#2
“I don’t think all half-demons should be killed. There was Marcus too… But our Ersen won’t do.”
He smiled kindly with empty eyes.
The Archduke was despairing rather than angry.
“Mana depletion syndrome. I just watched and left you alone because I knew you had the disease. I never thought you’d suggest we all die together, Ersen.”
“…No, ah, no. It’s not like that.”
If only you, who had no interest in your own pain, could share your inner thoughts with me, how wonderful that would be.
I had thought such things before.
Even if I was insignificant to you, I wished I could be a comfortable existence for you.
“What do you mean it’s not.”
For the first time, he was showing me his true feelings without any reservations.
Because I was an existence he absolutely couldn’t bear.
“Or what does it matter? It’s all meaningless now.”
I blankly stared at the hatred he was revealing.
“You should have been satisfied when half-demons were acknowledged as royalty. Then you would have lived longer.”
Eventually, he sentenced me to death with merciless eyes.
While faintly drawing a fragment of the smile I had once so desperately yearned for.
How could I resist him?
How could I, the main culprit who ruined everything, dare to?
The price for being intoxicated by sweet and selfish dreams while forgetting reality was too great.
* * *
He didn’t kill me easily.
My blood and tears splattered several times on that angelic, bright face.
When I screamed, he smiled.
It wasn’t the warm smile I had hoped to see even once, but a face where only emptiness, anger, and killing intent could be felt.
I bowed my head several times while looking at him.
Escaping should have ended in delusion.
Not knowing how to be happy, yet moving exactly as I had fantasized.
Without knowing well, I arbitrarily twisted other people’s lives claiming to know the original work.
They died because of me.
‘I should have known my place.’
I prayed.
To some god somewhere. To whoever sent me here.
Please take away all this misfortune.
I was wrong. I was wrong.
If you listen to me, I will never, never again want something beyond my station.
When I had prayed thousands of times, my breath stopped.
And I opened my eyes.
On the bed in Prince Ersen’s room in the abandoned palace.
**01. Returning**
The thin gray blanket slipped down smoothly.
After getting up from the bed, I stared blankly at just the blanket, then suddenly raised my head.
“Bird sounds?”
They became clear one by one.
The air I breathed in, the quiet room, things like the faint bird sounds heard distantly from outside the window.
I suddenly contorted my face.
Like a young child on the verge of bursting into tears.
“…A dream? Is it a dream? No. It can’t be.”
The tears that had dried up long ago never came out in the end.
Instead, I began wandering around the room, muttering like a madman.
I could walk with intact legs. The temperature touching my soles was cold. I had thought of this palace as like a freezer, but when I returned, only warmth circulated.
The air unique to places where people live—
Thud!
“Ah.”
My foot, which hit the side table while walking unsteadily like a newborn deer, hurt.
“Hueng…”
Although crying with my throat was all I could do, I cried.
Inappropriately, sorrow filled my chest completely, then repeatedly disappeared leaving only cool traces.
Ah. This is reality.
“Still, hic, still nothing…”
Nothing has been done, so nothing has happened yet—this reality.
Since I hadn’t slept covering myself with a blanket in my bed since the first day, everything had really, completely been reversed!
I knelt down right there and prayed to God.
Even if I couldn’t know whether the other party was really God, from now on he was my God.
“Thank you.”
After expressing gratitude about ten times, I swore to him.
“I’ll really do well. I won’t ruin anything. Really, nothing.”
That I wouldn’t wish for anything.
* * *
“We haven’t seen that person at all lately.”
“What do you mean ‘that person.'”
Late at night.
Two or three old palace servants in what was called the Cold Palace, the second prince’s palace, were chatting in the kitchen.
“Why? He might be listening somewhere and pop out to cause another commotion.”
“True.”
The topic was about someone they hadn’t seen for several days.
Second Prince Ersen Mayer.
Though born bearing the proud surname of the Mayer imperial family, he could actually be called more lowly than anyone in the Empire.
The person in question seemed not to know why he was treated coldly since he had no memories from before age seven, but excluding him, everyone would know.
That he was the child of the demon Eris.
“Anyway, that tiny thing like a runt has a temper like a mad dog.”
“Watch your words.”
“What does it matter? He hasn’t come out of his room at all lately. It should be fine.”
