Imperator: Resurrection of an Empire-Chapter 423 - 418 - Even an Emperor

The months that followed were... quiet.

Not peaceful—an empire like mine never truly knew peace—but orderly in a way that almost felt alien after years of crisis layered atop crisis.

Reports still arrived daily, borders still needed watching, and Root never truly slept.

Yet for the first time since Romanus had been more than an idea and a banner, there was no avalanche waiting behind every door.

The backlog was gone.

I sat in my office one morning staring at an empty corner of my desk where towering stacks of parchment had once threatened structural collapse, and for several long seconds I simply... didn’t know what to do.

Serena noticed immediately.

"That look," she said from the nearby window seat, quill paused mid-scratch. "Your plotting something arent you."

I leaned back in my chair and exhaled slowly. "You make it sound like a bad thing."

"No," she replied, lips curling into a knowing smile. "I make it sound like you’re about to do something irresponsible."

I closed my eyes. "Define irresponsible."

Her quill resumed moving. "Does it involve leaving the capital?"

"...Possibly."

Serena stopped writing.

Slowly, deliberately, she turned to face me. "Julius. Your not planning to leave the country are you?"

I opened one eye. "No, at least not at this time."

She rose from her seat, walked across the office, and leaned her hands against my desk. "You are the emperor of a continent-spanning empire, not a wandering mercenary."

"Correction," I said mildly. "I am both. I’ve just been doing a terrible job at the second one lately."

She studied me for a long moment, searching for the edge of recklessness or escape.

What she found instead was restlessness.

"You’re bored," she said flatly.

I grimaced. "I prefer the term understimulated."

Serena sighed, straightened, and folded her arms. "And what exactly are you planning?"

I waved a hand, and the system interface flickered into existence—this time not a battlefield overlay, but rather nearby provincial domains nearest to the capital.

Provinces that specifically encompassed;

Former South Lunan Kingdom.

Former Roserun territories.

These had since months, no rather years ago become Romanus territories, and yet a proper scouting has not been done of these territories...

Though aside from Berthaquin itself, and the abandoned Aquitania no other current Romanus regions had been properly scouted.

However what was being scouted wasnt something any commoner could locate, scouts were active across the empire, looking for resources like Mining sites, suitable lumber deposits, wild animals that could be roped into ranches for raising and slaughter.

But for me, i was looking for the secret.

Ancient vaults containing the power of the old Roman Empire itself.

Aside from the vault beneath the Aquitanian manor, and the one found here in Berthaquin, or rather Latinium, only two other Vault had been found in Greecia, and Francia.

That amounted to four total vaults however the complete number of these vaults was a true unknown.

When playing the game the number depended upon the difficulty setting chosen by the player upon starting a new game.

Easy difficulty provided the greatest number of these sites, but now that this was reality, Julius was unaware of the total number, not to also mention that the other national leaders could also be hunting these vaults down using handed town legitamate tokens similar to the ’Royal Ring’ previously used by the Roserun royal family to open their treasury.

Just from the known scattering of vaults Julius theorized it was safe to assume there was probably greater than 50 total vaults the world over.

"Scouting," I said. "In person."

Serena blinked once.

Then twice.

"You want to leave the capital," she said slowly, "to personally scout?"

"Yes. I’m looking for ruins related to my ancestors the Emperors of the old empire."

"...That are technically within your empire."

"Yes."

"...Under the justification that you used to do this sort of thing in another life and miss it."

"Yes."

She stared.

Then—unexpectedly—she laughed.

Not polite laughter.

Real laughter, shoulders shaking, one hand rising to cover her mouth.

"Oh," she said when she finally caught her breath. "Oh, Julius. I was wondering how long it would take."

I frowned. "For what?"

"For you to realize that ruling isn’t enough for you," she replied. "I’ve seen the spark in your eye since our very first meeting, and each day you spend here doing nothing but processing paperwork or commanding from afar, the light dimmed a little more."

I could only laugh as she said this, since i knew in my head the dimming was coming as internal complaints about returning to my former role as a wage slave only without the wage.

She joined in my laughing, before then added lightly, "Yuri already got her turn, didn’t she?"

I coughed. "That was... different."

"Was it?" Serena asked, arching an eyebrow. "Or was that the last time you let yourself just exist in the world instead of hovering above it like a god?"

That... hit closer than I liked.

I looked back at the map, fingers tracing the border of the former Roserun Kingdom.

Lands Yuri had once ruled as a Princess.

Lands that even years later still carried some of the scars of their war with the fallen Bridget Kingdom.

Then northward, into former Lunanese territory, where my ’homeland’ had once stood arrogant and proud as one of the top five large nations of the world.

The mentioned vault by Serena was the time i went and met with the Praetorians who lived as eternal guardians, this was also the first time i refered to Yuri as my fiance, though at that time it was merely in jest.

Only that story had long since become the most repeated story during the two’s girl talk that occured almost every single day.

The jealousy of that moment was one that lingered in Serena’s heart until now.

"And me?" Serena asked.

I looked up at her.

"I want you with me."

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she walked back to her chair, sat down, and folded her hands in her lap like she was about to receive a formal proposal.

"Explain," she said.

I took a breath.

"You’ve helped me run the empire," I said "No it could be said you kept it running even when i was away at war, it’s only fair you get some much needed time off, so what better way to spend that time than travelling around our Empire with yours truely?"

I gestured to the map again. "These lands were integrated through war and diplomacy. Some willingly. Some... not. But in all the time i’ve spent as their legal ruler, i have not gotten the chance to look for remnants of my inheritance, and this are core territories so the risk is minimal while the return should something occur is likewise short."

Serena’s gaze softened, but sharpened at the same time.

"And the vaults?" she asked.

I smiled faintly. "Are just an excuse."

She huffed. "I thought so."

Silence settled between us, comfortable and thoughtful.

Finally, Serena stood again.

"If we do this," she said, "We’ll be doing so on a schedule, a limit of how long of a ’vacation’ we’ll be taking before we return, finding a vault or not."

And so over the next few days our plotting in secret continued until the day formally arrived when the Emperor and one of his future Empresses vanished from the city.

Of course those at the highest level of government knew and accepted that the Emperor had gone on a little reprieve with one of his fiances as a sort of vacation to strengthen the bond between then, while enjoying a little time off from... well everything.