“Your Imperial Highness!”
Since coming to the Empire, I had never been so tearfully glad to hear the Second Prince’s voice.
Not that I normally hated him or found him unbearable. It was just that he felt a bit like a gym trainer who came charging at you like a tiger, yelling, “Why the hell are you eating fried chicken after personal training?” In ordinary times, he was someone I genuinely wanted to avoid.
But right now, the sight of him approaching with those enormous pectorals twitching was practically dazzling.
Arthur strode over, slung one thick arm around my shoulders with a hearty grin, and said,
“I was just about to ask you to have a drink with me, but no matter how much I searched, you were nowhere to be found! I asked a servant and heard you were outside the main hall, so I came looking.”
At the sudden arrival of this massive lump of muscle, the gazes of Alba and Ella, who had been locked in a battle of wills with me caught between them, turned toward Arthur at the same time.
“…Your Imperial Highness.”
“Your Imperial Highness, have you been well?”
“Mm, I am always well. Lady Espada, you are as lovely as ever today. As for the Grand Duchess of the North… you are as you always are.”
The two young ladies seemed flustered by the prince’s abrupt appearance and could not continue speaking.
As if he did not care in the slightest about their reactions, Arthur laughed loudly and pulled me closer.
“Haha! This man is my friend and workout companion! From now on, he and I are going to drink ourselves silly in the main hall, so I’ll be taking him with me!”
Leaving behind the two women’s dumbfounded expressions, Arthur gripped my shoulder tightly and, with his overwhelming strength, smoothly extracted me from the spot and started walking.
Inwardly shouting hurrah, I hurriedly matched Arthur’s steps and escaped that hellish place.
When we entered the splendid corridor leading toward the main hall inside the imperial palace, Arthur finally released his arm.
The Second Prince, wearing a meaningful smile, glanced around and then asked with a grin,
“From a distance, I saw two strong-willed young ladies fighting over you. You looked troubled, so I deliberately made a loud entrance and snatched you away. How was it? Are you all right?”
“Phew… I sincerely thank you for saving me, Your Highness. You scared ten years off my life.”
I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead and let out a sigh of relief.
“By the way, I’m seeing you in a new light. To think you tried so hard to keep your promise to Chloe. Even if you’d been unable to keep it because you had no choice, it would have been perfectly understandable.”
“A promise is a promise, after all. I nearly failed to keep it.”
“Haha, yes, those two really are charming. Since you are a man as well—”
“No, that’s not it… The Grand Duchess tried to cast some kind of magic on me. For a moment, I lost my reason and almost took her hand, but luckily, I came back to my senses and managed not to.”
At my words, Arthur came to a halt.
His face, which was always laughing heartily, went cold in an instant.
“…A witch indeed. To think she would pull that kind of stunt again. We told her that if she cast magic on the imperial family or the palace servants one more time, we would consider it an act of war. Is she planning to play word games and say hostages don’t count?”
“This isn’t the first time?”
“That witch doing suspicious things? Of course not. It’s hardly something that happened only once or twice. It was the same when she stayed in the imperial palace long ago, and it has been the same this time as well. The problem is that it is far too difficult to catch her in the act.”
Arthur jerked his chin toward the marble pillars lining both sides of the corridor and the ornaments of the splendid chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
“As a countermeasure against that witch’s nonsense, we recently placed substances that absorb magic all throughout the imperial palace. At the very least, to prevent her from using magic inside the buildings.”
“Substances that absorb magic?”
“Yes. Magicians are a people with the power to bring about miracles, but in order to use even a single spell, they need all sorts of preparations. Mana stones, incantations, and so on. Do you know anything about magic?”
“A little.”
“Well, you are royalty, so you must have received that much education. But listen. Grand Duchess Ella can activate magic with a flick of her finger, without needing preparation or anything else. It is at a level where it is impossible to respond to. And now, that woman is brazenly walking around inside the imperial palace as a guest.”
“I don’t think she would try anything strange right away, but one never knows.”
“Exactly. For now, the North is quiet, and that woman hasn’t particularly done anything seditious or tried to, but her mere existence is dangerous. The magic-absorbing substances are only a temporary measure. In truth, the fact that she is here at all is the problem. Did you know that a large number of magicians attached to the imperial palace have been assigned solely to monitor that one woman?”
“This is purely my personal opinion, but perhaps she is staying so long precisely to cause that kind of drain. Considering she arrived two weeks before the social gathering…”
“I think so as well. Those northerners are sinister. You never know when they’ll do something… It would be good if war did not break out.”
“Do you dislike war?”
“Who likes war? People die, and supplies are consumed. If we used the money spent on war to make exercise equipment and distribute it, the people of the Empire would be much healthier. War for the Empire is something unavoidable, but no one does it because they enjoy it.”
