Surviving As The 5Th Prince Of Hellman Kingdom [EN]: Chapter 192

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The luxury hot spring resort in the South, developed by Aitz Trading Company, had its soft opening.

Adol, Vernon, and Berok.

The three men, who received resort passes as gifts from Ayra, the CEO of Aitz Trading Company, visited the resort with their families for a vacation.

Leaving their wives to take care of the children, the three rushed to the locker room, quickly changed, and dashed into the open-air hot spring.

Whoosh- Whoosh-

It was still autumn, but the weather was quite chilly due to the wind.

“Ugh~ It’s cold.”

“I’m going in first!”

“Wait for me!”

Splash, splash, splash.

The three plunged into the steaming hot spring as if competing with each other.

“Ugh~ I feel alive. My fatigue is melting away. As expected, a person needs good connections. Thanks to Ayra, we get to come to such a wonderful resort.”

Vernon, who recently had a son who looked just like him, wore an expression as if he was melting into the warm hot spring water.

“What are you tired from? Your wife and the nanny do all the childcare.”

“Adol, you were always complaining about being tired when your kids were newborns.”

“I don’t remember at all?”

Vernon shook his head.

There was no point in saying more; he would only get more annoyed. He changed the subject.

“But did you guys see the furniture in the lodging? It’s all from Kaya Trading Company, imported from the West Continent? Selling just one of those pieces could replace all the furniture in my house.”

Berok, who loved luxury goods, opened his mouth with sparkling eyes.

“It’s not *that* expensive of a sofa. I know Kaya Trading Company’s sofas pretty well. The ones in the lodging are…”

Starting with the sofa, Berok rattled off all the specifications and prices of the furniture in the resort.

Adol, fed up with it, said to Berok.

“Sometimes, I think you should have been a merchant instead of a knight.”

“If I hadn’t become a royal knight, I might have really done that.”

Berok reminisced about the past with wistful eyes.

He remembered when he had just passed the Royal Knights selection.

Almost ten years had already passed. Looking back now, he was so immature.

Even though he was just a half-blooded bastard from a noble family, he looked down on knights from common backgrounds like Adol and Vernon.

Knights are supposed to trust each other and have each other’s backs on the battlefield. But he was the one who took the lead in dividing sides within the knighthood…

Berok’s face flushed with embarrassing memories.

“I remember. Berok used to cover his nose with a handkerchief, saying he felt unpleasant breathing the same air as you and me.”

“That’s right, that’s right. I fainted when we first met His Majesty because of him. Why did we even spar back then?”

“Um… Didn’t we fight because only nobles were allowed to rest in the shade under the hot sun?”

“Ah, that’s right. I remember now. Berok was really something back then.”

Vernon and Adol chuckled.

Berok’s face, which was already flushed, turned bright red.

“Stop it.”

His voice was low, but Vernon and Adol continued to tease him, and Berok, unable to bear listening, chose to dive into the hot spring water.

“Oh! Berok~ You’re holding your breath for a long time? Adol, how about a diving contest?”

“Sure, the loser buys dinner tonight.”

The three teased each other, dove, and splashed water, playing like children.

Seeing the kingdom’s future leaders acting like this would have surprised many.

There were many children who admired the three of them.

They had been guarding Evan since the moment he threw off the stigma of being a ghost prince, and their individual skills were recognized as core national assets as 6-star knights, so it was only natural.

Among them, Adol had the highest profile.

During Evan’s crown prince inauguration ceremony, he defeated three Black Knights in a row in the friendly competition against the Hamel Empire, drawing attention as a future 7-star knight.

“Really, if I hadn’t switched the lottery ticket I drew back then, I wouldn’t have shown such an unsightly appearance.”

“Stop it. It’s embarrassing. I just had good luck in the matches. The result would have been the same even if you guys had gone out.”

“Good thing you know it well.”

*Am I the next target?* Thinking that, Adol quickly changed the subject.

“By the way, have you guys heard that the Brissen Alliance unveiled a tremendous new weapon this time?”

Two months ago.

The Iron Empress of the Rabia Empire invaded the Kingdom of Yokra, located directly below Antoine Curie’s Polania Kingdom.

In response, the great powers of the Brissen Alliance began to support the Kingdom of Yokra to check the Rabia Empire. There was a new weapon that appeared for the first time in the world.

“Ah, I heard that news too. It was a mobile magic cannon protected on all sides by iron plates, right?”

“I heard that it’s so covered in thick iron plates that even a 4-star knight who wields aura can’t even scratch it.”

A primitive tank.

It was known to have problems such as slow speed and difficulty in changing direction, but its advantages were clear.

There was no way for ordinary soldiers to deal with it.

With the emergence of airships, ironclad ships, and other weapons, the value of knights, which was already diminishing, was further reduced, weighing heavily on the three’s minds.

Of course, they knew.

Knights wouldn’t disappear right away.

Just looking at the performances of Evan and Reina in the war with the Arya Kingdom two years ago, high-ranking knights could not be replaced by any weapon.

But what about the future?

It takes an average human being ten years of swinging a sword to reach the level of a 3-star knight. Such knights are now being crushed by moving magic cannons on the battlefields of Yokra and Rabia, unable to do anything.

The past, when even a 1-star knight could easily take on ten ordinary soldiers, is different from the present. The number of young children who dream of becoming knights will gradually disappear.

The thought that someday the highest-level magic awakeners might become the exclusive domain of wizards crossed the minds of the three.

After a moment of thoughtful silence, Vernon, who had been stroking his bulbous nose, suddenly opened his mouth as if he had remembered something.

