Chapter 14

“Prince?”

Arkin and Magnus were quietly climbing the hill. Thinking about what had happened in Solinar, Arkin snapped out of his reverie at Magnus’s call.

“Prince? Are you alright?”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Pay it no mind.”

Arkin shook his head. There was no time to spare on other thoughts. The opening ceremony would begin shortly.

“Nothing, you say. Your face has gone completely pale.”

Magnus grumbled as he trotted along closely behind.

“I’ll hold the cloak. You should untie it for now and put it back on later.”

“It’s fine, so don’t worry about it.”

The prince stroked the leaf-shaped brooch fixed upon his shoulder and checked his attire once more.

He felt that he had dressed himself up admirably enough for the occasion. The top, dyed in a blue hue, was embroidered with a birch motif in intricate silver thread, and the dark brown trousers were woven from sturdy wool. He had even selected the boots engraved with the Solinar royal crest from among the highest quality ones available.

To be frank, the outfit was far too thick for the sweltering weather of Credo Island, yet even while wiping away the beads of sweat pooling on his forehead, Arkin meticulously and neatly draped the red cloak over his shoulders. Because at the very least during the opening ceremony, he needed to maintain the dignity of a Solinar prince.

According to what Arkin had heard, Solinar’s standing on Credo Island was extraordinary. When the ten nations of the World Alliance were shedding blood in endless wars, it was none other than Arkin’s great-grandfather who had brought the conflict to an end.

“You know it, right, Prince? Solinar’s name will be respected here just as much.”

Magnus broke into a wide smile and straightened his shoulders broadly.

“It had better be.”

Arkin offered a faint smile as well. Even though their procession was modest, Solinar’s history and honor yielded to no other nation, after all.

Far off, around the middle of the hill, a large white building came into view. It was bustling as processions from various nations converged from other directions as well.

Arkin was conscious of the people in flamboyant attire brushing past his shoulders. Silk robes embedded with jewels, capes embroidered with golden thread, and hats decorated with peacock feathers flashed by brilliantly. Even their supporting subordinates were dressed to the absolute hilt. They seemed to regard Arkin and Magnus as mere attendants, passing them by without so much as a polite bow. The group after them, and the group after that, were exactly the same.

Each time people zipped and zoomed past, Arkin’s face flushed a deeper shade of red. Overwhelmed with embarrassment and mortification, his head kept sinking downward. He had never dreamed in a million years that Solinar’s standing would amount to this…

Though it was late to realize, they were… far too shabby and insignificant compared to the other kingdoms.

“My, oh my… Aren’t all of those regulation violations?”

Magnus clicked his tongue in disapproval. Looking deeply displeased by the oversized decorations and flashy banners, he frowned repeatedly and poked at them with his finger.

“When the tournament organizers sent out their couriers, they explicitly drilled it into everyone to prepare modest and simple processions.”

Even so, Arkin’s face grew progressively paler. Even Stoneguard, the Rock Kingdom, and Veilon, the Fog Kingdom—which were known to possess weaker national power than Solinar—were leading grandiose processions boasting dozens of servants.

With a rigid expression, Arkin turned to look at the attendants trailing behind him. Excluding Magnus as his retainer and the dozen or so men who had sailed the boat, there were a mere three servants walking within arm’s reach of the prince to carry their luggage. Pointing at that paltry entourage, Magnus puffed out his chest with an air of pride.

“As expected, our Kingdom of Solinar is the absolute best, Prince! Such vanity and ostentatious displays only detract from true dignity. You know better than anyone that outward appearances don’t matter, don’t you, Prince?”

No. I don’t think so.

…That damned ‘virtue of modesty.’ Modesty only brings dignity when practiced in moderation; if your procession is so pathetic that your very status isn’t even apparent, isn’t this just looking utterly impoverished?

His stomach churned. Even knowing it was unseemly, he couldn’t stop an inferiority complex from rearing its head. The moment he thought that among all those gathered here, probably no other nation had to eat the dirt of the council of elders’ watchful eyes quite like Solinar, the inside of his mouth felt as gritty as chewing on sand.

The reason Arkin ended up with a procession that was less than modest and more downright meager stemmed from Solinar’s unique standards for treating royalty. As the price of being chosen by the gods, royalty were evaluated by a much stricter moral yardstick.

