Chapter 99: Innocent questions
"And that’s the youngest one."
"Ah, our Star of the celebration!."
Able was holding little Alex right now, a fearless girl who was looking straight at the emperor without any hesitation.
The emperor found it pretty funny so he took her from his hands and placed her on his lap.
"Why does everyone act so strangely around you, old uncle?"
She must be the only child bold enough to call the emperor an old uncle. At least someone that the others don’t correct readily.
To a sheltered child like her, the concept of an emperor, a ruler, was all too clear. What she did not understand, however, was the way people acted around him.
"Hohoho. That’s a very interesting question." He did not take her question as a child’s words.
The emperor did not just laugh at those words and actually thought about it for a moment.
"I guess it is because they see this position as something of great authority. You could say people consider my position as the emperor to be of the highest power."
An innocent child’s question was turning out to be an important lesson he could not teach his own children.
"They do not understand the mysterious nature of power." He paused for a moment and looked at his son, the prince. "What is power, George."
To those who knew him, the prince was the smartest politician there was in this empire.
"Power is a trick, father." He was certainly the best person to ask that particular question. "Power resides where masses believe it to reside. Authority, granted by different statuses, become the foundations of their beliefs."
Money is power. The name is power. Skills and strength are power.
In this world of beasts, the stronger and more unique beasts are the foundations of people’s belief and thus, of power.
"People’s belief in their ruler is the most supreme. And the one who sits on the throne, the one who leads the nation also becomes the most powerful."
Those with strength then come under the one with power. And when everything is said and done, all this illusionary power becomes meaningless in front of mindless madness.
"Oh, but if that’s the case brother prince," Alex wasn’t done with her questions just yet. "Shouldn’t everyone be the same towards him? Why are there some who follow after you more and why are there some who are looking after princess sister even though she’s sitting with her family?"
"..."
"That..."
Not just the prince but the princess shot a glance to all their people as well.
It was an official gathering and they were making a fool out of all of them right now.
The prince was lost for words in that instance.
"As the big brother said, little one." Answering her question with a warm smile, he looked at both of his children with that same warmth.
They were in someone else’s house right now as guests. And yet, they weren’t able to control the very people that they relied on.
"Power is a trick. It might not be what you’re seeing right now in the first place."
The emperor had the answers to this child’s questions, but what will these two do when a different child asks them a ’real’ question?
What will this prince and princess who were leading hundreds of thousands of people right now do to answer those questions in a way that satisfies the eternally curious children?
’Have you thought of it before?’ His eyes asked both of them this question.
The questions of the innocent weren’t complicated by themselves, but the mess that they have made for themselves and for all the others... made even these simple questions seem endlessly twisted.
They believed him to be finished.
He had already received the report that his own son had planned his funeral even before he was gone.
While he had always known about the twisted nature of his elder son and the innocent ambitions of his daughter, the reason he made Prince George his heir was exactly to tame his immediate schemes.
It had stalled enough time until now, but, if he was bearing his poisonous fangs at the empire and the future of his people, then this was an issue.
"I’ve prepared a cool present for you, little one. Do you want to see it?"
"Yes~."
After answering a few more of Alex’s questions, the emperor sent her off with the imperial maid.
She was interested in this child for a while now so giving those two a few moments alone would be a bigger gift for her than something material.
"Lord Agnus." When the little girl was gone and the people on the upper floor had finished their greetings, the emperor sent most of the people away, clearing the place for a chat with his children.
"You both thought I’d book it, didn’t you." The youngest boy of the patriarch had prepared some delicious drinks for them so he picked up one while glaring at the two ungrateful children.
"I don’t blame you. Even I believed I was done for."
The drink did not have any alcohol and yet it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted.
That young boy truly had the blessed talents of his parents.
’If only these two were anything like any of them...’
He may have held off the empire for long enough but he knew at this moment that he had failed as a father.
The children that treated the Sungrade patriarch like the most sacred idol, even with their personal feelings towards him, were a blessing from the Great mother.
They were everything that he would want his children to be and everything that he knew he had lost already.
But they were yet not like the grief one would be struck by from the Siren’s song.
"Haaa..."
He wasn’t a fool. He knew neither of them were fit to be the one that the empire needed.
"George, from this very moment, you are being stripped of your title of Crown prince."
That was the first thing he needed to do. That title was unfairly advantageous to him.
"And I am not going to name you the official heir either, Emma."
His eyes were more angry and sad than they had ever been. As a father and as an emperor, he was heartbroken.
"Thanks to the good people who truly cared about the state, I will live a little longer."
The ways of his predecessors were too brutal but they were there for a reason, he had only realised that after being firestruck.
He could not subject them to the cruel methods of the past, but he could not let things go on like this either.
So, after much contemplation with his advisers, he had come up with a solution...