Chapter 62
Chapter: 62
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 62
>Chapter Title: Sowing (6)
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Seongjin and his group arrived at the Pearl Palace after the sun had fully set.
Marquis Masain, who had been anxiously pacing while waiting for their delayed return, rushed out to the entrance before the carriage even came to a stop and began clamoring.
“What in the world happened, Your Highness? What on earth did you do to get escorted away by the capital guard?”
Even though it had been quietly settled, word still leaked out to someone of the former Guard Knight Commander’s stature.
Seongjin waved his hand tiredly.
“There was a slight misunderstanding with some foreigners. It’s all resolved now, so ask Lady Maria for the details.”
“…Pardon? Your Highness, I wasn’t told anything…”
Lady Maria, suddenly cornered by Marquis Masain, looked at Seongjin with a pleading expression.
Sorry, Lady Maria.
You’re perfect for it since you don’t know the details. Just gloss over it appropriately.
Perhaps because he’d skipped training, his shoulders felt heavier and stuffier than usual as he rolled them while walking. Then a cautious voice came from behind.
“Why did you do that, Your Highness?”
“…Hm?”
“Why didn’t you just tell them the truth as it happened?”
Turning around, he saw Lady Claudia looking at him with an unusually complex expression.
She’d been lost in thought without speaking the whole way back. So that’s what she’d been pondering.
“Now that I think about it, didn’t you say you studied Britannian, Lady Claudia? For studying abroad?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Though she couldn’t dare contradict a prince, Claudia had been on the verge of bursting with frustration because she couldn’t understand his actions at all.
In her view, Prince Moreth standing up boldly for the imperial family’s honor was certainly praiseworthy.
Shouldn’t he have just told the capital guard everything those Britannians had spouted? Then they wouldn’t have given him those stinging looks like, ‘That rascal’s caused trouble again.’
And not only that. They could have imposed a fairly severe punishment on those arrogant Britannians for insulting the imperial family.
“Is that so? Then you must understand most of it.”
Seongjin scratched his head for a moment.
“Hmm. How should I explain this? Even if I had told them, the chances of those guys getting proper punishment weren’t that high anyway.”
“Pardon? Why not?”
“That’s just how it would have turned out. Sure, Delcross and Brittany would have buzzed about it for a while, but in the end, they’d have been protected by Brittany and safely escorted back home. Any punishment would likely have been superficial and swept under the rug.”
Instead, in that process, the innocent victim Amelia would have ended up deeply wounded and battered.
“Better to quietly bury this and gain some other tangible benefit.”
“…Tangible benefit?”
Yeah. That’s why he hadn’t wasted time chatting idly with Prince Charles.
Seongjin gave a wry smile before continuing toward Claudia.
“Above all else.”
Claudia flinched involuntarily. In the prince’s sunken eyes meeting hers, she sensed an eerie pressure utterly unlike that of a boy his age.
“What those guys said about Lady Amelia—those words must never pass anyone’s lips again. I don’t want even a single word, not even a letter of it, recorded in any document.”
He didn’t want the clerk writing the report to record it, nor the superior to be informed.
He didn’t want the entire guard gossiping about it.
He certainly didn’t want it formalized in documents and sent to Brittany.
So this matter had to vanish as if it never happened.
“Got it? So you forget today’s events too.”
Ah. It’s all for Her Highness the Princess.
Claudia suddenly realized.
‘His Highness is willing to take the blame himself just to keep Lady Amelia from being talked about!’
Even if she didn’t fully buy his explanation about Brittany’s reaction, she clearly understood his desire to prevent any further slander against the princess.
Come to think of it, Prince Moreth hadn’t reacted at all when they called him a piglet. He’d only demanded a polite apology for calling the Holy Emperor a troublemaker and Lady Amelia lowly.
What selfless familial love!
“Your Highness…”
Claudia clasped her hands together and gazed at Seongjin with moist eyes.
‘How can he think so deeply! That occasional air of maturity beyond his years wasn’t my imagination!’
The more she learned, the more she felt rewarded in serving him!
She resolved inwardly to serve him faithfully in the Pearl Palace for years to come.
Of course, oblivious to her thoughts, Seongjin just wondered:
‘…Why’s she looking at me with those burdensome eyes again? Got hungry already?’
[Iseongjin, be honest. You have no intention of letting those guys off scot-free, right? What’s your scheme?]
