The Child

After hearing my introduction, Rupert continued to regard me with suspicion.

Seeing Rupert like that, Alois tried to smooth things over.

"Prince Rupert, Grau is an exceptionally talented strategist who fought alongside me against ten thousand Imperial soldiers. We only won because Grau was there!"

"Being impressive and being trustworthy are two different things! Unless you show me your face, I won't trust you!"

With that, Rupert continued clinging to the bed without making any attempt to move.

Alois must have already explained the situation to him.

"Prince Rupert, please trust me. I will protect you!"

"Alois, you're twelve years old, aren't you!? You're hardly any older than me, so how can you protect me!? It's safer to stay in this room!"

"Age has nothing to do with it. As an Imperial noble, I will protect you. There are also knights who will fight alongside me."

With that, Alois looked at the knights in the room.

There were five of them. They were all knights of the House of Count Jimmel who had fought alongside Alois against the Imperial Army.

"There are only five of you!? Our opponent is Big Brother Gordon, you know!? The generals around him have gathered plenty of skilled fighters! They're coming to seize the castle, so I don't want to go outside with so few people!!"

Rupert stubbornly insisted on staying in the room.

It was an argument based on the wishful thinking of a child.

"Prince Rupert, holding out in a siege without reinforcements is a foolish strategy. Do you have any reinforcements to rely on?"

"F-Father will surely come to help me! And even if he doesn't, there are Imperial Guards in the castle! They'll definitely come!"

"I see. Then stay in this room by yourself. I'll tell Prince Arnold that."

"What...?"

With that dismissive remark, I turned to leave the room.

Alois stopped me.

"W-Wait, Grau!"

"If you're going to stay in this room, we can't act together. Move quickly. The more time passes, the more of the castle will fall under the enemy's control."

"I understand that. But we can't leave Prince Rupert behind."

"How valuable is a prince who says he can rely on his room rather than us?"

"He is Prince Arnold's younger brother. That alone makes him valuable to me. The House of Count Jimmel never forgets a debt. Since he asked me to protect Prince Rupert, I will not leave his side until the day I die."

"...So that's what he says, Prince Rupert. Must be nice, having people willing to risk their lives for you while you do nothing but cling to your bed and cry."

"I-I never asked him to... Big Brother Arnold did it on his own..."

"You seem to have the wrong idea, so let me correct it. Prince Arnold didn't send guards to you because he cares about you. Your mother desperately begged that spent prince to save you, telling him that she didn't care what happened to her as long as you were saved. Rather than assign guards to his own mother, Prince Arnold chose to send Alois to you. If you don't understand what that means, say so now. If you have the nerve to trample both your mother's wishes and your brother's feelings, I'll respect you for it instead."

From beneath my hood, I stared straight at Rupert.

Feeling the intensity of my gaze, Rupert flinched.

"I-I..."

"Let's say you follow your plan and hole up in this room. There are far more than one or two hundred of them. You would have to hold them back with this flimsy door. It would buy you very little time. Do you really think your father would send reinforcements in that time? Let me tell you, Emperor Johannes is neither as lenient nor as omnipotent as you imagine. If Prince Gordon launches a rebellion, he will put his own survival first for the sake of the Empire, and if he has to abandon a child, he will do so. Especially when that child is merely a prince with no bearing on the succession and no achievements to his name."

"T-The Imperial Guard will come to save me! The Imperial Guard is the strongest force in the Empire!"

"Prince Gordon will cover the Imperial Capital with a barrier so the Emperor can't escape and join up with reinforcements from outside. The Imperial Guard is protecting the jewel that serves as its keystone. They have no time to spare protecting you."

Slowly, but with deliberate force, I closed off Rupert's every avenue of escape.

Though we still had a little time, the soldiers in the castle had already begun to move.

The sooner we moved, the greater our advantage would be, but Rupert's obstinacy was forcing us to throw that advantage away.

Alois might think I was being inconsiderate to a ten-year-old.

But we had no time to worry about a child's feelings.

"You have two choices. Stay in this room or leave it. If you stay, you will certainly be captured. The odds of the Emperor coming to save you are low. If you leave, your life will be in greater danger, but you will have a chance to escape. And if you are captured, there is a good chance that other hostages will be with you. If the many consorts and Princess Krista, whom the Emperor dotes on, are among them, he may do everything in his power to save you. But if you're alone, that chance is zero."

