“We have arrived.”
The carriage stopped, and I heard the coachman’s voice.
Today was the day that ladies who had a connection with the Lubiche family gathered to meet.
Among them, ladies of similar ages- mostly around twenty-two years old- gathered.
I didn’t know if it was appropriate for a thirty-something-year-old woman to join this group of twenty-two-year-olds, but at least according to documents, I was twenty-two-year-old.
In this world, women married between twenty to twenty-five years old.
If an aristocratic lady attended university, they married a bit later.
Considering facts like this, this world was very similar to 19th century Europe.
After arriving at Count Ovidus’s residence, we followed a servant to a garden where a tea table was prepared.
Most of the aristocrat ladies had already arrived and were beyond shocked to see the madman. At his entrance, they all looked like they didn’t know what to do.
I was used to this reaction now.
As people took their seats, the lady from Count Ovidus’ family, who had organized this tea party, welcomed everyone.
“I thank everyone for coming.”
With that welcome, everyone started to exchange greetings and compliments.
And while they were chattering about this and that, one of the ladies looked at me in surprise, as if she hadn’t expected that from me.
She was surprised that I, who haven’t been part of the Alpine aristocrat for long, knew the taste of tea.
It seemed that in this world if you weren’t part of the Alpine aristocracy, you didn’t even know what tea tasted like.
She actually looked surprised and didn’t seem to have any malicious intent.
Her statement could’ve been quickly passed over with a simple response- that is, if the madman hadn’t suddenly poured his tea to the ground while smiling and saying that it was his mistake because he didn’t know the taste of tea and, of course, nothing of tea etiquette as a result.
A suffocating atmosphere began to fill the space again.
As the mood became chilly, I glanced at the madman.
Why was he suddenly acting out like this when he had been so quiet until now?
“Now….!”
I was about to yell at the madman, but seeing his puppy-like expression, I swallowed back my anger.
He was sly to stare at me with such a pitiful-looking face.
“Y-Y-Your majesty, are you ok? I-If the tea doesn’t suit your taste, I will ask for a different one.”
Lady Ovidus asked the madman while trembling.
She stuttered and shook as if she was terrified of the madman, and I pitied her.
The madman didn’t even glance in her direction, as he had his knuckles under his chin and continued to only stare at my face.
“We should leave now.”
The madman told me.
What? I felt like I had just sat down.
“It’s a waste of time to respond to offensive statements like that. I will introduce you to someone better. Let’s go.”
I grabbed my hair at the madman’s words.
“Who is the ‘someone better’?”
“…Me?”
What kind of nonsense was that? I rubbed my temples and sighed.
The aristocratic ladies here didn’t welcome an outsider like me.
It was true that their responses and attitudes toward me had changed- mainly thanks to the madman following me wherever I went in public. This was true to the point that I wondered if the madman had wanted that to happen.
As I continued to sight, the madman carefully grabbed both of my hands.
Then, while making a pitiful face, he leaned his cheeks onto the back of my hand.
If a man with sparkling silver hair and gold eyes looked at you with a face like that, nothing could look more sublime.
“I’m sorry, Ena. But I hope you will also understand how crazy I am for you.”
He said these words with a pained face like that of a martyr burdening another person’s sins.
I couldn’t refuse a face like that; it would make me feel like a bad person.
Haha. I didn’t even have the strength to respond to him and admired the madman’s acting skills.
He was indeed beautiful. With a mindset that went along the lines of, ‘Fine, go ahead. Keep going’; I watched his acting, and the responses around me were amazing.
Everyone looked shocked as if they had seen something they shouldn’t have and looked back and forth at the madman and me.
At that moment, I thought of the society’s description of the madman.
To them, he was the ‘Lunatic Crown Prince,’ who had made a bloodbath at the Royal Guard’s selection process a little less than a month ago.
Because he was just a really irritating ex-employer to me, I had forgotten that these ladies thought the crown prince was a lunatic who killed people.
Not knowing what to do, I looked around my surroundings, and the madman got up from his seat.
Then, he lifted me in a princess-style and said his farewells to the ladies who were looking at us, stunned.
“I think I will have to take Ena away now.”
The ladies’ faces reddened at the madman’s words.
“D-D-Don’t mind us, and feel free to leave!”
“Yes, please don’t mind us! H-H-Hope you spend a great time together!”
The ladies wished us a good time. A very good time.
I gave up at this point and stayed in the madman’s arms and closed my eyes.
Maybe it would be better if I just fainted here.
* * *
The students at Alpine Empire Royal Academy mainly were mainly composed of 18- to 22-year-old aristocratic and bourgeois students.
After graduating from the academy, they took the Alpine university entrance exam and enrolled into higher education; but at this point, most aristocratic ladies gave up enrollment and got married.
I lamented how commonplace this practice had become in this society.
There were many skilled women among the aristocratic ladies, and it was truly regrettable that this happened so often.
“How many of you have gone to the Magic City, Ludanna?”
The Economics teacher’s sudden question took me from my thought and back to the classroom.
Hands rose from the seats around me. Excluding a small number of people, most of the students had visited the Magic City, Ludanna, located at the center of the Alpine Empire.
I supported my chin with my palms and looked at my opened history textbook again.
The page had a canvas of the hero Ovöder and the adult, Bezain facing each other as if they were about to have a confrontation.
