Harem Castle: Chapter 4 - Rebellion

“I feel like I’ll never be able to go back to a normal life…”

Felix was exhausted after finishing breakfast.

“Is something the matter?”

The maid diligently peeling apples next to the lacquered table looked up and questioned her master’s complaint.

“No, it has nothing to do with you, Carol.”

“Really?”

The girl tilted her head doubtfully, but she got right back to peeling the apples. As the Prime Minister’s granddaughter, she was a very obedient girl.

Her job was to peel the apples and feed them to her master every morning.

The serious look on her adorably puffy cheeks as she carefully used the fruit knife was enough to bring a smile to anyone who saw it.

However, she was slow. But as a child, that was to be expected.

Louise had once asked her to do something else because the knife was too dangerous for a child, but instead of making shrill protests, Carol had stared up at the woman with tears welling up in her eyes as she tried to endure the shock. The look was such a contrast to her usual innocent smile that Louise’s conscious had given in. In a way, this young girl was truly unbeatable.

Ever since, this job had been Carol’s and Carol’s alone.

Felix sometimes felt like eating something other than apple slices for dessert, but everything was luxurious enough already that he hesitated to complain.

Plus, Carol was proud of having a job all her own and she felt she was putting enough effort into it, so she was perfectly happy.

Most of the maids were not satisfied with normal work, so this young girl’s presence was valuable.

Yes, the trouble came from those who were not satisfied.

“Hahhhhh~~~”

Felix let out another heavy sigh as he thought back over his everyday life since becoming crown prince.

Learning how to sleep with women was apparently part of learning to be a king, so he shared his bed with Head Maid Louise every night.

“Women are nothing but dirty animals. Please think of us as nothing more than sacks of flesh to pump full of your sperm.”

Louise would go beyond praising him and actually demean herself, but her actions seemed to tell an entirely different story.

No matter how many times the boy came, she would not let him stop until she was satisfied. Three straight shots without pulling out had become the norm. On some days, she would milk him five times in a single night.

And once he satisfied that talented woman and passed out, morning would arrive in no time at all.

Beautiful but carefree Sasha was waking him in more and more extreme ways as time went on. Today, he woke up to find a woman’s vulva in front of his eyes. In other words, she had woken him in the sixty-nine position.

After Sasha’s early morning milking, healthy and beautiful Magali would be waiting for him in the bath.

She still wore her apron dress, but ever since realizing Felix enjoyed seeing it grow see-through from the water, she had stopped wearing a bra.

Charmed by her alluring form, he would invariably grow erect. Without taking no for an answer, she would begin stroking that erection and have him cum all over her face.

Ever since seeing his semen covering Carol’s face, she had apparently been dying to try it out herself.

And thus the crown prince had released his second load since waking up that morning.

Both Sasha and Magali were eager to sleep with him and no one would deny their beauty. He would have been lying if he had said he was not interested. In fact, he really, really wanted to sleep with them. But he felt he would be losing a piece of his humanity if he did that.

“All done, Your Highness.”

Carol had finished peeling the apples while Felix lost himself in thought.

She held out a piece on a silver fork.

“Say ‘ah’, Your Highness.”

“Ahh.”

He opened his mouth as instructed.

It was embarrassing, but this was much more relaxing than the maids overflowing with far too much sex appeal.

After breakfast, Head Maid Louise read off his schedule for the day.

After even more maids gathered and prepared Felix for the day, he was sent away from the tower’s top floor.

“Have a good day.”

“Your Highness, who will you share your bed with tonight?”

After learning the art of war from General Dexel’s staff officer, being taught how to be a king from a variety of scholars, and being educated with the knights assigned to be his close aides, Felix returned to the tower. There, he found the most depressing scene of the day.

Head Maid Louise was accompanied by Sasha, Magali, several other attractive maids, and (for some reason) even Carol.

Their chests swelled out and their eyes sparkled with anticipation, but Felix gave a gloomy sigh.

“Do I have to choose today too? I’m kind of tired today.”

