"Ugh…."

Alex couldn’t help but groan as the searing pain from the stump of his right shoulder coursed through him.

Thankfully, the healing potion had stopped the bleeding and prevented the wound from getting worse.

However, no matter how potent a healing potion was, it couldn’t regenerate a lost limb.

If it had been merely severed, they might have been able to reattach it with the help of a high-ranking priest. But his right arm had been torn to pieces and swallowed by the tunnel snake.

"Your Highness… please… kill me!!!"

Cross and the royal guards wept bitterly as they looked at Alex.

Alex tried to raise his hand to signal that he was alright, but his right hand didn’t respond at all.

It was a harsh reminder that his arm was truly gone.

"It’s alright. I’m still alive."

"It is a sin we cannot repay, even in death, for failing to protect the Crown Prince, the future of the Empire!"

Cross slammed his head into the ground as if it were a hammer.

The ground, now stained with Cross’s blood—something even the tunnel snake couldn’t achieve—made Alex chuckle bitterly.

"If you keep that up, the soldiers you saved might faint from fear."

—Are you going to waste my right arm like that?

Just as Alex said, the foreheads of the soldiers he had saved remained glued to the ground.

Their bodies trembled like leaves in the wind, and they mumbled like they were chanting a spell.

"Please kill us… because of us, the Crown Prince…."

The fact that the body of the Empire’s Crown Prince had been injured, or rather, lost his arm while protecting them, filled the soldiers with terror. They couldn’t stop their tears.

Alex looked at the youngest soldier among them and reflected on why he had acted the way he did.

Oddly enough, there wasn’t much of a reason.

He remembered a line from a manga he had read, where the protagonist spoke to a girl who wanted to bring her dead lover back to life.

『Stand up and walk. You still have two strong legs, don’t you?』

Tragedy is blind.

It finds everyone, whether big or small, and how one deals with it is up to them. Alex had realized that only recently.

That’s why he couldn’t give up on the soldiers before him.

These were people who would have been living peaceful lives in their respective lands, spending warm evenings with their families after work, had he not summoned them.

If he had abandoned them, saying he had no choice, he wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself.

A missing right arm?

It would be a lie to say it wasn’t unfortunate. But he didn’t regret his choice.

He would choose differently from his father, the Emperor. Instead of sacrificing those before him for profit or efficiency, he wanted to embrace them.

"Your Highness!!!"

At that moment, Yustaf and his team, who had gone to investigate the enemy’s base, returned as the tunnel snake’s attack was being brought under control.

The moment they saw Alex’s condition, they were shocked and horrified, but Alex quickly calmed them down and received their report.

After hearing about the enemy’s identity and their plans, Alex instructed those who remained to secure evidence and ensure that not a single one of the remnants escaped.

"Your Highness… Please leave the remaining tasks to us and return to the palace."

"Yes, it’s time to go. There’s no point in an armless Crown Prince staying here any longer."

"I didn’t mean it that way…!"

"I’m joking. But there’s one more place I need to visit."

Before returning to the palace, Alex suddenly remembered a little girl.

A somewhat dirty but undeniably cute girl.

And the boy, who had fought alone to protect his sister, who reminded Alex of himself.

He wanted to tell them not to worry now that the threat had passed.

Once he returned to the palace, all hell would break loose, and he wouldn’t have time. He had to meet them now.

"I hear the author has collapsed. It’s quite concerning."

In a carriage drawn by two white horses, whose color was so pure it evoked a sense of innocence, sat a person who ranked among the top five most important figures in the Empire.

"Saintess, perhaps it would be better to visit another time?"

"No, I believe this is all part of the goddess’s plan. There may be something I can do to help."

The bishop, who had accompanied the saintess, was surprised by her response.

Her words suggested that she intended to personally heal the author.

For the author, this would be a stroke of incredible luck.

The saintess was known for praying for those she encountered, regardless of their status. As a result, even beggars in the slums could receive her blessing, while the royal family might not, depending on her availability.

Sometimes, nobles would come to the church with generous donations, begging for just one blessing from the saintess, only to return empty-handed.

Rupert Somerset, then, was truly fortunate.

‘Though some parts of his work have seemed heretical at times, overall, it’s been quite appropriate.’

The bishop had mixed feelings about Rupert.

While his children’s book and his first manga, The Kingdom of Ice, were excellent works, his recent work, The Iron-Blooded Alchemist, which had sparked a craze across the Empire, felt somewhat heretical.

‘The Gate of Heaven, huh.’

The depiction of the Gate of Heaven in the book, which promised to bestow all the world’s knowledge and wisdom upon the protagonist, was troubling.

It seemed to describe an omniscient and omnipotent being, which made the bishop uneasy.

In this world, only the goddess and the unspeakably dreadful Demon God were recognized as deities.

