OR1-EP3: The Bloody Coat of Arms (3)

In the early 19th century of the A.T.B. Calendar, the United Kingdom was defeated in a war with the French Republic and was forced to flee to the North American colonies for shelter, settling its capital in the East Coast region. However, the United Kingdom and later the Britannian Empire always feared that the avengers from Europe would come to the New World to pursue their souls and claim their lives, and this fear drove them to keep invading and expanding to the west until they controlled all of North America. After that, the Empire built the new capital Pendragon in the west to honor King Arthur, who was known as the royal ancestor of the Britannian Empire. After more than a hundred years of development, the new capital gradually became prosperous, but there was still a large gap compared to Paris and Loyang. In this city, the emperor's authority was supreme, and no building could exceed the height of the palace, which led to a vicious circle in which no architect could increase the density of the population that could be accommodated through the construction of high-rise buildings, which ultimately led to the increasing size of the urban area of Pendragon. On his first day in Pendragon, McNeil witnessed a traffic jam of unprecedented scale. Officials of the Britannian Empire seemed happy to let the population travel halfway across the city to get to work, so that the citizens who spent hours a day traveling didn't have a chance to ruminate.

"This is stupid." McNeil shook his head and sighed.

"Just make it clear, most people would rather deal with traffic jams than nobility ... Nobility is a different creature." Father Alexandros Palaskas was eating breakfast and greeted McNeil, who was standing by the window, to come and eat as well, "We are attending a show today to introduce these noble lords to some new technologies and products that might be of use to them. I've heard you have a lot of whimsical ideas that might come in handy then."

"I don't really have any whims, it's all borrowed ideas from others ...," McNeil replied jitterily.

"Doesn't matter, they're only willing to believe what they want to hear. Nobody cares about the facts as long as the lies are good."

The EU Embassy and a number of local businesses also run an unseemly underground business: exile. Almost every year, Britannians chose to go into exile to the EU, some as commoners oppressed by the nobility, others as downtrodden aristocrats, and sometimes including even great nobles who had lost the struggle. If McNeil hadn't been tasked with a more dangerous mission, he would have liked to see how these exiles ended up in such a situation. It was reasonable to say that if one couldn't live a normal life in the Britannian Empire even if they were honestly doing their job, then I'm afraid that the order of the empire had already collapsed. Since the monarchy that occupied the entire new continent was still as stable as a rock, it must have its own unique way of doing things.

McNeil didn't like this kind of hypocritical occasion, and he didn't want to participate in this kind of activity. When Father Palaskas shoved him into a suit, he felt as if his ability to think had been stripped from him, as if the suit, which signaled his respectability, was the brains and he himself was a puppet doing what he was told. McNeil stiffened and circled the room a few times, turning to the priest:

"How about this getup? I feel awful ..."

"You look like a dummy used to hang clothes in front of a clothing store now." The priest laughed out loud, "McNeil, lighten up, this isn't going to war."

"However, I don't really understand what other occasions besides battlefields are supposed to be like." McNeil said bitterly.

"It's okay, everyone gets nervous at times. If you trust the Britannians, you can talk more with Duke of Breisgau, he's sort of a sympathetic person." Father Palaskas spoke up with a heavy dose of information, "Don't get me wrong, he's only a sympathizer too. We, the EU, are the only republic on this earth, and any other foreign friend who wishes to learn our theories and doctrines does so at the risk of worldly scorn, and sometimes at the risk of his own life."

"What has he done that is sufficiently sympathetic?" McNeil inquired with interest.

"Many. He has acquiesced in the exile of some of the nobles to us, and he has supported the constitutionalists in Britannia. Speaking of which, the emperor's power is nominally unlimited, but not many emperors in Britannia's history have actually enjoyed that power, and that's all because the power rests on the person." The priest sighed, "And this Charles III, I'm afraid he's a once-in-a-century overlord."

