Madius had announced that he would hold a party to celebrate Karl’s recovery, but from Karl’s perspective, everything about it was nothing short of dreadful.
First of all, Karl was utterly unprepared to make such a sudden appearance before the world. The books he had read in the Imperial Archives had been meant to prepare him for what lay ahead, not for attending a party at a moment’s notice.
He had no clothes suitable for a party, no money with which to buy any, and no idea where or from whom he was supposed to commission them.
And etiquette and dancing!
He knew absolutely nothing!
He had been so busy searching the Imperial Archives for anything related to strategy, tactics, or clues concerning the major developments of the original story that the thought had never even crossed his mind.
On top of that, he did not know how many noble houses there were, what sort of power each possessed, or how they were connected to one another.
The only houses Karl knew were a handful of major families that survived even after Ingil became emperor in the original novel. And Karl had no way of making a favorable impression on any of them.
Everything was a disaster in every conceivable direction, and he had no idea where to begin fixing it.
“Lord Karl, let us start by learning etiquette and dancing.”
Fortunately, although House Felt was a weak noble family, Cecile was still one of its members, and she began trying to salvage the situation before Karl did.
Facing Cecile, Karl awkwardly mimicked her movements as he learned the etiquette of the Imperial Family.
But there was no possibility that Cecile knew everything an imperial prince was expected to learn.
After considerable thought, Karl boldly gave up on dancing first.
Even if he wanted to dance at the party, he had no partner.
The only woman Karl knew was Cecile, and Cecile was merely his nursemaid. She possessed neither power nor any meaningful status. It was difficult to call her a noble at all.
Cecile could not attend the party.
In other words, Karl would have to attend the party alone.
He could not depend on Cecile forever.
“You there. You are an attendant, correct?”
“Yes, Lord Karl.”
“Please teach me etiquette.”
“……Yes.”
Karl left his room just like that, seized the first attendant he saw, and asked him to teach him etiquette.
Even an imperial attendant was so taken aback that he hesitated, evidently having never imagined Karl would do such a thing.
“Straighten your back and shoulders. You must never drag your feet when you walk. Push against the floor with your big toes and maintain a powerful, dignified stride. Your chin must never extend farther forward than your chest. Keep your neck straight and tuck in your chin.”
Because his body had deteriorated during his long illness, everything about Karl was a mess, beginning with the way he stood.
Like an infant learning to walk for the first time, everything from beginning to end had to be corrected.
Fortunately, and rather astonishingly, Karl absorbed the attendant’s exacting instructions with remarkable speed.
“Good. It seems we can move on immediately. …Ahem….”
Karl followed his instructions so well that the attendant became excessively pleased, spoke with a gentle smile, then cleared his throat as though embarrassed by his own reaction.
‘It does not feel like my body.’
Karl himself was astonished by how much strength filled his body and how faithfully it responded to his will.
The person in the original story who had cured the same illness had fought while expending enormous amounts of Mana, but his health had not improved this dramatically overnight.
Karl, on the other hand, had gained strength and stamina that seemed impossible for such an emaciated body, while failing to obtain the tremendous reserves of Mana he had expected.
Karl mastered all of the physical aspects of etiquette in a single day.
The problem was that he could not possibly memorize which form of etiquette was required in every conceivable situation.
‘What lunatic invented all this? Who could possibly memorize every last bit of it?’
He grumbled inwardly, but not only the members of the Imperial Family, even the attendants and maids had memorized it all.
In the end, there was nothing for it but rote memorization.
“Is there no way to contact House Felt?”
Next, Karl attempted to contact House Felt through Cecile.
They might not have possessed enough power to obtain the Frostwind Corpse Flower, but surely they could at least be contacted?
Karl might be an imperial prince, but he had no one backing him whatsoever.
His circumstances were so dire that he did not possess so much as a single coin.
He had spent his entire life bedridden by illness and had not even received the allowance normally granted to maintain an imperial prince’s dignity.
