Medieval Knight System: Building the Strongest Empire Ever!

Chapter 310: Imperial Quest

The grand duke and the princess’s dance drew every eye in the hall.

The nobles envied the grand duke for winning such a beautiful princess, while the young ladies gazed in admiration at the splendid dance of the noble king and princess. The reality couldn’t have been further from any of it, though.

After getting free of the grand duke and the princess, what awaited me was Imperial Crown Prince Maximilian. The imperial crown prince was fairly handsome as well, though his jaw jutted out a bit more prominently than most people’s.

It was said to be one of the classic hereditary conditions of the Habsburgs, famous for their intermarriage, but at this point it didn’t seem all that severe. It was the price of the vast enclosure the House of Habsburg had built around itself.

At his side was the crown prince. Within the empire, the imperial crown prince ranked on par with the grand duke, but the crown prince stood one step below, which probably made him the more approachable company.

According to the grand duke, the imperial crown prince’s character was that of a boy who adored romance and heroes—the classic admirer of chivalry. Which meant that I, a man of the same age who passed for a hero in Beren, would be easy for him to befriend.

"Baron Rosenheim, you seemed quite close with the princess. Did you know each other from before?"

"How would a mere baron like myself be acquainted with the noble princess of Bavaria?"

"And yet, for strangers, the way the princess looked at you seemed rather special."

You’re the one who arranged the princess’s political marriage, so why are you so casually trying to tie us into a scandal? I shot the crown prince a desperate look pleading for rescue. Better for a crown prince to refute it than a mere baron.

"Your Imperial Highness, the Bavarian princess was taken prisoner by the baron. Rumors are bound to be exaggerated. There is nothing improper between the baron and the princess."

"My, it seems it’s nothing like what I heard. My apologies, Baron."

The imperial crown prince apologized to me without hesitation.

It’s no small thing for imperial royalty of exalted rank to apologize to a duchy vassal.

But within the duchy, even an imperial crown prince cannot act as he pleases. We duchy nobles hold our vassal contracts with Altringen, not with the Habsburgs.

Still, I learned that Imperial Crown Prince Maximilian was a sincere royal who knew how to apologize. People who can honestly admit fault and apologize are rare, whether in the medieval era or the modern one.

Especially among the highborn.

So I revised my assessment of the imperial crown prince upward.

"So it’s completely different from the rumors in the streets?"

"Yes. The baron is a devoted husband who loves his wife dearly."

"A noble and a devoted husband. That’s not an easy picture to conjure."

"Hilda—I mean, he is utterly smitten with his wife. That I can vouch for."

"The invincible knight who crushed the Bavarian vanguard, a doting husband. How very amusing."

The imperial crown prince delighted in it, as if he’d discovered something fascinating and fun. Thank goodness the imperial crown prince didn’t notice the crown prince slip up with Hilda’s name and hastily correct himself.

If he ever learns that the crown prince’s first love is my wife, there’ll be another uproar. In any case, if I can build a friendship with him by any means, it’s no bad thing for me.

After all, one of the missions the grand duke assigned me was to cultivate a friendship with the imperial crown prince. I just never imagined I’d get acquainted with him before ever setting out for Austria.

"If it’s not too presumptuous, would you share your story with me, Baron? I’ve heard nothing but outlandish rumors, and I’d like to hear it from the man himself."

"Your Imperial Highness, you’re curious about my humble story?"

"The banquet night is long and the wine flows like water. Your story stirs my interest far more than this duchy’s little banquet. Consider it a personal request."

The imperial crown prince showed far more interest in my story than in the tedious banquet he was attending half out of obligation. So he wants the journey from duchy knight all the way to Baron Rosenheim?

It was certainly a bothersome request, but I was under the grand duke’s orders to build a friendship with Maximilian, and unpacking a bundle of stories was a very cheap price to pay.

It’s not like he was asking me to spill state secrets.

Since I was unintentionally monopolizing the imperial crown prince, I could practically feel the lasers shooting from the young ladies’ eyes—but who cared about that. Thanks to this, the banquet night was going to run very long.

[Imperial Crown Prince Maximilian Quest]

[Complete the crown prince’s 10 requests]

[Crown Prince’s Requests 0/10]

[Reward - The Crown Prince’s Gratitude]

[Reward - 100,000 points, 100 gold coins]

A quest had suddenly generated.

Quests generate at the system’s whim, but this time was a little different.

The reward is a whole hundred thousand points? A hundred gold coins? No, is this for real?

Of all the countless quests I’d carried out so far, this was hands down the highest tier in terms of rewards.

The condition was completing ten requests, which sounded like some Labors of Hercules, and judging from my experience so far, I had a premonition it would be brutally difficult.

And what’s with "The Crown Prince’s Gratitude"? This isn’t The Cat Returns.

Does it mean he’ll owe me a debt and shower me with a massive reward?

"I’m not sure where I should begin, but to start, in my days as a duchy knight I was so poor there’s no comparing it to now."

"Knights with no inheritance are generally poor, I’d imagine."

"All my late father left me was a longsword, two daggers, and ten silver coins. So to earn money, I first took work from low-ranking bureaucrats."

"So even the Gale Knight had days like that."

Not only the imperial crown prince but the crown prince, too, was intrigued. Honestly, the bottom-rung life of some ordinary knight would make for a dull story, but when the man in question is the Gale Knight and the hero of Beren, it becomes another matter entirely.

"I did whatever work there was. I served as a supervisor clearing dung off the streets of Breisburg, cracked down on beggars to check whether they carried their beggar’s licenses, and managed slum laborers too."

For people who knew me only through my heroic ballads and rumored exploits, it must have been an unimaginable story. But I felt not one ounce of shame about anything I did in those days.

Perhaps it was the mindset I’d carried as a high-school-graduate laborer who had entered the workforce early and worked in a factory. I’d cleaned toilets and handled toxic substances wearing a mask. Loaded and unloaded freight, too.

I committed my first killing in the slums to protect Sabine and Daniel, got tangled up with the Finance Minister’s family, and fought a life-or-death struggle against a former knight called Frost. And then I met the old man.

"His Highness the crown prince here was introduced to me at that time by Marquis Bertheim. If not for him, would a mere duchy knight like me ever have crossed paths with His Highness?"

"Fascinating. Truly fascinating. I had you completely wrong, Baron. I’d assumed you were a knight of pedigreed blood, raised in some renowned swordsmanship family."

Not just the imperial crown prince—plenty of duchy nobles mistakenly believed I came from fine stock. That’s what rumor does: it turns a poor duchy knight into a young lord of noble birth.

The crown prince looked quite shaken.

"Your Imperial Highness, the same goes for me. To think Streit once cleared dung."

"For those of our station it’s the lowliest of work, but isn’t it work someone absolutely must do? Otherwise you’d end up like Prague in Bohemia. Inside those walls, the stench is everywhere."

The imperial crown prince laughed, saying the smell must have grown even worse since the Hungarian king from hell took the city. I’ve never been to Prague, but if it’s worse than Breisburg, that’s no joke.

The crown prince, however, seemed apologetic toward me.

"I considered myself closest to you, and yet I hardly knew you at all."

"It’s not exactly a story worth spreading around, is it? Think nothing of it."

It was nothing to feel sorry about. After all, I knew little in detail about Crown Prince Franz myself. I had learned about his childhood through Hilda, but that was, quite literally, only what Hilda had told me.