He hesitantly asked, but the head maid’s response was as blunt as he had expected.

“In that case, take a nice long bath and have a massage. But the one you choose will also need to time to prepare, so please choose now.”

“But…I did it a whole bunch yesterday…”

He implicitly hinted that she was the one who had milked him dry, so even that stony maid blushed a little.

“Yesterday was yesterday. I have heard a boy at your age can easily manage ten times in a day. And personally… Oh ho ho ho…”

The other maids glared at Louise like she was a horrible woman toying with the younger boy, so she tried to save face and laugh it off.

“Th-then…”

The pressure from the head maid would not take no for an answer, so Felix hesitantly pointed at Louise as usual.

“Oh, my. Me again?”

The cool-headed woman brushed back her silver hair with a baffled yet pleased look of embarrassment.

Being chosen from a lineup of beautiful women and girls was a true honor for a woman. Even Louise felt a tickle of pride.

Plus, Felix was just the type of pretty young boy who adult women wanted to play with.

After taking his virginity, he had grown obsessed with her body and felt no desire to sleep with anyone else. She felt an intoxicated joy in what a “sinful woman” she was for letting the boy drown in his lust for her.

The resentful looks from Sasha, Magali, and the other maids only increased her sense of superiority.

“Do you not want to, Louise?”

When he timidly looked up at her, Louise completely forgot her position here and felt a twinge in her womb.

“Not want to? I am your closest aide. Receiving your affection gives me more joy than a mountain of treasures.”

No matter how much she praised him, she always took control once they were in bed.

Felix decided to give up. The gazes of the other maids hurt, but he ate dinner, took a bath, and lay down in bed like usual. After thoroughly treating her skin, Louise would arrive.

“Now, Your Highness, it is time for you nighttime studies.”

When she shared his bed with him, she always had some new way of pleasuring him.

It was partially to ensure he did not grow tired of her as a woman, but it also had to do with her own pride as a woman. She was currently the only one he had made into his mistress, but she knew rivals would eventually appear. She could not stand to be compared to those other women and found lacking.

Tonight, she was wearing a wine red negligee. It was see-through, so it seductively showed off her full body as she climbed onto the bed.

Felix’s heart was pounding, but he did his best to feign disinterest.

In truth that adult woman had lost herself in the boy’s flavor far more than the teenage boy had lost himself in her beautiful flesh.

Whenever she snuck into his bed at night, she cast aside the mask of the kingdom’s most capable woman and showed him the look of an animal in heat.

As she showed off her female body through the bewitchingly see-through negligee, she lovingly stroked her hands and licked her tongue across the boy’s naked body. She almost seemed to think his body was made of sweet candy. It both tickled and felt good when she licked his armpits.

His young penis was already pointing toward heaven and the foreskin peeled back to reveal the head.

Louise had persistently peeled it back each night until it could do it all on its own.

It was still quite adorable, but the woman was aware of the progress she made with him. After lovingly stroking his entire body, she looked him in the eye and smiled. Then she lifted her negligee and straddled the boy’s crotch.

The sexily-dressed maid slowly lowered her hips and their genitals joined together.

“Hahhh~”

The educator let out an emotional sigh and reached out to touch the boy’s cheek.

“Your Highness, does it pain you that much to sleep with a woman?”

“Eh? Of course not. You’re really pretty and, um, sex feels really good.”

“Really?”

The intellectual beauty wrinkled her brow in doubt. After a moment, she fixed her expression, kindly stroked his face, and gently kissed him.

“Any maid will offer her body to you if you say you want it, so I know it is presumptuous of me to ask. Still, I will ask. Why are you showing me such favoritism? I am – how should I put it? – not the sexiest maid and, well, quite a bit older than you. It doesn’t seem to me that you were quite this stricken by me. There are several beautiful young girls you could choose, so why me?”

Unable to disobey her earnest gaze, Felix looked to the side and answered.

“Because everyone only wants to sleep with me because I’m the crown prince. They aren’t really looking at me. Even you are only offering me your body because it’s your job.”

