The Demon Prince goes to the Academy - Chapter 265

The palace’s manicured flower beds were filled with unrecognizable flowers. But it didn’t look untidy. If the Winter Palace gardens felt like a secluded, manicured park, the Spring Palace gardens looked like a festival in full swing.

Bertus’s garden, while stark, was not unkempt.

Charlotte’s palace was ornate, but not promiscuous.

A garden full of flowers, or a garden without a single flower.

I felt like this was two things that ended up resembling each other.

Bertus hates flowers because Charlotte loves them.

Charlotte plants more flowers because Bertus hates flowers. She even picked up the flowers that Bertus threw away and planted them.

Both are obsessed with each other’s likes and dislikes.

What happens to Charlotte’s garden if Bertus dies.

Now that the reason to obsess over flowers is gone, they won’t disappear, but they won’t be as colorful.

Oh well, they’re kindred spirits after all.

I thought to myself.

Charlotte led the way through the flower-filled garden. The gardeners tending to the flowerbeds stood still and bowed when they saw her.

There was no particular conversation.

There were no questions about unannounced guests.

If the Winter Palace left a cold impression, the Spring Palace, whether because of its name or its design, seemed comfortable and cozy.

The palace felt warmer than it looked, surrounded by colorful flowers that seemed to make up for the lack of glamor.

The garden is also part of the palace.

I realized that the Winter Palace was like that, and the Spring Palace was like that.

The same was true for the Imperial Palace Tetra.

“There really are no bees?”

“…… and.”

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed at my words.

“The flowers are beautiful. They smell good. Well cared for. I don’t expect to hear this, but are you still thinking about it?”

No, it’s not!

With all the flowers, it’s no wonder it’s a beehive, but as you say, you can’t even see a real bee!

“Of course not. If I get stung by a bee, the gardener’s head will fly off.”

When Charlotte smiled and said that, I broke out in a cold sweat.

There are no bees in this garden, or they wouldn’t come. Pest management is a sure thing.

“No, what’s that……. You know that one.”

“Moisture (受粉)?”

“Uh, yeah. That.”

If there are no bees, there is no pollination, so isn’t there a problem?

“You’re worried about weird things. You’ll figure it out.”

“How?”

“…… Reinhardt, you know what, I don’t know about that.”

Charlotte loves flowers, and that’s why she has such a huge flower garden. You don’t need or want to know what the gardeners do specifically.

That’s what power is.

Charlotte lives a life where that’s just the way it is.

I can’t help but feel that Charlotte is far away from me.

I don’t need to know that stuff. They do it for me.

I’m proud to say this.

Charlotte walked through the gardens and reached the entrance to the palace. Inside the palace was a huge hall, with spiral staircases, statues, and colonnades.

The palace was far too large for Charlotte to live in alone.

No, she wouldn’t live alone. There would be maids and servants, people who would do all sorts of things, and a bodyguard.

But…….

Somehow.

Nowhere else in the huge hall did anyone look like a user.

No, I can see it.

I think there should be someone coming out to greet Charlotte.

No one was there to greet Charlotte, and there seemed to be very few people.

Something happened here, and this quiet is a sign of it.

Charlotte brought me along, albeit under duress. There’s no way she’s going to see anything suspicious about me.

Charlotte was the first to speak in the dingy palace.

“Like I said, don’t give me any crap. I’ll take care of it.”

“Yes.”

Keep in mind.

Charlotte had just given herself permission to rub me the wrong way.

That feels good.

“Your Highness.”

Then, someone sitting somewhere in the hall got up and came over to greet Charlotte.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when I saw him approaching.

You’re alive.

The cavalry lieutenant who was so crucial in our escape from Demon Castle.

“Are you back?”

“Ah, Dyrus. Say hello. This is my friend Reinhardt. Reinhardt, say hello. This is my bodyguard, Sir Dyrus.”

Dyrus, now Charlotte’s bodyguard, was in front of me.

* * *

I was assuming that Dyrus might be dead, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask Charlotte. There was no reason for me to know about Dyrus.

You have become Charlotte’s bodyguard. Charlotte has somehow managed to protect the person who saved her.

Dyrus’s skills didn’t reach superhuman levels, though, and we don’t know how he’s progressed since then.

You’re safe.

That’s it.

However, despite my excitement, Dyrus was looking at me warily.

