“Let us go to the grand plaza.”
With their resolves confirmed, it was time to move.
Kain strode forward in step with Baron Denver.
Though he did not say it aloud, what he had just told Denver was tantamount to promising rightful vengeance.
The revenge that had once seemed impossible—even enough to break a genius’s spirit—had now descended into the realm of the possible.
His explosive talent would bloom once more.
“Form the escort formation. No one lowers their guard.”
As Kain boarded the carriage, Baron Heinrich Denver commanded the escort.
“Rodolfo to the left of the carriage. Schweissen to the right. Whatever happens, protect His Highness the Prince with your lives.”
He entrusted close protection of the carriage to the two Chevalier-class knights he trusted most and took the lead himself.
Even within the imperial palace, they could not relax.
Had the palace not hosted that horrific festival of death at the grand banquet not long ago?
There was no certainty the same disaster would not repeat at today’s coronation.
The only problem was that when catastrophe came, there was no practical way to stop it with the same forces that had failed before.
Inside the carriage, Kain quietly calmed his mind while hiding any tension.
He could not be certain nothing would happen at the coronation—the system message before his eyes was too ominous.
[To lead the Felberg Empire back to prosperity, survive the threat of uninvited guests who will visit the coronation. Upon successful survival, a random Sigil will be rewarded.]
The system message stated that uninvited guests would come to the coronation and that survival would yield a reward.
Yet in Kain’s judgment, the chances were low that the unidentified assassins behind the Founding Day catastrophe would return.
Considerable time had passed since he entered the Crown Prince’s Palace.
If they were coming, they would have come long ago.
“We have arrived at the grand plaza.”
While tangled thoughts swirled in his mind, the carriage and escort column had already reached the inner citadel’s grand plaza.
When the door opened and he stepped down, the first thing that met his eyes was the sight of citizens filling the vast plaza.
Tens of thousands of imperial citizens packed the enormous grand plaza.
Kain could guess the feelings with which they had gathered for the coronation.
News of the Founding Day catastrophe had been impossible to suppress, so everyone knew.
They had come, each harboring worry for the Empire’s future—to confirm the last hope with their own eyes.
The once-notorious wastrel Third Prince, exiled far away so he would cause no trouble, had now become the Empire’s sole hope.
Yet.
Then today, I will show them all.
Kain smiled.
Today would be the starting shot proclaiming to everyone that the Felberg Empire had not yet fallen.
And I will stop the destruction.
The protagonist who was meant to prevent the world’s end was dead, but there was no need to worry.
The former overall director—now the possessed Third Prince Kain—would save this world using a developer’s memories and the system.
Coronation day.
Count Steiner Landerck had deployed every knight from the Third and Fifth Imperial Knight Orders to key locations in the grand plaza and bustled about commanding them.
By the book, only knight orders should have been mobilized, but citing the recent catastrophe at the grand banquet hall as precedent, Landerck had drawn additional troops from the Capital Legions and spread thousands of armed soldiers across the inner and outer citadels and the imperial palace.
It seemed excessive, but understandable.
Overall command of all Imperial Guard forces deployed in the grand plaza area belonged to Count Steiner Landerck, commander of the Third Imperial Knight Order, while close protection of Kain fell to Baron Heinrich Denver.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—the Third Imperial Knight Order “White-Winged Charge” and the Fifth had been guarding the outer perimeter of the imperial palace on the day of the Founding Day catastrophe, not the grand banquet hall.
For the same reason, while the First Imperial Knight Order “Golden Lions” and others were massacred by the unidentified shadow assassins, the Third and Fifth had preserved their strength.
In fact, when Count Landerck had rushed to the grand banquet hall with his knights after receiving the support request on Founding Day, everything was already over.
He had arrived only to witness most of the Empire’s heroes and high nobles lying cold and blood-soaked as corpses.
Ever since, Count Landerck had endlessly blamed and berated himself for his dullness in failing to notice the anomaly sooner.
He believed he should have fought and died protecting the Emperor and the imperial house.
But now his thinking had changed.
It is fortunate we preserved our strength.
If all five imperial knight orders had been annihilated in the grand banquet hall that day, no imperial knights would remain now to guard the last royal, Kain Felberg.
Thus, he repeatedly vowed to devote his life in loyalty to Kain Felberg, who would legitimately ascend as the last royal and become Emperor.
That was the final duty of one who had been absent while the Empire’s heroes—the sword-saint, the grand mages—fought and died for the imperial house.