“You are mistaken.”

“About what?”

Felix looked displeased, so Louise looked down at him while enjoying the movements of her hips.

“It is true I serve you because you are the crown prince and I am sure others will occasionally be glad to assist for that reason alone. But what is wrong with that? The title of crown prince is now a part of you. You need to get used to it.”

“B-but love based on a master-servant relationship feels kind of one-sided, so I…”

He understood Louise’s point, but his heart refused to accept it. Something that had been building up there flowed up and spilled from his eyes as tears.

“Now, now. A man must not cry.”

He may have looked calm and aloof most of the time, but deep down, the sudden change of environment had gotten to him.

Louise felt a tightening in her chest when she realized the boy had only shown this weakness to her.

“Feel free to play with my body. A woman’s body is said to be the best medicine for a man’s heart.”

While aware the boy had a solid grip on her maternal instincts, the woman guided her master’s hands to her breasts.

Felix played with the large, tight lumps of flesh through the see-through cloth and stroked the pink nipples.

“Ahh, good, Your Highness. Ahhh, wonderful.”

Just as the woman started getting in the mood having her breasts fondled in the cowgirl position, a girl’s face poked in from the side.

“!”

Felix and Louise were utterly shocked by what turned out to be Magali’s tearful face.

“Your Highness, is that why you won’t sleep with me?”

“Eh? Y-yes…”

“Magali. Watching as another maid shares His Highness’s bed is acceptable, but entering the room when he has not called for you is against the rules.”

As was to be expected of a woman who was disturbed in the middle of sex, Louise raised a metallic shout, but Magali was not listening. Instead, she approached her master on the bed.

“You completely misunderstand, Prince Felix. I actually knew about you a long time ago.”

“Eh?”

“My family does a lot of dealings with yours. I’ve even spoken with you a few times before. You don’t seem to remember that, though. I thought about confessing to you countless times and even wrote a letter, but I didn’t have the courage to give it to you. So when my father told me you were secretly a prince and the kingdom was quietly recruiting maids to look after you, I decided to sign up. So I don’t want to sleep with you because you’re a prince. I want you to sleep with me even just once because you’re you.”

Felix had no idea how to respond to a passionate confession of love when his penis was buried in another woman.

He had not noticed earlier due to the unexpected circumstances of their reunion, but now that she mentioned it, she did seem somewhat familiar. But at the time, he had been entirely focused on Ursula, the ‘girl next door’, so he had never thought of Magali as a possible lover.

However, the apprentice boy had viewed that knight leader as something of an unattainable goal. If Magali, the daughter of a rich family, had confessed to him, it was entirely possible he would have readily accepted.

“Oh, um, but…”

As they exchanged a look of myriad emotions, that awkward atmosphere was broken by the purple curtains being thrown open.

The moonlight shined in and beautifully illuminated the woman on the bed.

Wondering what was going on now, Felix found Sasha standing next to the curtain.

“What is the meaning of this? I am in the middle of the crown prince’s important night lessons. Close the curtain at once.”

Louise must have been embarrassed with the light on her seductive negligee because she hid her ample breasts with her left arm and firmly scolded the girl. However, she currently had a penis inside her. She was not actually as firm as her appearance let on and Felix felt her vagina tighten in embarrassment.

“I…well, I did fall in love with you at first sight, Your Highness, but I’m kind of dumb and I was dreaming of getting food to eat and a place to sleep if I was your maid. Hmm, but this is kind of the standard agreement between a man and a woman, so there’s no reason to worry about all that much. Teh heh♪”

Sasha gave a dumb laugh and turned toward the woman who looked much more intelligent.

“Head Maid, I’ve been watching your sexual lessons over the past week…and you have no idea what you’re doing.”

Sasha blankly stared at her boss.

“Me? Not knowing what I’m doing?”

Being told she was terrible at sex by another woman had to be an unbelievable insult. Especially by a subordinate so much younger than her.

The skilled woman’s mouth trembled.

“Um, I think you’re bad at sex, too.”

