Even in the midst of silence, Elisha was unperturbed.
Elisha was also like that when both enemies and allies looked at her with tired eyes on the battlefield strewn with blood and corpses.
However, even such indifference quickly collapses under the small shadow that rushes in front of her.
"Mother!"
When Leon, whose face was hardened, approached, Elisha leaned over and kissed the boy's cheek.
"Are you okay, Mother?" The child asked.
To him, the atmosphere the moment before was putting pressure on his mother,
He didn't know that it was actually the opposite.
"Of course, I'm okay."
Elisha answered and called her handmaiden, Marie, who was waiting for her, and handed over Leon's hand.
She whispered something in Leon's ear before letting Marie take the child out of the banquet hall.
After seeing that the child had left, Elisha turned and walked towards Marquis Blemir in the corner.
On the way, Elisha gently stretched out her hand to pick up a glass filled with red wine from the silver platter supported by a servant.
During the course of the series, none of the multitudes gathered in the banquet hall disturbed Elisha.
As if they had to, they just stared blankly and waited for Elisha's next action.
Marquis Blemir and Asensio's seats were quite far from the crowd.
Asensio's complexion was pale, while on the other hand, Marquis Blemir's expression was distorted.
This was all natural.
The present-day Atien Empire was divided equally between the powerful master, the Emperor, and the three pillars supporting him, the Eastern and Western aristocrats, and the Centrist aristocrats belonging to the middle class who held equal shares of power.
The Crown Prince faction was the youngest and weakest of them all.
It was a mixed force of newly appointed lower and middle class nobles, a part of the Centrist, and a part of the Imperial faction.
They weren't small enough to the point one could ignore them, but they weren't enough to support the Crown Prince.
It was small, but infinite in that it could make one look forward to the future.
The Crown Prince's position itself was the power to promise the next generation, not the present.
This is the reason why the emperor and other aristocratic factions merely watched and neglected the Crown Prince faction.
However, in the current situation where no one is unaware of the Crown Prince's deep affection for the 2nd Empress's Palace, the 2nd Empress has put forward the Western Tower, which is associated with the Western aristocratic faction, behind him.
If the 2nd Empress had only gotten a little help from her old relationship with her teacher, William, or needed to pay a price to borrow his name, that is, a mutually beneficial relationship, there would have been no problem, as the 2nd Empress Palace would at most be recognized as a fairly usable hand, and most people would not try to use such a 2nd Empress.
However, the solidarity with the firm justification of 'godfather' was too solid and strong.
Moreover, a large number of the Crown Prince's supporters had witnessed such an important event.
Western nobility, led by the Western Tower, reached out to the Crown Prince faction using the 2nd Empress as a medium, and the Crown Prince is bound to be suspected of being willing to take it.
It meant the destruction of a stable distribution of forces, and at the same time is a threat to all other forces.
And it will eventually be seen as a threat from the Crown Prince and the 2nd Empress Palace.
Unlike the 2nd Empress Palace, where they could take risks because they have nothing to lose, the Crown Prince faction may need to take this matter seriously. No, in the first place, isn't this a situation that the Crown Prince never wanted?
It is not strange to show hostility towards the one who is trying to sway and initiate the first strike.
In particular, the person in front of her right now was the Sword Master, who was famous for his hasty personality.
But even though his brown eyes were shaking greatly, he was still waiting.
Elisha's eyes narrowed.
He had been wrong once, but she thought he would do well this time around.
She didn't hate smart kids.
"Now is the time to choose, Marquis."
"There's no need to summon something so dangerous only to drive the fox out, isn't it, Your Majesty the 2nd Empress?"
There will be attacks from the 1st Empress and the Eastern nobles who support the 1st Empress, but if they endure it, the Crown Prince will one day become the emperor.
There is no immediate danger, but there is no guarantee that the existing Crown Prince's supporters will accept the stronger Western force, as it will waste their efforts up to this point only to lose their prey.
If the Crown Prince is also caught in the footsteps of the Western nobles, the road to becoming the emperor may be smooth, but in the end, he will be shackled and it will be difficult to properly manage state affairs, as he vomits more than he received.
"What makes you so sure? Our enemy is the fox."
Elisha gently shook the red wine in her glass and lifted it up slowly.
Blemir's eyes followed the trajectory of Elisha's movement.
The place where the glass stopped was in front of Blemir.
So now the glass is placed in between Elisha and Blemir.
"Who says that? Our enemy is a lion," said Blemir, as he put his hand to the glass that was held out in front of him.
"That is, if the Centrist doesn't move first."
"You can work with your enemy, but you can never be friends with a bystander."
"Marquis, our enemy is not so bad that we can contend with them by hiding behind gentle masks like cowards."
"If the 2nd Empress is talking about the real enemy, then yes, it must be true."
"Yes. The demigod of Atien who sits on that high and radiant throne looking down on the world. The owner and the glory of Atien. He will not allow the Crown Prince's era."
Clang!
Blemir put strength into his hand, and the glass between them broke. Red wine splashed all over the place.
"Hiiiyy!"
"What's going on? Are they fighting?"
The people who were watching were surprised and the sound of them holding their breath could be heard.
Thanks to the Sword Master Blemir blocking the surrounding air, making a sound-proof space around just the 3 of them, the sound did not leak out, so the people outside the space were speculating about what was happening.
"Are you hurt?"
