“If you wish, I’ll put in a request at the Second Prince’s palace, but it will be difficult for Duke Kaidel to accept.”

“Who doesn’t know that? That’s why I’m asking you, who has a relationship with him.”

“As I said, I can’t personally do anything about it.”

“And yet you wear his medal?”

I felt caught in the crossfire between Duke Rocard Kaidel and Princess Miliora.

So, for a moment, I was agitated.

“If Your Highness had given me the medal, this would not have happened.”

“Ha! You call that an answer?”

Princess Miliora flinched, gripping the armrests of her chair, leaning forward.

But to personally ask Duke Kaidel a favor, I couldn’t back down now either.

“If you give me the medal, I’ll return this one to Duke Kaidel, Your Highness. Then the problem is solved. I won’t have any future dealings with him.”

“So, by returning it, you mean to bring him to my tea party, which is the issue?”

What to do? I want to slap Her Highness.

I controlled my breathing to suppress my agitation.

“As I said, I can’t do it.”

Miliora stared intently at me.

Then she rose, took a small box from her desk drawer, and pushed it toward the edge of the table.

I caught it before it fell and opened it.

Inside was the servant’s medal that she should have given me.

Sigh…

Miliora smirked and turned away from me.

I picked up the box and walked out, heavy-footed. Now I had to return the medal to Duke Kaidel.

Easier said than done.

Today, the sky felt unbearably high.

Miliora’s arrogant laughter dispersed like mist.

As the maid left, Miliora Tagar leaned back wearily against the sofa armrest.

Melancholy, loneliness, and a sense of defeat weighed her down.

‘How much that arrogant bastard must have looked down on me…’

A competition, what madness.

She knew she had nothing.

Neither the support of her powerful mother, the Empress, for the firstborn, nor the bravery of the second son, who seemed to have gained wings by obtaining a young lion, belonged to her.

In the long history of the continent, the number of times the Empire had won at the Toonbar Mountains could be counted on one hand.
When the Empire decided on the battle of Amata, the commander was destined to be either a war hero or a defeated general.

However, Greyan did not utter a single complaint when ordered to go to war in place of Orul.

He simply stepped in front of the Emperor and demanded with madly swirling eyes.

“Do not determine the Crown Prince until I return.”

That was the sole condition he set before leading the army to the Tunbar Mountains.

Now the man who returned alive from there was not the Second Prince, who had quietly sought survival in the shadow of his eldest son. He was a dignified guardian of the Empire.

He had earned the right to compete for the position of Crown Prince, risking everything against his brother.

The reason the Emperor had not decided on a Crown Prince long ago stemmed from his own past.

In his youth, when he was the Crown Prince, powerful nobles engaged in a terrible underground competition to catch his young eye.

Those pushed out from that competition dispersed to the sides of other imperial children, each cultivating their own power.

In the influence of stubborn nobles, the imperial children saw each other as enemies, not realizing they were pawns in the nobles’ chess game.

And that tight competitive structure ended in enormous tragedy. That was the history of the royal lineage.

The Emperor wanted his children to compete solely on their own merit, and the nobles who had witnessed the cruel purges he had initiated did not dare approach the imperial children carelessly.

And now, the Emperor shattered the peace within the royal family that he had artificially maintained. The name was competition.

They were now driven into the arena.

Greyan, who returned alive from the battlefield, and Orul, who had always been the most beloved son. The two began a fight, risking everything.

But why must I be caught in the middle of it all?