Chapter 4: The Emperor’s Return

“Rodolfo. Escort His Highness to the inner keep.”

“I will return at once, my lord.”

“No. That won’t be necessary. You will remain at His Highness’s side inside the keep.”

Canossa Fortress had a massive cliff at its back, so all the main gates faced the front where enemies would approach.

That convenient layout for gate surveillance was why it had been chosen as the Third Prince Kain Felberg’s place of exile.

But now that war had come, the fortress’s position looked like a deliberate no-retreat line.

“Understood.”

Baron Heinrich Denver had once lost his family to noble infighting and since then lived as a docile wastrel.

Unlike his usual easygoing self, the resolve in him now was sharp enough to cut.

Rodolfo, his subordinate knight, answered with a small nod and led a handful of knights to escort Kain to the inner keep.

KWA-AAAAANG!

No sooner had they reached the inner ward than a deafening crash erupted, shaking Canossa to its bones.

Just as Kain had predicted, Count Ellang’s forces were not loyalist reinforcements, but an enemy army.

KWA-AAAAANG! BANG! KWAANG!

Explosions and impacts boomed again and again, signaling the true start of battle.

“High-grade magic.”

Rodolfo, a Chevalier-level knight standing beside him, spoke low, as if to help Kain grasp the gravity of the moment.

If high-grade spells were being cast in succession like this, it meant multiple high mages of Chevalier level or above were on the field.

From that rank upward, one could wield “war magic” capable of turning a battlefield single-handedly.

“This is… not good.”

Sheltered in a tall tower beside the manor within the inner ward, Kain held his breath and listened to the sounds of war.

The ground rumbled and the tower swayed.

Dying screams and the shriek of steel on steel crept closer.

The din was drawing near—meaning their forces, who had begun fighting on the outer perimeter, were being pushed back to this very place.

In the hush between crashes, Kain forced his expression calm and spoke.

“Sir Rodolfo.”

Was the disparity in strength so overwhelming that their men had been driven back this far, this quickly?

Even stout-hearted knights quivered in silence.

They tried not to show it, but to the seasoned eyes now inside the wastrel prince’s body, the anxiety eating at them was plain.

“Let’s go outside.”

“Your Highness. There is no escape route.”

“I didn’t say we were fleeing, Sir Rodolfo. I mean we should get out of this narrow tower and stand with our men to face the enemy.”

“Your Highness. If you step outside now, you will die.”

Rodolfo dared to speak plainly to a royal.

He was blunt by nature, and the tide of battle left no time for soft words.

Kain answered him nonetheless.

“Sir Rodolfo. I may have lived as a wastrel, but I am still of the Felberg line, heirs of the Star Thrones. My father and brothers have all been slaughtered. If I must die next, I will not meet a coward’s end. I would sooner fall on the field.”

The way Kain spoke—boldly voicing a hopeless charge—made surprise flicker across Rodolfo’s face.

It wasn’t the look one gives a foolish prince spouting bravado.

Though Baron Denver had ordered him off the front for now, Rodolfo was a Chevalier who valued honor.

Even in such dire straits, Kain’s steady voice, calling for a last charge rather than buckling, impressed him.

Admiration glinted in the knight’s eyes.

But Kain’s aim was not some heroic “let me die on the field” romance.

He had a plan.

I have to use the power of the Star Thrones.

Long ago, the continent had been home to many Star Thrones—ancient powers.

Each had a symbol of its authority, a mark called a sigil.

If one who carried that bloodline drew the sigil and breathed into it the Star Throne’s breath, the sigil’s power would briefly awaken.

The royals of Felberg, descendants of the ancient Star Thrones, had long borne the gift to manifest such authority.

The miracles the Felberg line wrought throughout history, since the mythic ages, had all been born of these sigils.

However—

After the Doomsend War ended the brilliant age of arcane civilization, most sigils were lost and the Star Thrones’ bloodlines faded.

In this world’s present, their authority no longer appeared.

But that was in the game.

Kain’s body now housed the soul of the developer who had created this world.

He remembered at least the concept art of the sigils—and among them was one that could flip this situation.

