With that, the plan was made to spread the word about the council that would be made up of ordinary citizens to do better in the empire, which was still something unbelievable to Orsen, so much so that when Daisy finally walked out of the meeting room, he just closed his eyes and leaned back, thinking this is all a dream, that it couldn't be possible.
But in fact, it was happening. The empire was deemed not to fall but to change… but for that, one thing was needed. The people to listen, which was the one thing that Orsen feared the most.
What if they don't listen? What if the nobles have already influenced them that much? What if a rebellion truly breaks out and thousands, if not millions, die in that battle?
There were so many things on his mind, but one thing was sure… he needed to do one thing. To trust not just Daisy, but trust the people that they will make the right decision,
Meanwhile, Daisy was kind of stressed as she left the meeting room because she realized that what she had just done, or moreover, her morality started to come to the surface.
"Executing them." She whispered as she walked down the hallway, down the stairs, and out to the grand garden of the palace.
It was full of flowers and trees and in the middle stood the big statue of the Imperial Family, where she stopped to look up at her father's statue.
"But it's just a game, isn't it?" She asked as she stared at the statue, at the way the stone showed his face and his clothes and the sword in his hand, and she kept telling herself that he was never real, the wars were never real, the people his father fought were never real, and all of it was just codes and lines in a game.
She still wanted to believe that everything around her was still only a game and nothing more.
But the more she looked at the sword and the more time passed, she realized that it was not a game anymore, not after what the System told her and not after everything she had done, and she felt the sun on her skin and the cold stone under her hand and she also felt her own thoughts fighting each other inside her.
She could feel her human sense of right and wrong pushing against what she was doing.
She wants to protect the people who are with her and she wants to keep them safe, but to protect them she also needs to fight and kill the ones who stand against them, and even if she does not fully believe these people are real, they still look and feel like real people to her.
They have families and people who care about them and they have their own lives and their own reasons for fighting, maybe because they feel betrayed or because they want the throne or maybe because they simply follow the path they know, but they are still humans in her eyes and she is the one ending their lives.
How funny is that… she has never fought anyone and never hurt anyone and has lived a normal life where everything is simple and peaceful, and then suddenly she becomes an Empress who can order deaths with only one word.
Any tips or are you just going to ignore me?
[System: Emotions are a weakness, a needless human burden. Believe what you want, whether it is a game or reality does not matter. What matters is that you do what you must do, build an empire.]
"Ahh yeah, build a… " She froze down, didn't even blink, didn't even take a breath, as she realized something strange. "System… you have been saying to build an empire… but there is already an empire."
[System: The game's main focus is building an Empire and I have been repeated many times. The Empire is deemed to fall.]
"What…?"
[System: The Empire is deemed to fall.]
Panic surged through her body, her heart pounding faster than ever before. "What do you mean by that?!" She shouted, raising her voice.
[System: The game back on Earth started as the Empire fell and from the ruins the players needed to build back up. The empire is deemed to fall, to accomplish the game and its meaning. To build an Empire.]
Daisy couldn't think straight, no, she couldn't even understand what the fuck the system was saying to her… what does it mean to be deemed to fall?
She didn't remember a single thing of it in the game, it started the same way, not even the same way, because it was a fucking strategy game and the Empire never fell… the goal was to build the empire bigger, the conqueror the land.
In the game there was no betrayal… no, there was… the Empress betrayed the nobles and the three kingdoms… slaughtering them and conquering their territory and uniting it as the Imperium.
The first chapter of the game, that the nobles and the king wanted to push her off the throne was true, but because they realized that the Empress, after her family, her mother, father, and the siblings died… blamed the nobles and the three kingdoms for setting them up.
That was the reason why they turned against her… because they saw her unstable… waging a war where millions could have died.
[System: It was all in the tutorial which you didn't listen to. They wanted you to step down the throne for the exact reason believing you are unstable, that's why they plotted against you. The servants of the place who are with you are only with you, because they made the oath for the empire for your family.]
"I don't remember any of this…"
"Your Majesty." A female voice suddenly came from behind her and when Daisy turned, one of the maids was there.
Her eyes were filled with rage and wrath, and her hand shook with the flint gun in it… yeah, those eyes were… the eyes of someone who had been failed.
"F-for the Empire!"
In that moment, Daisy felt the bullet sinking into her stomach, smelled the gunpowder, and finally the metallic scent of her own blood as it poured out of her… but it didn't matter whether she felt it or not, as her vision blurred and her body collapsed to the ground.
[System Notification: You have died.]
[System: Respawn in… 3… 2… 1]
What Daisy felt in that moment was first nothing… she was surrendered by the darkness, by the scent of blood, by the meaning of what had just happened… that she had been killed… and it felt so… absurd.
It felt strangely absurd to think that she had died… but even stranger than that was the fact that she was… alive.
It was as if it had all happened in a single second, and she was once again there… in the same room where she had thrown the chair and table, the same room where it had all begun.
[System: You have been successfully respawned.]
[New achievement earned: First Death]
"W-what… happened…" she whispered with her broken voice, as she just stared ahead, not moving even an inch… and then she felt it, felt the pain, felt it all.
[You died by assassination. The System respawn has been activated.]
But what followed wasn't panic, wasn't shock, wasn't trauma or anything like that… instead, a smile spread across her face… because she knew, no, she hoped for it. She hoped that there would be a respawn option, if there was one…
She would be unstoppable… she will be unstoppable.