The Knight Commander, Jerome Crown (3)
“Your Highness, I’m coming in.”
I headed straight for Edwin’s room the moment I stepped out of the knights’ training hall.
Edwin sat at his desk with Emilia perched on his lap, wrestling with a thick, heavy book.
“What are you doing?”
“Homework. My teacher said I have to memorize every single noble house in the empire by tomorrow.”
The sight of Edwin sitting there, muttering diligently to himself, looked nothing like the boy I had first met.
Not that much time had passed, yet he already seemed more composed, as if he had shed some of that childish fragility.
“Do you only need to memorize the names?”
“No, I have to know their characteristics and family trees too.”
What? Was that old man Sage planning to teach him imperial governance or something?
What use would a boy like Edwin have knowing every family in the empire?
Only after more time had passed did Edwin finally lift his eyes from the book.
“Where did you go, anyway? Catherine said you left the palace.”
“I went to see Duke Jerome Crown.”
At my answer, Edwin’s mouth fell open.
The quill pen he had been holding clattered onto the desk.
“Y-you met Sir Jerome?”
“Yes.”
“You really met Sir Jerome? Where? How? What did he say? Did he mention me at all?”
What was this? Did the boy actually admire Jerome?
This was the first time I had ever seen his eyes sparkle like that.
It’s a little irritating.
I had zero desire to associate with a man like Jerome Crown.
And yet here I was, forced to stand face-to-face with him. I wondered if this boy had any idea what I had gone through for his sake.
“…Does Your Highness like Sir Jerome?”
“Of course I do!”
Edwin thrust his small fist into the air.
“He’s amazing! He’s the strongest knight in the entire empire!”
Amazing? That muscle-bound brute?
I genuinely couldn’t understand it.
“Is that the only reason?”
“Well… he’s also the one who saved our lives!”
“Saved your lives?”
“When I was little, Sir Crown rescued us.”
About four years ago, in the summer, the imperial family had been traveling to their summer villa when they were attacked by barbarians.
Edwin’s party, positioned at the very rear of the procession, had been the most vulnerable.
“I really thought I was going to die. No one was there to protect us.”
“What about the knights?”
“They had all rushed off to guard Father and my older brothers.”
The battle against the barbarians grew fiercer by the moment.
In the end, Emma had clutched baby Emilia to her chest, grabbed Edwin with her free hand, and fled the carriage.
But misfortune struck—they came face to face with a barbarian warrior.
“He had a big cross-shaped scar on his face.”
While cradled in his nanny’s arms, Edwin had closed his eyes before the barbarian’s axe.
“But then Sir Jerome appeared and cut the man down with a single stroke.”
The one who had saved the third prince—whom no one else cared about—was none other than the empire’s strongest knight, Duke Jerome Crown.
“So Sir Jerome is basically my hero. But we parted ways before I could even thank him properly…”
A hero, huh.
I narrowed my eyes at the boy’s words.
“While some people slave away and get called butchers, others get called heroes. In the end, we’re all just getting our hands bloody.”
When I muttered the words under my breath, Edwin’s eyes widened.
“Huh? What did you say?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
I continued with a perfectly calm expression.
“I had no idea Sir Jerome was Your Highness’s benefactor. If I had known, I would have shown him more respect.”
I truly regretted learning this fact so late.
Truly.
“Did something happen between you and Sir Jerome?”
“Not at all.”
When I shrugged with feigned innocence, Edwin fidgeted anxiously, twisting his fingers.
“Then what did you talk about with him?”
“We discussed matters that will benefit Your Highness, of course.”
“Matters that will benefit me?”
The boy tilted his head with the innocent face of someone who still knew nothing of the world.
I placed my hands on his small shoulders and offered him a bright, gentle smile.
“Your Highness, do you remember the promise I made you? That I would make it possible for you to ‘choose’ anything you want.”
Edwin nodded quietly.
“I intend to start keeping that promise now.”
At the words starting now, Edwin blinked in surprise.
“While we’re at it, I should also go thank Sir Jerome properly.”
Even at my meaningful smile, the naïve third prince could only stare back with a face full of confusion.
“You went to the Gloria Knights?”
A small cabin tucked away in a shaded corner of the Third Prince’s Palace.
It was the new gardener’s quarters.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Sage, the gardener (and Edwin’s teacher), clapped both hands over his mouth at my report.