“We should be able to contact them. But I do not know whether they will be of any help. House Felt has so little power…….”
The answer he received was nothing but discouraging.
Only then did Karl realize that he knew virtually nothing about House Felt, and he asked Cecile to explain in greater detail.
“Whenever His Majesty married into a powerful family, he made certain that his next marriage was to someone from a weak family. Her Majesty the Empress is a direct descendant of the ruling family of the Lyrias Duchy, while the late Consort Minerva was the daughter of a baronial house.”
Ias’s mother, Adne, had come from House Beria, a count’s family that had amassed enormous wealth through its salt mines.
And the family of Karl’s mother, Viole—House Felt—was……
“House Felt… possesses nothing, in truth.”
Nothing at all.
“They merely perform minor civil duties for the empire as administrators. Despite being nobles, even their positions are not hereditary. They are simply a small family that formed after producing low-ranking administrators consistently for a very long time. Your mother, Lady Viole, was also working as an administrator when she caught His Majesty’s eye…….”
In other words, there was nothing Karl could receive from House Felt.
‘This is hopeless. There is no answer.’
Karl finally understood the full extent of his situation.
It was no different from being abandoned alone in the middle of a boundless ocean.
“Then there is no helping it.”
At last, Karl made up his mind.
If he had nothing, then he would simply have to take what he needed from those who did.
***
“Have you heard about the Fourth Prince?”
“I heard he suffered from an incurable illness but finally recovered a few days ago?”
“That is right. Apparently, even that was only because the Third Prince, Lord Ias, took pity on him and helped him.”
“Tsk, tsk. His Majesty can be coldhearted as well. To think it could have been cured so easily.”
Karl’s story made for fairly appetizing gossip, so the nobles often used it as light conversation to break the ice.
“Does he not have lowborn blood mixed in him?”
“Shh. Watch your tongue.”
“I only hope he does not develop any foolish ambitions. He is still an imperial prince in name, after all.”
“Surely not. If he has any sense at all, he would never dream of challenging Lord Balos. Has it not already been decided?”
“But a Crown Prince has yet to be appointed.”
“I cannot fathom what His Majesty is thinking.”
“Speaking of which, Lord Balos recently…….”
And that was all.
Karl was merely a passing topic of idle conversation.
No one expected anything from him, nor did anyone take any real interest in him.
Tap.
“…….”
Tap.
“Lord Aingir?”
Tap…….
Aingir, seated languidly with his chin propped on one hand, stopped tapping a game piece against the table and set it down.
On the board before him, where the game had halted as Aingir fell into thought, the intricately entangled pieces merely waited in silence for the next move.
“…Ah, forgive me. Perhaps because the weather has grown colder lately, I find myself losing track of everything whenever I sit somewhere this warm.”
“Hoho, not at all. Watching you sit quietly like this is quite enjoyable in itself.”
Aingir smiled faintly at Gavianne, his fiancée, whose marriage to him had been postponed following Minerva’s death.
Gavianne narrowed her eyes and smiled in return.
Her expression meant: Stop thinking about something else and make your next move already.
Vixen.
Aingir made his next move.
As though she had been waiting for it, Gavianne immediately responded, and for a short while, the two moved their pieces back and forth almost recklessly, like children.
Then, once they reached the end of the sequence Gavianne had anticipated, Aingir stopped abruptly.
“I have lost.”
“…….”
At Aingir’s declaration of defeat, Gavianne’s beautiful face froze like a sculpture.
He had followed the exact sequence of moves she wanted with razor-sharp precision, then declared defeat.
It meant: Staying here with you any longer would only waste my time, so I am ending this quickly and leaving.
Snake.
“You must be very worried about your younger brother.”
At Gavianne’s words, Aingir, who had just been about to rise, shifted his posture instead.
She had interjected at precisely the right moment, preventing him from leaving.
