I Became the First Prince

Chapter 247

The Prince’s Virtue (3)

“Your Highness!”

“Put down your visor!”

After laughing aloud for a definite amount of time, I lowered my visor upon the suggestion of the knights.

‘Cheolkup!’

My wide field of vision quickly narrowed as a result of this. The scent of iron stabbed into my nose. The sound of hooves thundering over the earth echoed in my ears.

‘Waahhaaa!’

The skin tingled as I heard the wrathful roar of the centaurs.

“Meet them in their charge!”

My heart jumped madly in my breast as I heard the knights shouting out loud. I looked through the slit in my helm and stared at the fierce onrushing enemy.

The centaur clan’s hero was galloping at us with fierce, blue-blazing eyes. Meeting that extraordinary gaze, it felt as if a window had been turned upon my soul, as if something invisible was stabbing at my heart.

“Fwooo,” I exhaled a deep breath. The heat from my body was flowing up into my helmet. My face burned as if it had been seared away. The heat made my lips twitch; my eyes shook in their sockets. My entire body was informing me that I was now on the battlefield. All thoughts that filled my head gradually faded away.

The constriction that had beset my heart disappeared as if it was never there. I felt truly alive, and I stabilized my breath.

However, something was still lacking — my mouth was dry, and it felt like my throat was burning. And I knew all too well how to quench this thirst.

It was only once I broke the enemy’s body and scattered their blood upon the earth that my thirst would be slaked. A pair of knights interposed themselves before me. One of them was a woman in whose heart a battle-thirst has settled. She was like me, but our patience to endure our deprivations was not the same.

She was Adelia, a butcher and war maniac. Facing a centaur of great power, she raised her sword, and a golden cloak of energy gathered over it.

Looking at the charging foe, I kicked my horse straight in its flanks.

I wasn’t going to let someone sink their sword into the dinner that has been prepared for me. I gripped Twilight and stopped talking. Then, finally, the centaurs’ dim faces came into view; I could see the veins protruding from their coppery upper bodies clearly.

‘‘Silent are the snowy peaks and the blood-drenched walls’’

‘‘Only our horns of war are heard, for a new day dawns into which we advance!’’

I began reciting war poems.

‘‘The birds who’ve flown back along the road the wind passed by return’’

‘‘The fortress once exposed to cold and snow now wakes and stretches.’’

I sang of the spring that has come to the Winter Knights.

‘Wooow!’

The magnificent energy wave of one hundred knights spread all over the area.

‘Hwaak!’

Their martial spirit soared. They had greater battle lust and fighting spirit, and their collective energy sharpened like a sword.

I gathered the momentum that was raging out in all directions.

‘Woow!’

The flames of my true spirit swept along the edge of my sword and began burning with great intensity. Holding a sword of infernal flame, I kept on charging.

Then, when the Centaur Prince’s vague features became clear, I let go of the reigns and gripped Twilight in both hands.

“Bfaa,” I took short breaths as I pointed my sword out at an angle. In the next instant, I gave a swift, downward jab.

‘Hooah!’ The Centaur Prince cried, clutching his neck.

‘Hwaaohoah!’ The centaurs charging in roared as they split their force in two.

“The enemy is trying to flank us!”

“Knights on the wings, ready for collision!”

The knights roared as they readied themselves.

However, the expected flanking maneuver did not occur. The centaurs charged past their fallen allies.

“Fire!” A ranger yelled.

‘Sasasasak,’ the sound of crossbow bolts piercing through flesh was heard one instant later. I twisted my waist, looking behind me. The centaurs were struggling to close on the rangers. When the distance shortened, the Balahard Rangers put aside their crossbows and drew shortswords from the calf-skin sheaths buckled to their waists.

“If you want somewhere to aim at, start with their legs!”

Veteran rangers took the lead as they readied their shortswords before them.

Seeing that, I leaned into my horse’s flanks. I was going to make a wide turn and hit into the rear of the centaurs. But there was no opportunity; the centaurs flanked the rangers, avoiding the crossbow bolts where they could — with not one of them throwing the javelins that they held.

“Huh?”

I studied the centaurs as I charged after them. They galloped for a long time without looking back until they finally reeled around as they came to a halt. They fixed the long tips of their lances forward, and there was no mistaking their intent of defending themselves.

‘Fuwook!’

In the next instant, the Centaur Prince stepped forward and drove the point of his spear deep into the ground. He stood before me, unarmed, both arms spread wide open.

“… !” He spoke in a guttural, stuttering language. His voice was very hoarse and his pronunciation messy. It was not easy to understand what he said.

“… …! Bavaria… Knight!”

seeing that the centaur was shocked by the sudden changing of the situation. Hearing my question, he again began to speak to me in his broken dialect. This time around, I understood what he was trying to say.

“I didn’t know this has no intention of claiming this land! I hope you don’t treat our presence wrongly!”

“The land of

“Yes!” The centaur shouted in a thunderous voice, then quickly spouted more words. He now spoke quickly in some crude semblance of human language, so I again struggled to understand what he was talking about.

If there was one thing that was made very clear, though, it was that he had no will to continue the fight. And this came when the battle-lust within me still raged, and while my Aura Blade was still shimmering and blazing.

I was about to catch fire, but there would be nothing for me to burn. My stomach cramped. I wanted to charge into the Centaur Prince right away.

