Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Evidence of a Romance Fantasy
It had already been three days since I started camping out in the training grounds under the excuse of swordsmanship practice, throwing myself into muddy battles with the Imperial Guard knights.
Three days.
A short time, if you thought about it one way.
A long time, if you thought about it another.
But for the Imperial Guard knights, it was more than enough.
By that point, the atmosphere surrounding the training grounds had begun to change ever so slightly.
The thin hesitation lingering at the tips of the knights' swords was gradually disappearing.
At first, they had all been the same.
Just the fact that they were holding real swords against a member of the Imperial Family was enough to make their faces pale. Even when I rampaged around wearing nothing but a shirt, they were probably all thinking the same thing.
'Please don't let this bastard get hurt. We have to go easy on him.'
But I wasn't looking for the kind of fake courtesy soccer people played in the military to flatter their company commander.
I genuinely wanted a bloody clash.
To fight fiercely.
To roll across the ground.
And in the middle of that desperate struggle, force myself to grow strong enough to survive in this vicious world.
So I pushed even harder.
If I was the one aiming for their throats first, those monsters had no choice but to draw their blades properly if they wanted to survive.
Swordsmanship wasn't some elegant game of chess where you politely gave ground.
Defend carelessly, and your own throat gets cut.
And finally.
One of the endless provocations I kept shoving at them was met with a sharp counterattack.
Slash!
My right wrist tingled.
Then, in the next instant, a searing pain surged through me as my flesh split open.
A tendon had been cut.
Cleanly.
"Y-Your Highness!!"
"Medic! Call the medic immediately!!"
Everyone in the training grounds, including the knight who had just cut me, turned deathly pale.
As if it were nothing, I gripped my bleeding wrist tightly.
Blood poured through my fingers, but since it hadn't been completely severed, it would heal soon enough.
Sssshk, squelch.
The torn tendon and flesh began grotesquely knitting themselves back together.
The blessing of the gods, as expected.
Disgusting as hell, but the performance was incredible.
In the blink of an eye, my shirt sleeve was soaked with blood, and a small pool formed on the dirt floor.
Still, I was fine.
If anything, I nearly laughed.
'You had a body this ridiculously broken and never once participated in a real spar where blood was spilled? Rouang, you really wasted your life.'
Holding my bloodstained wrist, I slowly swept my gaze across the trembling knights and spoke.
"Is there really a knight on the battlefield who would stop swinging his sword because he's afraid of a scratch like this?"
The air in the training grounds instantly froze.
Knights were nobles.
And among nobles, they were the sort who built their pride and honor on martial skill.
People who called scars earned on the battlefield glory, and wrapped reckless courage in the name of virtue.
What I had just said to people like that was very simple.
Where did your courage go?
That level of provocation was enough.
Then I added one more sentence.
"I am already a man who died once and crawled back out of a pit of poison. A warrior who has crossed a battlefield once has no need for this sort of childish treatment."
The knights' eyes shook violently.
Good.
Now they were beginning to understand.
What I wanted wasn't anything grand.
I simply wanted them to stop treating me like a fragile piece of glass because I was royalty and instead cross blades with me as one warrior facing another.
To strip away the shell of royalty and treat me like a real person.
There was no way the knights couldn't understand that.
More than my face, they had probably focused on the forbidden topic I had just brought up.
The assassination attempt.
Everyone in the Imperial Palace knew about it.
No one dared mention it casually.
The fact that I brought it up meant only one thing.
I haven't forgotten what happened. Yet I'm still standing here crossing swords. So stop hiding behind this nonsense about royal blood.
Of course, simply souring the atmosphere wouldn't accomplish anything.
So I offered a carrot as well.
"We only live once. If we can fight fiercely beneath the glory of the gods, isn't that alone a worthwhile life?"
The knights' expressions changed slightly.
The knights of this world loved invoking the gods.
War was the will of the gods.
Loyalty was the will of the gods.
Even death became glorious if you wrapped it up as the will of the gods.
So my words probably sounded quite convincing to them.
Your battles are noble. And I want to step into that world myself.
When a prince says something like that, it carries a different meaning.
It was essentially a declaration that I didn't want to live as a noble giving orders from the rear, but like a knight who stood on the front lines drenched in blood.
And to become that person, I obviously couldn't remain trapped inside this suffocating Imperial Palace.
In other words.
I spoke in a way subtle enough, yet impossible for knights to miss.
I, Rouang Caesar, want out of the palace power struggle.
That was tremendously valuable information.
Worth more than tens of thousands of gold coins.
More precious than the finest jewels.
Because it was a new key to the imperial succession issue.
The knights would loudly proclaim loyalty.
But there was no chance they wouldn't report that information back to their families.
The news would spread before tonight was over.
And once that happened, even the First Prince's faction would have no choice but to seriously consider letting me leave the palace.
What they wanted was to place Manuel on the throne.
Not keep a mad prince who might explode at any moment locked inside the palace.
Of course.
I had no intention of leaving empty-handed.
If I was going to leave, I intended to make them pay an absurdly expensive price.
Money.
Rights.
Territory.
Legitimacy.
I planned to squeeze every last thing I could get.
The value attached to the name of the Second Prince was anything but light.
And I intended to sell that value for everything it was worth.
Three months passed.
I was still spending my days sweating it out with the knights in the training grounds.
Did the nobles make no moves during that time?
Of course they did.
Nobles never ran around panting.
They rode in carriages.
Sent letters.
Moved people around.
Dragged things out with calm expressions.
These were the sort of people who could spend months negotiating the end of a war.
Convincing them to let the Second Prince leave the palace would naturally take even longer.
