Long Live the Emperor, Minus Me (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 165

“The cart was indeed put before the horse.”

I buried my face in my hands and let out a weary sigh. I had thought war was merely a means to an end, yet it turned out to be the very purpose itself.

“There’s no need to blame yourself so much.”

Your hand gently combed through my hair.

“Originally, war wouldn’t have been something you could choose at all.”

“Huh?”

“If things hadn’t unfolded as they did, a civil war would still have broken out. And if that civil war had happened, the surviving nobles’ private armies would have been absorbed into the royal forces. That would have made the military so large that war would have become the natural next step. After all, an excessively large army inevitably invites war.”

As I listened carefully to your words, a realization dawned on me.

“So that’s why you came to me….”

If you hadn’t incorporated the nobles without resorting to war, I never would have had the luxury of sitting quietly here, reassessing the situation and reconsidering my stance. There would have been no breathing room—civil wars would have followed one after another without pause.

I knew you despised war. I’d assumed you stayed to prevent civil war for your own sake—

Because you didn’t wish to witness war.

But it was the opposite.

Of course you hated war, yet the reason you remained here, posing as a suitor of ambiguous status to stop the civil conflict, was essentially for my sake.

To give me time to catch my breath. To allow me the chance to choose peace once and for all.

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