TSKSML 23

23

“You… You’ve become the Crown Prince’s escort knight?!”

Helene was catching up on all the recent news through Liriana.

Jeyna wasn’t just an ordinary royal knight anymore — she had become the escort knight to the Crown Prince.

“Yes… According to Jeyna, His Highness the Crown Prince personally appointed her because he liked her…”

Though the hot coffee scalded the roof of her mouth and even made her cough, Helene couldn’t stop smiling brightly.

As expected of Crown Prince Louis Hart, one of the strongest male lead candidates in The Perfectly Built Plan.

He was a man of unpredictable charm.

Before his charms were fully revealed in the story, many readers disliked him, and the comment sections were often filled with sentiments like:

└ The Crown Prince is meh
└ Please tell us he’s not the male lead T_T
└ Day 2,153 of protesting against Crown Prince being the male lead

And yet now, that very Crown Prince had appointed Jeyna as his escort knight…

“A mischievous knight and a frivolous prince…”

Now that she thought about it, they did seem like a surprisingly fitting pair.

“Stepmother, are you alright?”

Liriana called out to Helene, who had fallen into deep thought.

Helene quickly took a bite of cheesecake to hide the smile creeping on her lips.

“No, it’s just… Maybe it’s the Imperial Palace, but both the coffee and cake taste incredible.”

Now promoted to chief lady-in-waiting, Liriana had added Helene to the guest list under the pretense of running errands.

Thanks to that, Helene had managed to enter the Imperial Palace.

If things went smoothly, she might even get to visit the main palace where the royal family resided — and perhaps meet Jeyna, who would be with the Crown Prince.

Commander Andre was a good man, but… the Crown Prince — a major male lead candidate? That was on another level!

‘At this rate, Liriana will become the Grand Duchess, and Jeyna will become the Empress!’

Helene had been betrayed by hope many times before, so she tried not to expect too much. Still, she couldn’t stop her imagination from running wild.

And it wasn’t just that — there was more good news.

“…Those earrings are quite pretty.”

Helene’s remark made Liriana lower her head.

But that couldn’t hide the shimmer of those rare pearls.

Her cheeks flushed red.

“The new shoes suit you well too.”

Liriana tried to hide her deep violet shoes by pulling her feet back.

They were earrings and shoes Helene had never seen before. Even if Liriana didn’t say it, she could already guess who had given them to her.

Who else but Grand Duke Ziegardt?

Thanks to her new position as Angelina’s chief lady-in-waiting, Liriana seemed to be spending a lot of time with the Grand Duke.

But whether it was friendship… or love, Helene couldn’t tell yet.

…Even if it was love, could that feeling really outweigh his feelings for Princess Angelina?

There was one more concern weighing on her mind.

If she ended up pulling two major male leads away from the original storyline, what would happen to the plot?

It might’ve been premature to speculate, but… if Angelina ended up with neither the Crown Prince nor the Grand Duke — who would the male lead be?

Now, only a week remained until Angelina arrived in the capital.

“…H-His Grace the Grand Duke was simply being generous.”

Whenever her heart fluttered too much, Liriana would silently repeat those words to herself over and over again.

As Angelina’s chief lady-in-waiting, she couldn’t help but hear things about her mistress.

Like how Grand Duke Ziegardt had been deeply and passionately in love with Princess Angelina for a very long time.

She knew that once Angelina arrived, her own unrequited love would come to an end.

So until that moment came… it was okay to feel a little excited.

Thinking of the short time left before her one-sided love expired, Liriana gently bit her lip.

***

The Audience Room of the Lepia Palace.

Before the bowing officials, the Emperor — known as the most boisterous man in the world — now wore a rare, grave expression.

Stroking his chin with a finger, the Emperor repeated the troubling situation aloud.

“Phemos has reawakened in the Ikelang region?”

Phemos was a high-class monster that the Emperor had personally slain in a subjugation campaign twenty years ago.

It was a terrifying giant, nearly the size of a house, that not only killed people indiscriminately — but even ate them.

The young Emperor, hailed as a hero, had slain Phemos and fallen in love with the Princess of Ikelang, who later became the Empress.

