𝐈𝐧𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫

3.2 || Saintess

It was the third last day of the recess when the Holy Princess arrived at the Imperial Castle. Seungmin felt like she arrived a week prior with all the preparation that went into welcoming her, creating a bustling atmosphere that he wasn't quite fond of. Even his garden was being trimmed, preventing him from freely laying there, which he thought was foolish as the Princess would never need to venture there in the first place.

When he told the gardeners to leave it alone, they answered with distressed eyes that it was the Empress' orders to tidy all the gardens. Although the previous Sion might have angrily shouted that they should listen to him, Seungmin could only mumble to keep the flowers the same. They were flowers he decided to plant in memory of his family, after all.

Frowning, Seungmin plopped the book he was reading on his face and dropped his hand onto his chest, taking a deep inhale of the library's woody scent. The book rose and fell with every breath he took, with every healthy beating of his heart.

"...I'm still alive."

He felt two small taps on his hand and shifted the book down so he could peek past the book cover. Shin trilled and tapped his hand again with its sheathed paw.

Seungmin's mint-colored eyes lulled down to the book. Shin was right—he shouldn't dwell on such a negative thought. He had realized that now that he could fully recall his life in his original world, he had a tendency to ruminate about it and the possibility that those he loved also experienced a transmigration like him. But he knew that to hope on something seemingly impossible would do him more harm than good. Shin seemed to understand his feelings well, always distracting him before his eyes would dull.

He picked the soft-cover journal back up and began to read again. It was the twelfth entry he was reading about the war that happened in the past.

"And all of them tell the same story."

They all detail the Holy Kingdom to be the first established religious state in the continent, surrounding a lake they deem to be the place the Goddess of the world resided in. Other small governing bodies that wanted this land for their own interpretations of religion ended up starting a war. As the Hershian Empire's founding was based on the Goddess blessing the royal family, it supported the Holy Kingdom, and eventually, those in opposition were no more. But according to the entries, it wasn't an easy war. Although the opponents were mostly nomads without a stable land (which was partially why they wanted the Holy Kingdom's lake), they had advanced technology that could easily "demolish a 10-foot-wide wall in one shot" or "fly fire from the skies" that made it difficult.

Seungmin refrained from looking more into the war weapons.

Anyhow, he was busy looking into the blueprints Asil sent with their last letter and making sure the noble-targeted umbrellas were doing well on the market now that two more had been released. The siblings' letters from Cambriage arrived two days after Seungmin got back to the capital saying that Asil was ready, so Seungmin asked that they put it out on the market, especially with so much gossip surrounding it. Needless to say, the first one sold for an incredible amount of money, and the second one was still being hunted for while it was kept safe in a famous auction house Zara knew about.

"I have my connections," she had said in her letter, "so please leave this to me. I will ensure not to let you down."

Seungmin didn't mind, rather, he accepted this offer with open arms. If Zara was going to take care of all the merchant aspects and Asil and the villagers were making the umbrellas, the Second Prince had little to do except return the favor by looking over Asil's miscellaneous blueprints and ensuring everyone was funded properly. He didn't even need to worry about marketing.