With my first campaign over, I had returned to my room in the left wing of the palace.
“Ahh, this really is relaxing.”
They had interfered with my return, but once I was back, I was back outside the mosquito net.
The reason I could think that was fine was because there was a sense of release here that I never had while worrying over how I carried myself.
“...Yeah, well, I’m not exactly good with stiff formal occasions either.”
“I do understand that you feel not the slightest sting at not being called upon, but...”
“To call this liberation from troublesome days seems a somewhat unrewarding result.”
When Herkof said that with dissatisfaction, Wearerel let out a sigh, looking unconvinced.
Iktu, wearing a wry smile, settled for words that only had a little thorn to them.
In the room with the grand piano in the Gold Room, I looked from the sofa where I sat to my close aides.
“Is it really no good to avoid society even after turning thirteen?”
I had been twelve when I went to war, but now that I was back, I had turned thirteen.
And though my first campaign had involved no major battle, I had returned in triumph with the achievement of gaining territory, however minuscule.
If they knew the inside story, they would probably laugh and say it was no achievement at all. But at the very least, the nobles who treated me like a nuisance had been hoping for a worse result.
If I thought of it as having thwarted that ambition, it could be called achievement enough.
“Is there not something unprecedented about a guest of honor being driven out of the venue after nothing more than a greeting, despite it being billed as a victory celebration?”
I thought he had held back, but in the end, Iktu spat poison.
At first, it was supposed to have been hosted by His Majesty, but apparently, before anyone knew it, the people handling the practical arrangements had been filled out with Duke Lukaios’s men.
When Father noticed and tried to correct it, Duke Eurasion reportedly interfered next, attempting to scale back the celebration itself.
On top of that, at the fringes of the imperial faction Father had built while I was away, some other power had apparently been dragging things down, determined not to let it rise.
“His Majesty has gained strength, and that means the range of things he has to keep an eye on has widened too, so it can’t be helped. If the emperor poured too much of his full strength into a single event and his faction collapsed, it wouldn’t even be funny. Besides, they say that, on the surface at least, they managed to preserve appearances even without me.”
Using the advantage he had gained in exchange for my deployment, Father had managed, over the course of a year, to put together something that could be called a faction.
That said, it was still small and unstable.
The nobles apparently mocked him, wondering when it would be absorbed into Duke Lukaios’s faction.
But from here, at long last, was where Father’s start as an emperor who grasped politics would begin.
I did not want to distract him over whether or not I attended a party I had not been all that enthusiastic about in the first place.
“Besides, I was happier to be invited to the dinner than to that party.”
“It was your first meal together as a family, after all... Saying that out loud makes me feel pathetic.”
When Herkof growled with his ferocious-beast face, Wearerel also nodded.
“I do understand that you are pleased, Lord Asha, but...”
The dinner party Father had prepared and hosted from the ground up this time was the first meal we had ever shared as a family.
For Father, that, too, apparently ended in a way that left him with regrets, but the seating order could not be helped.
If it was an emperor’s dinner, there were seats appropriate to one’s status, and no matter what, I would be placed at the lowest end.
As long as we existed as the imperial family, that was a rule that could not be overturned.
“Ah, but... no, it’s nothing important. It’s just, when you’re apart for a year, their growth really is amazing.”
When I murmured that without thinking, all my aides turned their eyes toward me, so I gave that preface and showed them a smile.
I was talking about my younger brothers.
However, it was not only their growth that had caught my attention.
Terry had probably changed a little.
It might have simply been that he was stiff because the dinner was an official occasion, but the twins, Warnel and Fel, had been making a strong point of showing me that they were very concerned about Terry.
Father, too, seemed to be watching Terry’s reactions, and Her Highness the Consort had taken care in various ways to smooth things over.
Somehow, Terry seemed so tense that his family was worried about him.
(He’s turning ten, so maybe he’s at the age where he’s becoming conscious of people’s eyes? And that’s why he’s trying to behave more like a prince? Does that mean I should set an example as his older brother here? Then I really do have to socialize... Hmm.)
(Shall surveillance be necessary?)
Sephira said something rather ominous, but was this a kind of consideration?
Still, surveillance sounded a little too bad.
(I’ll start by asking him casually myself. Warnel and Fel said they’d come visit me again too.)
