The nobles’ faces contorted in humiliation, and Banessa couldn’t help but grin as he exaggeratedly bowed to them.
“I’ll be taking my leave now. The banquet hall is quite warm, and I’m feeling a bit dizzy.”
With that, Banessa strode past the nobles, who stood frozen like statues, and headed for the exit. As soon as he opened the glass doors, a refreshing burst of cold air hit him, bringing immediate relief.
“Phew, that’s better.”
The cool breeze soothed the heat on the back of his neck, and he strolled along the garden path, humming a tune. Getting rid of those pests had improved his mood significantly.
“Sir Banessa! Just a moment, please!”
But then, to his disbelief, the same nobles who had been dismissed earlier came rushing after him. After being told twice to get lost, they were still following him? They must have lost their minds.
“Haha, we found the banquet hall a bit warm as well.”
“Yes, we decided to take a walk, and it seems our paths have crossed!”
Banessa’s face twisted in frustration at their persistence. Unconsciously, he let his wing aura flared slightly.
“J-just a moment, please.”
Despite their fear, the nobles didn’t back down.
“Have they lost all sense of fear because of their greed?”
Banessa was incredulous. What could possibly drive them to cling so desperately, even as cold sweat poured down their faces?
As he scowled in disbelief, a realization struck her.
“Could it be… are they still after our Lady Leticia? Is that why they’ve lost all sense of fear?”
The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that his suspicion was correct.
If they were this desperate to cling to him, a mere wing, then it was obvious they would latch onto Leticia by any means necessary if she ever appeared.
The thought of the imperial nobles targeting Leticia filled Banessa with fury.
“You lot. Why are you clinging to me?”
Banessa took a threatening step toward the nobles, his demeanor suddenly that of a predator.
“Do you need the power of the wings? Can you even handle my power?”
The nobles, who had been sycophantically flattering him, instinctively took a step back under the pressure of his presence.
“Do you know how I gained the power of the wings?”
Banessa’s voice was low and menacing as he glared at the nobles, his eyes glowing like those of a beast in the darkness.
“I became a wing by risking my life to protect Her Grace when she fell. I nearly died in the process. Do you think I would use such power on the likes of you?”
Coming to the empire alone had clearly been a mistake.
If Noel, Ahwin, Julia, or Kailas had been here, they could have swiftly dealt with these fools trying to exploit the power of the wings.
As much as he wanted to crush them, he knew he couldn’t. He was the only wing present, and he couldn’t afford to cause a scene at someone else’s banquet.
As he struggled to contain his rage, the foolish nobles suddenly seemed to lose their minds and began shouting in unison.
“Of course you should help! You were granted the power of the goddess, so you must help the people of the empire!”
“The desertification of the empire is progressing! Our estates are being destroyed! Do you know how much money we’ve invested in these farms? We can’t afford to lose them all!”
“So, you’re doing all this because of some farms? You expect our Lady to help you after everything you’ve done to her? Have you forgotten all your sins against her?”
“You should at least give us a chance to atone! Besides, we were deceived by Josephina too! If we had known who the real saintess was, we would never have acted that way!”
“Wow, this is truly driving me insane.”
Banessa looked up at the sky and let out a long sigh. The fiery lump boiling inside him grew larger. No matter how many times he exhaled, the lump didn’t shrink.
“I don’t know anymore, now.”
To hell with politeness.
It was all he could do to avoid using physical force.
Banessa grabbed the collar of the loudest noble at the front.
“Enough already. Do you have any idea how hard I’m trying to put up with you? Are you so blinded by that damned farm that you’re ready to die for it? If you want to wake up tomorrow morning, you’d better shut that mouth of yours now!”
With a flare, he ignited a flame as if to prove hiswarning.
“This is your last warning. I’m not usually one to give warnings, but I’m letting it slide just this once. But my patience has run out. And to top it off, my spirits seem to have taken after me—they’ve got a nasty temper. If I lose it, they might go berserk and burn you to a crisp.”
Banessa released the noble’s collar as if he were tossing it aside. Then he turned around and walked away with long strides. He was ready to put an end to him if he followed again, but luckily, this warning seemed to work; no one dared to follow.
But his satisfaction was short-lived, and Banessa’s mood soured again.
“What on earth is the Princess doing?”
Trash were still targeting Her Highness, yet she just stood by, watching with her arms crossed.
“Anyway, she’s a Wing too. Isn’t the one who’s going to be Emperor supposed to keep the nobles in check? Could it be that she too is targeting Her Highness? For the sake of the Holy Empire?”
He recalled the nonsense the Imperial courtiers had babbled about long ago.
The arrogant talk that Leticia was too good for Dietrian, so it would be better to divorce him.
“Damn it.”
Banessa ground his teeth. It was all in the past, but his head was still boiling.
The fact that those rotten humans were still flaunting themselves as nobles, and the Princess who left them be, made Banessa even angrier.
And then, after only a few steps.
Thud.
Footsteps grew closer. A pair of pitch-black shoes suddenly came into his view.
* * *
The noble whose collar Banessa had grabbed was none other than Count Kendel.
Kendel ground his teeth as he watched Banessa’s retreating figure.
“That insolent…! How dare he, how dare he! A mere knight of the Principality, daring to do such a thing to a noble of the Grand Empire…!”
Kendel had been the ringleader of this incident.
“He’s just a knight of the Principality, no matter how skilled! If he hadn’t been chosen by the Goddess, he would have had to bow his head before us, yet he dares to act so arrogantly!”
Kendel stomped his foot.
“Why did the Goddess grant the power of Wings to such a brute?”
