Two months later.
September 23, Sea Yuan Calendar Year 220, Pesnian, capital of the Sark Empire.
The crowds in the city were gradually thinning as the lights began to glow.
The Emperor's grand coronation ceremony had ended yesterday, and nearly half the dignitaries from various nations who had attended had already departed.
During the day, the new Emperor Francois II and Empress Salma had completed their procession through the capital. By tradition, the evening was reserved for a family dinner among members of the Imperial Direct Lineage.
The attendees of the royal family dinner included Prince Clement and Princess Consort Diana, the former Emperor Henry IV—who was also Clement's nephew—the new Emperor Francois II, Empress Salma, and their only son, Peter I.
These were all the surviving direct members of the Sark Empire's royal family, sparse in number just like most royal houses.
However, there was an amusing anecdote about the Sark royal family.
Especially now that radios and wireless broadcasts had become widespread, this widely circulated tale was excellent dinner-table gossip for citizens of other countries.
The tale was called: "What Crown Prince serves for sixty years?"
Its protagonist was not the new Emperor Francois II, but Henry IV, who had only just abdicated and still wore a gloomy expression.
Prince Clement's elder brother, Henry III, had a son at the age of fifteen, before he had even advanced to a Formal Knight, and soon afterward inherited the throne.
As a result, Henry IV had become the Empire's heir apparent while still in swaddling clothes.
Then he occupied the position of Crown Prince for more than fifty years, only finally seeing the previous Emperor abdicate when he was just shy of retirement age.
Yet before he had even properly settled into the throne, he obediently handed it over to