Children of the Holy Emperor

Chapter 1

Nathaniel Klein, or Nate, was the seventeenth holy emperor of Delcross. His power was unmatched but for the very first emperor. Possessing a divine power befitting the title of “God’s Champion,” he was unofficially the youngest sword master and the finest swordsman on the entire continent. Under Nate’s rule, Delcross was enjoying quite the stable prosperity and unprecedented cordiality with its neighboring vassal nations. He deserved to be considered the wisest emperor of the century.

However, “the wisest emperor” was not the title he was given most often. Rather, he was better known as “the holy playboy emperor.” When he took the throne at the age of twenty-one, he’d already had three wives, one lover, and five children. Now, twelve years into his reign, there were more than seven officially recognized children. No one knew how many bastard children he’d secretly fathered.

Traditionally, the holy emperors of Delcross, as God’s Champions, had an ascetic reputation and, therefore, had few children. Only the very first holy emperor was known to have more than fifteen children, but he was said to be a demigod and had ruled for over three hundred years. Over that stretch of time, it was understandable to have had fifteen children. As such was the case, the young and capable Holy Emperor Nate could not quell the public opinion of him as a playboy.

He was only reaping what he naively sowed as a young man. Holy Emperor Nate humbly resolved to accept his responsibility and take care of his many children as well as he could. Thus, he ordered the chamberlain to keep a close eye on his children and provide him with detailed reports. He also strained to make time in his busy schedule for private meetings with each of them. Despite these efforts, however, child-rearing was certainly no easy foe. Children never quite grew up according to their parents’ wishes. His damn children were born of his seed, but they often behaved in ways their own parents could not understand.

Let’s take his firstborn, First Prince Owen, for example. By the time he had been found, Prince Owen was already a full-fledged teen. At first, he had seemed overjoyed to find his father after an arduous upbringing. But one day, he started spouting nonsense about how he’d seen some kind of scroll floating in the air.

“Father, I seek to gain great strength through the power of these status windows.”

And just like that, he had marched off to the frontlines of the war in the south. Nate had intended to nurture Prince Owen with all of his resources, especially since he had been found quite late into his childhood. But the prince had no regard for his father’s wishes.

His second-born, First Princess Amelia, had not been much different. Her mother, the bastard child of a margrave, had passed away, so Amelia’s identity as a princess had been revealed quite late into her wretched life. Yet, she had been a lovely girl who hid her sadness under bright smiles and happily chirped about her interests to her still-awkward father.

But at some point, even this rosebud of a princess started to turn strange. One night, she’d woken up bawling as if she’d had a nightmare. Suddenly, her appetite plummeted, as well as her mood. When the worried Nate had tea with his daughter and asked about her change, Princess Amelia suddenly burst into tears and said, “Father, Your Majesty, I-I’ve returned from my death to the past!”

This shocked Nate like a bolt out of the blue. Words poured out of his daughter like a waterfall.

To put it simply, it was as follows: Leonard, the second prince of Rohan, good for nothing but his looks, had seduced Amelia into marriage. Leonard had no love in his heart, only a lust for power. It was all a scheme to use his connection with the holy emperor to secure his right to the throne. Once he’d tricked Amelia into marriage, he not only enjoyed the company of multiple concubines openly, but he also turned violent and abusive toward Amelia, his queen. It wasn’t long until he locked her up alone in a tower.

“Your Majesty, you were enraged at this fact and started a holy war to save me, but Leonard murdered me in the end. He was so cruel that he wanted me to die in front of your eyes.” When her father said nothing, she continued, “Oh! You always advised me against the marriage, but I was too foolish. I ruined everything!”

She’d started crying again. Dumbfounded, Nate stared at her.

My dear daughter, you say that he married you, imprisoned you, and murdered you, but you’re right here in front of me, alive and well.

“So I will take my revenge. I’ll chase him to the ends of hell. I’ll destroy all his hopes and bring his life to ruin. I won’t forgive anything that comes my way!”

Nate gasped when he saw the small waves of madness in his daughter’s eyes. She had been his treasure, his tender rosebud who’d had no edges. But by then, she’d become a poisonous rose with all its thorns.

At that point, Nate had to admit that he’d underestimated what it was like to raise children. Did every parent on the continent go through such turmoil to raise their children? Or were his own children especially troublesome? The young holy emperor cupped his aching head in his palms. But this had only been the tip of the iceberg.

Even among Nate’s eccentric children, there was one who tormented him the most. It was his fourth-born, Third Prince Morres. Prince Morres was the child of First Empress Consort Lizabeth, who overly doted on him. He’d been quite mischievous, but otherwise, he was a perfectly normal boy. Unfortunately, he had no particular talent unlike his siblings, and his mediocrity failed to fulfill his mother’s expectations. So, Morres had to suffer from the fierce mothering of the empress consort, who’d been determined to make him the crown prince.

As a young child, he had, for the most part, obeyed his mother. But at some point, he started abusing the servants of the castle. By the time he was a teenager, he’d become a fat, undisciplined scumbag. The empress consort’s hysterical scolding and tearful pleas had no effect. Nate had no solution either. All he could do was wait for his son to snap out of it. Despite his parents’ wishes, the prince’s wicked ways only worsened throughout the years. So it had seemed that the child would forever remain a blemish like none other to Nate’s reign.

