Vol 3 Chapter 48.1 – Boyhood – Winter at Age 13 – Master Scene

Master Scene: A scene that proceeds via the Game Master without the appearance of any Players. A solo stage established for the purpose of introduction.

An old man sat alone in a room magnificently adorned with lavish decorations, splendid furnishings, and the spoils of war—swords, crowns, and the like.

At the center of the room, which could be perceived as extravagant to a fault—or even in poor taste depending on the stature of the one seated within—was a commanding desk, fashioned from a single, imposing slab of frightfully ancient cedar. Its very presence, an embodiment of the splendor of centuries, seemed to test the caliber of its master.

But the dignity of the old man, who sat in silence, was not overwhelmed by the room’s collective furnishings. Rather, his was an air of majesty that required no such finery to project authority; it was as though the high-quality appointments were instead elevated by his mere presence.

His long black hair, now beginning to be streaked with gray, had lost none of its luster to the ravages of age. His willow-like figure was not frail, but possessed a dense thinness, as if wrung from steel wire. He was clad in robes of a brilliant purple-blue—a forbidden color permitted only to the emperor. His face was stern, with long, wasp-like eyes that held a dangerous glint. Within them, his gray pupils shone brilliantly, brimming with a tenacious will. The firm, straight line of his lips and the habitual crease between his brows fostered the air of a cold, stern statesman, chasing away any hint of senility from the old man.

He sat upon a chair embellished with superb decorations matching his robes and filled with a cushion of the same color. The way he sat, without leaning against what must have been a comfortable backrest, made him look less like a man and more like a single, well-honed spear put on display.

The name of the man who wore the golden crown upon his head—the very embodiment of imperial authority—was August Julius Ludwig Heinkel von Baden-Stuttgart.

Indeed, this was the head of the Stuttgart house, the main branch of the Baden bloodline—one of the glorious Rhine Triple Empire’s “Three Imperial Houses”—and the current emperor of the Triple Empire, August IV himself.

He was the hero hailed as the Dragon Rider Emperor, a title earned from his valor in riding his dragon to strike down foes and his dauntless courage in rousing his allies on the battlefield. The emperor’s renown echoed throughout the empire, such that even in his own lifetime, the number of plays and poems composed about him rivaled those of the Black-Flag Emperor, with poets vying to sing of his heroic tales.

The mouth of this man, who carried such fame and whose voice was said to be as deep and dignified as a dragon’s roar, opened gravely. And upon the two men who had been summoned to this office—a place where only the supreme emperor was permitted to sit, a place where the great affairs of the empire were decided—were cast words that would shake the nation.

“Frankly, I’m already tired.”

“The hell? You’re the one who summoned me. The least you could do is thank me for coming.”

The one who replied to a statement that would have made most listeners fall flat on their face or collapse from the waist down was an elderly Varawolf. Countless battle scars shone proudly upon his valiant wolfish face, which was framed by a magnificent mane. A family crest depicting a great wolf with the moon in its maw was emblazoned on the purple-blue robes covering his grand, gray physique. As a Varawolf, a demi-human, he was clearly distinct from the dog-like Inuki. He twisted his ruggedly handsome face—a face that would be called the pinnacle of beauty by his own kind—into a pathetic grimace and groaned.

“Besides, isn’t it pathetic for your first words to be a complaint? Why do you think I left the idiots acting up in the west to come all the way out to the Imperial Capital?”

His name was David MacConla von Graufrock. He was the head of the Graufrock house, one of the Triple Empire’s imperial families, and the duke who kept the peace from the central-northern to the central-western regions of the empire. Yet he addressed the emperor in the casual manner of a drunk grumbling in a tavern.

This was because the two were comrades-in-arms and relatives. Duke David’s second wife was August IV’s sister, and the first emperor, Richard, had taken a daughter of the Graufrock house as his second wife as well.

“But I’m turning fifty-seven this autumn.”

“Isn’t that a bit young to be complaining?”

In contrast to the werewolf’s gruff yet deep voice, a refreshingly young one cut the old man’s whining short.

The owner of the voice that had so casually dismissed the words of the supreme ruler was, with immeasurable insolence, sitting on the emperor’s desk. To top it off, he had his legs crossed defiantly and was fiddling with his nails as if bored. In another country, this man’s brazen disrespect would have seen him and his entire family sent to the chopping block, his wax-preserved head displayed on the castle gates for half a year. But the man was frighteningly beautiful.

Imprinting the vivid color of silver upon all who saw him, he was dressed in a robe befitting a mage and had a stylish, silver short-staff tucked under his arm. This man, who had his long hair neatly brushed to show off its unique ‘silver’ color, was named Martin Werner von Oerstreich. He, too, was one of the three who shared the throne.

“You’re still in the middle of your second term, are you not? It should be a breeze. I endured three terms.”

This was precisely why the silver gentleman, Martin, felt free to sit on the desk. He had served three full terms, each lasting fifteen years, for a total of forty-five long years at this very desk. Why would he feel any hesitation about sitting on something he could, without exaggeration, call his own?

The two mortals made sour faces at the utterly prideful statement from a being without a mortal lifespan. For a human—and for a werewolf, whose average lifespan was about thirty years shorter than a human’s—fifteen years was an eternity.

“Leave it to a nearly 400-year-old geezer to say something like that.”

“The value of time is different for you, so why not serve a fourth term without complaining? It would be a breeze for you, Duke Oerstreich. Fifteen years must pass for you in the time it takes to have a nap.”

Faced with the foul-mouthed werewolf and the emperor glaring daggers at him, the mighty vampire acted as if it were no concern of his, blowing a speck of dust from a nail he had just cleaned. Then, with an annoyed glint in his ‘silver’ eyes, he pointed his sharply tapered nails at each of them in turn and said:

“How many times must I tell you gentlemen to call me Martin-sensei, or Professor? I’ve told you so many times my mouth has changed shape that I do not care for that uncouth title. What is it? Did you leave your ability to learn stuck to your mother’s placenta when you came out?”

“Also, I’m not a geezer. I’m still young.” After uttering something so incredibly rude in such a polite tone, the ancient vampire patriarch huffed and turned away, muttering. Well, compared to the 500-year-old vampires running rampant in other countries, or the ancient powerhouse approaching 1,000 years of age who lorded over another nation as its princess, he was, in fact, relatively young.

In any case, these three were the great men of the Rhine Triple Empire. If anyone who knew them in their usual noble-born, capable-leader personas were to witness this scene, they would surely assume it was a distasteful play performed by uncanny lookalikes.

But the fact that this conversation was unfolding, without a shred of falsehood, within the Imperial Castle was immutable.

“Besides, Gus. For someone who claims to be so tired, didn’t you just have my craftsmen make you a new set of dragon tack? And I hear it’s not some ceremonial armor, either, but a saddle that can have a mountain of saddlebags strapped to it.”