A King is Born on the Road

Meppo, who lost the duel, woke up late that night. He tried to get up, but his whole body was tied to the bed.

Meppo’s little brother said, looking down.

“You can’t move because you hurt your head!”

“Ah… okay, I won’t move.”

It was sad that he lost the duel, but he had no choice but to be treated in such a barbaric way.

Meppo looked up at the ceiling in a sad state.

At the last moment, Hayer relaxed his arm that threw Meppo. He threw him lightly.

He let it slide, so to speak.

If he was determined, if he had made up his mind to kill when he threw Meppo, he would have died with all his bones in his body crushed. Hayer Asheri had such terrifying strength.

Lying in bed, he had no choice but to think.

Now, in Luwan, he himself is missing in the ‘Knights in the Top Three Fingers.’ There are only two fingers left. The loser of the duel will not be beaten no matter how strong the force is.

It was nice, three fingers. It looked cool…

While Meppo was depressed, he breathed a sigh of relief that Hayer did not kill him.

An ordinary knight would have made a fuss to nullify the duel, saying he let himself go.

However, for Meppo, who lost his parents early and had to take care of his two younger siblings, being alive felt like a gift from God.

In any case, he was worried about whether he could continue working for the Royal Knights. Having lost the duel, Sid Lepos will try to slaughter him when he sees him.

To be a knight is to vow absolute obedience to your lord, but Meppo could not suppress all his dissatisfaction with his next lord.

While he was thinking that, the leader of the Royal Knights, Kernin Lepos, entered Meppo’s room.

“You’re alive.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. I lost…”

“That bastard Sid, I think he was trying to kill my illegitimate daughter. He made her have a child.”

What sort of appalling noise is this?

Meppo’s eyes widened.

First, he was surprised for two reasons.

One was because Sid, who he originally thought was a promiscuous man, was more promiscuous than he thought, and the other was because Kernin, who was his superior but was not much different from Sid, was talking about his illegitimate daughter as if she were a child he cared for very much.

Kernin wasn’t that affectionate to his own children either. The bastard, the illegitimate daughter, he had no interest in them and even disliked them.

So this wasn’t an interest. He just found a reason to push Sid Lepos out of the race for succession someday.

Meppo knew that the breakup of Sid’s marriage with Iris would have a tremendous impact on Sid’s position in the future.

For the time being, the three great noble families who see Iris as the legitimate line of descent will no longer support Sid.

That means Sid is no longer the perfect heir to the throne, and Kernin also has a chance.

From the moment his older brother, King Eswa, was revealed to be the son of a mistress, he had thought of that position as his own.

To lose the throne to a bastard. How can something so disgusting happen?

Kernin asked.

“How strong is Hayer?”

“That… The captain will be stronger.”

These were not empty words.

It’s because there won’t be a one-on-one match in the first place, but Hayer, who just had his 19th birthday, lacked experience.

No, actually, it was a certain kind of experience. Hayer wasn’t experienced with cutting people.

The main task of the Royal Knights was to protect the royal family. Therefore, they often stained their swords with human blood.

However, on the contrary, Hayer did not want to kill people when facing them because he dealt with monsters, or he tried to minimize the pain even if he killed them.

Conversely, Kernin attacked to kill his opponent from the first to the last sword. If the two were to fight right now, Hayer would surely die by Kernin’s sword.

Kernin said, looking down at Meppo.

“You didn’t attack his left shoulder.”

“…Yes. It looked injured.”

“That’s just like you.”

That was never a compliment.

He’s going to die now…

Meppo resented Hayer for not killing him for a moment because the future was visible, but as soon as he recalled the faces of his two younger siblings again, all that resentment disappeared.

Kernin was about to leave, but stopped and asked Meppo again.

“How did Iris Lepos look?”

“She…”

Meppo recalled the duel. She shouted clearly to get off the horse.

Meppo said.

“She didn’t seem impotent, and she certainly didn’t look like someone to take lightly.”

Kernin had no answer.

He had no interest in Iris Lepos from the beginning. But…

Then he went on.

“I don’t think she wanted to accept the marriage proposal from that bastard.”

“That’s…”

He thought it would be necessary to discuss it, but Meppo decided not to be honest. We need to eat and live.

“It looked like it to me too.”

“Indeed. Unless you’re crazy, I wouldn’t try to marry a man who doesn’t even know who his father is.”

“Come to think of it, Captain. Are there really no rumours about who Lord Hayer’s biological father is?”

“There isn’t.”

As long as Kernin was interested in the throne, he couldn’t help but be interested in who Hayer’s biological father was.

It was hard to deny that Hayer Asheri was the most likely candidate to succeed to the throne other than Sid and Kernin. Until a sage confirms Hayer’s biological father.

Meppo said.

“Captain, I think you need a sage to get to the position safely. I’ll try…”

While saying he would go find it, Meppo sighed when he found that his body was tied to the bed.

Either way, he lost. He felt depressed for a while.

* * *

Iris woke up to the voice of her mother, Celios.

“Iris, get up now. We have to prepare for the luncheon.”

“…Did we have an appointment?”

When Iris asked, unable to fully open her eyes, Celios excitedly said.

“It’s the day after the duel. What do you need an appointment for? We can just eat in the garden, and if there’s someone we like, we can bring them to the table.”

“……”

“There aren’t many days in life when you become the main character like today.”

She seemed happy that she was the main character, but it was true that Iris needed a meeting in the royal palace, so she got up.

When Iris casually rubbed her arm, Annie came and dragged her to the chair and sat her down. Then she pressed her shoulder and said.

“Your shoulder muscles are very tense.”

Annie rubbed something like a rolling pin on her shoulder to loosen it up, but it didn’t heal easily.

Iris sighed and muttered, feeling pathetic.

“Why does it hurt so much when I didn’t even fight the duel…?”

“You were nervous of course! You were nervous when you saw it from afar. Of course, you didn’t think our young master would lose, but that’s how a human feels, right?”

Iris nodded as she listened to Annie talking next to her.

When she came outside, the luncheon table was already set up.

To her, her mother was a good learner. Of course, it was very far from being personally good, but it was showing what it was like to focus only on what you wanted to get.

Iris sat down and looked for the people who she had to greet in the royal palace one by one. All of them were necessary to keep Luwan alive.

Acting politically without appearing overly political was too difficult for her, who had lived in isolation for most of her life.

If it were in the north, there would still be a snowstorm, but spring was already sprouting in the garden facing the east wing.

When dessert and tea were served on the table, Celios’s selection of people appeared from then on.

Iris sighed when she saw the group of women approaching.

“Why…”

“What do you mean? I called them because I thought you were having fun at the party.”

Where on earth did that expression look like she was having fun?

Celios tended to judge other people’s feelings at her own discretion, as she lived her whole life in a position where she did not have to be self-conscious of others.

Is it just a feeling? In everything in the world, Celios put her opinion first.

Iris looked wearily at Rosen Lepos’s group, who had been enjoying the lewd talk at the last party, as they approached the table.

afterword 

oh hell… im gonna hate next chapter so bad ugh celios and those stupid ladies are so annoying nooo i hope hayer comes in to save her (which satisfies the ladies and their weird delusions too so killing two birds with one stone!)