11 (3)

The capital of the Duchy of Eron, Lebledna, had been electric. No one even remembered how long it had been since all seven houses gathered in one place. The sight of them converging was a spectacle by itself. You could see not only nobles you might never glimpse even once in your life, but also a flood of high-ranking figures you had never seen before.

And yet, even after all seven houses had arrived in Lebledna, one man still had not.

Louis.

The nobles of each house had begun unpacking, but they kept their ears pricked for whether Louis had arrived. The few nobles who actually knew one another traded information about what kind of man Louis was—yet beyond the official record, there was little to exchange. In the first place, everyone had pegged Louis’s chances of winning House Pontina’s succession war at under five percent.

It was not only the nobles. Even the citizens’ interest in Louis—who had somehow forced these colossal houses into one place—swelled to an irrational level. In the middle of that, once one or two rumors about Louis spread among people, it did not take long before there was not a single person left who didn’t know his name.

It had happened in a single day.

One of the gate guards—who had been constantly chattering like they were fitting puzzle pieces together—shouted urgently.

“He’s coming!”

“What? Where?”

“Over there—at the far end.”

“Finally, Pontina Louis’s entrance. I’m going insane wanting to know what he’s like. At this point, if you told me a halo was shining over his head, I’d believe it.”

Laughter burst among the soldiers. A thousand-man commander who had rushed up barked at them.

“You idiots—stay sharp and don’t make mistakes! Halo or not, even if he’s sprouted wings, your job is to receive Duke Louis!”

A few soldiers with faith muttered under their breath, but as House Pontina’s crest drew closer, everyone clamped their mouths shut as if an icy wind had swept the wall.

Because the man carrying the banner at the very front was advancing while leaking killing intent like a demon given form.

The man was Anok.

His relationship with Mihop had already been bad, and he had wanted to throw a tantrum—but he had been holding it in for Louis’s sake, leaving him in a thoroughly frustrated state. And the reason the hundreds of soldiers on the wall couldn’t help but be suppressed at a glance was simple: it was rare—almost unheard of—for a Sword Expert to stand at the head holding a house banner.

By custom, even a Sword Expert would be considered “beneath their station” if they did that. But Anok had wanted it himself—he had volunteered to take the lead—so Louis had casually allowed it. As a result, the soldiers who took a Sword Expert’s killing intent head-on (especially the interior troops who had rarely seen real war) began to truly grasp House Pontina’s weight.

The procession did not seem long, as if they had no need to impress anyone. Compared to other houses, it was almost modest. They had come to receive a succession, and they hadn’t even prepared gifts for the Prince-King. In sheer numbers, it was so sparse that it almost felt embarrassing to compare it to the other seven houses.

But to the soldiers who had watched every house arrive, this was the most intense scene of them all. It was a sight they would never forget—one they would drink themselves senseless over tonight while bragging to anyone who had missed it.

There weren’t only soldiers on the wall, either.

A handsome young man with a messy head of curls narrowed his eyes as he looked down toward the road. It was Parse Akiteia of House Parse. He was a few years older than Louis, but even accounting for that, he was still young—young enough that you wouldn’t call him “old” by any stretch. Lively yet cold, this young man had already found himself surprised by Louis.

‘Entrusting the banner to a Sword Expert and maximizing the effect… He broke convention, but the effect can’t be ignored. Even I felt it burn into me—ordinary citizens would feel it even more. Hm… I should try using that trick later.’

Anok didn’t bother hiding his emotions or his strength, so the lion banner—boiling and roaring under the pressure of his mana—snapped with a savage ferocity. If Prince-King Orpendius had been here, he would have felt something strange—something hard to call “ally,” and hard to call anything else, either. The soldiers didn’t feel much differently from Akiteia. If Akiteia was admiring the move, the soldiers were feeling it several times more strongly.

‘That’s House Pontina’s lion banner.’

‘So that’s Duke Louis’s vanguard… Of course it’s like this—he fought a war not long ago. If I were in front of that, I couldn’t even lift my face.’

‘This was worth waiting for. I’m going to brag about this today.’

Louis was still just barely not visible, so the soldiers filled the gap with imagination. Meanwhile, Louis’s own men—those following beside Anok—moved carefully, but they weren’t nearly as shaken as the people watching from the wall. It wasn’t their first or second day with this kind of commander, and it wasn’t like Anok was the type to vent his mood on his subordinates, either.

With the banner already shaking under mana from earlier, they only thought, So he’s in a bad mood again, and because they were used to it, they actually sped up when they saw the wall, eager to arrive.

Even Anok, who was causing all this, had his own unfair side to it.

It wasn’t that Anok wanted to smash everything—he’d simply realized Mihop’s sex recently, and it had twisted something inside him. The real problem was that his face looked like the sort of ruffian you’d recognize in any back alley. You could call it unfair if you wanted. But he wasn’t even aware he was radiating that kind of threat.