Back in his room preparing for meditation, the Demon King—who’d been silent until now—spoke up suspiciously.
‘Scheme? What do you take me for? I don’t have any.’
Seongjin felt a pang of guilt but played it cool toward the Demon King.
[…Really? I doubt you’d just let it slide. Ah! You’re going to order an assassination? Lull them into complacency and slit their throats quietly from behind?]
‘Am I crazy? If something happened to them in Delcross, who’d be the prime suspect? Huh?’
Even if he struck the back of their heads, it’d be after the birthday celebration when they’d left Delcross!
[So you do plan to strike eventually?]
‘Well… I didn’t not think about it at first.’
Seongjin shrugged.
But then the perfect person stepped up to handle it.
Wonder if those guys will still have heads to hit later.
* * *
A mansion in the imperial capital’s townhouse district.
A tense chill hung over the luxurious mansion where Prince Rabujuri was temporarily staying during the birthday celebration—unlike its usual atmosphere.
The escort knights, led by the bowl-cut one, knelt uniformly before Charles, who sat with a hardened face and sealed lips, bowing their heads.
“We’ve committed a mortal sin, Prince Charles.”
“Please forgive us…”
“Hah!”
There was no trace of the childlike expression Charles had shown at the capital guard outpost—just icy disdain.
“As if your deaths would make today’s events vanish?”
At his frostbitten retort, the bowl-cut knight groveled even lower and stammered on.
“Th-the compensation we paid at the restaurant today… We’ll repay it without fail…”
“Fine. I’ll watch how much of that loss your pitiful salaries can cover. But that’s not the important part.”
The prince’s voice now trembled with rage.
“How dare you make me, Rabujuri, owe a debt to the Holy Imperial Family?”
“Debt? Th-that’s…”
“If not debt!”
Charles shot up from his seat, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“How dare you insult the Holy Imperial Family and the princess right in the heart of the capital! Every figure on the continent is racking their brains to draw that princess into a marriage alliance with their own country! If trash like you insult her, what happens? What becomes of Brittany’s position?!”
Unable to contain his fury, the prince began kicking the heads of several knights prostrated on the floor.
“If the Holy Emperor uses this as an excuse to reject our marriage proposal, who bears the blame? And if the princess truly becomes Brittany’s queen, what happens to the Rabujuri family’s standing? You lot—unless you meant to utterly destroy my face in the dirt—how could you?!”
The knights’ faces drained of color as they were helplessly kicked.
“He covered it up! If that’s not a debt, what is?!”
Finishing with a hard kick to one knight’s shoulder, Charles paused to catch his ragged breath. In that moment, the bowl-cut knight quickly tried to defend himself.
“Prince! It’s all a misunderstanding! Didn’t the prince say so earlier?”
“Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?”
“Well, the prince misunderstood our private joke…”
“You think that after seeing Prince Moreth’s Britannian skills? What could he possibly have misunderstood?”
“……”
“Did you think I was oblivious to your usual careless, irreverent behavior?”
Charles’s gaze upon the speechless knights grew icily cold.
He commanded the butler waiting deferentially behind him.
“Jean-Jacques. Send these fools back to Brittany immediately.”
“…Prince!”
“And report every detail of their crimes to my father. Confiscate their assets, throw them in the underground dungeon, sell them off to the Carthage salt mines for labor—whatever befits their guilt.”
Blood drained from the faces of the prostrated knights.
Having served House Rabujuri for years, they knew his words were no mere threat.
“Prince, please…”
“Just one chance to make amends!”
Though the knights begged and clung, they were soon seized by other knights at the butler’s signal and dragged out of the room.
“Princcee!”
Ignoring their desperate pleas, Charles issued his next order to the butler.
“Prepare gifts for the palace, Jean-Jacques. One each for the Holy Emperor, Princess Amelia, and Prince Moreth! The most lavish and sincere we can manage!”
“Yes, Prince.”
“And warn the entire entourage right now. They must keep their mouths shut tight during our stay in Delcross. Make sure they know exactly what punishment awaits those who speak carelessly about the Empire or the Holy Imperial Family!”
“Yes, I shall carry out your orders.”
The butler Jean-Jacques bowed politely and left the room.
Soon, only Charles and one remaining escort knight were left in the vast room.
Only then did Charles slump onto the sofa and take a deep breath. His boiling anger began to subside.
