“Your Highness, this way, please. The other two have not yet arrived, but would you care for a drink of your preference?”
“…Thank you. It seems I’ve arrived a little early. Could I have something warm?”
“Certainly.”
Even without specifying a particular brand, the castle maids knew his preferences. The maid, unfazed by his vague request, gave a gentle bow and began preparations.
Elvan, seated at a table prepared on the terrace of the Princess Palace, took a sip of the tea the maid had brought and slowly exhaled.
He had been summoned by his younger sister who said she had something to discuss, and he had arrived earlier than the appointed time because he wanted this time to calm his heart. More than that, he sought an opportunity to speak with the two girls who had been close to him since childhood but were now distant.
As Crown Prince, Elvan never moved alone. Like Princess Elena, several Royal Guards and attendants were always by his side, but for this invitation from Princess Elena, Elvan had come here accompanied only by his attendants.
Only those trusted and approved by His Majesty the King were permitted to enter the Princess Palace. A viscount’s daughter without an invitation couldn’t even approach, and even Prince Amor, a member of the royal family, was not allowed to enter the Princess Palace without the Princess’s permission.
Even so, Elvan had wanted to come here alone. His spirit was that cornered.
His friends from childhood had left him because Elvan had changed.
His half-sister, to whom he had opened his heart, drifted away because he hadn’t changed.
The son of the Baron of the Robes, who had become his new friend, was said to be weakening daily and on the verge of death.
His uncle, who had protected him, had become ambitious as if a different person, and was constantly frequenting the Noble Faction, which had become his own, and the Second Order of Knights.
And then—
“Lady Clara, daughter of Margrave Dandole, has arrived.”
At the maid’s voice, Elvan looked up and saw Clara entering the terrace, accompanied by several maids.
“Clara…”
Though she was his fiancée, it had been a long time since he had last seen her. As Elvan started to rise from his seat, Clara’s Escort Maids shot him wary glances. Clara, however, gestured them down with one hand, dismissed them, and walked to the table alone.
“It has been a long time… Your Highness.”
“…It has.”
Elvan, shocked by Clara’s different way of addressing him than before, somehow managed to voice a greeting.
The maid attending the table placed a drink for Clara and retreated to the wall where the other attendants stood. Once they were out of earshot of anyone but each other, Elvan spoke.
“…I wanted to see you.”
“…Why? I thought you had forgotten all about me.”
“That’s not true! …It’s not like that.”
Clara looked at Elvan, slightly surprised by his momentarily raised voice, and Elvan lowered his voice and shook his head.
A moment of silence. They both had things they wanted to say, things they wanted to ask, but they held their tongues, afraid that voicing them wouldn’t yield the desired answers.
The one who broke the silence was—
“Her Highness, the First Princess Elena, has arrived.”
Elena, entering the terrace, was accompanied by Mikhail and Roakwell, who were once his friends. Unable to bear the cold gazes his former friends directed at him, Elvan shifted his gaze to his sister, only to find Elena with an even colder look in her eyes, wearing an artificial smile.
“Oh, Brother, good day. Clara, too.”
“Ah, yes…”
“Good day, Elena-sama.”
Mikhail and Roakwell lined up with the attendants, as if to show their allegiance to Elena. Elena then took a seat at the table where Elvan and Clara were already seated opposite each other, positioning herself so she was between them.
A maid placed a drink before Elena, and once the three of them were alone, Elena slowly began to speak.
“Thank you for coming today. I wished to hear what you both have to say.”
“Hear what we have to say…?”
Elvan couldn’t help but ask back, and Elena nodded quietly.
“Yes. Brother, what is it that you wish to do?”
“What I wish to do…”
Nobles usually use vague and roundabout expressions to avoid showing weakness or giving others an opening to criticize, but Elvan gasped at Elena’s direct way of speaking.
“Brother, do you intend to become king? For what purpose?”
“That is…”
Elvan instinctively hesitated. It had been decided since his birth that he would become king. So he had never questioned it. He had envisioned himself as king, with the childlike thought of wanting to create a country where everyone could live smiling.
But that education became harsh, and to a young Elvan who complained, his mother taught him that it was alright to be freer. That was why he felt pity for his younger sister, whose health had broken down due to the rigorous education, and he had taken her out into the bright outside world. Believing that this was the right thing to do…
However, his sister before him now had not wished for that.
“Brother. I will become queen. For the people. To protect this country. Even if I die for it… for the sake of those who will follow.”
