Chapter 57 - Even in the Winter of Cutting Winds, Sprouts Still Rise (1)

The First Prince bickered with the eldest son of the lord of Winter Castle over some pointless nonsense.

The knights watching them joined in and began snickering along with them.

Even the Rangers and ordinary soldiers crowded around and started chattering, and the sight was astonishingly informal.

"Come on! I'm tired as hell, so why are you all clinging to me!"

Even when the First Prince snapped, the soldiers only burst out laughing, and not one of them seemed afraid.

"Boo! Weren't you the one who said Orcs like that weren't even worth one meal?"

"Surely you're not exhausted just because you killed a few Orcs!"

There were even soldiers jeering at him.

"You little—! Do I look like a joke to you!"

When the First Prince finally lost patience, his face went stern, and he shouted, Maximilian thought the soldiers were about to be beaten senseless.

"What do you take me for!"

He did get angry.

"Even if ten times that many Orc units came charging in, I could handle them easily!"

But the reason for it was far too different from what Maximilian had expected.

To Maximilian, it was so absurd that it left him bewildered.

"Then you can take on five legions by yourself, and we'll just sit comfortably on the wall and shoot arrows!"

The soldiers cackled.

"Hmm."

Maximilian felt strange.

A member of the royal family exchanging pointless jokes with rank-and-file soldiers was something he could not even imagine.

And yet it did not look bad.

Though they treated him without formality and hurled jeers at him, the eyes of the soldiers and knights were filled with respect, and their actions carried the utmost goodwill.

"Since all you did inside the castle was shoot arrows, you must have plenty of strength left, huh? Today, you lot are the lucky winners for cleaning up the battlefield!"

When the First Prince said that with a cackle, the soldiers jeered at him once more.

"Are you not moving?"

"We're going. We're going!"

But no one truly disobeyed the order.

The Rangers and soldiers gathered carts and headed outside the gate.

The knights also chatted a little longer before scattering to find their own work.

Looking at the First Prince left standing alone, Maximilian thought.

If the nobles of The Capital had seen him covered in blood and snickering with rank-and-file soldiers like that, they would have faulted him for being unbefitting of royalty.

Half of him agreed, and half of him could not.

The sight his brother presented was certainly not befitting of royalty.

But that did not mean he looked vulgar.

"Your Highness."

While he was lost in thought as he watched his brother, the Iron Lions spoke to him.

They were glad he was safe.

They were truly impressed that he had fought so bravely in his first battle.

Conventional words.

As Maximilian faced them, he suddenly felt a sense of incongruity.

It was a strange feeling he had never once felt before, and being sharp-witted, he quickly realized what it was.

Pride.

The admiration and goodwill that surfaced on their faces were no different from praising a child's talent.

Maximilian naturally came to understand.

The expressions of those who had praised him in The Capital had also been the same as theirs.

Once he realized that, he suddenly felt ashamed.

Maximilian.

Maximilian.

Had you boasted of a child's tricks and felt so proud of them?

At the young age of fifteen, being praised by adults as commendable was by no means a flaw.

But his elder brother, only one year older, was already being recognized as a dignified man.

That difference felt far too great.

"Your Highness?"

At Erhim Kilinger's voice, he awoke from his thoughts.

He rubbed his face dry and hid his flushed face as he asked.

"Is there something more you have to say?"

Since the Iron Lions were hesitating even after finishing their business, he asked them.

"If you permit it, we would like to go down and pay our respects to His Highness the First Prince."

Their gazes were glancing toward the man standing alone below the wall.

Maximilian replied that they could do so.

The Iron Lions rushed down from the wall in a swarm, surrounded the First Prince, and made a fuss over him.

"Why are you lot suddenly acting familiar too!"

He shouted, but his face did not truly look displeased.

The Iron Lions cackled.

The sight did not seem so different from the knights of Winter Castle.

"Did you say they volunteered to come here?"

It was a mission where they had to remove the proud emblem of the Iron Lions, even cast off their iron armor, and hide their names before setting out.

Even so, each and every one of them had come after volunteering, refusing to shy away from the arduous journey north.

"That is correct, Your Highness."

Maximilian felt as though he understood why they had gone out of their way to volunteer to come to the distant North.

"Your Highness."

Erhim Kilinger spoke in a gentle tone.

"Do not be impatient."

Maximilian turned his head.

There was the smiling face of the Vice-Commander.

"I was simply surprised."

Before coming here, he had never imagined he would see such a scene.

The kingdom was at peace, yet in the North, such a great war was taking place, and the Orcs, whom he had considered insignificant monsters, had established a kingdom.

And there, the bloodline of Leonberk had taken root and was growing into a great tree.

Who among those in The Capital, not only himself, could have known this?

Everyone had spoken in one voice and called him hopeless, and everyone had avoided him, regarding his very existence as harmful.

A man like that was being recognized in the North like this.

Suddenly, a question occurred to him.

He could not understand why someone so outstanding had borne disgrace until now and played the scoundrel.

If he had shown even one-tenth of that, the people of The Capital would not have looked down on his elder brother so much.

Perhaps even Your Majesty would not have hated his eldest son as he did now.

He simply could not understand the reason.

If I keep watching, I will find the answer.

Maximilian's gaze deepened.

* * *

War Poems were good, fighting fiercely with Orcs was good, and everything was good.

The problem was this pathetic body.

My mana had long since run dry, and my muscles had been abused so badly that there was not a single place on my body that did not hurt.

I had pretended to be strong in front of the soldiers, but the truth was, I was at my limit.

I wanted to go lie down in bed at once.

But there was still something left to do.