Besides, this was ultimately an internal matter of the Imperial Family.
No matter how loudly I declared that I wanted to leave, if the Emperor didn't allow it, that was the end.
The First Prince's faction and the Emperor's side were probably furiously calculating their interests before presenting me with any proper terms.
The problem was that I had almost no power on my side.
The previous Rouang had spent so many years rampaging like a madman that nearly all the nobles who once supported him had abandoned him.
I'd grown quite close to the knights.
But they were still knights.
Not a political force that would act as my hands and feet in the noble world.
One day after finishing a sparring session and drinking water to catch my breath, a knight carefully approached and whispered to me.
"Your Highness Rouang. This weekend, His Highness Manuel will be hosting a grand banquet. Would you be willing to attend?"
"Hmm... It seems the old men above you still haven't finished their meetings."
"...I am merely relaying what I was told."
Manuel.
My half-brother and the First Prince.
Naturally, our relationship was distant.
There was no way I could be close to an older brother who sheltered the people who had tried to kill me.
Even if I attended the banquet, it was obvious the atmosphere would freeze over.
A man like him knew that perfectly well.
Yet he was inviting me anyway?
The reason was painfully obvious.
'He wants me to declare surrender with my own mouth.'
The old Rouang would have exploded on the spot.
He would have hurled insults at the First Prince's knight and drawn his sword while threatening to destroy the banquet.
But things were different now.
If he was inviting me, it meant there was finally a reason for us to talk.
Though I wasn't particularly pleased.
You usually invited the negotiating party directly only when discussions were nearly complete.
Yet Manuel was acting before the Emperor?
That meant they still hadn't sorted everything out among themselves.
My treatment was the Emperor's authority.
Yet the First Prince was trying to make the first move.
Which meant only one thing.
Our hardliners are proving harder to convince than expected. So come help push things along yourself.
"You're all remarkably inflexible. Can't you simply throw out the people obstructing my departure? It would be much easier if you just chopped off their heads."
"...Knights are not particularly informed about political negotiations."
"Of course not. You're the ones shedding blood while the fat nobles decide what gets exchanged."
"Yes. That's true."
I nodded while looking down at him with an indifferent gaze.
This message hadn't come through a servant.
It had been delivered directly by an officially recognized knight.
If I respected noble customs, attending was the proper response.
More importantly, it wasn't a bad deal for me either.
If I personally stated my intentions, it could inject momentum into the stagnant negotiations.
I've already offered such generous terms. Why are you still dragging your feet?
That pressure would be useful.
At the same time, it would help silence those desperately trying to prevent my departure.
The people who once wanted me dead would find themselves in an awkward position if I willingly abandoned power.
The justification for killing a prince would disappear into thin air.
The same people who once tried to cut off my breathing were now desperately trying to stop me from leaving the palace.
They really were consistently stupid.
"Very well. For my brother's sake, I shall attend. I only pray there won't be any poisoned wine in the banquet cups this time."
"...! Understood. Then I shall take my leave—"
"Where do you think you're going?"
I stopped the knight just as he turned around.
"Your Highness? I was going to deliver your answer..."
"You should at least have a proper spar before you leave. Since you've brought me such a troublesome piece of news, you can help relieve my stress by sweating a little. Pick up your sword."
Whether his mind was distracted or I had genuinely become stronger, the knight was far duller than usual.
In the end, he was beaten down by my relentless assault and only retreated after rolling across the ground.
The reason I did it was simple.
I was still steadily laying the groundwork for my departure from the palace.
And I wanted to directly show my dissatisfaction with the painfully slow pace of their negotiations.
Not long afterward, a lavish invitation embossed with gold from Manuel's banquet arrived in my room.
Staring down at the invitation on my desk, I selected the clothes I would wear.
Not some extravagant ceremonial outfit dripping with jewels.
The lightest clothing possible that wouldn't restrict my movements.
I was going to meet the bastards who had poisoned me.
There was no reason to wear ceremonial clothes that offered absolutely no protection.
Long ago, terms like yandere and menhera became popular in subculture circles.
People who went mad with love and destroyed others.
People who couldn't help becoming obsessively attached to someone.
In female-oriented romance fantasy stories, those abnormal people were given a far more elegant title.
Obsessive male lead.
Born noble.
Deeply wounded.
Emotionally broken.
A man who goes mad over the one heroine willing to extend a hand toward him.
To be fair, history is filled with rulers who ruined entire nations because of a single woman, so it wasn't a completely unrealistic cliché.
Anyway, until now I had been convinced this world was a traditional political fantasy.
I had suspected it might be a romance fantasy, but no saintess, villainess, or pink-haired girl had appeared.
Instead, the world had been full of realistic political struggles.
Assassinations.
Power struggles.
The schemes of nobles.
The smell of blood inside the palace.
Looking at those keywords alone, wasn't the conclusion obvious?
So I had acted like the protagonist of a political fantasy.
Designing political leverage.
Planning the foundation I would build after leaving the palace.
Even imagining myself becoming the strongest Sword Master on the continent and cutting off a dragon's head someday.
But.
Today, at this banquet, that cold and solid conviction shattered far too easily.
This world wasn't a political fantasy.
It might be a female-oriented romance fantasy adored by countless women.
Why?
"Ah, hello..."
"Yes. Greetings."
Because the sight before my eyes was simply too decisive.
In the middle of this heavy and solemn banquet hall, filled with nobles dressed in black, navy, and dark wine-colored formal wear.
Only one woman—
As though she had been copy-pasted from an entirely different genre—
Stood before me with dazzling fluorescent pink hair brighter than cotton candy swaying around her shoulders.