Chapter 19.1

The Crown Prince (Acting): Cermiane’s Point of View (1)

I think everyone goes through tough times in their lives, but the toughest period in my life was probably the time between my return to the royal family and becoming the Acting Crown Prince until I was officially crowned Crown Prince.

That period was really tough. It was not the kind of busyness that you can just say, “That was hard work. I almost died. I almost died of exhaustion.

The day after I was officially recognized as a Prince, I was appointed as the Acting Crown Prince by the Emperor. It was a bit of a crazy move. I didn’t know what was going on. However, I had no choice. Both the Crown Prince and the Acting Crown Prince can only be members of the royal family, and the Emperor had clearly stated in front of the nobles that I was the next Crown Prince.

If I am the next Crown Prince, it is naturally my duty to act as Acting Crown Prince in the absence of the Crown Prince. Just as it is the responsibility of the crown prince to act as acting emperor in the absence of the emperor. I understood that. I understood it in theory. but that was not the problem.

The problem was that until then, I had only performed my duties as a mere knight. A knight’s job is to fight. It is to carry out his duty. And to do that, one has to train his body and skills. In short, since I came of age, I have done little more than exercise my body.

The duties of a crown prince are many and varied, and one of them is to participate in the training of the Order of the Knights. This is a time for the next emperor to get to know the members of the knighthood, to gain their loyalty, and to prepare for emergencies. However, that is the extent of his opportunities for physical activity, which is mostly paperwork. In other words, it is desk work. It is a job that requires the use of one’s head.

I have never had such a job. I can read, write, and calculate without problems because of my education, but that is not enough to do paperwork. I need to know the phrases and promises unique to official documents, and if I have no knowledge to begin with, I don’t even know what the items on the documents mean.

On my first day at the Crown Prince’s Office, I was at a loss when I was asked by a chamberlain attached to the Crown Prince’s Office to deal with the mountain of unprocessed documents that had already piled up since His Highness the Crown Prince had fallen ill. I had no idea what to do from start to finish. I had no choice but to learn from the ground up from the staff of the Crown Prince’s Office, the bureaucrats of the Crown Prince’s Office, and the ministers and bureaucrats of the ministries concerned. His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince, who is to take over the reins, is in no condition to endure such a long talk.

His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince was still able to speak somewhat when I first became Crown Prince. I took time out of my busy schedule to visit him. When he saw that I was having a hard time, he would laugh and say, “I deserved it,” and then he would smile sadly and say, “I’m sorry. He took over for a bit, but soon His Highness’ condition worsened and the doctor forbade him to talk about work. Still, I was happy to be able to treat him as a brother for the first time in a long time.

I studied hard. Not only did I study hard, but I immediately got down to business. Fortunately, the bureaucrats in the Crown Prince’s Office were very cooperative and supported me, saying, “This is His Highness the Crown Prince’s last request. However, they were subordinates of His Highness the Crown Prince’s protegees, and they were his confidants. They were so enamored with His Highness the Crown Prince that their attitude toward me was cold at first. They were merely cooperating with me by listening to His Highness the Crown Prince’s last wishes. Without their cooperation, I would truly be at a loss.

I tried to communicate with them and somehow asked them to remain in the Crown Prince’s Office after His Highness the Crown Prince’s death, promising them a future promotion. They saw me as someone who was trying to take advantage of His Highness’ illness to gain the crown prince’s position, like a burglar, and it was difficult to gain their wholehearted loyalty. However, after some twists and turns, I was finally able to get all but a few of them to remain in my Crown Prince’s Office and give me their full effort.

What was needed to keep the loyalty of the bureaucrats was effort. Hard work. I had no choice but to work harder than anyone else, to do my job poorly but furiously, to revitalize the Crown Prince’s Office, which had lost its vitality after the fall of His Highness, and to create a sense of unity and solidarity among the bureaucrats by involving them in my work. I did not have the charisma of His Highness the Crown Prince, nor did I have imperial education. All I could do was make an effort.

I studied early in the morning before Ralphine woke up, studied hard while doing practical work at the imperial palace, and after returning home and finishing dinner, I studied until late at night after Ralphine went to bed. Even so, time was not enough. He studied in the carriage and while using the restroom. Eventually, he even read documents while walking. Somehow, in a few months, he managed to raise his knowledge to a level where he could manage to do practical work.

To my horror, that was not all that the Deputy Crown Prince had to do. The list is endless, but the major tasks included training with knights, ceremonies, socializing, and so on.

Training with knights. This was a job that he was familiar with, and now he could exercise his body to the fullest, and it was even a relaxation for him to meet familiar people. No wonder His Highness the Crown Prince came to train with me every day. My fellow knights were surprised to learn that I was a prince, but they were accustomed to having a casual relationship with the bold and open-hearted His Highness the Crown Prince. They soon became accustomed to me and treated me normally.

The problem was the rituals and socializing. The emperor of the empire is an agent of God Almighty. He is the only person who can make a contract with God Almighty. No, in the sense that he can make direct contact with God Almighty, he is equal to other gods, so perhaps he should be considered one of the gods. Therefore, he must dedicate himself to the Almighty God, respect him, and offer his magical power through rituals to pray for the protection and fertility of the empire. This is the contract that the first emperor made with the Almighty God.

Think of magical power as the power of life. It is life itself. We use magic power. To devote magical power is to use it at the cost of one’s life. So, to be precise, everyone has magical power, even commoners. However, when the first emperor made a contract with the Almighty God, he was granted life force many times greater than that of an ordinary human being. He was ordered to devote that life force to the earth and enrich the land.

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