Flick.

I beckoned to the mercenaries who had been watching me from afar.

As if they had been waiting, they approached me and bowed their heads.

"First, let us go somewhere quiet and talk."

"The tent where we are staying is fairly secluded."

The man who seemed to be the leader of the mercenaries stepped forward as their representative and spoke.

I nodded and followed them.

Before long, the tent where the mercenaries were staying appeared.

"Please enter."

The mercenary commander lifted the tent flap.

Perhaps because it had been used as a meeting place for the command staff, unlike its shabby exterior, the spacious interior was rather well equipped.

"You, and you. You two make sure no one approaches this place."

Seeing him take care of the surroundings on his own without being told, he was indeed a man with quick wits, mercenary-like as expected.

"It is an honor to meet you like this, Your Highness. I am Antoine, leader of a humble mercenary company."

I asked directly.

"Did you make a contract with the Royal Family?"

"For now, we have entered into a long-term contract."

Antoine said they had contracted for about one year for the time being and would renew the contract if the fighting dragged on, then stared intently at me.

"Do you have plans after that?"

"Would a mercenary bastard who never knows when he'll die have such a thing? If I happen to survive, I simply go and look for another employer."

I made an offer to Antoine, who was playing innocent.

"Make a contract with me."

"Since we have contracted with the Leonberk Royal Family, would that not be no different from contracting with Your Highness?"

He was not someone who could fail to understand what I meant, yet he was truly a slippery bastard.

"I mean a personal contract with me, not the Royal Family."

"Our mercenary company may be made up of rabble, but our price is not cheap."

They were people the Royal Family had carefully chosen and sent to support the North, so of course their price would be high.

It was what I had expected.

Of course, I had no money.

As a prince, I did have a small amount of valuables given to maintain my dignity, but not enough to hire a mercenary company.

"Your price..."

But that was not important.

"The mana you have accumulated through a crude method."

After all, there was no rule that a price had to be paid only in money or goods.

"I will turn it into something proper."

Sometimes, something intangible was worth more than material things.

"So that you will never again be looked down on for learning a low-grade method."

This was exactly such a case.

The mana I had briefly glimpsed in Antoine was crude, built up through the heavy-impact refinement method at best.

I did not know for certain, but the ones called the Senior Mercenaries of his company were probably at a similar level to him.

And with such crude energy, they could never advance to a higher realm.

At most, they would become Sword Experts.

Even that would be a sandcastle built on impure mana.

They had built it up in the same way, but the result was by no means the same.

Even if their realm was the same as mine, the grade was as different as heaven and earth.

In my heart, I recalled the karma I had accumulated.

I recalled the poem woven from the results I had achieved.

And I drew it out.

Not the power of the poem, but the grade of the poem.

My soul, which had burned countless Orcs and finally reached the edge of the Extraordinary.

I showed the fox-like mercenary commander part of the compensation I would pay.

CLATTER, CLATTER.

The furnishings inside the tent began to tremble wildly.

A crude teacup shuddered, and the mercenary company's banner hanging in the tent swelled as if about to tear, though there was no wind.

I gathered my grade back in.

The furnishings that had been shaking noisily became calm as if it had all been a lie, and the swollen banner drooped again.

"Is that still not enough?"

I looked at Antoine.

The mercenary commander's face had hardened like stone, and his eyes were darting about busily.

I waited quietly.

I had thrown out bait that anyone who had accumulated mana in the heart would covet.

I had made an offer that any swordsman mocked as low-grade would be tempted by.

Putting myself forward any more than this would only lower my value.

"If words alone could accomplish everything, I would already have become a Sword Master."

After a long while, Antoine opened his mouth.

Was that a refusal?

I stood without lingering.

If he would not accept, I only had to look for someone else.

Antoine grabbed me tightly.

"But that may also depend on who is speaking those words."

The mercenary commander added a line with a sly face.

"To me, Your Highness's words sounded that way."

He was smiling obsequiously, but his gaze alone was solemn.

It was the distinctive gleam of one who had cultivated mana in the heart, different from a Knight of the Ring.

"Grant me a title."

Antoine demanded that of me.

It was a demand far too great to make of a mere prince, but depending on how one heard it, it was also honeyed words that called to mind a pleasing future.

I laughed.

He was an amusing man.

Unlike upright knights, he seemed like a man who would have uses.

"How long is the contract period?"

At Antoine's question, I answered without hesitation.

"Until I become king."

* * *

Antoine and I made a verbal contract.

Antoine was still sizing me up, and I also intended to watch a little longer to see whether they were truly useful.

But one thing was certain: the fox-like mercenary commander would be quite useful to me.

"Do you know how to use the mana of the heart?"

I asked to confirm whether they knew how to use a proper Mana Heart.

Instead of answering, Antoine drew the sword and dagger he had been wearing at his waist at the same time.

Gurgle.

I felt the sign of mana moving.

He put on as much gravitas as he could and spoke in a low voice.

"Blade that cuts blades!"

The sword blade flashed and flashed.

With that shining sword, Antoine brought it to the dagger.

The sword dug about one-third of the way into the dagger.

"This is the Sword Song I possess."

"What did you say that was?"

"We call them Sword Songs, songs sung by swords."

I was left dazed.

"Even so, in the industry, it is recognized as one of the more useful Sword Songs."

Seeing Antoine put on airs with a proud face, I covered my face with my hand.

Good grief.

Blade that cuts blades, he said.

As someone who knew more poems than anyone in the world, even I had never imagined such a string of words, neither poem nor song, and that was supposedly the poem of a successful mercenary commander.

It was enough to drive a man insane.