Claiming that they must maintain a humble posture and remain on the same eye-level as the common folk, royalty were consistently subjected to restrictions on every single thing they wore and ate. In Arkin’s mind, those were merely shackles binding the king’s hands and feet, however…

Arkin thought bitterly. Despite exerting so much effort while being told ‘you must set an example’ or ‘you must become the best,’ it seemed he had still managed to gain nothing.

He had been proud and righteous enough to have confidence in himself, and his innate skills were top-tier as well. Hunting if it was hunting, academics if it was academics. He had wanted to hear that he was flawless as a successor. Yet no matter how much he thrashed about, it merely resulted in yet another assignment being handed down to him.

Arkin chewed on his lips to soothe his aching insides. The more this happened, the more he yearned for the throne. He would definitely prove himself at the training tournament and become a strong king. He would become a monarch capable of casually crushing the interference of the council of elders. If the Seilir dynasty had possessed absolute power from the very beginning, Arkin would never have had to suffer such disgrace and humiliation.

“Over there, Prince!”

As the entrance of the sanctuary drew closer, the crowd congested into the narrow pathway. Forcing his way forward grew increasingly burdensome. Magnus looked around in all directions, searching for the entrance to step inside the sanctuary grounds.

“Looks like there are a lot of people waiting ahead. It’s getting super jammed…”

He somehow managed to shove his way into the outskirts of the pristine white sanctuary’s threshold. Just as he finally reached the entrance and attempted to step inside, guards crossed their spears and blocked their path.

“Who do you think you are trying to block right now? This person is…”

Magnus raised his voice with a menacing glare, but the guards simply shook their heads.

“Hey, we are…”

Magnus’s protest was buried and vanished beneath the increasingly loud music swelling up from behind them. Ringing out drums and flutes, a procession far more dazzling and resplendent than any other kingdom pushed straight through, shoving aside the tangled masses of people.

“Make way! It is the procession of Her Highness, the Princess of Kepet!”

W-Wait…

Before Arkin and Magnus could finish speaking, they were swept along and pushed aside by the people. As onlookers eagerly crowded forward to catch a glimpse of the Kepet procession, their bodies were driven toward the wall. Shoulders and backs collided with other strangers, and he had to stand on his tiptoes just to barely catch sight of what was ahead.

“Ha, dammit.”

Even Magnus’s grumbling was swallowed up by the murmuring crowd. Trapped amidst the gaps between people, Arkin raised his eyes to look up at the flamboyant procession passing overhead.

Behind the leading musicians, dozens of flags bearing Kepet’s golden sun emblem fluttered in the wind. Every time the muscular arms of the flag bearers lifted the poles high, the golden tassels gleamed in the sunlight. What appeared next was a dazzlingly resplendent golden palanquin. Robust men marched in perfect unison, supporting the palanquin as they advanced. The copper-toned muscles glistening in the sunlight were vividly defined.

It was designed with ivory-carved pillars erected at the four corners, over which thin, transparent white silks were draped in cascading layers. Every time the wind fluttered the fabrics softly, the silhouette of Princess Nephitia, leaning back at an angle, repeatedly appeared and vanished in a mystical fashion.

Arkin raised his head to look up at her. As the massive palanquin passed directly in front of him, the fabric billowed out widely, revealing the princess’s appearance with even greater clarity. The lively and curiosity-filled girl he had bumped into in the forest was nowhere to be found. To draw a comparison, she looked like a majestic lioness. He had only thought of her as an immature and rather weird princess, but seeing her now, she was likewise the embodiment of an innate monarch radiating overpowering pressure.

It seemed she had gone off with her elderly attendant to slip away into the forest and re-done her adornments upon returning. The princess wore a high-rising golden crown shaped like the sun upon her head, with a jewel-woven net ornament cascading down over her dark hair. Every time the palanquin swayed, the jewels clashed together, scattering a brilliant radiance. From the trinkets hanging heavily from her arms, ankles, and neck, a clear, metallic jangling sound could be heard. When that noise was layered over the melodies of the musical troupe, it even imparted a bizarre sense of overwhelming dominance.