Magali hesitantly agreed.

The skilled woman had thought these girls were much lower than her, so when they insulted the most private part of her life, her face grew a dark red.

“No matter what you say, you act so dominant when you’re having sex. I don’t think His Highness will ever get any sexual confidence like that.”

“That’s right, that’s right.”

Magali gave an accusatory look, but Sasha gave a refreshing look as she agreed and climbed onto the bed in her apron dress.

“And you’re too boring. You always go for the cowgirl position. You may be skilled at everything else you do, but I don’t think you know much about sex. I don’t have any actual experience with guys, but I’ve studied a ton of techniques to service His Highness. So I’m willing to bet I know more sex techniques than you♪”

“B-but I…”

Branded with the title of “bad at sex”, Louise completely lost her composure.

“Plus, I’ve heard embarrassment works great against proud women♪”

With a dumb-looking grin on her face, Sasha whispered to the woman who was currently joined with the prince.

“The window and curtains are open. I bet the pages down below can hear you moaning. And if a commoner looks up at the tower from the castle town, they might just see you fucking the prince.”

“Y-you’re kidding. Stop. Close the-…noooo…”

Sasha’s sexual trivia may have been surprisingly accurate. Sweat poured from Louise’s full body, she secreted even more love juices, and her vagina convulsed madly.

“I don’t have any experience with guys either, but I do know how to make a woman feel good. I’m a woman too, after all.”

As her boss entered something of a frenzy, Magali started sucking on her right nipple through the see-through negligee and Sasha sucked on the left nipple.

“Ahhhh. No, the entire kingdom is going to see this. And if the pages hear it, how am I supposed to look them in the eye tomorrow?”

Louise desperately writhed about with the penis filling her from below and the two girls sucking on her nipples, but then something came to push her over the edge.

“Hyan! Wh-what~?”

Surprised by the sudden new sexual pleasure from her crotch, Louise saw some soft golden hair down below.

“You too, Carol!?”

The girl was probably too young to have ever felt an ounce of lust, but she had pulled up the negligee and was licking at the joint between boy and woman.

Louise and Felix were dumbfounded, but Sasha spoke up.

“Carol’s a girl too and what does age matter anyway♪ Plus, she has her pride as the crown prince’s maid. Isn’t that right~♪”

“Keeping His Highness to yourself is wrong.”

With the passion of a kitten lapping up milk, Carol licked up the love juices overflowing from their union. As she did, she noticed the woman’s weak point and started sucking the clitoris out of its hood.

“Eek!”

Having a man’s solid object inside her vagina was pleasurable enough for a woman, but Louise’s nipples and clitoris were being sucked on top of that.

Sweat poured from her entire body, the see-through negligee plastered to her bare skin, and her seductive form was illuminated by the moonlight.

“Nooo~. Ah, stop that. You three. Uuh…aahhhhh…”

A girl’s jealousy could be frightening indeed. The attackers showed no mercy in their technique. The pleasure was so great that the capable woman let drool pour from her mouth and tears from her eyes.

“Head Maid, you’re so confident when you’re doing the attacking, but you’re so cute when you’re on the receiving end.”

Magali voiced her impression as she pinched and pulled on the hardened nipple. Then she asked a question.

“I washed the sheets after you first slept with His Highness. There was blood on them. Was that your first time, by any chance?”

“Y-yes. His Highness was my first.”

“I knew it… You’re no different from us, but you were pretending to be so much more mature.”

Magali gave her boss a look of scorn.

Louise had been keeping that a secret to preserve her dignity as the head maid. Now that the secret was out, she lost all self-control and the pleasure burned even hotter inside her.

“N-no… Stop… Ah, I’m…I’m going to cum… I’ve never felt like this before. I’m scared. I’m going to cum…eh!? What? Fire? Wh-what is this? Stop this, you three. This is no time to be-…”

The girls had observed Louise and Felix’s lovemaking enough to have a thorough understanding of Louise’s erogenous zones.

