IDIBC Chapter 105

Rochester’s Struggle

No one answered the words spoken with pale brown eyes flashing. Harriot forced an awkward smile, trying to hide the humiliation clearly visible on his face.

“Since Rochester refuses to hand over the oracle’s saintess and persists in resisting, I have no choice but to step forward like this.”

“…….”

“The Grand Priest is greatly angered. I sweated quite a bit trying to dissuade him from immediately storming the winter mansion and dragging out Lady Fennel.”

“You became the Crown Prince, you say?”

Duke Rochester asked in a strange voice as if he hadn’t heard what Harriot was saying. Harriot flinched for a moment but raised his head higher, feigning composure.

“That’s right. Therefore, I have come personally to escort the woman of the oracle who will become my consort.”

While I clenched my teeth at the rising nausea from the words “the woman who will become my consort,” the Duke’s words continued.

“However, Your Highness, which country’s Crown Prince have you become?”

Harriot’s brow furrowed sharply at the incomprehensible question.

“What on earth do you mean by that, Duke?”

“Exactly what you heard. Has the Second Prince truly become the Crown Prince of the Dermeier Empire?”

“Duke!”

Harriot jumped up from his seat, raising his voice and unable to hide his anger.

He was someone who had lived holding his breath in the shadows until now. It meant he was a greenhorn who had never dared to confront Duke Rochester in this manner before.

Unlike the trembling Harriot, Duke Rochester looked directly at him with an expressionless face.

“Please take your seat, Your Highness. There’s no need to be so agitated.”

Even at the admonishing words, Harriot stood stubbornly, his lips twitching.

“Choose your words carefully, Duke.”

“Am I not simply asking? According to Your Highness’s words, it sounds as if this Dermeier belongs only to the Imperial Family and the Grand Temple. No matter how much I think about it, it’s something I cannot understand…”

As the Duke’s eyes flashed sharply, Harriot swallowed hard.

“Th-this has already been approved by the Grand Priest. Don’t you know that once the sanctions from the Grand Temple come through, there will be no problem with me becoming Crown Prince?”

Duke Rochester laughed, his chest heaving as if he had heard something truly amusing.

“That’s exactly why I’m saying this. Since when has this country dared to appoint a Crown Prince without seeking Rochester’s will? How many nobles do you think will attend Your Highness’s Crown Prince investiture ceremony against my wishes?”

The mouth of Harriot, who had been raising his voice fiercely until now, closed. As the Duke said, not a single noble in the empire could help but watch Rochester’s mood.

“How long do you think a Crown Prince who doesn’t have the nobles’ support in this country can maintain that position? One year? One month? Or… half a day?”

The Duke rose slowly from his seat with a seemingly affectionate smile. Though the Second Prince was not short either, he had to raise his head to meet the Duke’s eyes.

“That period is determined by none other than me, Gerald Gardarelli Rochester.”

“…….”

“And yet you’ll drag her out? Who will drag out whom? How dare… in my house?”

Though he didn’t raise his voice, even I, who was merely nearby, found it difficult to breathe at the chilling tone.

The Duke’s appearance, so different from what I had seen before, completely overlapped with Ricardo, and for a moment, even an untimely longing surged up.

“E-everyone knows that Young Duke Rochester is not in the empire right now.”

“So?”

“No matter how powerful Rochester is, how dare you oppose the Imperial Family and the Grand Temple when you don’t have your awakened one and his order of knights?”

“And then?”

“Everyone will die.”

At Harriot’s provocation, the Duke nodded. What was contained in the voice answering “Perhaps so” was not resignation.

“Do you know what that means, Your Highness? Until everyone dies as you say, no one can leave here.”

For a moment, a deathly silence settled over the drawing room.

When the Duke stretched out his right arm and extended his hand as if asking for something, the Duchess approached a knight of the house directly.

Soon, with a loud shring, she drew a sword. The Duchess’s movements in grasping and drawing the long sword were unrealistically elegant.

The now-empty scabbard fell to the floor with a dull sound. At the same moment, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut.

‘No.’

As the sword passed from the Duchess to the Duke, Harriot’s knights also straightened their formation and drew their swords.

[The one who will kill his father and become the sun in the sky.]

My chest boiled with fear, wondering if Ricardo’s oracle would be realized so futilely like this.

“Do you really mean to die here together, Duke!”

“I don’t have the habit of saying the same thing twice.”

