Chapter 33
Akion somehow managed to soothe and send off his fiancée, who might not have been lovable… but was certainly pretty.
“A wife thirty-one years older is a bit much. It’s too realistic….”
“Mm-hmm. As expected, there needs to be an age gap of over a thousand years, like yours truly─.”
“Elder.”
- CLANG!
While even handing her the emergency electric heater he had stocked away, Akion unleashed his silver tongue,
Aisirel’s face turned bright red, and she went home on her own.
“It’s being foxy, foxy.”
“Big Sis Aisirel? For her to be foxy, she’s really….”
And so, rumors spread all over the County of Enersis.
“Young Master is a fox!!”
“Wh-What?!”
Apparently, Akion had sent Aisirel home with his dazzling verbal skills in front of everyone!
It wasn’t entirely wrong.
It was just heavily distorted…!
“Even the Seventh Princess’s chief lady-in-waiting was smiling when she left…! Young Master must have incubus blood flowing through his veins!!”
“What kind of dogshit are you spouting, you mutt?”
Akion resorted to a dog-related curse after Goldie came out with such nonsense for the first time in a while.
That was how absurd it was. What the hell had he done that was foxy?!
“Hmm. Come to think of it, my dragon heart has been pounding whenever I see Akion lately too. Perhaps─.”
“That’s, uh… Sigh. It’s hard to pull rank with age when the Tower Master is so pretty and healthy… Huh? What’s wrong? Why are you embarrassed?”
“Eek, Young Master. How did you notice the Tower Master was embarrassed before Goldie did…?”
“This sort of sensitivity is what being foxy means!!!”
How was that foxy? It was just concern for a colleague. It was camaraderie.
As he soothed the Tower Master, Akion resolved to shake off this false reputation.
* * *
Though he had coaxed and comforted his fiancée, an even greater matter had descended upon the Empire, including Enersis.
“What does someone like me, the youngest son who even gave up his right to inherit the title, need to be there for….”
“Ahem, Akion. There are many people around even if this isn’t an official occasion. Watch what you say.”
The Millennial Founding Festival!
It had been exactly one thousand years since the Khalid Empire was founded,
and the imperial family wanted to hold a founding festival during the harvest season to commemorate the occasion.
And so Akion, too, was dragged to the capital because of the founding festival….
“And the incandescent lights are thanks to you, aren’t they? If the person who contributed isn’t present, wouldn’t that be an insult to the imperial family?”
“What kind of crime is that? More importantly, do you know how hard it was to meet the deadline? Several workshop masters nearly collapsed for real….”
Unlike the usual founding festivals held every five years, the imperial family wanted this one to be grand and magnificent.
They wanted everything from the banquet hall to the streets to sparkle.
“It has three imperial seals stamped on it….”
“Hoho. Even I broke out in a cold sweat when I received it.”
Around the time it seemed the princess must have finally gotten to try the hair dryer,
an order bearing no fewer than three imperial seals arrived at Enersis, delivered by a special transport team that had mobilized even the imperial mages.
One was from the Seventh Princess from last time, and the second was from the Crown Prince, who had been connected to Juan Enersis.
The last one was…
“Why did His Majesty stamp his seal on it? I heard they replaced the lighting with magic every founding festival.”
“I don’t know either. Perhaps His Majesty liked the incandescent lights.”
It was the seal of the Emperor,
the ruler of the Khalid Empire and the greatest sovereign on the continent of Ilias.
For the record, Delphord also had the fright of his life when he received it.
He wondered whether even an imperial edict had to be quite so imperious.
“Still, thanks to that, we managed to meet the deadline somehow.”
“If you hadn’t paid the artisans generously, they all would have deserted.”
“Hoho, yes, yes.”
Of course, it helped that the imperial family, more prosperous than ever before, had opened its treasury and showered them with money.
Before heading to the capital, Akion thought of the artisans who had assembled everything and gone to sleep as late as dawn on the day they left.
In truth, even if you handed someone a mountain of money, they would still desert if the work was too difficult….
Akion could only be grateful to the workshop employees who trusted him and followed him.
“Here, over here!”
“This way, Father, Akion.”
The other Enersis family members had come to the capital ahead of them to coordinate the schedule.
Countess Lucretia, Akion’s eldest brother Juan, and his third older sister Hermione were waiting in front of the banquet hall.
“Yes. Nothing unusual happened?”
“Nothing besides asking after Father.”
“It seems to be something only Father can discuss in person.”
“Hmm. You’ve both worked hard. And you, dear?”
“Hoho, I went around promoting Akion’s magic tools.”
“Why would you do that?”
If this had been before, they would never have been able to see the family living and suffering together like this.
Could this be the happiness Delphord had lost, created thanks to the son he had considered incompetent?
‘I have to create a stage for Akion.’
That was why he had brought Akion to the Millennial Founding Festival.
