It has been some days since my studies had started, and soon enough, they would be over.
While studying, I learned that this nation is called the Kingdom of Asterra, and the King is Aldric Valcrest.
He was the only child of his father, who would have been my grandfather, but he died young after falling down the stairs.
The present King, Aldric, succeeded him very early at the tender age of five, when most of the country was ruled by the ministers rather than the child, and now he has ruled for over 45 years.
The King has a total of 29 concubines as of now and 51 children, of whom 36 are boys and 15 are girls.
My mother is the 26th concubine of the King, named Elara Veyne, and even the Crown Prince has been selected.
He is 33 years old now and is called Leon Valcrest.
My mother, who is a beautiful woman, was the daughter of a poor baron who couldn’t afford to pay his tributes to the King once and had to give my mother in exchange for letting him keep his territory, and she became the King’s concubine at the age of 15.
As it turns out, I am so down in the succession line that I am not even worth the cost of hiring assassins to be assassinated by, and my mother is so insignificant to the King that she is not even a competition for the other concubines of the King.
That was all the important information that I wanted to learn the most about, and now that I know them, I just need to make sure that the King believes that I am an average child, skipping tuitions and busy playing.
To do that, I would need to use Ronald.
Soon after finishing his lessons, Adrian went to Ronald and tried to manipulate him once again.
He said to Ronald that he saw someone in his dream who claimed he was to do good for the whole world, and when he asked Ronald what that good meant, he said to serve the people wholeheartedly.
But as it turns out, he was warned by his tutors not to stand out much, as that would be bad for him and his mother, to which Ronald almost cursed in front of the child Adrian.
Regaining his posture, Ronald said what Adrian wanted to hear from his own mouth,
“Your Highness, you can tell me how you want to help people, and I will do it in your stead.”
Adrian got just what he wanted and laughed internally.
Trying to hide his smile, he made Ronald pinky promise him, and to test how much Ronald could do for him, Adrian told him,
“Ronald, I am done with my tuitions, and they have nothing more to teach me. But if we tell them not to come anymore, there will be many questions. So what if they just came and did nothing while I continued my studies by reading from the library instead?”
Ronald, after pondering for a while, thought that the Prince was indeed an actual genius, just like the prophecy had foretold him, and Ronald also arrived at the same conclusion and agreed with him because he didn’t want Adrian and Elara to be in danger just because of Adrian’s genius.
So, despite hesitating, Ronald still agreed to do it.
This all happened when Adrian was just four years old.
Since then, the tutors came in, stayed for the class duration, and left without teaching anything, as there was actually nothing they could teach Adrian anymore.
Their reports to the King concluded that the Prince was a bit weak in his studies and just played around most of the time instead of focusing on his studies.
A few days later, Adrian, his mother Elara, and their butler Ronald set out for a picnic in the royal garden.
Adrian was dragged away from the library to celebrate the picnic because he was practically living in the library, fooling everyone, and Ronald took him by force to the garden.
Despite not wanting to come, Adrian actually enjoyed the picnic as he got to spend time with his mother.
He rested in her lap, and she caressed his hair very gently.
Adrian felt like this was heaven for him.
But soon, it became hell as some soldiers came to them and asked them to leave, as the Crown Prince wished for a stroll in the garden.
Elara started packing their stuff, with Ronald ready to leave, but Adrian refused to, and the soldiers couldn’t forcibly move Adrian out as he was a prince who carried the royal blood.
Not long after that, the Crown Prince Leon came to the garden, and when both Elara and Ronald bowed to him, Adrian didn’t.
This irked him, but he let it go.
He told the soldiers to be done with this sooner, but hearing these words, Adrian gave the Crown Prince a deadly glare, and the Crown Prince now couldn’t let Adrian continue his rude behaviour towards him.
So, he ordered his soldiers to teach Adrian a lesson before throwing him out, and the guards did as they were ordered by the Prince.
They started beating Adrian, but his mother, Elara, came in between the guards and Adrian to protect him and apologised to the Crown Prince for Adrian’s behaviour.
She then began moving out of the garden with Adrian.
As Adrian left the garden, he had only one thought: to kill the Crown Prince at this very same spot where he had been humiliated by him, and once again, Adrian resolved himself to overthrow the King and become one himself.