Preparations for the Founding Festival (2)
The Second Prince’s Palace was excessively ornate, as if reflecting its master’s personality.
To be honest, it even felt a little tacky.
“We greet His Highness Edwin. Please, come this way.”
A single attendant was waiting for us at the palace’s main gate.
He guided us to a rear garden located deeper inside the prince’s palace.
Though they called it a garden, it was really just a wide, open clearing perfect for use as a training ground.
It had probably been built specifically for a prince with a talent for swordsmanship.
“His Highness Edwin?”
In the garden stood Prince Lloyd and an unfamiliar man.
Unlike Lloyd, who frowned as if he’d bitten into a rotten apple the moment he saw Edwin, the sword dance instructor smiled brightly at us.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Jake, and I will be teaching Your Highness the sword dance.”
So this was the sword dance instructor.
I quickly looked him up and down.
His unusually gentle impression felt slightly suspicious, but there didn’t seem to be anything particularly shady about him.
‘Three in the three o’clock direction, five in the six o’clock direction. All of them are attendants.’
I had been a little tense since we were in the Second Prince’s Palace, but fortunately it seemed they hadn’t set any traps.
I bowed toward Edwin, who had just finished greeting the sword dance instructor.
“Then I will take my leave for a moment.”
“Ah, yes.”
With Edwin’s permission, I stepped back and settled beneath a nearby tree.
It was the perfect spot—I could eavesdrop on the maids’ conversation a short distance away while also keeping watch over Edwin’s blind spots.
“Then let us begin the lesson.”
Since it was the first class, Jake started by demonstrating simple movements.
“They may look like ordinary horizontal or vertical cuts, but you must be able to perform all of these motions while jumping in place.”
Jake offered the princes the wooden swords he had prepared in advance, smiling kindly.
“First, please try copying the movements I just demonstrated, and I will provide guidance. Who would like to go fir—”
“I’ll go first. What’s so hard about this?”
Lloyd snatched a wooden sword and took his stance.
His movements were a bit sloppy compared to his confident attitude, but since he had learned swordsmanship before, they weren’t bad.
“Excellent, Your Highness Lloyd. However, if you could keep your upper body upright while jumping, that would be even better.”
Jake clapped lightly, then turned toward Edwin.
“Next, it’s Your Highness Edwin’s turn. Ah, have you perhaps learned swordsmanship separately before?”
“Um……”
Edwin hesitated before shaking his head.
The fact that he was receiving sword lessons from Philip was supposed to be a secret, after all.
“I can still follow along.”
Jake’s eyes widened at the prince’s answer.
“Your Highness, you don’t need to speak so formally to me. Please feel free to—”
“Even so, you are my teacher. I believe one should use respectful language toward someone who imparts knowledge.”
Jake looked slightly dazed at Edwin’s words.
From behind, Lloyd sneered, “Acting all virtuous.” but it didn’t mean much.
At the very least, Jake seemed quite impressed by the way Edwin treated him like a proper master.
“In that case, please speak however you are comfortable.”
“Yes.”
“Then would you like to try copying the movement?”
The moment Jake finished speaking, Edwin leaped into the air.
With leg strength unexpected for his age, the boy drew a clean arc through the empty space with his wooden sword.
Just as expected, all that training with the knights has paid off.
‘Not bad.’
Meanwhile, Jake clapped the instant Edwin finished the motion.
“Your Highness Edwin! Are you truly certain you’ve never learned swordsmanship before? Your movements are so clean! Your posture was flawless.”
“Ah, ahahaha……”
Edwin gave an awkward laugh at the praise directed at him.
I saw Lloyd grit his teeth at the sight.
‘Is that guy Jake completely oblivious?’
Praising the Third Prince right in front of the Second Prince.
I raised one eyebrow as I watched the sword dance instructor happily praise him without any awareness of the situation.
Just then, I heard the maids chattering among themselves.
“I heard that man Jake was personally chosen by His Majesty the Emperor?”
“That’s what they say. It seems His Majesty has very high expectations for this year’s Founding Festival.”
“Of course he does. It’s the first Founding Festival that the famous King of Adamanth is attending. He probably wants to seize the initiative.”
So he wasn’t chosen by the Second Prince’s mother, but directly by the Emperor himself.
In that case, it wasn’t that he lacked tact—he simply had no need to worry about reading the room.
‘That’s good for Edwin. He’ll be evaluated purely on skill.’
While I was thinking that, the lesson continued.
After demonstrating several applied movements, Jake had the princes copy them exactly.
They repeated the process several times.
“Then, would the two of you like to try coordinating together?”
Jake clasped his hands at chest level and smiled brightly.
