Chapter 165

Translator: wuttisyun

“Yes.”

In order to prepare the stage for the [Primo Salvatio] in the Founding Festival, an unimaginable amount of money and manpower was needed. Although it was a national event, the Central Palace spares no monetary support. In fact, the quality of the stage depends solely on how powerful the princess’ backing is. The more financial assets she had, the more it benefited her.

That was why I was hoping my birth mother who had never contacted me before would help. It was obvious what kind of stage a princess who was not a templar would make.

Still, I was not particularly dissatisfied with that fact.

“… But I haven’t had any complaints so far, so why?”

“The problem here is that you have no ambition. That’s the problem!”

“You surprised me.”

I blinked and stared at Rebecca, no, my lady-in-waiting who was full of energy.

“You’ve always been like this.”

Rebecca, who looked as if she had just reached her limits, captured me in her gaze as she placed one hand on her waist and the other on the table.

“Are you planning on disregarding the blessings you were given?”

“Ah. N-No. That’s…”

While I was surprised by her mysterious resolve, she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

“For as long as I’m here, we will not do things haphazardly. Do you understand?”

She firmly expressed her anger in my attitude of waiting to see what happens.

At the corner of my eye, I could spot Fleon’s satisfied expression behind Rebecca.

‘Why did he look so satisfied?’

I was flustered.

“Anyone would be confused as to who’s the real princess here. Don’t you think so?”

Fleon smirked before turning to face Dane.

“Dane, this man, what’s keeping you so busy?”

“Ah, I’m just falling a little behind on work.’’

I was wondering what Dane was carrying on his sides but, my god, they were all documents related to the stage for the Primo Salvatio.

There were manpower contracts, accounting ledgers for material transactions, manuals for certain apparatus…

‘I think just working on those documents alone can be considered work too, right?”

However, when I glanced at Dane a few more times, I saw that he filled them out quite easily.

“… Does Fleon help with the planning?”

Dane smiled slightly before shrugging his shoulders.

“Surprisingly.”

I could understand Dane but I wondered why Fleon came too. However, I was surprised to know that Fleon did the most work.

“I told you I’ll take full responsibility in supporting you with materials and tools.”

What was he talking about? He looked at the numbers for a while before jotting down a billion dollars.

“No, you’re crazy! Why would you spend that kind of money here? You should use it, brother! I mean, how can you spend that kind of money on firecrackers?”

“You’re being noisy.”

Fleon grimaced as if I was being annoying.

“Look here. I don’t think there’s any need to use the old divinity device.” (1)

“I think so too. Do you have any good ideas? Prince.”

Fleon, who was nitpicking everything one by one, sat down and crossed his legs. He had been looking at a flower artifact that could scatter flower petals in the air. It had been used by a princess 10 years ago. Then, he tilted his head before arrogantly throwing the picture towards me.

“I’ll make one.”

“What do you mean make one!”

No. I think I finally understand how frustrated the main character in dramas feels when her chaebol boyfriend bought her an entire island to profess his love for her. Back then, I had complained to my dad and wondered why she looked like she disliked it when she obviously loved it. But I shall reflect on myself now.

“Look here, brat.”

They build stadiums to hold the World Cup and build stadiums to host the Olympics but I think it’ll be fine if there weren’t any stadiums in the first place. Still, making a new one from something that already existed was just a white elephant project.

The successor to the gold mines that make the most money in the Empire was trying to make an artifact through a white elephant project using the astronomical amount of money laid out in front of him.

“I have things like this all over my temple.”

After lowering his head, he swept away his hair. Then, he finally looked at me with an arrogant smile and his chin tutting out. He should just say what he wants to say.

“You want me to buy you one?”

Clearly, because there were now more people working on the stage, things were going smoothly.

Fleon even appeared in my study the next day with an unknown man to work on the white elephant project he announced a few days ago. I thought it had just been an offhand remark.

“Brother, this is…”

Fleon quickly glanced at the man beside him before spitting out.

“My aide.”

The words he spat out made him sound like he was lying.

“His name is Lex and his surname is… I’m sure he had one. You don’t have to know it.”

He winced before saying, “My prince. You should at least mention it for my introduction…”

He had a big build like a bear’s and stared at me with a polite yet confused expression. His eyes that looked as innocent as a calf’s also left an impression on me. The man rubbed his face with his large hands.

‘But since when did Fleon get an aide?’

I had never heard of him before. An aide was someone who would attend to their prince’s various needs and carried out their errands for them. In short, someone like Rebecca. For as long as I’ve known him, Fleon’s sides had always been empty after he stopped chasing his mother around at nine years old, right?

“He was sent from Vulcanus.”

As if he noticed my thoughts, Fleon added lightly.

“Well… I’m not too sure about his personality but his abilities are useful. You can use him however you want. Just do it.”

