#91
“……I should get up first.”
As Skyle set down his empty teacup and spoke, Theodore, who had been lost in thought, looked up.
For just a brief moment, a golden light flickered in Skyle’s blue eyes before disappearing.
Marcus stood up and stretched slowly as he asked, “Not waiting? It seems His Highness will take some time?”
“I did enter that suspicious space and discover Lady Marsien’s letter, but there wasn’t much content to it.”
“……When did you peek at that again?”
“There’s no way I would just let it go, is there?”
Skyle said peacefully with a gentle smile.
“Seeing how flustered you are…… I thought you might need help.”
“Is that so.”
Theodore let out a slow sigh.
A complex expression appeared on his face.
“It seemed like there was a plan.”
“Who knows. There might be another plan. He left his post this time to dig into Lady Marsien’s schemes, after all. He might have prepared something separate for the succession rights issue.”
“Well. How would that turn out.”
Marcus shrugged and muttered cynically.
Skyle glanced at him briefly before continuing.
“It’s clear that he has separate means of contacting the half-demon interior.”
“You said he entered a suspicious space earlier.”
“The seal seems to be the key.”
Could the Prince not have known that he would be watching? No, being in the Crown Prince’s palace in the first place, he would have known that his every move would reach their ears. He had accepted staying here knowing that.
So the fact that he entered that space alone without accompanying them must have had a separate reason.
Not to hide the route, but for some other reason……
‘I always get stuck around here.’
And when stuck, it was better not to think within common sense.
He didn’t bother saying it since the other two would show skeptical reactions, but Skyle was convinced that the ‘other reason’ was due to Ersen Mayer’s favorable feelings toward him.
“For now, since there’s a possibility he’ll use this matter as a way to escape from this palace, it would be best to help him as much as possible.”
“Tell Sercil the same.”
Even if not everything, it would be good to share that much.
At least until Sercil nullified the curse and left this place safely.
Skyle nodded indifferently.
And as he slowly headed toward his quarters, he thought.
Though his two friends hadn’t noticed, the reason Skyle had stopped his detection magic was because he had seen the Prince’s scene of coughing up blood.
His mana had been disturbed by an uncharacteristic agitation, and unfortunately, the space the Prince had entered was difficult to spy on in that disturbed state.
It was a place that needed to be examined…… but for now, the Prince’s condition was more concerning than that space.
‘……He coughed up blood.’
It wasn’t that he didn’t know about the occasional coughing up blood.
Prince Ersen didn’t seem to know, but when his physical condition was poor, whether from poison or otherwise, he would cough up blood even while unconscious.
He seemed to think Sercil was the one who had nursed him, but in fact, it was Skyle who had observed and treated the Prince with incomparably more detail than Sercil.
That’s why he knew.
That the Prince’s physical condition was not normal.
‘There are no markings that would be evidence of mana sickness.’
The body markings that appear on those with mana problems don’t exist on the Prince. They don’t appear even when mana is infused. This meant they weren’t hidden either.
But the symptoms were similar to mana sickness.
‘That’s why I initially thought it was because of poison.’
But wasn’t the Prince now in an almost recovered state?
‘Those symptoms are depletion syndrome.’
There are many types of mana sickness.
And among them, depletion syndrome was even more fatal for those with bodies like royalty or half-demons who couldn’t take temporary measures with natural mana alone.
A very subtly complex expression crossed Skyle’s face. It seemed like displeasure, or some persistent…… attachment.
However, that expression quickly disappeared.
‘A weakness.’
Skyle thought with an expressionless face.
Holding the Prince’s weakness wasn’t a bad thing.
Apart from the favorable feelings the Prince had toward them, it couldn’t be said that he completely trusted them.
The memory of entrusting his back to him in the fight with the half-demons came to mind, but that was trust—though incomprehensible—toward Skyle alone, not trust toward all the contract parties.
So he must have hidden it.
Being afflicted with a mana-related disease or curse.
