Empire of the Ring

The group was escorted, by Szechenyi and Zeynep, to the mansion they were invited to.

The mansion was huge and there was a grass field and a helicopter was placed on one side of the field. As they opened grand entrance doors, there were about a dozen mid-aged people talking around the fireplace in the living room.

Among them, a man who looked like he was in his early forties and a graceful woman came to greet Youngho’s group.

“Welcome. I am Oldenburg, the Lord High Steward of the Queen Margrethe II of the Kingdom of Denmark. Let me introduce you to the Crown Prince of Denmark, Frederik Andre Henrik Christian and the Crown Princess, Mary Elizabeth Donaldson. And this is Crown Prince’s sister, Princess Isabella.”

An old steward came up and introduced the royal family of Denmark. Some young children came behind the Crown Prince and Crown Princess. It looked like they were little children of the couple.

As Youngho was about to greet them, Vaso, hastily came in front and began to introduce Youngho’s group. It was because Lestina poked him on the side.

“Greetings. I’m Vaso from the 15th generation of an attendant family of the great Kingdom of Serbia. My father is the Lord Chamberlain but because he was away, I dare to introduce the Archduchess and her husband. This is the Archduchess, Fatima Aleksandar, and her husband, Lee Youngho. And, of course, you’d already know them well but I’d like to reintroduce, the prince Szechenyi Aleksandar and princess Zeynep Aleksandar.”

Youngho was so embarrassed by the grandiose introduction. He wondered when Vaso had prepared such phrases.

The steward, who was going to impress Youngho’s group with his introduction, moved his eyebrow after hearing the unexpected words. Although the Kingdom of Serbia had fallen a long time ago, Vaso had introduced the group as if they were an existing dynasty.

People were silent in surprise after such an introduction.

Leon was the one who broke the suffocating silence.

“Papapa. Mamama.”

As Leon made sounds, Princess Isabella, who was about Szechenyi’s age, looked at him with endearing eyes.

Four children standing behind her came close to Leon to touch him. As the princess came close, the nanny let her have Leon. As the princess lifted him up, Leon screamed in excitement and the Crown Prince’s children all giggled.

The atmosphere might have turned heavy if Leon had not been there with them.

Now that the tension was lifted, all Youngho wanted to do was to go ahead and sleep. However, it was not over yet. He noticed that Princess’s Isabella’s eyes looking at Szechenyi was more than friendly.

Soon, Youngho’s group was invited to the reception room and made the Crown Prince and his friends’ acquaintance.

“This is why I invited you guys here. If it wasn’t for Szechenyi, our Isabella must’ve been badly hurt.”

Youngho was listening about how Szechenyi’s and Princess Isabella met from the Crown Prince. At the ski resort, Princess Isabella lost her balance and soon, she slid down the slope. When she was about to hit the safety wall, Szechenyi managed to save her.

Szechenyi could save anyone even if one fell from a high building with his outstanding athletic sense with the ring’s power added.

Still in a shock, Princess Isabella could not move and Szechenyi carried her to a safe area. It seemed the young man and woman had fallen in love at first sight.

Princess Isabella had told the Crown Prince about Szechenyi and as the Crown Prince invited him to the mansion, he would have been surprised to find out about his unique family root.

“I’ve trained Szechenyi since he was young. Do you see my secretary standing over there? He’s a man of skills but he’s going to have a hard time if Szechenyi was his match.”

“Oh! I’ve felt that your secretary’s eyes were different. I’ve also served in the military when I was in my twenties. Only years of training can make such sharp eyes and restrained movements. I wish I can make him compete with my guards.”

“If you make a call, I’m your guest.”

Youngho did not know what kinds of training that the Crown Prince’s guards had gone through but he knew for certain that Ilkwon could make his guard stay at the hospital for months.

“You sound very confident.”

“Hahaha…”

“By the way, I know the Kingdom of Serbia’s dynasty had fallen but it surprised me that you still maintain your dynasty.”

“Four hundred years ago when the kingdom fell, the royal knights had escaped the kingdom and made a secret organization. They had been keeping the kingdom in secret.”

Since Youngho did not want to say that the knights had been dragged as slaves, he made it seem like they had kept the kingdom on their own. The Crown Prince was intrigued to hear about the royal knights.

“Is that true that you own land about 74,000 acres of land under your autonomy?”

The size of the farm had grown since Youngho had expanded his site of agricultural development in Kazakhstan. Since Denmark was one-fifth of the size of the Korean Peninsula, he must have been very surprised to hear the size of Arirang Farm.

“Well, strictly saying, it is under extraterritoriality. We have our own airfield and defense system.”

Youngho was saying anything that could save Szechenyi’s face.

“…”

“The Archduchess is recently planning on building a castle and it’s giving me headaches these days.”

Youngho’s bluff was now going overboard. He even brought up a non-existing castle. It seemed like he would be building an unexpected castle in the future.

***

“Hyung, hotels in Innsbruck are so expensive for their sizes.”

Szechenyi who just came back from researching with Kim Ilkwon shook his head.

“How much are they?”

“Their prices can buy a hotel about the same size as Arirang Hotel in Frankfurt. The ones here are not as big as that.”

If there was a plausible hotel, Youngho was going to stay in there and see how it was. Although he was invited to the Denmark royalty’s mansion, he did not want to stay there for long. The Crown Prince Frederik interrupted Youngho and Szechenyi’s conversation.

“Mr. Lee, may I ask why you are inquiring about prices of hotels in here?”

“I was going to see if I can start one of my hotels in Innsbruck since I like it here.”

“Wait, do you even have a hotel chain business?”

“Well, I have hotels in Germany, Moscow, Baku, and some other places. The name of the chain is Arirang Hotel. The business is just at a starting point.”

