Chapter 107 - Who Dares to Debate Qualifications? (1)

The King did not answer for a while. He merely stared at me intently.

Then, suddenly, the King raised his hand.

FLICK, FLICK.

At that nervous hand gesture, the Royal Knights and attendants bowed their heads and retreated with quick steps.

THUD.

The doors closed.

Now, the only ones left in the grand hall were the King and me.

The King remained silent.

I waited quietly.

What I wanted to receive was merely a single sword stuck away in the Royal Vault, but what the King had to give was by no means just a single sword.

The beloved sword of the Founding King, used to slay the Mad Dragon, symbolized the throne itself.

Giving me Dragon Slayer was no different from proclaiming me as the next king.

His mouth wouldn't open easily.

I was someone he didn't want to give a single thing to, let alone the throne—a hateful bastard he wanted to get rid of from his sight right this instant.

He surely wanted to back out and pretend the promise never happened even now.

But he couldn't do that.

A monarch's word is worth its weight in gold. And if it was a promise involving the throne, it was even heavier.

If he were to back out of even this just because it didn't suit his fancy, who would ever believe and follow the King's words?

That would be tossing his own authority as a monarch into the gutter.

"I..."

After a long while, the King opened his mouth.

"I despise you."

At the King's blunt confession, I replied nonchalantly.

"I know."

"I truly hate you."

"I know that very well."

The King's tone, which he had deliberately kept low to feign calmness, gradually grew agitated.

"I truly loathe how you act so shamelessly, flaunting your petty merits as if your past atrocities mean nothing."

Even at those words of blatant hatred, I did not waver.

From the first moment I saw him until now, the King's gaze had been consistent.

He had never once sent me a look of goodwill, and there was never a time when those blue eyes weren't filled with contempt and hatred.

There was nothing new about it now.

"However."

The King spoke with a distorted face.

"I have no intention of avoiding responsibility for the words I have spoken as a monarch."

Having said that, the King rose from his seat.

"The promise will be fulfilled."

The King was about to leave his seat just like that.

"Sometimes."

I spoke quietly as I looked at his back.

"You can make the wrong choice."

The King flinched and looked back at me.

"You might take actions that draw the condemnation of all. But if you realize something later on and never make the same mistake again, that too could be called a process of learning and growing."

His face looked as if he were asking what kind of nonsense I was spouting.

"Those are the words Your Majesty said to me right after I woke up."

Saying that everything had come to nothing, that I hadn't taken a single step forward from my past mistakes, and that I would never move forward in the future either.

"Those are also words Your Majesty said."

The King sank back down onto the throne.

"If you have something to say, do not beat around the bush and just say it."

At those words, I opened my mouth again as if I had been waiting.

"I've participated in fifty-six battles over the past year alone."

The King frowned at my sudden words.

Unbothered, I listed the merits I had achieved before the King.

The number of Orcs I personally cut down numbers in the hundreds; I slaughtered the king who led a massive Orc army of over twenty thousand; I unlocked the kingdom's Magic Tower, which had been sealed due to a treaty, and made it possible to train Mages.

And recently, I successfully concluded negotiations with the dwarves that the kingdom's envoys hadn't even been able to start, thereby laying the foundation for a grand enterprise that will more than make up for the kingdom's impoverished finances.

The King's expression as he looked at me was incredibly cold.

He seemed to think I was bragging about my achievements in front of him.

However, the reason I went out of my way to list my achievements until my mouth hurt was not to flaunt them.

I merely intended to ask a question.

"Then where is Your Majesty now? And where have you been?"

While I was fighting monsters in the North, while I was negotiating with the imperial ambassador to regain the rights to use the Magic Tower, and when I was negotiating with the dwarves. I wanted to ask where he was and what he was doing during all that time.

"Are you trying to lecture me now by flaunting your petty merits?"

Mocking the King who feigned majesty to scold me, I asked again.

"If I still haven't taken a single step forward, what about Your Majesty? What on earth have you done?"

"How dare you."

I saw the King's face. His face, drained of color from extreme anger, looked like a corpse.