“You’re not in your right mind, are you?”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“That wasn’t a compliment!”
He stared at me and let out a hollow laugh.
“You’re crazy. Absolutely crazy. Wasn’t barging into the Gloria Knights bad enough? You actually made an outrageous request to Duke Crown?”
“I don’t think it was that outrageous. I simply asked him to let Edwin join the knights’ training for a short while.”
“Listen, Jerome Crown isn’t some ordinary man. What if your identity had been exposed?”
“It wasn’t. So there’s no problem, is there?”
Sage stared at me with a dumbfounded expression.
“Ha… It really is you. It’s really Kyla. This reckless behavior is exactly like Kyla Angel.”
“I believe I told you that name is taboo.”
“Who cares about names right now?”
Sage laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them, his expression grave.
“Are you confident you can handle the consequences?”
“What consequences are there to handle? I only asked him to let the boy join the physical training sessions.”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking! Why would you do something like that? And of all places, the Gloria Knights!”
“Because they’re the most famous?”
“That’s why I’m asking why you went to the most famous one!”
Sage slammed his thin, branch-like arm down on the table with a loud bang.
“The news that the third prince’s nanny visited the Gloria Knights will have reached the second prince’s mother by now. You do know that she holds a grudge against Duke Crown because he refused to become her son’s swordsmanship instructor, right?”
“Ah, yes, I heard about that.”
“What? You heard and you’re still this calm?”
“Why wouldn’t I be calm?”
“Do you not know what kind of person the second prince’s mother is? She won’t just sit still. She might even send assassins to the Third Prince’s Palace!”
Sage clutched at his hair and wailed.
“Then my presence here will be exposed too! I don’t want to die before I’ve even done anything!”
A while ago he had claimed he had no regrets about dying.
As expected, no one in the world truly wanted to die.
Every time someone said “I want to die,” it was nothing but a lie.
With that thought in mind, I spoke quietly.
“Don’t worry too much.”
“How can I not worry? You should be the one worrying…”
“The news that I visited the Gloria Knights wouldn’t have reached only the second prince’s mother.”
When I grinned, completely free of concern, Sage’s face crumpled.
“Don’t tell me you…”
Only then did realization dawn on him. His expression turned hollow.
“You did it on purpose? To catch the emperor’s eye?”
They called him the Great Sage, yet his senses were ridiculously slow.
Having figured out my true intentions, Sage shook his head in disbelief.
“Why would you do something like that? Are you really trying to drag Edwin into the fight for the throne?”
“No, that’s not it.”
“If that’s not it, then why on earth would you…”
“I have no intention of jumping into the succession struggle, but I also have no intention of doing nothing.”
“Hah?”
“You told me to lay the groundwork, didn’t you?”
“I only meant…”
“Isn’t that why you’re making His Highness memorize the personal details of every noble family in the empire?”
Sage pressed his lips tightly together.
It seemed he had nothing to say in return.
“In any case, I had no choice but to lay my own groundwork as well.”
I shrugged and continued.
“My status is far too humble to request an audience with His Majesty directly, so I must make him come to me instead.”
Cabelius III, Emperor of the Ventrum Empire.
I remember him being far from an ordinary man.
I recalled the information on “Cabelius III” that I had read in the organization’s files.
The emperor of the empire has two epithets.
The “Sage King” who ascended the throne at the young age of twenty and led a vast empire.
Or the “Depraved One” who massacred all his brothers and sisters to seize the crown.
Thanks to that, he had been quite a famous figure within the organization as well.
After all, the assassins who wiped out the emperor’s blood relatives were all from our organization.
That was why the emperor was one of the people I had least wanted to get involved with.
But for Edwin’s sake, I need the emperor’s support.
The fact that the third prince’s nanny had sought out the commander of the empire’s greatest knight order would somehow reach the emperor’s ears.
Whether Duke Crown reported it directly or someone else tattled.
Of course, as Sage said, the second prince’s mother and the other royals had probably already heard the news.
But that doesn’t matter.
What mattered to me was how the emperor would interpret this.
Would he give his youngest son a chance?
Or would he coldly cast him aside once again?
If he shows no interest because the boy has no value, I simply need to prove otherwise.
If I could just create an opportunity for Edwin to show what he possessed.
The emperor would have no choice but to look at the third prince with new eyes.