The Third Prince Kain had been notorious as a wastrel, yet Count Steiner Landerck had no doubt that Kain would raise the crumbling Felberg Empire to greatness once more.
For the infamous wastrel Third Prince had awakened a Sigil forgotten for centuries and performed the miracle of summoning a Star Throne’s authority to annihilate enemies.
“There must not be a single flaw in the Imperial Guard’s vigilance in the grand plaza.”
Count Landerck gathered the section leaders and higher commanders among the imperial knights guarding the plaza and emphasized maintaining strict security throughout the coronation.
Yet just as the key commanders of the imperial knight orders and Imperial Guard began returning to their positions, and as Count Landerck himself prepared to move with his direct aides to inspect the plaza’s security once more…
Count Gard Apeldio—commander of the Fifth Imperial Knight Order—approached from behind with a cautious expression.
“Count Landerck. Do you have a moment?”
Count Landerck, about to hurry off, stopped.
The Fifth Imperial Knight Order—also called the “Banner of Honor”—boasted the largest numbers among the five great orders but, as a reserve and training corps, lacked the elite quality of the others.
Moreover, its commander, Count Gard Apeldio, was looked down upon for his relatively lower realm.
Knight Order Commander Count Gard Apeldio.
Though famed as a young genius from a prestigious house, unlike the other imperial knight order commanders, he remained merely at the Grand Chevalier level.
Regardless, though of equal noble rank, Landerck—far senior in realm—did not use honorifics.
“Count Apeldio? What is it?”
“If those who caused the massacre in the grand banquet hall that day return… can we stop them?”
At the sudden wave of negativity, Count Steiner Landerck fixed a hardened gaze on Count Gard Apeldio.
“Count Apeldio. What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. The current military strength of the capital Granada is greatly weakened. If those unidentified assassins from Founding Day reappear, we would have to face them with only our forces—whether that is even possible, I do not know.”
Count Apeldio spoke with a dark expression.
Though only a Grand Chevalier and not yet a Meister sword-saint, he was a knight of outstanding potential, called a genius of the sword even in his late twenties.
Yet despite qualifications that placed him among the most likely candidates to become the next Meister, his greatest flaw—for a swordsman—was an excessively timid and cautious personality.
“Count Apeldio. Idle thoughts breed hesitation, hesitation shakes a knight’s blade, and a shaking blade harbors weakness. Do you intend to disgrace His late Majesty by having appointed a knight with weakness in his blade as commander of an imperial knight order?”
“C-Count Landerck…”
Count Steiner Landerck conveyed heavy sincerity to the talented young knight from a prestigious house who had reached Grand Chevalier at a young age.
“Fear not your enemies, Count Apeldio. We have sworn loyalty to the Felberg Empire and the imperial house—we must hold our ground firmly no matter the circumstances.”
At his counsel, Count Apeldio merely nodded silently in place of a reply.
Kain strode boldly toward the center of the grand plaza, filled with at least tens of thousands of people.
Receiving the desperate, hopeful gazes of countless imperial citizens, Kain walked with majestic confidence.
Once infamous as a wastrel, now the last hope of a crumbling Empire, Kain showed no sign of being daunted despite the attention of tens of thousands—he walked with overflowing confidence.
“Your Highness. This pace is appropriate. Maintaining this speed would be best.”
At Baron Heinrich Denver’s voice from his left, Kain answered with a small nod.
Behind Kain as he walked toward the center followed his personal escort and the loyalist imperial nobles, matching his pace.
“No abnormalities so far.”
While walking behind Kain, Baron Heinrich Denver kept watch on the signalers placed throughout the grand plaza.
If trouble arose, signalers in the relevant sector would raise a red flag, or mages from the imperial knight orders would fire a red signal into the sky.
Upon seeing a red flag or red signal, not only the grand plaza but every loyalist force in the inner and outer citadels and across the entire capital Granada would act simultaneously according to the pre-arranged operation plan.
The Imperial Guard and knight orders stationed in the inner citadel and palace, as well as the capital garrison, would mobilize immediately.
Until special orders were given, the four Capital Legions under the Imperial Central Army would seal the capital Granada and deny all external entry.
“You must now ascend the throne.”
While Kain finished reading the prepared speech and the crowd in the grand plaza erupted in thunderous applause, Aaron Valerian—the knight of the Emperor’s Cult—approached and whispered.