I could hear Lex muttering beside him.

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment…”

I heard that his maternal family, especially the Head Templar of Vulcanus, cared about his grandson very dearly. Where else would the money Fleon spend so much of come from?

It seemed like Fleon had a good maternal grandfather since he was willing to overlook Fleon’s spending habits and even sent someone for him.

“As you may have just heard, I’m Lex. The 6th Prince’s aide.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Ashley Rosé.”

“Yes, nice to meet you. I’m still lacking but I’m the templar in charge of management back in Vulcanus.”

I heard that in Vulcanus, the most brilliant blacksmiths would be given hammer-shaped ornaments. Perhaps it was the same one hanging on his waistband.

“The Templar in charge of management. You must be an impressive blacksmith. It looks good on you. The ornament.”

He widened his eyes and nodded as if he was slightly surprised that I noticed the ornament on his waist.

“Ah… You have good eyes. I’ve heard many say that too. Unbelievable… I never thought I’d ever get to see the princess in my long lifetime…”

“What?”

“I mean, that’s what the prince told me to say when I see the princess… Ack. That hurts, my prince.”

“You talk too much. Who told you to say such nonsense?”

I accepted the fact that I was not the only one being treated like that by Fleon.

I looked at the man who was groaning as he held his knees pitifully.

He groaned before saying, “To continue where I left off, Templars of Vulcanus are people who can make anything out of everything through their divinity. Princess.”

“I heard. You’re the gods’ blacksmiths, right?”

“Yes? Hahaha.”

Perhaps it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he’s Vulcanus’ best blacksmith as Rex immediately helped to prepare the stage. And he soon proved himself to be a very capable man. After hearing about the stage, he was left to ponder in his own thoughts before offering to show his abilities.

“I’ll show you my abilities first. This is the artifact of the ‘God of Flowers’.”

What he brought out was what looked to be a small brooch.

“You know what an artifact is, right?”

“Items that hold the gods’ powers.”

“Yes, you’re right. To create or fix artifacts, we need special tools. And this is exactly that.”

The faint light emitted from the tips of his fingers wrapped around his hand before disappearing. What was left after the light disappeared was a blacksmith’s hammer.

“Wow!”

In this world, it seemed like the templars did not need to cast any incantations to use their abilities.

“Originally, this artifact would make flower petals fly around in the air but it was too old.”

He pointed to the hammer artifact. Then, he made a small flame before dropping the artifact on the ground before pounding it with his hammer.

Bang bang! Bang! Then, the artifact began to crack before shattering into two to three pieces. He lifted one of the pieces.

“This is the crystal, the core of the artifact. Only the crystal contains divinity. We can make any modifications we want to the artifact as long as we have this.”

“Anything?”

“For example, this artifact from earlier was used to make flower petals scatter in the air, right? If we simply put it together like this…”

When he finished, the brooch was now in a different shape from before. He let out another faint beam of light from his fingers before grabbing the brooch and shaking it on the floor.

Then, he took out a small string before wrapping it around the brooch. Just when I was wondering what he was doing, in a blink of an eye, flowers bloomed along the string.

“Wow…! The flowers are blooming.”

It reminded me of the ornaments that would circle the Christmas tree. But instead of bulbs, real flowers had appeared.

“This is a simple ‘transformation’. This is usually done by Apprentice Templars of Vulcanus.”

I stared at the chair which had now been adorned with flowers in full bloom before nodding.

“So, as long as you have the crystal filled with divinity, you can make anything, right?’

“Yes, that’s our ability.”

Both the Imperial Palace and the huge clock tower I saw in the capital were works from Vulcanus.

“The [Primo Salvatio] is performed with different themes year by year. The assembly and the reconstruction of divinity. That’s what Vulcanus specialises in.”

Rex smiled at me.

“I’ll use everyone at my disposal and all the abilities Vulcanus has granted me.”

He paused for a moment before scrunching his nose.

“Even though my prince is already spending most of the budget allocated to the Temple of Vulcanus.”

“Uh, I know you’re not blaming me but still, I’m sorry.”

“What? It’s not like that. It’s not like our monetary assets are merely a drop in the bucket. It’s not like we consider any rolling stone as gold… Ah. Of course, I’m merely joking.” (1)

Rex smiled innocently.

“… I just don’t know how I managed to end up being in charge of the princess’ stage.”

It looked like he just glanced at Fleon. But it was only for a moment.

“If I have to scrape by, scraping it is.”

“Yeah.”

… Did Fleon bring him here without giving any explanation? I looked at him sympathetically.

T/N:

(1): Fleon specifically didn’t use artifact here.

(2): it was hard to translate because it was all idioms but basically Rex is trying to say that they don’t have as much money as they are known to have