Abandoned Bastard of the Royal Family Volume 6 Chapter 34 (Patreon)

Chapter 34 – Strong Men Create Good Times

“Yeah. Physical elimination of anyone in their way. It’s the easiest and most reliable way. Once used, anyone who succeeds in it will become addicted to its simplicity.”

Death by poisoning, Disguised murder, False accusations and forced suicides.

One by one, the sons and daughters of King Protesto disappeared in various means.

“They’re really stupid. I guess they couldn’t imagine that though it’s very easy to erase someone, that rule also applies to themselves.”

“So you’re the last one left, is that it? After all, you’re the one sitting in front of me here.”

“Another good answer. Isn’t it strange? I was born to a lowly mother and had no strength nor influence, yet I survived to the end. For that, there are two reasons. You have any idea what they are?”

“……”

“One of them was, of course, because I am weak. Because I was born to a mother of low status, everyone was ignorant of my existence. What could a simple ‘heir’ with no political backing do to them? They thought of me in that way.”

Because he was a low-value target, it safeguarded the young prince Preslate from his difficult situation.

“The other reason is my grandfather. Which also makes him your great-grandfather.”

“My great-grandfather?”

“The late king…wait, what should I call him at this point……never mind. To sum it up, King Waldborn was very fond of me as a child. To the point that he doted me so much.”

King Waldborn. Schild had heard of this name several times and that this predecessor was the most powerful king in terms of military prowess.

Schild had thought he must have been a great warrior king in his time because even now, the Oscar’s retired patriarch, the most fearsome man alive, still harbored fear towards this man.

“After handing the throne to Protesto, he became old and less impressive than he had been in the past. Still, everyone was afraid of him.”

“Yeah, I have heard of him plenty.”

“But he was kind to me. After my mother ‘died early’, I was raised in my grandfather’s retirement villa. From then on, my grandfather was always watching over me.”

“I see now. Because of that, the snobs who want to be next in line for the throne didn’t see any merit in assassinating you. After all, the trade-off of gaining spite of the previous king who had made a name for himself was just too much.”

“Exactly. There was also the fact that even though I was the favorite of the previous king, they perceived it as an insufficient reason to put me on the throne. I was born from a lowly birth after all.”

“……”

“I survived that shitty time because of my weakness and my grandpa’s love, while in the background, more and more of my brothers and sisters were dying, one after the other.”

The biggest irony is that the root of all of these was the greed for power of the nobles backing their prince and princesses, rather than the royal-born’s greed for glory.

A showdown of life and death where the gladiators are the royals, and the verdicts are the nobles enjoying the show from the outside.

It was as Schild himself had experienced, where whenever there is a struggle for the succession of a king, their patrons were usually the more eager ones than the successor themselves.

They want to put the royalty they carry on the throne and covet the power that comes with them without taking any responsibility.

“The late King Protesto sowed not only the seed of his children but also the seeds of these nobles’ desires, giving a chance not only to those who had long been at the top and knew how to fight at court like the three great noble families, but also to those who were lowly and did not know moderation, which naturally led to a muddy battle.”

The princes born to the three major noble families were the first to be poisoned, turning the royal palace into a bloody battlefield. Moreover, this happened when King Protesto was still alive.

But because he was a person who had nothing in his brain except sexual desires, even though he was the king, he took no action. He just watched these private battles of such aristocrats without a care in the world.

“There is no point in having a king without the power of authority.”

The next words of Preslate were accompanied by a heavy feeling.

“Because of that incompetent king, the royal power has weakened. The court has become a plaything for noblemen with low bloodlines. And when the previous King Waldborn, the symbol of the age of strong kings and my greatest protector, died of old age, its collapse was set in stone.”

There was no longer anyone to stop the tyranny of the nobles.

“After a flurry of assassinations and false accusations, the few remaining heirs fled the country in a hurry, saying that their lives were more important than the throne. Eventually, there was no one left but myself.”

Leaving behind only one person who would later become the king.

“I no longer had any backing and no power to leave the country. The nobles had no choice but to recognize me as the next king.”

“……”

“Fortunately, I was not that of a bad choice for the power-hungry nobles. In their eyes, the new king has no backing, no power. This meant that there was still a chance for anyone to be feted, and so their next step was to fight over the glory of ‘who would be the new king’s regent.’”

“What about King Protesto?”

“He died not long after. The theory of him being assassinated arrived into the ideas of many, but after a lack of evidence and a lack of reason to kill such a useless king, it was decided that its cause was simply illness, heart attack, or that he reached the end of his life expectancy. He was even made fun of after his death despite being a king, saying that he must have ejaculated his soul along with his semen for having too much sex.”

“What a sad end, even for a lustful good-for-nothing king.”

“Finally, I was inaugurated as the king. But all the nobles were interested in was “how can we puppet this powerless king?”. Some even spoke that right in front of my face.”

“……”

“I was very mentally stressed at that time. You’ll never know when you might lose value and get killed after all.”

The nobles already had no respect for royalty.

At the time, they were only keeping Preslate alive because he was still of use to them, and as soon as it was no longer of use or he got in the way, he would have a poisoned soup on his table the next morning.

“Of course, there were also times when I wanted to end my life then and there, but the corner of my mind is still telling me to keep myself alive. After all, they also had several reasons for wanting me to live.”

“Such as?”

“To bring a successor, for the most part. Because the only one remaining is me, and all others were either dead or in hiding, the royal family’s survival would be jeopardized if I didn’t leave descendants.”

Even though the nobles treated the royalty like garbage, they ironically didn’t forget that their existence would not be possible without the royal family.

Because of that reason, Preslate knew he couldn’t just carelessly create an heir.

For the nobles, the moment a good successor was born, Preslate’s sole value would disappear.

“That’s why I stopped touching women after I became king. And since my life is what’s at stake, it became surprisingly tolerable.”

“But you had Cymbium from Queen Petrome and Serenea from Queen Olivia. That too, what’s with that thing you told Cymbium before you left her anyways?”

“Is it about that matter where I told Cymbium that she and Serenea aren’t my real daughters?”

“Yes. No matter how we searched the whole country, we couldn’t garner anything related to it. We found slight discrepancies here and there, but there was no definite proof. Even the Queens treated what you told Cymbium that time as delusional mutterings of a sick person.”

“……”

“Tell me. Are Cymbium and Serenea really my blood-related sisters? And if we did, how did the “Harmony of the Lioness” appear on Cymbium and the “Spirit of the Lioness” to appear on Serenea, proofs that never have appeared among the females that possess the blood of the royal family?”

“That, huh. On that part, I’m not even sure what happened. It was so absurd that I still couldn’t believe it, even to this day.”

“My father is the current Demon Lord who tried to destroy his country. What could possibly be more surprising than that?”

“I see. Fair point. Well, it’s up to you whether to believe it, but it all started……in a dream.”

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