Surviving As The 5Th Prince Of Hellman Kingdom [EN]: Chapter 13

013

The Lionel family’s bloodline is strong, especially when it comes to hair color.

Among the ten children (five sons and five daughters) who inherited the current king’s blood, nine have black hair. Only the fourth prince, Akard, inherited his mother’s bright red hair.

Perhaps that’s why.

He tormented me whenever he had the chance since we were kids. Among the brothers who had what he wanted but couldn’t have, I was the easiest target.

It’s also largely because he was born greedy and violent. It’s a well-known secret among those with connections in the royal palace that a maid died on the spot after being severely whipped by Akard when he was only ten years old.

The royal servants are mostly from aristocratic families without succession rights. There were rumors that some lower-ranking nobles who supported the second prince, Akard’s full-blooded brother, left after that incident and were beaten nearly to death. Since then, I haven’t heard of anyone being beaten to death, so the rumors are likely true.

Akard started physically abusing me right after my maternal family fell from grace.

To be precise, it was the first day I left my room, clutching a wooden sword, after my nanny and other people around me disappeared as quickly as dew before an executioner’s blade.

“Kukuku, I heard that our little brother started practicing swordsmanship, so I rushed over. Be grateful; I’ll help you myself.”

I was beaten like a dog on a hot summer day [Dog Days refers to the hottest period of summer].

“Our little brother, you don’t have any talent for swordsmanship. How can you not block a single blow? This older brother will teach you so you won’t get beaten up anywhere else, so learn well. Got it? Answer me! You bastard!”

He crushed me, preventing me from getting up after I tried to wriggle out from being trampled on.

“Ha… Is he crazy?”

My right hand, holding the wooden sword, trembled slightly at Akard’s growling voice in response to my retort. My body was reacting on its own because of the memories of violence imprinted since childhood.

Even now that I’m aware of my past life, it’s like this, so how would it have been before?

After becoming aware of my past life and growing older, I thought about the things that had happened in the past. It wasn’t my fault at all.

‘At the time, it all seemed to be my fault…’

In the end, I fell into self-hatred and subtly thought that my swordsmanship talent might be trash, just like Akard said.

The founder of Lionel was nicknamed the Knight King. Moreover, my maternal grandfather was the Sword of the North. Logically, I should have had at least mediocre talent.

The day I was beaten like a dog on Dog Days by Akard for the first time, I had been starving myself and was exhausted, and I had been swinging a wooden sword until I was completely drained. It was natural that I couldn’t block his attacks even once.

‘I was gaslighted properly.’

Personally, I don’t agree with the saying that if you fall six times, you should get up seven times. You can only say that if you haven’t fallen properly. If your legs are broken so badly that you can’t get up again, and even if you try to get up with crutches, they break, you can’t get up.

Unless there’s a special opportunity.

Fortunately for me, it came a while ago.

“Hey, isn’t that guy trembling?”

The servants standing like mannequins next to Akard quickly nodded. Among them was George, who had been asking me for information about him.

Ha, that bastard.

‘Did he betray me?’

The status windows of Alfonso and George, who are people of interest, are always in the corner of my vision. It was to check in real time what changes were happening in the relationship.

It was annoying to have their status windows constantly displayed in the corner of my vision, but it was bearable.

Currently, my relationship with George is still ‘Fear’.

Seeing that it hasn’t changed to red letters, which means a negative relationship, it doesn’t seem like a betrayal, but I couldn’t be sure because the Rosa System was full of unknowns to me.

“I can’t leave my child alone in this harsh world, so I’m going with you.”

There are also people who write such nonsense in their wills, saying it’s because they love them, and make extreme choices.

I might be hit hard in the back of the head after being relieved that I have a ‘trust’ and ‘friendly’ relationship with someone.

“Our little brother. I heard that this older brother accidentally broke your head, and you’ve been a little strange lately. Is that true? You’re completely crazy.”

I ignored Akard’s words and poked his forehead with my ghost hand.

━━━━━━━━━━×

Akard Lionel

Gender: Male

Age: 14

Race: Human

[Stats]

[Skills]

[Relationship: Hostile]

━━━━━━━━━━

‘Hostile?’

A fresh relationship I’ve never seen before.

It was the reddest of all the letters I’ve seen so far. All I’ve done is shut myself up in the Emerald Palace and build a wall between myself and the world…

I decided not to think too deeply about it.

Even in my past life, there were many guys who hated others for trivial reasons without even knowing them. It’s just a headache to try to understand them. They’re just mentally ill people. Akard is a little more sick.

‘I don’t even need to look at the stats or skills.’

I can barely check stats and skills even in a state of distrust, so it was obvious that I would only see [?] in a more negative ‘hostile’ relationship. At best, I’ll only be able to check information I already know, such as [Lionel Formal Swordsmanship].

“What brings you here with so many attendants? I think you’ve come to the wrong picnic spot.”

I glanced over the attendants Akard brought with him: one guard knight, three servants, and two maids. Everyone looked miserable.

The guard knight stood out from the first time I saw her.

Wavy silver hair that lightly covers her shoulders.

A femininity that cannot be hidden by the simple armor.

