Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: Finally Adapting to the World (2)
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Over the past three weeks, I had been awake, yet not truly awake.
I was alive, yet no different from the dead.
All I could do was,
listen to the laborious creaking of the wagon wheels,
hear the frantic shouts and screams,
while clutching my broken heart and endlessly circulating my energy.
In my mind, the final moment of escaping the battlefield astride a spear cavalryman's horse replayed endlessly.
The image of my uncle, surrounded by orcs until he vanished from sight, rose vividly before me. The sight of knights and spear cavalry dying right before my eyes still lingered sharply.
My heart throbbed as if it were being torn out.
This pain was punishment for my own foolishness.
I simply chewed on the pain.
I had been complacent.
I aspired to become king, yet left everything to my uncle.
I sought transcendence, yet was unprepared to pay the price.
My plans were no different from those of a lazy optimist,
and my resolve was as half-hearted as a child's.
I had been arrogant.
Intoxicated by past glories, I looked down on everything.
I even scorned death as insignificant.
Among the countless deaths I had witnessed, not one was my own,
yet I strutted about as if I had transcended death itself.
Every action and thought of mine was as shallow as a pastime.
I was a foolish, arrogant blind man.
And so I lost much.
Only then did I open my eyes.
Only then did I finally realize.
In that moment, a new conviction and vow were etched into my heart.
Thump.
A message echoed in my mind.
[A new martial ode...]
[A new trait...]
I ignored it.
What I had to do from now on was not to craft some flimsy poem.
**
"Y-Your Highness!"
The First Prince awakening from his unconscious state was undoubtedly welcome news. But no one could bring themselves to approach him and say how relieved they were. The moment they saw those ice-blue glowing eyes, their lips glued shut.
Gulp.
Someone swallowed dryly.
Step.
The First Prince took a labored step forward.
Step, step.
Staggering, he pressed on. Before him were the lords, rolling their eyes in confusion.
The lords exchanged glances. Count Hesstein was pushed forward and rose unsteadily.
"Y-Your Highness. We're so glad you're safe..."
As the count spouted platitudes, the First Prince's body swayed, tilting forward as if he might collapse.
Count Hesstein, mid-sentence, instinctively reached out to support him.
The First Prince shoved the count away.
Swoosh.
The count's eyes widened. The sword that had been sheathed at his waist moments ago was now in the First Prince's hand. Drip, drip.
Red liquid trickled down the blade, filling his vision.
The count instinctively patted his body. No pain.
"Your Highness. What have you..."
His voice came out raspy, like phlegm bubbling in his throat. The count touched his neck.
A faint scratch met his fingertips.
"Huh?"
From the split, hot liquid gushed out.
"Gurgle."
Count Hesstein's eyes rolled back white as he collapsed.
"Count Hesstein!"
"The count!"
Pandemonium erupted a beat too late. The lords screamed.
"Y-Your Highness!"
The Ballerhards' retainers shouted in shock.
"Brother!"
The Second Prince rushed forward, blocking the First Prince's path. The First Prince had been dragging his sword toward another lord.
"Out of my way."
Maximilian extended both hands at the deeply sunken voice.
"I'm angry too! I'm just like you, brother!"
The First Prince sidestepped without a word.
"But not like this! We all need to unite against the orcs right now!"
Maximilian blocked him again.
"Unite?"
The First Prince twisted his lips.
"How absurd."
His voice was as twisted as his smile.
"Brother!"
Maximilian cried desperately.
"Vincent. How many messengers did we send?"
The First Prince asked.
"Once every three days for three months, so around thirty."
Vincent Ballerhard replied coldly.
The First Prince looked at Maximilian again.
Maximilian averted his gaze unwittingly.
"Y-Your Highness. P-Please calm down. We had our reasons."
"Your Highness! Even if we are guilty, you can't do this! It's unjust! Against the law!"
Some pleaded in fear, others protested the count's death.
"Refusing a border count's mobilization order in wartime without just cause warrants summary execution."
Erhim Kiringer stepped forward, his voice stern as iron.
"Even when the Leonberger royal blood reached peril, you feigned ignorance. This violates the sacred oath of vassalage.
This too warrants summary execution."
Words that would normally fall on deaf ears, but this was wartime. The lords, grasping the situation late, paled.
"Tyranny! How could we have known Winter Castle was in peril!"
"We have the right to defend ourselves! If guilty, judge us in court!"
As they shouted desperately, the First Prince pushed his brother's shoulder.
A feeble gesture from one just risen from his sickbed, devoid of strength.
"Winter Castle didn't fall."
It could have held out indefinitely if it tried.
"Winter Castle was abandoned."
Maximilian had no choice but to yield.
