What Happens When The Second Male Lead Powers Up [EN]: Chapter 656

Sub-Male Lead’s Strike – Episode 656

#656

Wartime Restricted Person? (4)

‘I will dedicate victory’?

“······.”

“······.”

Elise reacted poorly to Wilhelmina’s answer.

Once again, a needle-like silence descended between the cliffs.

It was inevitable.

In times of war, all soldiers were forcibly mobilized for national defense, a solemn order that even noble families with strained relations with the royal family obediently followed.

Victory was the most basic and primitive act of supporting the country’s order and maintaining the system.

Refusing to cooperate in wartime could be seen as treason and conspiracy.

The young nobles guarding the Crown Princess exchanged murmurs.

Elise asked again, her face stern and unchanged.

“Is your means of victory to misappropriate soldiers?”

“You misunderstand, Your Highness.”

Duke Sneider, who had been faintly smiling, finally corrected his superior’s misinterpretation.

Nevertheless, the Crown Princess’s glare remained fierce.

Kuman felt his breathing become a little constricted and looked back.

The young soldiers trailing behind him were panting, patting their chests with small hands.

He signaled them to step back a little, and the young men around twenty years old, some of whom had similar experience, took the children and moved them away.

It was the Cardinal’s clear ‘oppression’.

The noble knights also distanced themselves, their faces somewhat pale.

Wilhelmina continued speaking, her face unaffected.

“Victory in the Holy Path is something every citizen of the Holy Nation desires and expects, and that is the same for me. I cannot explain it in detail right now······.”

“You cannot explain it in detail right now?”

“······.”

Elise let out a sound akin to a hollow laugh.

“You demand excessive patience. You must know the name of the charge that could be placed around your neck.”

The Duke raised the corner of her mouth at the sharp rebuke.

The Crown Princess was very displeased with her composure.

Even though she hadn’t grown up constantly reminded of her royal lineage, she felt a burning sense of insult, clearly sensing that the other person was looking down on her.

Would it have been a little better if she had shown embarrassment or difficulty?

Elise didn’t have much talent for imagining situations that hadn’t yet occurred.

“Duke Sneider.”

“You have almost no time left to waste your energy on such things. A major battle will begin in two days. Also.”

“······.”

“I understand that there are parts that Your Highness has not confirmed with us.”

“What?”

A spark flew in her bright blue eyes. Kuman was startled and shrank back.

“I am afraid, but is that angel truly the reincarnation of Prince Yeseo?”

“······.”

Then the nobles murmured something in subtle voices. Elise immediately closed her mouth.

Erasing her expression was one of the political acts she was quite good at.

However, that may have been a clue for Wilhelmina.

“Due to the Crown Ether [a powerful magical energy] of that wicked person, three of our bishop-level paladins and nine priest-level paladins lost their minds and were brutally murdered by the Imperial Army during the truce. I pointed out that activating the Crown during wartime is a violation of the laws of war, but the Emperor of the Empire only escaped the situation with excuses as long and slippery as a snake’s tongue.”

“······You seem to think that it is the enemy’s fault that our paladins were drunk on Ether and ran wild. If you are the head of the Sneider family, who is so knowledgeable in politics, you would know that the only cardinal-level priest of the Empire is Cardinal Oreli Boutier.”

And as everyone knows, she was not a combat priest.

Liester had no history of training combat priests.

The ‘angel’ in question was truly an unidentified life form.

“Yes. However, I heard that His Highness the Prince manifested Ether in the land of the distant Empire during his lifetime. Didn’t Your Highness also confirm his Ether and return?”

“······.”

“Isn’t that so?”

Her pupils dilated slightly at the question.

Only then did Elise Venetian realize that she had fallen into Wilhelmina Sneider’s trap.

When talking to this person, she always had to be careful not to mix emotions and not to let her guard down.

She had to put meaning into every word she uttered, and conversely, she had to thoroughly dissect the information the other person contained.

However, the fierce nature unique to the fire attribute led Elise here again.

She gripped the shining golden spear tightly.

“Or was it a different Ether?”

“······It was different. I remember mentioning the same content once during the Great Festival.”

“······.”

“The last power I felt from Yeseo was very precarious and unstable. That child did not possess the qualities of a Cardinal.”

“Is that so.”

“You seem to have read the Empire’s propaganda very deeply.”

When Elise countered with a pointed joke, the soldiers, including Kuman, burst into laughter.

It was a mockery that the great Duke was caught up in the enemy’s ‘resurrection’ propaganda.

The nobles bit their lips or coughed to try to suppress the sound.

The Crown Princess raised her eyebrows once and maintained a nonchalant face.

Of course······.

“······.”

“······.”

······It was impossible not to recognize that pure Ether.

It was a warmth that a paladin would never forget in their lifetime, an excessively powerful force.

The moment Elise sensed the Crown falling from the sky, she immediately recognized that it was Yeseo’s energy.

There was no visible evidence anywhere, but she could feel it to the bone with only her five senses.

However, she had no intention of uttering the child’s existence in front of Wilhelmina Sneider, no matter what.

In fact, she had no plans to reveal this to anyone, including Grand Duke Judith Kamingha.

She still had some hope, and this time she was determined not to put the child in danger.

No matter what. Definitely.

“If you have nothing to report to me regarding the misappropriation of soldiers, what about the reconnaissance aircraft?”

Elise asked, gesturing behind her.

This time it was clearly a sign to ‘step back’.

Kuman quickly bowed and walked in the direction he had come with the soldiers.

It seemed that the news about Princess Cornelise would have to be delivered next time.

