“Dad~! How do I look?” Kalene spun around in a puffy white dress, her long blonde hair fluttering everywhere.

 

“Beautiful, very beautiful of course!” Duke Kar patted Kalene. Kornela followed not long after, she jumped out of the changing room and also spun around. Her dress was a simple light green colour.

 

“What about me dad~?” She looked up at Duke Kar with a wide smile.

 

Duke Kar grabbed her and threw her into the air. “Very cute Kornela!” Kornela giggled as she floated for a second before falling back into Duke Kars embrace. Her brown shoulder lenght hair covering Duke Kars old face.

 

Emelia walked out just as Duke Kar managed to barely catch Kornela and raised an eyebrow at him.

 

She wore a simple black dress. She needed no makeup nor any accessorys. She was simply that beautiful. In fact, those things would probably even ruin her beauty. Her straight long black hair only complemented her dress.

 

“Very beautiful my Empress!” Duke Kar exclaimed as he struggled to hold the escaping Kornela. But Duke Kar was no match for Kornelas slippiness and slickly escaped to run to Emelia.

 

All of them had already gotten used to Duke Kar calling her “Empress” when he accidentally called her that during a meal.

 

“Waaa~~ Teacher! You’re sooo beautiful. Up! Up!” Kornela lifted her arms, expecting to be picked up.

 

Emelia obliged seeing Kornelas big sad puppy eyes staring at her and lifted her onto one arm.

 

Seeing that Kornela escaped to Emelia, Duke Kar made a very sad face.

 

“It’s my birthday and yet you still run away to others, not caring about your own father at all. I see how it is.” He turned away pretending to be very sad.

 

“Noo! Dad~.” Kornela quickly got off Emelia and ran back to Duke Kar.

 

As she was about to run into him for a hug, he turned around and began tickling her.

 

“Haha, dare to run away again?” Duke Kar said angerily.

 

“No, No, I swear I won’t run away~ Stop~~~” Tears began to flow from Kornelas eyes as she couldn’t stop laughing.

 

“Good girl!” He stopped and carefully fixed her hair and dress.

 

“Alright lets go. Ilas, you lead of course.” Emelia looked at Duke Kar and he nodded as he set Kornela down.

 

Duke Kar walked to the door and pushed them both open.

 

As soon as he opened them a loud cheer erupted.

 

“Father, everything is prepared and everyone is satisfied.” Leo and Agor stood beside him, both in black refined suits. Beautiful golden ceremonial swords on their hips that stood out making a perfect combination with their suits.

 

In front of them stood a near thousand people in this big hall, and almost all of them big high ranking military men in red ceremonial military garbs, the medals on their chests plain to see. 

 

Only a few scholarly men in blue robes stood in the center of the hall, in their own enclosed group clearly not fitting in with everyone else. 

 

There were not many women. At most a couple dozen. And only one stood with the military men at the front. The rest were in the outskirts in their own groups.

 

“Long live Great General Kar! Great Hero Kar!” The whole mansion shook from their roars.

 

Duke Kar put up his hand and the roars instantly settled. Clearly having great respect for him.

 

“I would like to thank all of you for coming here today! Today I am celebrating my 90th birthday. I am becoming an old man now. My conquests of past are only a fond memory now. Times are troubled now as all of you know. The Dylarr are a bunch of bastards, and it’s up to the younger generation to fight them. We old men should just sit back and watch them. Cheers all!” He grabbed a drink from Leo and drank all of it quickly.

 

The old men began to laugh while the younger military men exclaimed in mock anger.

 

“Enjoy yourselves everyone!” He began walked downstairs and towards the end of the hall where the main seat of honour was. He, of course sat in the very middle. Emelia sat to his right and Kalene beside her. Kornela sat to the left of the duke, and left a space beside her for Isabella. Leo and Agor sat at both ends of the table.

It didn’t take long for people to begin whispering and asking about Emelia. The person in question though, didn’t care and kept drinking and eating anything and everything placed in front of her.

 

Kalene just stared in amazment as she kept placing random foods onto Emelias plate. Emelia would only momentarily glance at Kalene, who was staring at Emelia blankly, and then eat, whereupon her eyes glowed with joy.

 

As everyone was staring at Emelia like a convicted criminal, the big doors opened and Isabella in a big light blue dress appeared with a young handsome man in armour holding her hand as they walked towards the main table.

 

Duke Kar began to let out a chilling killing intent that everyone in the room felt as soon as he saw the man. Isabella stopped for a moment but just shook it off, clearly having felt that intent many times.

 

“Dad! Please give your blessing for me and Karl to marry!” Isabella and Karl both knelt down, clearly very firmly as the ground let out a thump as they fell.

 

The temperature sharply decreased. 

 

“We’ll talk about it after the party, for now, join us here. Imperial Prince can sit anywhere else.” Duke Kar said firmly

 

Isabella glanced at Karl and he nodded. Only then did she come to sit beside Kornela and Duke Kar.

 

The atmosphere quickly returned to being jovial and whispers once again flooded the hall, yet instead of talking about Emelia, the focus was on Karl and Isabella.

 

Karl went to join some of the younger military men, who quickly grabbed him into their circle and began interrogating him.