Surviving As The 5Th Prince Of Hellman Kingdom [EN]: Chapter 18

018

Royal Court.

With a trembling heart, I watched the judge’s lips.

“The defendant, Evan Lionel, is found guilty of inflicting cruel violence upon the plaintiff, Akad Lionel. This act gravely threatens the order of the royal family and must never occur again. Therefore, this court finds it necessary to set an example as a warning and sentences the defendant to ‘death’.”

What the hell is he talking about?

A death sentence?

I quickly turned to look for the Second Prince.

He had promised to help, yet he remained aloof throughout the trial. He was currently embracing Akad, patting him on the back.

The Second Queen and Fourth Princess were watching the scene with pleased expressions. A touching scene straight out of a courtroom drama.

I stared at them with a blank expression.

Akad noticed my gaze, smirked, and opened his mouth.

“Cuckoo.”

······?

.

.

.

I woke up with a start.

My forehead was drenched in cold sweat.

I got out of bed and checked the time.

4 AM.

I woke up an hour earlier than usual.

Today was the day of the royal trial, the decisive battle. Perhaps due to the mental pressure, I had a bizarre dream.

It was too early to go back to sleep.

I decided to calm my mind and body with mana cultivation. Sss- The mana I inhaled with the dawn air began to circulate throughout my body. Soon, the world became quiet, and my mind was at peace…

– Cuckoo.

“Damn it.”

The sound Akad made in my dream resurfaced, nearly causing my mana to backfire. I changed my plans and headed to the training grounds with a wooden sword.

Swinging the sword like a madman under the moonlight cleared my head a bit. As expected, sword practice was the best way to deal with a complicated mind.

After washing away the lingering images of the nightmare with sweat, I took a quick shower and returned to my bedroom.

I opened the window and began mana cultivation.

I had to invest 30 minutes in mana cultivation every day.

The mana absorbed through breathing enhances the vitality of the body as it circulates. I could live comfortably on only 3 hours of sleep a day.

To think that I could reduce the 6 hours of sleep I needed to just 3 hours with a 30-minute investment. What could be better than this?

There was no need to invest excessive time.

Mana cultivation is similar to muscle training in that efficiency doesn’t increase with endless hours of practice.

Thirty minutes a day.

That was just right.

“Hoo-”

I finished my cultivation and opened my eyes.

I still hadn’t discovered the uniqueness of the [Limitless Mana Cultivation Method]. It was definitely a hidden piece… Well, I was still only at the 1-star level, so I hoped that diligent training would reveal something different.

‘Enough with the 잡생각 [jap saenggak – Korean for ” 잡 thoughts” or “雜 thoughts”, meaning雜: mixed, various, and 念: thought, idea].’

I should be making final preparations before the trial, but my thoughts kept wandering in strange directions, perhaps due to my restless state.

I clapped my hands to my cheeks to clear my head and headed to my study with the documents I had been reading before bed.

***

Not all members of the royal family attend royal trials. It’s physically impossible for them all to be present.

In the Lionel Kingdom, the standard for royalty extends to the fifth generation from the king. The 500th anniversary of the kingdom’s founding was not far away. How many royals would there be?

Also, disputes among the royal family were more frequent than one might think. If attendance were mandatory each time, it would be nothing short of torture.

Of course, news of trials, including the date, time, and reason, was communicated to all members of the royal family.

I scanned those gathered in the courtroom.

In the plaintiff’s seat, Akad was smirking at me. I suppressed the urge to rush over and beat him up, and turned my head.

There were many unfamiliar faces in the gallery.

The First Prince, along with the First Queen and her children, seemed to be absent.

The Second Prince was sitting next to the Second Queen. The Fourth Princess, notorious for being even more unpleasant than Akad, was nowhere to be seen.

My sister was looking at me with worried eyes. I told her not to come… I smiled and nodded to reassure her.

Other than that, there was nothing special… Huh?

‘The Third Prince?’

The First Prince’s full sibling, the Third Prince, who was three years older than me, was sitting there. It had been a while since I had seen him, and he was wearing glasses he didn’t usually wear, so I hadn’t recognized him.

Why was he here?

Rumor had it that the ghost prince would finally be banished from the palace because of this royal trial. Was he here to see his blood relative before he left?

I was curious, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to him right now. I turned my head towards the most important person in this room.

The judge.

The verdict in a royal trial was usually delivered by an elder selected by the Royal Committee.

But.

‘This case is different.’

This trial involved two direct descendants of the current king. It couldn’t be the same as usual.

I looked at the man sitting in the judge’s seat.

A gaunt body.

Matted hair.

A bored expression.

Philip Lionel.

The current king of the Lionel Kingdom, my father.

I glanced at his status window.

[Relationship: Neutral]

White letters, neither green nor red.

A relationship commonly seen in the status window of a stranger you might pass on the street.

The king’s eyes met mine.

Dull eyes, as if he were on drugs. I calmly accepted his gaze. He seemed to lose interest and turned his head.

If someone were to ask what came to mind when they saw the king, only one word would fill my head.

A puppet.

A being moved around by someone’s hand, without free will. That was the current king of the Lionel Kingdom.

The previous succession to the throne was a battle between the royalist and aristocratic factions.

And the winner was the aristocratic faction.

