────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Chapter 6 – I Became The Youngest Princess Of Asuramasura (5)
Thanks to having the mentality of an adult, I quickly learned the language and the lifestyle, but I still had a long way to go.
My pronunciation was forced, and it was difficult to endure the yawning and hunger for a long period of time due to having the body of an infant.
But the biggest problem was prejudice.
No matter how precocious I was, no one would take seriously the words and actions of a child that is less than two years old.
‘Just wait until I get older, everyone.’
I will win over all the people who ignored me because I was young! With a dignified voice like sister Grace!
‘Come to think of it, it’s already been two months since sister Grace left.’
My eldest sister Grace was appointed as the Crown Princess the same year I was born and spent less time with me than our other siblings because she shared our father’s affairs.
In the meantime, this time, she had to leave for a long time.
“Isn’t the battlefield really brutal?”
“I heard that there are few cases in history where additional support is provided from the center.”
“Still, when Her Highness left to provide support, it was suppressed right away, wasn’t it?”
No one explained it to me in detail, but I was able to make a rough guess by listening to the gossip between Nanny and the maids talking in front of me.
‘There was a big war not too long ago, and they said they needed to send more troops because it was an unexpectedly fierce battle.’
It was said that Grace’s Divine Power was not lacking, even compared to any previous Emperors.
‘Then I think he’ll be fine..?’
Leaving my hair to Patricia’s touch, I remembered the child I had seen in my dream.
The white, black, and red child in the arms of his mother the knight.
The child, since then, had often appeared in my dreams.
‘It’s already been half a year.’
The child was lying with his mother at the barracks every time, or alone, and his red eyes were always wandering.
‘It strangely didn’t cry.’
The baby was always in the same place, as if wrapped in a rag, like his mother had prevented him from crawling too far, while those eyes continued to wander.
And lastly…
‘It was the day before Grace left the Imperial Castle.’
The scenery in the dream was significantly different.
While the soldiers came and went in and out of the barracks, the knight lay alone on the bed. The knight was bleeding profusely from three or four cuts across her chest, stomach, and thighs and was unmistakably in a moribund state.
Even with just the wounds to the stomach…
‘Uuk’
I was only in the dream, but I still felt sick, and so I hurriedly looked away.
‘Where’s the baby? I shouldn’t look at things like this…’
The baby was lying on the simple table that had been used as a desk.
‘Now everyone knows the existence of the baby.’
A soldier stood near, as if protecting the baby, but no one in the barracks cared about the baby.
“Sir, hang in there a little longer.”
“It is said that all the remaining knights have departed from the Imperial Castle.”
“The priests are also coming.”
A few soldiers I thought were her subordinates surrounded her and exclaimed sadly. All of them were injured in one place or another, and none of them were healthy.
The relatively good-shaped knights were touching her as if trying to instill their Divine Power, but the blood showed no sign of stopping. And from the dryness of their voices… I was convinced that no one was expecting the survival of the knight.
“My baby…”
Under the heavy air in despair, the baby made a desperate cry. Tears welled in those red eyes.
But no one in the barracks looked back at the baby.
The soldier standing near him just dry patted him without looking back. I reached out even Cecil’s tiny hand and tried to stroke the baby’s head. I couldn’t physically touch him, or even smooth the baby’s hair, but I wanted to comfort him anyway.
And I was convinced that the scene was related to the battlefield that Grace would join this time.
‘I don’t know why I dreamed of him…’
The very next day after that dream, Grace went out with the priests of the church.
“If Her Highness comes, will we be able to calm the upheaval?”
“A lot of high-ranking priests also came, so if we can only hold on a little longer…”
Above all, the words exchanged between the soldiers in the dream were similar to the situation in reality.
‘If the knight eventually died, what would happen to the baby?’
My mind was always filled with the child’s red eyes brimming with tears.
I was in our mother’s drawing room that night when I met my sister Grace. There were numerous casualties before Grace’s appearance, but it was late at night after a small triumphal banquet, perhaps because a victory is still a victory.
‘It must have been an encouragement banquet for everyone because those who remain must comfort each other in their own way…’
I couldn’t attend the banquet because of the Imperial Rule that prevented me from attending public events until I turned ten. That’s why I was only able to reunite with my sister Grace a long time after the banquet.
“Cecil, do you recognize Sister?”
“Big Sister! It has been a while.”
“Oh, my. Your vocabulary is getting better. As expected, Cecil is brilliant.”
As I spoke with my arms wide open, Grace gladly reached out and lifted me.
Elder sister Grace, the 20-years old Crown Princess who I admired every time I saw her; probably because I don’t see her as often as our other siblings. Beneath the smooth hair that was parted and hung to one side, her nose and thick eyebrows that resembled Father’s raised dignity on her face.
Moreover, perhaps because she had suffered a lot this time, her eyes were deepened far beyond her age.
Her magnificent presence dominated the scene every time she appeared in the original, so I loved meeting her at this age.