Blemir, who was about to take a hasty step closer to Elisha, stopped.
The sound in his ears rang slowly.
"Choose, Marquis. Not the Western Tower or the Western aristocrats, but 'me'. Don't worry, I'll take good care of this matter so that no rumors arise."
"If we all leave, how will Your Majesty deal with them?"
"Didn't I tell you? I will never try to use the Crown Prince to deal with them. The bait that you throw at them will come right away."
Blemir reached out and grabbed Elisha's wrist.
"What do you know?"
"More than Marquis Blemir knows. So, if you choose me, leave the Crown Prince behind. The nobles of the Crown Prince faction would become more wary of the Western Tower and nobility than feeling jealousy towards Marquis Blemir. So, please calm them down and take them away for now."
"They're not dogs. Would they move just because I soothe and drag them out? At least half of the Crown Prince faction are those who sincerely follow His Highness the Crown Prince."
At his sharp tone, Elisha responded bluntly.
"Pacify them. The Crown Prince, who is hungry for a mother figure, has made a wrong decision for a while and is playing with the 2nd Empress, but he will come to his senses soon. Be prepared so that he will not be disappointed when he returns. Drag them out. Say that if they don't correct this now, the Crown Prince may continue to be shaken by the 2nd Empress."
"…Why would you go so far?"
"Won't this create internal strife in the Crown Prince faction, and can arouse the judgement that the Prince's safety is no longer a weakness for Marquis? First, we have to convince them of your position. Build your power in the meantime until it is strong enough that no one can tamper with it!"
As soon as those words were finished, Elisha placed Blemir's hand on top of her wrist, then slowly pushed it away.
No one other than the emperor was allowed to touch the empress' body. From the outside it looked as if there was no contact between the two.
As Blemir's hand slid, the glove that Elisha was wearing also came off backwards.
"In the meantime, I will protect His Highness the Crown Prince wearing the brilliance of the Western Tower. So, if you choose me, you can turn around in peace."
The glove, which had left Elisha's fingertips, was handed over to Blemir as he crumpled it in his hand.
As for how to believe this collaboration, it's as the 2nd Empress herself had said, his and the Crown Prince's circumstances were unfavorable.
It's hard to doubt that the emperor was really trying to abandon the Crown Prince.
As he already had a history on this subject.
So even if the 2nd Empress did not mention it, this was also something that Blemir always had in mind.
When Blemir asked why she had to do this, it wasn't because he didn't understand what the 2nd Empress was saying.
'2nd Empress, why do you have to do this?'
In fact, Blemir already knew the answer.
Whether to believe it or not is up to him.
No.
Even that is not fully up to Blemir.
He can make a choice. But it is the cause, not the sword, that ultimately decides.
"Your Highness, what do you want to do?"
Blemir asked Crown Prince Asensio, who had seen the beginning and the end of all this.
Both the Crown Prince and Blemir had an intuition that there was nothing good about continuing to be swayed by the emperor.
A breakthrough was needed, and now is the chance!
"I believe in the 2nd Empress."
Crown Prince Asensio chose for them.
He was very quick and concise, one might say it was unexpected or as expected.
He knew what the consequences would be.
Blemir glanced at the people filling the banquet hall.
People of the Crown Prince faction, a major figure of the Western Tower, several Eastern nobles and ladies belonging to the 1st Empress faction.
There had never been a banquet where everyone from every faction gathered like this in recent years.
It was absurd to think that it was a concoction of the 2nd Empress, who until just recently had been considered nothing.
The Sword Master, Blemir himself, was pushed into a corner and forced to make a choice.
What more needs to be said?
All of this was because of this woman standing in front, speaking of her resourcefulness.
She seemed to be well qualified.
Too much so.
Whatever the ending, it is enough to make one look forward to it!
As Blemir tightened his hand, red blood seeped out of Elisha's white glove.
Plop. Plop.
And wet the floor.
Then there was a footprint over the red liquid drops.
As Blemir passed by Elisha.
A red shadow was torn and embedded in the direction he was walking.
Paang!
The air that had been blocked was broken at once, and the halted wind blew once again.
Only Archmage William, who was sensitive to the movement of mana, tilted his head.
Others simply felt that the frustrating atmosphere was getting worse. Between those sighs, Blemir crossed.
"Let's go."
Blemir stared at Earl Morell and Baron Hauser.
"The Crown Prince…"
"Let's go. Don't you usually have a lot of stories to share? The Crown Prince wants to be with the 2nd Empress, so let's do what's comfortable for everyone."
As Marquis Blemir spoke with a blue face, the nobles of the Crown Prince faction turned to Asensio in bewilderment.
Instead of replying to their gazes, Asensio clung to Elisha and greeted William of the Western Tower.
'Even if my choice and the Crown Prince's decision were proven wrong later, I, as a sword master, should have the ability to undo it somehow.'
As the crowd disappeared and the people from the Western Tower moved to the center of the hall, the 1st Empress Isabelle raised one eyebrow.
Naturally, when she came, everyone paid attention to her, so she thought if she paid attention to those who approached her, she would be able to find what was strange about this banquet.
However, as of this moment, Isabelle, who should always be the center of everyone, was standing on the periphery, and that silver-haired, rustic girl was receiving all the attention instead!
Feeling unbearable, Isabelle bit her thick, red lower lip with her upper teeth.
Something ominous seemed to be happening somewhere she couldn't see.