35.2 An Unexpected ad lib
The uproar continued to grow. So far, she didn’t hear any voices condemning Riol. Since his first victory was a fluke, they decided to overrule it. Everyone wasn’t convinced. It was even more so for Sharina who knew that his victory wasn’t a fluke in the first place.
“W, wait! This talk isn’t over, yet! Riol Glen!”
Amidst the turbulence, the teacher shouted in a hurry. It resulted in a loud voice that hurt the ears.
“During the first round, the magical instrument worn by His Highness Roland was sabotaged! The moment His Highness used magic, it ran amok!”
Riol, whom was approaching the exit of the venue, turned around.
“N-no way…! Is that true, teacher!?”
“T-that’s right!”
“Could it be, because His Highness Roland is the most promising candidate for this tournament, someone was trying to get rid of him!?”
“Th-that kind of person—hm?”
In an unusual manner, Riol screamed—his voice echoed throughout the venue.
Before she knew it, the audience grew silent once again. They halted in favor of the two, whom were conversing.
“Or! Is it perhaps the doing of someone who’s hostile towards His Highness?!”
“N, no! As if! The only one who would benefit from sabotaging His Highness’ magical instrument was his opponent during the first round—which is you!”
“Hold it, teacher! Riol just forfeited the match, didn’t he!? For him, there’s nothing to gain!”
When the teacher was yelling at Riol, Patrick interjected.
“W, well, he could’ve just been trying to avoid being suspected of foul play…”
“What about the evidence!? Is there any evidence that he did it!?”
“I, indeed… there’s proof pertaining to the sabotaged magical instrument, and the reason why Riol won the first round… you see, His Highness has forgotten that brooch several times in his classroom, therefore…”
When she saw the teacher pull something like a brooch out of his chest pocket, Sharina finally understood everything.
The teachers wanted to make a scapegoat out of Riol. They wanted Riol to attest that his victory during the first match was due to his own strength, so they could pull their trump card—
—which was Roland’s ‘sabotaged’ magical instrument.
“In addition, there was testimony from others that Riol Glen was in the courtyard every morning when no one else was there! There were plenty of opportunities for him to sneak into the third-year classroom!”
Perhaps their aim was to restore Roland’s honor. It was possible that Roland wouldn’t never show up due to having lost to a freshman—not to mention, someone from Written Magic Department.
“Riol is always with me before school, during lunch breaks, and after school! He didn’t have a single chance to sabotage and return His Highness’ magical instrument!”
That was the only thing Sharina could do.
The evidence of foul play, which was Riol sabotaging the magical instrument was difficult to break.
At the very least, she could stop Riol from being turned into a scapegoat…
“…Sharina Clydea. Please refrain from making spontaneous statements like that. As if there is credibility in the testimony of those who side with him…”
The teacher’s complain to Sharina, who had raised her voice, could clearly be heard due to the loudspeaker. It seemed that a lot of things didn’t go as planned, since the teacher seemed quite confused.
“I will also testify! Ever since last month until the first day of the magic tournament, accompanied Riol to his department every morning! He has never been alone during early morning!”
“Tobias!”
Sharina, with beaming eyes, looked back. Tobias stood there with his fist on his chest. His face was serious.
“Wha—…”
On the surface, it was a statement from a person on Roland’s side, who also happened to be his follower. It seemed that the teacher was very scared by that.
However…
“…I’ll hear more about this at a later date, but I can’t allow this match to continue under the suspicion of life-threatening fraud. I’ll declare it again! It’s Patrick Wardington’s victory! That’s all!”
Only the worst, which was Riol ending up being the scapegoat, was avoided—but the crisis hadn’t been completely avoided.
“Wait! I don’t think he had cheated in the slightest! What’s wrong with this match—”
“That’s our decision! No further counterarguments are allowed!”
Patrick could still be heard interjecting the teacher. Despite so, the teacher kept repeating, “It’s been decided.”
Yes, such was their decision—
—to blame everything on Riol and subsequently dismiss him. To sacrifice Riol for a lie that would restore Roland’s prestige.
Riol left the arena while the teacher kept repeating his previous statement.
“What’s that… what do you mean!?”
“Are you serious!? It isn’t even funny!”
Tobias leaned forward to the point where he was about to fall over the railing.
Unable to stop the screaming Angelica, Sharina clasped her hands. Her vision distorted due to regret. She couldn’t breath well due to her anger.
However, at that moment, surely—
—Riol was the one who suffered the most.
“Sharina!?”
“Shari, wait, where are you going!?”