Arthur paused for a moment, then furrowed his brow slightly and spat out,
“Except for Sister Victoria, that is. She is one of the few people who sincerely enjoys war.”
“…”
After hearing Arthur’s explanation, chills ran down my spine.
It really felt like I was surrounded only by unbelievably terrifying women.
“In any case, you should be fine inside the main hall now. Come, let us enter!”
Arthur once again flashed a hearty smile and pushed the enormous doors of the main hall wide open.
Creeeak— Bang!!
The moment we stepped into the hall, the overwhelmingly vast banquet hall fell silent for an instant.
The gazes of the proud nobles who, at a glance, clearly belonged to the highest ranks of the Empire, all turned at once toward me as I walked in with the Second Prince.
Curiosity, wariness, appraisal—hundreds of sharp gazes brushed over me.
“Well then, this is as far as I go. I want to dance and drink, so I’ll be off. Drink or do whatever you like and enjoy yourself in moderation!”
Arthur patted my shoulder, then left me in the middle of the hall and slipped away into the crowd.
“…Haa.”
I did my best to ignore the pouring gazes, glanced around cautiously, and moved toward a corner where people’s eyes would not reach me.
For now, I had escaped the garden. I intended to spend the remaining time holed up in a corner, quietly drinking and killing time.
But just as I picked up a glass of champagne and was about to catch my breath—
“Well now, that is quite the handsome face. Rumors have been spreading all throughout the imperial palace, and now that I see you in person, I understand what they meant! Those words did not come from nowhere.”
Out of nowhere, a well-built, hearty-looking middle-aged noble suddenly approached me.
He looked like a fairly high-ranking noble at a glance, and as he stroked his beard, he looked me up and down.
As he came closer, the scents of hay and animals mingled with his perfume and brushed past my nose.
“Good evening. I am Prince Ian from the Kingdom of Sterling.”
“I am Count Gross, the Imperial Stablemaster. A pleasure. Is life in the imperial palace agreeable?”
“Thanks to His Majesty the Emperor’s grace, I am living well.”
When I gave a slight bow and introduced myself, the man returned the bow and greeted me lightly.
He did not seem particularly surprised or contemptuous about the fact that I was a hostage from a defeated nation.
However, he began to criticize me in another sense.
“But tell me, Prince Ian. Do all southerners look this frail? You seem as though you would snap if someone so much as tapped you.”
“…Pardon?”
“No, well, look at the other men of the Empire. They are all built solidly, are they not? His Imperial Highness Prince Arthur goes without saying, and you seem smaller than Her Imperial Highness Princess Victoria. Is that any way for a man to be? You look like you need to exercise much more.”
“…I am already exercising diligently with His Imperial Highness the Second Prince, but perhaps due to my constitution, muscle does not seem to build very easily on me.”
Well, I knew this part myself.
On average, southerners tended to be a little shorter and smaller than northerners.
All the men of the imperial family were over one hundred eighty centimeters tall, and even setting aside Arthur, who was over two meters, when I looked at the crown prince—who did not even have a particularly trained body—still having a fairly good build, I supposed those genes were simply something one was born with.
In contrast, I was not especially big even compared to my previous life.
I was in the mid-170s in height and weighed in the high 60-kilogram range.
“Haha, it is good to hear you are exercising. A man ought to have a big frame. If he is frail, he is useless. He cannot fight properly, perform in bed properly, or even drink properly!”
“…!”
I could ignore the other things, but that last remark crossed the line.
Whatever else he said, I could not tolerate being told I could not hold my liquor.
“…That is going a bit too far.”
I narrowed my eyes and spoke firmly.
Count Gross, who had been laughing merrily, heard my words and widened his eyes.
“…Ah, I was somewhat rude. I apologize, Prince Ian. I did not mean to say that Prince Ian was that weak—”
“I don’t care about the other things, but I cannot accept being called weak at drinking. I can hold my liquor extremely well.”
“…So that was what you meant by going too far?”
Count Gross scratched his head, slightly flustered, but soon smiled so widely it seemed his mouth might split, then gestured to a passing servant and made an abrupt proposal to me.
“In that case, how about a drinking wager with me?”
“A drinking wager?”
“That’s right. If I may say so myself, I am famous as the greatest drinker in the imperial palace. In my younger days, with a little exaggeration, I could have drunk against a horse and won. I cannot drink quite that much now, though.”
A passing servant handed Count Gross a large leather pouch.
Shaking the pouch, from which came the sloshing sound of liquid, Count Gross grinned.
“If Prince Ian wins, I shall give you a grand gift. If you lose, simply give me a good bottle of wine. How about it? Will you try?”
“Do not regret it after you lose, Count Gross.”
Since I was not dancing and had nothing to do at this social gathering, something interesting had come up.