Chapter 82 – Richard (3)
About Aaron’s ugly deeds, the Emperor kept his mouth shut, and the details were not revealed to the people.
However, thanks to the impression that “Prince Aaron committed a crime that even the Emperor, the Aura Master, would be reluctant to mention,” No one sympathized with Aaron in vain.
Would he have treated Aaron as a horo bastard in an informal setting without even defending his father, the emperor?
Of course, I was the one who heard the Emperor’s swear words in that informal setting.
“It’s okay to chew on it, you bastard.”
It was quite hard to listen to the resentment of an old man who had finished farming his children all night long.
And again.
Richard, who was the main character of the case.
He was already the most likeable person in the palace, and he seemed to have gained a considerable approval rating through this incident.
The approval rating felt quite meaningful, to the point where I was worried that the game of Edwin and Iris’ competition for succession might change.
In fact, even I, who chose Richard as the dagger to stab Edwin for Iris, wondered if I should revise my plan.
But Ki-woo was just Ki-woo.
Before I could even step out, Richard came looking for Iris.
Wearing the armor of the Golden Eagle Knights, Richard, who stood in front of Iris, knelt down on one knee for Iris with a bewildered face.
“Brother… !”
Iris too, as if she hadn’t thought that Richard would bend over and enter first, she was startled.
Although he had heard me say that he would become an emperor, it seemed that he had never thought of the situation where his brother, who was the same age as his father, was kneeling.
Surprised, Iris tried to raise Richard up again, but he silently followed the example of a knight.
“… Iris.”
But.
Since he knew Iris well, Richard seemed to know well that Iris would not accept it even if he had done all the courtesy of a knight and served Iris as his lord.
So, with that attitude, he did the best of a knight who pledged allegiance to his lord, but the words he uttered were not knightly advice, but advice to his younger brother as a brother.
“Many people believe in me and follow me, but I know that I am not qualified.”
It was a self-deprecating voice.
Seeing his older brother, Edwin, struggling for an unworthy position for a longer time than anyone else, and seeing him uglierly ruined, he seemed even more determined.
Of course, given Richard’s personality, he wouldn’t look like Edwin.
Richard shook his head.
“I thought a lot.”
No matter how much a person jumps over the wall and becomes a superman, it is an era in which a single human being lives well for more than a hundred years.
Wrinkles deepen, hair falls out, and stomach swells. The natural flow of time.
Although Richard has maintained a strong body through constant training, he could not escape the passage of time.
Wrinkles around the eyes, hair and beard that are gradually turning white.
The middle-aged man spoke as if looking back on his past life.
“I have no regrets in my life.”
That was something he could say because he had never been lazy for a single moment throughout his life’s trajectory.
But.
“That’s why, because it’s my life that I’m proud to have lived without a single regret.”
Richard, who bowed his head in a polite way, raised his head and met Iris’s eyes.
What is in both eyes.
“I guess you can say that I don’t deserve it again without regret.”
It was the firm belief of a man who took pride in the course of those decades itself, even though he had not achieved anything remarkable in his life dedicated to decades.
“I have no talent. Me trying Because all of them are me, I dare not say I am qualified. Do you not know that the position of emperor who leads this empire, nothing else, does not exist for ordinary people?”
He smiled at Iris, who was looking down at Richard blankly, unable to find an appropriate answer.
“If I say that I am qualified to be emperor, that is a deception towards me. I am the one in the world who knows the talentless, hard-working prince Richard the best in the world, so how can I think of making such a talentless Richard into Emperor Richard?”
Iris seemed to have a hunch that Richard would never give up, so she looked down blankly at him for a moment, then nodded her head.
“Richard’s brother… , No, if it is your will, I will accept it.”
Solemn voice.
Not the benevolent and affectionate princess Iris I remembered, but the dignified figure of a monarch to lead the empire.
Iris raised her holy sword.
Her bright cluster of lights enveloped her, Richard, and me. Iris said under the curtain of divine light that made her feel holy.
“Oath of allegiance.”
“… Yes. Lord.”
Richard became a knight of Iris just like that.
*
Richard’s work had been completed in this way, but not everything was finished yet.
After all, Aaron is nothing more than Edwin’s boss, and in the end, Edwin’s affairs must be taken care of before it can be seen that all elements of anxiety in the palace have been removed.
However, Edwin, who had thought that Aaron’s being purged would put fire to his feet and show some action, was crouching quietly, so it was ambiguous to step forward and reach out to him.
Originally, as written in Aaron’s ledger, I was going to link up with Nosferatu and send him off as a rebellion.
As if Edwin sensed it, he was buying his body again.
Perhaps even if they cheated, they would do it after I left the imperial palace.
I had no intention of leaving it that way.
If I’m going to play tricks after leaving the imperial palace, shouldn’t I just play tricks before I leave?
I called Richard.
“Richard.”
“Yes.”
After swearing allegiance to Iris, Richard was even more polite to me. Both Arnold and Richard seemed to think that I would marry Iris, of course.
Of course I will.
“If Edwin were to start a civil war, how would you feel?”
“… After all, wouldn’t the status of the crown prince be shaken?”
That’s what it says.
If the crown prince is caught trying to cause a civil war for his political power, his political life is rather threatened.
In other words, only the political life is in danger, but the crown prince’s own life is not in danger.
It’s right after the prince was purged because of Aaron, so it’s impossible to purify the prince as well.
But what if.
“Then, how would you feel if you were caught trying to make a contract with the devil?”
“… That.”
Richard hesitated to answer.
No matter how much he was disappointed in Edwin, who even closed his eyes to Aaron’s sin and sympathized with him, the word ‘devil’ was not something he could easily say.
The existence of a demon that had been allowed only to the highest point, including the pope of the holy kingdom and the emperor of the empire, for hundreds of years.
It was the time when Iris was chosen by the goddess and became a warrior, and as demons began appearing across the continent one by one, the knowledge information began to spread to the high-ranking people on the continent.
Just like how the prince was punished without trial just for making a pact with the devil in the Great Forest of Freire the other day.
When I urged Richard, who was hesitant to answer, with his eyes, he finally opened his mouth.
“… Probably not too different from Aaron.”
“Right.”
After I answered indifferently, Richard carefully looked at me.
“I wonder if Edwin-niisama really… ?”
No. I searched all over, but I couldn’t find any sign of a contract with the devil.
Richard’s worries were unfounded, but I nodded to him.
“Okay.”
“… !”
Richard astonished.
It was a face I could never have imagined. I guess so. Because I lied
What though
In reality, when the demon king descends, he is the one who will immediately give the country to him, so if you think it will happen in the distant future, it may not be a lie at all.
“Hey, do you have any proof? Brother…”
There was no evidence.
But do you really need proof?
If you don’t have evidence, you can make it.
I pulled out a book from the shadows.
It was the book that the Great Forest prince used when making a contract with the devil.
“This is the book Edwin used to make a contract with the devil.”
“Edwin… !”
Richard, who was no longer his older brother, was angry and called his name.
I cleared my throat quite a bit, feeling a bit sick to my heart for deceiving him.
Even if it’s a lie for now, if you let it go, you’ll make a contract with the devil later.
… For a moment.
If I just put this book in a place where Edwin can see it, wouldn’t he really sign a contract after seeing the book?
Admiring my plan, I left the enraged Richard behind and ordered a crow to deliver the book to Edwin where he could see it.