“But don’t you think our kingdom is also developing new weapons? When His Majesty goes to see Fran, he always goes alone. I think it’s because of the new weapons.”

“I think so too. I wonder what kind of amazing things they are making that they are keeping it a secret even from us. Berok, have you heard anything?”

“I asked Chief Secretary Alphonso about it last time, but he said he didn’t know either.”

“In my opinion…”

The three began to imagine the new weapons that the Lionel Kingdom was developing.

A bow that even a knight’s enhanced physical abilities could not dodge arrows from. A magic cannon that could strike enemy troops several days’ march away from their position, all while sitting still, and so on.

They didn’t say it, but they sensed a great war coming.

Last year, the Hamel Empire fell into extreme chaos with the appearance of two national birds [symbols of royal power, often associated with internal strife].

It would eventually calm down.

The three hoped that the new weapons being developed by the kingdom would be able to crush the Hamel Empire bastards.

“Shall we go out now? Our wives will be waiting.”

“Yeah. My ears are itchy; it feels like they’re scolding us for playing among ourselves without playing with the kids.”

The three, whose fingers and skin were all wrinkled, came out of the bath and headed to the locker room.

It would be quite a long time before they learned the identity of the new weapons.

***

Immediately after the war with Arya, large-scale construction was underway on land close to the royal capital of the Lionel Kingdom.

A tower that rose high into the sky.

It was the Magic Tower where Fran would serve as the first Tower Master.

The tower was 99% complete.

Gillud, Fran, and Fran’s disciple Alice were looking around the tower.

“We just need to finish painting the exterior walls, and it’s done.”

Gillud said.

Even though he was so busy with Titan-related matters that he needed two bodies, he drew the blueprints for the Magic Tower and showed sincerity by inspecting the construction process from time to time.

“Thank you so much, Gillud.”

“What did I do? I just drew some blueprints and checked to see if they were working hard.”

“Every time Uncle Gillud came, the completion date was pushed back by a month, wasn’t it?”

“Ahem, ahem.”

Gillud coughed loudly, embarrassed by Alice’s words.

The three moved to the top floor of the tower.

“Wow! You can see the entire royal capital. This won’t collapse, will it?”

“Hahaha, of course not. Who do you think designed it?”

Fran’s Magic Tower was currently the tallest Magic Tower built in the world.

While Alice and Gillud were chatting, Fran was lost in thought, gazing at the scenery outside the window.

‘Finally, Tower Master…’

She had achieved a goal she had always dreamed of.

She was happy, definitely happy, but she felt calmer than she expected.

Fran seemed to know the reason.

She spent her childhood as a half-human, half-elf, not belonging to either side. Perhaps because of that influence, she became overly obsessed with herself as a mage.

But at some point, when she looked around, people were calling her not Fran Minerva, the 8-star mage, but Duchess Fran Minerva.

When she went out on errands, the people of the kingdom greeted her with awe and bowed their heads. Her ears, which were only slightly pointed, were not very important to them.

Like clothes getting wet in a drizzle, she had become a duchess of the Lionel Kingdom.

‘It’s all because of that guy…’

Fran clicked her tongue, thinking of Evan.

Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. No, it was actually quite good.

The only downside was that she couldn’t just ignore it and leave if a war broke out.

Thinking about it, it was a little funny.

It was the freedom she could enjoy because she didn’t belong anywhere, but she felt sad when she thought about losing it.

‘War…’

The prolonged civil war in the Hamel Empire.

In the recent major battle near the imperial capital, the 19th prince won a great victory against the 7th prince’s army. The balance between the two equal forces had begun to crumble.

“Fran, haven’t you decided on the name of the Magic Tower yet?”

Fran was awakened from her thoughts by the voice calling her and turned her head. Gillud and Alice were looking at her with expectant eyes.

After thinking for a moment, she slowly opened her mouth.

“Since it’s the tower closest to the sky, how about calling it the Sky Tower?”

“Sky Tower… Well, I think it’s not bad. But do you have to make it one character [referring to the naming convention of using a single character]?”

“That’s the custom.”

“Anyway, shouldn’t we be heading back soon? The day when the owners selected by the king come to see our work is tomorrow.”

Fran nodded.

Finally, a Titan that ‘ordinary’ knights, not just monsters like Evan, could operate in actual combat was completed.

There were quite a few restrictions on boarding.

Only 6-star knights could secure about an hour of operating time.

The production and maintenance costs were also very expensive.

Only three were produced, but that alone cost as much as producing a large airship.

There were several reasons, but the biggest was that the engine had to use top-grade magic stones raw.

There was no choice because the development of top-grade Stella [a powerful energy source] was blocked.

The long-term goal was to enable 5-star knights to operate for more than three hours. If that became possible, the landscape of the battlefield would change.

The mobile magic cannons with iron armor that the Brissen Alliance unveiled a year ago were nothing more than toys compared to the Titans.

But the mass production of such Titans was impossible right now. It was only possible when the top-grade Stella was completed.

‘I don’t know when that will be.’

Even if the top-grade Stella was completed, applying it to the Titans and starting mass production were separate matters.

She wanted to complete it before the civil war in the Hamel Empire ended, if possible.

‘Well, if it’s that guy, it won’t be a problem even if it’s a little late.’

It was Evan who had overcome even the worst situations. Even if it was a little late, the Hamel Empire would not be defeated.

Fran, feeling at ease, slowly descended the tower, following Gillud and Alice, who were walking ahead.