‘It feels like I’m seeing a powerful woman who hasn’t matured yet, hehe.’
Grace kissed me on the cheek, went to the opposite end of the room and sat down.
Then I was sitting on the sofa with an assortment of fruits placed on the small table in front of me, and Mother and Grace sat on the receiving end of the table.
“You have something on your mind.”
Sister came to see me, her youngest sister, but when Mother saw Grace’s sinking face as she fiddled with her wine glass, Mother spoke in a meaningful voice.
“Anyway, you have suppressed the uproar and achieved victory. What’s troubling you?”
“Too much innocent blood has been shed.”
Grace didn’t hide the forlorn face she couldn’t show at the victory banquet. It was probably possible because she was in front of Mother.
‘No matter how much you trained as a successor, it must be quite a shock to experience the battlefield yourself.’
I’m still twenty-one, and even in my past life, I was twenty-three… I looked at Grace’s face while sucking up the chopped melon with a fork.
“If only I had been a little quicker in judgment.”
“Grace.”
Mother made a sad voice.
“It wasn’t something you could decide on your own. Above all, did you forget that the highest commander in the military is your father?”
“But Father handed me some authority.”
“Thanks to your rapid response with the priests, you were able to calm the upheaval without further damage. Something unexpected just happened. It will not be left a tragedy if it is recorded in the history books so that future generations can prepare for it.”
“…”
Despite Mother’s affirmation, Grace could not erase her sorrows.
‘My sister has a great sense of responsibility.’
I don’t know what the battlefield that Grace went to was like.
However, the fact that Grace’s participation in the war brought victory was known by everyone.
“Eventually, you will be the next ruler of this Empire, and your siblings will take their own paths to contribute to your reign.”
From my mother’s words, I thought of Roselia, who would become the commander of the Holy Knights, and Rebecca, who would become a priest and later the Pope. There was also Theodore, the lucky charm of the Imperial Family, who had been at the forefront of helping the poor from a young age.
‘Now that I think about it, I have to play my own role.’
In order for me, who has no sacred power, to keep the love of the Imperial family, I would have to produce something. As I listened to their stories, I made a firm decision.
“You just have to do your best. The Emperor is said to be in an impeccable position, but he is not really a person without mistakes or flaws. The Imperial family was chosen by the gods, so you’re not a newcomer, are you? The mixing of human blood like this mother.”
It seemed that the voice of Mother Teresa, not Mother or as the Empress, echoed in the sound of Mother’s uninterrupted conversation with Grace.
I observed the mother-daughter duo as if I were watching an off-the-record interview of popular celebrities.
“I know you’re sharing this with me because I’m your mother, because you can’t be weak in front of His Majesty.”
“…”
Mother’s words were closer to a request than a guess.
I glanced at Grace’s face, and she was still reflecting on what happened on the battlefield. Grace’s face was still dark, but she also seemed a little relieved.
‘I’m curious about what happened there. I don’t know if there really was a baby like that…’
But Grace couldn’t notice my gaze. Grace buried her mouth in the wine glass she had been fiddling with all the time, and then brought up something.
“Another thing I worry about is… the Tribute to the Fallen.”
Well, this must also be confidential. My mother and my siblings shared stories in front of me, perhaps they thought that it would be difficult to leak out because I wouldn’t understand what they were saying.
“Why, because the Hall of Glory is not enough?”
“Maybe because the sea of no return has been open for a long time, the bodies of the dead…”
Grace glanced towards me.
As I listened carefully, I was plunged into concerned thoughts. I didn’t know if I should pretend to understand, and if so, I didn’t know if I should cry when ‘dead bodies’ were mentioned…
‘I saw the news in my dreams, but it was a noble sacrifice rather than disgusting…’
Grace shook her head with a short smile, thinking she didn’t understand what I was saying by the look of my undecided expression.
‘I really understand and I am focused on the conversation. I guess it must be hard to believe that.’
Everyone used to be surprised because I was good, for a baby, at concentrating in one place.
Grace continued to talk.
“The problem is that the number of people that can be accommodated in the Hall of Glory has been greatly exceeded… In fact, we haven’t even been able to recover all the bodies.”
“I see.”
“There were more casualties than survivors, so there was nothing I could do. First of all, I understand that only the bodies of knights from noble families were recovered and moved to the Great Hall.”
“You are nothing else and you are a dead man in the sea from which you can’t return…”
“Yes, I must consecrate myself. Those who died early… They were tainted with magic and could not be consecrated, but they were buried regardless.”
‘The Sea of No Return’ was used as the background for the climax in the original novel.
‘It was only described as a battlefield vaguely entangled with monsters, but it seems to happen often in this world.’
Listening to the conversation between Mother and Grace, it seemed that the highest respect for the dead was to move the dead body to the Great Hall, consecrate it, cremate it, and then place it in the Hall of Glory, a kind of ossuary.
“So this time, inevitably, the commoners’ dead and the commoners were not taken care of…”
“Ah great!”
As I listened to her, I made a sound without realizing it.
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────