I Became the First Prince

If the Night is Long, the Dreams are Deep (1)

his Highness was somehow strange.
She wasn’t thinking about his sudden change of personality, but rather that he was so consistently paradoxical.
She knew his inside self was different from his outward character.
At one point, he could be like an old man who was well-versed in worldly affairs, and at another, he was just like a child learning the ways of the world.
He was wiser than anyone, yet more ignorant than all.
At the same time, he was surprisingly greedy and absurdly ambitious.
In addition to this, he was both generous and outrageous.

He was an old man with many years’ worth of deep wrinkles while being an innocent child with an unblemished face.
It was as if he had brought together all the contradictory aspects a human could have into a single being.

Was that why the evaluations of those who met the Crown Prince were strikingly mixed?

The knights all said that he was courageous, driven, and devoted.
The nobles spoke of him as a fierce, cunning, heartless prince.

The maids and peasants also said that he was a generous man of superior empathy.
And when it came to Adelia

“He’s a lovely, tender person.”

The prince was like a timid child to her.
Adelia, who was meeker than anyone else, knew she would eventually face ridicule by saying this about the greatest knight in the kingdom.

However, she truly thought so — the first time she had thought like this had been when the former Count Balahard died.
At that time, he had looked like a pale-faced child who had made a big mistake.
His shoulders were slumped, and it was clear that he blamed none but himself.
The image of the young prince, who couldn’t even shed tears, unable to express the sorrow in his heart, remained so clear in Adelia’s memory even after several years.

He had then torn into the Warlord, pouring out the sorrow he had endured all that time, all the sadness that had festered within him.
It was then that Adelia could first realize his true nature.

Since then, he had grown bolder.
He had become braver and got stronger — at least, this was how he appeared in the eyes of others.
But Adelia, who had always served the prince up close, thought differently.

She knew he had receded even further, becoming more timid and even weaker.
He was afraid that he would lose those dear to him, so he was all alone.
Some nights he had nightmares, groaning and shedding tears in his sleep.
At that time, Adelia stayed by his side all night, clutching his hand and wiping the tears off his cheeks.

Whenever he got up again, he never knew that he had been weeping all night, and spent his days as always.

His uncle, the Northmen, the half-elves — as the wars continued, the names he repeated in his sleep continued to increase in number.
Yet still, he remained completely unaware of his dreams.
It was a knew.
At least, that was the case until the news of the queen’s death reached the Gifted Lion Citadel.

The king, who had come to the prince late at night, wiped the sweat from his body as she shook with a cold fever, curled up tight.
And for the first time, the king knew what nightmares his eldest son, who he had thought was wholly sturdy, had suffered in his slumber.

Since that day, the king’s attitude toward his son softened.

Adelia didn’t think this was strange in the slightest.
No one would be able to deal blindly with a poor man suffering from nightmares if they knew the weight of his sorrow over the deaths of others.
However, even if the king had learned of the burdens and sadness carried by his son, there was something he did not know.

It was the most regrettable contradiction of the numerous dualities and paradoxes existing within the prince.
While he was terribly afraid of something ever going wrong to those he held dear, he was uninterested in his own life and death.

It seemed as if the prince didn’t think it mattered if he died; he seemed to think that it was enough to expend all his power, even if he fell in a fight.

Observing such a figure, Adelia realized that whenever the moment came to choose between his life and another’s, the prince would choose to die without any hesitation.

After realizing She wanted to be the prince’s strong pillar.
When the moment came for him to choose, she wanted to relieve him of such a choice and take his place.
That’s why she personally conducted the operation to neutralize the bad mercenaries.

However, despite her efforts and determination, the moment she had hoped would never transpire came crawling into reality.
She was barely able to remain standing in front of an overwhelming presence she had never thought could exist.

“Adelia.”

She heard the prince’s voice and turned her head, struggling against a pressure that seemed to tear at her soul.
He was there, with a calm face that didn’t suit the urgent situation.
Adelia’s heart sank, and an ominous scene rose into her mind.
She wouldn’t allow it, it couldn’t be — yet, her hopes were crumbling.

‘Thanks, I had a pleasant dream.’

It was as if Adelia herself was in a dream, for there was no sense of reality.
Her head was dizzy, and her legs felt lame.
She felt nauseous, her face pale, yet she forced her stiffened body to move.
And in exchange for moving, for bearing against the unstoppable presence, terrible pain came to her.

Red blood flowed from Adelia’s petite nose, over her teeth; it dripped from her ears and eyes.
She couldn’t bear it and ended up falling to the ground.

“Ooh ugh.”

She stretched out her hands, her fingers slamming onto the ground, gripping the earth with all her might, so hard that her fingernails were forced back, tearing from her flesh.

She crawled on like that, screaming, “Your Highness!”

However, before she could scream again, and before she was able to crawl to him-

‘Fuwook!’

An eerie squelching noise came to her ears.

‘Tlup, tlup’

As she watched the prince’s back, she saw blood dripping down, wetting his feet and forming into a small puddle.

