126
I will come back after fixing the mess (2)
Vincent did his best to somehow fill the void, for he knew it wasn’t possible for him to leave the north.
Eventually, instead of going, Vincent sent the one-eyed Quéon to the capital to hear the news.
Quéon Lichtheim, commander of the Black Lancers, headed south with a few knights. They arrived at the capital after riding night and day to find that the atmosphere in the city was tense. Many nobles were bad-mouthing the first prince for daring to defy the emperor and sully the honor of the imperial knights. Quéon met up with the Balahard Rangers who had arrived at the capital.
“After we heard the rumors that the paladins of the Marquis of Yvesinth had joined the hunt, all news regarding His Highness had stopped.”
Platoon Commander Jordan made a report of their journey, speaking of the first prince.
“Where is he, Jordan?”
“All we knew was that His Highness had not returned, so we headed here straight from the imperial border.”
Quéon bowed his head in shame as if being in the kingdom when the prince was in peril was a sin. He then went straight to the royal palace and asked for an audience with the king.
After waiting for two days, Quéon was finally able to meet King Lionel.
* * *
“The royal family is also seeking news from the prince, with all our might.”
The king’s face was dark as he spoke with the one-eyed northern knight.
It was a natural reaction. It was a major event when the prince of a country disappears, and he was to be found neither in his own country nor in the lands of the empire.
Nonetheless, all the king could do was trivial things, such as sending letters of protest about the unfair treatment of a diplomatic delegation that had been attacked by imperial knights.
The empire’s response to this was truly stunning.
The official imperial position was that there were no grounds on which the imperial family could intervene, as it was the knights of the kingdom who had first fielded the challenges for dueling, and had therefore given the imperial knights just cause for challenging them in turn.
Still, it was shameless and irresponsible that an official delegation and a prince had gone missing in imperial territory.
But what could the king do? It was the sin of the kingdom that it had no power and that its king was incompetent. It seemed that the king had lost all vestiges of self-confidence as he expressed himself. Quéon offered words of comfort.
“Your Majesty, your face looks haggard and ill. Please take care of yourself.”
At the knight’s words, the king touched his face. He felt that his skin was rough and dry to the touch. He knew that it was because of sleepless nights caused by great stress.
It was all because of the Marquis of Montpellier.
The marquis had been cooperating with the kingdom for a while, but he had recently begun to act suspiciously. It was said that if the empire declared war, it would be blamed on the first prince and that the nobles of Leonberg who had their pockets lined with imperial gold had received orders from the marquis.
It was now very possible that the imperial ambassador, once believed to have been leashed, was about to change his stripes and even flee into the empire.
Some of these concerns became a reality.
A meeting was convened to determine the whereabouts of the missing mission.
“Since the seeds the prince had sown grew into the vines that tripped his feet, how can you blame this on imperial carelessness?” asked Montpellier in a subtle tone, stating that the disappearance of the delegation was solely due to the first prince’s rashness. Then, the marquis agitated some of the nobles, who began to criticize the royal family. Montpellier’s behavior was vicious, as if things had returned to the days when the kingdom was being sucked dry of its lifeblood.
Thanks to this, the rescue meeting was transformed into a carnival of slanderous jeers and shouts, denigrating the first prince and his knights.
“Stop this!”
The king had called the futile meeting to an end but then ordered the imperial ambassador to remain behind.
As soon as only the two of them were left, the marquis almost growled at the king.
“I guarantee you, if something happens to me now, the empire will demand revenge after the insults of your royal mission.”
As the king tried to reply to Montpellier’s blatant statement, the outside of the hall suddenly became noisy.
‘Bang!’
Before the king could even ask what the meaning of the tumult was, the door flew open and Nogisa Schmilde Stuttgart, the palace knight commander, entered. His Aura Blade was blazing.
“Sire! Step back! Watch out!”
The eyes of the Nogisa were fixed on the great window of the hall. The king followed his gaze and froze in shock. There was something there, a thing covered in sparkling scales.
“Well, what is that!?” King Lionel demanded.
The marquis had turned his head away as he started to step back, finally falling flat on his ass.
‘Kwraaah-ahhhhh!’ the thing outside the window screeched.
The Marquis was gibbering as he gripped his chest in fear. Staring at the marquis, the creature, a wyvern, flicked its tongue.
‘Shshshs!’
A yellow liquid flowed from the crotch of Montpellier and onto the floor.
“He’s pissed himself,” a serene voice stated, a peaceful voice. It was only then that the men, who had been overwhelmed by the wyvern’s immense presence, realized that a rider sat atop the beast.
“Who are you?!” the Nogisa demanded. The youthful jockey cleared his throat with an “Ehhem” and announced in a clear voice that he was a messenger, sent at the behest of a friend.
“Who is your friend, and what do you have to say?” the king asked the wyvern rider, pushing Count Schmilde out of the way and stepping forward.
“Prince of the Kingdom of Dotrin, commander of the Knights of the Sky, and the First Wyvern Knight, Doris Dotrin, pays his respect to the Lord of Leonberg.”
The young man’s manner of greeting was unfamiliar; the Knights of the Sky were unfamiliar: It was all unfamiliar. But what was important right now weren’t the titles that the men present never heard before.
“Personally, I’m a close friend of Adrian.”
All that was important was that Doris Dotrin was a friend of the first prince.
“The prince! Is the prince safe?” the king demanded, his tone uncharacteristically angry.
Doris smiled brightly and nodded.