Even at this moment, the heroic energies that swirled around me urged me into battle. However, I was forced to sheathe Twilight. I couldn’t rush at an opponent who showed no hostile intent.

“Damn. I guess this is how the hell it works.”

With a heart full of displeasure, I reigned my horse in, making it kick up dust.

* * *

Since then, the Centaur Prince spoke all the time.

His pronunciation was distorted, and it was painful to listen to a being who could not even properly structure sentences. Worse still, he always spoke in a loud, bellowing voice, as if he had swallowed thunder.

If he kept yelling like that, I knew my eardrums would soon burst. Still, despite the crude language and bestial noises, I was able to gain a rough idea of the situation. First of all, his name was Europe, and as I had expected, he was the Prince of the Centaurs — and he was confused.

“So, we followed the direction of the slaughter … !”

“We lost the trail and began wandering around.”

Europe told me they moved, trying to figure out the situation somehow, but in the end, they saw only castles and cities strange to them. Europe didn’t even know where they were; he didn’t know that it was centuries after the Great War.

“Please, speak softer, slower. Anyway, let’s sort this out: While you were fighting with warriors that were like wizards and knights, the world suddenly turned upside down, completely disorganizing your minds. When you woke up, you thought we were the enemy, but just when you were about to attack, and realized that it was a misunderstanding.”

“That’s right!” Europe confirmed with a uselessly loud shout. If I engaged in further conversation with him, nothing would remain of my eardrums — but their well-being didn’t matter now. I had a brief summary of the situation, going off of the conversations I had with Europe.

First off, it was not difficult to determine the identity of the foe who had attacked the centaurs. They were neither full wizards nor full knights, said Europe, so they must be Ring Knights.

After waking up from my four-hundred years of sleep, I also experienced the Ring Knights like Europe described them now, so his attitude wasn’t strange.

The question now was who among the Ring Knights attacked the centaurs, and for what reason?

The centaurs were one of few races, dwarves included, who were not hostile or hateful toward humans. There was no reason to fight with any centaurs that might remain in the world.

Historically, the centaurs never claimed mass swathes of land. They were a tribe who wandered the world like the wind, and they never coveted valuable items.

Besides, it wasn’t easy to face them in battle, so there was nothing to gain and much to lose by attacking centaurs.

After thinking about it repeatedly, I found the answer I could deem right.

“Burgundy.”

The answer lay in Europe’s rambling explanation. The clothing of the knights he described matched the uniform of the Burgundy Empire.

But that only answered the smallest of the questions that now demanded to be answered.

“When he opened his eyes, it was a strange world…”

The most incomprehensible question of them all was the appearance of the centaurs; it was as if they had fallen from the sky.

It was as if time and space were fragmented and then pasted together again.

The centaurs weren’t even the first beings I’ve seen do this.

The fire dragon had returned just as suddenly as the centaurs; even the Overlord had suddenly appeared in front of me, skipping hundreds of years in the process.

However, no matter how much I worried about it, there was no answer. I decided to take action instead.

“Come with me at once.”

Europe didn’t turn down my offer. Right now, he needed time to adjust to a strange world, so it was natural for me to guide him in a way.

However, despite showing him such favor, he expressed his gratitude to the wrong entity.

“Thank you for your good faith, Bavarian Knight!”

Adelia glanced at me, and I gave her unspoken permission.

lands,” she said with a disgusted face as if Europe had committed a great disrespect. At this, Centaur Prince’s eyes widened.

“Welcome to Leonberg, sons and daughters of the storm,” I welcomed them, seeing Europe’s confusion.

“A lot of time has passed.”

I raised my hand before Europe could speak in his thunderous voice again.

“We’ll have to hurry before Count Brandenburg becomes concerned and sends out a search team.”

To be honest, the true reason for my haste was that I didn’t want to wander across this cold, windy plain anymore. I didn’t want to sit here waiting for a search team to find us. But, of course, I had no intention of explaining this to others.

“Arrange yourselves! We set off to the count!”

While the knights hurriedly prepared for departure, the rangers scurried around, picking up their bolts from the snow.

“I’m not sending Vincent. I’m going there,” I muttered to myself as I looked at the hustle and bustle. And if things had worked out a little differently, I could’ve been wielding my sword right now. As I continued muttering, I saw Carls shake his head.

I’m not sure why, but I rode to Brandenburg’s castle with slumped shoulders.

After two day’s marching, we reached the castle. I entered it, accompanied only by Europe and some centaurs.

“Your Highness. What the hell is all this about? Are these-”

Count Brandenburg glanced at the centaurs who had entered the castle with me.

I had sent a ranger ahead of us to explain the general situation, but the count seemed to want to hear a detailed explanation directly from me.

“Someone else will explain it. I need to rest.”

Having already lost all motivation for explanations, I left the job of delivering reports to others and headed straight to my lodgings.

I closed the door and went straight to bed. An unknown sense of incongruity ran through my body. I opened my eyes and quickly glanced around the royal suite that the count had specially prepared for me. My eyes suddenly found a corner of the room steeped in unnaturally deep darkness. I drew Twilight.

“Come out.”

There was no answer.

“If you don’t come out, I’ll have to drag you out.” With this, I pointed my sword at the darkness.

At that very moment, the darkness shimmered, and a pale face popped from it.

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