chapter 41

Somewhere on the road toward the Romanii Empire- only a few kilometers away from the imperial capital of the human race itself, a trail of carriage and knights in shining armors are marching and escorting, within one of those carriages, sat four people, two female and two male. "So...erm… what exactly am I supposed to do once we reached the imperial capital… your highness?" Leonard asked his "Eldest brother" who was sitting across from him, lazily looking out the window and admiring the scenery.

Of course these people are Leonard and the fifth prince of the Romanii Empire, Augustus Welser De Romanii, his elder brother and two of Leonard female companions, Ryan and Sachi.

As to why these two were following him, it was a long story- to sum it up, they were adamant about their decision and won't take no for an answer.

Now, they were seating meekly and remaining quiet next to Leonard, not even daring to even breath loudly or talk much for the past week or so while they are in the presence of a royalty.

"Please cut with the formal addressing, we're brother, just call me big brother Augustus or just Augustus." Augustus smiled at Leonard.

"Erm...yes big brother." Leonard inner chibi facial feature was twitching while having black line all over his face as he heard what Augustus had asked of him.

"Back to your question, the first thing we do when we reach the capital is to let you recognize your heritage as the member of the royal bloodline- then we will meet with the emperor himself, our grandfather in this case and let you accept the title of the seventh prince, next I will take you to mother of course, she missed you a lot- as she did not have much chance of seeing you since the day you were born, the politic of the royal family is quite...complicated if you know what I mean." Augustus told him as he looks out window with eyes fill with sorrow.

"What exactly happened back then?" the more he listened on to his heritage the more Leonard was curious, what the hell actually happen that would cause his mother to leave him the day he was born and why exactly did his father were telling him that his mother had died.

"To put it into simpler term, the politic of the royal family is complicated, one are bound to be each other enemy the moment a male was born within the family, competition for the throne you would say, back then, just after mother gave birth to you, she was summoned back to the empire along with myself, her son- by our grandfather, the emperor, luckily the existence of you and Vandal were still a secret back then and he didn't tell your mother to bring the two of you along, else it would be quite a political shit-storm…" Augustus let out a long sigh.

Leonard could roughly guess what Augustus was saying, a royal princess bringing back three competition for the throne, he could see how much of a mess that would cause.

"You had another reason for bringing me into the political mess right? Other than seeing grandfather, and mother…" Leonard chilling eyes narrowed at Augustus.

"Pfftt...look like you are smarter than you look, Leonard...you are indeed right...I had another reason for bringing you into this mess… to put it simply, I want you to either help me compete for the throne- or you yourself take the seat… of course the latter depend on whatever or not you have the capability to fight for it, two princes working with one another against all other competition is better than going solo, don't you think?" Augustus asked Leonard.

"So that's it? What's the current situation of the current emperor, our grandfather- that made you want to go all the trouble to bring me into the royal family?" Leonard raised an eyebrow as he looked at his brother.

"That and mother want me to bring you back of course, as for our grandfather, I could say that he is quite healthy- but he is getting on with his ages and wish to retire soon, the other princes your uncles and cousins seeing that opportunity, began to compete even more fiercely with one another for the favor of grandfather- just lot of stuff happened okay? You'll find out once you live in the capital for some times, because it going to take a long time explaining it all." Augustus corrected Leonard and informed him a bit about the current situation of the empire.

The two of them continued to chat, they talked about a lot of topics, such as each other hobby, they simply - Leonard was simply wanted to know more about his mysterious brother more.

Of course Leonard had his own thought about the entire matter, since he was told that he too- had a chance for the throne of a powerful empire, of course he would try to take it, since it a chance offered to him by his brother, there's no way in hell he would brush it away.

"Becoming Emperor heh? Emperor Leonard?...now that just sound wrong… I'm beginning to envy Augustus for actually being born with that name…" he thought.

******

After roughly an hour of carriage journey, they have finally reached the capital, the center- the jewels of the human race on the continent, the imperial capital of Romanii.

When the entourage arrived at the entrance, the guards who were stationed there quickly opened the giant gate and allowed them to pass, not even bother to try and do any inspection.

It was likely because they saw the crest that was imprinted on the outside of the carriage, bearing the mark of a hawk and circled by olive branch.

They knew that the carriage must have been belonged to someone with extremely high status within the empire, else they won't dare to put on that mark for display.

"Well...that was, less complicated than what I've been through back in the kingdom." Leonard commented, seeing how efficient the guardsmen been working to quickly make a path for their entourage to passed through into the city.

"It's all thank to that mark outside of the carriage, brother." Augustus pointed at the eye catching mark carved into the wooden structure of the carriage and plastered in gold.

"That is the mark of the royal family, other than the member of the royal family themselves, no one out there is stupid enough to use that mark- else they get caught, execution would likely be their punishment." Augustus told them.

"But-alas, there's always fools out there who would try to pull off something like that, from the report coming from the ministry of justice...there's a number of them who try to take advantages of the royal crest to either smuggling in goods or other contraband, let just say that their end is quite gruesome in the dungeon." he then shrugged.

The carriages and knights passed through the gate and arrived into the big city itself, the moment they entered the magnificent city, Leonard and two girls eyes were gleaming brightly like that of a star as they admired the scenery.

Wide open streets, tall building that reached toward the heaven along with airship in the sky, by airship, Leonard mean the overly sci-fied spaceship type of flying mechanical fortresses.

The moment he saw those things, it completely destroyed the imagery of what a medieval empire was actually like, what kind of dark ages would one had spaceships flying high above in the sky while other backwater kingdom still had horse drawn carriages and oxen to plow their field?

"You're surprised right? The Empire actually had airship… however we only had a couple of them in our army and they're in charge of the aerial security of the city, so they couldn't be casually deployed, even for a prince such as myself... " Augustus lamented as he looks toward the airship from down below within the carriage.