NOVEL NEXT Chapter 88: The good OP friends, Ren Xiyang and Rian Azure
Rian’s mood for the rest of the day was high. Not only did Ren Xiyang cook for him, he also said he was handsome!
When he found that Ren Xiyang hadn’t made a set of past-world clothing for himself, he ordered Ren Xiyang to do so immediately.
“What for?” Ren Xiyang said blankly.
“So that we can wear the same clothes together,” Rian said.
“Others would think you’re wearing sleepwear in public.”
“Are you disobeying your prince?”
“I’m disobeying someone who can’t defeat me in a duel.”
“…”
“Now, eat, so that you can grow up big and strong…”
“—And even more handsome,” Rian said, bouncing back to his smug state. “Of course, I’m already quite attractive, as you told me.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” Ren Xiyang regretted admitting that Rian was handsome. Rian was going to be insufferable until Ren Xiyang defeated him in a duel again.
The few remaining days leading up to the birthday duel were busy.
Ren Xiyang handled multiple new floating carriage orders which involved talking to other nobles.
Meanwhile, Rian liaised with numerous people, both Sedaverian and non-Sedaverian, for his travel plans. The travel plans had already been developed quietly between Sedaveria and other nations for over half a year and were an ‘open secret’. The routes had to be confirmed and gifts prepared; trade goods needed to be gathered, and money collected.
Now, it was officially announced that as the new Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Sedaveria, Prince Rian was going to visit all the neighbouring countries. Due to various good reasons, he would visit the large Angio kingdom first. The Angio king had already agreed to host them, and Marquis Terra would act as their guide.
The relations between Sedaveria and Angio had warmed up over the last year especially. After some back and forth, King Augustus of Angio sent a real diplomatic convoy to Sedaveria, and Sedaveria did the same.
Through the Royal Healers’ Service’s name, along with Duke Schauss’s name, there had been an international conference held in Sedaveria on preventing communicable diseases. Rian sponsored many foreign mage researchers, including those from Angio, to come and attend.
During the recent famine in Angio, Earl Rosewood and Prince Rian organised food aid, the distribution of which was coordinated alongside the Angian Princess Aurelia’s.
And with the help of the Sedaverian border noble Baroness Cedar, and later Marquis Terra, Earl Rosewood established trade agreements to sell food, flowers, and other Rosewood products, and to buy glass, metals, cloth, and different food. The Obsidian-Azure-Rosewood communication mirrors were very popular.
Following Earl Rosewood’s lead, many other merchants also started trading with the Angio kingdom. This increased movement across the border in both directions, with more Angio citizens being seen in Sedaveria, and more Sedaverians being seen in Angio.
This was a good cover for Rian’s people to enter Angio and spread.
Just as Rian had planned, the Sedaverian and Angian interests were starting to twist together. His physical visit to the Angio kingdom would be yet another opportunity to increase mutual interests and mutual prosperity.
Of course, Rian had other plans too, plans that his mother definitely didn’t know about.
On the day of the scheduled birthday duel, there was an overcast sky. However, that didn’t dampen spirits in the Capital.
In the morning, nobles streamed to the Imperial Palace’s duelling stadium. There were more people than usual, as many nobles and families had made a special effort to travel for Prince Rian’s birthday. There were also several foreign ambassadors and nobles visiting. For some, it was their first time to even see an Imperial duelling field.
The noise in the stadium quickly rose.
There was no opaque shield: the audience could see the full duelling field right away. And it wasn’t a flat field.
Instead, there was a series of floating platforms at multiple different heights. Some platforms were linked with obvious ways to move between them—stairs, slides, ropes and so forth. But some platforms seemed completely unreachable.
Marquis Terra and Marchioness Terra were seated in the Mauveine viewing box with the Sedaverian Prime Minister and some other foreign ambassadors.
Marquis Terra thought that the duelling field was very novel. It was well known that King Augustus liked duelling. Perhaps he’d like this kind of novel duelling layout. Or perhaps he’d find it beneath him. It was hard to tell.
“This is a friendly match between the two, of course,” Prime Minister Mauveine was saying. “This is a small custom of theirs, to duel after Crown Prince Rian’s birthday.”
“Who do you think will win?” one of the foreign ambassadors asked.
Prime Minister Mauveine coughed lightly. “Historically, the two either have a tie, or Earl Rosewood wins.”