Feeling a bit stuffy in his suit, McNeil decided to go to the door. There were two flags hanging in front of the EU embassy, one with twelve stars on a blue background and the other with a white eagle on a blue background. The former symbolized the twelve republics that joined the EU when it was first established: the French Republic, the Italian Republic, the Republic of Naples, the Republic of Sicily, the Swiss Confederation, the Confederation of the Rhineland, the Republic of Batavia, the Commonwealth of England-Scotland-Ireland (later dissolved), the Republic of Dalmatia, the Republic of Ionian, the Republic of Prussia, and the Greater United States of Austria (later dissolved). The latter symbolizes all those ancient states that have attempted to reunite Europe in the name of Rome under the same flag since the destruction of the Roman Empire. McNeil stood under the flag and looked up at the two blue flags with a bit of bravado welling up in his heart. Washington had failed, and the United States of America had never existed, but the flames of revolt against the monarchy had finally been kindled in old Europe as the only remaining hope for the world of mankind. This earth should not be the private property of monarchs, McNeil had always believed that.

He continued onward to the other embassies next door. However, to McNeil's some disappointment and even annoyance, the bearded man who had gotten in his way yesterday suddenly appeared in front of him and bellowed at him to get his ass back to his embassy district. Not wanting to cause trouble for anyone else, McNeil simply chose to back off. He wondered why the bearded man was so happy to provoke others.

Around eight in the morning, McNeil decided to head to the venue. The venue was not far from the embassy and could be reached on foot in no more than two hours. When McNeil, dressed for traveling, appeared on the street, the passersby around him retreated as if they had seen the plague. McNeil easily saw the habitual fear in their eyes, a fear that could not be faked, it had penetrated deep into the bone marrow, becoming one of the laws of survival that most people had to keep in mind since birth. The commoners were the lackeys of the nobles, and the only way to be a lackey if they didn't want to be one was to die, or they could choose to go to the EU to make a living.

They were afraid of McNeil, afraid of all the labels he carried. This was a nobleman, a superior person unlike them, the commoners, and the commoners should distance themselves from them and show proper respect.

"They're pathetic." McNeil said to himself, and the priest on the side agreed.

"Can't blame them ... We have to be thankful we didn't have to learn to be lackeys from school." The priest's voice also seemed a bit frustrated, "The next great man of the age could have come from among these commoners, there could have been the next Bonaparte or Einstein ..."

"Didn't Einstein later go into exile to the Britannian Empire?" McNeil reminded him.

"Yeah, that was one of the few times in our EU history that was crazier than the Britannian Empire." The priest sighed.

Suddenly, piercing gunfire rang out ahead. Startled, the two men ran forward against the scattered and fleeing crowd, and soon turned to the scene of the accident. A middle-aged man in a tuxedo, holding a pistol in his right hand and resting his left hand on the side of the limousine, was angrily pointing and cursing at the young man lying on the ground. McNeil saw that the darker-skinned (but not all-black) youth was already red with blood underneath him, and saw that he was not going to live.

"You've ruined all of my joy of today." The middle-aged nobleman was still shouting and cursing, "Commoners are getting more and more arrogant these days ..."

From the shouting and cursing, McNeil understood the cause and effect of the matter. It turned out that the nobleman was running a red light and accidentally bumped into the youth who was passing by from the crosswalk. Originally, when encountering this kind of thing, it should be the civilians immediately backed down, but the youth not only did not retreat, but instead, he theorized with the nobleman, and as a result, he was shot dead on the spot by the angry nobleman. The surrounding civilians who were still on the sidelines were talking, all saying that this half-blood youth who didn't know the rules was considered to have died in vain.

"It's outrageous." McNeil became furious, "What hell is this? Nobles can just randomly kill any people?"

"Retreat!" The priest hastily dragged McNeil backward, "They will also arrest the criminal according to the rules ... only to be acquitted immediately, I have not heard of any nobleman who was really sentenced."

McNeil's heart is setting on a nameless fire, it cannot be suppressed, and is about to break free from the priest's block, but heard a side of someone shouted: "Right! Not to mention the nobles, the emperor can't randomly kill anyone at ease, let alone a foreign citizen."

McNeil fixed his eyes and it turned out to be the bearded man he had met with twice coming out of the crowd. Compared to the previous time, the bearded man was not wearing a long shirt, but was wearing a light blue military uniform, a large brimmed hat with a golden five-pointed star cap badge, and on his shoulders, there were two yellow lines sandwiching a white line shoulder insignia, which was embellished with three gold stars. What made McNeil feel a little funny was that this bearded youth not only had a long beard, but also had long hair like most of his compatriots, making this dignified appearance quite a bit of a misplaced sense of an ancient person wearing a suit.