“Your Majesty, letting outsiders in here is not a good idea…….”

“They’re friends.”

“But…….”

Charlotte’s words made Darius feel uncomfortable.

The rumors of what happened here are probably true.

That’s why outsiders aren’t allowed in right now.

Charlotte was on her way out the door, trying to wrap her head around my insistence, and Darius looked troubled.

The princess who forced her friend to come home because she couldn’t resist his advances, now has her own advances.

“Your Highness.”

And then, through the din of Dyrus’ voice, another voice broke through.

A voice you don’t recognize, but not a stranger.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to let outsiders in here.”

Saviolin Tana, the leader of the 1st Imperial Knights of Shanapelle.

Why is he here?

Dressed in her Templar uniform, she walked toward me and Charlotte.

“It’s been a while, Reinhardt.”

She recognized me, of course.

“I’m sure you were invited, but I’m sorry, I have to leave.”

She said that as if Charlotte’s opinion didn’t matter.

Has Shanatelle been assigned to guard the Palace of Spring?

The impact of Sarkegar’s rumor was playing out in real time before my eyes.

What the heck was going on?

Is Charlotte safe?

“Lord Tana, I’m the one who decides that.”

“It’s temporary, but I’m in charge of the safety of the palace for now.”

Suddenly, the current world leader and the first princess were having a nervous breakdown.

“Are you saying Reinhardt is a dangerous man?”

“I think you realize that’s not what I’m saying.”

I trusted my instincts and decided to go with the installer, but was I pushing Charlotte into a fight she shouldn’t be in?

Saviolin Tana looks at me, not Charlotte, as if she’s gotten the message.

It was better for me to go away than to get into a nervous breakdown with the Empress, or, if I understood correctly, to go home on my own.

But I can’t back down when the world’s strongest player is in front of me.

I need to know what’s going on with Charlotte here.

I have no intention of stepping down.

She looked back at Charlotte when I glared at her.

“Your Majesty, may I speak with you for a moment?”

It was almost like a command line.

That’s how much authority and power Saviolin Tana has.

“Yes, Lord Tana.”

Charlotte’s momentum wasn’t lost either.

* * *

It’s strange that my visit is opposed by Darius and Saviolin Tana.

So it’s safe to assume that this situation only happens in the Spring Palace.

Savior Tana, Charlotte, and Dyrus went off to talk to someone else.

I couldn’t hear their conversation, as they had gone quite a distance.

The Templars were nowhere to be seen, save for their leader.

She seems to be the only one.

I don’t know if the other guys are hiding somewhere and guarding or what.

If there’s been a murder, shouldn’t there be more security?

Why is this so lame?

I had an ominous feeling.

When they returned, Saviolin Tana looked very unhappy.

I felt bad for Charlotte.

I’ve gotten into a fight I shouldn’t have.

“Go eat dinner, it’s okay.”

Charlotte merely smiled breezily, and the others were speechless.

I was surprised it was through suppression.

This is the kind of request that I’m not sure I’d grant, even if it was an unusual situation.

But in an unusual turn of events, Charlotte complied with my urging.

“Shall we walk?”

Charlotte dragged me around the palace as if to show me the ropes.

Darius or Tana didn’t follow.

“What the hell is going on, all of a sudden……. I didn’t want to fight Lord Tana.”

“Did you fight?”

“Well, not quite, but……. Just know that I had to destroy my reputation to take care of you.”

The look in Charlotte’s eyes gave me goosebumps. I wonder if I’m just going with my gut and getting into trouble…….

“Anyway, don’t give Lord Tana or Lord Dyrus a hard time about it. Understood?”

“Of course, I’m not crazy.”

“It’s right, or it’s weird, now.”

Well.

I have a conscience, and I’ll admit it.

“Well, yeah. Crazy, yes, but not so crazy that I’m going to start yelling at Mr. Chanapelle. Rest assured.”

“But why are you giving me a hard time?”

“Friend…….”

“Shut up!”

Charlotte plugged her ears, as if she didn’t want to hear it anymore.

-Loud!

The Palace of Spring was silent, until Charlotte’s cry became an echo, echoing down the hall.

“It’s quiet.”

“…… wasn’t always like this, we’ve been downsizing a bit lately.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Charlotte diligently led the way, not wanting to be pampered once she had him.

There were no signs of murder.