Of course, lineage and linework alone wouldn’t solve everything.

To fully express their authority, one needed a great volume of mana or holy power, and brutal training to wield it.

Skipping most of those prerequisites and forcing a manifestation by bloodline alone was a workaround—one that naturally came with side effects.

I might die using it.

But there was no time left.

If the fortress fell and he were taken, there was little hope the enemy would keep Kain alive.

Use the sigil and you might die.

Fail to turn the tide now and you will certainly die.

There was only one choice left.

“Let’s go—to the field.”

Having settled his thoughts, Kain gave the order.

Rodolfo received it with eyes of iron resolve.

“Long live the Third Prince. May the name of Felberg endure.”

While Kain accepted a sword, Rodolfo, knight to the bone, spoke with grim resolve.

“Knights of the Imperial House, give your lives to shield His Highness. Uphold Felberg’s will to the very end.”

There was no shouted reply, but the ten-odd knights’ eyes blazed with resolve.

They meant to die to keep Kain alive.

“Opening.”

A knight threw wide the tower door—and the reek of blood washed over a battlefield.

“Advance—forward!”

No one stays serene in the face of death, but Kain held to his composure and issued orders.

At the center of a square of heavily armored knights, he left the tower and joined the fray.

“Damn it all—Your Highness! Why have you come out here!”

Baron Denver’s voice rang out in alarm across the field.

On a front where trained knights fought for their lives, the wastrel prince had shown himself.

For an instant, the baron’s tension slipped, and he swore as he would on any other day.

Pressed by relentless battle in a losing position, Denver was soaked in blood, the aura-light fading from his sword.

Even so, his hands refused to release the hilt.

Though commonly depicted as the wastrel retainer chained to Kain’s side, in truth he was one of the Empire’s rare Grand Chevaliers.

Yet even he seemed outmatched by the enemy host.

A glance around the tower’s base showed fewer than fifty allies still standing.

“What are you waiting for! Guard His Highness!”

Baron Denver bellowed, ordering the remaining knights to form around Kain.

Scattered knights and mages rushed over to make a final defense.

Behind their hurried movements, Kain quietly drew a sigil into the packed earth with his longsword.

The sigil for flame.

As the carving finished, he felt the Star Throne’s blood within him begin to thrum.

Now he needed the Throne’s breath—but he had not yet awakened it.

He knew how to awaken it, but not now.

There is a workaround.

Without hesitation, Kain dragged the blade deep across his forearm.

Blood poured out, and Rodolfo, standing beside him, cried out in shock.

“Y-Your Highness! What are you—”

Before Rodolfo could finish, the sigil—fed with the blood of the Throne’s line—began to shine.

The authority of a Star Throne from the mythic age.

After five hundred years, it descended upon the land once more.

Kain lifted his head and looked to the sky.

If the sigil worked, the Thrones would answer the call.

As he gazed upward, the knights followed his eyes—and shouted in astonishment.

“N-no… th-those letters—!”

“Script in the sky!”

Red fire gathered in the heavens and formed letters.

They were characters from the mythic age—but Kain could read them.

And then—

The Throne is intervening directly?

In this world’s lore, letters from a Star Throne meant that Throne’s direct intervention.

Kain had intended only to borrow a little power from the Throne of Flame.

So why this?

He didn’t know the reason—but the Throne seemed to desire direct involvement.

Kain did not panic.

No—this is even better.

A hastily forced sigil like this would, at best, unleash a powerful elemental spell—it would not properly manifest a Throne’s authority.

Even allowing for lethal backlash.

But a Throne’s direct intervention?

That was naturally far stronger than any workaround.

If the Throne steps in, the backlash may be worse…

But as things stand, this is the best key to flip the field.

He had already accounted for the risk.

While the enemy faltered in confusion, the letters finished writing themselves.

Kain’s lips curved as he read them.

Fortune favors me.

In ancient runes, the Star Throne’s name read:

[The Crimson Archduke, Rydel.]

Unluckily for the foe, the Throne famed as more ruthless than any other had answered the sigil.

The moment to turn the tide had arrived.