Today, Ptolemy's royal city was more lively than ever. It seemed to echo the Pharaoh's birthday banquet from not long ago. It was taking place at a different time, but in the same place—and it carried an entirely different meaning for the Sanghai Empire.
Not everyone in the Sanghai Empire supported Frelle's impending accession as Pharaoh Queen. There were conservatives everywhere, after all, and the Sanghai Empire had been ruled by men for the past thousand years. But those who could see past the turbulent surface of the empire's recent upheavals and glimpse the truth beneath knew that this was the best possible outcome.
If Queen Frelle did not ascend the throne, then it would fall to the rebels. Judging by the cruel and foolish decisions those people had made during the counterinsurgency, how could anyone expect a good life if they took power?
No matter how unconventional Queen Frelle was, she would never do something as insane as feeding her subjects Chaos poison, would she?
The Piriig family pharaoh's crime of using his own people's lives to secure victory had already spread throughout the empire, thanks to the propaganda efforts of the institutions under the Pharaoh Queen. That one act, which crossed every moral line, was enough to push the vast majority of the people into the Pharaoh Queen's camp. The people might be short-sighted, but they weren't fools. They knew perfectly well that following a scoundrel like that could never bring them a better life.
Back when Her Majesty Frelle was still the imperial princess, this "most beautiful woman in the thousand-year history of the Sea of Sand" had been known to her people for her gentle and virtuous image. Her reputation only seemed lacking when compared with that of previous pharaohs. In truth, Her Majesty Frelle had