A corpse. It wasn't exactly an incorrect description.

The King's time had stopped on the day his grand plan failed. And since then, he only endlessly repeated his resentment and hatred.

Just like the Death Knights who had visited Winter Castle, repeating the same actions while stuck in the past.

The King was a being no different from the dead.

"Just a single step."

"I will hear no more of this."

"Has Your Majesty taken even a single step forward?"

"I said I will hear no more."

"If you did move forward, what was that step for?"

The King jumped to his feet and glared at me.

It was a face full of anger. But it was nothing more than an empty anger that had already lost all its vigor.

"Knights outside, enter!"

At the King's shout, the doors of the grand hall burst open.

"Drag him out at once."

The Royal Knights hesitated as they approached. However, they didn't dare to drag me out and merely hovered around.

I looked up at the dais.

The King was only in his early forties, far too young to be called an old man.

But if an old man was someone who lived trapped entirely in the past, looking backward instead of forward, then the King was an old man.

And one who hid himself on a throne of power that didn't even fit him.

"Between Your Majesty and me, who is the one standing still?"

He was just a stubborn old man who couldn't even properly answer a young prince's words and merely lost his temper.

"What on earth are the Royal Knights doing?!"

I scoffed as I watched the King berate the knights.

GRAB.

Just then, someone tugged at my sleeve.

I turned my head and saw a wrinkled face. It was Marquis Bielefeld.

SHAKE, SHAKE.

The Marquis quietly shook his head.

"Your Majesty. I and His Highness the First Prince shall take our leave now."

After calmly announcing that, I followed the hand tugging at my sleeve and stepped out of the grand hall.

"Your Highness."

Marquis Bielefeld called out to me.

"Would you like to speak with me for a moment?"

I did not refuse.

"Let's go to my palace."

I led the Marquis and headed to the 1st Prince's Palace.

Karl, who spotted me, had a glint in his eye before straightening his posture upon seeing the old Marquis trailing behind.

"I have something important to discuss with the Marquis."

Perhaps understanding the meaning behind my brief words, Karl gave a look to the other knights. The ones who had followed me from Winter Castle sent out all the newly assigned Royal Knights from the 1st Prince's Palace.

Only after the Royal Knights were driven out of the palace as if being chased away and the palace doors closed did I go inside.

"Your Highness."

Adelia, who was making the bed, spotted me and bowed her head.

"It's something I do because I like it."

When I stared at her, dumbfounded that a woman on the verge of the Sword Master stage was doing something like making a bed, she hastily offered an excuse.

"Please do not take away my joy."

At her consistent attitude, my mood, which had sunk heavily while being alone with the King, improved slightly.

"Shall I bring some tea?"

Adelia, who had become quite brazen by now, asked me with a bright smile.

"I think alcohol would be better than tea."

I frowned as I watched the Marquis answer Adelia's words instead of me.

"I didn't know you were a heavy enough drinker to enjoy day drinking."

The Marquis shamelessly made a demand, acting as if he couldn't hear a thing I said.

"Preferably something strong."

Adelia, who let out a small laugh at his words, quickly placed glasses and a bottle of liquor on the table.

"If you need anything, please let me know anytime."

I stared at her as she retreated with quick steps and asked the Marquis.

"So, what is it that you have to say?"

SLAM.

After confirming that the door had closed, the Marquis picked up his glass. Downing the liquor to the bottom in one gulp, he belatedly opened his mouth.

"How do you feel?"

I frowned at the sudden question, but the Marquis added another comment.

"I mean, do you feel a bit vindicated?"

I stared at the Marquis at his blunt question.

He wasn't being sarcastic, nor was he trying to provoke me. To say he was, the Marquis's expression was far too calm.

I downed my liquor instead of answering.

I wiped my mouth and gathered my thoughts for a moment.

I had cornered the King, who considered me a thorn in his side, and I was finally going to get my original body back. It felt strange to call it a bonus, but my right to succeed to the throne had also been recognized.

"It's different from what I thought."

