Vote for Your Knight! - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Vote for your knight!
Episode 1
Prologue
The dream of every knight!
A public competition to join Di Eques, the Shinaudia Empire’s elite knight order!
Cartamen!
“No matter how lowborn, for those who know how to wield a sword, Cartamen is a lifetime’s dream. If I cannot achieve it in this life, there is no reason to live.”
“I want to show my family so badly. That I can do it. That I too can dream.”
“My master once told me: the moment you grasp the sword, your eyes must turn toward Cartamen. It is my ultimate dream as well.”
A competition unfolds through various trials.
Among roughly a hundred participants, only five knights can join Di Eques.
And it is you who will choose them.
“‘Imperial Knight Commander, please select your knight!'”
Episode 1
“My beloved daughter.”
My father.
The Shinaudia Empire’s Emperor, Karlus Lafayette, asked me gently.
“Are you in your right mind?”
The look of someone who couldn’t believe what they were hearing.
Or rather, to be honest……
‘Is this girl insane?’
……was the expression he was biting back.
I turned over in my mind what I had just said.
“We select the Imperial Knight Order through competition. The choice is made by public vote.”
Hmm, it is rather unconventional, isn’t it?
The Imperial Advisor standing behind Father also wore an expression of disbelief.
“I simply cannot fathom what my daughter is saying.”
Father spoke with deliberate gentleness.
“Which part is hardest to understand, Father? That we should hold a vote? Or that we should hold a knight competition?”
Father’s expression said: ‘All of it.’
“Under the pretense of selecting knights, forcing men to fight to the death until only one remains—that is what the tyrant Bobuwar, whom we brought down with our own hands, did. Surely my clever daughter knows this, having played her part in the revolution.”
So the ‘knight competition’ is the sore point, not the ‘vote.’
‘Father has greatly misunderstood my intentions.’
Just as Father said, at only sixteen years old, I was a prodigy who had contributed to overthrowing the tyrant.
More precisely, a genius Alchemist.
‘The Revolutionary Forces won because of the various Magical Devices I created.’
That is why the tyrant cursed me for possessing ‘demonic talent.’
He said it was impossible for someone so young to wield Alchemy with such mastery unless she were truly a demon.
Wasn’t that actually a compliment?
‘I simply learned quickly because of my memories from my past life.’
Of course, in my past life, I had nothing to do with Alchemy whatsoever.
I was a television producer in South Korea.
Right before my death, I had created the year’s most successful program.
‘Then I got hit by a truck on the way to the awards ceremony.’
It wasn’t even to accept an award that was truly mine.
‘Though the award should have been mine in the first place……’
“Jin-woo, this concept is fantastic. Let’s put my name on the credits—from planning through editing ideas.”
“What?”
“It’s not bragging, but people will only care if they hear I had a hand in it, right?”
“……”
“Don’t worry. I’ll put your name down as an assistant producer. I wouldn’t just abandon you like that.”
He did abandon me.
The star producer took both my ideas and my credit for himself.
Bitter and resentful, I couldn’t sleep.
Yet I endured, telling myself there would be a next opportunity.
‘Next time, it will definitely be under my own name……’
While walking with that thought, the accident happened.
Bang!
I was struck by a truck.
When I came to, I was here.
At first, it was bewildering.
Waking in an infant’s body in an unfamiliar world.
Worse still, my mother passed away giving birth to me, and all I had before my eyes was my father alone.
‘What is this? Some sort of childcare fantasy where I’m supposed to perform tricks and win affection?’
I wasn’t confident in my ability to be cute.
Around the time I was thinking this, my body lifted into the air.
“My beloved daughter! Your father swears on his life to protect you, Edith! All our precious girl needs to do is grow up strong and healthy!”
Father held my tiny form close to his chest, his voice thick with emotion.
The golden hair he’d passed down to me tickled my cheek.
‘I won’t need to perform tricks, then.’
I thought this calmly, yet something within me stirred.
Of course, after I learned that Father was of royal blood and subject to a tyrant’s persecution, survival became a constant struggle.
The tyrant tormented not only our father.
He plundered the people and murdered them on a whim.
The result was unrest among the masses and division throughout the empire.
One of the tyrant’s many atrocities was the Knight Bloodsport.
He forcibly brought elite fighters from across the realm to battle one another until only a single person remained.
And when the final champion was crowned.
‘He offered them the privilege of becoming the Emperor’s knight.’
But all the champions refused to become the tyrant’s tool and chose to take their own lives instead.
They chose honor.
All except one.
After all that time, with so many knights dead.
The empire reached a point where it could no longer endure the tyrant’s despotism.
In the end, Father joined with like-minded people and led a revolution that toppled the despot.
It was peace hard-won.
And so I understood.
Father’s caution.
“But Father, I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
I sighed and looked out across the empty conference hall.
“I never said we should hold a bloodsport. I meant we should select our knight order through fair and legitimate competition.”
“But that’s……”
“You convened the Nobility Council to find a way for the empire’s people to unite, didn’t you?”
……
“Yet no one came.”
At my words, Father and the Imperial Advisor bowed their heads in somber silence.
Today, Father had convened the Nobility Council.