"Weed them out."
At the First Prince's command, Erhim Kiringer stepped up eagerly.
"Count Shurtol. Baron Iaton. Baron Cardein. Baron Barheim."
The lords exchanged looks at the sudden callouts.
"The four I named, step aside over there."
The named lords hesitated, then retreated to one side of the tent.
"That's all of them."
At Erhim Kiringer's words, the First Prince said coldly,
"Sixteen bastards, and only four barely human..."
The lords blanched.
They had finally realized judgment had been passed without their knowledge.
They sought their guard knights. Knights drew swords, blocking their lords.
Nobles unhesitatingly aiming blades at royalty.
The rotten reality of the kingdom lay bare before them, diseased beyond decay.
Maximilian felt dizzy.
Suddenly, a choking sound. He turned at the ominous noise.
Guard knights were spewing blood and falling. Green shadows wove among them. The stench of blood mixed with fresh grass scent assaulted the nose.
They were the elf swordsmen who had joined in the recent battle.
Having dispatched the guards in an instant, the elf swordsmen shook blood from their blades and lined up behind the First Prince.
The Iron Lions stepped forward in their place.
"Y-Your Highness! Mercy, please!"
"Forgive us once, and we'll serve loyally!"
The lords, seized by Iron Lions and forced to kneel, wailed for mercy. But the First Prince ignored their pleas.
"Gah!"
With each swing of his sword, a lord's life ended.
A baron who insisted on trial to the end had his chest sliced open; a count groveling on the ground became a headless corpse. A viscount who bolted upright was stabbed repeatedly in the back.
One drew his sword to take the First Prince hostage. Another resisted at the last moment by drawing his blade.
Staggering, the First Prince cut them down relentlessly.
"Huff. Huff."
Exhaling ragged breaths to his chin, he glared at the survivors.
The lords, seeing him blood-soaked with blazing blue eyes, pissed themselves. And so they died, sprawled in their own piss and blood. Exhausted, the First Prince sank to the floor.
"S-Spare me!"
Only one remained.
Count Giern, who had strutted boasting ties to Montpellier, now begged with tears and snot streaming.
The First Prince crawled forward, propping himself on the ground.
"Y-Your Highness! P-Please! Just once..."
The First Prince mounted the flailing, retreating Count Giern and plunged the sword into his throat.
"Gurgle."
The count clutched his neck, writhing.
Count Giern died twitching like a maggot, ugly and filthy.
"Hoo."
The First Prince dropped the sword and fell on his rear.
The blue glow faded. Expression returned to his parched face.
He looked somewhat fatigued.
But his eyes burned brighter than ever.
A woman approached and helped him up. He sat heavily in a chair.
All in the tent stared at him.
Some looked relieved, others grim with worry for what came next.
Most Ballerhard retainers were the former; Maximilian and the capital's commanders, the latter.
"Antuan."
The First Prince ignored their expressions.
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Have the soldiers spread rumors right now."
He simply said what needed saying.
"That the nobles fled in the night to save their own skins."
The Silver Fox leader bowed and exited the tent.
"Erhim Kiringer. Assemble troops and seize the dead lords' castles. Do I need to provide the pretext?"
"Shall we say Your Highness stepped in to protect their kin, out of pity for lords who died dishonorably fleeing alone?"
"Good. Make haste."
Erhim Kiringer led the Iron Lions away.
The First Prince's orders continued. Winter Castle's knights and soldiers gripped their weapons with murderous intent and filed out.
No one questioned the commands. They simply obeyed.
Even the new Count Ballerhard, now lord of his house, jumped up like a tense rookie adjutant to explain past events at the order.
Count Shurtol watched it all with a terrified face.
Seeing the blood-splattered First Prince issuing orders made his legs tremble. The nobles' gruesome deaths still haunted his eyes.
He couldn't even breathe loudly. Meeting those eyes might make him soil himself.
The First Prince's aura was that lethal, that intimidating.
"Count Shurtol."
"Yes! Your Highness!"
Count Shurtol jumped at the sudden call.
"The kingdom has abandoned the North."
The abrupt reminder of the issue stiffened the count's face.
The royals' decision to form a defensive line south of the river was tantamount to abandoning the North's sixteen domains.
As the northern lords had abandoned Winter Castle, so had the royals abandoned the northern lords.
The North's future held only the grim fate of being trampled by orcs without aid, like Winter Castle.
"I will not abandon the North."
The First Prince declared, eyeing the count's bowed, despairing face.
"The Third Legion and I remain here."
"I will start anew from this place."
For a prince of the realm to say such words on his father's kingdom soil felt strangely profound.
It sounded like the proclamation of a king.