She was gushing love juices and Felix’s flesh rod mixed it all up inside her. Carol was entirely focused on licking up and gulping down the fluids overflowing from the gap between male and female flesh, but the woman’s exposed bud seemed to catch her interest and she placed her lips around it.

“St-stop, you three… Ah, no, Carol. Don’t use your teeth. Kh. I-it’s going to tear off…”

Louise’s rational mind seemed to burn away as she held a penis deep inside her and girls held her nipples and clitoris in their mouths. With a crazed cry, drool spilled from her mouth.

It was an unbelievably sexual look compared to her usual intellectual aura.

The proud woman desperately writhing about with the three young maids attacking the three weak points of her half-naked body was an obscenely beautiful image.

Felix had had sex with her every night for the past week and she had maintained a certain dignity throughout, but that was gone now.

As soon as he realized she was truly drowning in pleasure, Felix felt a fire blazing inside him too and thrust his hips up with all of his strength.

“Ahhh, Your Highness, not so rough! Not so rough!”

“Why not, Louse? You’re always telling me to do it rough.”

He had finally awoken to the joy of pleasuring a woman.

It felt good to let the beautiful young woman milk him of his semen, but it also felt good to pleasure that beautiful young woman until she lost her mind.

An obscene sticky sound filled the room. The virgin maids blushed at the embarrassing sound, but the woman herself seemed the most embarrassed. It was amazing that Louise’s body did not burst into flames.

The intensely heated and rough folds of her flesh tightened around his rod more than they ever had before.

“I-I know I did, but this is…t-too much… It…it feels too good. Ahh, I’m cumming, I’m cumming, I’m cummiiiiiiinnnnnnggggg!”

The adult woman’s vagina wriggled to show she had truly reached orgasm. The boy relished the sensation while thrusting his hips upwards and he felt even more aroused than usual.

“I’m cumming too!”

His young penis throbbed and fired its semen with enough force to reach the room’s ceiling.

It filled her womb and spread through her vagina.

“Ahhhhhhhh!”

Louise raised a crazed voice as the semen filling her lifted her to even greater heights. Her full body started to convulse.

She had climaxed. This was different from normal, so Felix understood that she truly had climaxed.

“Kyah.”

Carol let out a quiet scream.

He looked down in confusion and saw a liquid spraying on the little girl’s face.

“Lady Louise, did you wet yourself? That’s a big no-no!”

Carol scolded the woman like she was a young child.

It was so very cute that Felix, Magali, and Sasha all burst out laughing.

The head maid’s frightening reputation had crumbled away.

“With that done, please take my virginity tonight.”

“Ehhh? My virginity comes first.”

“Please take my virginity too.”

It was not clear if Carol even knew what that meant when she chimed in too.

Felix was enjoying the afterglow with his penis still inside Louise as the three virgins pressed him for a turn. He shrank back, but then Carol gave a curious look outside.

“It’s so pretty outside. Is it a festival?”

They all looked out the window and found the entire area burning redly.

“But I haven’t heard of a festival for this time of year…”

Sasha tilted her head curiously and Magali gasped.

“Is it a fire!?”

“Oh, no!”

Felix hopped up and Louise got her limp body moving by pure force of will.

“This is what I was talking about. Your Highness, please go down and join Her Majesty.”

“Sorry we’re late!”

Felix and Louise ran down to the great hall and found Queen Gloriana already on her throne.

The castle town was engulfed in flames, which was a crisis for the kingdom. The queen had likely been rushed out while she was sleeping. She was wearing a white gown, but she was probably wearing a negligee below.

Nearly one hundred military and civil officials were gathered in front of her and rushing about.

They were being commanded by Prime Minister Canberra and General Dexel, but something seemed off to Felix.

Someone was missing. And that someone was an incredibly important gear that kept the kingdom running.

“Stepmother, where is Uncle Hilmedes?”

“He has yet to show up.”

“Knowing Lord Hilmedes, he probably ran out to take command on the scene.”

The group of officials agreed with Prime Minister Canberra’s view.

“That too is a possibility.”

