Chapter 517: Chapter-517
Standing at the very absolute front of the armored generals, looking entirely unbothered and utterly terrifying, was Grandpa Marcuset.
The Emperor, of course, had already heard exactly what happened at the sporting grounds before the morning assembly even began. His spies were nothing if not efficient. Still, he rested his chin on his hand, looking down at the tense crowd.
Soon, the Minister of the Right—a man in deep blue robes—shot to his feet, his face red with indignation.
"Your Majesty!" the Minister shouted, bowing deeply. "This servant wishes to file a formal, urgent complaint!"
The Emperor looked at him, his expression unreadable. "What is wrong? Speak."
The Minister stood up, pointing an accusing finger directly at the military faction. "Your Majesty, the newly brought heiress of the Vanguard family has blatantly disrespected the laws of high society! At dawn today, she dared to ride a horse wildly through the men’s sporting grounds! She picked a fight with a noble, utterly insulted him, and completely destroyed the societal norms expected of a noblewoman!"
The Emperor didn’t say a word. He simply shifted his gaze across the room, looking directly at Grandpa Marcuset.
Grandpa Marcuset didn’t bow. He didn’t flinch. He simply let out a loud, booming scoff that echoed off the high vaulted ceilings of the courtroom.
He slowly turned to look at the Minister of the Right, his eyes narrowing with lethal disdain.
"You know," Grandpa rumbled, his deep voice carrying effortlessly across the silent room. "I used to think that you civil scholars were at least studious enough to know how to form a coherent, logical sentence. But after hearing you speak today, I can confidently say that you must have been eating shit instead of studying your books."
A collective gasp echoed through the blue-robed scholars.
"How dare you?!" the Minister of the Right sputtered, his face turning an impossible shade of purple. "This is the Imperial Court!"
"Of course I dare!" Grandpa roared back, his massive hand slamming onto the hilt of his sword. The sheer force of his voice made several of the weaker scholars physically flinch backward.
Grandpa stepped forward, completely taking over the floor. "What is all this absolute nonsense about a ’Vanguard heiress,’ ’newly brought,’ and ’society norms’? Have you gone completely senile?"
He held up a thick, calloused finger.
"First of all, I want to correct your pathetic vocabulary," Grandpa barked. "She is the heiress of the ’’Marcuset’’ family. ’Vanguard’ is a military title given to me by the throne. Do you know what Vanguard literally means? It means the first troop on the bloody frontline, the ones who are always ready to fight and die before anyone else! That is why I hold the title. She is a Marcuset."
He held up a second finger.
"Secondly," the old general sneered. "She is not ’newly brought’ like some stray dog. She was born into this earth years ago! She is my own biological granddaughter. Do you scholars not understand how bloodlines work? Your son marries a wife, she gives birth, and that child is your biological granddaughter that you play with. I didn’t just walk down to the morning merchant market, point at a random girl, and say, ’’Oh, I found a new heiress, I’ll take her!’’ So remove that disrespectful line from your mouth right now!"
He held up a third finger, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, protective rage.
"Third, what ’society norms’ did she break?" Grandpa demanded, turning slightly to bow his head respectfully to the Emperor before looking back at the Minister. "Your Majesty, let the facts be stated. It was the Marquis’s nephew who openly challenged my granddaughter in public. As a soldier of the Marcuset family, it was her sworn duty to accept a direct challenge. She accepted it, she raced him, and she crushed him. What is the crime?"
’
The Minister of the Right practically jumped in his spot. "But she cheated! She dared to fight a normal riding horse using a heavily bred, military-grade Vanguard warhorse!"
Grandpa Marcuset looked at the man. He stared at him for a long, agonizing moment, as if he were looking at the dumbest creature to ever walk the earth.
"Oh, really?" Grandpa scoffed, crossing his massive arms over his armor. "Tell me, Minister... did my granddaughter force a blindfold over your dear nephew’s eyes? Did she cast a spell of blindness on him?"
"N-no, but—"
"Then what is his excuse?!" Grandpa shouted. "Have you gone crazy? Did your wife beat you so mercilessly last night that you completely forgot how to use your brain?! Which absolute idiot cannot visually understand the difference between a delicate little estate pony and a towering, heavily muscled warhorse?!"
The entire military faction behind Grandpa began to snicker and sneer, thoroughly enjoying the brutal verbal beatdown.
"Furthermore," Grandpa continued seamlessly, "my granddaughter even paused the race to ask for proper permission."
The old general turned to the center of the room, looking directly at the green-robed faction. He locked eyes with the Prime Minister, who was standing there looking as ethereal and completely unbothered as ever.
"Prime Minister," Grandpa called out. "If I am not wrong, it was your private border property where they raced, correct?"
The Prime Minister looked up, his expression entirely serene. He simply nodded his head once. "It was."
"And if I am not wrong," Grandpa pressed, "did my granddaughter trick his nephew, ambush him, or shrink her warhorse down to make it look small?"
The Prime Minister’s lips twitched slightly. He shook his head. "No. The beast was quite visible."
"Exactly!" Grandpa clapped his hands together, producing a sound like a thunderclap. He turned his attention to the rest of the silent, terrified court officials who had been present at the morning exercises. "Was she the one who issued the challenge first?"
Several officials hastily shook their heads, terrified of drawing the general’s wrath. "No, Lord Marcuset."
Grandpa turned his back on the Minister of the Right, dismissing him completely, and looked up at the Emperor on the throne.
"That is all there is to it, Your Majesty," Grandpa summarized, his voice rock-steady and unapologetic. "My granddaughter was simply enjoying a morning ride when these arrogant fools tried to publicly insult her. As a proud daughter of a military household, how could she let them talk to her like that? So, as a good, obedient girl, she accepted the race they demanded."
Grandpa’s eyes hardened, sweeping over the civilian scholars.
"There was a public bet placed, Your Majesty," Grandpa stated coldly. "A bet where, if my granddaughter had lost, she would have been forced to get off her horse, kneel in the dirt, and completely apologize to them. She put her own pride on the line. So tell me... is it ’her’ fault that a fully grown man couldn’t beat a young girl? Or is it simply the Marquis’s fault for raising a weak, blind fool?"
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the grand courtroom.
The Minister of the Right stood frozen, his face completely drained of blood. He had expected the civil faction to rally behind him to suppress the military’s growing arrogance. Instead, he had just been brutally verbally dismantled by an old warlord, and the Prime Minister—the absolute highest authority among the civil scholars—had casually provided the testimony that buried him.
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