Even if it was, I wouldn’t recognize it, and there’s no reason for it to be left behind.

The first place Charlotte brought me was the gallery.

“Do you like painting?”

“I’m not gonna lie, I don’t like ……. I don’t like it at all.”

“Is it fair to say that I’m not interested in everything about art in general?”

“Right.”

“Actually, so am I.”

Charlotte walked past the many paintings and sculptures hanging in the large gallery inside the palace.

“I don’t know, a picture is a sub-imitation of reality, and then it’s just a degraded version of reality, and the function is in the fact that it’s left behind. Like taxidermy. But it’s odd to see painters still strutting around with their brushes, even though they were rendered irrelevant by the development of dye-based magic.”

Charlotte is sometimes cynical to the point of being unrecognizable from Bertus.

When photography developed a similar magic, the value of painting as an imitation of reality plummeted.

So there’s no concept of abstract art here yet. I’ve learned something. Charlotte walked through a gallery of portraits, denying the possibility of painting.

“These are portraits of people who lived in the Palace of Spring, some royalty, some not.”

“So you don’t have to be royalty to live in a palace?”

“Sure.”

It’s just a confirmation of what I already know, but Charlotte is eager to explain.

It looked pretty cool, so I purposely feigned curiosity.

“The Summer Palace is the largest, with many subsidiary palaces. It’s where the imperial family has lived since time immemorial. The Autumn Palace to the south is where the officials work.”

Who lived in the Palace of Spring in the original.

It was Charlotte’s home, but she never returned, and it may have had a different owner. I don’t know that much. Bertus lived in the Winter Palace in the original, as he does now.

You can’t know what you don’t know. The imperial family may have gotten a little more spacious.

Because of the two sun candidates, two of the four great palaces now had a member of the imperial family in line for succession.

Charlotte and Bertus, the owners of one of the four great palaces.

Oscar de Gradías in the Summer Palace, an imperial servant’s residence in the east.

It made sense to me that Bertus would say that even the same royal family would never be the same.

We walked through the galleries, then the chapel.

It wasn’t dusty, but there was a strong sense that the space hadn’t been used in a long time.

Where the statues of the Five Gods stand, Charlotte sees me.

“Do you have a god you follow?”

“Not really.”

“I thought so.”

I may be the master of Tiamata, but of course I have no gods to follow.

The religions of this world are unique. No, not peculiar, but different.

There is no concept of not believing in God.

There is a God.

But do you follow that god.

The followers are the religious. You can’t deny God. There is divine power, and there are divine objects.

“You?”

“I’m not exactly……?”

Charlotte shook her head.

“Of course, if Artorius hadn’t won, I’d be dead, so shouldn’t I be serving Als, the war god……. I did think of that.”

Ragan Artorius was not a priest of Als, but he did defeat the demon with Alsbringer, the holy relic of Als.

“Even as I was thinking that it was Artorius who saved me……. but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case, so I’m going to go to…….”

Charlotte smiles wistfully.

She must be thinking of Valier. I wonder if my presence was such a great salvation for Charlotte. Of course, I saved her life, but without Artorius, the war would not have ended.

“How strong was the demon? Even if Artorius had been defeated, wouldn’t the allies have been able to kill the demon if they had joined forces?”

“Well…….”

I say that, but I know it’s true.

Ancestral Demon Balie.

The novel begins with the death of a demon, but what about the power of the demon?

If not for Lagan Artorius, the demon would not have died.

The Allies would have been crushed.

People know that Lagan Artorius defeated the demon, but they don’t know how, because the fight took place inside the demon’s castle, with no audience.

I’m the only one in the world who knows that.

Without Alsbringer, not even Ragan Artorius would have been able to subdue the demon.

Without Ragan Artorius, the demon would have won, and I would not have had to flee. Charlotte would be dead.

“Funny……. to think about this.”

Leaving the chapel, Charlotte and I continued to walk through the palace. There was a music room, but no musicians, and the instrument storage room next to it was empty.

Charlotte showed me all sorts of places. Courtiers’ quarters, kitchens, dining rooms, dressing rooms, storerooms, and guest bedrooms.

Even.

“Hey, can I do this?”

“It never ceases to amaze me that there is a line in the sand for rudeness at ……. Why not, you’ve already been rude enough.”

Charlotte even showed me her bedroom.