“Hey—! You! Sons of bitches—!”
At Friedrich’s Lion’s Roar, the surrounding nobles looked around in shock.
“Who was that!?”
“How dare he, when His Imperial Majesty is present!”
Friedrich, who had shouted at the top of his lungs while hurling curses utterly unsuited to the occasion, saw nothing else before him.
Whether people murmured or not, Friedrich threw himself at the easiest target among the boys who had been bullying his youngest brother.
THWACK!
“Agh!”
The boy struck in the back by Friedrich’s flying side kick sprawled face-first onto the floor.
Unfortunately for him, he kissed the floor in spectacular fashion. When he braced himself against the floor and rose, blood was flowing from his mouth, where all his front teeth had been knocked out.
“Waaahhh!”
Seeing their youngest brother bawling while blood streamed from his mouth, the eyes of the other two boys sparked with rage.
“You bastard!”
“How dare you do that to our youngest!”
“How dare I do that to your youngest, my ass! When you play with our youngest, that is romance, but when I knock your youngest’s teeth out, that is adultery, you filthy sons of whores!”
“!?”
At the first exquisitely vicious curse they had ever heard, the two boys forgot even to grow angry and stared blankly. Meanwhile, Friedrich’s parade of profanity showed no sign of stopping.
“What do you have to stuff into your skulls to start playing with a person like a ball? Who taught you to behave like that? Introduce me to them too! I will learn from them, then cut off your heads and kick them around!”
“This bastard, after we let him run his mouth! Go teach him a lesson, Third!”
“Got it, Second Brother! You are dead today!”
The boy called Third clenched his fist and charged in with great spirit, but Friedrich simply shifted his head aside and avoided the punch. Then...
‘Egg-breaker!’
THUD!
“Ahk!”
The boy, struck by Friedrich’s soccer kick between the legs, immediately pressed his legs together, clutched his precious pair of jewels with both hands, and bent over like a shrimp.
“This bastard dares to touch my brothers—!”
Seeing even Third taken down, Second’s face flushed bright red as he ground his teeth. Friedrich merely gave a faint laugh.
“Come at me! Come at me, you bastard!”
When Friedrich spat out the words as though he would chew him to death and raised a fist with only his middle finger extended, Second froze for a moment.
‘What is that?’
His confusion at seeing the obscene finger gesture for the first time lasted only briefly. Once he saw Friedrich’s middle finger wagging back and forth, Second’s expression crumpled with a crunch.
“You vulgar, lowborn bastard—!”
Friedrich slipped aside like a matador from the boy charging at him like a bull maddened by a red cloth.
At the same time, he stretched his foot out in front of the boy’s.
“Uh, uh—!”
THUD!
Tripped by Friedrich, the boy fell flat on the floor with his arms spread upward, and unable to overcome his own momentum, he slid forward and scored a goal into the tablecloth.
CLATTER! CRASH! SHATTER!
As though ringing a golden bell to celebrate the goal, the table overturned, and the sound of glass cups smashing rang through the banquet hall.
“Haaah, haaah...”
In the banquet hall that had become a scene of chaos, people stared in horror at Friedrich, whose shoulders heaved as he breathed roughly.
“Go-good heavens...”
“How did that little boy...”
“He took on those three by himself...”
While everyone looked at Friedrich as though he were a monster or a ghost after he had toppled three boys in an instant and turned the banquet hall into a mess, a middle-aged man in black clothes with a bandit-like beard came running.
As befitted his body, which stood a full head taller than most others, the man stopped his thunderous footsteps and looked around the scene.
‘Wh-what is this...?’
His youngest was sobbing, blood flowing from his mouth where all his front teeth had been knocked out.
His third son lay curled on his side, groaning while clutching his vital spot.
And his second son was under the ruined table, with only his legs visible, sprawled out like a frog!
Unable to endure the absurd and humiliating sight of his sons, the middle-aged man’s neck bulged with veins.
“Who turned my sons into dough!”
At the middle-aged man, who roared so loudly that the banquet hall’s windows trembled, Friedrich stepped forward.
“I did.”
“What?”
“I made them like that... Ugh!”
Before Friedrich could even finish speaking, the middle-aged man grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up with a hand large enough to cover the face of an ordinary man.
“You wretch—! A worthless whelp not even fit to be called a foal dares do this to my sons!”
“Y-your... sons... played... with... my... brother... like... a ball!”
Even as he struggled from lack of breath, Friedrich spat out the words he had to say. Hearing the halting words, carried on a voice steeped in venom, the man’s face went blank with shock.