“Ahhh…”

His body trembled like an aspen in the breeze.
Torn by what she was seeing, Adelia widened her eyes, “Aahhhhhh!” and screamed.

And, at that very moment-

“Hear me, you of a faithless tribe, for you have broken the Great War’s covenant.”

Even if it was in a coughing voice, the prince’s tone was surprisingly clear as it flowed into Adelia’s ears.

“I command you as an observer of the declaration,” the prince said, pausing, “return to your promised exile.”

‘Hwaak!’

A brilliant light burst out and swallowed up the world.
Adelia passed out, and some time passed.
When Adelia reawakened, she had no idea how long the hell had continued.
The first thing she saw was the remains of the elven soldiers, with only dented armor and gobbets of flesh marking their passing.
But-

“Alas…”

The accursed monster was still there.
Even though her finely-braided hair had become loose and tangled, she still stood there.
The elf raised her hand and touched one half of her face.
There was a slight tremble in her shoulders.
Then, her entire body began to shake.

“Kehihi kehihi,” the elf gave a high-pitched laugh.
“Ah… I never imagined your Highness would be throwing out an oath that no one remembers.
I have nothing to say except that this is really amazing.”

After laughing like a lunatic for some time, Sigrun lowered her hand.
Her eye socket was empty, her one eye gone as if it had never existed.

“But what else can you do? You dredged up that old pledge, hoping at most to cut me down, but all you collected were a few sentinels and an eyeball.”

The elf again trembled all over as her laughter tittered madly.

“I do not care.” It was then that the prince spoke.
“If you will break your oath, I will enforce it.”

The elf laughed at his words, but quickly stopped and twisted her mouth into a sneer.

“I hope you don’t believe that the sword will help.
That piece of iron was merely present, and it has no ability to enforce anything.”

“If this sword had been a mere witness, then that would be true,” the prince said, his voice bloody and simmering, though he stabilized his tone surprisingly quickly.
In contrast, the elf’s one remaining eye stretched only wider.

“I am both observer and signee of the covenant.”

“What the hell does-”

Before the elf’s words were complete, the prince spoke again.

and friend.
The one who inherited her legacy.”

At the same time, a faint glow began to flow from his body.

“In the name of Iron Blood, our indomitable souls were shared!”

“What are you saying!”

“Comrades who shared karma by winning numerous wars!”

The prince then pulled out the sword that had penetrated his chest.

“One of the six Templars of the Great War!”

At that moment, his sword began to cry.

‘Aa, aa, aa!’

At the same time, a great aura, a type of energy that could not be touched, stretched out in all directions.

“I am here to enact your sentence as an enforcer of the covenant.”

Standing in the center of that glimmering radiance, the prince readied himself to carry out the sentence.

“Those who sin by violating the oath cannot be saved.
They are going to be extinguished.”

It would be complete annihilation, leaving no soul — that was definitely the most terrible death penalty.
The death row prisoner resisted violently.

“That old pledge! It no longer exists.”

‘Go-oh-oh-oh-oh!’

The elf raised her energy.

“I am the Mistletoe Clan Executioner, head of a thousand sentinels.
I am the king’s sword.”

Sigrun’s tremendous energy overturned heaven and earth, and the whole world quaked.

“On behalf of my clan, I hereby declare that we sever the shackles that have bound us for a thousand years!” the elf shouted, her words sounding like maniacal laughter.

Facing that terrifying energy and such outright ridicule, the prince-

“Your words have determined the fate of your clan.”

The prince merely gave a low sigh.
And at that moment, the auspicious light surrounding him completely consumed his being.

‘Cheolkup! Cheolkup!’ A heavy metal sound came from within the sphere of brilliant light.

The elf’s eye shone with a beam of radiance, and she gripped her sword and struck the golden sphere of light.

‘Kraak Kurr!’

The sky roared, and the earth shook.
Moment by moment, a catastrophe powerful enough to destroy the fort came into being.
A crack appeared in the golden sphere, and the elf persistently aimed her attacks at the gap.

‘Bzak! Bzak!’

Then, finally, the sphere cracked with a buzzing sound, and the light of victory flared up in the elf’s eye.
However, hers was a hasty judgment.

‘Wkzaaa!’

An auspicious flash burst out from within the split sphere.
The elf twisted her body, end the flash of light disappeared into the distant plains.

“This-” The elf looked at where it had touched her flesh, then she lifted her trembling eyes, seeing that the sphere had been split in half.
Its two halves dissipated into shining, scattering dust.
And in that glowing cloud, he appeared, with the head of a dragon on his right shoulder and a lion’s head on the left, wearing bright golden armor that appeared to have been forged from light.
In his hand, he gripped a sword as long as himself.

The golden knight looked at the elf, and he shouted.

‘‘The stairs to the sky collapsed!’’

The aftermath of the flash of light and his exclamation was by no means trivial.

‘‘All that remains is the cunning tribe’s screams as they plummet!’’

It resulted in a powerful being losing her eternal potential.