The middle-aged aristocrat saw an officer in a foreign uniform come before him and asked in an unkind tone:

"Which one are you?"

"I'm Wang Shuang, the army military officer of the South Court Protectorate's Office in the Britannian Empire, and a colonel." The bearded officer who claimed his name was Wang Shuang said, "The one you shot dead was one of our staff. I hope you give a reasonable explanation, or else we expect the emperor to give a proper account."

The middle-aged noble wiped the sweat from his forehead and sneered:

"A dead civilian is just dead; will you still care about the death of a civilian? If you guys want compensation, I will pay out every penny."

"It seems that Your Grace is not clear about what situation you are facing." Wang Shuang also laughed, not knowing whether it was sarcastically at the other party's ignorance or mocking the nobles' self-righteousness, "Civilians? Let me tell you originally, this person is our South Court's hereditary Baron of the Second Grade, in terms of rank and treatment is even higher than me, this skin color of his is merely inherited from his birth mother, on what basis do you conclude that he is a commoner who is not worthy your own life?" Seeing that the other party was momentarily speechless, Wang Shuang pressed on, "I remember that according to your country's law, the intentional murder of nobles is always treated as a death sentence, I don't know what your title is that you would dare to kill a foreign baron in the street?"

As soon as the middle-aged noble heard this statement, he immediately broke out into a cold sweat. He merely had a knight title, and did not even have a legitimate knighthood affiliation, and on weekdays, he could only bully commoners based on the name of the feudal lord, but as a result, he really ran into a dead end today. He looked at the surrounding onlookers with fear and trembling, everyone's face was hung with indifference, these people don't care about the youth's death, also won't care about his life as a nobleman, they are just spectators after all.

"Wait, this matter should be left to the police!" The middle-aged aristocrat suddenly grabbed a life-saving straw, "We'll discuss it seriously when the time comes-"

Wang Shuang didn't reply, but instead drew his pistol from his waist.

"I can't trust them."

After saying that, he pulled the trigger without hesitation. The middle-aged nobleman with a stream of blood coming out of the back of his head fell on his back, struggling for a few moments before moving. The crowd then realized that they had witnessed another murder, and scattered in fear, leaving only McNeil and Father Palaskas at the spot.

McNeil boldly approached Wang Shuang and tentatively asked:

"Is this deceased really one of your nobles?"

"Is this even a lie? In addition to avenging this lord of ours ... " Wang Shuang took off his hat and put it on the side of the limousine, "I just can't stand to see this group of crazy dogs - you son of bitch just stop! " He pointed his gun at the driver who was about to flee the scene of the crime, "Your master will die here today all because you listened to his bullshit on weekdays, I think you are considered an accomplice." He grabbed the driver's collar like an eagle grabbing a chicken and yanked him back, "Before the police arrive, you will kneel here and kowtow to the two of them."

The driver didn't understand what Wang Shuang was saying at all, Wang Shuang was furious at the situation, kicked the driver over and stomped on his head, and couldn't stop saying under his breath:

"You should be disgusted with yourself, being the servant of such a person, obeying orders unconditionally, and in the end getting a good person killed for no reason, and getting your master killed as well - if I were you, I'd either take advantage of the night to kill such a heartless master with a single cut, or kill myself before it's too late to avoid causing trouble to others. "

McNeil looked at Wang Shuang, who was preaching to the driver, and only felt amused; he felt that this bearded man's image suddenly became less unpleasant. At least, despite the man's rough tactics, his views on certain issues were in line with his own. However, they still needed to go to that exhibition and could not delay their time here. The two of them bid farewell to Wang Shuang and hurriedly left the scene.

"It seems that chivalry still lives on earth." McNeil teased.

"However, in ancient stories, chivalrous paragons usually don't live long." The priest's reaction was very upsetting.

TBC.

Chapter Notes:

Although the Britannian Empire often feels like an absolute monarchy, it actually has a very complete legislature. According to the setting of Nightmare of Nunnally and the novelized versions of OZ the Reflection, the Upper House of the Britannian Empire's Parliament can depose the Emperor with 80% of its votes in favor.

New Character Introductions:

Wang Shuang

Chinese character: 王雙

Rank: Army Colonel (陸軍正參領)

Position: Military Attaché of the South Court Protectorate's Office in the Britannian Empire