Chapter 85: Tenth Episode: Chapter 3 (1/2)
Chapter 85: Tenth Episode: Chapter 3
Translator: EndlessFantasy TranslationEditor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It is finally the big day! Holy Day of God! Year 791, 31st Day of 12th Month!
More than a thousand years ago, when the God of Light Sapriuses was born in the holy land Betye, but the Church’s Calendar didn’t start from that year, because the Church of Light was under the oppression of the Roman Empire. In the eyes of the mythical Roman Warriors, the followers of God of Light were the same as escaped slaves.
Around the time of the start of Church’s Calendar, the Ancient Roman Empire collapse shook the whole political situation of the Westland, countries and nations mushroomed into existence, and the largest of them, the Empire of Titan, accepted the doctrines of the Church of Light. After this, the Church of Light slowly spread across the land as the Divine Empire of Titan started preaching it. At the end of the 1st Century, the Church had entered the Holy City of Rome and started to influence the whole Westland’s culture, social life, thought patterns and more through control and disruption.
As a belief system, by the end of the 7th Century, most people viewed the prayers as just another routine they had to do. Humans like to vent to their deities due to the inescapable situations they encountered, it seemed like the only way was to pray for a miracle.
This had nothing to do with the ruling class, the first Emperor believed the God of Light had granted them the right to rule. As time passes, these ruling class started to seek profit in the name of God of Light. This method was far more rewarding than contributing to the Church. The fortunes the Church amassed had every ruler green with envy. They started planning expansions and raise taxes in the name of God. With time, the public started to equate the Church with greed. In areas where this ”Church Plague” was especially serious, the uprising as a result of dissatisfaction toward the ruling class usually include a cry to eliminate the ”Church Plague”.
As for the Church, over a thousand years of development had allowed this world’s largest for-profit organization to cultivate a perfect control system. From the beginning, the missionaries had evolved into a whole team of loyal followers. The team include the priests at the bottom, clergies who research the doctrine, the pastors who head a church, the bishops who head a parish, and finally the inquisitors in the Holy City of Rome. That’s the place in which the Pope would give his orders, as well as the tribunal with which the Church pressure the world.
Before the Holy Day, be it the Church, the Nobles, or the commoners, everyone would set their differences aside. If going to the churches to pray was just a routine, the preparation for the Holy Day wasn’t! This is the most important, most dazzling, most celebratory day in the whole of Westland.
On this day, everyone would wake up early, fathers would clear the snow in front of their own houses with the kids, while mothers and the older generation would start cooking up a feast.
Due to the difference between nations and races, the prepared feasts differ between the east and west in terms of food variety, and between the north and south in terms of the manner the food is served. In Titan, the Southern mountainous people would make delicate cuisine, like the Farans and the Italians, and their main dish would be turkeys. At night, the farmers of the Western Hetto Plains would grill meats by a bonfire; And on the East is Andrew, simple, passionate, unrestrained are some of the Narcissus People’s specialty. The Army and the commoners would come together to bake massive cakes and share it with people on an empty clearing!
On the North, O’Neil Andrew Morisette inhaled a rush of cool fresh air. This was his first Holy Day after turning adult, which is also his first after being released! He had every reason to be excited!
Prince O’Neil followed the local custom, waking up at dawn like a Northerner. His servants helped him change into his Lieutenant General outfit, complete with the diamond-shaped military cap. Oscar chose a decorative sword from his weapon rack to bring along, and sprinted to get the presents for his neighbors!
Narcissus Knights were waiting at his door, and they followed the Prince around.
Not needing a report-ahead, the servants of a manor opened their gate to Oscar, who went straight to the meeting hall. At the walkway, the host already had someone to receive them. Oscar was treated warmly while he handed over his gift, and received a return gift from the host.
In the next household, the family knew how important the visiting guest was. Everyone, including the old, the young, and the ladies all came out. Oscar met every one of them, and gifted them a huge present.
The household invited Oscar to have breakfast with them, but Oscar refused gently, saying he’s got an appointment with His Elder Highness. Oscar gave the host a slight shock when he refused, but they recovered almost immediately. After all, no one would dare to snatch a guest from the top-tier Imperial Household.
Oscar visited almost every household on his street, his knights had to arrange a carriage to carry all the return gifts Oscar received. Oscar also got on the carriage in the end, he had to go to His Elder Highness Lobble’s residence.
Lobble Alfa Morisette stayed in the Imperial Palace of Sparjoxin, also called the Kimberton Palace, its history could be traced back to the end of 4th Century.
Prince Lobble didn’t seem to like staying in the palace though, in the four years he stayed here as a student, it was told he kept wanting to demolish this palace built with marble.