“We will never put out the flames if we focus on who is not here rather than who is. Have each unit prepare to head out. Your Majesty, how would you like the units arranged?”

“Leave that to the crown prince.”

Prime Minister Canberra and General Dexel exchanged a glance.

Queen Gloriana did not have the proper crisis management knowledge, so they had expected her to leave the decision up to the two of them.

Instead, she had directed them to Felix.

She was testing his talent. In fact, she was even giving the retainers a chance to judge the crown prince’s strength.

The older men thought it was too soon for that.

Felix naturally sensed he was being tested.

He stared at a map of the castle town. He thought he had a decent understanding of what units were at the royal family’s disposal.

“Send Battalion 1 to put out the fire in the western region, send Battalion 2 to put out the fire in the eastern region, send Battalion 3 to put out the fire in the southern region, and send Battalion 4 to restrain the panic on the main street. Have my personal knight squad secure the central bridge to have the people moved to safety more smoothly.”

Once Felix gave his instructions, General Dexel loudly praised him.

“Well done. A splendid job. All units, do as His Highness has instructed!”

The units quickly left.

The bodyguard general had likely intended to loudly praise the crown prince as long as he did not say anything too incredibly stupid.

And in this case, making a quick decision to get the townspeople away from the fire was more important than the specific arrangement of the units, so making a quick decision was really all he needed to do to pass the test.

“Now, I will head out to take command on the scene. Crown Prince, please support your stepmother here.”

“Sure. Understood.”

Felix watched his bodyguard general leave, turned to face his stepmother, and saw her give him a satisfied nod.

The boy blushed for no real reason, but he looked shocked when his gaze fell on his frightening tutor of a maid.

“What’s the matter, Louise?”

The kingdom’s most capable woman was staring intently at the map.

“Even with the powerful wind tonight, the fire is spreading too quickly.”

“Meaning?”

“Someone might have set this fire. In fact, an entire group may have set the fire at once.”

The looks on the faces of the governing officials quickly changed.

“A group? But who? And why?”

“I cannot think of many people who would feel dissatisfied with the current state of the kingdom and who could get a large group to work for them.”

Even the densest among them realized who that would be.

“You don’t mean…!?”

“I too find it hard to believe, but if this was done by him, it will be more than just a fire. We need to prepare ourselves and quickly.”

Felix was confused, but the situation advanced before Louise could do anything.

Angry shouts, screams, and clashing metal reached their ears as the great hall’s door opened a little.

The smell of blood wafted in and a man in a royal guard uniform collapsed through the gap.

Another royal guard knight ran over.

“What happened?”

The bloody knight opened his mouth and coughed up blood as he spoke.

“Lord Hilmedes…has rebelled…”

His voice was weak, but it struck everyone’s ears with the force of a thunderbolt tearing apart the heavens.

That was certainly a shock, but it was not as surprising as it might have been.

This was an age of war. Why would anyone be surprised that someone with both popularity and skill would desire the throne?

In fact, wouldn’t it be more surprising if someone on his level agreed to serve instead of conspiring to take the throne?

The door opened wider.

A great man boldly walked in wearing black and gold armor and holding a bloody sword.

Gloriana’s face went pale, as did Felix’s. This was probably what it felt like to face the grim reaper.

“Your Highness, please show some sense and do not appear before Her Majesty looking like that.”

As soon as Prime Minister Canberra walked forward with the smile of an experienced court politician, a horizontal slash shot out.

The old man’s head flew high through the air.

“Eek!”

“Queen Gloriana, you must flee.”

Louise ran to the queen.

From there, the great hall became a scene of carnage. It did not take long for the battle between Hilmedes’s knights and the royal guards to end.

It likely came down to a difference in resolve more than a difference in skill. The twenty or so royal guards were quickly turned to piles of meat on the floor.

Hilmedes got in the way of the red maid attempting to take the queen to safety.

“You are too clever for your own good, wench!”

He spat out those words and let his left fist fly. Louise doubled over from the blow to the gut, drool spewed from her mouth, and she collapsed to the ground. The man apparently intended not to kill noncombatant women.