The Wings of the Goddess were inherently an inviolable sacred domain.
Only the reincarnation of one of the nine Archpriests could become a Wing. No matter how high Kendel’s status was, he couldn’t compare to a Wing who had protected the Empire through repeated reincarnations.
But this principle had been broken with the emergence of new Wings in this generation. Four of the souls of the Archpriests who had protected the Empire for centuries had perished, and new Wings had taken their place.
This meant that anyone here could potentially become a Wing.
Which also meant that it didn’t have to be Banessa.
“Count, are you going to give up like this?”
“I’m already worried about this spring. We need to deploy new warriors to guard against the monsters.”
“Do you think it costs just a few pennies to command warriors? It doesn’t look like the royal family will help us! At this rate, we’ll end up as beggars!”
Count Kendel burst out at the nobles’ cries.
“Give up? How could I? We’re the only ones who can protect our wealth!”
“Then what should we do?”
“There’s only one way! We have to bring down the Princess!”
The other nobles gasped at his words.
“What? Bring down the Princess? With the coronation just around the corner?”
“That’s exactly why we need to bring her down before the coronation!”
Kendel roared.
“Once the Princess wears the Emperor’s crown and solidifies her power, there will be no way to stop her. We need to finish this before she settles into the throne!”
“But…”
“What are you so afraid of? The Princess doesn’t care about us. No, it’s certain she’s waiting for us to fall. All because we were loyal to the late Emperor!”
If it hadn’t been for the Princess, things wouldn’t have come to this. It was entirely her fault that they lost the Saintess to the Principality.
“The late Emperor was determined to keep the Saintess. He would have tied her down, even by using the child in her womb. Who do you think thwarted that plan? It was the Princess! She desperately blocked the Emperor! Because of her loyalty to the Saintess, the Empire lost her!”
During the council meetings, the Princess would threaten them if they even mentioned retrieving the Saintess.
“Our hard-earned money is melting away right now because of the Princess, who is more loyal to the Saintess than to the Empire. The Princess should never have ascended to the throne!”
“But there’s no other option. If not the Princess, then who will take the throne? Prince Callisto?”
“That won’t do. If he ascends to the throne, things will only get worse. He’s the reincarnation of an Archpriest!”
Callisto was a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at any moment. One wrong move, and not just the farms, but entire families could be obliterated.
“Don’t worry. If we dig through the side branches, we’ll find a suitable royal. We’ll bring them in and make them our puppet!”
Kendel was a natural agitator. The nobles, though fearful, were increasingly drawn to his words.
“So what should we do next?”
“First, we need to weaken the Princess’s power.”
“But she’s about to become the Emperor. And she’s a Wing on top of that. How can we possibly weaken her power?”
“They say it’s water seeping into the cracks that breaks the rock. We don’t need to fight her directly.”
Kendel grinned, baring his teeth.
“We’ll spread rumors.”
“Rumors?”
“Just like now, spread the rumor that the Princess killed the late Emperor. That she stopped him from retrieving the Saintess. Create the impression that we’ve lost everything because of her!”
“Do you think that will work?”
“It has to. Right now, everyone is wary of the Princess, but that won’t last forever, will it? And the Prince is returning to the Magic Tower. The Princess will be the only one left in the royal family.”
“But the Princess is a Wing.”
“What can a Wing abandoned by the Saintess do? Besides, the Empire is no longer what it used to be. The Goddess’s grace has vanished! All sorts of natural disasters will begin to appear. People will need someone to blame. The Princess will be the perfect target!”
“Oh… I see.”
One by one, they began to fall for Kendel’s incitement.
As the light in the nobles’ eyes changed, Kendel grew even more elated. He raised his voice as if he had already toppled the Princess.
“We must honor the late Emperor’s will. We must reclaim the Saintess who was stolen by the Principality! Just as His Majesty did, we should sway public opinion. Spread the word that the power of the Dragon bewitched the Saintess. That’s why the Empire lost her!”
“Hah. I can’t listen to this nonsense anymore.”
It was then.
Kendel whipped around in shock at the eerie voice. It was a voice that should never have been here.
“And what do you plan to do next?”
It was Banessa.
A chill ran down Kendel’s spine. The other nobles also turned pale. Someone made a clattering noise as their teeth chattered.
“Say it again. Hmm?”
Banessa was indeed smiling. But his eyes were strange. It seemed as if he was halfway to losing his mind.
“What did the late Emperor do? That madman targeted Her Highness’s child? And what are you planning to do next?”
Kendel snapped back to reality. The gravity of the situation finally dawned on him, and his whole body began to tremble.
Banessa had heard everything they had just said. He now knew about their plot to provoke the late Emperor into forcibly bringing Leticia back!
“Sir Banessa. This is all a misunderstanding….”
“Misunderstanding. Yes, a misunderstanding. It’s a good word. I heard it with my own ears, but sure, it could be a misunderstanding.”
He clung to the hope that he might still be able to deny everything, but that hope was cruelly shattered. Kendel, feeling faint, frantically glanced around. Then his eyes widened.
“That’s a flame!”
It was one of the flames Banessa had summoned earlier. It had been hiding by the bushes. They had been chatting away, completely oblivious!
“As expected, I should have brought the other Wings along with me. If I had, I could have made you all beg for mercy even in your dreams.”
Banessa grinned slyly. To the nobles, that grin looked just like that of the Grim Reaper.
“Oh, come to think of it, there *are* other Wings here, aren’t there? Our dependable Prince.”
His grin deepened.
“And our even more dependable Princess.”
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