And Louis himself, despite being just about to reach the capital, wore a relaxed expression.

It was Louis’s first time visiting the capital. In the past, it had always been Fred—the most outstanding one—who attended as the duke’s proxy. Anyone would be tense about the people they were about to meet, yet Louis, the very person everyone was waiting for, showed not a shred of wavering, as if he were simply walking toward an event already decided.

Boromir, watching from beside him, was already sweating cold with nerves. Perhaps because of that, he looked at Louis and thought, Blood really is different.

It wasn’t intentional at all, but the first impression was good.

Just as before, two mounted soldiers rode out near the gate and shouted to the surroundings. House Pontina had arrived—the House Lebledna had been waiting for.

Merchants turned around and flinched in shock. Few in number, yet a procession that came with overwhelming pressure. The man at the front was close to two meters tall, and to even see the banner he carried, you had to tilt your head up. And there it was—the flapping lion crest. The moment they confirmed it, they were delighted, but they still had to get out of the way, so they split apart in a rush.

The existence of a grand party wasn’t just a nobles’ matter—for the citizens, the period itself felt like a festival. That was why more peddlers than usual had flooded in.

And every merchant here knew: the chance to make money existed because of Louis.

Starting with Anok, the procession began slipping into the gaps the crowd had opened. Now, even from the wall, they could see Louis clearly.

On the way here, Louis had succeeded in fully absorbing two mana stones, so at least in mana, he had already reached the Sword Expert threshold.

So whether Louis intended it or not, around him the military charisma trait and mana synergy swirled together, flowing as a tremendous pressure. If Louis focused on the crowd with intent, he could now seize a mass of people.

He had already tested that “first casting” on the entrenched nobles. Even the ones who had harbored strong resentment toward him couldn’t properly look at him once the situation shifted.

A ruler’s ability mattered—but this kind of thing mattered just as much.

The simplest way to prevent betrayal was to surpass them yourself.

As if guided by instinct, Louis had chosen the mana option one more time at a fork in the road, and that choice was indirectly raising his subordinates’ faith. The rumor that a young ruler praised as a war avatar had reached Sword Expert hadn’t spread yet—but the warriors who always guarded Louis close had all noticed.

And whether they thought about it or not, the nobles who served Louis were already being caught by him.

Perhaps the obsession with personal strength was, in large part, because Louis was Pontina. Since the first Duke Valpur, House Pontina’s bloodline had carried a tradition that valued personal might. And that wasn’t forced by “tradition” alone—it was because of the blood itself that ran from Valpur onward.

The soldiers on the wall finally saw Louis—the rumored protagonist they had waited for until their necks went stiff.

And even though they weren’t looking at a woman, they still couldn’t pull their gaze away.

It couldn’t be helped. Louis moved with only a few soldiers and a handful of terrifying warriors, and even inside that small group, he stood out. More than that—so much so that even Anok’s presence at the front felt crushed—Louis gave them the sensation of being the eye of a storm.

People had gotten drunk and spread rumors. They claimed Louis carried a dual blessing from Mars, the god of war, and Lucus, the god of murder. More than half the soldiers had treated that as just a rumor. No matter how ordinary someone was, it was only natural not to believe a story beyond a certain point.

But Louis, calmly advancing while surveying everything before him, radiated the kind of aura that made it obvious—at a glance—that he was an exceptional figure even in the long history of House Pontina. Youth often meant “easy to look down on.”

Yet Louis had none of that.

Through the System, Louis had invested the war’s results into himself, grown rapidly in a short span, and was now feeling the effect in his very skin. The Louis they were seeing now looked one-and-a-half times more developed than the Louis of the battlefield. It wasn’t strange at all that the soldiers felt he surpassed even the rumors.

Even so, Parse Akiteia—who had just praised the little trick of putting a Sword Expert at the front to seize attention—now broke into a cold sweat.

Normally, rulers didn’t bring so many warriors with them—especially when political lines were about to split. The reason was simple: if the warriors’ mana radiance was too strong, it could drown out the ruler, who should shine the brightest.

But the Louis in Akiteia’s eyes was so singular—radiating a force mixed with mana that mocked that unspoken rule—that setting a Sword Expert at the front as banner-bearer wasn’t something to dismiss as a mere trick.

“Young Master?”

The elderly butler beside him answered Akiteia’s call, wiping his face with the towel tucked at his chest.

“Go back and send a letter to Father. Tell him House Parse must do everything in our power from this moment to form an alliance with House Pontina. It’s a pity we didn’t bring more gifts to lay at his feet.”

“Indeed. Even to these old eyes, I can see he’s a man beyond comparison to Duke Remitri of the past.”

“Duke Remitri? You say that because you never saw his son, Pontina Fred. Fred also had the rare vessel of a ruler who had achieved Sword Expert—one who could stand beside that Louis. But that man in front of us… he tore apart a brother that excellent and came here anyway. The situation has changed. We adjust to it.”