#5
“But you know?”
“If you call me hyung one more time, I feel like my heart might lean that way.”
“My goodness! That’s too scary, hyung.”
An even stronger pressure than before bore down on me.
My skin turned pale and cold sweat broke out, but this much was bearable.
After giving an eye-smile to hyung’s attendant who was looking at me like I was crazy, I playfully sighed and nodded.
“Alright. Then I’ll just call you Your Highness. Will this do, Your Highness?”
Hyung began walking without a reply.
I whistled softly as I followed behind him.
‘I wonder if Sercil heard our voices.’
At this point, he probably roughly deduced our identities too.
What Crown Prince Theodore didn’t expect was that there was currently one person trapped in this underground.
Thinking of Sercil who must be holding his breath after sensing our presence made me smile naturally.
“Sit.”
Hyung naturally sat in the guard’s seat and gestured with his chin.
I sat cheerfully in the prisoner’s seat with a grin.
“Your business.”
“Heh.”
When I let out a light laugh as if finding it amusing, his brow furrowed slightly.
“Ah, I understand. Put away your sword.”
“……”
“I have a proposal, Your Highness.”
He didn’t reply and just looked at me questioningly with his eyes.
I briefly showed a cold smile different from before, then stretched the corners of my mouth playfully as if hiding it.
“The High Priest’s weakness. Investigate and tell me about it.”
“What?”
“Then I’ll unconditionally grant one wish of yours, Your Highness.”
Crown Prince Theodore began staring at me with narrowed eyes.
He asked coldly.
“What are you scheming?”
“Scheming? Where would you find someone as transparent as me to say such things?”
I had expected a bad reaction.
Not only did I touch on the High Priest, but I dared to take a patronizing attitude of granting the Crown Prince’s wish. He must have been displeased.
“Or are you desperate to die?”
“Oh my, that’s also wrong.”
Wrong? Naturally brushing off his incredulous question, I muttered lowly in a cool voice.
“I absolutely hate troublesome things.”
Then after hesitating, I naturally smiled smugly like before.
As if the previous mutter was genuine feeling that slipped out carelessly.
“Anyway, the deal. Aren’t you interested?”
“What if I’m not?”
I answered obediently.
“Then there’s nothing I can do. I don’t really care who it is, as long as they accept the deal.”
“You don’t care who, but you specifically proposed to me?”
“I just thought Your Highness would bring the answer fastest, so I mentioned it.”
When I slightly lowered my eyes and looked down at him, he let out a very faint cold laugh.
……This is a bit dangerous.
He’s someone who never uses violence, but wields power without limit. Especially against me, whom he doesn’t see as human, he used it more easily and frequently.
‘Though I was aiming for that.’
If I mess up, I might receive worse punishment than I targeted.
‘Then I might not even be able to touch the High Priest’s trap episode.’
I waited for his answer while tense inside.
About 3 minutes passed like that.
“Right. As expected.”
He opened his mouth slowly.
The golden eyes that had been shining brightly since I mentioned ‘wish’ had sunk back to indifference.
“It wasn’t worth listening to.”
Soon after, he called his attendant and gave an order.
“Baros. Confine the Prince to his palace.”
“Huh?”
I made a playful crying face and groaned, but Crown Prince Theodore didn’t react and continued coldly.
“Three days. Tell them to give him nothing but water.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Oh dear……”
I drooped over the desk limply.
‘Good.’
Fortunately, I received an appropriate time limit.
Hyung left without looking back.
I kept my chin propped up with a listless expression until the attendant urged me.
“Please get up.”
After quietly listening to the attendant’s threatening urging for a while in that state.
I slowly raised my upper body and asked.
“Hmm. I can keep the window open, right? As long as I don’t go out.”
“Don’t ask me.”
“Sigh. I offer to grant a wish but you don’t believe it. Make sure to tell him it’ll be no use regretting it later.”
The attendant shook his head and roughly grabbed my arm to pull me up. It was rough handling unbelievable for treating royalty.
Being dragged along as he pulled, I muttered in a strange tone.
“Or are you close with the High Priest……?”
As if the High Priest had something going on.
As if I knew about it.
Sercil and Crown Prince Theodore would overcome the crisis sufficiently with this much.
Now what remained was an incident to prove the High Priest was hiding something and……
‘A witness.’
Thinking of the person who would become a witness, my body stiffened without me realizing.
‘……The Archduke.’
……It was fortunate the attendant was strong.
Thanks to that, I could return to the palace without having to walk.
