Chapter 112 - How Can Spring Come Without Passing Through Winter? (3)

The King looked at his eldest son.

An arrogant and ambitious young prince.

In the past, he too had been exactly like that. He thought he could protect the kingdom from the empire's exploitation and even lead it to a revival. But it was not to be.

There was nothing he could do but merely endure.

The kingdom, exploited over generations under the guise of treaties, was already battered and torn.

Massive tariffs were imposed on all trade occurring within the kingdom, but the benefits went to the empire, not the kingdom.

Due to the nonsensical tariffs, merchants stopped visiting the kingdom, and the kingdom suffered from chronic shortages of goods.

Mines were scattered everywhere, and expensive monster byproducts were abundant, but because the imperial merchant guilds monopolized them, they could never get a fair price. The empire deliberately reduced the authority of the royal family and empowered the nobles.

As a result, the royal family lost its right to tax the nobles, and many of its enterprises became nominal at best.

The royal finances went on a downward spiral, and the nobles accumulated wealth by squeezing the people of their territories.

The kingdom that had once united under the mighty power of the Royal House of Leonberk no longer existed.

All of that had happened over the past hundred years.

The 12 legions of the east, west, south, north, and center that supported the royal family were also not intact.

Of the twelve legions, there were only four that maintained their quota of 2,000 men.

Except for the four legions—the Northern Legion at Winter Castle, the Eastern Legion at the Red Salt Coastal Fortress, the Southern Legion at the Southern Silver Lion Citadel, and the Central Legion in The Capital—the other eight legions were in such a disorganized state that calling them regular armies was embarrassing.

With troop numbers failing to reach even a quarter of their quota, and the majority of those troops being made up of conscripts drawn from the nobles and long-term contracted mercenaries, their armament and discipline were terrible.

In such a situation, news arrived that a disaster had struck the North.

The King immediately racked his brains to dispatch reinforcements.

The Southern Legion at the border, which could be considered the kingdom's most elite force in terms of armament and discipline, could not leave the border empty, and the Eastern Legion, which could immediately land in the North using ships, could not even set sail due to the empire's pressure.

The Northern Legion was already stationed at Winter Castle, so they were out of the question, and the reserve legions, composed mainly of conscripts, would be of absolutely no help if sent to the North.

The only one left was the Central Legion, but even then, considering the power vacuum it would leave in The Capital, it was not easy to decide on their dispatch.

Of the kingdom's legions, which numbered around ten thousand troops in total, there was not a single legion whose feet were not tied.

In the end, risking a power vacuum in The Capital, the King drafted a portion of the Central Army and the Iron Lion Knights. The insufficient troop numbers were filled with mercenaries by paying an exorbitant cost.

At the time, that was his best option.

He thought that if they joined forces with the nobles of the North, the kingdom's shield would easily be able to defend the northern region.

But that was a delusion.

The lords of the North did not move, and Winter Castle ultimately fell.

The Silver Lion of Winter Castle died in battle, and the North was left defenseless against the Orcs.

He needed to reclaim the North, but that was practically impossible. Driving out all the Orcs with only the royal family's forces was beyond their capabilities, and the nobles of the Central region would never give up their troops for the North.

Therefore, he formed a defensive line in the Central region centered around that narrow chokepoint, the bridge connecting the Raintes River. Only when the fire had dropped on their own toes did the nobles of the Central region finally provide their troops.

It was only after hearing the report that nearly ten thousand troops had gathered at the defensive line that the King could catch his breath.

He thought that an army of ten thousand could easily hold them off by taking advantage of the narrow chokepoint.

Even that was a misjudgment.

Due to an unheard-of existence called the King of Orcs, a Warlord, the troops at the defensive line reached the brink of collapse, and the entire kingdom was nearly ravaged by the Orcs.

Looking back now, it was no exaggeration to say that the kingdom had been driven to the very brink of destruction.

The one who prevented that destruction was the eldest son he had so despised and hated.

It was his eldest son who had starved the Orcs to break their momentum, and it was his eldest son who had summoned the fragmented armies of the northern lords to save the defensive line that was on the verge of collapse.

That same eldest son was now asking him.

Why on earth had he abandoned the North.

Seeing that unwavering light of interrogation, he let out a sigh.

He had far too much to say.

If he wanted to make excuses, he could point to their forces being weakened due to the empire's pressure,

and if he wanted to share the blame, he could shift the responsibility onto the Margrave family of House Ballorhard for failing to properly unite the subordinate families under them.

The northern lords who had forsaken their duties, and the Central region's nobles who had watched the war like a fire across the river, were also not free from responsibility.

The monster known as the Warlord that no one had known about, the financial pressure, and other excuses were overflowing.