She was a female knight.

In this life, women’s rights are ‘considerably’ high. The fact that princesses also have the right to inherit the throne is a prime example.

It’s because of magic.

The superiority of physical abilities that men have does not completely disappear, but the gap between the same magic awakeners is reduced to the point where it is meaningless. Perhaps because of their unique delicate temperament, women tend to have relatively better magic control than men.

It’s not that there’s no discrimination at all. Among ordinary people who live lives unrelated to magic, women’s rights are no different from those in the Middle Ages on Earth.

Come to think of it, I remember hearing about it.

“Prince, Prince! Do you know what? A commoner has joined the Second Knights for the first time! Even a woman! She just graduated from the Royal Military Academy and is already a five-star knight. Everyone is buzzing that the future Sword Empress will come from our kingdom.”

‘That knight is that woman.’

How did she become the fourth prince’s guard?

Her eyes were hazy, like a cat that had just woken up. She seemed to be thinking about something unrelated to the current situation. At first glance, it looked like she was sleeping with her eyes open.

I brought my ghost hand to her forehead to check simple information.

Name: Reina Jeanne. The relationship is… vigilance?

It’s been a while since I met someone who wasn’t distrustful at first. I wanted to take a closer look at the status window, but Akard interrupted.

“Pi, c, niiiiiic? Haa, really… the cure for madness is a beating. Everyone move aside! I’m going to cure that guy’s madness today.”

Akard grabbed his sword.

It wasn’t a wooden sword.

A blunted training sword. It’s much more dangerous than a wooden sword that breaks when hit. If the attack that awakened my past life had been with a blunted sword instead of a wooden sword… wouldn’t I have some kind of disability now?

“I heard that our little brother is practicing swordsmanship alone again these days? I brought it especially. I haven’t seen you until now because you weren’t there every time I heard the news and went to find you. I don’t know how you knew I was coming. I think I need to crack down on the household.”

While he was spitting on the floor, I secretly looked at George’s face without anyone noticing. He was pale after hearing the words “crack down on the household.”

While I was wishing him luck in my heart, a circular space was created around Akard and me.

The prospective members of the Third Knights were all looking like they had eaten shit, not knowing what to do. Well, if they were excited to see such a spectacle happening in their own front yard, they would be crazy.

‘But how come no one lends me a training sword?’

Even though the blade is dull, a blunted sword is also recognized as a sword, so only authorized people can carry it around in the royal palace. I mean, I left it in the Emerald Palace.

As I sighed and tried to lift the wooden sword I had brought.

“Prince! Prince! Here, this.”

Alfonso came running with a blunted sword.

What a beggar?

“Haha! Suddenly, someone poked me with their finger, so I turned around and saw a blunted sword on the floor. I! Absolutely! Didn’t bring it.”

I glanced at where Alfonso came from. Commoner guys were gathered there. I’ve never had a proper conversation with any of them, but I felt like I was getting this much favor after sweating in the same space a few times after getting to know them.

‘Whoever it is, let’s use it gratefully.’

When I smiled and grabbed the blunted sword, Alfonso ran back to his original spot as if his butt was on fire.

“I guess bugs communicate with each other. Isn’t that right? Well, whatever. When I think about it, there might be talk about educating a guy with a wooden sword with a blunted sword.”

I stared at the fourth prince with the sword in silence.

His face turned red, perhaps because he felt ignored. Soon, he looked around at the knights surrounding us and shouted loudly.

“Everyone listen carefully! I won’t tolerate anyone who interferes during the sparring, so do what you want.”

He’s smaller than I thought, but still big. My body still flinches at every one of his reactions.

“Mental education, start!”

I faced the charging giant Akard.

***

‘I’m crazy.’

Adol, with his messy hair, regretted what he had done.

He didn’t even know what he was thinking. When he came to his senses, he had handed a training sword to the fifth prince’s servant. He had vowed not to get involved like that…

‘No one saw me, right?’

He did it secretly in the midst of the commotion, but he was worried. Adol looked around again.

‘Huh!’

He made eye contact with a classmate from the military academy who had once made him a lump of inferiority. A monster who became a five-star knight before graduating and joined the Second Knights exceptionally, even though she was a commoner… no, a genius.

‘There are other monsters.’

Her hazy eyes, then and now, had no idea what she was thinking. Adol smiled awkwardly and turned his gaze to the two princes.

Akard, who had systematically trained in swordsmanship, had embraced his second star, which even the cats aiming for the leftovers of the Third Knights knew.

Logically, it was obvious that Evan would be unilaterally beaten.

‘That’s obvious, but…’

Adol recalled the time after his first meeting with Evan.

Evan, who showed the shocking skill of imitating the Guardian Swordsmanship just by seeing it with his eyes on the first day, appeared with splints on both arms for about a week and stared at him practicing before disappearing.

‘After all, it would have been impossible for even a monster to completely imitate the operation of mana [mana is the energy source for magic].’

After his arms recovered, he did not practice swordsmanship by using mana, but the form was clearly that of a skilled person performing Guardian Swordsmanship.

‘If the fifth prince had a little more time…’

Adol was sorry about that.