“…”
Elvan could not utter a word in response to Elena, who declared this while looking straight into his eyes.
Elvan was aware that he was running away. In an era of peace, even he could have become an ordinary king. After all, the two margrave families, former royalty, who had received strict educations for that purpose, were by the king’s side.
His mother had told him that if things became too painful, it was alright to run away. But—
“Brother… please stop running away. A Commoner might be allowed to flee. A lower noble might have a place to escape to. …However, we of the royal family are absolutely not permitted to run away.”
People say to run if you’re suffering, because there’s nothing worse than death… But that’s the way those below think. Those above are never permitted to flee.
Elena was saying that if Elvan were to run, she would become queen in his stead. That she would continue to fight for the people and the country, risking her life without ever fleeing.
If you intend to keep running, then show it through your actions. Her eyes told him to relinquish the position of Crown Prince to his sister and become like Amor.
Even with Elvan’s ‘Eyes,’ he could understand that Elena had accumulated enough experience to make such a resolve.
“At the very least, cut ties with that viscount’s daughter. Otherwise—”
—you will die.
But, before those words could escape Elena’s lips, Elvan, his face pale, denied it.
“It’s not like that, Elena! She… Licia isn’t like that!”
“…Brother?”
It had been painful since he was young.
His overly capable sister. His overly capable friends. His fiancées too were true nobles who had received elite educations since birth. Even Clara, the only one who possessed a sensibility close to his own, treated him like a mere child.
Karla and the Pink-Haired Girl, too, possessed terrifying power, unbelievable for ones younger than him.
There was no way he could fall in love with such girls. Elvan, who had grown up listening to his mother, a former viscount’s daughter, tell stories of her romance with his father, found it agonizing to marry someone chosen for him simply because he was a noble.
It was precisely because Elvan had seen it with his ‘Eyes’ that he came to know the “difference” between himself and those around him.
Elvan’s Divine Protection (Gift)—’Complete Appraisal’—allowed him to see “everything” about a target person. That was why he was made aware of the difference between himself and those girls, and why he became devoted to—drowned in—the girl named Licia, who truly possessed no power at all.
Being by her side, where she affirmed him like his mother did, felt comfortable.
He was coddled as if in lukewarm water made of sweet honey, and he sought her out as if to escape reality.
Precisely because she was someone who possessed nothing, unlike himself, he was able to trust her.
“It’s okay to run if it’s painful. As long as you become king, your capable vassals will take care of everything. I’ll always be by your side,” Licia had said, ensnaring Elvan’s body and soul.
Her—Licia’s Divine Protection (Gift) was ‘Allure’—its effect, a slight increase in favorability. One couldn’t harbor ill feelings towards her… It was merely an ability of that extent.
She called it the ‘Heroine’s Power.’ He didn’t understand what that meant. But, while it was an ability with almost no effect on those who disliked her from the start or were hostile towards her, she used skillful rhetoric and her own body to instantly increase her followers, climbing all the way to the position of Saint.
And Elvan gradually began to feel terror towards her frenzied actions.
“Now, the Noble Faction, the Holy Church, the Second Order of Knights… most of them are on her side. I saw it… the terrifying “darkness” within her… Elena, you mustn’t oppose her. If she disappears, many people will die…”
Terrifying… but I can’t leave her.
No matter how terrifying she was, he couldn’t see her as a bad person.
Even if he thought it was her Divine Protection (Gift), for Elvan, only the place where she was had become his solace.
“…”
Elena looked at her brother and thought that his Divine Protection (Gift) was the same ability as the previous king’s younger brother, who had died young.
Elena’s uncle, the second prince, had overused that power for the sake of his older brother, the king, and lost his life at a young age. However, thanks to that, they were able to eliminate dangerous nobles within the kingdom and spies from other countries, achieving a temporary peace.
What he truly should have done was to eliminate the merely adorable viscount’s daughter who was in love, but the second prince, who cared deeply for his brother, couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Elvan used that power only for himself.
He had seen “something” “inside” Saintess Licia, and by “seeing” the people who blindly believed in her, he understood that if the Saintess were to disappear, those people would go on a rampage, and much blood would be shed.
For that reason, Elena and the others had been planning to eliminate her, but if they were to believe Elvan’s story, Elena also understood that they needed to eliminate her side’s power first.
However, it was difficult to do so in the short period before graduation.
No matter how much power Aria possessed, if they tried to eliminate her by force, their malevolence, upon noticing it, would be directed towards Elena and the royal family.