However, rather than just feeling happy, the sense of discomfort lodged in a corner of my mind was far greater.

"If I may presume, it probably felt like you were persecuting a powerless old man."

I could not refute the Marquis's blunt words.

To deny it and say otherwise, his words hit far too close to the emotions I had just felt.

It didn't feel like I had fought and won; it felt as if I had forcibly snatched an item from a worn-out old man who had slumped over after fully exhausting his energy.

I downed my liquor again.

The liquor tasted as bitter as my sour stomach.

I was wiping my mouth with a frown when the Marquis smiled pleasantly.

"That is how the ways of the world are."

Even as I watched the Marquis—who had likely lived barely a tenth of the time I had—discuss the logic of the world, I didn't think it was laughable.

I had been faintly sensing it anyway.

My past life as a sword was an incomplete one where power and violence were everything, so it was nothing more than the arrogance of an immature fool who prided himself on seeing through everything by flaunting mere half-baked wisdom.

Until now, I had been no different from a child who had accidentally obtained a sharp, treasured sword; this was a fact I realized only after mingling and clashing with people for a long time, and a foolishness of mine that I was finally able to admit only after rising to Sword Master.

"A son cannot see the path his father has walked, and a father cannot look clearly at his fully grown son."

Now I felt like I knew what the Marquis was trying to say.

"We don't have a relationship overflowing with affection like that."

I filled the Marquis's empty glass with liquor. I also poured liquor into my own empty glass.

We clinked our glasses in the air and emptied them in one gulp.

"Still, I'll hear you out."

At my words, the Marquis held up the liquor bottle, which had become more than half empty in just a short time.

"You'll need more alcohol."

"I have enough alcohol to drink ourselves to death."

"We should also have some food to go with it."

"You sure ask for a lot."

"I won't even be getting paid for this story, shouldn't I at least stuff my belly full?"

I clapped my hands at the Marquis's words.

Adelia appeared as if she had been waiting. When I asked her for some light snacks, an amount of food that we couldn't finish even if we ate all night was presented before us shortly after.

I popped a piece of jerky into my mouth and sank deep into the sofa. I waited for the Marquis to start his story.

"Since the opportunity has come, I will tell you everything from the beginning."

The Marquis's eyes deepened.

"It was about 20 years ago from now, right around the time His Majesty had just ascended to the throne."

It was a wistful look, as if he were staring at some point 20 years in the past.

The story began.

The kingdom's past that I hadn't known about, the secret history of the Royal Family that no one dared speak of.

The tyranny of the powerful and the futile resistance of the powerless.

I quietly drank my liquor.

I simply filled the glass when it was empty and emptied it again when it was full, listening to the Marquis's story all through the night.

It was a story of tearful effort that was hard to listen to without alcohol, and a story about the agonizing time endured by a man who had his hands and feet bound and his will ultimately broken.

It was also a long, long story that seemed to never end no matter how much he talked.

But there was truly no story without an end in this world, and the Marquis's story also eventually came to a close.

THUD.

With impeccable timing, the Marquis slammed his head onto the table and passed out right then and there.

I quietly called for the Royal Knights.

"Your Highness. What is..."

The knights' eyes went wide when they saw the Marquis completely unconscious, dead drunk.

"I'm too lazy to explain, so just lay him down in any room for now."

Karl hoisted the Marquis onto his shoulder and left the room.

I stared at that sight before grabbing a liquor bottle.

"It really isn't enough."

The bottle was already empty. I tossed it aside and sank deep into the sofa.

"Lost, but not taken away..."

I had learned many things thanks to the Marquis, but my mind had become just as complicated.

However, I was not given time to organize my thoughts.

RIIIIING.

Along with a chilling ringing in my ears, my surroundings swayed.

I jumped to my feet.

"Who dares!"

I grabbed Dusk and bolted out of the room.

"Your Highness!"

Just then, Karl was running toward me. He had an unprecedentedly urgent look on his face.

"Explain on the way!"

There was no time to hesitate.

Because someone had just forcibly awakened my original body.