Prologue

The Imperial Knight Order, the pride of the Empire, has a rather special admission requirement. And it all began when the issue of illegitimate children among the Imperial Knights reached the ears of the Empress Velita.

“How dare you commit such blasphemous acts while bearing the name of the Imperial Family!”

At her thunderous, anger-filled voice, the ministers were so startled that they bowed their bodies. Among them, there were even some who fainted from shock.

Unable to easily calm her emotions, which had surged up to the top of her head, she pressed her forehead as if she had a headache.

“Are you telling me that such disgraceful things have truly happened in my country?”

Women who had not married but whose bellies had swollen came knocking at the gates of the Imperial City, abandoned by their families. Most of these women arrived with only the name of the man who had once whispered words of love to them, nursing a newborn at their br*ast.

As a result, rumors that one should never get close to the Imperial Knights quickly spread throughout the kingdom. People pointed fingers, asking how they could entrust the country to knights who lacked even a sense of responsibility. The matter could no longer be quietly swept under the rug, and Velita had no choice but to suffer a headache over the issue.

They had been given swords and honor so they could fight for the Empire and the Imperial Family and never cower anywhere, yet it seemed they had been using not their swords but something else, hiding it from the Emperor’s eyes all the while.

When the castle was filled with the desperate cries of women begging for their children to at least be cared for, Velita made up her mind.

“From now on, anyone who wishes to become an Imperial Knight must become someone who cannot have children!”

The families who were preparing to send their grown sons to the Imperial Knight Order poured out protests day and night at Velita’s resolute decision, which had not even passed through the noble council.

The heads of noble houses, their faces flushed and leaping about, claimed it was a ridiculous law meant to cut off the lines of noble families in order to keep them in check. What silenced these lords was a single word from Velita.

“If you cannot obey my command, then simply do not send your sons to the Imperial Knight Order, is that not so?”

Unlike the eldest son, who had to continue the family line, the second and third sons were not particularly useful. They might increase the family’s wealth through marriage, but there was no such thing as proper honor for them.

In contrast, just being admitted to the Imperial Knight Order allowed one to wear the golden badge personally awarded by Empress Velita on their chest.

That was a perfect honor that no one could harm. For a nobleman who could not inherit the family line, it was the highest honor he could possibly attain.

Because of this, the second and third sons, who faced the crisis of being cast out of noble society with nothing, could not bear the extreme anxiety and eventually turned on their own fathers.

“Father, do you intend to throw us into the pits of hell? Please, come to your senses! If things go on like this, we will all die!”

Even the head of the family, who had scolded his sons for throwing away their pride as men, was eventually worn down and had no choice but to sign the ‘Law for the Chastity of Imperial Knights’ proposed by Velita.

Losing one’s pride was no different from being matched with a family of a lower class as if selling goods, or hastily marrying off a daughter, so in this situation, they thought they might as well gain at least the empty honor.

And the law proposed by Empress Velita, which at the time was criticized for insulting men’s pride and destroying the order of the world, was later revealed over the course of several decades to have been the right decision.