After a refreshing bath in a place that wasn't meant for people to bathe in, Reivan's day continued.

With his grueling training session with Donovan over and done with, the second prince still had to attend the morning court session — a gathering of the country's most important bureaucrats.

In other words, the eldest and most influential Grand Ministers in Aizen.

Previously, Rodin or Roland oversaw this gathering as representatives of the royal family. However, after Reivan turned eleven, they placed the responsibility of supervising the daily conference on him. Naturally, he was honored to take on such an important role.

That is, until he realized how boring it was. In fact, rather than the responsibility being entrusted to him, he started feeling like it had been pushed onto him instead. Now he realized why his father and elder brother had been so happy when he'd agreed.

'I thought they were just proud of me! But I guess they were just happy they wouldn't have to suffer through this...'

Reivan shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the most elevated platform in the room. His back was starting to get very stiff from keeping it straight all this time.

"You buffoon!" The booming exclamation of an old man echoed throughout the court. "Do you think money falls from the skies? If we needlessly increase the budget for pointless things, we'll have to reduce the budget for something else! What do you suggest we sacrifice for your idiotic proposal!?"

"Grand Minister Dario, you speak out of turn!" Another old man yelled back with the same energy. "How can you call research into what lays beyond the stars pointless!? There might very well be otherworldly monsters behind the clouds! Or maybe even substances that can aid us in one way or another. If we never go looking for them how can we ever find them!?"

Grand Minister Dario closed his eyes and massaged his temples. "Grand Minister Sierron, we have enough worries down here. Why must we go looking for trouble elsewhere?"

"What I'm saying is that trouble is not the only thing we might find!" Grand Minister Sierron slammed his palms on the long table separating him from the other old man. "Minerals! Plants! And other intelligent, biological life forms! The possibilities are endless! You've read the founding king's notes like the rest of us, so you must know that he spoke of the prospect of there being something else out there!"

"There could also be a whole lot of nothing out there! Your eyes are clouded by the overly optimistic visions of grandeur!" Dario sneered. "If there are other intelligent life forms beyond the skies, then the possibility that they may view us as invaders exist!"

"It exists, but it is not absolute!"

"But it exists, you fool! You would endanger the lives of our people for an unknown probability!?"

"Bah. Time has dulled your nerves, old timer."

"The nerve of you! You're older than me by three years!"

"We all know I'm of younger heart! And if we were to measure seniority by one's miserliness, you would be above even the Sword Star!"

"Me? A Miser??? Bah! You just don't know what it feels like to have limited funds!"

"What in the world is that supposed to mean? I stopped getting a salary the moment I came into office like the rest of you! I'm just as poor as you!"

"Who the hell are you calling poor...!?"

'And there it goes... from an intellectual debate to a schoolyard argument.'

Reivan resisted the urge to sigh and roll his eyes. In the past year he'd been attending these court sessions, he'd gotten used to these living relics. They weren't bad people in any sense of the imagination, and Reivan definitely thought that each and every one of the grand ministers in the room was essential to Aizen... but good lord, he wished he could push this responsibility to someone else.

"Ahem." A not-so-subtle cough silenced the arguing ministers. Once order was reestablished, an eloquent voice filled the room. "It is a shame to us all that the second prince has seemingly grown used to us old men arguing like this. Let us return to speaking in a civilized manner, shall we?"

Grand Minister Dario cleared his throat, a slight blush crossed his aged face. "Indeed. I apologize to the His Highness, Prince Reivan. And to you, the Primero. I may have gotten too riled up."

"I also ask for Your Highness' forgiveness." Grand Minister Sierron struggled up and dipped his head in a very precarious show of respect. "Elder Dante, you've seen a bad side of me. My apologies."

Reivan put on his best "magnanimous" smile and waved his hand as if it wasn't a big deal. "It's fine. Your intense emotions prove that the flames of your love for Aizen still burn brightly despite your age."

""We thank Your Highness for your benevolence!"" The two grand ministers happily cried out with their heads lowered in respect.

Reivan nodded to them and gestured for the continuation of their debate while stealthily sending a glance to the person beside him — the same person that had de-escalated the earlier situation.