Elena had taken Aria, who was a free fighting force, under her wing as an external deterrent… and more so to protect Aria, but Aria, having stepped onto the main stage, had her actions restricted.
But Elena had a solution that Aria couldn’t provide.
(‘…To think I’d actually have to use the “poisoned chalice”…’)
It wasn’t a method Elena liked to use, but she was already prepared to do it, even if she had to bear the stigma of killing her brother. In the worst-case scenario, she could remove him from the queen consort’s education and entrust him to the second prince, whose own royal education had begun.
However, in that case, Clara, who was present, would no longer be able to become queen consort.
Clara, who had previously been mentally unwell and showed dangerous signs, seemed to have finally steeled her resolve. The commoner-like thinking that had appeared since she was eight years old had subsided, giving Elena the impression that she had returned to the noble princess of Dandole she once was.
This meeting also served to confirm that.
When Elena turned her gaze to Clara, who had remained silent since the meeting began, Clara was staring intently only at Elvan.
“I cannot say that I can protect you…”
Elvan turned a haggard face towards Clara, who had spoken quietly.
Was it despair floating in his eyes, or the fear of rejection…? But Clara smiled slightly before continuing.
“But… I wish to be with you. …El-sama.”
“Clara…”
Clara was also the daughter of a high-ranking noble. She understood that things would lead to ruin if they continued like this. But, even so… even if it meant dying. Clara said that she would be with Elvan.
Whether he understood its meaning or not, Elvan’s eyes wavered with bewilderment.
Elena, while rejoicing at the sight of her “cousin” who had finally returned, narrowed her eyes slightly, wondering if she would lose her so soon.
But at that moment—
“Eh…”
A small sphere of “darkness” appeared before Elena’s eyes, and when it burst in an instant, a single pendant emerged from within.
Elena knew “what” it was. Only Elvan and Clara noticed the phenomenon. Elena, gently touching it, opened a small piece of paper tied to the pendant and read it. She narrowed her eyes, a slight Killing Intent leaking out, yet a faint smile played on her lips.
“Elena-sama…?”
“Oh, my apologies.”
To Clara, who had spoken with a bewildered voice, Elena turned back to face her and Elvan, a chilling smile on her face.
“It seems Aria has passed away?”
＊＊＊
Having entrusted Mikhail and Roakwell with guarding Elena, who would be meeting with the Crown Prince and Clara from noon, I had visited the Holy Church’s temple in my adventurer guise since morning.
“…It’s amazing how well it’s been repaired.”
Looking at the newly completed temple, such a thought unintentionally slipped out.
The Holy Church’s temple that Karla burned down should have been mostly destroyed, though the foundations remained. That it could be rebuilt in less than half a year, even in this world with magic, I couldn’t even imagine how much labor and funds were poured into it.
Nobles probably contributed funds as well, but believers who were Dark Magicians and Earth Magicians from all over the country must have been involved.
As for the temple, since it was just completed, even general believers who had made donations were allowed to enter quite far inside. There were a considerable number of people, many in adventurer-like attire like myself, so even I, wearing a cloak, could enter the temple grounds without issue.
However, the reason for this was to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Training Corps, which had temporarily become a rumor and whose crimes the Holy Church had given up on prosecuting Karla for, and because the “Saintess” was present.
Saintess… I don’t know what that is, or what kind of existence she is, but I felt that she was loved by the current Holy Church.
“…”
The people involved within the temple. The commoner believers who came to worship. Even from the children in the orphanage at the back of the temple, I occasionally heard the words “Saintess-sama.”
…There were no particular signs of brainwashing. The children also seemed to genuinely adore the Saintess.
That’s precisely why it feels strange. According to Theo’s story, she should have only been able to use Level 1 or 2 Light Magic. What reason could there be to revere and adore such a person as a Saintess?
Should I try going deeper…? As I was memorizing the temple’s layout by strolling through the backyard where construction materials still remained, a girl with reddish, dark blonde hair was looking down at me with a smile from the top of an external staircase that probably led further in.
“From this point on, it’s off-limits.”
What will happen to Aria? What is the meaning of Elena’s smile?
The reason will be revealed next time! Second part.
The author, who gave up trying to fit it all into one chapter this time, will they be able to wrap it up next time!?
The comic adaptation is amazing, isn’t it? To those who watched that and then came to read this, thank you very much.
Thank you for the typo reports.
Your thoughts and ratings are also a great encouragement.