“Wh-what? My sons did that?”
“Yes! I do... not know... who... you are... but... how... did you... educate... your... children!”
“Do not lie, you wretch! My children, who will one day lead the Schwarz Reiter of Nodenburg-Treisen, would never do such a thing!”
In the moment when no one had time to save Friedrich, a sly voice rang out.
“What that friend said is true, Your Excellency, Margrave Marx von Schwarzen of Nodenburg-Treisen. Your Excellency’s sons were laughing as they shoved that child this way and that like a toy.”
A young man spoke while pointing at Julian, then approached Schwarzen and Friedrich.
With white hair that seemed like molten platinum and dressed in pure white formal attire, he looked as straight and sharp as a sword laid upon a field of freshly fallen snow.
“Who are you!”
“I am Reinhardt von Bessen. The only grandson of His Imperial Majesty Magnus von Bessen, lawfully elected emperor, and the one who will succeed His Majesty as Grand Duke of Midenmark and king of Hengania.”
“Y-you are that Reinhardt?”
Marx’s eyes widened as if they might pop out.
Why had this person appeared and shielded that little boy? He was the heir who would inherit the personal union of the Grand Duchy of Midenmark and the Kingdom of Hengania, the strongest territorial domain in the empire. He had become an Aura Master at only twenty, and he was said to manipulate the Close Aides at the court of Vaien, the capital, like pieces in his hand—a precocious genius.
“First, why do you not put that friend down and speak? Since you do not know which family’s child he is, this seems as though it may become a serious matter.”
“Hm?”
At Reinhardt’s words, Marx looked at Friedrich. This insolent little boy was glaring at him as though he would kill him, his eyes as red as his face, like iron balls heated in fire.
‘Wh-what a frightening boy!’
A boy who looked as though he had not even undergone his Coming-of-Age Ceremony was fiercely emitting a demonic aura. As though realizing he had grabbed something he should not have, Marx released Friedrich’s collar and tossed him aside.
THUD!
“Cough! Cough!”
Friedrich fell straight to the floor, choking repeatedly as he dragged in rough breaths. Looking down at Friedrich with an unnerved expression, Marx asked Reinhardt, “What you just said contains not a single lie, I trust? Whoever you may be, if you lied, you will have to duel this body!”
“I swear it by the great ancestors of our House Bessen. Before that, however, I believe it would be best to verify it through the Record Crystal hanging from the ceiling.”
After answering loudly and confidently, Reinhardt left Marx behind and approached a man with long white hair and a white beard before kneeling on one knee.
“I ask this of you, President.”
“Since the young lord asks me so courteously, I should naturally help, hoho.”
Himmel Lindler, President of the Imperial Magic University and the “Empire’s Greatest Archmage,” who had reached the 7th Circle in both the Breath of Apor and the Breath of Jupir.
After personally raising Reinhardt to his feet, he stretched the white staff in his hand toward the crystal hanging from the ceiling.
FLASH!
With a sound like a camera flash going off, the scene from several dozen minutes earlier replayed like a film.
‘This is insane.’
Friedrich stared blankly for a moment at the sight, which was more vivid than the most advanced twenty-first-century projector. Then he saw Julian being bullied by the bastards of House Schwarzen, and veins bulged on his forehead.
- A southern rebel dares!
- Where do you think a little thing like you is coming in!
- Since you are the son of a medicine peddler, we will roll you like a pill!
Watching three of the four sons of House Schwarzen roughly bully Julian, the imperial assemblymen and their families frowned.
“Those ignorant tin-can knights of Nodenburg...”
“Did the cold wind freeze their brains solid? Tsk!”
“It seems they are the opposite when it comes to war and child-rearing, haha.”
“Mother! If you marry me off there, I will hang myself on the spot!”
“Dear, if you marry our daughter into that house, we are through!”
Nodenburg-Treisen was called the “North Wall of the Astella Empire.”
From every direction, criticism and gossip poured toward House Schwarzen, the Margravial family that had protected the empire and expanded its territory from that barren land, fighting desperate battles against eastern barbarians and monsters.
‘To suffer such utter humiliation!’
At the disgraceful behavior of his sons being exposed in real time, and the shower of shameful criticism, Marx’s face turned red as if it might burst.
He was so furious that drops of blood even fell from his clenched fist, but then Marx’s eyes widened.
‘Southern rebel... medicine peddler? Pill?’
There was only one family that matched the words Marx himself habitually spat out in front of his children whenever he was bored.
‘Of all houses, they touched Medichin!’