After answering Sephira, I returned my eyes to the papers in my hand.
Then I heard someone shouting in the distance, and even the increasingly violent patter of footsteps approaching.
“Huh, what? Is someone coming? Someone forcing their way in... Marquis Strateg?”
“No.”
The one who answered was Revan, who had actually been there the whole time.
That was because he had been keeping the letters that had arrived during the year I was gone.
Apparently, he had held on to letters from Diora, of course, as well as ones from Harty.
“Hey, Revan. Should I reply to Diora one letter at a time? Or... wait, someone really is coming, aren’t they?”
Voices like people shouting at each other were closer than before.
I set down on the desk the letters Diora had sent out of worry while I was away, asking whether I had already come home or still had not returned.
When I strained my ears, I could also hear voices desperately trying to stop someone.
“Iktu, could you go see what’s happening?”
“I hear the sound of swords, so it seems there is someone armed. It would be best not to open the door carelessly.”
As he said that, he moved after exchanging looks with Herkof.
Each of them split off to the antechambers of the Gold Room and the Blue Room, which led to the staircase where someone was apparently coming.
“I’m just asking what the hell is going on, aren’t I!?”
The owner of the shout, who seemed to have arrived on this floor, was clearly agitated, and his fury was plain to hear.
There were also the voices of people trying to stop the speaker all at once, sounding as though they were being dragged along.
“W-we’re terribly sorry! This is an emergency, so please pardon our rudeness!”
“We apologize for the disturbance! Please forgive us! We have circumstances on our side as well!”
The one who fled into the antechamber of the Gold Room was the treasurer, Wold, a dark-skinned elf.
And behind him was Celine, an elf soldier whose hair and eyes were the same color.
Of course, I recognized the shouting voice too.
“Hey, you! You’re going to explain this properly!”
“General Wagelis? The army has already been disbanded, so at this point there’s nothing left to explain.”
The one who had stormed in shouting was General Wagelis.
Wold, who had apparently been caught on the way here, and Celine, who had been unable to stop him, were bowing their heads to Iktu.
“Hey, you bastard! You’ve got some nerve raiding a prince’s residence!”
And from the Blue Room side came Herkof, moving to restrain General Wagelis.
His voice was completely mixed with the growl of a beast.
The palace guards, the patrol soldiers inside the castle, and even the sentries rarely seen around here were all left terrified.
Just where had he dragged them all from?
Entry and exit in the left wing were strict, so it felt like he had ignored everyone who tried to stop him and dragged them along anyway.
“Wait, Your Highness? I heard rumors you and the general were on bad terms, but what did you do to make him resent you enough to give off that much bloodlust?”
“Various things come to mind, but I’m not particularly on bad terms with General Wagelis. Revan, send the palace guards back to their posts. Wearerel, let General Wagelis in too, since I’ve given permission.”
Even if I went out myself, the people who had kept me confined since I was little would not listen to me.
After a fair bit of pushing and shoving, we had the palace guards, patrol soldiers, and sentries all leave.
Then General Wagelis, standing with his arms crossed and his face turned away, looked at me only with his eyes and said in displeasure,
“Why are you actually under house arrest?”
“I’d like to know that too. I told you before, but by the time I was old enough to understand things, it was already like this. After I met Terry for the first time, they stopped letting me come and go freely.”
Revan had sent the palace guards back to their posts, and for some reason, he returned.
Watching our exchange, he frowned, but seemed to have decided to observe from by the wall.
Then Wearerel cleared his throat once and spoke to General Wagelis.
“General, within the army, you may have needed to show yourself as a commander and maintain a stance that would not yield even before Lord Asha. But this is the palace. I ask that you speak with the appropriate courtesy.”
“...It’s a little late for that. If you’re serving a prince in this state, then even if you don’t speak of it to others, you should understand how strange the current situation is.”
“Um, could you please not count me among them?”
Revan modestly asserted that he was not on my side, and General Wagelis glanced at him before looking at me.
“He’s useful as he is, so I’d rather you not make him unusable.”
“Just when I thought he was a fellow victim, is he someone even more outrageous than Your Highness!?”
Apparently sensing danger to his life, Revan pressed his back firmly against the wall, though even so, he did not seem to intend to run away.
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Next: Changes Over the Year 2