Unable to stay, Sharina ran through the audience seats and jumped out of the arena.
***T/N:
*Prince Leonarcisshit and Chuunidiot stealing, power abusing, and straight up trying to kill someone under broad daylight*
///The academy’s higher-ups: Understandable, have a nice day. Be sure to succeed the throne, too.
*A hardworking student who actually climbed the ladder and achieved victory through his own effort*
///The academy’s higher-ups: UNACCEPTABLE. WE HAVE TO STOP HIM AT ALL COST.
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These adults are painful. That kingdom seriously isn’t going to last another year if nothing changes.
You know, I have to question what the political situation actually looks like because several things stick out to me as inconsistent.
Leonarcisshit getting removed from his position is apparently a big enough deal that the King and Queen were forced to return, but not a big enough deal to put an entire squad of minders on the new crown prince? And then when that new crown prince tries to mess with the same person who got the previous prince deposed nobody from higher up in the royal family tries to intervene?
If I just lost my first candidate and was stuck with a backup you can bet they are not going anywhere alone and absolutely nowhere near the reason my first candidate is gone unless I have already worked out something with them directly.
The inconsistent handling of the royal family’s status almost makes me believe we are going to see the queen clear the entire academy out if only because this attempt at preserving her son’s honor is so laughably thin that it is insulting.
I’ve always just assumed the entire royal families full of idiots (and most of the higher ups looking at how the two from the “most powerful noble house” were raised). In the defense of the first prince he was fairly young (just having had his coming of age and still being in “high school” (their equalivalent)). The fact is, you don’t get a personality that bad at that age without having been raised horribly and exposed to detrimental surroundings and influences. The story itself also told me that everyone just continually fed his ego and horrible personality and no one ever reprimanded him, corrected his mistakes, so he effectively could never learn like people should during normal development. This just falls on the parents, who (especially as royalty) should have taken greater care to observe his growth, make sure his surrounding lead to healthy development, give him educators with a backbone, and made sure to reprimand and punish him themselves when necessary (how can you know you need to learn from a mistake if no one points out you made a mistake). They left that idiot alone in a court full of push overs, puppets, and sheep, and could only be bothered to do something about it when they could no longer ignore the piling evidence (not to mention it was Riol who commaned Leonardo lose succession; they didn’t even really make that decision because with the scales the only alternative was death). I never saw why another son raised under poor parents in a similar environment would be any different. And why would the parents learn from mistakes when they couldn’t be bothered to teach their son to?
You know, it pisses me off… but you also need to understand, it’s a prince vs a lower class person.
In a world where status is the norm, it’s normal to sacrifice him.
In the end, it’s a sacrifice of a single person. It doesn’t matter in the scheme of things.
Especially if they are actually skilled. It should be noted that both princes were overall competent. Even their stupidity only had a single victim.
A prince is worth more than a few lower class peoples. That’s just how these societies work.
Trying to use the modern standard to judge these people are inherently unfair.
Riol’s hard work is nice, but in the long run, it doesn’t matter (outside of a story).
Thanks for the chapter XD
Actually, their stupidity make them worthless as Royalty as they would be easily manipulated. So no there is no excuses here, only teachers that want to save their asses. This will end badly for everyone involved.
Not true. 1st, they are just being arrogant kids. Second, in the long run, it wouldn’t be much of a problem.
The 1st prince just had the delusion that a single girl liked him when she didn’t. Why? Because 99% of all girls liked him.
2nd prince only wanted to ruin the life of 2 people of drastically lower status.
To us who are raised in a culture where equality is valued, we forget that in older cultures, just going against the king could be considered a crime.
We have a natural inclination against this kind of thought because our very cultural values go against it.
It’s not something we can fully understand. In our view, it’s pure logic, but in truth, it’s not. It’s perspective.
And we just wouldn’t be able to understand such a perspective because it’s naturally foreign to us.
Also, you forget, it will only end badly for everyone SOLELY because it’s in a story. In real life, if the prince killed or sabotaged an innocent man… people would move on and nothing would happen. It happened all the time.
Concerning the second prince…
He is not fit to be a monarch. This isn’t becuase he tried to ruin the lives of two people of lower status – that’s petty and annoying and you hope your leaders don’t do stuff like that because you want them to actually do their jobs instead, but it isn’t a reason to disinherit him and move on to someone else. It’s the kind of thing you can hope they grow up from and work around in the meantime.
No. The reason why he isn’t fit for royalty is becuase he couldn’t accept it when he lost to a vastly superior opponent that he mistakenly thought was weaker.
