The Crimson Princess was not actually the first in history.
The true first was the Vampire Queen—the progenitor of the Vampire Clan who had raised the Divine Fire and become the God of Love.
Far from weakening the Crimson Princess's legitimacy, that made her all the more important: she was the second Vampire Clan councilor to visit the Southern Kingdoms after the God of Love.
Even the Blood Council had no grounds to fault her for anything she said. After all, she was the second Vampire Clan councilor to visit the Southern Kingdoms after the God of Love.
And she was a "friend" of the Princess, who was the talk of the town.
The City Lord's Mansion was the most cooperative of all. The City Lord would crush anything that stood in the way—
The Flower Capital Festival came only once every ten years. No matter how well the City Lord handled it, he would earn a few words of praise at most. But a breakthrough in relations with the Vampire Clan would be a concrete achievement.
No one remembered who the City Lord of Flower Capital had been a hundred years ago, but everyone... er... those books recorded the Goddess of Love's visit to Flower Capital.
So the City Lord took over all the work, leaving Annan free to lounge in the warehouse and read this week's Voice of Freedom.
"The situation on the Northern Frontier grows ever worse as the Rikaner Kingdom endures a relentless assault by the Demon Rat and Ratfolk alliance."
"They brought it on themselves," Annan snorted.
Even now, they had not forgotten to smear Free City.
Free City fired back in kind, placing its response in this issue's jokes:
An old man from the Rikaner Kingdom was walking beside a river when he slipped