Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 980, page 08.979: 'Yadwiga's Background'

After the 1st Battalion of the 13th Dragoon Brigade took over and controlled the camp, the Holy Rose Sisters on tanks and the warship chemical defense unit quickly carried out emergency health sorting, disinfection of epidemic sources and diseases, and isolation and treatment of patients in the entire camp in accordance with standard procedures.

The healthy people were taken to a nearby flintlock regiment camp that had been cleared out.

There, they found temporary rest areas, as well as clean drinking water and food.

While this eased some people's tension, it did not completely lower their guard.

Because of the Sintila's previous actions, these civilians became unusually passive and timid, instinctively refusing to make contact with any soldiers.

But a small incident greatly eased the tension—the Polaberian people, who also had horse ears, spoke cautiously with the ODT soldiers who also had horse ears.

After learning about their new identities and the nature of their units, many people gradually lowered their guard.

Horatio had come to the camp with the intention of recruiting soldiers from this healthy and robust population.

These people were all commoners of the empire who could afford third-class tickets, even the cheapest kind, which in itself served as a screening process—were out those gang members from the lower realms who were of questionable character.

Most of them are ordinary people who have worked as laborers or done odd jobs.

Although they weren't exactly top-tier soldiers, they were enough to solve his immediate crisis, and he was already satisfied that he didn't have to recruit a bunch of spoiled brats and thugs.

"Many of these people are immigrants from Polaberia. Wandering all over the galaxy, such large-scale migration and wandering is far too frequent from any perspective."

The Ministry of the Interior does not want large-scale free movement of the population under its jurisdiction.

"Why is it that the population of this planet moves around so frequently?" Horatio asked Jadvig in the temporary barracks office, while reviewing the data on the huge discrepancy between the materials that should have been stored and those that actually were.

"While we still have some time, tell me about this planet and your family, citizen."

I carry a promise on my shoulders. A promise concerning Polaberia, the Waddisław knightly family, and the whereabouts of a missing High Princess. I know it might be presumptuous to inquire about the past of an ancient family, but we are now comrades in arms. This matter is extremely important to me.”

“My surname is Rana, Captain Citizen.” The female colonel looked out the window at the dilapidated refugee camp, her mind preoccupied, and asked, “I don’t recall ever mentioning anything about the Władysław family to you. Where did you hear this information?”

"You might not believe it, but in the Storm Starfield at the southernmost tip of the galaxy, I met a member of the Wadsław family."

A knight now belonging to the 'Free Blade' is named Bayar. He and his wife travel the galaxy, fighting their way back to the Misty Starfield to find their family's missing High Princess and revive their knightly lineage.

Horatio carefully examined the colonel's back: "The information I have so far is that the High Princess who went missing during the war was very young at the time, only in her teens or twenties."

She also has the distinctive horse ears of the Polaberia, and she has received systematic knightly military training.

I always felt that these characteristics matched you very well.

Horatio's hints were quite obvious; he was practically pointing his finger at her and saying it outright.

Upon hearing this, the female colonel chuckled softly, but her smile was filled with an indescribable bitterness.

“I’m sorry, Captain Citizen, I am not the person you are looking for.”

"Really?" Horatio asked in disbelief.

"It's true. The person you're looking for is actually my mother."

The female colonel made a startling statement.

? !
???

Horatio was completely dumbfounded.

He thought he was looking for a young girl in the prime of her youth, but he never expected to find a married woman. The huge difference between his expectations of being the "Supreme King of Young Girls" and the "Supreme King of Married Women" left Horatio feeling overwhelmed and momentarily at a loss for words.

"Wait, you mean the High Princess is your and Brigadier General Rana's... mother??? Then... where is your mother now?"

"She passed away."

"What? She's dead?!" Another bombshell exploded in Horatio's mind.

Oh no, has my solemn promise to the Knights of the Free Blade failed just like that?

The colonel's expression became particularly serious when she discussed this topic:
"The first Great Tooth Disaster happened sixty years ago."

In that frenzied invasion by the Greenskins, the knights of Polaberia fought a fierce battle against the Greenskin army, but ultimately suffered heavy losses due to being outnumbered, and the planet was on the verge of falling.

The then-Supreme King, who was also my maternal grandfather, died a heroic death in battle.

"At a critical moment of life and death, my mother, as the High Princess, had to accept the harsh conditions proposed by the then-Governor of the Sector for a political marriage with a high-ranking noble of Sintila in order to seek help from Sintila, the capital of Calithis."

The colonel's gaze drifted into the distant distance, her thoughts seemingly returning to that bygone era: "Ultimately, among a group of undesirable men, my mother chose to marry into the Rana family. My father was one of the most famous generals in Sintila at the time, on par with General Nansutti."

But he… he was excessively old-fashioned and conservative. He believed that women should not participate in warfare, much less politics.

My mother was forced to withdraw from the front lines, leaving behind her beloved knight mech, and was imprisoned in a magnificent, golden tower boudoir filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers.

From a dashing imperial knight mech pilot, I became a canary imprisoned in a cage. Then came my brother. A few years later, I came too…”

"But a serious medical accident occurred during my delivery."

Although the emergency surgery ultimately saved my daughter's and my lives, she could no longer walk, and naturally could no longer control that heavy knight mech.

And so, she was forced to live day after day in that high tower far from the front lines, leading a life of isolation from the world.

"When I was five years old, after Polaberia finally paid a bloody price and achieved a devastating victory, she longed to return to her home planet."

However, the then-governor of the sector, Hax Mario, on the grounds that the House of Vádizław had perished, ordered the stripping of Polaberia's political rights as an independent knightly world, and thereafter it continued to exist as a colony of Sintira.

My mother protested vehemently after learning the news.

She believed that as long as she, as the supreme princess, lived, the Wadsław family would not perish.

However, tragedy struck at that moment. She struggled to climb down the high tower stairs, but accidentally fell down the circular staircase, her head hitting the marble handrail hard, and she lost consciousness on the spot.

Fortunately, a maid found the wheelchair left on the roof by the lady of the house. When she went downstairs to look for her, she found her seriously injured and unconscious in the stairwell.

Although she survived after being rescued, the immense psychological trauma from the unacceptable news, along with the physical injury to her head, caused her to become... insane.

After having two children, my father had long since lost interest in and care for her.

He focused all his attention on training my brother Jean Lannes into an outstanding general, thereby securing greater power for the family in the Sintira military and politics. He never visited her again.

Finally, when I was fifteen years old…

As the colonel spoke, tears welled up in her eyes: "My poor mother, the noble and glorious princess of the Imperial Knight family, hanged herself on a golden beam."

Therefore, Captain, I am not the person you are looking for. The person you are looking for has left this world full of suffering forever.

(End of this chapter)