If it were the family of an ordinary imperial assemblyman, he could crush them with military force or power and cover the matter up.
Even if it were an Elector family, as long as it was not that Reinhardt’s family, he could compensate them appropriately and move on.
But!
House Medichin of distant southern Etilant, which boasted the greatest wealth in the empire and held the medicine business and Banking in its hands, had no answer.
‘It seems he spent day and night running around swinging swords and made a complete mess of raising his children. Serves him right, heh.’
Friedrich, who had recovered his senses at some point, sneered as he watched Marx grow anxious and rose from the floor. Smoothing the wrinkles from his clothes as if dusting them off, Friedrich glared at Marx.
“Do you still say I was wrong?”
“Y-you damned...”
As Marx could only grind his teeth without saying a word, a voice dripping with killing intent flew into his ears.
“I saw everything very clearly, Your Excellency Margrave Schwarzen.”
“F-Father!”
Friedrich welcomed Wilhelm, his most reliable support of all. As if to render that joy meaningless, Wilhelm looked at Friedrich with a stiff expression.
“Call me Consul, Friedrich.”
At the blunt answer, followed by Wilhelm winking one eye in an instant, Friedrich composed his expression. Even if it was far too late, he still had to preserve even a speck of House Medichin’s dignity.
“My apologies, Consul.”
“Yes. Now take Julian and go to your mother.”
“Yes, Consul.”
After answering with crisp courtesy, Friedrich immediately carried Julian on his back and returned to Johanna, Maria, and Felix.
‘You bastards dared!’
Not even a dragon whose reverse scale had been touched could have been more terrifying than the anger Wilhelm was forcefully suppressing.
***
After sending his sons back into the arms of their family, Wilhelm’s complexion did not change at all, even in this situation where he had every right to be angry. However, his eyes burned with greater fury than ever before, and there was a sharp edge to them.
“I saw everything very clearly, Your Excellency Margrave. I find it deeply regrettable that our eldest son injured Your Excellency’s children.”
“Ahem, well, they are still children, are they not? These things can happen, Consul Wilhelm. So at this point...”
Wilhelm mercilessly cut off Marx’s attempt to smooth things over vaguely and close the matter.
“That will not do. I believe I have learned quite well how much contempt Your Excellency has taught your children to hold for House Medichin and the Etilant Autonomous Territory. We even sent you medicines that should have been sold within our own autonomous territory because you pleaded with us to sell you more, yet to think you treated us as medicine peddlers.”
Even as Wilhelm sneered and mocked him, Marx had nothing to say.
Was Nodenburg-Treisen not desperate for House Medichin’s medicines and money, as it faced all manner of monsters and bandits on the empire’s northern frontier and even fought wars of territorial expansion while aiming for the next imperial election?
“For the next ten years, the medicines supplied to the Margraviate of Nodenburg-Treisen will be reduced to one-tenth of the current level. Please repay in full, within this year, all loans borrowed from our Trading House as well.”
“What are you saying? You will reduce the medicines and make us repay the money too?”
If the supply of medicines from Medichin Konzern decreased, they would have to buy medicines from other Merchant Caravans, which were less effective and more expensive, as if being forced to swallow mustard while crying.
Not only that, if they had to repay all the loans they had borrowed from Medichin Konzern within this year, even emptying their treasury and scraping together every last grain of wheat meant for their residents might not be enough.
Even as Marx shouted in outrage at the harsh retaliation, Wilhelm replied coldly without so much as twitching a single wrinkle.
“If it had been any other matter, I would have endured it and let it pass. However!”
Wilhelm burst out with killing intent, grabbed Marx by the collar, and pulled him in front of his face.
“My child! My family! My homeland! I will never tolerate the insult of those three! What parent! What Family Head! What leader would tolerate such an insult? Could you tolerate it? Marx von Schwarzen!”
Wilhelm Medichin erupted with a roar and fury as he glared at Marx’s face, only a handspan away, as though he would devour him.
After saying what he had to say, he shoved Marx away with all his strength, no longer wanting even to look at him.
THUD!
“Ugh!”
Everyone was shocked when they saw Marx tumble and sprawl in a way utterly unsuited to his massive body.
‘He-he threw aside the Champion of the North!’
‘What is Wilhelm? How is he that strong?’
The Wilhelm known to the imperial assemblymen was merely a Merchant blinded by gold and a moneylender, a politician more cunning than a snake.
Yet that very Wilhelm had not only grabbed and shaken the collar of Marx von Schwarzen, the “Champion of the North” famous as an Aura Master, but had shoved him over as well?