The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 380 Tyrant (7) - Refutation A terrible silence flowed through the court. Overwhelmed by Alondre's boldness? Feeling a thrill and emotion at the sight of the returned legitimate heir? As if. 'They're just stunned. Well, I suppose I would be too.' Unlike the fairy-doll-like atmosphere that seemed fluffy and soft as if made of cotton candy, Trisha wasn't really a princess-like personality to that extent. She didn't particularly like fairy tales either. Though she did like the uncensored, cruel versions. Her reading tastes tended to be fairly hardcore as well, and when it came to novels, she enjoyed political stories rife with scheming and conspiracy rather than the romance genre that typical young ladies liked. Or something like a war story about rival warlords vying for supremacy. And, according to the conventions of such political fiction, the actions that a 'legitimate heir who avoided the blade by posing as an idiot' should take were already set. First, one must never let the fact that they've awoken be discovered. Why? Because legitimacy or whatever didn't matter — someone else currently occupied the throne. If a powerless person held only legitimacy, that would mean nothing more than begging to be killed. For now, one avoids the enemy's blade like that, then moves secretly behind the scenes. One must secretly slip out of the royal court to make contact with the persecuted loyal retainers of the previous emperor, or gather forces willing to become one's own gang in the back alleys under a false identity — making contact with those who held political power not as the 'legitimate imperial prince' but as a 'big shot of the back alleys.' After devouring rivals one by one from below, or turning them into loyal retainers, or producing specialty goods or medicine the nobles couldn't live without, after building up power like that, once everyone grew wary, one returns to the imperial household and reveals their identity. —I have returned, Uncle. —No, you, you are—!? This was the formula for political fiction. How long the process was written out depended on the author, but going by what Trisha had seen, just the awakening, the escape from the imperial household, and becoming the leader of a gang of thugs in the back alleys for the first time alone could easily fill a whole volume. But Alondre, right now? He skipped the entire middle process and just charged straight in, openly. Of course it drew shock, but the nature of that shock was, well, different in various ways. "W-what? What nonsense are you spouting right now!!" "What are the guards doing!! How did a lunatic like that even manage to reach the imperial presence!!" Denial, fury, and shock. They were startled, surely, but that shock wasn't the kind of reaction one has at witnessing some tremendous feat or threat — it was simply the reaction to seeing a madman. While the Emperor himself was still blinking and mulling over the situation, the vassals were the first to panic over what to do with that madman. In truth, most of the officials here didn't even know Alondre's face. After all, he'd been an idiot since birth, and ever since the usurpation fourteen years ago — that is, from around when Alondre was six — he'd lived locked away in the Dowager Empress's palace with no presence to speak of. Even if the fact that the previous emperor's eldest legitimate son was living quietly in the Dowager Empress's palace remained as information in their heads, it hadn't lingered as an awareness of Alondre as an individual. But a very small number of vassals tilted their heads. "Now that I think of it, he does seem to resemble His Late Majesty somewhat..." "Hmm, and there's also a bit of how Her Highness the Dowager Empress looked in the full bloom of her youth..." It had already been fourteen years since the previous emperor passed away. The court had already become a place where the new Emperor Mihail's people held sovereignty and ran rampant. Yes, they had seized 'sovereignty.' Mihail's people held the most power, claimed the most benefits, and had the loudest voice, but that didn't mean the vassals from the previous emperor's era had all been entirely purged. Those who resisted Mihail's tyranny or held their heads up stiffly were mostly killed, demoted, or sent back to their hometowns, but those who, while not actively supporting him, simply went along with things, survived. The key figures of Mihail's faction were greedy, but that didn't mean every single member had flowers for brains. They had enough sense to calculate that if they touched even those neutral factions, there would be no one left to work in their place (though some of them lacked even that much sense). And in the eyes of that neutral faction, Alondre's features bore no small resemblance to the previous emperor's bearing. "Are you defending that lunatic right now!?" "No, not defending him. I merely said he resembles him." "That's the same thing, isn't it!!" "...Tch. Fine, my bad." Of course, that didn't mean they actively defended Alondre either. To begin with, they were people who went along with the prevailing trend. They weren't particularly vicious, but neither were they the type to risk everything for the sake of justice. Soon after, the guards rushed in and tried to bind Alondre. So Trisha stepped forward. "Just what do you all think you're doing right now?" The frilled hem of her dress rustled elegantly, slicing through the air. The tip of her rapier, not even drawn from its sheath, lightly touched the toes of the soldiers' boots. "Huh?" What happened next was exceedingly strange. She hadn't hooked their ankles to force them down. She hadn't struck them to knock them off balance. She'd merely touched them lightly and then let it slide sideways as if slipping away, yet the guards suddenly felt a thud of impact at their ankles. It was a sensation similar to, for example, glancing elsewhere or sinking into thought and then stepping down expecting another stair that wasn't actually there. They naturally lost their balance, and with Trisha giving them a light push from behind in that state, they all rolled across the floor in an unseemly heap. Crash, bang, thud!! "What in the—" The officials were all dumbfounded. Calling them 'guard soldiers' is easy to misunderstand, but those who stood guard over the imperial presence were, in title only, soldiers — in truth, they were knights. And ones who were, at the very least, 4th rank. Men of sturdy, robust build and muscular physique, suited to the Emperor's taste for the gaudy and ostentatious. The sight of such men rolling on the floor from a few gestures by the small, slender, doll-like Trisha was surreal to just that degree. Though Trisha herself was actually full of discontent. 