"This old one also thanks Your Highness for your grace." Dante, the Primero, smiled warmly from his seat beside him.

Although the seat for Aizen Kingdom's highest-ranked minister was slightly lower than the seat for the royal family's representative, Dante's towering height and Reivan's lack of it meant they were actually close to eye level with each other. That was why Reivan was sure that the old man didn't miss the sullen look on his face. And naturally, Reivan did not miss the intentions hidden behind the seemingly harmless old man's smile.

'I know what you're planning and I don't like it, you old fox!'

And his bad feeling quickly bore fruit since the Primero suddenly clapped his hands together. As the sharp sound gathered everyone's attention, his smile grew. "I have an idea. Perhaps old bats like us have clouded visions due to our long lives and different experiences. A fresh take on things might be just what we need."

"A fresh take, is it?" Dario rubbed his chin in thought.

Sierron, on the other hand, seemed to agree. "Elder Dante has a point. As expected of the Primero."

'Fuck. Stop!'

Reivan cleared his throat in an effort to signal the old man to stop. He even debated just outright covering the old man's mouth or yanking his long, white beard, despite how inappropriate or rude that would be.

But it was too late.

Dante put a hand sprinkled with age spots on Reivan's shoulder and turned toward the boy. "Your Highness, may we implore you to grace us with your wisdom?"

"Oh? The second prince will...?" Dario looked shocked for a second before his aged eyes brightened. "Interesting. I'd also love to hear the opinion of someone so young."

"Indeed!" Sierron slicked back what was left of his hair. "The young will lead the future after all. Your Highness! This foolish old man also implores you to grace us with your thoughts."

'FUCK! Stop trying to pull me into this!'

Reivan made good use of his willpower to restrain the grimace that threatened to break out. Instead, he forced a smile. "It would be my honor. However... I think I lack sufficient knowledge to provide a decent opinion..."

'Please, Dante! Stop!'

"Knowledge is certainly a good thing to have." Dante nodded sagely. "However, it can also act as a shackle. The so-called common sense and all of our other experiences can blind us from seeing certain things, no matter how obvious those things may be to the less-informed."

"The Primero speaks the truth..."

"There is naturally a reason why he hasn't been unseated for half a century. Such wisdom does not come with just age!"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

In other words, please get on with it, Your Highness.

Reivan could practically read Dante's thoughts on his wrinkled face.

'Damnit...'

"Fine..." With a sigh of defeat, Reivan racked his brain for some bullshit he could use to tide him over. He was thankful that the other people in the room patiently waited for him to give an answer.

Finally, after a minute of searching through his vast inner library, Reivan managed to piece together something he was satisfied with.

"As for the first ancestor's theory about life beyond the stars... I also believe it."

'For one thing, I know there's a giant serpent that's big enough to swallow galaxies out there. And weird chicken-like things too.'

Grand Minister Dario shifted uncomfortably in his seat, a slight frown on his face.

Sierron slammed his fist on the table. "So Your Highness also agrees!"

"Yes, Grand Minister Sierron, I agree that the possibility is there and we cannot ignore that." Reivan nodded while internally reviewing his ideas and controlling the pace of his words. After all, it would be far too embarrassing if he stuttered in this situation. "However, Grand Minister Dario certainly has a point as well. We have to get the funds from somewhere. We also cannot ignore the possibility that they may view us as invaders and become hostile to us. There is also the problem of communication. If we do meet other life forms, can we even talk to them? Perhaps they don't even use verbal language like us."

"What...?" Sierron looked bewildered. "I'm afraid this old one doesn't quite understand..."

Reivan raised his left hand, where a crystal was strapped to his wrist. "The communication crystal provides us a way to deliver information in a manner that cannot be replicated by anything else."

"Ah..." The Grand Minister gasped. His look of confusion quickly transformed into one of understanding.

"So you're saying..." Dante stroked his beard. "That there's a chance that they can only communicate through telepathy?"