To discuss ways of mending the fractured hearts of the people.
But not a single noble attended.
Not even those who had participated in the revolution.
The reason was obvious.
‘Father had declared he would severely punish any revolutionary hero who exploited the common people.’
That was when they turned.
They had not taken up the cause of revolution for justice.
‘They wanted the luxuries the old conspirators had enjoyed. They simply wanted to take those positions for themselves.’
But when Father drew a firm line, they all conspired together and boycotted the meeting.
A profound sense of betrayal washed over me.
This was still early in Father’s reign.
This was when the support of his ministers was most crucial.
‘If this continues, the new emperor’s authority will crumble to dust.’
Father gazed at the empty hall with a look of desolation.
My chest ached.
Was this all the revolution had won—a single father’s heartbreak?
‘I need to help him.’
“I confess I don’t see how a knight order relates to unity. In fact, wouldn’t holding tournaments only deepen the people’s division?”
Of course, Father was unaware of my filial devotion.
“This is nothing like what the tyrant did. We’re simply creating an order of knights to protect the empire and its people through fair competition—just as the First Emperor did.”
“The First Emperor? Surely you don’t mean……!”
Father’s face shifted to one of shock.
I smiled and nodded.
“Yes. I’m proposing that we hold a Knight Bloodsport—a Cartamen.”
Cartamen.
The founding emperor established the empire alongside five knights called Di Eques.
The Cartamen was the very tournament used to select those elite knights.
“Knights compete in various contests, and the people who witness them vote directly to choose the elite knights!”
“Exactly! We’re selecting knights not by bloodline, but by gathering the will of the people!”
It was a kind of knight survival competition.
Just as I had once planned an idol survival show in my past life, now I was devising a knight survival tournament.
‘Perhaps this is the second chance I’ve been given.’
Or perhaps the last.
The final chance given for my father, for the people, and for myself.
That was when it happened.
My father’s advisor, who had remained silent, opened his mouth.
“If we truly hold a Cartamen, everyone will be desperate to participate. The Di Eques of the second, third, and subsequent generations became legends by protecting the empire from demon and foreign invasions.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
My father’s advisor, who always took his side, was unexpectedly backing my proposal. I nodded quickly.
“The tyrant nearly exterminated the knight order entirely—we desperately need new knights. It’s also a splendid opportunity for anyone with genuine skill who aspires to knighthood.”
Di Eques is the dream of every knight aspirant and squire.
It’s the ultimate goal worth pursuing even at the cost of one’s life.
“What matters most is that the purpose isn’t defeating each other, but forming a single knight order—so the people’s will would unite as one.”
“True. However… it’s impossible right now.”
The advisor spoke with finality.
Well, of course.
I’d expected him not to agree outright.
“The Cartamen was halted for the past twenty years because of the tyrant. All the regional tournament grounds and supporting infrastructure were destroyed. There’s no way to display the competitions anymore, nor to hold votes.”
The advisor was right.
But it wasn’t impossible.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“But I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“Pardon?”
The advisor’s bewildered face was soon lit by the spark of understanding.
I smiled brilliantly.
“I’ll build the infrastructure to broadcast the competitions across the entire empire and create facilities where people can vote.”
It was entirely possible.
‘I’m a brilliant alchemist, after all.’
I’d already toppled a revolution with this power, hadn’t I?
Watching joy bloom across my father’s and the advisor’s faces, I added one more thing.
“The people need only select their own knight.”
* * *
[Proclamation: The Knight Bloodsport ‘Cartamen’ to be Held]
I, seeking to restore the glory of the Knight Order ‘Di Eques’ that founded the empire, shall hold the Knight Bloodsport ‘Cartamen.’
Those who survive the first round of Cartamen shall be granted the opportunity for knight-rank appointment.
Eligibility requirements are as follows:
⚫ Age eighteen or older
⚫ Anyone capable of wielding a weapon, regardless of region or station
⚫ Above all, participation is voluntary.
– Karlus I, Emperor of the Shinaudia Empire
“Cartamen? They’re really bringing back the Cartamen that disappeared twenty years ago?”
In front of the proclamation posted in the Capital Square.
Someone cried out amid the gathering crowd.
Then a cynical voice echoed in response.
“What kind of fool do you take us for? We’re supposed to believe that?”
“In short, it’s just ‘Gullible masses, fall for it one more time.'”
“They’re just going to gather innocent people again and slaughter them all.”
Beginning with those words, a tide of skepticism began to spread.
Though Karlus I was said to be different from the tyrant he had expelled.
The proclamation’s contents were enough to evoke memories of the tyrant’s brutal ‘Bloodsport.’
Yet occasionally, whispers of a different kind could be heard.
“If this is a true Cartamen, even a commoner like me could rise in status!”
“My grandfather’s friend had a cousin who was among Di Eques. He received fiefs and treatment rivaling a duke! Though he perished under the tyrant’s reign….”
“My childhood dream was Di Eques too. If that’s real, I’m putting my life on the line and competing—I swear it.”
Someone slipped quickly through the crowd, each member clamoring with their own voice.
A small-framed woman draped in a robe.
‘It’s real. Please, just believe me, people.’
That was me—Edith.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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