The other foreign ambassadors suddenly paid more attention to the duel that was about to happen. Earl Rosewood of Sedaveria was best known as the eccentric ‘farming noble’. How would he defeat Prince Rian? How strong or weak were they? What was the meaning of letting them—non-Sedaverians—watch this duel?
And why did Earl Rosewood bow his head to a prince he could beat in a duel? If Earl Rosewood could defeat Prince Rian, why didn’t he lead his own faction?
If those foreign ambassadors had voiced the latter questions, they would have learned that Earl Rosewood and Prince Rian were very good friends and that Earl Rosewood disliked politics and the thought of leading his own faction repulsed him.
Once the stadium seats were full and all the important nobles had arrived, Queen Mira, Crown Prince Rian, and Earl Rosewood emerged from the waiting area.
Queen Mira announced the two duellists. Under her direction, Prince Rian and Earl Rosewood stepped onto two different floating platforms. The platforms moved to either end of the field.
“Let the duel begin!”
Marquis Terra’s eyes widened. Prince Rian and Earl Rosewood simply jumped and flew from platform to platform! The stairs and ropes that existed were more like obstacles than pathways between platforms!
An ice polearm quickly materialised in Earl Rosewood’s hand. On the opposite side, two swords of fire appeared in Crown Prince Rian’s hands. The two covered distance extremely quickly, leaving after-images of where they were moments ago. The two met in the air and—
SSSHRRRKKSSHH!
Ice and fire clashed in an explosion of steam. The two retreated, formed new ice/fire spells, and attacked again.
Marquis Terra frowned when he suddenly realised something. “I recall that Crown Prince Rian is an ice mage, is he not?”
Prime Minister Mauveine nodded. “Yes, he is. Earl Rosewood is a fire mage.” He stroked his chin. “It appears that for this duel, they’ve decided to use each other’s magic type instead.”
Marquis Terra’s eyes turned complex.
Who didn’t know that ice mages had a particularly heavy penalty when using fire magic? And conversely, fire mages had a heavy penalty when using ice and water magic. If elite mages wanted to pick up a second set of magic-type spells, they would usually pick one with as little penalty as possible, such as an adjacent magic-type or normal-magic type.
Earl Rosewood and Prince Rian were stronger than they looked. If they used their natural magic-type, the effects would be even more devastating. In a one-to-one duel, it was possible that they could defeat every single foreign noble that was visiting.
Marquis Terra couldn’t shake the odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. Why had Earl Rosewood and Prince Rian chosen to show this ability in front of foreign visitors? What was the underlying message they wanted to send?
“—I declare this duel a tie!”
In the end, Crown Prince Rian’s and Earl Rosewood’s increasingly powerful attacks destroyed the duelling field and threatened the stability of the surrounding area, much to Queen Mira’s concern. There was only so much temperature fluctuations the floating earth platforms could take until they started to fragment and collapse, hitting the ground and causing earth vibrations.
In her heart, Queen Mira also scolded them. They could have used targeted, finely crafted attacks, but instead aimed poorly and struck the duelling field’s shield numerous times. Next time, she’ll ask them to have a contest of accuracy instead.
Rian met up with Ren Xiyang exiting the duelling field. “You didn’t hold back today, did you?”
“I’m not so powerful,” Ren Xiyang said drily. He couldn’t finely control ice nearly as well as fire and there was the additional penalty as a fire mage. “And look how much energy I wasted uselessly destroying the field instead of you.”
Rian placed a hand on Ren Xiyang’s shoulder. “If I didn’t know better, you could have been an ice mage.”
“I’d rather be a plant mage, like Florence.”
Rian opened his mouth to reply, but then—
“Earl Rosewood!” Alexius popped up, followed by Günter Blewitt, Tierri Mauveine and Adrienne Obsidian.
Ren Xiyang greeted the children.
“You should have defeated Prince Rian,” Günter Blewitt said with a huff.
Tierri Mauveine said politely, “That was a good duel.”
Adrienne Obsidian, standing towards the back, nodded silently.
“You could have been an ice mage!” Alexius gushed. “I was thinking, can we have a duel on my birthday? Or even better, right now?” Alexius’s birthday was in late spring.
“Earl Rosewood has to come with me,” Rian said sourly. He said that Ren Xiyang could have been an ice mage first! “We’re leaving in a few days, he doesn’t have time to duel you.”
Ren Xiyang was used to Rian’s rich-second-generation possessiveness and so ignored him. “How about this. When we return from our diplomatic trips, you four can duel against me and Crown Prince Rian.”