”Why?” Oscar didn’t understand. ”This is the most artistic-looking palace I’ve seen, look at the murals, the design! To be honest, none of these could be copied by the designers of current time. This is the true Imperial spirit!”
Lobble shot Oscar a glare, ”It’s cold in winter, hot in summer! Wind blows everywhere during fall, and in spring, everything’s wet! And the murals you talked about? I had to hire people every year to lacquer them with pine tar to keep them intact! Do you know how terrible it smells? Merely smelling it for long durations would give you impotence!”
”Hahaha!” Oscar laughed wildly.
”Stop that!” Lobble waved his hand. With only a few days of meeting the young Prince, he had already considered this kid ten years younger than him his friend.
”Where’s my present?” The Elder Prince extended his hand toward Oscar.
”Let me have mine first!” Oscar was like a rascal. As a guest, his behavior was rude!
”Okay, okay! I’ve judged you wrong, you’re just like how they described you!” Lobble retrieved a big box from under the table as he spoke.
Oscar tossed his cigar aside. Happily, he took the gift, it was Holy Day, it would be wrong not to binge a little.
”What’s this?” Oscar’s eyes bulged.
”Didn’t you see it?”
”I have!” Oscar waved the rolled-up paper in his hand.
”This was the four-season recipe book I took so much time to perfect!” Lobble sank into his seat proudly. ”I used to only read it whenever there’s no one around. Now that it’s done, I can finally gift it to my friends formally!”
Oscar didn’t say a word, he handed over a large envelope to the Elder Prince.
”Let me have a look!” Lobble picked away the wax sealing the envelope with the table knife. He was stunned as he identified the document.
”You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” Oscar picked up his cigar. ”The one in front is the deed for the land, followed by the transferral agreement of the future Lobb Oscar Hotel.”
”Oh… Oh!” The Elder Prince read the document excitedly, not saying a word for a moment.
”Alright, my friend, I believe your father now have the perfect reason to slaughter you!” Oscar laughed out of schadenfreude. ”Although… it may be the both of us!”
Lobble didn’t hear Oscar, he was squirming in his seat.
”This… this is my dream! The God of Light will take pity on us!” Lobble’s eyes twinkled like they never had.
”No matter what father wants to do, let him, we… when do we start building this?”
Oscar shook his head, ”This is not something we can rush, no one would start a project in the winter. We’ll need to wait at least until spring for any renovation work to be done.”
”Yes! Oh yes! I almost forgot!” Lobble nodded like a chick pecking at rice. ”I can utilize this time to design it the way I want it built. Spring, the season of resurrection, haha! This is great!”
Oscar was a little excited too. He had followed his instinct on this and had no planning at all.
The breakfast between the Princes was still continuing, they talked about the scary Second Prince, talked about Princess Alanis who was about to visit Faran, they even made a promise to attend the annual masquerade at the Tortoiseshell Cat Square together, as well as going back to Dulin together to visit the Emperor and the Empress.
”I think they will be pretty upset though!” Oscar was a little worried. ”Our little secret will definitely be found out by then. Will they…”
”Of course they will!” Lobble interrupted confidently. ”I even considered the worst case scenario!”
”Worst case scenario?”
”That’s right! Worst case!” It was Lobble’s first instance of showing a ferocious expression in front of his friend. ”My father is not hard to get through, he had done worse when he’s young. The main concern is my mother. Do you believe it? She would have burnt the hotel down, and have me sent to the dungeon.”
Lobble didn’t leave out any details!
”My friend, believe me, she had done those things before.”
Oscar was surprised. ”Maybe… Maybe I’ve invited trouble to you!”
”No!” Lobble waved it off, saying, ”If it wasn’t for you, I would never have the courage to do such a thing. No matter what, I want to be able to justify to myself, I want to give my dreams a chance. Maybe I’ll be an emperor in the future, but what I want to be proud of the most, is to have my own hotel and call it a Divine Site!”
O’Neil Andrew Morisette clasped his hands with Lobble Alfa Morisette. Maybe to some businessmen, building a hotel together is not something uncommon, but when it’s two Princes, there’s enough evidence to believe these two would definitely be punished. In the imperial traditions, the passing of power exceeds everything else. When an heir apparent wanted to run from their responsibilities, their choices would usually mean determine if they live or die.
Maybe Oscar didn’t mean it, maybe Lobble was getting too excited with his dream, but it was understandable, if a prince doesn’t do what he’s needed to, his life would become as thin as his dream.