In Ikelang, for reasons unknown, the monster Phemos reawakened every 20 years to ravage the townsfolk.

And now, once again, people in the region were dying at its hands.

The lords of Ikelang had requested aid from the Imperial family.

“Would it not be wise to dispatch Imperial troops?”

Ikelang was an agricultural region with very little military strength.

It was practically impossible for the gentle people of Ikelang to defeat Phemos on their own.

“Or perhaps… you could send His Grace the Grand Duke, Swordmaster Ziegardt?”

That was what the people of Ikelang really wanted: Send an army, or send a hero.

But that suggestion irked the Emperor.

After the Empress’s death, all duties of the Imperial hostess had been handled by none other than the Duchess of Revladian, widow of the Emperor’s late brother.

And the Emperor was quite satisfied.

No one could manage the Empire’s social and religious events better than her.

Her performance was so outstanding that even ministers who had once urged the Emperor to remarry had long since shut their mouths.

Moreover, she had raised her only child — now a grown man — to be exceptional.

That child, Ziegardt, was the Emperor’s nephew, a Swordmaster, top graduate of the Knight Academy, and now hailed as a hero of the Empire, just like the Emperor had once been.

With black hair and red eyes passed down through the royal bloodline, Ziegardt resembled the Emperor more than his own son, Louis Hart.

Louis Hart inherited his father’s red eyes, but his platinum blonde hair came from the late Empress.

Perhaps that was why more and more factions were supporting Grand Duke Ziegardt as the next Emperor.

If Ziegardt were to distinguish himself again — and marry Princess Angelina, the “Angel of the Empire” — then perhaps he really would become the next Emperor.

After all, hadn’t the Emperor himself overthrown his elder brothers to be crowned the “Chosen One of the Sun God”?

He had eliminated every threat — even family — to sit on this throne.

To prevent his son from facing the same trials, he had named Louis Hart the Crown Prince and never remarried, never kept a mistress or a concubine. He indulged only in meaningless pleasures, such as music and dancing.

Though he cherished his nephew Ziegardt, the next Emperor had to be his son.

His plan was simple: Louis Hart would earn glory in Ikelang and marry Princess Angelina — the perfect imperial future.

“…What of the Crown Prince?”

The Emperor’s question made the officials glance at one another.

One brave minister finally spoke, voice trembling.

“…With all due respect, Your Majesty… His Highness the Crown Prince… may not be suited to face Phemos…”

The Emperor already knew.

Eight years ago, Lepia Palace was attacked by assassins.

The Empress had wrapped her arms tightly around Louis Hart to save him, sacrificing herself in the process. She died, her body mangled by blades, and young Louis Hart, upon seeing her, had since refused to even touch a sword.

He couldn’t bear to look at one, let alone hold it.

Though the Emperor had hoped time would heal him, Louis Hart still had not learned swordsmanship.

Nor did he excel in magic or martial arts.

However, in military theory — particularly strategy — he had shown the greatest genius of all emperors past.

But brilliance in tactics was no substitute for strength in battle.

How was someone like that supposed to defeat the monstrous Phemos? The ministers couldn’t understand it.

“Please reconsider…”

The current Emperor of the Herssen Empire was no saint, but he wasn’t a tyrant either.

He threw grand banquets once a week to bond with his closest retainers and rewarded his loyal subjects with gold without hesitation.

A man of generosity and laughter — and also stubborn to a fault.

“…Are you opposing me now?”

Though retired from active combat, the Emperor always carried the massive Empire Blade, said to weigh as much as a small child.

More than ten years ago, a minister who had dared to argue in front of him lost his head to that very blade.

Even now, some ministers still felt as though their faces bore the stains of that splattered blood.

Trembling as if about to crawl into the ground, they all bowed deeply.

“The Crown Prince will handle it.”

The Emperor loved Louis Hart — but what he needed more than love was a strong successor.

He had claimed the throne through bloodshed, and saw it as a necessary trial for any Emperor.

Louis Hart was now eighteen — old enough to ascend the throne.

If he was truly destined to be Emperor, he would find a way to defeat Phemos.

It was time for Louis Hart to prove himself as the rightful heir.

“Summon the Crown Prince.”