“…….”

“You may not have heard, but His Majesty the Emperor has never once beaten me in swordsmanship since his youth.”

The Duke placed the sword against his own chest and then stretched it straight forward. As the blade’s tip moved toward Harriot’s neck, the sword tip of the knight standing right behind Harriot also aimed at the Duke.

A tense atmosphere permeated the air that if anyone moved rashly, everyone would die.

At that moment, the Rochester family guard standing by the door drew his sword and held it, then wedged the empty scabbard between both door handles.

At the thunk of the door locking firmly from inside, Harriot’s face twisted savagely.

“D-don’t do this.”

“I trust that my intentions have now been conveyed accurately. It is somewhat regrettable that I won’t be able to see how His Majesty the Emperor will fulfill the oracle’s command after losing the Crown Prince.”

The Duke laughed as if making a truly amusing joke, but the sword tip aimed at the Prince’s neck didn’t waver in the slightest.

“This is trea-treason.”

At the word treason, the sharp swords of the Imperial Guard, who could no longer stand by—three, four, no, five of them—all turned toward Duke Rochester’s neck.

It was actually I who shrank my neck in fear of the gleaming blades that seemed ready to pierce through at any moment. The Duke instead straightened his body more and tilted his head slightly to smile at his wife.

“As if treason is such a big deal to Rochester. Isn’t that right, my lady?”

“That’s correct, Your Grace.”

Listening to their conversation, I fully realized it. The Duke intended to stab Harriot to death and then lose his own life.

No matter how I looked at it, Rochester was numerically inferior. If things continued like this, even if they succeeded in killing Harriot, everyone would end up dead.

I stood up from my seat and grabbed the Duchess’s arm. I was the only one trembling; there was not a trace of fear on the Duchess’s face.

“P-please. D-don’t do this. After I go first, then we can find another way.”

At my quietly spoken words, she smiled gently. Tears welled up at that tenderness.

“Lienne, rather than fail to protect you and face Ricardo, it’s better to all die here together. Isn’t that right, Your Grace the Duke?”

“My lady’s will is my will.”

Even with all that metal hanging at his neck, he spoke gently to his wife. So much so that from his voice alone, one couldn’t imagine this terrible situation at all.

It was the moment when the Duke was readjusting his grip on the extended sword.

“Open this door.”

A familiar and calm voice cut through the heated space.

The surroundings froze as if the temperature had dropped significantly in an instant.

What started as a tap tap knocking on the door soon rang out urgently with loud bang bang sounds.

“It’s me, Walter Shaw Chaplin. I have something to tell you, so open this door immediately.”

As soon as I heard his name, I pushed aside the knight guarding me and ran to the door, pulling out the scabbard wedged in the door handle.

Before the scabbard was fully removed, the door burst open, and the moment I met those blue-green eyes, I collapsed right there on the spot.

“What is this…?”

Behind him as he helped me up, my legs having lost their strength, I could see the knights of the House of Chaplin.

I never imagined that the overwhelming feeling I had when I received his letter last night would turn into such relief.

“Lower those swords immediately. What I’m about to tell you is important information that will resolve this situation.”

At Walter’s words, Harriot stepped back and ordered his guards. To lower those swords immediately.

****

After Walter burst in, Harriot, Duke Rochester, and Walter agreed to send all their respective knights who had filled the drawing room outside.

Soon after, upon seeing the single document Walter placed on the table, Duke Rochester and his wife and Harriot wore the same expression.

If one were to name the sentiment they felt simultaneously, it would be bewilderment.

Last night, the letter Walter had sent through his family’s attendant contained a lengthy explanation about his and my engagement. And now the result of that explanation was spread before their eyes.

“This cannot be.”

The silence, so deep that even the sound of eyeballs rolling could be heard, was soon broken by the Duchess. I held my breath, somehow unable to say anything, like someone who had committed a great wrong.

“Stuart is already a deposed Crown Prince!”

It was Harriot who raised his voice in confusion, like the Duchess. Walter elegantly set down the teacup he was holding and looked at him.

“He is also someone who still possesses the Crown Prince’s seal ring. Strictly speaking, the Crown Prince is still His Highness Stuart Reid Schneider.”

Walter continued, tapping his finger on the letters on the document.

“Moreover, do you see the date here? The date the seal was stamped is one day before the oracle came down.”

“You expect us to believe such a thing?”