Chapter 117
Chapter 117
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 117
Chapter Title: As Known, Like a Reckless Prince (1)
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With both hands planted on the ground and his body half-prostrated, the imperial knight's posture looked for all the world like one of profound obeisance.
Shiorin Kirguyen's lips twitched as he watched.
"Kkh."
A stifled chuckle leaked out from among the Iron Lion Knights, their helmets pressed firmly down. They might not have understood the words, but they seemed to grasp the gist of what was unfolding.
"I'm glad to meet you too."
Even as the 1st Prince said that, Drgol's face remained blank.
"Polite knight of the Empire."
Only then did his expression twist belatedly.
Drgol shot to his feet and opened his mouth to speak, but the 1st Prince personally brushed the dirt from his clothes.
With a deliberately merciful expression.
Tap tap.
The 1st Prince patted Drgol's shoulder before climbing back onto the carriage.
Drgol, unable to do anything but stare helplessly at the prince's retreating back, glanced around.
The kingdom's knights looked down at him.
His face flushed crimson as Drgol trudged back to where the imperial knights waited.
"Capture it."
He ordered his subordinates to fetch the horse that had caused the commotion.
Soon enough, one of the imperial knights brought the unruly beast. Drgol glared at his mount before drawing his sword like a bolt of lightning.
Ihihihiiing!
The horse let out a pitiful whinny as its throat was slit, then collapsed with a thud.
Shiorin Kirguyen watched the scene calmly, organizing his thoughts.
A senior knight wasn't low in rank by any means, but arriving late to greet a delegation from another nation was a breach of etiquette no one of truly high standing would commit so casually.
Yet Drgol showed no remorse or worry for his blunder, which meant the one who had sent him must have intended this very situation.
It was his own way of trying to dampen the delegation's momentum, no doubt. Shiorin could already imagine how rough the road to and from the imperial capital would be over the next year.
And yet, Shiorin Kirguyen smiled faintly.
The delegation members, who should have felt insulted and demoralized by the imperial knight's rudeness, were instead brimming with confidence.
It was all thanks to the 1st Prince.
No one but a fool could miss that the prince had done something to Drgol's horse.
Thanks to that, a rogue who had shown not a shred of respect for a foreign power had prostrated himself like a model knight.
His dazed, upward gaze at the prince had been utterly ridiculous.
Shiorin fought to suppress his twitching lips again.
This is very different from what I'd heard.
About five days before departing the capital, Marquis Vilefeld had pulled him aside and voiced concerns about the 1st Prince's fiery temper.
Even if his path was righteous, the marquis had said, the prince's aggressive, cornering style turned minor issues into deep grudges—his greatest flaw. He predicted it would become a major obstacle on the trip to the Empire.
The marquis had been half right and half wrong.
The 1st Prince was indeed as hot-tempered as described. Otherwise, he wouldn't have risen to such childish provocation himself.
But he wasn't just hot-tempered.
The prince was sly, too.
The process by which a brute became a polite knight had been as smooth as flowing water, leaving the imperial senior knight no room to complain.
Even if Shiorin had stepped in, he couldn't have crushed the imperial provocation so cleanly while boosting the delegation's morale.
He had volunteered for the imperial delegation duty partly to see what sort of punk had seduced his precious daughter. Unexpectedly, he'd hooked a real catch.
Shiorin stared at the carriage for a moment before impassively urging the delegation onward with a straight face.
"We've already spent one night in the wasteland. Form up the column and hurry preparations to depart."
His words subtly rebuked the imperial knights for arriving late past the appointed time, and the kingdom's forces hurried more than necessary.
"Ahem!"
Drgol made a displeased face at the overt criticism.
"Your Highness, our duty ends here. We wish you a safe journey to the capital and back."
The knight from the Southern Legion, who had escorted the delegation to the border, bowed toward the carriage.
When they had first met, it had been a mere formality, but after watching the imperial knight get humiliated, he now bid farewell with genuine sincerity.
"You've done well. I'll see you back home."
The 1st Prince raised the carriage flap and praised the Southern Legion knights and soldiers with simple words.
The Southern Legion knights lined up on either side of the carriage drew their swords and bellowed.
"May only glory light Your Highness's path!"
"May glory be with you!"
The soldiers echoed their knight's lead.
"May the Silver Lion's fangs remain sharp until my return."
Referencing the Silver Lion Fortress—their home base—the prince's words prompted the Southern Legion knights and soldiers to thump their breastplates and pray once more for his military exploits.
"I am Senior Knight Drgol de Drvish of the Empire's 41st Legion, 112th Knight Order. I have assumed escort duties for His Highness the 1st Prince and the delegation. You lot may withdraw from the border now."
The imperial knight waved off the Southern forces as if they were annoying. But the Southern Legion ignored him, seeing the delegation off to the end. They held their swords aloft, unmoving until the prince and his procession vanished from sight.
* * *
Despite hurrying as much as possible, the imperial knights' dawdling under Drgol's lead forced the delegation to camp another night in the wasteland. Once Shiorin Kirguyen confirmed Erhim Kiringger and the Iron Lions efficiently directing the camp setup, he sought out Arwen.
"I'm on duty."
Even at her curt opening, Shiorin's expression didn't change as he asked,
"I've come on official business."
"Speak."
"What sort of person is His Highness?"
"Clarify your question."
