It wasn't that he was unwilling to settle for mediocrity. If life had continued on peacefully, his eldest brother, Carl, leveraging his status as the firstborn and the prestige he'd accumulated among the nobility, would have smoothly ascended the throne as Whitman IV. It would have had no effect on Alek's own life.
He might have been granted a fief in some corner of the Southern Territory, far from the center of power. He would have become a nobleman living a life of leisure, spending his days peacefully with his beloved amidst vineyards and lavender fields, occasionally returning to the Royal Capital for festivals to offer his blessings and tribute to his brother, the King.
But they never, ever should have gotten entangled with those Demon's Claws from the Abyss, the ones reeking of sulfur. They had allowed the entire White Horse Kingdom—this land he so deeply loved—to be enveloped in the terrifying shadow of Demons and a web of conspiracy.