Whether Akion was holed up in some corner of his workshop or not, his social reputation and connections would help him someday.
Even the Seventh Princess’s seal on the order for the incandescent lights had probably been meant to lend him support, thanks to the favor he had done her.
- ♪~♬
“Let’s go.”
“Yes!”
Hoping that Akion would forge meaningful relationships,
he led his family into the banquet hall.
*
As always, two members of the Imperial Knights stood guard at the banquet hall entrance.
There were only two situations in which they would move.
One was to respond to an emergency.
The other, a perfectly ordinary one, was…
- BANG BANG!!
“Someone seems to be coming.”
“I saw the Enersis people leave a moment ago… Could it be them?”
When a great family entered—one grand enough to focus everyone’s attention by pounding their scabbards and spears into the floor.
“I announce! These are the descendants of the pioneers who laid the foundations of the Empire alongside the First Hero, yet declined a noble position of their own accord to prove their loyalty to the imperial throne!”
“The distinguished house that has wholly inherited, across a thousand years, the honor and incorruptible spirit of the great mage Elena Enersis! At the founding of the Empire, she refused a duke’s coronet and remained a count, placing only the safety of the Empire and the peace of the imperial authority above all else!”
Aside from the Empire’s five ducal houses, the only family mentioned like this was the County of Enersis.
Some people wondered why they had never been elevated to marquises, but…
They said they were moved whenever they heard the words left behind by the first Enersis, Elena.
“When a vassal holds too much power, the foundations of the nation tremble. Then the people suffer. Therefore, I… am satisfied with a count’s title.”
Elena Enersis had given up the rank of duke for the sake of the nation’s peace.
Thanks to her, it became a virtue that every noble of the Khalid Empire was expected to uphold.
No one actually does anymore, though. Anyway.
“His Excellency Count Delphord Enersis, Countess Lucretia, and the family who shall inherit their noble ideals are entering! Everyone, show them the proper respect!”
- Ta-da-daaa~!!
To the booming music of the orchestra, the Enersis family entered, all silver-haired except for the purple-haired countess.
“Good heavens. Every one of them… Oh, right, the second son didn’t come out again?”
“More importantly, the young man stuck right behind the count is… Wait. I recognize Young Master Juan and Young Lady Hermione, but I’ve never seen that young man before.”
“Could that be Akion Enersis?”
The Empire’s great family of archmages.
“I heard he made that chandelier on the ceiling of this banquet hall with his siblings.”
“The inventor of the incandescent lights has come to the banquet hall. This is our chance! Let’s ask him to make one for us too.”
…Or rather, Enersis had now become famous as the family that developed incandescent lights.
“Wow. You made it well.”
“Hmph. You finally no longer doubt this elder brother’s skill. Good. If I regain the position of head of the family, I’ll remember this and forgive you.”
And that magnificent chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the banquet hall was a masterpiece Akion and his siblings had completed amid blood, sweat, and tears.
Juan Enersis’s sculpting, Hermione’s glass bulb manufacturing, and Akion’s final assembly!
For the record, they finished it five hours before leaving for the capital. Then all three of them promptly fell asleep in the carriage.
“Yes, Sis.”
“Akion, you little…!”
“Ah, Sis. Don’t scold your youngest brother like that~!”
“I’ll deal with you later….”
As the contributors to that masterpiece followed the count inside, everyone’s eyes were naturally drawn to them.
Thus, the members of Enersis crossed the hall….
- Thump.
The highest place in the banquet hall, practically the seat of honor.
They went before it and knelt before the rulers of the Empire.
“For the eternal prosperity of the Empire, Enersis pays its respects.”
While the countess and Hermione lifted the hems of their skirts, Akion, being a man, had to kneel.
‘My knees hurt… Should I develop something like knee pads someday?’
As he was spinning nothing but thoughts of engineering through his head,
“Raise your head.”
‘Ghk…?!’
A solemn voice filled the enormous banquet hall.
Along with the sensation of his body trembling, Akion felt something in the power contained in that voice that reminded him of the Tower Master.
“Rise. Count Enersis. With a cornerstone of the Empire standing guard, the moonlight of this founding festival shines brighter than usual.”
“I am at a loss for words before Your Majesty’s excessive praise.”
The red-haired Emperor’s face, which Akion had seen only in portraits, looked younger than he had expected.
As far as Akion knew, the Emperor was in his fifties or so. Yet he looked barely into his forties.
“The ducal seat your ancestor declined is still waiting for its master, even after a thousand years. Count Enersis?”
“The name of Count is already far more than our Enersis family deserves.”
Delphord had explained this exchange to him, saying it was the usual WWE.
The imperial family apologized for Elena Enersis’s refusal of the ducal title,
while Enersis responded, ‘Oh, just put it away. You’ll make us do troublesome work if you give it to us.’
‘It’s complicated. So complicated.’