“Both Adrian and the envoys are safe. They are currently carrying out a mission with my country’s Sky Knights.”
The king almost staggered to the ground in relief. He had been praying for his son’s safety, so when he heard that he was alive, all the tension uncoiled from him at once.
“But why is His Highness not returning?” the Nogisa asked on behalf of the king.
“Nice question!” Doris exclaimed as if having expected the commander to ask it. “Even if you haven’t asked it, I was about to tell you! This is Adrian’s message-,” and here Doris cleared his throat with another “Ehhem,” now speaking while mimicking a voice, “There are many things I have to do. I will come back after fixing this mess.”
Only after hearing this did the king know that this man was truly who he claimed to be, a friend of the prince. Somehow, he had perfectly imitated the arrogant and blunt manner of speech unique to Prince Adrian.
“It’s okay, he’s okay. All is fine,” the king said, greatly relieved that he now knew that the prince and the envoys were safe.
“Ah, and this is my first time in Leonberg! Can I request a guide to take me to the Marquis of Montpellier?”
“Can you tell me why you are looking for the Marquis of Montpellier?” the king asked as he glanced at the imperial ambassador.
“I also have a message for him.”
“The person right there is the Marquis of Montpellier, so if you have anything to tell him, then do so. If it’s a message that requires confidentiality, I’ll arrange for a private room.”
Doris Dotrin thought for a moment about the king’s words, then shook his head.
“Adrian didn’t say it was absolutely confidential.”
Having said that, Doris jumped from the back of his wyvern with a “Yoongcha!” and came to rest into a crouch before Montpellier, once more lowering his voice as he mimicked Prince Adrian.
“If you swear fealty to another, I will come back and step on you like the worm you are. You know this.”
The tone of the message was masterfully conveyed, reproducing the exact murderous intention of its original speaker. The Marquis of Montpellier visibly paled.
Doris’s face was pride-filled as he got up from his crouch. Even in his own opinion, he thought that his imitation of Adrian was quite good.
“Good job,” the king said as he looked at Doris, who’s appearance was somewhat that of a child begging for praise. “You have worked hard.”
“I didn’t mean to get complimented.”
Once more, the king laughed as he looked at Prince Doris Dotrin, a man whose actions were radically different than his words.
* * *
The king treated Doris as a distinguished guest and invited him to dinner.
He also invited those who had been awaiting word on the prince, so that they could hear the news themselves. Among those gathered were Maximilian and the queen, as well as the Marquis of Bielefeld and men from the north.
“In front of his imperial majesty, Adrian and the envoys were like candles in the wind,” the chatty messenger said, telling the tales of the prince’s journey so well that everyone present felt as if they had been there in person.
“At that time, fifteen knights of the empire rode out, saying that Adrian and his knights would come to curse the first day of the new year! Among them were some of those paladins that the empire keeps boasting about. So, it’s not too much to say that those of Leonberg were in dire straits, and facing a desperate crisis!”
None at the table knew how fiercely the first prince and the envoys had fought, or how
viciously the imperial knights had haunted them, so they all sat listening with open mouths.
“It was a bloodbath! No! Worse than that! The knights of the kingdom had to consider their future journey, but the imperial knights, being in the empire, did not. Those knights of the empire were real evil bastards. It was normal for great numbers of them to attack lesser forces, so they changed their tactics a bit. They attacked the exhausted delegation in the middle of the night. Alas! The imperial knights really wanted to restore their honor, but they never had any, so it was a shameful exercise from the start!”
Doris said that if he had been there, he wouldn’t have put up with such nonsense. He even clenched his fist to stress this.
“Of course, Adrian and his knights were not so easily beaten.”
In between his excited words, Doris took a sip of water and then told them of how the delegation had smashed about half of the fifteen knights who had pursued them. The proud paladins of the empire were defeated by the heroes of the kingdom, one after the other. It was miraculous that the delegation had managed to fight, despite their exhaustion after constant battles and continued pursuit; and for four entire months to boot!
“But in the end, they reached their limit. The kingdom’s knights were tired, and the knights of the empire had united and surrounded them. The battleground was chosen by the imperial knights, they had driven the delegation into a trap! At the time, I had just caught up with the delegation.”
Doris Dotrin paused for a moment, and then turned in his seat to address his entire audience, asking, “Do you know what Adrian said when facing the imperial knights at the time?”
* * *
“Arwen, from now on, command the Templars. Destroy them.”
Doris Dotrin stood tall, tilting his head as he first looked at the kingdom’s knights, and then at the imperial knights who seemed to fill the horizon.
The number of imperial knights who surrounded the delegation reached up to a whopping three-hundred, and two paladins were among them.
It would not be strange if everyone from Leonberg were annihilated, but the first prince was not planning an escape; he was discussing the destruction of his foes!
“Don’t let a single thing live.”
Adrian even ordered that were to be no survivors.
“As Your Highness commands!”
Once more, Adrian’s knights accepted his orders without question.
“I think they are all insane, as a group,” Jin Katrin stated. Jin was the vice-commander of the Knights of the Sky and Doris’s long-time friend. He had much to say about the knights of Leonberg.
“Let’s wait and see.”
Jin commanded three wyvern riders of the Sky Knights to take to the air and prepare for an assault.
It was then that Adrian Leonberger stood facing the paladins of the empire.
“A rat bites a cat if cornered. But I speak too much.”
Adrian then drew his sword.
“The sword of a Blood Lion is perfect for toppling empires!”
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