Reborn As The Wretch

CHAPTER TWENTY

I woke up from my slums early in the morning. Merry is already preparing my garments. She changed my clothes and even styled my hair

"Would you like to wear your ribbon?" She asks

"Yes, please." I responds

I don't really like ribbons, but with Evaine's physique, the red ribbons made her eyes stands out.

After we finished, we directly went to the dining room to have breakfast

"Lovely morning to you, Evaine," as usual, the queen gave me a kiss in my forehead, "You look more gorgeous today~"

"Same to you, your majesty,"

"Oh..." She sat down in her chair, "Uhm, so, how's yesterday's class?"

"I bumped into someone, she's from Gibbethon Empire,"

"Oh dear, did she do anything to you?" She asks, worriedly

"No, she didn't do anything to me." I replied, "But, why did she hate our kingdom?"

"Gibbethon Empire and Mortimer Empire has a very interesting history. You see, Evaine, Gibbethon Empire is our greatest nemesis in this timeline, however, back in the day, when Queen Vahnim St. Mortimer Labrith was ruling the empire, she has an agreement with the Gibbethon Empire, that all the products we have shall be traded to their empire, and what products they have shall also be traded to our empire. Both empires are rich in minerals, silks, and especially golds. However, King Raphe McDaniel Gibbethon was blinded by the golds we have in our empire and that he send his people to secretly invade and mine in our caves to take the gold for himself. It caused economic crisis in our empire for years, a lot of aristrocats are complaining about the low quality of our products and miners are dying after inhaling lots of coals from mining for 24 hours, but unfortunately, didn't find any golds. Queen Vahnim finally settled her mind and scheduled a meeting for both empires. King Raphe played the victim and denied all the allegations about him sending his people in our empire to steal the golds. For days, Queen Vahnim sends her trustworthy people to investigate at the mining area everyday, from dawn to midnight, and there it is, one of her people saw the Gibbethon Empire's miners stealing a lots of gold in the cave and runs away with it. Five of them was caught and tortured until they admitted King Raphe's plan. They were sentenced to prison, however, Queen Vahnim thought it would be a fair punishment if they leave all the prisoners behind the castle walls where the water comes in and feed their body to the rats, alive. Frightened, the three prisoners tried to escape but Queen Vahnim already tightened the security so none of those happened again. The queen broke off the agreement between the empires and that causes a drastic downfall for Gibbethon Empire. They declared a war against the Mortimer Empire. The war between our empires caused thousands of our people die, even the local citizens were dying because of starvation. They bombed the town square and set fire to the commoners' slums. King Raphe was enrage after he received the news that most of his knights are defeated in the war. Because of this, they immediately forfeit from the war, but they swore that they'll come back and take their revenge once again. The war lasted for three consecutive years."

Ah, I read that part inside Queen Vahnim diary back in my room years ago, but I forgotten about it.

"What if they come back soon, and declare war again?" I asks

"Don't worry, for years, after the war happened, Queen Vahnim did her best to provide a scholarship for aspiring knights and trained them. Until now, that scholarship still continues. We have trained hundreds of thousands of knights throughout the years, some are retired and some died because of old age, but still there's a lot of young aspiring knight in this generation. That's the reason why we have a school for them. Commoners and noblemen are welcome in that school."

"Hmm, I see,"

"Eat your breakfast, it's a long ride to Solomon Institution from here. You need to have some energy inside your body,"

I don't think I can eat. After hearing such bloody story from Queen Vahnim's reign, I can imagine the five miners' body being eaten by the rats.