It was a picture that showcased how divine powers and magic worked alongside each other in this world.
“Prince Verdi is continuing the development of the Magic City, Ludanna. We can expect the city’s development to bring contribute significantly to this empire.”
I tilted my head at the teacher’s words.
The madman- I mean, crown prince, Reynold, and prince Verdi.
If you wanted to argue about this empire’s royalty, you had to know the faction wars between them.
The Alpine Empire was divided into two sanctions, supported by influences from the Magic City and the Holy See.
Crown prince, Reynold, placed great importance in balancing these two sectors, but prince Verdi wanted to give more power to the Magic City.
This was because prince Verdi’s main support base, the Count Stefan family, had many magicians in their relations.
I guessed nepotism related to school ties, regionalism, and blood ties existed no matter what world you lived in.
“I thought Ludanna was already a very developed city. If we facilitate its development even more than this, what will happen to the temple? If things progress like this, won’t we lose balance with Ludanna increasing its powers?”
With my question, the old teacher made a benign smile and clapped his palms.
“That is an excellent question.”
With that, the ladies next to me glanced in my direction.
“With the development of the Magic City, some missionary works for the Ianarque Holy See will be supported. They had made plans to dispatch missionaries to the East Continent to expand the establishment of the temple there.”
“Supporting the development of the Magic City and missionary works for the temple. Aren’t both of these sectors wasting the Alpine empire’s tax money?”
“Why would you say that it is a waste?”
“In the continent of Eldon, magic and divine power had always been in conflict. It is no different in the Alpine empire where the Magic city, Ludanna and Ianarque Holey See are engaging in a power struggle.”
Adding to this, Ludanna was the biggest Magic City among the magic cities in the continent of Eldon; and the temple of the god of the highest order, Ianarque, that the continent worshipped was in the Alpine empire, where the Ianarque Holy See was located.
This meant that Ludanna and the Holy See’s power struggle would soon become the whole continent’s fight.
I shrugged my shoulders and continued.
“Ludanna and the Holy See are worth the investment, but it won’t be too late to do that after bringing more stablization.”
The Economists listed to me with an amused look on his face.
“If we support them like this, it wouldn’t just end with a factional fight between Ludanna and Ianarque. It will incite resistance among the people and could lead to an uprising. The public sentiment towards this matter is already not favorable in the Alpine empire.”
The teacher listened to me seriously, but he responded to me like he didn’t understand.
“You’re making logical leaps. An uprising? Even if that happened, what power would the general populace have?”
“Is it really a logical leap? And what do you mean that the general populace doesn’t have any power? Most royals organize all kinds of political plays to try to take control of the public sentiment when succeeding the throne- how could you say that the public has no power?”
I took a breath for a moment and continued.
“A country can’t exist without its people. It has only been 80 years since the Alpine empire had ended its war with the Nathan nation.”
The Economics teacher listened to me while stroking the bottom of his chin and looked at me with a face full of child-like curiosity.
“Then, lady, what do you think we should do in a situation like this?”
“Nothing will happen unless both of the factions have their hands tied since one side can’t have too much power. But since both of them are not willing to do this, we will have to follow the policies that you mentioned.”
The Economics teacher looked at me like he was wondering how that was the solution.
“We have to follow these policies for now, and to convince the people to follow them, we have to guarantee national security and focus on developing local sites. And to do this, we need to raise more funds.”
Truthfully, I didn’t think there would be a problem if the madman became this country’s emperor.
I didn’t know if I was assessing him too well, but I knew that the PD Cha Do-Hyuk I had known was a fantastic person.
“But as we had discussed before, if we support the development of a Magic city and missionary works at the same- just 80 years after a war- the treasury will become bankrupt. Even if the government has to issue bonds or go into debt, they have to give the public a sense of security.”
After saying all of this, I shrugged my shoulders.
“After saying all this, it seems that it will be better to really not act on both of these policies- but it’s not as if that will happen.”
Prince Verdi would push for the development of the Magic city no matter what.
Not only was he the type of person who didn’t take his words back, he had the ambition to succeed onto the throne in place of the crown prince no matter what.
Public sentiment at the moment didn’t matter to him.
“That’s a sharp analysis. Although you are an outsider, you have the Alpine empire’s political and economic situation fully grasped.”
The Economics teacher complimented me while laughing.
The word ‘Outsider’ bothered me a bit, but it was true. I was the only one in this classroom who was of a different race.
“Like lady Lubiche had said, his majesty, Reynold is progressing a similar project in response.”
As expected of the madman.
The madman had a better head than me, so it was expected that he would have thought something that even I had thought of.
“He proposes a measure to convert the private bank, Rosester, into a central bank to issue a ‘Permanent Debt’ for this nation.”
I listened to the Economics’ teachers’ words.
There were many advantages to a policy like that, but its biggest problem was that the debt would guarantee public taxes.
But besides that, were there any other solutions?
I thought hard about this matter, but it just gave me a headache.
Yes, the madman probably had a plan for all of this. He was an elite among the elites. It wasn’t something that I had to be bothered by.
Like that, I wiped the problem completely out of my head.
Join our Discord for fun and spoilers! || Support Phoenix Walk for the price of a coffee for public bonus chapters! || Read ahead on Patreon!