The Crown Prince knew well that one would be quite wealthy to buy a hotel.

Since he had visited many countries as a state guest, he had been to many luxury hotels. He usually brought his entourage and had to reserve two to three floors as a whole, which was pretty expensive. He had gone through some troubles when the royalty’s travel budget was discussed at the Congress.

The Crown Prince now learned that Youngho was an extremely well-off entrepreneur. He thought that someone like Youngho could not have married such beautiful Archduchess without his wealth.

“Mr. Lee, if it’s not too much trouble, could you tell me how many hotels you own? I’ve visited many hotels but I found many of even expensive hotels very unfavorable.”

Youngho knew what the Crown Prince was doing. Since he must not be asking Youngho to give him a free pass for his hotels, he was trying to find more about his wealth. Youngho decided to dance to his tune.

“Well, I have small size hotels with historic values in Baku and Tskhinvali, South Ossetia and a decent size hotel in Frankfurt. And I have modern hotels in the making in Moscow and Batumi in Georgia.”

Youngho said it as if it was nothing. Since Szechenyi might be going out with Isabella soon, he thought that it was better to look wealthy and proud. Also, there was no need for him to hide what he had.

When he came to the mansion, he had brought several boxes of his wine as well to impress the royalty. It was to show that the Archduchess’ family, even though it had fallen, still had strength.

“I envied that you had a huge sized grape farm and ranch that could be compared to Europe’s well-known grape farms but now that I know more about you, you are much richer than the Denmark royal family.”

“How can I dare to compare myself to Denmark’s royal family?”

“No, the royal family might look as glamorous from outside but we only live off people’s taxes and there are a lot of things that we can’t decide on our own.”

Since the royalty budget was controlled by the Congress, the royal family had to put up with the bossy Congress.

Even Youngho knew that the Crown Princess’ excessive shopping had been an issue. The Crown Princess, Mary was deeply related to Korea. Her father, who was a mathematician, had worked as an exchange professor in Korea’s K national university. It was well known in Korea that when he was teaching in Korea, he received a proposal letter from the Crown Prince. It was told that the Crown Princess’ father had written him back on a haji, traditional Korean paper.

That Crown Princess could not even go shopping as much as she wanted to because of Denmark public. Youngho did not want to miss this chance. He bluntly told Fatima to help the princess’ shopping. Fatima and Zeynep had great taste since they had worked at the Chunho Merchant’s direct clothing store from time to time.

***

“Man, it’s so heavy. Why does Fatima buy so many things? My arms hurt.”

Youngho opened his eyes from his sleep with Leon to the sound of Szechenyi’s grumbling. He just came back from shopping. The Fatima siblings with Vaso, their servant, and Lestina, the nanny, had gone out for shopping with the Crown Princess, Mary. Youngho had mentioned to Fatima to buy whatever the Crown Princess wanted.

The Crown Princess was from a common family and she could not even go shopping on her own because of the public’s eyes, so Youngho wanted to treat her.

“Did you buy any gift for Isabella?”

“What for?”

“What’s what for? You have no idea what’s going on. Isabella’s eyes looking at you were going to penetrate your face.”

“Hyung, we’re not that. We’re just close friends.”

“Well, since you’re good friends, you should get her something, so that she knows that she’s appreciated by you. You think I sent you for shopping just to carry those bags?”

“Phew, I said we’re just friends.”

“Don’t even! Get out now. Go out with Isabella and buy her something. Move!”

Looking at Szechenyi walking out as he murmured, Youngho smiled.

‘Since I’ve done my part, he should do his part now,’ he thought.

Fatima and Zeynep’s faces were beaming as they returned to the hotel room. They had just done shopping without limits with an excuse of the Crown Princess.

Youngho did not get why women loved shopping. They had walked around for several hours but they were not exhausted at all. They were now laying out all of the things they just bought and putting on new clothes.

Since the group moved to a hotel from the mansion, it was much comfortable.

Youngho was sick of following all the rules of the Denmark royal family. Even if the royalty wanted to act normally, the steward and other servants strictly followed the rules. It was just unnatural.

Since Youngho could not handle staying in the mansion anymore, he insisted to get a hotel room for his family with an excuse that he was going to study about other hotels for his hotel chain business. He wondered if Szechenyi would be able to endure such rules if he married the princess. Fortunately, Princess Isabella seemed to hate following the rules of the Kingdom. She even wanted to follow them to the hotel, as Youngho’s family was leaving.

“What do you think?”

“What? Are you talking about Isabella?”

“Yeah. She’d look good with Szechenyi but the royal family’s rules are not helping. Szechenyi hates such things.”

“Well, if things work about between the two, Isabella will be coming to live with him. What’s the problem?”

“Whenever he visits Denmark, he’d be suffocating.”

Youngho’s worry was premature. The two young men and woman had not even clarified their relationship yet. He felt a little sad as if Szechenyi who had been like a son to him was already getting married.

Fatima and Zeynep went out for shopping again today.

Vaso and Ilkwon went with them to guard them and Szechenyi and Isabella were currently having a date. Lestina the temporary nanny had also gone out for shopping and touring around the downtown of Innsbruck. Only Youngho and Leon were left at the terrace playing together.

Suddenly, the screen of Youngho’s turned on. It was a call from Steve Janssen the vice president of Baku’s shipyard.

“Mr. Lee. I heard back from the Netherlands. There’s a great freighter for you. Would you like to come and see? This one could hold general cargo and containers. It’s usually hard to find composite freighter like this.”

“Could you check the performance and the price of the ship, Mr. Janssen?”

“Of course, I will. I’m going to check everything thoroughly and see if I can have a great deal on the ship.”

If Youngho could own a large freighter, his horizons would be broadened since he would freely sail through the Atlantic Ocean.