Chapter 20

The sound of Tara’s last breath echoed. Her blood spewed out like a fountain, and the throne quickly faded. The king, who was right in front of her, looked terrible as well. The white clothing with golden embroidery was stained with blood–red and black. Blood flowed down to the platform. There was only silence. Terrible silence.

But in a short time, several people started to scream, and the banquet hall erupted into chaos.

Tara was treated in a relatively neat manner, according to the king’s order. It was suitable for a royal concubine. The knights looked casual, as they recovered the body and treated it in a good manner. Wiping the blood off the throne and pedestal, the maids acted casual as well. The servants who stood beside the king, all red and wet, carefully wiping the blood, seemed to be normal.

But it was a terrible and miserable death. The smell of blood covered the banquet hall. No one thought the death was quiet, but all thought that collecting the dead body was neat. Everyone knew that the indifference of others was fake. Those who had a weak stomach looked like they had to vomit and retch. However, as a royal or noble of Monterobis, everybody just kept their face calm, pretended to act gracefully; it was all only disguised. Lu Harve knew it, too, because he was also in disguise. He tried to calm his face as much as he could–to soothe his trembling fingertips and his shaking legs.

Later that day, Lu Harve came back to his room and found a piece of the paper on the desk. The paper was a little crumpled. And that moment, he had a horrifying foreboding. His toes cooled down. He tried to breathe and opened the paper with his understandably trembling hand.

“Listen, Lu Harve. If you want to win a fight, you must suppress your feelings. You must remember my miserable end. Emotions are something that should be killed.”

The moment he saw it, he just laughed. He laughed breathlessly. It was so funny, that he couldn’t bear it. There was a mother who didn’t care about his son and his future, and there was a son who knew his mother only had nothing but hatred, so he could have possibly predicted the death. But, knowing all of this, the will of his mother was the mother who stabbed herself in the neck in the end. The son absolutely could not stop laughing. He didn’t know he was laughing because it was funny, or because of other emotions.

The prince cried harder than he had ever before. And after that, he never again cried as much as he did that day.

But Lu Harve could not help but follow her will, even before that day, and after as well.

He didn’t have a good feeling toward anybody, and he didn’t give anyone any favors. A real human would have shot off his mouth. Lu Harve ignored that. There were a few things in which he had an interest, but that was it. The world, to him, was just colorless. There was no smell or color.

But there was a smell of blood.

Lu Harve went to Ramon Lehus. It was a Royal Knights School, so everyone in there was of elegant and noble status. They were people who never experienced humiliation, and who did not pass easily over someone against their will.

“Your Highness. Admit your defeat.”

Lu Harve did not bother to point out that his opponent had committed a foul. At a knight school, Lu Harve trained the sword with many people, and a lot had happened. Fouls and dirty tricks, they laughed at him whether he won or lost, or sometimes they did all kinds of things to beat him. He knew everybody who watched the sparring was jeering or laughing at him. They didn’t care if Lu Harve would win or lose.

Because the result was the same anyway.

“Your Grace, this is school. You must prepare your textbooks for your class.”

Lu Harve didn’t tell the professor that someone had torn his textbooks, smeared his sportswear like a rag, and broken his wooden sword. In class, his place used to be a clutter. It was secret harassment and bizarre violence. Lu Harve knew that it was all Ramon Lehus students who joined directly or indirectly. The prime mover would be his siblings, so it would be a waste to pick out criminals. Professors would have ignored it as well.

Tara was not a concubine already, but a rude, savage, and frivolous whore. A presumptuous and failed-to-know-herself b*tch who repaid His Majesty’s grace to death. Nobody defended or took care of the third prince.

But Lu Harve endured all the insulting, whether at the royal castle, at banquets, either at Ramon Santepiol or at Ramon Chater, or at the knight school. Whenever, wherever, he passed over all casually.

“It’s okay. Don’t mind. I’m sorry. It was my fault. I won’t do it again. Please forgive me.” Those are the ways the third prince behaved. The reason he could live his life in such a way is that Lu Harve knew the fact that he would eventually become king.

In front of that truth, all insults seemed insignificant. In fact, it was very trivial.

On the contrary, it would be a better thing that most people ignored him and considered him as lowly. They would be sloppy, and wouldn’t watch him carefully. And he would bite them relentlessly. He would not leave the people who ignored and despised him alone. At last, all of them would kneel down in front of him, feel vivid fear, and show awe.

