REFDL 38

The tightly closed curtains opened.

Light poured in.

A dark night.

Every window of the banquet hall glowed golden.

Noblemen dressed as splendidly as peacocks, strolled gracefully beneath the dazzling chandeliers.

The late emperor had grown too frail to hold a birthday celebration before his death, and after ascending the throne, Tortan drastically scaled it back under the pretext that the empire’s stability came first.

In other words, a proper birthday celebration hadn’t been held in nearly ten years.

Tap.

Though infinitely lighthearted with those close to him, Tortan was more imperial than anyone else when the occasion demanded gravity.

He stood before everyone with a dignified and commanding presence.

An aura of majesty that almost looked like a halo.

With a young Kremlis perched on his shoulder, he was the very embodiment of the founding emperor.

“Thank you all for celebrating my birthday. Seeing you all enjoying yourselves makes me proud. I should have done this since last year. Then I would have received even more gifts. I truly regret it.”

He laughed.

“Since it’s my birthday, let’s set aside the heavy talk for now. Isn’t this a good time? Well then, I hope you all enjoy the rest of your time here.”

He held a glass of champagne in one hand, raised it, brought it to his lips, and then set it back down on the tray.

Tortan began descending the remaining steps.

If Kaelus’s battlefield was plains and within inside and outside castles, his own battlefield was here.

It was a place teeming with enemies who wielded fans and wine instead of swords, a place where people imagined poking out each other’s eyes with candlesticks and scraping out their guts with tinder, all while outwardly linking arms like the closest of allies.

In that familiar battlefield, Tortan felt more eyes on him than usual. Already, the thrilling anticipation of victory ran up his toes.

‘It was worth humiliating myself in front of the duke.’

He was aware it was an unreasonable demand. Half-forced, even.

……If the Council hadn’t been so hell-bent on marriage, hounding Tortan until his stress hit the roof, he wouldn’t have gone that far!

‘Well, it worked out in the end, so who cares!’

All the gossip about Kaelus being heartless or possessed cold-blooded iron blood was nonsense.

How could Kaelus, who had let him live for no other reason than having known him since childhood, possibly lack affection?

In any case, the Kremlis’s mere existence resolved half the problems that had plagued Tortan until now.

Immediately after the civil war ended and he ascended the throne.

Tortan intended to grant power and authority to the small group of new nobles who had supported him.

It was a fitting reward, but the matter wasn’t as simple as he’d imagined.

For starters, the nobles who had backed him were all rather unsavory characters.

Of course, among them were undoubtedly gems in the mud, or needles sticking out.

But the majority were either fools who dared to brag in front of him about their successful gambles, or idiots so steeped in inferiority that they now shouted “Long live the execution of all the great nobles!”

“……”

The Emperor didn’t want to ruin the Firmus he’d finally gotten his hands on.

He somehow scraped together those rare gems and needles, granting them enough power to build their houses, while bestowing suitable fiefs or gold upon the rest.

Both sides were satisfied.

Next.

……And there was no next!

‘Is this right?!’

A mere figurehead emperor.

That was Tortan.

‘Not quite a puppet, but….’

No. Maybe it was accurate?

Suppose Kaelus turned his back.

A future where he’d be immediately dragged down by the high nobles, exiled, and poisoned to death appeared vividly before his eyes.

His only base of support was Duke Irelion. Because that duke’s house was the foremost among the great nobles, wielding immense military power and wealth, Tortan could safely hold onto the imperial throne.

Honestly.

Tortan didn’t think it would be so bad if Kaelus became emperor.

If his close friend had known, he would have said, ‘Sit right here and see for yourself.’

But what could he do about his true feelings?

Kaelus would undoubtedly make a good emperor.

‘But he himself has no such intention.’

Tortan adopted the second plan.

It was to shed the puppet role and become a proper emperor.

The Kremlis was both the first step and the final puzzle piece for that completion.

If this were a game, he would be a foul piece that would draw a storm of protests.

He was practically a second queen in chess.

Look.

“Ooooh. It’s real. It’s a real Kremlis dragon!”

“Good heavens. To think I’d see that creature with my own eyes before I die……!”

“Even though he’s still young, what a majestic presence! It’s exactly like the portrait passed down as our family treasure!”

For the record, these aren’t some dimwits. They aren’t fanatics. They aren’t kids caught up in some strange disease rampant during adolescence.