* * *
“There were no traces of the 2nd Prince using curses.”
Exactly half a day after the 2nd Prince was confined to his own palace.
The Archduke leaned against the Crown Prince’s office desk and continued calmly.
“I’ve been keeping track of that one thing for certain over the past 10 years, so this is definite.”
“Right, it would be certain.”
Softly glowing platinum hair and clear blue eyes.
The gentle smile always on his lips and his warm, refined nature of speaking respectfully to everyone. He was a handsome man as if a mythical angel statue had come to life and breathed.
But those close to him knew.
That inside that beautiful exterior was a madman.
‘Especially becomes scarier toward half-demons.’
When it came to managing troublesome half-demons, there was no one more trustworthy than the Archduke.
There was also no one who could detect traces of half-demons using curses faster than him.
‘But that’s why this situation is ambiguous.’
Even though the Archduke set aside all his day’s work to inversely trace curses, nothing was found in the Prince’s palace.
One of the top vigilance targets, the Prince, had acted suspiciously.
If he had been planning curses, there would have been justification to deal with him, but that wasn’t the case either.
Theodore slowly shook his head and stopped his idle thoughts.
Then he said to the Archduke, his old friend and close aide.
“But he said he’d grant my wish.”
“……I know there are no half-demons helping the Prince, but we need to look into it once more.”
Then the Archduke tilted his head slightly. Shadows fell on his elegant face as if he couldn’t understand at all.
“However, it’s strange. Given the Prince’s personality, if he knew how to use curses even through others’ hands, he would have bragged about it everywhere by now.”
Certainly, that would have been the case with the 2nd Prince’s childhood personality.
He wasn’t threatening enough to unsettle people, nor was he clever. Yet his need for recognition was strong, so if curses had been possible, he couldn’t have kept it to himself all these years.
“He would have disposed of one or two servants he disliked long ago.”
“Yes.”
So for the past few years, they had set aside one layer of concern that he would become a threat and only checked whether half-demons approached the Prince, or whether traces of curses they used remained in the Prince’s palace.
The Prince that Theodore met today was completely different from what they had assessed a few years ago.
“Today I couldn’t read his intentions well.”
“Hmm.”
“Though he seemed as arrogant as ever.”
Should that be considered fortunate?
“It’s natural to become cunning as one ages.”
The Archduke who muttered that lowered his eyes and fell into thought expressionlessly.
Then after a moment, he drew his usual gentle smile and said.
“Let’s attach someone to him.”
“Preferably a versatile talent.”
“I’ll attach someone talented enough to detect even minor curses.”
There weren’t many such talents in the Empire.
‘Among them, the talents currently in the capital can be counted on one hand.’
If he had to say, it would be about the Archduke and the good-for-nothing Sword Master.
Theodore finally nodded.
There was nothing his friends couldn’t find out if they moved directly.
* * *
“Surely they’re not attaching an innocent person, right?”
Ah, stop talking to myself!
Perhaps because I’ve lived a life with no one to answer for so long, my talking to myself has increased at some point.
According to my purpose, the person who will become a witness should arrive soon. I should restrain myself now.
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly into space while repeating to myself.
‘It’s okay. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter at all.’
This was someone who until recently had torn my flesh with a face like his soul had died.
Just thinking about it made my body tremble, and I couldn’t distinguish well whether it was aftereffects of the torture he had done, or because I was afraid of seeing that face sunken in despair again.
‘Maybe both.’
Crown Prince Theodore and Sercil could avoid danger in this incident just by being wary of High Priest Bormir.
But Marcus hyung and that person, the Archduke, were different.
They not only needed to be wary of the High Priest but also have their attention diverted elsewhere. Because they dig in frighteningly when there’s someone suspicious related to curses.
At least until the incident was over, I needed them to focus on me rather than the High Priest.
‘When the Archduke comes to me, Marcus hyung will probably take charge of hiding and surveillance or searching the palace when I’m not there.’
If a person is maddeningly suspicious but nothing comes out, they’ll focus even more on that person.
Meanwhile, if I go on my own feet to High Priest Bormir’s trap?
‘Everyone will avoid the trap while also not trusting the High Priest.’
Moreover, I could turn the High Priest’s gaze somewhat toward me rather than them.
Because he’ll complain to the half-demons that a stupid Prince interfered with his plan to harm the Crown Prince.
“……If possible, everything.”
It would be good if I could handle it all.
That’s when it happened.
Knock knock.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