After graduating from the Knights School, he went to the battlefield. He repressed some revolt of a minority group on the East and sometimes went to the North, which had fierce wars with Skara.

He lived like that for eight years. Above all, it was the king’s will. “You seem fit to battlefields.” It was like he threw the fact that his mother was a mercenary in his face.

The battles and ceasefires repeated intermittently. He sometimes went down to the capital, like when the king’s birthday party was held. But that was it. He went back to the North right after. Like that, Lu Harve stayed in the battlefield. He missed a chance of marriage.

People said he lost many things, but Lu Harve thought, “It is not all that was lost.”

Lu Harve expanded his power in the battlefield. He began to sharpen his sword in the place which had a constant blood smell. All he had to do was whisper with a curious smile to others that he is the true Nantes. Etutu admitted him, and he was slowly preparing to be the king.

First of all, Duke Moncheta was on his side. There would be no remedy to the duke, anyway. He was the one who knew most well about the meaning of the true Nantes among the nobles. Other nobles were the same. Lu Harve conciliated them that other princes had too powerful maternal relatives’ families. He also said that there would be a chance to make his daughter a queen. He also sometimes showed his true sword skills, or intelligence that he had been hidden so far. Etutu, true Nantes, sword, intelligence, and so on… He used all things and expended his power behind the scenes–slowly, quietly, and so no one would know.

The hardships that he experienced on the battlefield were nothing to Lu Harve. He was used to sword murdering. A deep, dark-red sword with golden thread–people who experienced his sword called him the dark sword.

When he was twenty-seven years old, the time had come.

The king often had appeared on the battlefield. Then, one day, the king fell into critical condition and had to return to the palace. He was deathly pale. Immediately, Lu Harve headed to the palace as well.

Indeed, the prince, who had been outside the palace for a long time, returned completely. One of the siblings asked if he was thinking of getting married. How he could marry when His Majesty in danger? He continued to postpone the marriage.

Soon, Del Monte II died. The funeral was held severely. It was time for the new king to be crowned.

But rumors began to spread in the royal palace. The point was that someone might have poisoned His Majesty. His siblings seemed nervous. The most relaxed of them was Lu Harve.

Despite the rebellious rumors, the crowning ceremony was held. Under the warm sunshine, Bergen entered the place where the ceremony was held. He was the first prince, the son of the queen, and the owner of the crowning ceremony.

The crowning process went smoothly. The bishop, who enshrined Monvixo, approached Bergen with a crown. Bergen was a little nervous about the fact that Etutu did not admit the first prince as a king during the ceremony, but he threw away his thoughts. The crowning ceremony was virtually over when the bishop put the crown on his head. His body trembled a little by the excitement of soon being the king of this country.

But at the moment when the bishop opened his mouth, a sword flew. Everyone gasped. Bergen looked down at the small sword next to his feet and immediately looked at Lu Harve. He could almost see blood. Bergen’s face was cold and stern.

Lu Harve had a wry smile.

“I missed it, Brother.”

He sounded so casual. And he looked as if he overlooked it once.

“What did you just do?”

The first one who got upset was Lativasa. She approached Lu Harve quickly. The moment the queen tried to slap his cheeks with a fierce expression—

“What do you think you’re doing?”

—Lu Harve grabbed her wrist. She was surprised that he had stopped her and hesitated by the strong power that gripped her wrists.

The face of Lu Harve, unbelievably, seemed very dignified.

At the moment, Lativasa wondered if the young man standing in front of her was that third prince. He was always obedient and humble. Lu Harve took his hand off quietly before Lativasa said to let it go, who tried to beat random thoughts.

Karbala came over and gave him a long sheath. It was Lu Harve’s dark-red sword. Everyone who was standing in the place obviously no longer knew what to do. Lu Harve slowly pulled the sword out of the sheath.

“I am sure you all know about the rumors these days,” Lu Harve began to talk.

Bergen almost bit his tongue. Lu Harve looked so incredibly calm, that he could not be seen as the one who had just thrown the sword.

“I couldn’t believe it, so I secretly went to the root of the matter. Soon, Etutu found out everything that the rumors were real.”

“Etutu helped that prince? The rumor was real?” people said. Lu Harve smiled slightly as he saw the faces fading into surprise. It was a peculiar and cold smile.

“Also, the criminals who poisoned His Majesty were all the princes and the princesses except me,” he continued to say.

All were frightened. They all looked horrified. Some people shouted that would be nonsense. But when Karbala started to testify, everybody could do nothing except accepting that was true.