Children of the Holy Emperor

Once the floodgates opened, criticism poured out like a torrent.

“Devil worshipper!”

“You filthy scammer!”

“He definitely said he’d sell his soul to the devil again! I heard it clearly!”

“N-no. I never did such a thing! I only said that in anger because you slandered my art as something impure obtained from the devil…”

The young man waved his hands, trying to make a late recovery, but even his fellow minstrels who had been defending him took a step back and stared at him with horror-filled eyes.

“Shut up, you devil worshipper!”

“Who are you planning to corrupt with your wicked songs this time?”

“Damn devil worshippers! Those who blight the world like him should be killed right now!”

Until then, Seongjin had only been blankly observing, but he was taken aback by the unexpectedly aggressive reactions from the people.

Hold on, even a drunk guy can blurt out something wrong when he’s agitated. Why are they getting so angry?

But the situation continued to escalate.

Drunken mercenaries gathered around the young man. Some of them rolled up their sleeves and exuded menace, looking ready to beat someone to death at any moment.

Realizing something was amiss, Seongjin rose from his seat. Then Masain, who had been guarding the bonfire with him, pressed close to Seongjin’s side and spoke.

“It’s a private quarrel among drunkards. If necessary, the knights and I will intervene, so don’t worry, Your Highness. Surely they wouldn’t harm someone over such a trivial issue?”

But Father Gustav, who had come out upon hearing the commotion, shook his head.

“It’s entirely possible, Sir Knight.”

“Isn’t it just drunken nonsense?”

“This scene must be unfamiliar to you all. People living in the imperial capital don’t know well. Wrapped in His Majesty’s grace, they don’t even worry about devil worshippers.”

“Then, are you saying it’s different outside the imperial capital?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? The church and inquisitors are making great efforts, but devil worshippers are still running rampant in many parts of the continent. They kill people as sacrifices to summon demons, and the summoned demons kill even more people. Especially among those who have become mercenaries, there’s probably none who haven’t lost family or comrades to such demons or devil worshippers.”

“Is that so…”

“To them, devil worshippers are already an existing threat. So how could they just let this slide?”

Gustav’s eyes as he said that were utterly cold. Seongjin had thought he was a good-natured person, but as expected of a priest. He showed no mercy when it came to matters involving demons.

Soon, with a scream, the mercenaries’ group lynching began.

“Is there any need for Your Highness, a prince of the Holy Empire, to defend one who committed blasphemy? They’ll probably stop at an appropriate point. The mercenaries will relieve their anxiety, and that foolish youth will learn a valuable lesson.”

As if dissuading Seongjin, who was stepping towards them, Gustav quickly added from behind. Seongjin let out a small sigh.

“Father Gustav. In your eyes, is that young man a devil worshipper?”

“At least, I don’t sense any [demonic energy]. He just seems like a young man with an inflated ego who’s caught an artistic disease.”

“Then shouldn’t we save him? In terms of being an existing threat, how are devil worshippers any different from those who denounce him as a devil worshipper?”

“But Your Highness…”

“If, by any chance, that man can’t endure the injustice and truly throws himself to the devil, who will be the one to have offered him to the devil?”

At that, Father Gustav’s eyes widened. As if he had received a great shock, his pupils trembled as he stared at Seongjin.

‘…What did I say to make him like that?’

After briefly looking at his pale face with puzzlement, Seongjin soon turned around.

With Sir Masain and the other resident knights in tow, Seongjin headed towards the place where the mercenaries had gathered.

The site of the lynching was already surrounded by layers of enraged mercenaries, but as Seongjin’s group approached, the mercenaries were the first to be startled and made way for them.

Even before Masain could shout at them, the fact that they moved on their own accord meant they had been surreptitiously keeping an eye on their actions while pretending otherwise.

Why wouldn’t they? Seongjin’s group had stood out from the beginning.

At the front, the banner of the Wolf Knights, a wolf insignia, fluttered, followed by carriages emblazoned with the imperial palace’s coat of arms.

The merchant groups, who had unintentionally ended up traveling together with the prince’s entourage, had chosen to keep as much distance as possible and avoid making eye contact with them.

Pow! Smack!

Even the mercenaries who had been gritting their teeth and kicking the victim hurriedly lowered their gazes and withdrew as the prince approached.

“Ugh…!”

The young man, who had been covering his face with both arms and only screaming, stopped screaming and peeked out from behind his arms as the violence suddenly subsided.

In that short time, he had been so thoroughly beaten that his brow was already swollen.

