Chapter 1427: Imperial Court

“Amia?” Little Frederick tightly hugged the small rabbit in his arms. The boy was still very young, not much bigger than the rabbit. Upon hearing his mother give the rabbit a name, he excitedly hugged the rabbit and kept shouting, “Great, Amia, let’s call it Amia, from now on it’s mine!”

Amelia frowned; the Empire Countess thought that rabbits are quite smelly and difficult to raise. Does her son really want to keep such a thing?

Amelia was not an ordinary member of the Imperial Nobility. During her years of exile with the Blood Axe Mercenary Corps, she had learned a lot of basic knowledge, including about raising small rabbits.

Why would Carl Franz give a small rabbit to her son?

Because of her experiences, there were not many people Amelia could trust fully, not even Carl Franz completely. The Empire Countess didn’t immediately agree; she got up, washed, dressed casually, and applied some light makeup. Then she summoned her Master of Engineering, Wagner: “Where did this rabbit come from?”

Wagner informed Amelia that while visiting the Imperial Palace, Emperor Carl Franz had just woken up and was preparing breakfast. The boy ran into the kitchen and saw this rabbit, initially intended as an ingredient. Finding the rabbit cute, he insisted on taking it, leaving the Imperial Chef no choice but to give it to him.

Before Amelia could make arrangements, Little Devenhill, who was crawling on the floor and drooling, barely stood up. He reached out his hand, pointed at the rabbit in his brother’s arms, and exclaimed, “Donkey! Donkey! It’s a donkey!”

“Huh?” Amelia felt a bit puzzled. The little maid looked at Laine and Surya’s son and thought she now needed to treat everyone equally. So she took the little rabbit from Frederick’s hands and said with a smile, “Devenhill, this is clearly a little rabbit, why call it a donkey?”

“It’s a donkey! It’s a donkey!” Devenhill’s mouth was wet, drool running down and staining his clothes. At merely five months old, he was firm in his belief, pointing at the rabbit’s pair of upright brown ears: “It’s a donkey!”

“… This is a rex rabbit, Devenhill,” Amelia patiently explained. “This type of rabbit is a typical meat rabbit, a hybrid of Empire and Brittania rabbits. Its ears just stand and are quite long, resembling donkey ears, but it’s definitely not a donkey!”

“Donkey!” Little Devenhill stood up, grabbed the rabbit’s ears, and pulled hard: “Donkey’s ears! Donkey!”

The little rabbit’s ears were grabbed by Devenhill, and it cried out in pain, drawing the attention of Laine and Surya. Surya quickly picked up her son and embraced him: “Alright, Devenhill, that’s a little rabbit, it’s Amia, at most Ami Rabbit.”

“Donkey, Ami Donkey!” The little one seemed to be stubbornly resolved on this matter.

“Haha, calling a rabbit a donkey.” Laine couldn’t help but laugh, seeming disinclined to argue with his son about this.

However, the Duke himself suddenly imagined a terrifying scene.

Twenty years later, his two sons have grown up, endlessly debating whether it’s a donkey or a rabbit.

“It’s Ami Donkey!” Behind Devenhill were the Holy Grail Knights, Old Guard, and Knight Army.

“It’s Ami Rabbit!” Behind Frederick stood the Nuer Iron Armor Army, steam tanks, and Imperial Array.

As he thought about it, Laine couldn’t laugh anymore. He quickly said, “Alright, stop arguing, it’s pointless, let’s eat, let’s eat.”

The rabbit has become Ami Donkey! Amelia shook her head helplessly. She gave up, as the child wasn’t her own. She felt it was inappropriate for her to intervene, so she signaled her Nuer Iron Armor Army to take the rabbit away and reconsider later.

The next morning, Laine and his party first visited the Imperial Court.

There are certain differences between the laws of the Empire and those of Brittania. But undoubtedly, these two human countries, or rather the entire Human Realm in the Old World, have laws originating from the Elven legacy, specifically the “Elf Code” compiled by the Elf Empire.

It’s a gigantic codex needing dozens of carriages to transport. Its detailed content ensures that no ordinary human could completely understand and master it in a lifetime. Even for the long-lived elves, it takes at least a century to thoroughly read and comprehend this tome of astronomical ordinances and become a qualified Elf Judge.

Humans can’t achieve that. After Charlemagne established the Empire, he immediately ordered his courtiers to spend countless hours translating and condensing the works left by the elves. After the era of the Great Calamity, the entire Old World was essentially in a state of illiteracy or semi-illiteracy. Apart from priests, almost no one could read, and low-level priests were also poorly educated.

To change this, Charlemagne gathered the Empire’s most outstanding priests to restore and set up schools and libraries, desperately absorbing nourishment from the remnants of the glorious civilizations of the elves and dwarves. Religious educational institutions began to emerge, and human civilization gradually developed.

This period of history was known as the “Gallorin Renaissance.”

Empire law bears the influence of both elves (statutory law) and dwarves (common law), whereas Brittania’s law directly copies that of the elves and is “improved” (leaning more towards statutory law). Nevertheless, they are largely similar, with the Knight Kingdom’s “Knight Code” strictly differentiating knights from peasants, with respective legal constraints.