***************
After saying goodbyes to the Elder Prince, Oscar returned to the Imperial Military Academy, getting ready to visit the Second Prince. He had heard a lot about the Second Prince the past few days. This kid liked assembling a large-scale battle plan, he even recruited a team from various departments in the academy. With regard to this, the dean of the academy had commented, ”According to His Imperial Highness’ actions, the empire would lose everything within five months! But of course, if we only allowed him the power of one group, the time frame of the empire’s losses would be much, much closer.”
Oscar sighed a breath of relief when he was told the Second Prince had left for Dulin before dawn to spend the Holy Day with his parents.
”So… have we prepared the presents for the Imperial Household and all the other important people?”
Sasha nodded, but she looked like she was a little unamused.
”My brother, isn’t it a bit late to think about it now? You’re lucky Aeolia had already prepared everything.”
Oscar didn’t say anything but nodded. He had a slight regret toward Aeolia, but only a little.
Countess Aeolia had a higher intellect than most of her peers, this was easy to see. Even though her face had been swollen as a result of being slapped by the Prince, she still dressed up as usual. Oscar didn’t want to know what she had done in the new manor, but the youth had admitted, the Duke was much more decisive when it comes to detailed things like that.
For example, the Countess had discussed deeply with Major General Murat regarding the defense of the manor. According to her, the new manor should be split into three areas. The first area would be the Prince’s bedroom, study, living room, and kitchen. The first three were important for daily living and work, the importance of these areas need not much discussion. As for the kitchen, the reason of including it in the high-risk zone was because Prince O’Neil’s eating habits have shown a higher likelihood of him being poisoned than other noblemen by 97%!
The percentage was definitely calculated meticulously by Countess Aeolia, however… it’s also Oscar’s most despised.
The second area includes the hallway, the resting room of big hall, all the washrooms, dining hall, the large living room, the eleven smaller living rooms, Young Lady’s suite, Countess Antonia’s suite, and Miss Fenrar Donaute’s suite. All these rooms were also ranked by the possibility in which danger will appear.
The third area include the whole outer area of the manor. The garden, bell room, greenhouse and all other places like it had to be guarded with Narcissus Knights at every moment, as well as the employment of guard dogs and alarm bells.
To deal with the hidden spies among the servants, Aeolia also had her ways, those would be arranged to an inconsequential position. Of course, Aeolia wouldn’t doubt there’s still loopholes in the security, but this would mean the Prince was still in safe hands, as he has yet to trigger the confidentiality limitations. The Secret Services and His Majesty would still be at ease about it.
Oscar didn’t want to care about all this, he’s terrified to see Aeolia at the moment, he even reduced dining with the others, but all these seemed naught. Aeolia still acts normally in front of other people, although observant people have noticed her mental shift.
Speaking of his actions a few nights ago, Oscar didn’t know what to think, but there’s one thing he’s clear about, and that it was called attempted rape. Maybe Aya did want it to happen, but Oscar called her out on it.
”That’s why we’ll let Aeolia do whatever she needs to do!” Oscar appeared behind Young Lady, embraced her, and buried his face between her Narcissus-perfume-infused hair.
Sasha evaded with a squeal. Her brother had picked up some really weird habits, like breathing into her neck from behind, that usually makes her super ticklish.
She wasn’t ready yet for physical intimacy.
”Stop it! Please!” Young Lady begged. She wanted to push her brother’s head away, but Oscar tightened his hold on her waist.
”I’m going to be angry if you keep this up!” Sasha steeled her face.
”Ola! Let see here, what have you prepared for tonight’s party?” Oscar stopped before it gets too much.
Sasha still couldn’t get out of her brother’s hold, but she thanked goodness as he stopped breathing into her neck.
”Look! I prepared an angel outfit, the wings were woven together with swan feathers, and the veil is this silk filled with amethyst.”
Oscar gave it a little thought, he wanted to state his comment.
”My angel! It’s the Holy Day Parade! I’m sure there’ll be not only hundreds of ladies who will dress up as an angel, I think you should…”
”No, brother!” Young Lady shook her head with conviction. ”I want to see if there’s any woman who would fold their wings when I appear in this dress!”
”Oh, of course!” Oscar caressed his sister’s face. ”Not only will they fold their wings, they will be thrown into hell! There’s only one angel in this world, and she’s my sister Sasha!”
Young Lady liked hearing the praise, so she leaned back and gave her brother a peck on the mouth.
”What… costume have you prepared for me?”
Sasha exclaimed and unveiled the white cloth on the couch.
”What is this?” Oscar’s jaw dropped. ”Are you trying to make me into a black bear?”
Sasha unravelled the large piece of fur coat.
”Don’t make such a big fuss, Oscar! This is not a black bear, it’s a wolverine, one of the fiercest animals! This fur has no flaw on it, it’s very rare! Usually when wolverines are cornered, they would struggle to their death with the hunters!”