"Yes. That is one possibility." Reivan nodded. "You know it too. In the beginning, we thought there were only humans. Then came the orcs from the south. The elves from the west. The dwarves and draconians from the north. And the warbeasts from the east. Although all of the known races communicate through spoken words, our differences are many. Taking that into consideration, it isn't too farfetched to think that a race that can only communicate through thoughts exist."

'Well, okay. Maybe it still is a bit farfetched, but whatever.'

"As expected of the second prince." Dante clapped his hands in apparent admiration. "So young, and yet your thoughts run so deep."

'Oh, shut up...'

Reivan leaned back on his soft chair, ignoring the old man who'd forced him into taking the stage.

Who would have known that the old bat still wasn't done with him?

"And so?" Dante leaned forward and looked back at the young boy. "What do you suggest we do about it, Your Highness?"

'Are you actually a demon!?'

Sensing the expectant gazes from the two previously arguing grand ministers, Reivan knew that he wouldn't be able to get out of this.

Stifling a sigh, he calmly said. "For now, seeing as we don't have funds to allocate to this matter, I think it's better to do more thinking about this. Thinking is free, after all. Think of as many possibilities as possible, and then think of as many solutions to them as possible. The question of how we can explore outwards must also be answered. This way, when the burden on the royal treasury is finally alleviated, we'll have a more precise understanding of how to spend our resources effectively."

The Primero nodded in satisfaction, a brilliant smile on his face. "Superbly well said, Your Highness."

"The kingdom has been blessed with yet another font of wisdom." Dario chortled. "I especially like the part where it's free!"

"You close-fisted old coot..." Sierron scoffed and shook his head at his cheapskate of a colleague before bowing deeply toward the boy on the highest seat. "I failed to think of it in that way. I will certainly strive to prepare a more detailed proposal, Your Highness."

'Please don't.'

"When that time comes, I hope you can grace it with your eyes!"

'I don't want to.'

He couldn't very well release his intrusive thoughts though, so Reivan merely smiled ambiguously, not making any promises. Thankfully, that seemed to be enough for the old man.

"Well then." Dante clapped his hands again, gathering the attention of everyone in the room. "With that issue out of the way, let us move on to the next agenda."

'May the Sun God have mercy on my soul...'

In the end, the morning court session was called the morning court session because it lasted all morning. Naturally, it would be a while before Reivan could leave this room full of men who were so old they could die at any time.

Reivan discreetly heaved a sigh as he prepared to listen to the next argument.

----------------------------------------

All good things had to come to an end. Luckily, it seemed that could be applied to the opposite.

Soon, it was time for lunch. Which meant that it was also time for the morning court session to finish. Any other issues that weren't tackled or resolved would have to be left for tomorrow's meeting.

And tomorrow's meeting was tomorrow's Reivan's problem. The present Reivan had no worries.

'I'm free...!'

He could now leave those old men behind and enjoy lunch with his cute little sister. And if he was lucky, his mother would be there too. If he was really lucky, his father and brother would only be slightly buried in work, to the extent that they had enough time to eat a meal outside of their offices.

As for his sister-in-law, she wouldn't be back until next week, so Reivan wasn't counting on eating with her any time soon.

Reivan was in such a good mood that he started humming as he walked down the hall. Unfortunately, his good mood wouldn't last for long.

"Ah, there you are, Your Highness. This old one has been looking everywhere for you."

'Damnit...'

Stifling the urge to grimace, Reivan put on a smile as he turned around to face Dante, the Primero of Aizen.

"I beg your pardon." Reivan lightly dipped his head in apology before looking into the elder's green eyes. "I didn't stick around because I actually had a prior appointment."

"Oh, and I don't have any intentions to keep you away from that." Dante smiled warmly as he walked with shaky steps toward the prince. "It's just that I wanted to remind you of the alarmingly large pile of paperwork in your office."

Reivan's smile twitched.

'Damn. I forgot about that...'

Various responsibilities had been placed on Reivan's shoulders, a few of them were validating requests from all sorts of places, and approving those requests. Of course, he could also deny them if they were too unreasonable, but he could also offer a compromise to meet them halfway.

It was a very important-sounding job, but in actuality, the requests that came to Reivan for approval were very small in scale and relevance.