But he could not bring himself to utter a single one of them out loud.

Because, at this point, all of it had become nothing more than excuses.

The King opened and closed his mouth several times as he looked at the prince.

A face filled with deep resentment, sharply glaring eyes—suddenly, he realized that face was not unfamiliar.

And without having to think for long, he remembered where he had seen that face.

Before inheriting the throne, his own face as he looked at the previous king had been exactly like that.

The moment he realized that fact, the King was able to understand his eldest son for the first time.

Simply recalling the feelings he had held toward the previous king in the past was enough.

Countless thoughts rushed in along with the emotions of the past.

Among them was a father's sense of shame for shifting the blame onto a young prince who knew nothing and turning away from reality, and self-mockery directed at a narrow-minded monarch who had averted his eyes from successive misjudgments and failures and disparaged the one who had made contributions.

Amidst that endless wave of emotions, the King closed his eyes.

The answer had been decided from the start.

If merits were to cover up faults, the prince had more than made up for his mistakes a hundred times over.

He should have acknowledged it sooner, but he hadn't been able to.

He couldn't do it because his eldest son's great merits made his own blunders loom all the larger,

and unable to shake off old grudges, he had lost the distinction between public and private affairs.

He had to set things right, even now.

The King let out a long sigh. With that sigh, he brushed off his own stubbornness and petty feelings.

As once was not enough, he emptied himself again and again.

Only then was the King able to answer the question.

That he had done his best in a poor situation, but ultimately failed completely.

That he had tried to respond to the rapidly changing state of affairs, but had failed to see anything through properly.

That all of it was the result of a lack of virtue in failing to properly lead the nobles as a monarch, and the pinnacle of incompetence for not being able to make bold decisions.

The history of the kingdom that might sound like a lengthy excuse,

and the royal family's difficulties that might sound like a pathetic self-rationalization.

The King simply spoke.

And when a long time had passed even after all those stories came to an end, the First Prince quietly rose from his seat.

There were no words of understanding, nor were there any words of blame.

Instead of going out of his way to urge an answer, the King looked at the prince who had risen from his seat with a calm face.

The prince, who seemed as if he would leave at any moment, stayed exactly like that for quite a while for some reason.

"There are five hundred men training to become full-fledged knights at Winter Castle."

Then, after a long while, he said something out of the blue.

The King's eyes widened.

"Among them are those whom Your Majesty knows as well."

The prince's words were far too disjointed to be understood immediately.

"Gawain Gust."

The King, who had been quietly listening to the prince's words, jumped up from his seat without realizing it.

Looking at the King, the prince said.

"He and his three hundred comrades are at Winter Castle."

Before the King could ask anything, the prince added one more thing.

"They are still at the level of apprentice knights, but they will reach the level of a full-fledged knight before long."

The prince left right after that.

CLICK.

Up until the moment the door closed, the King could not rise from his seat.

The words the prince had softly whispered before leaving the room rang out like thunder in his head.

["When the time comes, it wouldn't be a bad idea for Your Majesty to knight them yourself."]

The King was completely left in a daze.

"Gawain and the knights..."

He repeated the same words over and over again.

Then suddenly, with a dejected face, he buried himself into the sofa.

"Now, there isn't even a justification left..."

Whether it was a sigh or a groan, or what justification he was talking about.

Nothing was clear.

* * *

"My lord. We have left The Capital."

At the coachman's words, the former Palace Count ordered the carriage to a stop.

He opened the window and took in the sight of The Capital for a moment.

The position of Palace Count, which had been protected for generations, had come to an end in his generation. Although it was something he had resolved to do a very long time ago, even he couldn't help but feel terribly unsettled.

However, his mixed feelings did not last long.

"A person must play in bigger waters."

He had told the King that he would return to his hometown and live quietly, but from the very beginning, he hadn't had the slightest intention of doing so.

He planned to seek asylum in the empire and spend his later years as a noble of a great nation.

Of course, that hadn't been his plan from the start.

His family had served the Royal House of Leonberk for generations, and he too had been raised by his father as a loyal servant of the royal family.

His thoughts had changed about four years ago.

His family had been keeping double books for the royal family's ledgers for a very long time. By calculating the price of their long devotion and service to the royal family on their own, they had been siphoning off funds to an extent that wouldn't severely deplete the royal finances.

That day, he was looking at the ledger as well. He intended to pocket just a tiny bit of the royal property, within a limit that wouldn't tarnish his own loyalty.

But suddenly, he felt a sense of discrepancy.

The numbers were perfect, and there were no issues with the records of what came in and went out, but he felt an inexplicable awkwardness.