"B-But..."

"The worst thing that could happen to you is for us to escape while you alone are captured. In that case, the Emperor will never save you. Who would save someone who threw away their own chance to survive? I certainly wouldn't, unless there were an absolute reason I had to."

Unfortunately, Rupert had no such reason.

Gordon probably wouldn't see much value in taking a child hostage, either.

Considering the disadvantages of taking a child hostage, he might even kill him as a warning.

That was why Rupert had to leave the castle at all costs.

"Make up your mind. Are you going to escape, or are you going to stay here? Time won't wait for you."

"B-But you can't just say that to me...!"

Rupert shed tears at my harsh words.

For a ten-year-old child who had been cherished by his mother, it was probably a natural reaction. But the circumstances surrounding Rupert were anything but ordinary.

Alois quietly approached him.

"Prince Rupert, I understand how you feel. When the Imperial Army was closing in, I wanted to cry, too. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend it wasn't real."

"...How did you get through it, Alois...?"

"I thought about the people I needed to protect. I had to protect the people in my territory. I couldn't run away, not when I had my mother to think of. So I had no choice but to fight. You're in the same position. Your mother is important to you, isn't she?"

"Yeah..."

"Then let's escape. Even if your mother is captured, your value as a hostage will increase. Even aside from that, if you escape while your mother is fleeing, you can force the enemy to divide their forces. Put aside thoughts of the Empire and your status as a member of the imperial family for now. Thinking about such things is an adult's job. But even a child can do their best for their mother."

Alois's words brought a slight change to Rupert's expression.

He was still frightened and looked ready to cry at any moment.

But he wasn't crying.

"Alois... you're an adult..."

"I'm a child, too. I still can't do many things. But Grau is right: time won't wait for us to become adults. Children say they want to become something when they grow up. But sometimes a crisis comes before they have the chance. That's what has happened now. Since the crisis has come, there's nothing we can do about it. If you want to become a knight, you have to become one now. If you want to become a worthy member of the imperial family, you have to become one now. If we can become something in the future, then we should be able to become it now, too."

"But we're children, aren't we...?"

"Children can become anything. Children are children. Saying they can't become anything is just the ravings of a narrow-minded person. Right now, I am your Imperial Guard. Follow me without fear. The Imperial Guard of the Empire is the strongest there is, after all."

Saying that, Alois held out his hand to Rupert.

Rupert took it.

I was prepared to put him to sleep and drag him along by force if he kept resisting, but that no longer seemed necessary.

"Then, Grau, please tell us what to do. Prince Arnold told us to come to the throne room, but the route there surely won't be easy."

"Understood. Leave it to me."

The moment I answered,

we heard something outside the room topple over with a clatter.

Rupert instinctively clung to Alois, but Alois's hand was already reaching for his sword.

Despite the two-year age gap between them, that difference was probably due to the life-or-death situations they had each experienced.

"What was that...?"

"There were soldiers outside."

With that, I opened the door.

Several soldiers lay sleeping there.

They must have been waiting for us to come out.

As they were right there, I used the sleep spell I'd planned to use on Rupert on them instead.

The spell had no effect on strong-willed people, but against ordinary soldiers, it was enough to put them into a deep sleep.

"A-Are you a mage...?"

"No. I'm a strategist."

Saying that, I grinned and started walking.

Rupert still looked unconvinced by my answer, but Alois and the knights followed me, so he hurried after them.

As we walked, the lower levels of the castle began growing noisier and noisier.

Had they given up on securing the hostages peacefully and begun moving to seize the castle in earnest?

Judging by the sounds, I should assume that the army had taken control of about half the castle.

When I looked outside, I saw several soldiers trying to leave the castle, only to be captured or killed by men who should have been their comrades.

That meant not all the soldiers had joined the rebellion.

They must have been trying to tell Father about this.

But there was no need for them to do that.

"They'll be making their move soon, too."

I muttered and cast a brief glance toward the arena.

But that was all.

Orihime and the Chancellor were at Father's side.

Gordon surely had no doubts that the rebellion would succeed, but he was underestimating Father far too much.

Father hadn't expected Gordon to go so far as to launch a rebellion.

But the Chancellor was different.

"Let's see what the Imperial Chancellor can do."

If my assumptions were correct, Gordon was in for quite a surprise.