Hibiren Flowers And Recital (13)

The audience forgot to breathe, completely absorbed in the performance. That was the result.

Judging by the audience’s reaction, the outcome was already decided. Even if they couldn’t express how astonished and engrossed they were because of their pride.

Even a few minutes after Berna’s performance ended, no one had opened their mouths.

Of course, El was just as surprised.

‘It would have been better if I had known Berna could play like this beforehand. Or maybe not?’

Even if he had known, he would still have hoped for Rurin to win by skill. Rurin wanted to win, after all. For El, Rurin’s victory was the top priority.

Of course, that victory had to be based on skill, regrettably. This time, anyone could see that Berna deserved the win, and that was El’s conclusion.

Leaving the Greek boy, who was dazed by the intense performance, behind, El stood up and moved.

To give this incredible performance the rightful result.

About two more minutes passed, and the MC barely regained his composure and resumed the proceedings. However, honestly speaking, the performances that followed didn’t even register with the audience.

After the performance ended, Berna returned to the waiting room. Of course, the sound of the performance could still be heard in the waiting room.

Loriana greeted Berna as she returned to the waiting room, her face flushed red.

She was like a volcano on the verge of eruption.

“What are you all doing? Grab that wretch’s hand and crush it immediately!”

Acknowledging someone more skilled than herself was something she could never do. If she couldn’t accept it, she had to destroy it. That was the truth of the world.

Loriana Delian’s mind worked in exactly that way.

From the moment Berna started playing and other contestants glanced at her with astonished faces, Loriana had bitten her nails and vowed never to let that disgraceful noble go unpunished.

To resolve that humiliation, she brought the Duke’s guards, who were originally outside, into the waiting room.

The Duke’s guards swarmed around Berna.

“Crush her so that she can never touch a keyboard again. How dare she disgrace the Delian family like that in the preliminaries!”

The knights grabbed Berna’s arms.

Then, enduring insults, slaps, shoves to the ground, and all sorts of humiliations that a noble would never normally experience, Berna, who had remained silent, finally began to cry out, clutching her hands.

“N-no, not my hands! Please, not my hands!”

She had finally succeeded in her performance. Whether she had healed the trauma of not being able to play in front of her husband was still unknown.

But the very fact that she had been acknowledged even by that woman, as her son had said, proved that she hadn’t come last in past performances due to a lack of skill.

Now that she knew that.

She felt like she could play again.

She thought she could even play for her husband. She had poured her heart and soul into her performance in front of so many people, sharing her entire life.

So now she wasn’t obsessed with winning. That could be given up. But never her hands. There was still something left undone, so at least her hands.

Berna shouted that to herself internally as she tried to protect her hands.

But the knights roughly grabbed her arms, yanked them down, and pinned her to the floor.

It was impossible for Berna to overpower the knights. They lifted something like a hammer. Berna’s face turned pale.

“Nooo!”

She screamed. The knights looked at Loriana Delian, waiting for the final order.

“What are you staring at? Turn around now! Lord Riendal, please pretend you didn’t see this.”

“We must root this out. I didn’t see anything.”

Loriana sought permission from Riendal of the same ducal family, threatened the other contestants from common noble families, and then, with eyes burning, started another outburst.

Another person who had humiliated her, made her feel miserable, and whose skill she didn’t even like.

Rather, she felt even more disgusted by that woman, so Loriana pointed at her and commanded the knights.

“And grab that arrogant one too. I don’t know what kind of royalty she is, but how dare she be so rude to the Delian ducal family, which is almost like direct lineage, as a distant branch? I can’t let this go!”

Normally, she should have felt relieved by the jeers and mockery from the audience. But instead, those two had turned her inside out, and the Duke’s warning had completely disappeared from her mind.

But at this moment.

Rurin, the one whom Loriana Delian had dared to point at, was already in a very bad mood.

She had been biting her lips with a sullen expression even before Loriana started her tantrum.

The reason was Berna.

As Rurin learned to play, her ears also opened to music. This made it possible for her to make a cold, accurate assessment of musical skills.

In some ways, she had reached a level where she could make even more precise evaluations than the layman El.

She had never intended to improve her skills in human culture, but it had happened without her realizing it.

That’s why she ground her teeth after hearing Berna’s performance.

’To lose.

I lost! Me!’

Moreover, the moment she heard Berna’s performance, Rurin unconsciously recalled past events and fell into a sentimental mood.

That part of the performance sublimated the moment when Berna, in her chaotic life, first found light upon meeting Count Greek.

At that moment, Rurin remembered when she met El.

Her emotions were stirred. So, despite her frustration, she lost! That was Rurin’s state, so she was not in a good mood.

And to such a Rurin, the knights ‘dared’ to rush in and grab her.

Rurin said nothing.

She simply emitted her aura at the knights who dared to touch her. She was already angry, so how dare they?

In this world, there was only one who could touch her.

Of course, there was only one.

For any other being to touch even a single fingertip without permission was a sin punishable by being turned to dust.

The knights all collapsed on the spot under the weight of her aura! The intense pressure that her aura exuded!

