Chapter 239
A Group That Follows the Dawn (3)
I truly believed it was time to take a breath. I thought that it was time for us to recover from the damage suffered in the last war, to face the staggering situation in the country.
So, for a while, I thought we would have a time of peace to do so. But out of nowhere, the declaration of war came.
“All areas of forest that were lost in the last war have been reclaimed, and the Dotrin Royal Army is advancing toward the mainland of the Empire.”
It was also a hot declaration of war, with immediate action. However, it seemed that I was the only one who did not anticipate the situation.
“What is the Empire’s response?” The king calmly asked the palace knight, showing no signs of surprise.
“Dotrin’s advance was so sudden that so far they haven’t been able to respond. According to our intelligence around the third princeps, their light cavalry has broken with the main force and is heading west. So, it seems that they want to block off the invasion, locking the gates so to say, until their reinforcements from the center can advance.”
The palace knight also looked in wonderment at the king’s appearance — as if the monarch knew everything.
“Surely…”
Seeing the king’s unwavering attitude, I was convinced: it was clear that he knew from the beginning that Dotrin would come out like this. Otherwise, there was no way he could be so calm.
I only then recalled a few facts that I had overlooked as of late.
Why didn’t Dotrin send any envoys to the kingdom’s victory banquet, and why did the kingdom’s officials not question this? It all fell into place: the formation of the Dawn Alliance and Dotrin’s blitzkrieg. Why didn’t I know? Everyone but me was aware of it.
“If you hear other news, let me know right away.”
“According to your Majesty’s will!”
While I sighed, the palace knight, having finished his report, left. The king then turned to me.
“Your face shows you don’t like something.”
“I was just thinking whether I’m truly the Crown Prince of this country,” I unwittingly replied in a blunt manner. I wasn’t in a good mood because I had been excluded from such important knowledge.
The king laughed generously when he saw me. He then said that I had the personality of a thunderbolt, and when he heard the news of the war, he didn’t tell me because he was afraid I would moonlight as a mercenary again.
“Your Majesty seems to know what kind of man I am.”
Instead of answering, the king stared at me. I could only remain speechless. Actually, if I knew beforehand, I knew I would have taken action somehow, but I was still disappointed at having been left in the dark. I hid my personal feelings and changed the topic slightly.
“Dotrin’s declaration of war may give an excuse for the Burgundy imperial family to stop their civil war.”
“What was the fifth princeps’ reason for rebelling?” the king asked me instead of answering.
“To drive out the emperor, who he sees as malicious and destructive,” I answered immediately and only then realized what the king was getting at with his question. I shut my mouth.
“As long as the fifth princeps completely denies the authority of the present emperor, they can never stop fighting until one side collapses. If the war is stopped, the emperor will lose authority, and the fifth princeps will lose the cause of his great rebellion.”
Surely the king was right. Without the possibility of an end to the civil war, there was no better time to attack the Empire than now. It was very regrettable for me.
Unlike Dotrin, Leonberg hadn’t prepared itself to war with the Empire for generations; we were now just in a hurry to survive. We had barely achieved independence and won the war, and the entire country was in disarray. It would take some time for the kingdom to finish preparing for another war. I knew it for a fact, but when I thought about the King of Dotrin giggling as he cut down imperial knights, I became very impatient.
“At the very least, before the next winter comes, our kingdom will also be ready. So don’t be too anxious.”
It was as if the king had looked into my very soul.
“It is a fight to overthrow a huge Empire that controls half of the continent. It will be a long war that will never end in just one year,” the king said in a stern voice, knowing that my ass shook to get into the fight.
“It doesn’t matter at all who started the war – what really matters is who will end it.”
I sat down with an annoyingly irritated, unmoving ass. It was as the king said: this wasn’t a war that would soon end. After asking the king a few more questions, I got up from my seat. My heart was upset, and I couldn’t sit still for long after hearing the news of the war.
“Then, I’ll go back to my palace,” I said, about to open the door, but the king stopped me. He said something that might have been either a warning or a threat.
“Do your best to take care of your body. Do not let your body get punished again and again so that you become incapacitated. I will not give a single soldier or knight to someone who does not know how to take care of themselves.”
“Don’t worry.”
I had told the king not to be concerned. What else could happen to me in the palace, after we had already prevented the imperial attack?
* * *
When I went back to my palace, a guest had come to visit.
“You look much better than I thought,” Teuton’s princess said, looking me up and down.
“Does that disappoint you?”
“No way. If your Highness is in good health, I can at least dream at night,” she said, then laughed abashedly. It wasn’t the clearly pretentious laughter Hestia had shown when I had first met her, but very natural laughter with a moderate undertone of desire.
“You are leaving now?”
The princess nodded.
“I’m worried about my home country’s situation while I’m staying in this palace after I have achieved all of my original goals.”
“It’s a complicated situation in many ways, and unwise to stay away for a long time. Goodbye.”
Hestia frowned. “Is that all you’re saying?”
“With our great relationship, did you expect a tearful send-off?”