They are the heads of great noble houses.

They are the heads of the giant’s massive body, the ones who hold seats in the Council of Elders.

Tortan descended the entire staircase and entered the banquet hall.

Until now, the pro-emperor faction and the aristocratic faction had divided into opposing groups, but today was an exception.

No, in fact, the aristocrats were clinging to him even more intensely.

Especially those old men who had just spoken!

“If you would grant me the favor of just one touch…”

“I’d be satisfied just to see him up close, Your Majesty!”

“How did you acquire the egg? I’m so curious about the process!”

“Good heavens. To be tamed so well… Who is the one it’s imprinted on? It must be Your Majesty, of course?”

Tortan only smiled without answering.

‘Their noses are so high they’ll pierce the ceiling.’

Valita, who had secured a spot on the second floor early, sneered. Unlike the bustling first floor, fewer than three people, including himself, were wandering the second floor.

One of them was Kaelus.

‘Still impossible to tell what he’s thinking over there.’

Valita gave a sidelong glance at the duke and rested his chin on the railing.

He deliberately wore a bored expression. …If he didn’t hide it that way, he feared his insides, seething with greed, would be exposed.

Valita narrowed his eyes.

The memory of that moment when he had nearly died in vain.

That feeling.

With time, it only grew clearer.

‘It was quite intense.’

Was that why?

Uncharacteristically sentimental, he recalled the past.

Ten years ago.

The Emperor of Firmus passed away. The problem was he died without naming a new Crown Prince.

He had cherished the Crown Prince, who had died young, too much.

He wasn’t a very good father, and as an emperor, he was the worst.

Civil war broke out between the Second Prince and the Third Prince.

The war, lasting three years, ended with the victory of the Third Prince, Tortan. But the Second Prince did not die. He successfully fled with his closest aides and wandered Firmus for a full year and eight months, dreaming of a comeback.

‘He dreamed an impossible dream.’

What do you think the Third Prince, now seated on the imperial throne, did first? It was to purge the forces that had supported the Second Prince and seize control of the military.

However, he could not arbitrarily touch the high nobles who had maintained neutrality.

Not only was there no justification, but given the weakened foundations caused by the long civil war, rushing in could easily lead to being devoured instead.

The Second Prince tried desperately to contact those very nobles to win them over.

‘They say a cornered man loses his objectivity.’

These were the very nobles who had stood ‘neutral’ even when the Second Prince’s faction was strong.

They had already grown too large; they had nothing left to gain. Failure meant only loss.

They had no reason to take risks.

The more he struggled, the deeper his despair grew. The Second Prince was slowly losing his mind.

And so, the noble prey became a ghost clinging only to regret.

It was precisely around that time that the Emperor of Denos approached the Second Prince.

‘It was a meeting of two madmen.’

Denos’s current Emperor, an only child, had suffered from a sense of inferiority towards Firmus and dragons since childhood. He wasn’t in his right mind. He had tampered with lost and forgotten dark magic, trying to revive it by any means.

The demon he connected with demanded sacrifices.

Six lives bearing the surname ‘Denos’. This was settled with the thorns in his side: the collateral branches and nephews.

Three heads of his own children. These he designated in order of least affection. 

The immense stress of being the sole heir to the imperial family drove the emperor to deliberately produce many children.

It was quite amusing that, despite being less than brilliant, he was the only bloodline, and he couldn’t fathom how he’d survived to become emperor. Anyway, this too was somehow managed.

The last sacrifice was one leg from his most cherished child.

That cherished child was the Fourth Prince. Valita.

The deal with the demon was cold and ruthless, leaving no room for error. In truth, even deceiving them by saying, “It’s not him, it’s this one who’s my cherished child,” wouldn’t have worked.

‘Even after going that far, with the demon’s power, they could only target one of two people, Tortan or the duke.’

The two agreed on the Duke.

The Second Prince harbored a grudge against the duke no less bitter than what he felt toward Tortan, insisting that had it not been for Kaelus, he would have been the victor in the civil war.

The Emperor of Denos weighed efficiency and probability.

Tortan, already emperor and protected deep within the imperial palace, versus Kaelus, still standing at the forefront of danger as the Emperor’s sword.

Which of the two had a higher probability of a successful assassination was self-evident.