Aingir and Gavianne were still publicly engaged, at least for now. If he brushed aside her words and stood up here, nothing good would come of it.
“I am deeply concerned.”
“Oh dear. Then perhaps you should visit him?”
“I am not concerned enough to go that far.”
“Truly?”
Aingir tried everything he could to end the conversation and leave, but he could not discard the mask he was wearing.
In the end, there was no escaping Gavianne’s persistent attempts to keep him there.
Tap.
Eventually, Aingir pretended to fall back into contemplation and tapped the table with a piece from the already-finished game.
It meant: Do not speak to me.
Gavianne’s eyelashes twitched, but since she could no longer interrupt him, she merely sipped her tea with a pleasant smile.
Aingir rested his chin on one hand and stared at the board he had lost, his eyes filled with melancholy.
The sight was so beautiful that one could not help but admire it.
He looked as noble and majestic as a divine messenger, yet somehow touched by sorrow at the same time.
Tap.
‘Another one I have to kill. It would have been convenient if he had simply died naturally from his illness. How troublesome.’
With the face of an angel, Aingir thought that about Karl.
Tap.
‘Ias. You have done something bothersome. If you wanted excitement, you should have gone to your mother and pestered her for it.’
Aingir knew that Ias had helped Karl merely because he wanted the thrill of an adventure.
Tap.
‘Ias…. As expected, you are keeping your guard raised and searching for an opening through which to escape. Ias is more troublesome than the complacent Balos.’
Tap.
‘But thanks to Madius holding Adne hostage, controlling him is simple. Once I have Adne in my hands, he will walk in of his own accord and offer me his neck.’
Tap.
‘As for Karl……. Having too many possible moves is troublesome in its own way.’
In the span of a few moments, Aingir devised ways to kill his brothers.
Just as casually as he had plotted out the game he had played with Gavianne moments earlier, he sketched out the future and considered how he might harvest the lives of his own blood relatives.
“What amusing thoughts are occupying you?”
“…….”
Gavianne interjected again at precisely the point when Aingir had remained silent for too long in front of his fiancée, leaving him no choice but to emerge from his thoughts once more.
“I was simply captivated by the beauty of your eyes.”
Vixen.
“Could they possibly compare to your eyes, Lord Aingir?”
Snake.
Aingir pictured Gavianne’s future.
Gavianne was not bad.
After all, she would bear him sons of excellent blood.
‘Her lineage is certainly distinguished enough for an empress, but she is far too ambitious and far too clever to be entrusted with power.’
Aingir smiled like an angel as he thought so.
***
The party began.
Nobles mingled throughout the hall, conversing in clusters while discreet glances passed among them.
It was supposedly a party celebrating Karl’s recovery, but that was nothing more than a pretext.
No one cared whether an utterly powerless Fourth Prince lived or died.
Despite the glittering lights and sweet delicacies filling the hall, Ias spent his time chatting with knights about martial arts, then spoke with a childlike smile about mysterious places that adventurers dreamed of exploring.
“I heard you set foot in the lands of the Balturan People in the North.”
“Ah! Yes! It was incredible!”
“And you even obtained medicine for Prince Karl. Truly impressive.”
“Hahaha. No, no. It naturally would have been impossible by myself. I pestered my mother until she let me take some of Beria’s knights and mages with me. Besides, I am technically an imperial prince, so they treated me reasonably well.”
Ias laughed heartily and waved away their praise.
‘Slippery bastards.’
Ias was sick of them.
If they wanted to fight over power, they should do it among themselves.
He had said more times than he could count that he intended to stay out of the struggle for the throne, yet they kept trying to draw him in through subtle means.
‘Karl never came to me after all.’
Ias quietly withdrew from the crowd and leaned against a corner of the party hall, sweeping his gaze across the room.
He had expected Karl to come to him.
Etiquette and everything else aside, he had been certain Karl would at least seek his help in obtaining formal attire.
More importantly, Ias was the only person Karl could rely on at this party.
