Chapter 19

Isabel looked at her dolled-up daughter, and she felt that it wasn't so bad after all. In her eyes, her daughter was the most innocent person, the scary aspect didn't exist at all.

Guests soon arrived. The first to arrive were naturally the lower ones. Barons, Viscounts and Counts were the first to arrive, then followed by the Marquises. Most of the lower ones had the family head attend directly, only the marquises had sent an important elder and explained their circumstances.

Among the lower ones, most of the were vassals of the family. They couldn't possibly invite all barons – that was impossible. Many of these barons didn't even possess land, their title was basically only because they were extraordinary people. So many of those were spread all around the empire, and so many of them would die every day.

Finally, it was time for the truly important to arrive.

The three guardian duchies, Guardian of the North the Schakal, Guardian of the West the Marder and Guardian of the South Luchs. All three of them are knight families with the ancestral bloodlines of the jackals, martens and lynx.

Followed by this, there is the Grand Duchy behind the Marshal of the Empire, the Grand Duchy of the Wolf. They are also a knight family with the ancestral bloodline of wolfs.

Then came the remaining two important families. The Trugbild Family with the bloodline of Doppelgänger who holds the position of foreign affairs minister and has a knight bloodline, as well as the Recht family, holding the position of Chancellor, the highest position in the parliament, and are of the wizardly Forseti bloodline.

Combined with the Holle's status as Inner Affairs Ministers, all important ministers and commanders have attended.

Only after everyone arrived did a person with stark red hair and golden eyes come upon the entrance of the mansion. A prince of the imperial family of Barbarossa!

When Adele heard this for the first time, she didn't know whether to believe it. After all, Barbarossa was a true person and not a myth like all the other beings… but she came a step closer to figuring out why all those mythical figures became reality. One thing is for sure, the myth of Barbarossa is that he is a sleeping king that will return when the country is in crises.

It seems that he returned indeed, and even more than that, he made an empire and named the countries royal family after himself. She was only curious about the power of Barbarossa, from the records, she mainly knew that their power were like that of an land deity, they had absolute might in the empire and were able to enforce the rules and laws of the empire upon everyone that entered the official territory of the empire.

They also have the biggest interest in expansion, after all, this meant that their power grew. It is for this reason that most other countries call the empire war mongers. Even though it had this bad reputation, the empire was also feared greatly, only equal powers were able to resist, and even they rarely won. It can be seen from the actions of the Kholodny Empire, attacking a side country instead of the Kran Empire itself.

Adele and Isabel greeted everyone dearly, especially when the Trugbild representative came. He was a Ludwig's brother and also Adele's uncle. When he saw her, he instantly felt their bloodlines talk to each other, Adele even saw that this wasn't her uncle's true body.

The two brothers could be called a mythical existence in the Trugbild family.

Ludwig was 'thousand shadows' and his brother, Heinrich was 'thousand doubles'. Both of them are revered to be the future of Trugbild, well, Ludwig was but isn't anymore. Only after the birth of Heinrich were the Trugbild truly willing to marry Ludwig away.

Regardless, everyone entered the banquet and began to talk among themselves. After some time, Friedrich gave a short speech and then invited all seven important guests to come forward and enter the office on the second floor, while the lesser nobles below gathered around the marquises, who know slightly more than them.

…

Inside the Office, seven guests as well as Friedrich, Isabel, Ludwig and Adele were present. In fact, when they saw Adele in the room, the representant of the Marder family, a female knight, smiled at her and asked her whether she wanted to wait outside.

"There is no need for this, after all, Adele has a present to all of you, and she is also at an age where learning of these things is good to her growth."

Hearing the word 'gift', all the family representatives looked curiously at the child, but no one said anything.

Friedrich was the one to begin. He first bowed to the prince that came, then said "Our family will send my cousin, Konrad. He hasn't arrived in the capital just yet so he can't attend unfortunately."

The knight of the Marder and the female wizard of the chancellor family frowned, while the prince smiled amusedly "It seems that your family has ambitions in this war. To send Vicious Eye to the front line… I wonder who of the Kholodny commanders will suffer this time."

On the side, Heinrich nodded and said "The Trugbild's representative in this war will cooperate with Vicious Eye. As for who we send… it's not been decided yet." That's what he said, but everyone present knew that the person that was decided would probably be on their way to the frontlines at this point. They are the only that never needs to publicly announce their candidate.

It's not that others had to do it… it's just common to tell each other in private, and it was seen as rude not to do it. Besides the Trugbild and Holle, all the others present were also the ones that would be marching towards the war, so they all sat down and listened to the front line reports of the Trugbild as they talked about their next steps for the war.

In the presence of the Holle, if any plan of theirs was truly too dangerous, then fate itself would give the Holle a hint. After all, everyone present has reigned their territory for many years and they all accumulated a lot of good fortune, the Holle only had to play the role of a translator in this case, and the cost would be minimal on them, it would be the good fortune of others that is consumed instead.