Alexius glanced at his friends. “Us four? Yes! That’s a promise, Earl Rosewood!”
Rian narrowed his eyes. As Alexius grew up, he was annoyingly more handsome. He was also more annoying than he was in Rian’s first life.
Ren Xiyang patted Rian on the back. “Now you four should train to fight together, as I will with Crown Prince Rian. When we come back, we’ll see which team is better.”
Rian was appeased by Ren Xiyang’s touch. “That’s right, you four should train together. Earl Rosewood and I need to freshen ourselves before lunch.”
“Okay, we’re going to have a look at the field,” Alexius said. This was the first time he had seen the floating platforms—Ayden and Rian seemed to come up with so many different ideas for duelling fields! After their duels, the duelling field would be fixed back to the new configuration, and other people—like Alexius—could have a play and try to fight in this field too. Recently, Ayden taught Alexius how to fly so he could also jump around the platforms.
Purists liked flat duelling fields with a clear line of sight, but Alexius wasn’t a purist—he wanted to have fun!
And so, both Prince Rian and Prince Alexius were happy: Rian continued to monopolise Ren Xiyang and Alexius ran around the field with his friends.
During lunch, Rian harvested many praises from the foreign nobles about his magical abilities. It was a perfect way for Rian to talk about the new floating carriages that he and Earl Rosewood had produced. When those people heard that Rian had signed a contract with Marquis Terra of Angio to supply many floating carriages at a wholesale price, more than one person expressed interest in doing the same thing, i.e., to buy some floating carriages to bring back to their own nation.
With Ren Xiyang’s subtle interest in the promise of money, how could Rian decline? After lunch, Rian took the interested parties out to see the floating carriages and established some multi-national business partnerships (like a good future partner he was).
The following days were filled with yet more travel preparations.
A week after the duel, a very large group convened at the front of the Imperial Palace.
King Edric and Queen Mira gave Rian some final words of advice and concern, respectively.
To the entire group, King Edric said, “I wish everyone a safe journey. I entrust you all to represent Sedaveria.”
“We will not fail you, your Majesty,” Rian said solemnly. The others echoed his sentiments.
After final farewells, the travelling group boarded their carriages and the contingent started to move through the Capital towards the West Gate.
Along with Crown Prince Rian and Earl Rosewood, there was Prime Minister Duke Mauveine, Count Aegean, Lady Florence Sage, Master Herwyg Schauss from one of the Schauss branch families, and Lord Marcus Celeste, a lightning mage from the Celeste family. There was also a group of medical researchers from the Royal Healers’ Association, the Capital Hospital, and some who were affiliated with Schauss fief.
Multiple ornate carriages, floating smoothly over the roads—Imperial, Mauveine, Schauss, Aegean, Sage, Celeste, and Rosewood. The Terra carriage, in contrast, seemed a little old-fashioned.
Behind them was a long trail of normal plain carriages for all the accompanying non-noble medical researchers and servants, and carts and wagons carrying goods. They were surrounded by various guards, including a regiment of Royal Guards and combat mages. Horsemen carried Sedaverian banners, which fluttered majestically in the wind.
After the contingent left the Capital’s walls, Rian hopped out of his carriage and hopped into Ren Xiyang’s carriage.
His mother probably expected this to happen—and her spies would no doubt tell her that it did—but out of sight helped put things out of mind, right? Rian wasn’t going to not sit with Ren Xiyang on such a long trip. This was a good time for them to re-evaluate their plans for the future and to develop some more products to sell and makes lots of money.
It would take the group approximately two weeks to travel from the Capital to the Sedaveria-Angio border. They visited various Sedaverian fiefs along the way, staying at the manor houses of the ruling nobles. Since Ren Xiyang’s and Rian’s staff had communication mirrors, they remained in contact during the trip and had regular long-distance work meetings.
It was all going smoothly until when, one week into the journey, Marquis Terra received an alert from his small communication mirror.
It was late at night, and he had been getting ready for bed along with his wife.
His eldest son’s haggard face appeared in the small mirror. “Father! My apologies for contacting you at this time, but please urgently return!”
Rian: I’m going to make Ren Xiyang fall in love with me!
Ren Xiyang: Feelings? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It’s just gender envy.
Author: Oh? They’re dating already, they just don’t know it.
Finally, on the road to the kingdom of Angio!