Chapter 107
Chapter 107
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 107
Chapter Title: 34. Who Dares to Question Qualifications? (1)
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The King offered no response for a long while. He merely stared straight through me.
Then, suddenly, the King raised his hand.
Whoosh, whoosh.
At that irritable gesture, the court knights and attendants bowed their heads and swiftly withdrew.
Thud.
The door closed.
Now, only the King and I remained in the grand hall.
The King was still silent.
I waited patiently.
What I sought was merely a single sword gathering dust in the royal treasury, but what the King had to bestow was far more than just a blade.
The King's treasured sword, which had slain the Light Dragon, symbolized the throne itself.
Handing the Dragon Slayer Sword to me was tantamount to proclaiming me as the next king.
It wouldn't come easily from his lips.
He was a man who begrudged me even the smallest thing, let alone the crown—a loathsome wretch he wanted to shove aside right then and there.
No doubt he yearned to retract the promise even now.
But he couldn't.
A monarch's word was worth its weight in gold. All the more so when it concerned the succession to the throne.
If he backed out simply because his heart wasn't in it, who would ever trust or obey the King's commands again?
It would be thrusting his own royal authority into the gutter.
"I..."
After a long silence, the King finally spoke.
"I hate you."
To the King's blunt confession, I replied without a hint of disturbance.
"I know."
"I truly despise you."
"I know that full well."
The King's tone, which he'd forced into feigned calm, began to grow heated bit by bit.
"Your past misdeeds mean nothing to you, do they? Parading your paltry achievements with such brazen gall—you're utterly loathsome."
Even at those naked words of hatred, I didn't waver.
From the very first moment our eyes met until now, the King's gaze had never changed.
He had never once looked upon me with kindness, and those blue eyes had never been free of contempt and loathing.
There was nothing new about it now.
"But."
The King spoke through a twisted expression.
"I have no intention of shirking the responsibility of the words I uttered as monarch."
With that, the King rose from his seat.
"The promise will be honored."
As he turned to leave,
"Sometimes,"
I said softly to his back,
"one might make the wrong choice."
The King turned sharply to look at me.
"One might commit acts reviled by all. But if, in time, one realizes the truth and vows never to repeat such a mistake, then it can be called a lesson learned."
His face seemed to ask what nonsense this was.
"Those were Your Majesty's words to me when I first awoke."
All your past sins remain unchanged; you haven't taken a single step forward from them. Nor will you ever,
"These words are Yours as well."
The King slumped back onto the throne.
"If you have something to say, speak plainly without mincing words."
At that, I seized the opening I'd been waiting for.
"In the past year alone, I've fought in fifty-six battles."
The King furrowed his brow at my abrupt declaration.
Undeterred, I listed my achievements before him.
Hundreds upon hundreds of orcs felled by my own hand; the orc king slain, who commanded tens of thousands. I'd unlocked the kingdom's magic tower, sealed by treaty, enabling the training of mages.
And most recently, I'd successfully negotiated with the dwarves—something the kingdom's envoys hadn't even dared attempt—laying the foundation for a massive venture that would more than replenish the kingdom's depleted coffers.
The King's expression toward me grew icier than ever.
He must have thought I was boasting shamelessly before him.
But I hadn't enumerated my deeds to flaunt them.
I merely meant to pose a question.
"So where are You now, Your Majesty? And where have You been?"
While I battled monsters in the North, negotiated with the Empire's ambassador to reclaim the magic tower's usage rights, parleyed with the dwarves—what had You been doing, and where?
"Are you daring to lecture me by flaunting your meager accomplishments?"
Scoffing at the King, who reprimanded me with feigned dignity, I pressed on.
"If I haven't taken a single step forward, then what of Your Majesty? What have You done?"
"How dare you."
I could see the King's face. Drained of blood in peak fury, it resembled a corpse.
A corpse. Not an inaccurate description.
On the day his grand scheme failed, the King's time had frozen. Ever since, he'd endlessly repeated resentment and hatred.
Just like the death knights I'd encountered in Winter Castle, trapped in the past, endlessly repeating the same actions.
The King was no different from the undead.
"Not a single step."
"I won't hear another word."
"Has Your Majesty taken even one step forward?"
"I said I won't hear it."
"And if You have—what was that step for?"
The King shot to his feet and glared at me.
His face brimmed with rage. But it was an empty fury, utterly spent.
"Knights outside, enter!"
At the King's bellow, the doors to the grand hall burst open.
"Drag him out at once."
The court knights approached hesitantly but couldn't bring themselves to lay hands on me, merely circling nearby.
I glanced up at the dais.
The King was barely in his forties—not yet old enough to be called elderly by a long shot.
But if living trapped in the past, staring backward instead of ahead, made one old, then the King was ancient.
Hiding his frame in a throne too grand for him,
"Between Your Majesty and me, who is truly standing still?"
A stubborn old man, unable to even answer his young prince's question, merely venting his temper.
"What are the court knights doing?!"
Sneering at the King as he berated the knights,
Tug.
Someone pulled at my sleeve.
Turning, I saw a wrinkled face. It was Marquis Billefeldt.
Shake, shake.
The Marquis quietly shook his head.
"Your Majesty, the minister and His Highness the First Prince shall take our leave."
With calm report, he tugged my sleeve, and I followed him out of the grand hall.