The nobles, who had been rolling their eyes and watching the Crown Princess and the Duke confront each other, bowed politely and turned away.

The Duke looked at the Crown Princess, who now knew how to change the subject right in front of her, with affectionate eyes.

Elise barely suppressed the urge to vomit.

“Excuse me, what reconnaissance aircraft······.”

“The Emperor of the Empire has formally protested a couple of times. Are you going to pretend you don’t know?”

‘You, of all the nobles?’ Then she tilted her head and raised her momentum even further.

Wilhelmina, confirming her sharp gaze like the tip of her spear, raised her index finger as if she had remembered something, ‘Ah.’

It was a very bright expression.

A leisurely and relaxed politician’s face, as if she had recalled a tea party appointment that she had pushed to the back of her mind.

“That’s right. I sent a few to check on the recent situation of the Imperial Army.”

Her lips parted in disbelief. This was something she had not heard even in the military conference.

It was half a probing act, but she really didn’t expect an answer to come back.

Even the fact that they were having this conversation only after the two of them were left alone was appalling.

“······Sent a few? Without my permission?”

Did this person really not know how dangerous and reckless that was?

Did she not know that she was driving tens of thousands, no, hundreds, thousands of lives off a cliff?

“Please forgive me generously, Your Highness. Everything was for Your Highness, the future sun. And for the victory and eternal prosperity of the Holy Nation.”

“Are you calling that an excuse now—”

“You will witness it soon.”

Flustered, the Crown Princess instinctively stiffened her shoulders at the gaze she met immediately.

The Duke’s voice contained the dignity that came from her years of experience.

However, that alone was not enough to explain the current sensation.

Elise read a strange madness in her dark and cold eyes.

She called the Emperor of the enemy a snake, but the Crown Princess thought that the Duke’s eyes were like those of a viper.

Sparks of misfortune flew up yellow from the fingertips holding the spear.

“And you will finally learn.”

“What.”

······What is it? What on earth is she hiding?

“That Your Highness’s world is still small and immature, and that my help and guidance are needed.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“Where do you believe you can go with those insignificant beings?”

“······.”

Wilhelmina gestured haughtily.

Elise knew that she was pointing to the soldiers who had moved away behind her.

However, not a single strand of her hair trembled.

Because she had no intention of moving as the Duke wanted.

“What can ignorant commoners and immature nobles possibly know? Those who do not deeply know the traditions and roots of the Holy Nation, what kind of help can they be in the long run? Just because those who follow Your Highness’s ideals can also reach the goal together.”

“It is because they do not know the bloody traditions and filthy roots of the Holy Nation that they are with me.”

Elise spat out each word as if warning. In an instant, Wilhelmina’s eyes widened.

However, it soon transformed into an expression of ‘understanding’.

The Crown Princess immediately recognized the meaning of that face.

It was nothing more or less than an attitude towards a niece in her adolescence who had become picky.

A look in her eyes that the young princess, who had gathered her own forces in a fierce battlefield in a short period of time and began to divide the noble political world, was very admirable.

The Cardinal felt a shame that surged like a flame.

“······You cannot dismiss me until the end of the war. You cannot do so because of my political power, authority, military power, and economic power. You will surely need me and my family even after the war is over.”

“No.”

“However, I will not try to forcefully win Your Highness’s heart.”

“······.”

Two pairs of eyes collided fiercely.

Elise glared at Wilhelmina with sapphire-like cold eyes as if to burn her.

“I will just show you. Not just with words, but with actions. What kind of service I can do for Your Highness, the Fire Wheel [a symbol of Elise’s power], and the future of the Holy Nation, and what kind of help I can be······.”

“······.”

“I will diligently demonstrate it.”

Wilhelmina, who finished the sentence in a soft voice, bowed again.

Then, she began to walk step by step in the opposite direction from the path Elise had taken.

The Crown Princess strongly gripped the spear that almost seemed to be stuck somewhere.

She did not usually feel the urge to harm others, but the provocation just now was so excessively rude and unpleasant that it was difficult to endure.

“Haa······.”

She almost spilled blood in front of the soldiers.

The blood of someone she could not handle right now.

-Whoosh······

“······.”

The Cardinal, who was watching her from the dark valley gap, met her eyes as she turned around, feeling the chilly wind.

Arno van Roy was moving his lips towards Elise.

‘I don’t even know this place.’

‘Prepare not to waver.’

“······.”

If it was such preparation, she could do it a hundred or a thousand times in the future.

Elise straightened her legs again and began to walk.

Her horse, which had been waiting quietly until now, shook its head and took a step.

Those who had been waiting for the Crown Princess from afar also showed bright expressions and moved their feet one by one.

-Step, step, step······

-Clatter, clatter, clatter······

“······.”

Elise looked down at the land of the Holy Path, where numerous footprints were slowly being engraved.

The lifeless dirt floor was turning blue.

*

When all the conversation was over, I became very excited.

I felt so good that my stomach was full and my whole body felt like it was floating (ambiguous meaning)!

“So, to summarize roughly.”

“Yes.”

“Sir Johann made a contract to borrow ‘part of the child’s power’ on the condition that he take Guggu to the widest sea in the world, the farthest away. In short, you cannot use all of the Four Dragon’s divine power.”

“Yes.”

“And Mr. Gain and the Crown Prince······.”

I barely pressed down on my twitching lips with my cheek muscles.

Our protagonist was staring blankly at me with a pale face.

“Are you now telepathic with each other?”

“······.”

Hehehe.

“Like you’ve made a covenant [a binding agreement]?”

“Ah! That’s not it!”

“Shut up.”