But the entity guarding the Gate of Heaven seemed more like the Demon God than the goddess.

However, when he recalled The Dog of Flanders, he thought that perhaps Rupert wasn’t a heretic after all.

The beautiful sacred art in that work was so gracious that it couldn’t possibly have been created by a heretic.

As the bishop was lost in these thoughts, the saintess, seemingly unaware of his concerns, looked out the window and murmured softly.

"Edmund Elric, Roy Mustang. Indeed, their combination is the best…."

"William, it’s time for you to get married."

A rare scene unfolded in the grand dining hall of the Imperial Palace, with only three people present at the table.

Due to the Emperor’s strict order that everyone must gather for meals, there were usually six seats at the table.

However, the Crown Prince was away on a mission, and both the princess and the third prince had reported that they were occupied with other matters and had left the palace, leaving only the Emperor, the Empress, and the Second Prince at the table.

William, the Second Prince, who already felt uneasy dining alone with his parents, was so startled by the sudden mention of marriage that he spat out the water he was drinking.

"Marriage?"

"Yes, you’ve been over twenty for quite some time now. If anything, you’re late."

The Emperor’s words seemed reasonable at first glance.

But William, despite his public image, was a sharp individual.

He understood the true meaning behind his father’s talk of marriage.

‘So, he’s trying to reignite the succession dispute, is he?’

The fact that his father was urging him to marry, even though his elder brother, the Crown Prince, had not yet found a new fiancée after his broken engagement, meant that the Emperor intended to pit them against each other.

Until now, his father had deliberately kept him unmarried, likely to avoid complications in the succession if William were to gain the support of his wife’s family.

‘Damn it, brother. Why couldn’t you just stay in line?’

William resented his elder brother, who kept acting on his whims, despite William’s attempts to play the role of a playboy to avoid attention.

He had almost fainted when he heard that his brother had wagered his position as Crown Prince on some ridiculous bet.

Though he wasn’t particularly close to his brother, and despite their awkward relationship, William had no desire to take the Crown Prince’s place, so he had been trying to stay out of the way.

"Is it really necessary to rush this? Wouldn’t it be better to find a match for the Crown Prince first…?"

"I’ll take care of that. You just need to do as I say."

"…Yes, understood."

There was no point in arguing further. His father was a cold-blooded man who never reversed a decision once made.

‘Sigh… Maybe I should just dump all this on the third brother.’

In William’s view, neither his elder brother nor he was fit to be Emperor.

His sister Iolyn was even less interested in the throne than they were, so she was out of the question.

That left the third prince as the best candidate to inherit the throne.

He was well-regarded by the public, and though he didn’t have the skills needed to be an Emperor, he was talented in swordsmanship, a talent highly praised by the swordmasters.

‘But it’s strange that both Iolyn and Edric are absent. I wonder what’s going on….’

The two of them were usually quiet and kept close to the palace, so their simultaneous absence felt unusual.

William decided to find out where they had gone later as he continued the awkward meal.

"Amelia…."

"It’s no use trying to stop me, Father."

The Bluewell Duchy was in an uproar from early morning.

The commotion was caused by the duchy’s eldest daughter, Amelia, who had declared her intention to visit the Somerset County.

Since morning, she had been busy packing ingredients, saying she would prepare a nutritious meal for the patient, causing the entire household staff to be on edge.

‘Would you like to taste this?’

Amelia would sometimes ask others to taste her cooking to check the seasoning.

As a result, it had become a trend among the staff to avoid the kitchen whenever she was cooking.

"My point is…."

"I know! I know I shouldn’t visit, but please let me do this just this once."

—After all, it’s just a fleeting emotion, like a flower that blooms and withers quickly.

Amelia’s cryptic words, accompanied by teary eyes as she covered her mouth with her hand and looked up at the sky, made her look like a tragic heroine straight out of a romance manga.

But to Duke Bluewell, her father, it was a source of great concern.

‘Please, just don’t cook for him yourself!’

At this point, the Duke was less worried about the rumors that might spread from Amelia visiting the Somerset estate.

When Amelia announced that she was packing cooking ingredients to visit Rupert Somerset, who had reportedly collapsed, Duke Bluewell, who had often been a victim of her cooking, actually felt some pity for Rupert, despite their strained relationship.

The Duke tried to dissuade her, but Amelia cut him off and continued to soliloquize like she was performing a monologue.

In the end, he could only watch helplessly as his daughter left.

‘If the Earl were to declare war on us, he would be justified.’

If someone had fed him Amelia’s cooking while he was ill, the Duke would have felt justified in declaring war.

It wasn’t a joke; he was genuinely worried.

All he could do was hope that Rupert somehow survived Amelia’s healing meal.

‘Just stay alive. I’ll find a way to repay you.’