Apparently, this was how the Emperor lent his support to Enersis… though after the recent Gojachev incident, Akion’s feelings remained decidedly mixed.
“And you are Delphord’s youngest… Akion Enersis?”
‘Gasp?!’
Akion had not expected the next question to be directed at him.
He nearly answered, “Yes?” by mistake, but bit down hard on his tongue and somehow got through it.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Akion Enersis pays his respects.”
“Hmm. I see.”
It was thanks to the etiquette drilled into him by everyone from the chief steward to the countess.
The countess, who had been watching from the side, secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
“I heard that you presented the Seventh Princess with a magic tool called a hair dryer.”
- Clatter! Step, step.
But why was the Emperor getting up, coming down, and trying to stand right in front of Akion?!
Countess Lucretia felt as though her lifespan were being shaved away.
“Flare smiled. It had been a very long time since I’d seen her so happy as she stroked that once-silky hair of hers.”
Then, all at once, the people in the banquet hall who still had parental affection left in them realized it.
What filled the Emperor’s eyes was a father’s love.
- Tap.
“That strange magic tool you created felt more precious to me than any magic in existence.”
“Gasp…?!”
And then he even placed a hand on Akion’s shoulder.
The countess, Hermione, and even Juan were shocked enough to inhale sharply.
That was an unmistakable commendation! Perhaps…!
“Akion Enersis. You restored the light to the Empire’s Seventh Blessing, and you restored to me the joy of being a father. I look forward to seeing what next miracle you will unfold beneath the name of Enersis….”
- Snap!
“But first, I ought to commend you for your achievement.”
As the Emperor snapped his fingers, an imperial attendant brought over two sheets of fine parchment covered in writing.
“Akion Enersis. I am convinced that your magi-engineering is the key to changing the future of the Empire. Therefore, here today, I wish to grant you two rights.”
On the first sheet of parchment, which the Emperor spread open wide,
“Imperial Decree No. 1037, Exclusive Rights and Freedom of Enterprise Concerning Magi-Engineering Inventions. In the name of the Emperor, the Khalid Imperial Family hereby permanently guarantees the intellectual property rights to all magi-engineering devices and designs conceived by Akion Enersis of the House of Enersis. Furthermore, in the manufacture and distribution of said devices, he is hereby authorized to exercise independent business rights without interference from any family or organization.”
“Wh-What?!”
Copyright had been granted to every engineering product Akion created.
At the same time, no one could interfere with Enersis’s distribution of those engineering products.
From now on, anyone who wanted to make something similar in another domain would have to obtain Akion’s permission—and might even have to pay royalties.
On top of that, Enersis had effectively gained a monopoly on distribution.
The great nobles and merchant guilds would have to curry favor with Enersis.
“Th-Thank you. Your Majesty’s grace is boundless.”
The Emperor smiled warmly as he watched the flustered Akion receive the parchment.
His features were more beautiful and resembled his mother’s more than Delphord’s, so he seemed like a good match for Flare.
Brushing aside that stray thought, the Emperor immediately unfolded the second parchment.
“Guaranteeing your rights alone would not be enough, would it?”
“Yes?”
At this point, Akion made a mistake.
But no one pointed it out.
Because it was understandable that he would be flustered. This wasn’t the end.
“Imperial Decree No. 1038, Imperial Support and Special Budget Allocation Directly under the Imperial Family for the Promotion of Magi-Engineering. Magi-engineering research conducted by Akion Enersis shall be regarded as a national policy project of the Empire. Accordingly, the Imperial Central Bank shall cover part of Akion Enersis’s research expenses each quarter. Furthermore, priority for mining rights at the numerous mines directly under the imperial family shall be granted to the House of Enersis.”
“What?!”
“Th-The Central Bank is directly funding him?!”
“Even priority mining rights─?!”
It was the Emperor’s bold support, granted after recognizing the potential of magi-engineering.
From this point onward, Akion’s workshop was practically a government-funded research institute.
Akion, Count Delphord, the countess, and his siblings,
along with the nobles in the banquet hall, could not hide their shock even in the Emperor’s presence.
“Youngest son of Count Enersis. I am certain that the magi-engineering you have demonstrated will bring a brilliant future to the Empire. Therefore, devote yourself solely to your research from now on.”
“Th-th-th-thank you, Y-Your Majesty! Your grace is boundless─!!”
Akion was so happy he felt like crying.
‘I used to write hundreds of pages of proposals every time, only to be torn apart by the reviewers─!!’
In his previous life, the reviewers had rejected his research proposals over and over, saying this wouldn’t work and that wouldn’t work.
This time, the head of state had directly decreed, ‘Give this man your full support.’
Thus, Akion accepted the two parchments with trembling hands,
“Come to the imperial palace once the banquet is over.”
“Gasp.”
Thanks to the Emperor whispering, ‘Come see me for a moment,’ Akion nearly fainted on the spot.