I did not abandon Mitsusada. I disposed of the corpse and took the original's place so the murder wouldn't be discovered. Even if I say so myself, I was a loyal subject. All of it was for the sake of a strong Emperor and a strong Empire! …But Mitsusada betrayed me. He dropped out of the Officer Academy and shut himself away in the Inner Palace. Instead of becoming a strong Emperor, he fled into affairs with his own parents and daughters. That is why I resolved to bring this Empire to an end."
His logic had swung from one extreme to the other. His life must have been incredibly stressful.
"I performed the Emperor’s duties in Mitsusada's stead. I stagnated the economy, sowed the seeds of rebellion on local planets, increased the power of the Duke Association, founded numerous anti-Imperial organizations and blood purist underground organizations, and fostered an atmosphere that discriminated against Espers and modification surgery users… and yet…"
Ah, I had a bad feeling about where this was going.
"No one—not a single person—started a rebellion!!! Not the Espers! Not the enhanced humans! Not the Duke Association! Not the local lords! Not the military! Even the citizens only started making a fuss after the Zorks destroyed half the planet!!!"
Well, yeah. They didn't have much money, but things were stable.
Even on my home planet, there were no industries other than agriculture and simple manufacturing, but we managed to get by. If someone was dissatisfied with their hometown, they could just go to the Empire to find work.
The basic systems of this Empire are rock-solid. The Fairy—the Mother AI—manages the infrastructure; if you're in economic trouble, you can just join the military to get fed; and thanks to technology that has reached its peak, medical care is cheap.
As far as the Imperial Capital is concerned, public order isn't bad either. It might be a shitty life, but it's a life. It's impossible even for an excellent person to overturn a system like that. Those things only happen during an external invasion, or if the citizens' level of civility has hit rock bottom and their lives are total garbage.
No matter how evil the Empire was, the Empire's system fed its people. Why would they flip the table?
Maro was the most foolish of fools, but unless they lost a war or the economy totally collapsed, a revolution was never going to happen.
"It was then that a woman claiming to be an agent of the Zorks appeared… She wanted to know about humans. So, I taught her. I handed over underground organizations in their entirety, gave her the list of Espers, and even told her which planets would be easiest to invade! Leo Kamishiro! I was also the one who leaked the Officer Academy practical training plan! The Zorks' objective is the lives of special Espers!"
"Huh? No, but my ESP test was negative… Wait. Did you just make a list of special users and leave them alone so they wouldn't manifest?"
Normally, I never would have awakened as a Jester. Was it because my fighting instinct was stimulated by fighting the Zorks…? Even if I did awaken, the Empire didn't really care. I was in the military, so they could manage me. From the Zork side’s perspective, it must have been a massive blunder.
"In exchange, I obtained this power! Now, fight, Leo Kamishiro! I shall make a blood sacrifice of the one who protects the Empire and drag the Empire's prestige into the dirt!"
"Eh?"
I stood there with my mouth hanging open, looking like a total idiot.
"I… have never once thought about protecting the Empire. I'm only fighting to protect my life with my wifeys."
Exactly. I was fighting for my own peace and the lives of my companions, not for the sake of the Empire. Helping my companions' families was a promise, nothing more.
The Empire's prestige? Huh? I’d been actively dragging it into the dirt by exposing its dark history for ages now. How many times had it been? I’d lost count of how much of the Empire's dirty laundry I'd aired out. By now, the citizens were thinking, "The higher-ups of the Empire were all bad guys, but since the next Emperor and her Lord Groom are doing their best, I guess we’ll let it slide!"
"Are you an idiot?! In the end, the one who was meaninglessly protecting the Empire was you, Grand Chamberlain! You should have just exposed the former Emperor's messes a long time ago!"
Since he was trying to change things from within the organization, it naturally turned out that way.
"Shut up! Someone like you could never understand the feelings of a clone!"
I was technically an ESPer who had been left alone too, you know.
"Stop rattling on and just come at me!"
I cracked my knuckles.
Ah, jeez, this was no good. The Grand Chamberlain and I were just too incompatible. Talking to him was just making me more and more irritated!!! (Muscle-brain)