I Became the First Prince

and spread all throughout the palace.

“Those are Leonberg’s Quad Knights.
They- They are heading to the banquet hall.”

“Ah!” Hestia exclaimed as she heard the duke’s words.
It was a wonderful experience: powerful knights running as they revealed their existence without holding anything back.

Even without seeing them, Hestia felt that there was no hesitation in the steps that they took.
Even without hearing a sound, she could feel that their roar was as courageous as a lion’s.

It was a roar that went well with their spirit; Hestia couldn’t help but think.

Her heart was beating rapidly, and at the same time, she grinned widely.

The duke, who had known as the number one in the west, already had a defeatist attitude before even reaching the hall.
Meanwhile, knights whose names were unknown to her were running toward the enemy without fear.

It didn’t matter what country they belonged to; all that mattered was the fundamental difference in temperament.
Hestia did not know whether Duke Seymour’s nature had always been so weak or whether it had become so after his terrible defeat.
All that mattered was that Teuton’s knights were far weaker than she had expected.
The energy became stronger the moment that Hestia entered a wide corridor leading to the banqueting hall.

“My princess, look away.”

As Hestia frowned at the sudden smell of blood piercing into her nose, Duke Seymour blocked off her front.
Hestia did not close her eyes or hide behind the duke; instead, she kept them open and looked straight ahead.
There were traces of fierce battle and many corpses.

Some knights were armored in black armor, while other corpses wore the brilliant golden armor of Leonberg’s palace knights.
Not one knight had not suffered a terrible death: some had hollow gaps torn into their breastplates, others had crushed helmets, and out of all the dead knights, not one had died without a sword in hand.

Hestia immediately understood how fiercely they had fought.
Even while they had been seriously injured, they surely had fought their enemy until the end.

“Here is one who survived!” one of the Rosethorn knights who had gone ahead shouted.

Hestia saw a palace knight of Leonberg turn his head toward her.
He was trying to get up.

Without a thought, Hestia stepped toward him.

‘Chin!’ The duke reached out his hand and stopped her.
He shook his head and said, “He is already done with.
There is no hope.”

Hestia looked at the duke, then turned back to the palace knight.
She bowed down and covered his wound with her hands.
The gushing blood quickly stained Hestia’s hands and dress.

“Well, the enemy’s power was stronger than expected… I must go and let his Majesty know…” The palace knight repeated the same words over and over again.

“The paladins are headed to the banquet hall.
So don’t worry,” Hestia reassured the knight.

“Oh, the champions have come! I’m glad they are…”

Only then did the palace knight stopped struggling as he gave a great sigh of relief.
Then he smiled a little and died where he lay.

“Ah…” Hestia alternately looked at the red blood on her hands, and at the palace knight’s corpse, then she arose.
She looked behind her.
The Rosethorn Knights were very tense, and Duke Seymour could not hide his anxiety this close to the banqueting hall.

Hestia mentally lamented as she saw this.
Where was the west’s greatest knight? Where were the continent’s strongest knights? That these men were not even as brave as unknown knights from an isolated country…

‘Cheolkeok, cheolkeok, cheolkeok!’

While Hestia groaned, she heard heavy footsteps from behind her.
The tense Rosethorn Knights surrounded her.
Shortly afterward, knights with blood all over their bodies turned the corner and appeared in the corridor.
These knights looked at the corpses of the palace knights; their gazes nailed upon them.

“Damn.
Even if we knew and were prepared, it was impossible to completely prevent the damage,” one man lamented briefly and then looked at Hestia and the group.
“Are you Teutons?”

“Yes, we are.
And you are Leonberg’s knights?”

Unlike the palace knights in their golden armor, these knights wore armor of a slightly dull coloration, yet their chests had the clearly-engraved symbol of a lion.

“Erhim Kiringer of the Templar Knights greets the Princess of Teuton.
I honor the Tudor family.”

The man who had such polite manners immediately explained the situation.
He said that when the enemy invaded and headed for the palace, he was sent to protect Teuton’s envoys.
From now on, Erhim said, he would guide them to a safe place.

“Teuton is not blind enough to pretend to be unaware of a situation wherein our allies are in danger,” Hestia stated firmly.

“Are you going to head to the banquet hall?”

“Yes.
Duke Seymour and the Rosethorn Knights will help you overcome the difficulties there.”

“Then we will take the lead,” said Erhim.
To Hestia, who knew how to sway the hearts of men, his answer was refreshing to the point of being novel.

“You don’t disagree?” Hestia asked, curious.

“As you know, the kingdom’s champions went to the banqueting hall.
If I have to choose the safest place in the palace right now, it will definitely be there.”

It was then that the silent Duke Seymour spoke up.

“Is it Sir Erhim? You don’t seem to know how powerful your enemies are.
I bet the place you say is the safest is probably the most dangerous.”

Erhim Kiringer’s face remained expressionless as he watched the duke speak in a firm tone and with a stiff face.

“What would you have me do? Would you like to head to the banqueting hall? Would you like to turn around right now? Either way, we knights will serve you.”

His gaze was precisely directed at Hestia.

“I will go to the banquet hall.”

“Then I will serve you.
Dunham, you’ll wait here for the palace knights.
Follow them when the palace guards also arrive.”

Erhim looked sadly at the palace knights’ bodies for a moment, then stood facing Teuton’s knights.

“Follow me,” Erhim said and strode onward.
Hestia immediately followed.

On the way there, they encountered the traces of battle several times, but there was no encounter with a living enemy.
There were only fragments of black armor that had been crushed terribly — the traces of a too one-sided battle.

“It looks like one of the champions has passed this way,” Erhim Kiringer muttered and sped up.

After a while, they reached a corridor from which the banqueting hall was visible.

‘Chuck!’

Hestia and the Teutonic Knights, who had been walking along with the Templars, paused at once.

There was an old swordsman with stark white hair in front of them.
With a sword that shone like the sun in his hands, his foot rested on the corpse of a black-armored knight.
And across from him stood a black knight, his armor seeming to be covered in the pitch-black darkness of midnight.

He stood still like a ghost, and Hestia knew right away: this black knight was the entity that had made the best knight of the west lose his composure by only releasing energy, without them having faced each other.

Just then, the energy of the black knight began to rise slowly.
Leonberg’s knights raised their energy without losing a beat.
The situation immediately became even tenser.

“A knight who prides himself on being the corrupter of dreams.”

Someone’s words broke into the middle of that tension.

“I’m not sure, but you expected you would have entered another person’s dream tonight to give him a nightmare?”

The man who spoke was the prince of Leonberg.

“But there is no one in this world who does not dream,” the crown prince said with a wide smile as he looked at the black knight.
“It won’t be surprising that after you wake up, you will realize that tonight’s nightmare was no one else’s but yours.”

The prince spoke in a light tone, almost as if he was having fun.
Then he said one more thing: that his sword was named the Twilight of Dawn, so it was the perfect instrument to wake someone up.

‘Ssheeng!’ Prince Adrian drew his sword and raised it up high — then slashed down.