He immediately pulled out his family's ledger and compared the figures with the royal ledger.

While it was perfect in the main ledger, there were parts that subtly deviated from the family's ledger.

At first, he simply thought that someone was impiously embezzling the royal supplies. With the sole thought of plugging the hole in the royal treasury, he secretly tracked the ledger.

The tracking was not easy. Whenever he tried to trace the movement of supplies that had been finely split and laundered two or three times over, a wall invariably appeared. Still, he didn't give up and continued tracking the ledger while comparing it with his family's.

After a lengthy pursuit that spanned a full year, he finally discovered the ultimate destination of the supplies.

However, he was not the least bit happy.

Everyone had a set vessel, and among them, there were truths that one's vessel could not handle. His case was exactly that.

Surprisingly, the royal family was secretly raising over three hundred knights.

For someone who only handled numbers at best, the royal family's secret was excessively heavy. He couldn't bear the anxiety that others might notice the fact that he knew the royal family's secret.

The royal family wasn't the problem. The royal family wouldn't suddenly cast out his family, which had offered loyalty for generations, just because he learned a single secret.

The problem was the empire.

Every night, he had nightmares of being kidnapped, tortured, and killed by imperial spies. He began to suffer from severe nervous breakdown symptoms, and eventually, even the boundary between his nightmares and reality became blurred.

If things continued that way, he was going to wither away and die.

So he decided it would be better to seek out the imperial ambassador and confess everything.

His honeymoon relationship with the imperial ambassador started from then on.

The crime of the tip-off was pinned on the foolish First Prince.

At first, he couldn't sleep out of guilt. But the matter had already become irreversible, and the imperial ambassador endlessly demanded secrets from him.

After repeating it several times like that, his guilt faded, and at a certain point, he stopped feeling even that.

Thinking about it now, he even felt that his choice back then was truly the right one.

Because rather than living a wretched life doing odd jobs and cleaning up after the Royal House of Leonberk for the rest of his days, living loudly and proudly as an imperial noble was far better. Slipping out of The Capital under the cover of night like this, as if being chased, hadn't been in his plans, but it wasn't a major problem.

For the merit of leaking the royal family's secrets four years ago, he had been promised a noble title and territory in the empire, and all that was left was to escape this dreadful backwater and spend the rest of his glamorous life in the imperial capital.

"Hm?"

Snickering to himself as he imagined his rosy future, he realized that at some point, the carriage had stopped moving.

"Is anyone there?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Why has the carriage come to a halt?"

"The mercenaries who were supposed to join us still haven't shown up... Oh my. They are just coming over there now."

At the coachman's words, he slightly opened the carriage door and stepped outside.

Far in the distance, a group of riders with their cloaks pulled down low was approaching, cutting through the darkness. He wore a friendly smile.

It was an excessive attitude for welcoming mercenaries.

It couldn't be helped.

They were only mercenaries in name; in fact, the riders galloping towards him right now were escorts specially provided for him by Marquis Montpellier, consisting of imperial knights and soldiers. Since he was going to become an imperial noble in the future, wouldn't it be good to build friendships on the way?

The riders, kicking up dirt and dust, stopped in front of him.

He ended up covered in dirt and dust due to their aggressive maneuvering, but he didn't let out a single cough, let alone show any sign of displeasure.

"Are you Sir Arles? Or Sir Theorn? Anyway, you've worked hard riding your horses through the dark night..."

He, who had been welcoming the imperial knights with a glad face, froze right on the spot.

The face of the man revealed beneath the torchlight did not belong to Arles, nor did it belong to Theorn.

"Why the warm welcome? It's not like I'm here on good business."

The man who had pulled his cloak down low,

"Y-Your Highness, why are you here..."

The First Prince threw back his hood and spoke.

"The ones you were waiting for are not coming."

The moment he heard those words, he realized it.

That the imperial ambassador had sold him out.

As soon as he grasped the situation, he immediately threw himself onto the ground.

"Y-Your Highness! Please do not commit the folly of losing the big thief while trying to catch a small thief!"

And then, unaware that dirt was getting into his mouth, he begged desperately.

"Gah."

At that moment, a scream was heard.

Flinching and curling his body, he squeezed out whatever nonexistent courage he had and opened his eyes to a slit.

"Ugggh."

A blood-soaked man lay face down on the ground.

His eyes bulged open. He simply could not believe it.

The man who was covered in blood, lying flat on the ground and wailing, was the marquis of the empire.

"A big thief, and a small thief, you say."

The First Prince squatted down to match his eye level and asked, wondering who the big thief was and who the small thief was.

And he added one more thing.

"Only the small thief gets to keep his life."

He was saying that he would spare only the one with the lighter crime between the two.