As I looked at her, her lips pouting, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. Then I smiled and greeted her again.
“Goodbye. Go and do everything you desire.”
Only then did the princess’s face relax.
“Thank you. I really wanted to say this. I don’t think I will have the chance later.”
Hestia stared at me- then she stepped over and reached out her hand. I was blinded by her outrageous behavior, only then realizing what she meant by holding out her hand. I shook her hand roughly, then tried to make Hestia let go of mine, but her little hand gripped my palm desperately.
‘Guoak!’
I would’ve used all my strength, but compared to the toughest of knights, Hestia was fragile. When I looked at her questioningly, she said whilst glaring at me, “I’m sorry.”
I thought the situation was unfair as hell to me; it was her outrageous action!
“What?”
“I can’t hate you because I have received so much, but my pride is hurt, and it feels unfair.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I heard the unpleasant tone in her voice. She had thanked me a while ago; why was she going so far now? I couldn’t understand. As I pulled my hand back with force, her hand followed wickedly.
“Now what-” I began saying with a frown, but suddenly looked at her face and shut my mouth. The feeling that the princess’s staring eyes invoked in me was really complicated. It was kind of awkward, so I gently released the strength in my hand, made it limp.
“Yeah,” Hestia said as she gripped onto my now weak hand and shook it up and down.
“When we meet again, you won’t be able to treat me as familiarly as you are now,” I told her.
“Is there a day when we will ever meet again?” the princess almost screamed, as if she didn’t like my attitude. “I’m fine anyway. You don’t have to come and see me off because your body is healing.”
After saying goodbye in a rather angry tone, she turned around. I looked at the princess as she walked to the door, then greeted her, smiling at her back.
“Goodbye, Hestia.”
The princess stopped in the door frame, pausing there for a little while, then disappeared. For some reason, I was relieved that she hadn’t looked back.
“Next time, I have to call her your Majesty the Queen,” I muttered when she had left. I didn’t know what had changed, but the trait of [Rose Queen], which hadn’t bloomed when she had entered the room, had fully activated at the last minute. The Kingdom of Teuton would probably soon be ruled by a queen, and for some reason, I eagerly awaited that day.
“You haven’t fixed your habits yet?”
Maybe I was incapable of abandoning the habits I had as a sword. I laughed at myself.
And so, two days passed. I was sitting on the roof of the spire as I watched the Teutonic delegation leave. The king and nobles were seeing off the princess, and she looked very confident. She looked like an envoy representing her country, regardless of whether she was a member of its royal family. The princess greeted the king and looked around. It looked as if she was searching for someone. Then, after a long time, she moved her small lips, and by their shape, I guessed that she was swearing, saying, “A ferocious boy, so he isn’t even seeing me off?”
I decided to pretend I hadn’t seen the curse flow from the noble princess’s mouth. Amid the final greetings from the king and nobles, Teuton’s delegation left the city gate. Duncan Seymour Tudor glanced at the spire for a moment, then swung around.
And so, starting with Teuton’s mission, the envoys who had come to the kingdom began leaving one by one, at intervals spanning several days. All Leonberg’s nobles gathered in the capital remained, however — as if waiting for something.
In the meantime, Dotrin and the Empire continued to fight. News came out every few days.
The Wyvern Knights had destroyed a fortress, and reports came that the Dotrin Army occupied a stronghold.
They were enjoying a winning streak, and while their victories continued, I learned a surprising fact: Dotrin had mobilized at least forty legions for the war.
I knew that they had prepared for war for generations, and I had also guessed that the forces Dotrin had mobilized in their defense had not been everything. I had to admire them a little.
I knew that they would have put all their forces in the field, but I didn’t know that they could muster so many troops. The Dotrin Royal Army was advancing in a hurry. It was only a matter of time before the Empire’s eastern territory fell into Dotrin’s hands.
“No matter how confused by the civil war they are, this is a little too much.”
No matter that their command system had collapsed in the center after the rebellion of half the troops there, it was still unconvincing that the Empire could be so helpless.
So, I began to doubt whether the Imperial Army was really fighting a losing battle. I devised 3333 schemes that they might be deploying, but no answer came to me. While I was fruitlessly pondering it, I suddenly remembered an important factor that I had forgotten and started to worry.
“Oops! Malcoy!”
The last member of Marseille’s fallen royal family, a person who was captured by Leonberg and converted to its cause after serving as a commander for the Empire — I had forgotten the existence of Malcoy de Marseille, a guru of tactics and strategy!
“I thought that when peace arrived, your Highness forgot about me.”
Malcoy, whose existence I had only lately recalled, treated me with a very irreverent attitude — just like when he had first been captured. Even were I to have had ten mouths, I could say nothing to Malcoy, having forgotten him after promising I would allow him to show off his abilities without discrimination.
“Oh, no way— Your Highness did really forget I existed?” Malcoy asked with a flushed face as he stared at me. I couldn’t fake it, so I kept my mouth shut. Malcoy looked at me with a dumbfounded look. I merely averted my eyes from his gaze.
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