The current king, who was ‘chosen’ as someone easy for the nobles to manipulate, ascended the throne. Future history books might call him ‘lucky’.

After ascending the throne, the current king attempted to break free from the shadow of the aristocratic faction. It was his marriage to the daughter of the Beyren Marquis, a member of the royalist faction, the flower of the North, my mother.

The result was…

It’s not for nothing that I ended up like this.

“It’s time. Let the trial begin.”

A cracked voice.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The king declared the court was in session.

He looked at Akad, who was standing on the plaintiff’s side, and opened his mouth.

“The plaintiff, Akad Lionel, claims to have suffered an unprovoked assault by the defendant, Evan Lionel, resulting in irreparable humiliation and requiring treatment from a high-ranking priest. Plaintiff, is this the unvarnished truth?”

“It is the absolute truth! Had things gone slightly differently, I might not be standing here today!”

“I see.”

The king nodded and looked at me.

“Defendant, any objections?”

“I did not commit assault. It was a fair duel.”

My honest answer.

“That’s a lie!”

Akad immediately shouted.

“I request Lord Gabis, who accompanied me, as a witness! He will prove that his words are a blatant lie!”

“Granted. Witness, step forward.”

Lord Gabis, with his pathetic mustache commonly referred to as a sycophant’s mustache, stood in the witness box.

“I, the witness, swear upon the sacred…”.

It felt like watching a play.

The judge, who should have been conducting a fair trial and using the Royal Intelligence Agency to uncover the truth, took no action whatsoever.

He simply seemed to find this trial bothersome.

The witness, who had sworn to tell the truth, made me out to be a notorious troublemaker who disrupted the royal hierarchy, even though he wasn’t even present at the scene.

“…I submit this fake sword, which I hid with a trembling heart at the time, as evidence! The Fourth Prince’s blood still remains on it! Behold these gruesome traces.”

I was surprised by his meticulous preparation when he raised the sword I had used to beat Akad as if it were a legendary holy sword.

“Defendant, any objections?”

“As I have repeatedly stated, it was a fair duel.”

“That’s a lie! For a duel to be valid, one must throw a glove at the opponent, and the opponent must accept! I never received any challenge.”

I resolved to always carry gloves with me in the future and opened my mouth.

“I did not have gloves, so I substituted a handkerchief. Just last year, at the royal banquet, Heinri Lionel and Ascent Lionel engaged in a duel when Heinri, lacking a glove, threw a napkin to initiate the duel. Historical records also show many precedents where duels were initiated with items other than gloves.”

“The handkerchief?”

“Here it is.”

The king merely glanced at the handkerchief I submitted with a listless expression.

I was starting to get bored with participating in this play.

If I, the person involved, felt this way, how much more bored must those sitting in the gallery be? There was even someone yawning and getting poked in the ribs by the person next to them.

I looked at Akad, who was wearing a triumphant expression in the plaintiff’s seat, and Lord Gabis, who was wringing his hands like a fly in the witness box, and muttered softly.

The play is over now.

“I request a witness to clear my name.”

“A witness?”

For the first time, the king’s face, which had been consistently listless, changed. Surprise? Amazement? It was so subtle that I couldn’t tell exactly what emotion it was.

– The Fifth Prince has a witness?

– The Third Princess?

– Did you forget? Relatives within the fourth degree of kinship cannot be witnesses.

– Then who will defend the Fifth Prince? How will he withstand the Second Queen’s wrath?

– Well, it happens sometimes. Who knows? Maybe it’s a former member of the royalist faction.

– There’s no way they haven’t learned their lesson after seeing the Beyren Marquis family get wiped out in one fell swoop, right?

The murmuring in the gallery grew louder. I couldn’t hear what they were saying very well. Well, they were probably talking about what kind of madman would testify for me.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Silence!”

The gallery finally quieted down at the sound of the gavel the king struck.

“Defendant, I understand that you did not request a witness in advance. As you know, the people gathered here are not idle. Is the witness waiting? If this is an attempt to stall for time, I will reject it.”

“He is waiting.”

The king’s eyebrows twitched.

“Who is it?”

“Count Clian.”

!!

The courtroom fell silent at my words to designate the Second Prince’s right-hand man, the chief secretary of the Royal Treasury, as a witness.

Akad, in the plaintiff’s seat, had a dumbfounded expression, unsure of what was happening.

“Damiaaaaan!”

The Second Queen’s shriek echoed.

She seemed to have guessed that the Second Prince was trying to use the royal trial as an opportunity to get rid of the Fourth Prince. She had been rolling around in the palace for over 20 years for nothing; her judgment of the situation was quick.

“Please calm down, this is the Royal Court.”

“You! How could you! Ugh-”

“Oh dear!”

The Second Queen, whose face had turned bright red, suddenly staggered. The Second Prince quickly caught her.

The Second Queen, though she looked like she was in her twenties, seemed to have high blood pressure. Well, she was in her forties, so she had to take care of herself.

The Second Prince looked at one of the Royal Intelligence Agency members who was helping with the trial and opened his mouth.

“That’s a relief. Take my mother to a priest.”

Amidst the chaotic atmosphere, I looked at Akad, who still had a blank expression.

‘Today will be the last time I see your face.’

In this world where juvenile offenders are casually beheaded, I was a little curious about what kind of verdict would be handed down to him.