“Sir Valery.”

At Seongjin’s call, the red-haired inquisitor quickly ran over and began pouring divine power into the battered minstrel.

While there were no significant visible changes, the pain seemed to ease, and the young man’s grimacing face gradually relaxed.

Only then did the mercenaries realize that the prince had come to help the young man, and they gathered in front of Seongjin’s group and began shouting one by one.

“…That man is a devil worshipper, Prince!”

“Please punish him! Filthy devil worshippers killed my family!”

“Devil worshippers must pay for their sins!”

Those flickering eyes burning with blind rage, without distinguishing right from wrong.

Seongjin suddenly remembered what Domenico Scarcafino, whom he had met not long ago, had said.

-Having lived abroad for a long time due to work, I sometimes find such scenes in Delkros to be very unfamiliar.

He had thought those who shed tears in devotion to the emperor were like cult fanatics.

But, well, it seems people outside the imperial capital aren’t that different. In fact, humans are inherently a little crazy somewhere, aren’t they?

After slowly surveying his surroundings for a moment, Seongjin commanded the people.

“As you say, this man has committed the crime of blaspheming against the gods and the imperial family. I will hand him over to the relevant authorities and deal with him according to procedure, so stop now and return to your places!”

However, despite the prince’s direct order, the highly agitated mercenaries did not back down easily.

“Colluding with demons is a felony punishable by immediate execution!”

“Prince! Please execute him on the spot! Show the severity of the divine law!”

“Please make an example out of the filthy devil worshippers!”

The strange fervor that had swept over the crowd did not subside at once.

In the end, Seongjin decided to resort to his last means and turned to Masain.

“Sir Masain.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Who has the authority to judge and punish heresy?”

Then Masain, sensing what Seongjin was about to say, bowed his head even more politely and spoke.

“Only inquisitors who have received official permission from the Orthodox Church.”

“Then these insolent men, without being inquisitors, have attempted to arbitrarily exercise their right of accusation and investigation?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

The puzzled mercenaries, upon hearing Seongjin’s next words, finally realized the situation and turned pale.

“Then they have just dared to pretend to be inquisitors without qualification.”

“…!”

“Mocking the divine law and bringing the authority of the Orthodox Church to the ground, isn’t this the kind of behavior befitting devil worshippers? It’s clearly a felony that must be severely punished according to the divine law. So…”

Gasp!

The pale-faced mercenaries quickly retreated, avoiding Seongjin’s eyes.

After glaring at the mercenaries once, Seongjin approached the young man lying on the ground.

“Hey, can you move?”

“Hic! Sob! Thank…thank you…!”

As the tense atmosphere eased, the young man hugged the broken lyre and began to weep.

Of course, the mercenaries had backed away out of fear for now, but their eyes still held a chilling bloodlust as they glanced at the young man.

If left like this, it seemed he would really be stabbed to death without anyone knowing.

“Then hurry and get up. Follow me.”

“Sob…yes?”

Looking down at the young man, his face a mess with tears, Seongjin spoke solemnly.

“It may be drunken words, but what you committed was blasphemy against the gods and the imperial family. It seems you need proper punishment and rehabilitation.”

Then, giving a subtle signal, Inquisitor Valery quickly helped the young man to his feet.

“Come on. Let’s go to our tent together for now! Immediately kneel before the scriptures and pray, sincerely repenting your sins before the gods. Understood?”

With even the knight who had been exuding divine power stepping in like this, the mercenaries reluctantly shifted their gazes away from the young man.

In that way, Seongjin’s group managed to save the young man, pushing through the mercenaries’ hostile atmosphere.

“We’ll take turns guarding him overnight, so don’t worry about this man.”

Entrusting the young man to the resident knights and the Demonic Beast Response Unit, Seongjin finally returned to his carriage late at night and closed his eyes. It had been a tiring day, and various thoughts lingered, making it difficult to fall asleep easily.

People who were so quickly swept up in fear of a vague threat. Suspicion and hostility that couldn’t even specify a target. And anger.

It wasn’t a very unfamiliar scene. Perhaps this was closer to the world Seongjin originally knew.

‘Come to think of it, the people in the imperial palace were a bit strange…’

No matter what suspicious things he did, they just watched calmly. That unconditional trust and support.

Seongjin buried his head in the soft bedding and thought.

To be honest, he never thought he would miss the atmosphere of the imperial capital this much in just a day.

***

The next morning.

Sitting in front of the bonfire for a meal, Seongjin met the young man again, looking better than expected.