Although the requests normally came from viceroys — Grand Ministers that are given a certain amount of governing ability over a city — they were nonessential requests that wouldn't really make much of a difference whether they were approved or denied. Things like hosting a birthday party for one of the civil officials, investing a bit of the city's budget into a rising yet trustworthy company, and throwing a contest for cats with strange patterns on their fur.

The requests were not only strange sometimes, but they were numerous. This was mostly due to the fact that there was no punishment or demerit to having a proposal denied. As such, the viceroys likely felt like they merely had to throw things at a wall and see what stuck.

'And we can't ever impose penalties either...'

Doing so might make the viceroys fearful of submitting a request when they really needed to. And there could be something serious laying underneath a seemingly insignificant request.

"Ugh..." Reivan thought back to a few weeks ago, when a request for an increase in the supply of salt somehow managed to reveal the existence of a strange drug that made you crave salty food — in addition to making one extremely high.

'Father said that knowing about the little things will help a ruler, but in the first place, I don't want to be king!'

Still, he couldn't really shirk his duties.

"...I'll get to it immediately after lunch." Reivan sighed in defeat. "Thank you for your reminder, Elder Dante."

"Hoho. 'Tis a small thing, it is." The old man laughed. Towering over the boy with his height, he looked down at Reivan with a grin. "And I'm aware you wanted to lay low during the morning court session."

"As usual, even though you know, you still push me into the spotlight. And you're probably not sorry at all."

"Of course, I'm not."

'This old bastard...'

Reivan heaved a weary sigh and turned around. Dante was a loyal servant to the country, which made it impossible for Reivan to actually hate him. But it didn't change the fact that the eighty-year-old man got under his skin.

Dante chuckled as he walked to the prince's side. "As a prince, you must get used to these kinds of things. Your opinion matters whether you want it to or not. So you must practice forming intelligent sentiments under pressure and scrutiny."

"Is that so?" Reivan rolled his eyes as he slowly strode forward, matching pace with the elderly minister. "I assume you'd do the same for your newborn great-great-great-grandson once he grows up a bit?"

"Of course not," Dante spoke without an ounce of hesitation. "I don't want him to hate me, after all."

The prince heaved yet another sigh, giving up. "And how is he, by the way?"

"By the Sormon's grace, very healthy." The old minister's smile grew even wider and his voice grew more excited. "Lately, the way he grips my finger when I poke him has been getting tighter. Perhaps this old one's progeny can finally produce a knight? Hohoho...!"

"I see..." Reivan couldn't help but smile as well. "That's wonderful."

"It is, it is..." Dante bobbed his head. "Who would've guessed that I'd live to see the day that my great-great-great-grandson be born? 'Tis a joyous thing, indeed. And I have you to thank for that, Your Highness."

Feeling slightly embarrassed, Reivan waved it off. "It was nothing."

The elderly man shook his head, a serious expression on his face. "It most definitely was not nothing."

Reivan chuckled wryly. "All I did was give you some medicine ahead of everyone else. The results would have been the same had the mother of the child waited for a month or two."

"It changes nothing." Dante stubbornly stood his ground. Then, the old man bowed his head, his hips and knees slightly shaking under the effort. "I feel grateful. Once again, thank you. I would not be feeling such happiness if it weren't for you."

After getting such heartfelt gratitude, Reivan couldn't help but scratch the back of his head. All he did was give Dante an experimental sample of a muscle relaxant he'd been working on with a few royal scholars that could potentially alleviate the strain of childbirth. The completed version would have come out for sale even before Dante's family member gave birth, and in the first place, the presence of Sormon's priests made death due to childbirth virtually impossible.

'I really didn't do that much...'

Still, Reivan couldn't stop the old man from feeling thankful. So he just helped Dante stand up straight.

"If you feel that grateful..." Reivan grinned. "Why don't you stop throwing me under the carriage during morning court sessions?"

"I refuse. That is a different matter entirely. Ho ho ho ho~!"

Dante's loud laughter echoed throughout the hall and Reivan couldn't help but march off in annoyance.