I Became the First Prince

eyes, which seemed to be filled with burdensome emotions.

“I might visit later.
Now, I want to duel.
You don’t have to go to your palace either.”

I then glanced at my ruined palace.
There was no place more suitable than here, within the collapsed ruin that could sustain further damage.
The king stepped back with a face of utter resignation.
The palace knights quickly cleared away rubble and created a large empty space.
Meanwhile, Adelia had led my uncle into the middle of the ruin.

“Thank you.”

“It was nothing.”

My uncle curtly thanked Adelia, then drew the sword buckled at his waist.
I held my sword in front of me as I faced him.
I moved my sword back and forth in front of his eyes, but he didn’t respond.

“Are you really okay?”

I was worried about whether he could properly clash his sword with mine.

“Has the meaning of dueling changed while I was away?” He asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I asked whether it has become fashionable to clash with words instead of with swords.”

My uncle didn’t know how strong my heart had become, and he condemned me for being chatty.

“I really worry about you as much as I can.”

“You first suggested this duel.”

“That’s so, but don’t go resenting me afterward.”

“Who said I was going to do that?”

Looking at my uncle, who was speechless, I put my hand to my mouth and slowly widened my eyes.

“Let both persons end the battle without injuring each other’s bodies,” the king declared, trying to defuse the rising tension by reminding everyone that duels are not life or death affairs.
His efforts were useless.

The knights were already breathing excitedly as they considered the fact that my opponent was a penta-knight who now wielded his sword after a long time.

“If you’re going to do it, win with fire!”

Vincent even took the final step and outright cheered for me.

“I don’t care about my father, who does not take care of his body.
He said that raising a child is useless, and that’s exactly what I am right now.”

“As my son, would you not support me in my battle against his Highness?”

“…”

I laughed happily as the two noble men held an affectionate conversation.

“Please be careful not to harm your body.”

“Do not get hurt, Your Highness.”

I smiled as I heard Arwen and Adelia’s requests.
Carls and the palace knights cheered me on more carefully.
Well, then there was Maximilian.
From the first moment, he became lost in the excitement, openly cheering for me.

“I have devoted myself to the kingdom for decades, but no one here is on my side.
It is useless, it is ephemeral.”

As I heard my uncle speak in a sad tone, I gently raised my sword.
Now was not the time to be getting drunk on old memories or to be joking around.
After drawing my sword, I thought I would enter the duel with all seriousness—even if my foe was my dear uncle.

“Woo.” My uncle, after measuring my mana, gave a long exhalation.

‘Go-oh-oh-oh!’

Explosive energy flowed out of his body.
It felt as heavy as iron and as strong as a fortress.
A pile of rubble that had not been cleared away quaked and the dust that had barely settled on the floor bloomed into the air again.
Actually, my uncle hadn’t moved his sword once.

“That’s it…” I said in an admiring tone, but that was all I could feel.
Although his energy was incomparable to other Ring Knights, it was what I had expected to encounter up to this point.
But when my uncle gathered energy on his blade-

‘Shin!’

Things changed.
His energy, as magnificent as steel, remained the same.
The only difference was that this energy was now radiating out from his body.
I straightened myself in a hurry, stiffening to protect myself.

“Uncle… why am I feeling so wrong now? I’m very confused,” I told him with a frown.

Uncle Bale laughed, asking me out loud, “You think it’s an illusion?”

It was as if he was reading my mind.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I replied, “unless I’m making a mistake.”

“In this world, there are ridiculous things going on.”

“No matter how much-”

“There’s nothing worse for you than when it comes to things that don’t make sense.”

“That’s what I mean…”

My uncle merely laughed.

“The only thing I could do for the last seven years was to recite the poem, reliving endless battles against the Warlord in my mind,” my uncle suddenly told me in a subdued tone.
“I naturally got it after I recited it over tens of thousands of times.”

“That’s not so natural a way of getting it.

“But I got it.”

“So? I’m not saying I’m going easy on you.”

“If you’re already surprised, you’d be in trouble.”

“You have become weird while you haven’t seen civilization.
Moreover, you keep mimicking my tone.”

“That’s because I don’t have someone else to talk to.
I think it’s become a habit.”

“No.
If you say that again, I feel-”

‘Shin!’

Before I was done speaking, my uncle aimed his sword at me.

“If you test it for yourself, all your questions will be answered.”

‘Pchk!’

My skin was tingling and my spine was cold.
Just him pointing his sword at me was too much, but how wonderful would it be if I actually met him blade-to-blade?

My heart started hammering like crazy and my body heated up.
My mind, in contrast, was cold.

“Haha,” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
Uncle Bale forced his smile away and gripped his sword as he fixed it before him.

“It will be uncomfortable for you to move, so I’ll go first.”

My uncle didn’t answer me.
I also didn’t crack jokes anymore.
I just-

‘Fwa!’

I charged across the floor.
At that moment, the tangible energy surrounding my uncle collapsed in toward me.
It was like a landslide.
I cried out as I struck out with my sword despite that heavy feeling as if being crushed by a great mountain.

“That’s right! Orcish fervor!”

“This isn’t fervor, it’s the Warlord!”

“Either this or that!” my uncle laughed, chuckled, then lowered his sword.

‘Qawah!’

The heavy tragedy of my ignorance felt like it would split my head open.

‘Bang!’

The shock that had been transmitted through our meeting of blades shook the inside of my body.
I forced myself to endure it and tried to move forward, but suddenly stopped again.
There were five clear scratch marks right in front of me.
There were five on my side of the floor and none on Uncle Bale’s side.

“It’s only your words that are loud—you’re still a young man.”

While I looked at the floor blankly, my uncle tried to put some medicine in his words.

‘Warak!’

My face crumpled into a frown.

“Hey now, I just woke up from bed.
I’m still getting used to the new state of my body.”

“Let’s see—I can barely see with borrowed eyes.
I have only one arm.
My feet are limp.
But, my body is still good enough.”

Hearing my uncle’s words, I shut my mouth.
After all my joking around, I had lost sight of my true purpose.

“Woo.”

I tried to correct my face as I fixed my sword before me.

“Be careful…”

Then I collected a flash of light at the edge of my sword.

“Because it’s not only uncles who can learn new tricks.”

‘Wow!’

The light of dawn came to the blade the swordmaster had forged with his soul.
My uncle lowered his posture and prepared for my attack.
Looking at him, I stood still, not rushing forward as I kept pushing mana to the edge of my sword.
I channeled it, again and again.

‘Ooh ooh ooh ooh.’ Twilight cried, trembling in my grasp—as if it wanted to charge into battle right away.
But I still stood firmly, with both my feet on the floor, not moving a single step.
I just kept channeling mana into my blade.
My heart hammered like crazy, spewing out more mana.
It was the mana I had accumulated in my life as a sword.
Ten years, twenty, fifty—it was power gained over a century.
Mana flowed endlessly to the edge of my sword.

‘Qaw ahhh!’

A terrible wind began to rage around me.
My uncle’s expression hardened.

“What the hell now…”

It was hard to read his face.
I looked at him triumphantly.

‘Wow!’

Suddenly, my heart caught fire.