Cecile could not accompany him into the hall.
She was Karl’s nursemaid, but that was all.
She possessed no status to speak of. She stood at the very bottom even among nobles, to the point that she could practically be considered a commoner.
She had no qualifications to attend a party hosted by the emperor.
In other words, Karl was going to be cast entirely alone into this pit of desire.
‘Does he have no plan at all? Or does he truly intend to give everything up?’
Ias spent his time alone, radiating enough obvious discomfort to discourage those who were gradually trying to approach him.
His gaze shifted toward his mother, Adne, who was smiling and conversing with many people on one side of the hall.
He would have liked to remain with his mother, but doing so could be interpreted politically, so it was generally better for them to stay apart in settings like this.
Ias moved his gaze again, quietly watching his young siblings toddling along while holding the hands of other imperial consorts.
Then he looked toward his second elder brother, Aingir, unquestionably the most dazzling presence in the entire hall.
‘They certainly are making a fuss over an engaged man.’
Ias himself was strikingly handsome in a rugged, masculine way, but Aingir was truly beautiful, as though sculpted by a god.
Men and women, young and old alike, were desperate to find any excuse to speak with him.
However, Gavianne was pressed close against his side with her arm linked through his, hiding her mouth behind a fan as she whispered to him.
That made it difficult for anyone else to approach.
Aingir did not particularly enjoy gatherings like this in the first place.
He disliked them enough to use Gavianne as a shield.
‘Brother Aingir should have given up on the throne as well…….’
Ias felt an inexplicable unease whenever he looked at Aingir.
“…….”
“…….”
Their eyes met.
Aingir gave him a slight nod with a gentle smile on his angelic face, and Ias responded with his characteristic broad, easygoing smile and a nod of his own.
‘Damn it.’
Ias shuddered inwardly with disgust.
Aingir made him uncomfortable, but more than anything else, Ias hated himself for wearing a mask and putting on an act like this.
‘Ah! I want to get out of here!’
Going to retrieve the Frostwind Corpse Flower had been so much fun……
Ias rested the back of his head against the wall and stared up at the extravagantly decorated ceiling soaring high above the party hall.
All of this was one enormous cage.
As long as Madius remained emperor, Ias could not leave.
Because his mother, Adne, was being held hostage.
Lost in one thought after another, Ias briefly neglected his surroundings and was somewhat startled when the atmosphere in the party hall abruptly grew noisy.
Thinking that Madius might already have arrived, Ias straightened and looked toward the entrance.
For him to arrive this early……
Karl had not even appeared yet.
“……What…?”
The moment Ias thought that, however, he could only doubt his own eyes.
“What in the world….”
“Even so, this is…….”
“How wretched.”
Amid the nobles’ murmurs, Karl’s shabby figure was revealed in full as he opened the doors himself and entered without so much as an introduction.
He wore a long, loose white nightshirt that was little different from undergarments, soft indoor slippers, and his unkempt hair had simply been swept back and tied tightly behind his head.
Karl had recovered only recently and remained painfully thin and haggard.
Standing there, he looked utterly out of place, as though he alone had been thrown into a world entirely different from everyone else’s.
“What in the world is he thinking…!”
Ias was so flustered that he seized his carefully styled hair with both of his large hands and completely ruined it.
He had told Karl to make it absolutely clear that he had no interest in the throne.
He had never told him to ignore every rule of the Imperial Family and behave however he pleased like an idiot!
The nobles whispered in horror as though some wild beast had charged into the hall.
Karl stood alone amid them and looked around.
Then his eyes met Ias’s directly.
‘Do not come over here!’
Ias shook his head frantically, almost trembling.
Unfortunately, Karl mercilessly trampled all over his desperate wish.
He smiled brightly and began shuffling toward Ias, dragging his slippers across the floor.
Ias had saved his younger brother’s life, only for the bastard to lose his mind and apparently decide to repay him by making his life miserable.
Ias’s vision went dark.