That kind of thing happens all the time as a ruler, and if you can’t deal with it you instead lead your country to ruin.
In a medieval setting, as royalty that also means you die a gruesome death (after all, there’s nothing left to ransom you to, so it’s publicly humiliating execution time – assuming their own people didn’t literally tear the entire royal family apart for their idiocy first).
It’s called having an opinion.
Yes, during a period where free speech and opinions were not as valued.
I see, so you think we’re fussing due to the lack of understanding of how things were back then instead of just rooting for the story and its MC, therefore you’re here to broaden our perspective.
That isn’t at all presumptuous and arrogant of you.
No, I’m just saying, due to the times, it’s normal to have sacrificed an innocent kid. It seems dumb to us now, but for them, not doing so would be dumb.
By the way, are you okay? You know I didn’t mean it as a personal attack on you or as an insult, right? I was just pointing out a different perspective.
You didn’t make that very clear when you specifically replied to my t/n instead of anything and use words such as “you need to understand.” which, to me, rather than sounding like you’re pointing out a different perspective, sounds like you’re imposing it instead.
Well, that’s not my intention. I apologize if it came off that way.
Leonarcissist do more than one victim. He was constantly rude to women, humiliate his fiance publicly. Disband the rose garden for personnal reason too.
Yah, but in the long run, that was more harmless. He was being a stupid kid.
For times where kings and queens ruled, these problems wouldn’t matter as much in the long run. As an adult, he’d probably not make much mistakes.
In this case of Chunni 2nd prince, I can agree with you. It better to sacrifire 2 lower class student than to lower the public opinion on the royal family any further. Because even if the 3rd prince is competent, the public may no longer believe in him because of his two brother’s failure.
But, in the Leonarcissist case it is very harmful having a prince that would do all that for a girl of unknown origin. All the vassals and even his fiancee disagree with his doing is almost the right thing to do. But the fact that they did not investigate Sharina enough is a big no no.
They don’t even know she has another guy she interest in despite her trying to woo him every hours of the day since she met him then how could they know whether she is another country’s spy or a pawn of a noble.
In the long run, that girl that they did not do an extensive check on could be a spy in the position of power, or there could be another girl who want to be the second or third instant-princess which further give room for greedy noble to try their hand.
There also the fact that a queen candidate is selected very carefully, and the queen education also take a big chunk of resource and time to do so Leonarcissist choosing himself a fiancee out of nowhere without listening to his own fiancee and advisor is a clear sign of a bad prince.
That wasn’t harmless, a king cannot reign without the support of artistocrats. He’s behavior isn’t good in the long term. He just make more and more ennemie of the crown.
When he disband the rose garden, his ability to reign was already put in doubt by the nobles.
True, but remember, he’s still young. That’s an important point to remember.
Dude, I think you’re mistaking something. Even though this nation revere the royalty, you also have to remember that nobles also rule the nation. Therefore, even royalties also have to know their place and can’t expect the nobles to support them if they trample on the noble’s pride and making it hard for them. Even the fact that rose garden disbanded already make all those families want to stop supporting the former crown prince because he antagonize their interest. There’s also the fact that he’s acting tyrannical. People here aren’t so stupid to forgive and forget someone that could become a tyrant in the future just because he’s young, the people already lose their trust in him so he’s not qualified to be a king. As for the second prince, it’s not like Sharina and Riol also wants him to lose his right to the crown, it’s how he dealt with his first defeat that makes his right questionable. In fact now, while the teachers are wiping his ass, most of the students will still lose their respect to him, because they’re not so stupid to believe the teacher’s lies just like that
Here is the thing though, he doesn’t have an overall bad track record. It was a single moment where he was a foolish youth.
Outside of this moment, he was pretty much perfect. The only reason he was bad was cause one single mistake in believing that the one girl that didn’t want to get with him liked him back.
Eeeehhhh I wouldn’t say disbanding the Rose Garden would be harmless in the long run. Even in the story it was considered a big deal, and for good reason. Politics is all about connections, and that was what the Rose Garden was for. It was a place for high ranking ladies to gather so a suitable fiancé could be found for the prince, yes, and that’s also a big deal, but it’s also a place for ladies to establish connections with the other noble ladies. Add to that the reason for the disbanding is related to the prince wanting to marry someone of lower rank, and you’ve got a political debacle on your hands. The other stuff he could get away with, but breaking apart a noble faction, even though they’re still teens, from gathering is going to raise hell from the parents.