Having regained some energy in a day, he introduced himself as Lorang. Although there were still blue bruises on his brow, his face, with the swelling subsided, looked relatively neat.

With his long braided hair coiled around his neck, Lorang deeply bowed his head towards Seongjin.

“Yesterday, I was too flustered to properly express my gratitude. Thank you so much for saving my life, Your Highness.”

Although he was intimidated by the sharp gazes the mercenaries occasionally sent him, the young man had a good way with words befitting a performer.

Before long, with the group gathered around the bonfire as his audience, Lorang naturally began to share his story.

“Recently, my motif has been the chronicles of the wandering knight Fernan.”

Fernan Brack.

Following the emperor, who was the most famous playboy on the continent, he was a rising new playboy.

A young genius knight from Brittany, he was currently traveling the entire continent under the pretext of training, creating an epic of love.

Lorang had gained strong inspiration from his story and had decided to devote his life to writing beautiful love stories between men and women.

The first song he sang in front of the public was an impromptu poem called ‘The Genius Swordsman and the Earl’s Daughter’.

And the most popular one was a love song titled ‘The Wandering Swordsman and the Kind Lady with Brown Eyes’.

“Then what’s the most recent song you wrote?”

“It’s ‘The Genius Wandering Swordsman and the Lady of the Moon’.”

Hmm. Seongjin, who had been suspecting that the grace of the imperial capital might have really influenced this man’s artistry, instantly changed his mind.

Wasn’t this guy’s artistic spirit long dead? Somehow, his repertoire was all so utterly clichéd.

“I had a bit of hope that Fernan Brack might appear in the imperial capital during this Birthday Celebration period. If that had happened, the greatest masterpiece of my life would have been born. The wandering swordsman meeting a beautiful rose of the imperial palace…”

Suddenly, there was a flash of a gaze, and when he raised his head, Orden was looking at Seongjin meaningfully.

The meaning of that gaze was clear.

‘Shall I just kill him?’

‘Yeah. Shall we? Want to bury him somewhere?’

He never thought he’d come to an agreement with that guy.

Unaware that his life was hanging by a thread in that momentary exchange of glances, Lorang continued speaking naturally.

“The reason I came to the imperial capital this time was not only because of the invitation but, above all, to gain inspiration.”

“Inspiration?”

“Yes. Isn’t His Majesty the Emperor a living protagonist of a story? In my hometown, Carthage, songs about him have been steadily gaining popularity for over a decade.”

Songs like ‘The Wandering Prince and the Blue-Eyed Lady’ and ‘The Genius Swordsman and the Aloof Blonde Noblewoman’.

The expressions of Seongjin’s group, who had been listening to his story, turned peculiar. They could all guess who the characters in each song were.

Come to think of it, Emperor! His life was truly a story in itself!

“The ultimate image I pursue is this. A drink to comfort a lonely swordsman, and a beautiful woman.”

Lorang said that and picked up the lyre.

Twang!

A brief yet intense chord, as if the string would break, was plucked.

“Meeting gazes! That momentary thrill! A fiercely burning love!”

Ding-a-ling.

A soft melody followed, as if caressing a lover.

“And the lonely and fleeting wait of the lady left behind.”

Then Lorang raised his voice.

Oh, my beloved. That person will never return.

Golden crocuses bloom and wither, while only the owl cries sadly all night.

[…It sucks.]

The Demon King uttered a brief impression.

As he said, the more the song continued, the more the group’s faces decomposed in real-time.

It was a truly unfortunate story for a young man burning with artistic spirit, but to be honest, it was really outdated sentimentality.

Noticing the negative gazes around him, Lorang stopped playing and drooped his shoulders.

“Ahem.”

Bruno cleared his throat awkwardly.

“If that is your art, won’t your inspiration soon recover?”

“Do you think so?”

“Yeah. For now, let’s go to Regina together. If you stay there for a while, your inspiration will probably return intact. Regina is a city that never sleeps, a place where all depravity gathers!”

Then Lorang staggered, greatly shocked.

“So in the end, my art is merely depraved…”

“No, that’s not what I meant…”

Although Bruno belatedly tried to console Lorang, he quietly shrank, hugging the lyre.

The unmistakably conveyed energy of frustration. It was like an avant-garde art that embodied the young man’s artistic spirit, which had been brutally crushed without any chance of revival.

Seongjin quietly glared at Bruno.

Geez, man! If you can’t handle the situation, at least don’t pour oil on the fire!