“I can only hope this satisfies him…”
He rubbed his throbbing temples and let out a deep sigh.
One of his informants sent to gauge the capital’s situation had witnessed the clash between the knights and Prince Moreth from the start and reported every detail to him.
Thanks to that, he’d been able to compensate at the restaurant and smooth things over at the guard outpost swiftly.
From the punished knights’ perspective, it was misfortune.
They’d just gossiped as usual, never imagining a Holy Imperial Family member fluent in Britannian would be right beside them!
Yet with Brittany’s royal family secretly pushing the princess marriage, publicizing this could have gravely endangered House Rabujuri’s position.
Prince Moreth’s sharp perceptiveness was fortunate and unfortunate for Charles in that sense.
He’d recognized the issue’s sensitivity to bilateral relations and stepped back.
But he’d also instantly grasped Charles’s position and pressured him effectively.
When Charles had merely inquired after the Holy Imperial Family out of courtesy, the blunt response came:
-Since Brittany worries so kindly, what reason would I have not to live well? Though it’s something else entirely to hear imperial family news I myself don’t know from a foreigner.
His take on the hit play thriving in Brittany was even more cutting.
-Failing to control the family leads to accidents and tragedy at the finale. Common enough, isn’t it? The playwright seems to have captured the public’s taste well.
When Charles praised the fugue composer sponsored by Rabujuri, this came back:
-Repeating the same theme can grate depending on the ear. I don’t care much for hearing the same thing over and over. Better to just get rid of the performer. What do you think, Prince?
With such overt prodding, Charles couldn’t miss the message.
I know all the nonsense about the Holy Imperial Family.
Clean up your house before I act.
One more whisper, and I’ll personally wipe you out.
3rd Prince Moreth Klein.
Setting aside his quick situational judgment and fluent Britannian, that unnatural pressure beyond his years already marked him as exceptional. Why had such a prince been dismissed as the Holy Imperial Family’s disgrace and wastrel?
“…He must have hidden himself thoroughly until now.”
If true, what a terrifying figure.
Charles’s eyes darkened.
From now on, ignore baseless rumors about Prince Moreth. And until the Empire’s succession is clear, build friendly ties with him as much as possible.
Charles resolved thus.
In this way, a new amicable relationship formed—one Seongjin hadn’t intended, tinged with some misunderstanding.
* * *
Late night. Heresy Tribunal.
A young priest preparing to leave for the day spotted light pouring from the prayer room.
Curious, he opened the door to find a familiar face praying primly.
“…Brother Hayes?”
The young priest approached and asked.
“Praying this late?”
The middle-aged man called Hayes rose and regarded the young priest with clear eyes.
He was unusually taciturn. Despite long years at the Heresy Tribunal, he had scarcely any interactions with those around him.
Even the young priest, assigned just days ago, had never properly spoken with him.
“And what brings Brother here so late?”
“I ended up heading home a bit late.”
“Is that so?”
As Hayes replied, his eyes briefly flicked to the long staff the young priest carried, then away.
“Ah, you must be Brother [Sowing], the one who just arrived recently.”
“……”
The young priest’s face stiffened.
He hadn’t heard any prior details about Hayes from the brothers.
His sharp eyes suspiciously scanned Hayes for a moment. Then he bowed his head, reciting the holy sign of the forgotten old church.
Gripping the dagger handle hidden in his robes.
“Bethel.”
“Bethel.”
Only after Hayes’s calm response did he relax, smiling.
“So you’re a brother of the forgotten church. I’m Clemens, newly summoned to the Heresy Tribunal. I hadn’t heard about you—might you be part of [Sowing]?”
“Though of the same old church, I’m as good as dead. Not part of [Sowing]. You likely haven’t heard of me because I can’t contribute to your mission.”
“Ah…”
Clemens bowed awkwardly.
“You already know of the mission. Then won’t you join us? The bishop says the season of great harvest is near.”
But Hayes slowly shook his head.
“I told you. I’m as good as dead. All I can do is pray.”
“You could still share in the joy of the harvest with us.”
“Thank you for the kind offer. But no need. My prayers have already been answered.”
Clemens couldn’t hide his pity. It felt like watching a tree wither before his eyes.
Yet Hayes himself smiled with a strangely relieved expression.
“Now I simply wait quietly for Him to come and command me.”