Since the troublemaker who would normally wander around everywhere interfering with work was nowhere to be seen, their tongues gradually began to loosen.
The palace servants talked for a while about how lucky that demon’s child was, how he didn’t know his place, and such things, getting a bit excited.
“Someday I’ll get that bastard…”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m first before you.”
“You’re talking nonsense. He’s still a prince now. If you touch royalty, you’ll get the death penalty, not exile.”
“Eh, the day to beat him up will come someday. Just wait and see. Looking at how things are going, it might be soon.”
When one palace servant muttered coldly, the other servants also smiled meaningfully.
Right, there weren’t many days left for Ersen Mayer to live luxuriously as a prince like this.
The bloodline of Eris, the demon who dared to violate the Emperor.
It was only because the crystal orb that identifies royal blood glowed that His Majesty the Emperor had no choice but to accept that demon’s child as royalty.
But that was only possible because Ersen had no power.
‘His Highness Theodore wouldn’t let that vermin live until the awakening ceremony.’
Anyone with royal blood awakens when they turn twenty-two.
Upon awakening, their existing unique magic evolved, or they might gain unique magic they didn’t have before.
Fortunately, Ersen Mayer wasn’t born with unique magic, but there was a possibility he might suddenly gain dangerous unique magic at the awakening ceremony.
Since he inherited that demon’s blood.
Whatever magic he gained wouldn’t threaten the throne, but there would be no reason to keep a dangerous element alive.
Therefore, everyone whispered that Ersen would die before turning twenty-two.
If nothing unusual happened, the Emperor would probably make it so, even if he had to create charges.
“It’s a public fact that His Majesty abandoned the second prince.”
“Ahem. Speak quietly. Quietly.”
The Emperor only kept the child alive and gave him the status of prince, but gave him nothing else.
Couldn’t they tell just from the fact that they were here?
After Eris died on Ersen’s seventh birthday, only those who had been wronged by Eris were assigned to this palace.
And those of poor quality were preferentially placed, with everyone turning a blind eye to what happened in the palace to some extent.
“Just wait and see. It’ll be soon.”
The palace servants nodded meaningfully.
Honestly, they were all waiting for their chance.
Of course, they hadn’t just suppressed their resentment toward Eris all this time.
All the maintenance funds allocated to Prince Ersen went to them. They only provided the prince with the minimum necessities so as not to draw criticism from others.
Not only that. They had already been tormenting the child daily from when Ersen was seven until now when he was twenty.
To them, it didn’t matter that Ersen himself was innocent.
They were just disappointed that they couldn’t torment him as much as they wanted because Ersen’s personality was unusual.
Once he was no longer royalty, they planned to thoroughly enjoy watching that pretty face contort in pain.
“Well, we’ll see when the time comes.”
The atmosphere that had darkly sunk gradually began to flow in another direction.
“Haven’t things been strangely comfortable lately?”
“What random thing are you saying?”
“No, hmm. Like the water being heated in advance…”
“Ah, now that you mention it. It’s past time for me to get medicine, but why do I still have medicine left…?”
“What’s with you people? Did you make a contract with fairies or something?”
Pleasant laughter flowed out as if the earlier dirty gossip was a lie.
The head servant, who had been quietly listening to their conversation outside the kitchen door, left with an expressionless face.
He was the only one who had been in this palace since Ersen was born, so while he didn’t participate in tormenting the child, he had never actively stopped it either.
Just as he had until now, he planned to continue doing so.
‘However, those bastards won’t live long either.’
He couldn’t know if the Emperor’s true intentions were really as they said.
In the first place, assigning such palace servants to this palace was something that could be done at any intermediate level without the Emperor’s specific orders.
Just seeing how other matters were overlooked while actions that would catch the Emperor’s attention were restrained showed this was the work of middle management.
But even if the head servant knew, he wouldn’t do anything.
Because he was a father who had lost his child to Eris.
For Eris’s child, he could do no more than adequately maintaining the palace…
He believed this daily routine would remain unchanged in the future.
But the next afternoon.
The head servant encountered an unexpected situation.
He saw the prince, who had been nowhere to be seen, slip a handkerchief that a maid had dropped into her apron pocket and leave.
“…?”
The next day he witnessed an even stranger sight.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