The change came suddenly. Morres neared death with a fever, but when he awoke, he had become an entirely different person. His wicked behavior had completely stopped, he started throwing himself into basic training every day at the training grounds, and his sword fighting skills, which had always been lacking, improved rapidly. He even seemed sharper, a complete shift from his former mediocre character.

Though his son’s change was certainly for the better, Nate couldn’t help but feel a bit concerned. He should’ve had a heart-to-heart with Morres long ago. But now, his son seemed somewhat unstable. After much consideration, Nate decided all he could do was treat Morres with caution, as he’d always done. And this indecision would result in an unstoppable storm.

* * *

Crash!

The sudden sound came from outside. It sounded like a mountain was collapsing, and the palace shook as if there were an earthquake. The various servants and cardinals who had just been dismissed from a meeting all fell into chaos as they ran out to the palace courtyard. And what they saw was a giant black lump that had been carelessly tossed onto one side of the courtyard. It had great wings with barely any skin left on them. Its stately body was covered in rotting, flapping flesh, and its body emanated black waves of demonic energy.

“A bone dragon…”

“Wh-what in the world…”

It was a demon species that was rumored to be on a rampage in the eastern region. Why did it suddenly crash into the middle of the palace courtyard? The cardinals stuttered, stunned at the sudden predicament. The palace guards and the Order of Holy Knights rushed to besiege the dragon. Despite the impact from the fall, the creature was still twitching from time to time. It was still alive, though barely. Due to the terrible demonic energy flowing out of it, no one dared to approach it, but…

“Oh, I didn’t mean to make a scene. Please, get back to your stations.”

A boy in unbranded light armor appeared from the head of the bone dragon, innocently spouting such nonsense. He had gray-blond hair, fierce eyes, and a mischievous look as ever.

“Prince Morres?”

“Your Highness, how has this happened?” Knight Captain Balthazar asked, his voice shaking.

Morres responded cheerfully, “The exorcists of the hunter group said that this one isn’t like the other demon species. You can beat it, but it won’t get completely unsummoned. Its corpse remains. They said that to purify it, I had to bring it to the capital city, where my father is. But if I killed it all the way in the eastern region, its demonic energy would have tainted all the soldiers and towns as I dragged it to the palace.”

In short, he had minimized the secondary damage of delivering a demon species corpse by riding it all the way to the main palace where the holy emperor presided and then forcing it to descend.

“God damn…”

One of the high priests thoughtlessly spoke profane words, but no one blamed him. At that moment, everyone was thinking the exact same thought.

That fat scumbag prince evolved into a right madman after all!

A long shriek escaped the bone dragon as it put all its remaining energy into shaking off the prince. The black waves of its demonic energy rose even higher, spreading in all directions. The circle of knights around the beast flinched and staggered backward. But Prince Morres, who was right in the middle of such horrible demonic energy, seemed unaffected as he unsheathed his sword from his waist. An ominous aura started blooming like clouds from his sword, the Nutcracker. External energy formed vividly on the sides of the blade. This was quite the feat for a young prince, but the crimson, blood-like aura was sinister to no end. At the least, it was certainly not an aura that a prince of the holy empire should have been emanating.

“I’m going to kill it now. Be careful of the demonic energy,” he said in his carefree tone.

The prince’s sword pushed deep into the dragon’s heart, which had turned black from the demonic energy. A crack ran down the dragon’s heart, and from it poured a burst of demonic energy. In the blink of an eye, the bone dragon’s and the prince’s bodies vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

“Ahh!”

“Prince Morres!”

“Your Highness!”

The explosion of demonic energy seemed as if it would blanket the entire palace courtyard. However, before it could even reach the order of knights surrounding the dragon, it was contained by a shiny silver barrier. In that short time, the emperor had cast a great holy barrier that completely enclosed the bone dragon. The barrier, filled with demonic energy, became a black hemisphere for a moment. But as soon as the demonic energy reached the barrier, it was purified and lost its color, turning into haze, and then turning transparent. Soon, only clean air and the whitened skeleton of the giant creature remained inside.

“Wh-what about the prince?”

It was said that a regular human’s body would start rotting from the mere touch of demonic energy from a demon species of the undead type. It was not something that a young prince with no trace of divine power in his body could handle. And he had been right in the middle of the explosion of demonic energy.

Yet despite everyone’s concern, Prince Morres was fine. Once the barrier disappeared, the boy, covering his body with his own aura, slowly sauntered toward the holy emperor. He seemed utterly calm, as if demonic energy could not possibly be a threat to him. With how profane the crimson aura flowing out of the prince’s body was, it’d be difficult for a layman to tell which was the devil’s kin: the bone dragon or the prince.

“Your Majesty, I don’t want to overstep, but are you absolutely certain that the prince’s power is not demonic?” Cardinal Benitus asked, shuddering at the emperor’s side.

Had he really dared to compare a prince of the holy empire to a demon? Normally, this would have been considered blasphemy or treason, but the uptight old man didn’t seem to realize this, having been shocked out of his mind.

Nate, who had been silently watching this appalling series of events, raised one hand to his face and breathed out a low sigh.

Yes, Morres. The child that had merely been an immature good-for-nothing was now becoming the new eye of the storm that would bring about the tides of consequence.