Soon the men entered Leon's office.
"Pardon if the surroundings do not match your expectations. We could only use this old building to save time for the construction." Leon gestured to the men to sit on the wooden tables that were only complemented with thin cushioned covers.
One of his aides had already prepared the tea and other refreshments and started to serve them to the princes.
"No problem, it is completely understandable since all our manpower is dedicated to the main tasks." The Crown Prince waved his hands helplessly.
At first, it was only his suspicion but now, he was certain that the Third Prince of the Seirende Empire did not like him at all.
He scoffed inwardly and thought, 'Just fine, I will have to crush all of them anyways." He had no plans of giving mercy to any one of the Seirende Family instead.
The grudge they have for the Seirende Family originated way back when the Vanderford had just started. They were the reason why their precious roots were reduced to this state.
"Now, if it is alright… May I know what message we receive from His Eminence the Pope?" It was Leon's words that broke Crown Prince Ranon out of his trance.
Only then did he smile and said with an expression that is not a bit offended,
"It's like this, the Pope has sent a notice that he does not need all of the prisoners to be transported to the Holy Island. This is so that he will only have to subject the criminals who played the major role in the curse users. The rest of them shall be left to deal with the empire."
"Moreover, he wanted the journey to the Holy Island to start seven days from now. That means that our timeline will be reduced by half… As for the formal notice, I believe that the High Priest is already on the way to the palace to also inform His Majesty of this matter."
Crown Prince Ranon explained while sounding deeply concerned and troubled, "Third Prince, how shall we handle this?"
Listening to the news, the brothers were surprised and looked at each other worriedly. This development is truly something they did not anticipate.
That is because the timeline for the entire journey has been already agreed upon by both parties. To have it change so drastically like this, the Emperor had to talk to the Pope and listen to their reasons.
"We can only do what the Pope and the Emperor have arranged. Beyond that, we are not to take any measures unless an edict was issued to the site. Only then will the construction team think of a way to remediate the situation."
While Leon was surprised and clearly not ready for this, he still remained calm. He knew that the Crown Prince saying this to them was to fish out information on what measures he would take to speed up the process.
If he showed his worry and panic in this situation, the Crown Prince will have a chance to see if there could be something in the speed-up process that they can exploit as a weakness for the journey.
In fact, Leon believed that the main intent of the request to change the arrangements for the transport is to really disrupt the construction and create a tiny loophole in the process.
If they have an intent to 'save' the prisoners, then they can only do this.
Hearing Leon's reply, Crown Prince Ranon's eyes flickered. 'As expected, this mad dog prince is the most troublesome of them all.'
He very much wanted to stand up and cause trouble to this mad dog blood prince. But the time has not yet arrived. After everything is set, there is always time to toy with his prince in front of him.
'If that time comes, I wonder if he could still maintain that condescending face of his!' He cursed in his heart.
But outwardly, he only shrugged nonchalantly and gave him a meaningful smile, "Well, if that is what you think about the matter, then I can no longer say anything. After all, it is you, Third Prince who keeps the construction progress in check."
After the exchange, the Crown Prince took his leave. Kazimir and Antoine wanted to also converse with Leon about the matter, but he advised that they shall discuss it together with their Father Emperor.
Hearing his suggestion, Kazimir and Antoine felt that his suggestion was better, after all no matter how they think of a solution, it may be crossed out if the Emperor issued an order that conflicted with it.
They were also satisfied with the fact that Leon did not show any intent to isolate them away from the matter. Suggesting to discuss it with the Emperor meant that Leon saw them as someone he could also rely on.
After all, they were still too awkward around each other. They were especially stiff when it came to asking for favors and help with this brother of theirs.
Leon thought that Emperor Valentin would have to take a night to decide about the matter of informing Kazimir and Antoine about the war.
But before the afternoon ended, he received another summon from the palace and discovered that it was not only him who was summoned.
Kazimir and Antoine were there too.
In the end, the sudden message from the Pope should have greatly affected his decision to involve his two brothers. With that, he heaved a sigh of relief.
While his brothers weren't reliable on things related to the Empire's security before the internal war happened, Leon saw how they grew from it. In fact, the internal war catalyzed the growth of his two brothers in terms of leadership and taking care of the people.
He believed that they should also have knowledge of warfare just like he did. After all, his two brothers only handled simple peacemaking missions inside the borders and never really ventured outside to experience a full-blown war.
–
While the Seirende Empire was forced to deal with a surprising development in transport, the Vanderford Emperor was laughing gloatingly upon hearing the news from his son Ranon.
"Really?! Hahaha! In the end, it is the best choice to plant our own people on the Holy Island! Now we are finally reaping the benefits of it and would soon see our victory against this Seirendes!"
The Vanderford Emperor was already old as his skin was already wrinkled and the dark shadows in his eyes were prevalent, indicating that he had abnormal sleeping habits.
However, the viciousness and hatred in his eyes could not be hidden. In fact, his obsession to take down the Seirende Empire is written all over the place.
"We failed to take down that Empire last time but we managed to weaken their S-class Emperor Idelfonso. I was foolish to rely on the woman of the branch family of the Vesala…
If I had known that they would also fail, I would have not waited for more than thirty years and just attacked them all while their empire was unstable.
Tsk! Too bad, our forces were halved when the two grandmasters joined the farce that time!" As if reminiscing, the Vanderford Emperor narrated his frustration in disgust.
"But Father, the Third Prince is also an S-class mage. Do you not worry that he will also give us a hard time?" Crown Prince Ranon from the other side of the call asked him.
"Tsk.. now that we have the Pope and Rachana on our side, what is there to be afraid of? Remember, Rachana is the product of the years of experiments made by the Vanderford and Main Temple combined.
She cannot be taken down that easily by an S-class mage! Although keep your hands off the Third Prince, he is important in our plans!" He replied proudly and ended with a warning.
"Now that you mentioned her, how was she and the Pope? I was surprised to receive the news of the hastening of the process earlier. Should I assume that Rachana's injury was already recovered?" Crown Prince Ranon asked curiously.
"Tsk…! Well, the Pope did not disappoint us. He did not hold back on the resources but it really caused us a lot to let her recover as fast as possible.
Whenever I remember the number of resources we used to replace all the damaged receptors in her body my heart really ached! After all, we have a limited number of asani receptors!
And we can only replicate this if we were able to get the Third Prince. Only then will we have a successful replication." The Vanderford Emperor replied, there was a trace of disappointment and frustration in his voice.
"Why must it be the Third Prince? Can't it be the other princes? After all they all have the blood of the Seirende…" Crown Prince Ranon was quite displeased when he heard that he could not make a move against Leon.
"We can't use anyone else! It should be him!
Because he had the highest purity of the Seirende blood among all the alive descendants! Only when the Seirende blood purity is the highest will we have a higher chance to succeed!"
The Vanderford Emperor reprimanded his stubborn son.
