A Mercenary’s Rebirth Among Nobles

After finishing the farewell banquet, the First Prince Claude was transferred to a luxurious guest room.

The bed was soft, the food exquisite, and the room temperature perfect.

However, Claude could not feel any joy even though he had been given everything he desired.

No matter how good the conditions were, remaining confined was no different from being in prison.

In fact, compared to a cell with bars, this was even worse now he was surrounded by countless soldiers.

“I said you could keep a close watch on me, but at least let me go out! I didn’t even ask to go far, just to take a walk through the castle corridors!”

“That is not possible. The duke ordered that you not be allowed to leave.”

Even as Claude shouted, exploding with frustration, the soldiers did not move an inch.

Fixing them with a murderous glare, Claude spoke in a voice filled with rage.

“Do you even know who you’re talking to?”

“To whom?”

“I am the legitimate heir of this Empire, the First Prince Claude!”

“So?”

“….”

The indifferent attitude of the soldiers left Claude speechless.

Ignoring him, the soldiers began chatting among themselves.

“Isn’t a prince just the emperor’s son?”

“Right.”

“And the emperor is our lord’s superior.”

“Then should we obey him?”

“But the emperor’s son isn’t the emperor.”

“Then we can ignore him, right?”

Hearing that, Claude was left without words.

They were even worse than the guards at the castle gate.

What in the world did people in Asagrim think of the emperor?

At that moment, a familiar voice was heard from behind the soldiers.

“They are men who have lived their entire lives in the tundra. They know nothing of the emperor’s majesty.”

“Denis!”

For an instant, Claude’s face lit up, but it immediately twisted with fury.

Relief at finally seeing someone he could speak to, and at the same time resentment for having done nothing when he was taken away.

“What the hell have you been doing all this time!?”

“First Prince.”

Denis dropped to his knees with a heavy thud in front of Claude.

“Difficult days lie ahead. But please, endure them. For the sake of the imperial family, which must endure forever, we have no choice but to bow our heads for now.”

“What the hell are you talking about…?”

“Even if it takes several decades, as long as you remain alive, there will be hope. So take care of your body and preserve the bloodline.”

“…!?”

“I will soon speak with the duke to find a consort for you. Living alone in such a confined place must be lonely. With a partner, everything will be much better.”

Claude’s face turned pale.

Imperial family, bloodline, consort.

Words that seemed disconnected, yet all revolved around one thing blood.

Claude instinctively understood the decision Denis had made.

“A-are you saying you’re placing your hopes on my children, not on me? That I’m supposed to live bowing to the duke my entire life…?”

Something was terribly wrong.

Claude had always believed that Denis would never betray him.

If the late emperor had sent him north as a spy, his loyalty was beyond doubt.

And indeed, that loyalty had not wavered even for a moment.

The problem was that this loyalty had returned to an even more fundamental level not to the person of the First Prince, but to the continuity of the imperial family.

“This is bad…”

Claude went completely pale.

He had seen many of those loyalists throughout history fanatics who cared nothing for the prince’s personal feelings and only wanted him to be a cog in the Empire.

Convinced that everything they did was the correct form of loyalty, they were impossible to reason with.

If this continued, Denis would end up the same, blocking his ears and doing only what he believed was right.

Seeing that same unsettling gleam in Denis’s eyes, Claude spoke desperately.

“W-wait. It’s not over yet! We still have a chance!”

“Of course. It is said that matters of state are planned with a hundred-year view. Bowing for fifty years is nothing.”

“That’s not it! I can do it myself! I have a plan!”

“I am sorry, Your Highness. Forgive me for being so weak that I have no choice but to entrust the future to the generations to come.”

“Are your ears blocked? Listen to me first!”

Claude shouted, almost in tears, but Denis pretended not to hear.

He stood up, bowed his head, and as he slowly withdrew, left behind one final sentence.

“Do not despair; preserve hope. But abandon excessive ambition and entrust the future. Everything has its time.”

“Hey, son of a bitch!”

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

When Claude tried to rush forward to grab Denis, a soldier blocked his path.

Just as he was about to unleash another curse—

Boom!

“Ugh…!”

A brutal impact, as if an iron mass had slammed into his abdomen, tore through Claude’s body.