“The sword dance is originally meant to display two people moving in harmony. Therefore, practicing coordination is absolutely necessary.”
At the sword dance instructor’s words, both princes’ expressions stiffened slightly.
Jake, who was merely oblivious rather than lacking discernment, noticed their reactions and laughed awkwardly.
“Of course, if you don’t feel like it, you may refuse. In truth, it might still be a little early to practice coordination. I only suggested it because both of Your Highnesses are so exceptionally skilled, so please don’t—”
“No.”
At that moment, Lloyd, who had only been watching for an opening, suddenly raised his hand.
“Let’s do it.”
He sent Edwin a provocative look.
“You don’t want to?”
“…No. I’ll do it.”
The boy who would have felt burdened by such provocation in the past did not refuse this time.
With a rather serious expression, Edwin looked at the sword dance instructor.
“I want to try it too.”
“Very well. Just think of it as performing the movements we practiced earlier while facing each other. It won’t be too diffi—”
Under the sword dance instructor’s guidance, the two princes coordinated for the first time.
However, apart from their swordsmanship skill, they ran into an obstacle.
The source of the problem was Lloyd.
Clack!
Lloyd frowned as his wooden sword kept deviating from the proper path.
He was clearly performing the same movements, yet he couldn’t understand why only his sword kept getting deflected.
No matter how many times he tried, it was the same.
But Lloyd wasn’t the only one who felt frustrated.
“Brother Lloyd.”
Eventually, Edwin reluctantly spoke up.
“In the movement you just did, you shouldn’t use your wrist. You need to swing with your entire back and rotate.”
Lloyd’s face instantly flushed bright red.
He was already irritated from making mistakes repeatedly, and now the Third Prince he had always ignored was openly pointing them out. It seemed his pride had been wounded.
Clatter.
The sound of a wooden sword rolling across the ground echoed.
Lloyd had thrown his weapon.
“Y-Your Highness, what are you—”
“Yeah, you’re so great.”
The flustered sword dance instructor tried to stop him, but it was no use.
Lloyd glared at Edwin with clenched teeth.
“If you’re so amazing, then do it by yourself!”
“What……”
He raised his voice more and more toward the bewildered Edwin.
“The reason I keep making mistakes is because you’re so clumsy! Don’t you get it?”
Now he was even blaming someone else.
Lloyd kept huffing angrily as he turned to Jake.
“You want me to coordinate with someone at this level? Are you mocking me right now? Coordinating on the day of the event will be more than enough! The one who needs practice is that guy!”
“Your Highness, please calm down first……”
“Forget all of it!”
Lloyd shook off the sword instructor who had grabbed his arm and stormed out of the garden.
His neck was flushed red all the way up—he was properly furious.
“This is……”
Jake let out a deep sigh as he watched the Second Prince’s retreating back.
And so, the two princes’ first sword dance lesson ended with Lloyd’s tantrum.
“About earlier.”
On the way back to the Third Prince’s Palace.
Edwin walked beside me and spoke up.
“It was a little frustrating. I don’t understand why Brother Lloyd kept getting it wrong. Was it really because of me?”
“Please don’t concern yourself with it.”
I answered indifferently while looking straight ahead.
“It wasn’t that Your Highness lacked skill. It was that Prince Lloyd’s skill was insufficient.”
To be precise, it was because Lloyd lacked strength.
Since he was being overpowered in raw strength by Edwin, who trained his stamina every single day, his sword was bound to get deflected every time they clashed.
Therefore, this incident had clearly proven that Edwin was stronger than Lloyd.
“Have confidence, Your Highness Edwin.”
I smiled faintly as I looked at Edwin, who still couldn’t believe in himself.
“You are steadily growing stronger.”
In the gardener’s hut at the Third Prince’s Palace, a geography lesson was in full swing.
Edwin stared at the world map hanging on the shabby wall with sparkling eyes.
“The current continent is divided into east and west based on the Gabi Desert. In the Eastern Continent, there is an empire called ‘Khan’ and fifteen small nations. In the Western Continent, there is the Ventrum Empire and five kingdoms. There are also collective settlements formed by minority tribes, but they are difficult to classify as proper nations.”
Sage continued his explanation passionately, as if responding to his pupil’s academic enthusiasm.
“The kingdom closest to the Ventrum Empire is in the northeast……”
“Teacher, I have a question.”
“Hm?”
Sage lowered the pointer he had been using on the world map.
“Yes, what is your question?”
“There’s an area marked with red ink over there. What is it?”
Just as the young prince said, there was a region on the map shaded with red crosshatching.
Above the hatching, the word ‘Adamanth’ was scrawled in thick letters.