'Seems like this body's training was seriously lacking. Though given the circumstances, that's hardly strange.' Compared to Alondre, whose physical condition had been degraded to nearly that of an ordinary person, Trisha's body, having apparently trained to some extent, held power somewhere close to the 4th rank. If this Trisha's head wasn't just for decoration either, she would surely have known that her position as Crown Princess was practically ornamental too. She must have schemed over ways to survive on her own, and secretly built up power in preparation for when it mattered. But even so, that only amounted to 'secretly.' Compared to the original Trisha, whom no one said anything to even if she trained openly, there was inevitably a limit to the power she could build up, even with similar base specs and judgment. In other words, it meant a fifteen-year-old girl had reached the 4th rank while still watching her surroundings carefully, but by the standard of the Trisha who, at the same age, had hit the 5th rank yet feigned weakness for fear that people around her would needlessly stir up talk of her being a rival to the Crown Prince, this was bound to be dissatisfying. One of the hardliners of Mihail's regime, the one who had first called for the guards and shouted for Alondre to be seized, cried out. "C-Crown Princess! What is the meaning of this!" "I'll ask you the opposite. What exactly are you all trying to do right now?" "What?" Trisha spoke, on the verge of tears, with an attitude as if she were unbearably sorrowful, angry, and unable to contain her girlish feelings. As she glared around with her fairy-like features, those who met her eyes couldn't help but gasp and catch their breath without realizing it. "This is the imperial presence, it's before His Majesty. Even decisions are to be made by His Majesty, and even orders are to be given by His Majesty — this is that kind of place. So how is it that, when His Majesty hasn't even opened his sacred mouth, you dare to give orders about deploying soldiers or whatever else? Exactly what authority do you have to do that?" Whether Alondre was real or not, everything was for the Emperor, Mihail, to decide. The great Emperor! The uncle who had made her Crown Princess! He hadn't given any order yet, so exactly what authority did they have to decide his treatment! "T-that, this humble subject didn't mean it that way." The hardliner's voice shrank rapidly. It wasn't because of the Crown Princess's dignity. To begin with, there was no one in the government who didn't know Trisha was a mere ornamental Crown Princess, and anyone with enough rank and power to raise their voice in the imperial presence could, in private settings, mock her openly instead of showing her respect, and get away with it without any trouble. But here. Before the Emperor, in front of countless officials, one couldn't help but choose their words carefully when faced with the question, 'Who are you to act and judge ahead of the Emperor?' If one wasn't careful, it could earn the Emperor's displeasure, and even if the Emperor let it slide, it could become fodder later for rivals to tear into. As he fell silent, Trisha bowed her head to the Emperor, Mihail, with an extremely deferential attitude. "I am sorry, Your Majesty. That something unsightly was allowed to appear before your eyes before it could be stopped is entirely the fault of this unworthy daughter's lack of virtue." "Hmm." Only then did the Emperor, who had kept silent all this while, finally speak. A sound close to a groan slipped out, but the vassals all pretended not to hear it. Though pretending not to hear it didn't ease the Emperor's mind any. 'Well, I suppose that's how it would be. If the vassals had subdued him on their own, it would've just been a madman's rampage, and all that would happen is the heads of the guard captains who failed to stop it in advance would roll — but now that it's come to this, he has to reach a conclusion himself.' The Emperor hadn't kept silent all this while because he thought Alondre was fake, or because he was too stunned to speak. To begin with, the mere act of exchanging words with Alondre was politically dangerous, so he'd simply tried to treat it as 'something that never happened.' But Trisha had blocked that path by elevating the Emperor's authority, and so the Emperor too had come to bear an obligation to respond to it. No, rather than an obligation, in the terms of the popular novels Trisha had been enjoying lately, it might be closer to his 'face' or pride. If he evaded answering here, just how pathetic would that look? As if having finished calculating in his own way, the Emperor spoke. "You claim to be Alondre? The pitiful nephew I know is a child who can't even look after himself, so how does someone as sound as you dare call himself my nephew?" Denial. That was the Emperor's choice. Denying outright the very fact that the man before him was Alondre. Simply treating him as a lunatic. One might ask, couldn't this be confirmed by going to the Dowager Empress's palace? But who would do that confirming? If the Imperial Guard went and reported, 'His Highness Alondre is still sleeping soundly,' who could deny that? Trisha's eyes narrowed. Though she had helped set the stage in her own way, honestly speaking, she found it hard to tell how Alondre could possibly refute his opponent in this situation — or even if he did refute him, whether it would mean anything at all. Debate only has meaning for those capable of accepting the outcome of the debate. Even if Alondre refuted the Emperor with the most supreme logic, if the Emperor simply said to kill him anyway, that would be the end of it. With no allies on their side, what more could be done beyond this? "Hmm, I see. You cannot acknowledge me as Alondre Arcandel Eizern. Is that what you're saying?" "I'm saying it makes no sense. I don't know what trick you've used, but—" "Then it's fine if you simply don't acknowledge it." The Emperor, the vassals, the knights, the maids — everyone present had question marks floating over their heads. And Trisha, unfortunately, was quick-witted. 'No way.' No, surely not, even so. Even if it was Alondre. Surely, he wouldn't really do that? Slash! Somewhere, a flash of light flickered. A red line was drawn across the throat of the man seated on the throne, and in an instant, his head tipped forward and fell. In the imperial audience hall, in the palace, in the most exalted place in the empire, the head of the most exalted person in the empire rolled across the floor like a ball. Alondre calmly kicked it up with his foot, then caught hold of the head and spoke to the vassals. "What are you all standing around dazed for? Hurry and choose." "Whether to welcome the next Emperor." "Or whether to welcome a traitor." "There's no time, so hurry and finish this."