“Why, Hilmedes!?”

The lovely queen stared firmly at her brother-in-law.

In her rapid movement, the chest of her gown had slipped down, revealing her ample white breasts, but Hilmedes showed not the slightest reaction.

“It would be one thing during peacetime, but the Domos Kingdom is expanding their territory from the north and the Orsini-Sabrina Double Kingdom is doing the same from the south. I cannot leave the Ishtar Kingdom to you at a time like this. Sister-in-law, I will not kill you. I will simply imprison you. But you, boy…”

Felix was exposed to a gaze that felt like a blow from a machete.

“Draw your sword. I challenge you to single combat.”

Simply put, Gloriana was useful as a puppet on the throne, but Felix was not worth keeping alive.

Hilmedes could have easily cut him down immediately, but his form of sympathy as a warrior had led him to make this challenge of single combat.

“Understood.”

This was essentially a death sentence, but Felix’s voice was surprisingly calm.

He had secretly sensed this since become crown prince, but he seemed to possess a bolder mind than even he had expected.

Or rather, his splendid week as crown prince had felt like a dream completely removed from reality.

When the crown prince obediently drew his word, the former king’s younger brother’s bloody sword clashed against it, sending sparks flying.

He had already known this, but the very first strike confirmed that the man’s skill and strength was on another level entirely.

Even striking the boy’s sword had likely been Hilmedes’s form of courtesy because it would have been truly sad to suddenly strike him down with the first blow.

“You are a decent swordsman. It would seem Count Gilbert did not simply spoil his son. But they are still the skills of a child who has never seen battle!”

With that shout, the boy was knocked to the floor. The next attack would come from overhead, so he raised his sword. He had not let go of his weapon due to his master’s training, but he could not cross swords properly from this unnatural position. Prepared for the worst, he reflexively closed his eyes and stiffened his body.

But the final blow never seemed to come.

Finding this odd, the powerless boy hesitantly opened his eyes.

“…”

Hilmedes had seemed like a great unshaking statue, but now he coughed up blood.

A metal spear tip had grown from his gut.

He stared expressionlessly down at the foreign object sticking from his stomach, returned his sword to its scabbard, grabbed that tip with both hands, and pulled it forward.

As the queen, crown prince, and court retainers watched on, the spear was pulled forward and finally entirely out of the man’s body. This naturally left a large hole and blood hemorrhaged out, but the man seemed to entirely ignore that fact as he swung the bloody spear horizontally.

The spear was deflected with a dull sound.

A midsized silver sword had caught it.

That sword was held by a female knight with long dark-brown hair, a silver breastplate, silver waist armor, and silver gauntlets.

She was entirely dyed in crimson, but the crystalline transparency of her beauty was still apparent.

“Ursula…”

Felix’s comment seemed to tell Hilmedes who had fatally wounded him and an expression appeared on his face for the first time. It was less of a bitter smile and more of a mocking smile directed at himself.

“Commander of the Roaring Dragons, Platoon 12 of the Royal Capital Defense Knights? …I see. This boy was a knight apprentice in your unit, wasn’t he?”

The great man’s knees slowly gave out below him.

“You will regret this. Times of peace are one thing, but can women and children really protect the kingdom’s people in this age of war? No one but me could possibly overcome this age.”

The female knight raised her voice in protest of that god of war’s opinion.

“Please do not gloss over what you did. You set fire to the castle town. Only a true lowlife would use the kingdom’s people to usurp the throne. You were simply drunk on your own ambition. You were so lost in your lust for the throne that you disgraced the title of knight.”

“Heh. Perhaps.”

He had likely been prepared to die in dishonor if he failed. Finally, he collapsed to the floor like a great tree.

Felix reflexively supported the man in his arms.

“Take care of the kingdom, boy…”

With those final words, the rebel who failed to take his place as a hero breathed his last.

Kill the head and the snake will die. With Hilmedes’s death, the rebellion was quickly suppressed.