The year was 1381. Azalia was embroiled in a civil war.

In 1380, The Emperor went on a campaign to conquer the Parah desert in the east. He was never heard from again.

His Empresses, all 5 of them, were tangled in a war for the throne. 3 of the Empresses desired the throne. The other 2 Empresses. However, 3 of the Empresses needed the other 4 Empresses dead. All 5 Empresses could no longer coexist with each other.

Each Noble had their own Empress they supported. Each soldier had their own Empress to fight for. Each citizen had their own Empress they favored.

And they hate each other.

It has been only 4 months since the Emperor was officially declared dead.

It only took 4 months for the first battle to begin.

In 4 months, one of the 4 Empress was dead.

4 months since the Emperor is dead, Azalia only has 4 Empresses left.

***

Lorenzo Daccati was a citizen of Cresna, a port city located southeast of Azalia Sea.

He enlisted as a soldier in 1380 for Duke Aldo Leo Cresnatine, a local ruling noble. His reason for enlisting; because inheriting his father's tailor workshop seemed lame.

At first he wanted to join the Emperor's expedition. He heard stories from the town criers, that the Emperor of Azalia, Your Imperial Majesty Alexandross Casio Thenebros Azali, was drafting soldiers for his expedition. The criers also mentioned that the expedition will make a pit stop on Cresna before heading to the Parah desert.

Lorenzo imagined winning Gold, Glory, and Girls if he joined the expedition. Thus, when he saw a bunch of soldiers recruiting, he immediately enlisted. Unbeknownst to him, he was enlisting in the wrong army. He enlisted as Duke Aldo's city guard, not as the Emperor's expedition force.

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Duke Aldo was worried that the Emperor leaving his Empire would result in deteriorating public order. As a precautionary measure, he expanded his city guards garrison.

At first, the Duke was expecting around 50 men to enlist,100 if he was lucky. To his surprise, around 300 young men enlisted as his new guards. What he didn't know was that most of these 300 men, including Lorenzo, were actually planning to join the expeditionary forces.

Lorenzo and the 300 other men learned later that the Emperor was not requisitioning any soldier from Duke Aldo. So even though they were in the region, the expedition wasn't recruiting anyone from Cresna. To their dismay and to the Duke's pleasure, Cresna now had a garrison of 4300 men strong.

Lorenzo was now a city guard. There was no glory to be found. The gold was decent. But the girls loathed him. City guards were not popular. The worst part, it was boring. More boring than tailoring. Inheriting dad's workshop didn't seem so bad now.

2 months after being a guard, Lorenzo heard the news. Azalia heard the news. The expedition was wiped out. The Emperor, missing.

Lorenzo was lucky. The boring guard duty no longer felt as bad as before. Boring as it was, at least he was alive.

Not even half a year had passed since he was a guard, a battle broke out. An Empress was dead. Azalia was in a civil war. And worse, Duke Aldo's daughter, Empress Adelina Leo Cresnatine Azali, as her title suggests, was an Empress.

To protect her daughter from the other throne hungry Empresses, Duke Aldo raised an army. It had only been half a year since Lorenzo mistakenly signed up as a city guard, now he was officially a soldier. Suddenly, inheriting dad's workshop seemed like a great idea.

***

Half a year had passed. Azalia was still in a civil war. The only thing different was that now it had a name.

The aristocrat called it "War of the Empresses''. The peasant called it "Battle of the Bitches". Future historians called it the former.

Lorenzo was lucky. Empress Adelina was not one of the Empresses lusting for the throne. While the refugees had reached Cresna, the war hadn't. So even though he was a soldier, he never fought in any battle.

But his life was changed. Before, his life consisted of lazily doing his morning training, boring guard duty all day, and doing a military drill once a month, if the captain wasn't lazy enough to cancel it.

Now, he was building fortifications all day, guard duty all night, and drilling whenever Duke Aldo felt paranoid, which happened almost everyday.

And the boring guard duty was no longer boring. Fights broke out inside and outside the city. Every day, every hour, every time. Citizens fought refugees, soldiers fought mobs , and drunk people fought even drunker people.

Crimes ran rampant. Lorenzo used to be excited whenever he needed to chase a pickpocket. Now, he was sick of chasing thieves.

And those crimes were just an annoyance to him. The dangerous ones were the organized ones.

He heard stories of a murderer, who killed 3 guards when cornered. He saw the body of a fellow guard, who was burned to death by a gang. He knew of a friend, who took a bribe from a bunch of smugglers, spilled too many secrets when drinking. Now he disappeared. Smuggled to a faraway place, if he was lucky.

Lately, he wished he just inherited his father's workshop back then. But now, that didn't seem possible anymore. His father's shop was not doing well. People didn't buy clothes during war time. They only had the military as a customer, and their pay was dirt cheap. If the war continues to rage on, his father's shop might not survive the harsh economy.

The future looked bleak, and the military sucks. He could not desert. The people of Cresna loved their Empress, and they hated deserters. He could not hide in his hometown.

He could not leave Cresna. He never left Cresna and the war raged heavily outside Cresna. He didn't know where to go and there was nowhere to go.

Recently, Lorenzo had been contemplating, should he shoot his foot, or not?