‘From the looks of it, it seems to have progressed quite a bit. How long will you be able to hide it?’
Rather than waiting until it became a state where it couldn’t be hidden, wouldn’t it be better for him to intervene and slow the progression?
Having reached a conclusion, Skyle stopped.
Contrary to his words about returning, he was standing at the spot where the Prince had disappeared through the crack in the air.
And he called for a subordinate he had brought from the estate.
“Billy.”
A light spirit, not human, smoothly appeared from somewhere and floated before his eyes.
“Is this a place you cannot enter either?”
The spirit indicated affirmation.
“A ritual space, then.”
Skyle had been learning about half-demons for a long time. The range he could explore within half-demon territory with his mana without being detected by anyone was limited, but their owned spaces created outside the half-demon zones could be explored like today.
However, there were places spirits could enter and places they couldn’t, and the places they couldn’t enter were all spaces for rituals.
Half-demon curse rituals.
Specifically, places used when performing very powerful curses.
“……The content wasn’t particularly special, but confirmation will be necessary.”
He had no interest in Lady Marsien’s letter.
What mattered was whether the Prince would share the letter he discovered with them.
The spirit made a gesture with a fluttering sound and disappeared again.
Not long after, a crack formed in the air again.
Master, are you well? Your disciple writes after a long time.
It was a letter that began with ordinary greetings.
This meant that the one who had presided over the ritual here was the person who had taught Lady Marsien black magic, and this meant that the master was not a black magician but a half-demon.
‘So they were connected like that.’
One corner of his mind thought this was quite an important fact, but he couldn’t think deeply about it.
What was more important was that traces of Eris could be seen in Lady Marsien’s letter.
It was right then that the seal activated automatically.
Whoosh, clang!
“……!”
A thin spear flew from the empty air, and before I could even raise my head to look at it, it was blocked by the barrier the seal had created and fell to the floor with a clattering sound.
I coughed up blood again.
Apparently, this space was filled with mana like that magic garden in the 2nd Prince’s palace, and being a place where the balance was ominously disturbed not long after a half-demon ritual was performed…… just breathing quietly would affect me.
‘The problem was that it was after a ritual had already been performed.’
My physical condition was making it increasingly difficult to move easily, and seeing that spear, it seemed the half-demons hadn’t just vacated this place.
It was probably designed to kill intruders.
“……Cough, huu. I should go back.”
The content of Lady Marsien’s letter contained two things in summary.
One was that she had reported 2nd Prince Ersen to her master, driving him into a crisis of losing his succession rights, and the other was.
‘That many corpses have been coming out of the estate lately, and to take them if needed.’
Right, all of it…… was content unrelated to the more important matter of the replica, content of lesser importance.
Still, I had to take it.
The seal created barriers several more times.
Black arrows and spears imbued with ominous mana flew from all directions.
Until just before creating a crack in the air and escaping.
Before the crack was formed.
I hesitated, then used the seal properly with my blood as I had when fighting half-demons, erasing all traces of my coming and going.
And the moment my body escaped through the crack to a secluded spot in the Crown Prince’s palace.
“……Huk.”
At the sensation that rushed over me, my body collapsed.
“Ah…….”
The Archduke’s face, catching my falling hand to support me, had turned as pale as mine.
‘This can’t be.’
I knew immediately upon seeing.
He too had felt the same sensation as me in this moment.
It was a curse. Definitely a curse.
A curse that could only be realized after being cursed.
“……Your Highness. Please come to your senses.”
“……Archduke. I am.”
Looking blankly at his face mixed with worry and anger, my vision blurred.
A high-dimensional detection curse. The gaze of the ‘curse subject’ that had been clearly felt the moment it was released. Eris. Eris.
Was she alive?
‘It wasn’t me who did it. Archduke.’
But even knowing that shocking fact, before losing consciousness, I pathetically thought:
‘But you, all of you won’t believe it.’
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