"Your Highness."
Marquis Billefeldt called to me.
"Would you spare a moment to speak with me?"
I didn't refuse.
"To my palace."
I led the Marquis to the First Prince's Palace.
Kals's eyes lit up at the sight of me, but he straightened upon seeing the elderly Marquis trailing behind.
"I have urgent matters to discuss with the Marquis."
Whether he grasped the implication in my curt words, Kals signaled the other knights. Those who'd followed me from Winter Castle escorted all the newly assigned court knights out of the palace.
Only after the court knights were driven out like unwanted guests and the palace doors shut did I step inside.
"Your Highness."
Adelia, tidying the bedchamber, spotted me and bowed her head.
"I do this because I enjoy it."
A woman on the cusp of Sword Master realm making beds—it was absurd, so I stared until she hastily stammered excuses.
"Please don't take away my pleasure."
Her steadfast attitude lifted my spirits somewhat, which had sunk during the audience with the King.
"Shall I prepare tea?"
Adelia, now quite bold, smiled and asked.
"I think liquor would suit better than tea."
I frowned at the Marquis answering in my stead.
"I didn't know you were such a daytime drinker."
Ignoring me as if he hadn't heard, the Marquis brazenly demanded,
"Something strong, if possible."
Adelia chuckled softly and soon placed glasses and a bottle on the table.
"Call if you need anything."
Staring at her retreating brisk steps, I turned to the Marquis.
"So, what is it you want to say?"
Thud. Confirming the door shut, the Marquis snatched a glass and downed it in one gulp. Only then did he speak.
"How do you feel?"
I furrowed my brow at the out-of-nowhere question, and the Marquis added,
"Does it feel satisfying?"
I stared at him for the blunt query.
No sarcasm, no goading. Yet his expression was too impassive for that.
Instead of answering, I downed my drink.
Wiping my mouth, I gathered my thoughts briefly.
I'd cornered the King who saw me as a thorn in his side, reclaimed my true self at last. Not to mention gaining recognition for my claim to the throne—hardly a mere bonus.
"It's not what I expected."
Yet a nagging unease in my heart overshadowed any joy.
"Daring to guess, it must have felt like bullying a powerless old man."
I couldn't refute the Marquis's frank words.
They too neatly matched the sensation I'd just felt.
Not won through battle, but wrested from a withered elder whose very vitality had ebbed away.
I downed another drink.
The bitterness matched my sour gut.
As I grimaced and wiped my mouth, the Marquis smiled faintly.
"That's how the world works."
Even as this man, who'd lived perhaps a tenth of my past life's span, lectured on life's truths, it didn't strike me as ridiculous.
I dimly sensed it.
My past, lived by the sword, had been incomplete—mere brute force and violence. Claiming to pierce all truths with half-baked wisdom was the arrogance of the immature.
I'd been no more than a child who'd luckily grasped a sharp blade. Only after mingling with people, clashing and enduring, did I realize this—only upon reaching Sword Master did I finally admit my folly.
"Sons cannot see the path their father walked, and fathers cannot truly see their grown sons."
Now I grasped what the Marquis meant to convey.
"It's not that sentimental a bond."
I refilled the Marquis's empty glass, then my own.
We clinked glasses in the air and emptied them in one go.
"Still, I'll hear you out."
At my words, the Marquis held up the half-empty bottle.
"We'll need more liquor."
"I've enough to drink myself to death."
"Some snacks too."
"You ask for much."
"Can't leave on an empty stomach when you won't even pay for the tale."
I clapped at the Marquis's words.
As if waiting, Adelia appeared. I requested simple fare, and soon enough food enough for all night lay before us.
Chewing jerky, I sank deep into the sofa. I awaited the Marquis's story.
"Since the chance has come, I'll tell you everything from the beginning."
The Marquis's eyes deepened.
"About twenty years ago now—that is, when His Majesty had just ascended the throne."
His gaze turned distant, as if peering into that time.
The tale began.
The kingdom's past I knew nothing of, the royal family's secrets none dared utter.
The tyranny of the powerful, the futile resistance of the weak.
I quietly drank.
Refilling when empty, emptying when full, I listened through the night.
It was a tear-jerking saga of desperate effort, one man's endurance amid broken limbs and shattered will.
Yet an endlessly long tale too.
But no story in this world truly lacks an end, and the Marquis's reached its close before long.
Thud.
The Marquis slammed his head on the table right on cue and passed out.
I quietly summoned the court knights.
"Your Highness. What is..."
The knights' eyes widened at the Marquis, dead drunk and unconscious.
"Too bothersome to explain. Just put him in any room."
Kals hoisted the Marquis and carried him out.
Staring after them, I grabbed a bottle.
"Truly lacking."
The bottom-empty bottle—I tossed it aside and sank into the sofa.
"Lost, but not taken..."
Thanks to the Marquis, I'd learned much, but my mind grew all the more tangled.
Yet time to sort my thoughts wasn't granted.
Ziiiiiing.
A chilling ring pierced my ears as the air trembled.
I shot to my feet.
"Who dares!"
Grasping Dusk, I burst from the room.
"Your Highness!"
Kals was sprinting toward me, his face more urgent than ever.
"Explain on the way!"
There was no time to hesitate.
Someone had just forcibly awakened my true self.