"Exactly as I said. After seeing this new side of him today, I feel I need to understand His Highness more intimately if I'm to serve him properly going forward."
Arwen nodded as if agreeing, then pondered deeply.
She began speaking slowly.
He had only asked about his temperament, but she launched into a fervent recounting of the prince's exploits, as if spilling every detail.
With an excited flush he'd never seen before—oblivious to her father glaring like a dead fish.
Shiorin swallowed his rising ire several times as she spoke but held it down.
This was official duty. No time for personal feelings. He repeated that to himself, forcing down the bubbling anger.
He kept listening to his daughter.
Then, at some point, he forgot his anger and became immersed in the tale.
The journey of the neglected runt prince growing amid the harsh northern lands to become the North's overlord was a tearjerker without the tears. His war against the unheard-of monster called the Warlord stirred the blood.
If the teller hadn't been his straitlaced daughter, who never lied, he would have dismissed it as absurd fantasy on the spot.
Her words painted the prince's path as nothing short of miraculous.
It was like,
"A hero of chaotic times."
A heroic saga.
"If someone asked me who a hero is, I'd name His Highness the 1st Prince without hesitation."
Arwen voiced agreement with her father's words.
Shiorin sank into thought.
He recalled the anecdote from her stories about the 1st Prince and the Warlord's clash of auras.
When the Warlord hurled an orc legion standard to snap the Ballerhard banner fluttering atop the tower, the prince had seized that banner and paraded it like a trophy won before battle even began, rousing his soldiers' morale.
Twisting the enemy's intent to nullify the provocation and further boost his own side's spirits—it was exactly what the prince had done to the imperial senior knight that afternoon.
Shiorin judged the 1st Prince masterful at mental jousting and turning the tide of momentum.
He found himself smiling unwittingly.
The burden he'd thought he'd have to protect and coddle the whole trip turned out not to be a burden at all.
Revising his plans for the journey in his head, Shiorin suddenly remarked as if it had just occurred to him,
"Your feelings for His Highness run deeper than usual, don't they?"
"Just so we're clear, don't entertain any impure thoughts. His Highness and I share no such relationship."
Arwen grew stern, insisting he not cheapen their sacred liege-vassal bond with talk of man and woman.
Shiorin knew full well her regard for the prince was closer to a knight's admiration for an exceptional superior.
He knew it. He didn't doubt it.
Yet it strangely stung. Like something precious had been stolen away.
His daughter, so thrilled talking about another man.
His ire surged again, and Arwen recoiled in horror at his expression.
"Ahem."
Regaining his composure late, Shiorin said gravely,
"We must hope His Highness's resolve doesn't waver to the end."
"This is nothing to break his will."
His naive daughter dropped her guard at once.
"I guarantee, whatever you imagine, you'll see even more."
"I'll look forward to it."
Even as he said it, Shiorin dismissed Arwen's words as mere pride in her lord.
But he was wrong.
Her claim that he'd see beyond his expectations wasn't exaggeration born of pride—it was simple fact.
Shiorin wouldn't realize this until long after they arrived the next day at the Empire's border fortress and attended the legion commander's welcome banquet.
"Hahaha! How can the kingdom's nobles call a prince as bold as you merely rough and violent? Had you been born in the Empire, you'd command at least one legion!"
The prince remained unfazed even as the commander belittled him by comparing a foreign heir apparent to a mere legion general.
By then, Shiorin had come to fully trust the prince's endurance and discernment.
He shouldn't have.
"From time immemorial, imperial and kingdom knights have honed themselves through the clash of blades. Now we rarely cross swords, so it's a pity our knights' blades have rusted and lost their edge."
Then he could have cut off the drunken commander's nonsense immediately.
"So, if Your Highness permits, how about we use this occasion to exchange blows in friendly combat and sharpen each other like whetstones once more?"
But the prince's display the day before had etched itself too deeply in his mind, leading him—unwittingly—to expect more from him.
"That's a fine idea."
By the time he snapped out of it, the commander's mad proposal was already accepted.
"To avoid hard feelings, we should approach the matches lightly, unconcerned with victory or defeat."
He even tried to intervene then, mediating to prevent the sparring from overheating.
Perhaps his efforts worked—the initial bouts between the Empire's 112th Knight Order and several Iron Lions ended appropriately without clear winners.
"Who's the finest knight in this fortress?"
But his labors were undone as the 1st Prince stirred trouble again.
"I have several excellent knights with me, and none of you seem able to beat them."
The banquet hall, warmed by drink, froze solid in an instant.
Shiorin had no chance to intercede.
Events escalated rapidly, and soon an imperial knight and a kingdom knight faced off in the center of the hall.
The imperial knight barely registered. Shiorin's eyes were fixed on the kingdom knight.
His beloved daughter, whom he wouldn't trade for the world, stood there.
Shiorin whispered urgently to the prince.
Admit it as a drunken slip now, and there'd be no major issue.
But the 1st Prince brushed it off without even turning.
"Don't worry. This won't jeopardize the delegation's mission."
He just spoke casually, as if it were nothing.
As the delegation's leader—and as Arwen's father—he couldn't overlook the prince's behavior this time.
"You really see me as some untrustworthy sort."
The prince, meeting his sharp gaze, slyly drew a small token from his breast pocket.
"Between a marquis and a mere legion commander, who holds more sway?"
It was the insignia symbolizing a marquisate in the Burgundy Empire.