Normally, her aura was so subtle that just locking eyes with her would instill a slight sense of fear.

But now, she openly unleashed an intense aura, and the knights began gasping for air, suffocating.

“And you, you’ve been buzzing annoyingly for a while now! I hate bugs! You’re buzzing around!”

“Wh-what is… what is this!”

Just as she had kicked Sereina, Rurin flew at Loriana, kicking her body.

Thud!

Loriana’s body, experiencing a kick for the first time in her life, flew over the chair and crashed into it.

If El hadn’t strongly insisted that she not kill anyone, Rurin would have already silenced her permanently. To Rurin, noisy humans were no different from buzzing flies.

Treating humans like insects was how Rurin usually treated ordinary humans, and it was a common way of thinking among dragons.

Rurin walked over to Berna, step by step. The knights who had been holding Berna’s hands were now all writhing on the floor.

Rurin withdrew her aura from Berna and stared at her quietly. She didn’t like her. But she had been acknowledged by Berna that she was El’s wife. And in Rurin’s mind, the Greek boy was El’s subordinate.

So, that made her one of her subordinates as well.

“M, Miss Rurin…?”

Not understanding the situation but thinking it was something magical that El had done, Berna called out to Rurin with a surprised face.

Rurin spoke her mind to Berna, without any filtering.

“I don’t like you either.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“But you’re not as bad as that one, so I’ll let it slide. And next time, I’ll win. I’ll win with skill! There’s nothing I can’t do! Ugh, this is frustrating!”

Saying that, she stomped the floor and then walked out of the waiting room to go to El.

El had told her to stay in the waiting room until the winner was chosen, so she had reluctantly stayed in that stuffy place. But now that Rurin had admitted defeat, the waiting room meant nothing to her anymore.

“You don’t intend to grant the Greek family the benefits of victory, do you? Your Majesty? Choosing based on skill is just a facade, isn’t it? Do you want to keep them in check? Then just choose the Great Being as the winner.”

After all the contestants had finished their performances, the Emperor moved to a sort of special room in the Concert Hall to choose the winner. Then Duke Delian and the other three dukes all followed the Emperor into the room.

Duke Delian was trying to persuade the Emperor on behalf of the dukes.

That wretched thing. He couldn’t allow such a disgrace of a noble to be recognized as the winner.

He had put her in the preliminaries, expecting her to be thoroughly ridiculed, never imagining this result, so Duke Delian was extremely displeased.

But that was as far as it went. He absolutely couldn’t allow her to win. Granting the Greek City tax exemption on top of that would be utterly unacceptable.

“That would be difficult. I have already declared to everyone that the winner will be chosen based on skill, and it is absolutely impossible for an Emperor to go back on his word. You know that well, don’t you, Delian? The winner is clearly evident to anyone based on skill. Are you telling me to nullify that?”

“Your Majesty! Since when have you been so pure in your interests? The very reason this competition has changed is because of the Great Being’s participation, so it would be right to give the victory to the Great Being who has shown such skill, and end this strange competition.”

When the Emperor shook his head at Duke Delian’s words, the Duke did not back down and continued to argue.

The Greek boy’s arrogance was a separate issue. The income from Greek City was already enormous, and if they received tax exemption, their wealth would become unmanageable. Allowing that wealth to have a negative impact on the Empire was something he could never permit.

Especially given that he didn’t like the Greek boy’s disposition.

“Your Majesty, please compromise at this point. If you want the dukes’ agreement on other policies, then choose the neutral Great Being as the winner.”

“You!”

The Emperor and Duke Delian began a staring contest. Since Dukes Illen, Sergei, and Taemuran agreed with Delian, the Emperor was now facing a 4-to-1 battle.

“And just how long do you intend to give Greek City these absurd benefits? There are Imperial Laws in the Empire. It’s time to revoke those benefits and reintegrate Greek City into its proper place!”

“That would be difficult.”

It wasn’t the Emperor who responded to the Duke’s words. It was a much younger voice.

It was El’s voice.

El, who had broken through the door of the special room, slowly approached the Emperor. All the dukes’ and the Emperor’s gazes were fixed on El.

He had barged into the Emperor’s room, but no one pointed that out.

Even though they saw the knights lying in front of the room, no one did.

“I made it clear. The winner must be chosen based solely on skill. So, why don’t you take your nonsense to Ubawuri¹ or somewhere? My ears are rotting just listening to you.”

El glared at the dukes.

“Regarding Greek City, His Majesty here will explain again. Your Majesty, stop hiding it and tell the dukes. And as for you dukes, stop spouting nonsense. Unless you want your entire duchy to be blown away.”

Leaving those words, El turned and walked out of the special room. The dukes just blinked and closed their mouths.

It was different from talking among themselves.

The man who had just passed by was someone even the Dragons respected.

They had all witnessed that fact during the Dragon War. With their own eyes. That unbelievable scene.

An extraordinary human.

The powerful magic that had swept away dozens of Dragons at once when El had truly been angry.

Just thinking about that magic left them with no option but to shut up.

That was the power of absolute strength.