Nausea and pain made him collapse to the floor, unable even to scream.

Then, among the soldiers, other voices were heard.

“I would rather not use this kind of magic, but he tried to escape. There was no choice.”

“That’s right. It’s a spell used only to prevent escapes.”

“The duke will fully understand our master’s decision.”

Curled up on the floor, Claude raised his head with difficulty.

He had to see who the madman was who dared to do this to him.

When he identified his attacker, his eyes widened.

“Mages…!”

“Yes, mages. Do you remember us?”

How could he not remember them.

For three hundred years, the imperial family had exterminated unauthorized mages through witch hunts.

That such mages had been “escorting” him at the banquet was impossible to forget.

Even more so after they had sealed his voice with magic.

And now, not one, but all three were standing before him again.

“The duke sent us. He said that if we saw signs of an escape attempt, we were to stop you immediately. Though, due to my lack of skill, I failed a bit in controlling the power. Your stomach hurts—are you all right?”

“H-how dare you…!”

“If you can speak, it seems you’re fine. What a pity. We bear no grudge against the imperial family, but even so, we must resort to such rough methods.”

Marius, Colin, and Helen put on sorrowful expressions, like actors in a play.

However, the corners of their lips were raised, unable to hide it.

“First Prince, please behave yourself. If you continue trying to escape, we may have to use even rougher methods.”

“…!”

Faced with Marius’s deep smile, as if he were eagerly awaiting the next escape attempt, Claude’s body began to tremble.

***

After assigning mages as guards, Claude could no longer even breathe in peace.

It was enough for him to approach the door for the mages to unleash merciless restraint upon him.

Crunch!

“Ugh!”

“Well now, trying to escape again. Please stop forcing us to intervene.”

“I wasn’t escaping! I was just going to ask the guards for something!”

“Then shout. Stop making excuses that convince no one.”

Unlike other nobles, who at least maintained some decorum, or the soldiers, who simply carried out their duty, the mages were completely implacable.

Especially Marius, who had brushed against death time and again during the witch hunts, watched with an unhealthy obsession.

At the slightest suspicious sign, magic was unleashed without mercy.

‘They’re the ones who know best that all my magical artifacts have already been taken away and that I have no way to escape…!’

Claude was furious to the limit, but since they were openly picking a fight with him, he had no way to protest.

To make matters worse, the soldiers watching the scene were not surprised in the slightest by his suffering; they did not even blink.

The Order of the Knights of the Blue Rose, one of the orders directly subordinated to the imperial family, had been “lent” by the former emperor to Lucian, but that did not mean they had changed their loyalty.

If the First Prince gave them an order face to face, they would have to obey.

Regaining some confidence, Claude adopted a solemn expression and ordered the Order of the Blue Rose.

“Knights, immediately cut down that insolent traitor and get me out of here.”

“No.”

“What?”

“First Prince, please regain your composure. We are human as well. We are not wooden dolls who blindly obey their master.”

The knights let out a deep sigh and shook their heads, as if dealing with a child who understood nothing of the world.

“If you escaped from here, it’s obvious you would give us all kinds of absurd orders. Why should we help you escape?”

“Y-you swore loyalty! You swore loyalty to the imperial family!”

“Precisely because of that, this is a blessing. Thanks to Your Highness being confined here, we only receive reasonable orders from the duke.”

“…!”

“Please remain calm. No one wants to receive orders directly from Your Highness. Not only us—the other lords think the same.”

Claude blinked, stunned by the knights’ frankness.

So all those loyalists had been a lie?

Had they sworn loyalty only because they believed he would never be able to escape Tibron?

While Claude still could not react, the knights delivered the final blow.

“A piece of advice—even if, by some chance, you manage to escape, do not go to other lords lightly. They might assassinate you.”

“W-what?”

“What do you think would happen if you went to people who do not want to obey your orders, but also do not want to lose the title of loyalist? In your place, I would quietly kill them and say that you never appeared.”

After leaving those heavily loaded words behind, the Order of the Blue Rose departed.

Claude remained frozen in place for a long time, unable to move.

Two days later, when Lucian came to check on his condition—

“Duke! No, King Lucian! Please, save me!”

Claude dropped to his knees and shouted before Lucian could even open his mouth.