#94
“The Archduke wants to see me?”
I deliberately murmured slowly while assessing my condition.
‘……There shouldn’t be any problem speaking.’
Objectively, my physical state was precarious. It wouldn’t be strange if I lost consciousness at any moment. However, it was at a level I could ignore.
“It won’t be long.”
“Hmm…… Doesn’t that depend on my answer?”
When I asked with a sly smile, the Archduke smiled slightly with his eyes.
Then he subtly avoided answering and said:
“You must have felt the surveillance curse.”
I only smiled enigmatically without saying anything. He naturally placed his hand over mine.
A faint comforting gesture. However, I knew he was checking my pulse.
Whatever his purpose, just the fact that his hand touched mine was enough to make me flinch.
He tilted his head slightly.
“I wonder who it could be. Not just one or two people, but someone who used surveillance curses on all of us.”
……Strange.
His words sounded exactly like he truly didn’t know who it was.
No. It must be an interrogation. I stared at him intently, trying not to be mistaken.
“Do you know? Surveillance magic and surveillance ‘curses’ are different.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
“Yes, first of all, you’d know that the quality of mana used is different. Well, if I had to pick the most prominent difference, it would be the sensation when it’s lifted.”
Surveillance magic doesn’t leave such an unpleasant sensation, the Archduke muttered with an inscrutable expression.
“Is it just the sensation? Your Highness even collapsed like this. The one who cast the curse seems to be as wary of Your Highness as we are.”
“……”
“What could be the reason? I’ve been thinking about it, but I have no idea.”
I couldn’t show any reaction other than maintaining the smile on my lips.
I didn’t have the mental capacity for that.
……He keeps on.
“It means Your Highness possesses something that could provoke someone among the half-demons, but Your Highness won’t tell us anything.”
Keeps on.
Acting like he doesn’t suspect me.
I stared persistently at his blue eyes, but nowhere in his gaze could I see distrust toward me.
Is he hiding it from me?
Wasn’t I someone not worth such consideration?
If he distrusted me, it would be easier to reveal it and pressure me directly……
“So we talked among ourselves.”
A strange look briefly crossed his face.
But again, it wasn’t a look of distrust.
“……Why?”
To the question that flowed out like a groan, the Archduke gave a confusingly natural answer.
“Well, if it had been surveillance on His Highness the Crown Prince, Marcus, or me, that would be one thing, but if Your Highness and Young Master Lindea were also targets, then it’s safe to assume someone connected to our curses cast this.”
……That’s not what I was asking about.
But I couldn’t ask him directly either.
The question of why he didn’t suspect me wasn’t something a ‘suspicious villain’ should ask.
Still, I wanted to ask. Even though I wasn’t sure exactly how to phrase it.
“Moreover, Your Highness’s connection to our curses is recent, but seeing that you were cursed along with us, it seems like someone with the ability to keenly grasp information from this side.”
Then it must be a half-demon with considerable skill…… As he drew out his words, the Archduke gently wrapped around my wrist.
It was such an affectionate movement that even a sensitive person wouldn’t notice it was an action to check my pulse.
“So we thought it might be the elder, but that wasn’t it.”
He said he was monitoring the half-demons independently.
Naturally, the elder would be among the figures the Archduke was monitoring.
“But excluding him, there’s no one left among the half-demons who could do something like this.”
I slowly blinked.
Then, unconsciously raising my slightly lowered lip corners again, I asked:
“So what does the Archduke want to know?”
What are you reading from my pulse?
“A half-demon superior to the elder? If it’s about the chief, I have nothing to tell you.”
You must have noticed I was surprised.
Whatever you’re reading, you know I won’t reveal it to you, of course.
“The chief position isn’t based on ability. In terms of ability alone, the elder could be said to be the currently strongest half-demon.”
He was acting even more freely than before.
So different from just before when he was mysteriously keeping his distance, it made me think he might have been waiting for time alone together.
If I hadn’t known him, if I hadn’t regressed, I might have thought so.
“Hmm. Then what are you curious about?”
He patted the back of my hand as if telling me to calm down.
And said:
“What else did Eris leave you?”
Only then did I realize that the hand he’d been holding was the one wearing the ring.
What he was trying to reach might not have been my wrist but perhaps.
“And could you tell me your thoughts on this situation, Your Highness?”
Mana began flowing into the black ring, no, Amara’s Seal.
In a state where it doesn’t accept anything but the owner’s mana, slowly like water seeping through cracks in a blocked wall……
His mana flows in.
“……Yes, it seems you can feel it.”
He whispered as if murmuring to himself.
He seemed to realize it was a magical tool synchronized with the user to the extent that they could detect when another’s mana seeped in.
As if he’d already suspected it, he didn’t seem particularly surprised either.
“Feel it, you say. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Is that so?”
He smiled more deeply.
His gaze briefly brushed my lips.
Since I wasn’t coughing up blood now, I couldn’t tell the reason for that gaze, but I had something to answer regarding what he asked.
“Yeah, but more than that……”
I chose my words while looking at him steadily.
“Archduke, you know much more about half-demons than I thought? Anyone else would have used curses they didn’t know how to use and gotten rid of them.”
“Oh. That sounds like you know how to use them.”
“Even if I said I didn’t know how?”
When I giggled and said this, the Archduke narrowed his eyes and retorted:
“Let’s move on. And then?”
“……Hmm. Well, about this situation.”
At his gaze urging me to give a proper answer, I continued in as relaxed a voice as possible:
“The Archduke’s words are correct.”
Do you know?
What countless words have piled up inside me before giving this answer?
Why do you trust me?
Why don’t you speak worse of me?
Why……
Passing through all those questions and distrust, I finally understood just one of his words.
‘I see. The situation is different now.’
When I opened my eyes, it was strange that I hadn’t gone to prison despite all this happening. Without even recognizing that it wasn’t a situation to blindly distrust and send me to prison.
‘I must have been more shaken than I thought.’
Right now, I’m precious to you all. Isn’t that right?
Even if I do something deserving of death, I’m a tool that must be used until all curses are lifted.
‘The contract we made is also valid.’
“Which parts would you say were correct?”
“That someone cast the curse, that someone is a half-demon stronger than the elder, and that they know the circumstances on this side?”
If the situation has changed, I should properly adapt to it.
That’s what he had taught me.
‘If you all could believe my words even a little.’
What should I tell you now?
“Am I mistaken? It seems like Your Highness knows who that ‘someone’ is.”
I smiled deeply.
And I naturally withdrew Amara’s Seal from his hand as it cried out painfully due to the incompatible mana.
I raised that hand as it was and extended it toward him.
Even as it approached his eyes, the Archduke didn’t even glance at it.
His deeply glowing blue eyes captured my expression with a firm, weighty gaze. As if he would discern every flow of my emotions, every change in my thoughts.
“I know.”
Even in the midst of this, not a single expression or gentle gesture faltered.
What faltered was rather my side.
My small, dry hand moved as if it would touch his eye area, then slipped and only barely brushed his cheek before falling away.
Like a shadow touching light, it felt like an impossible occurrence. Even touching this much was overwhelming for me.
“Eris.”
Hiding my feelings, I whispered.
The blue eyes that had been staring persistently froze for a moment, then sank even darker.
That’s certainty.
“What, Archduke. You knew all along?”
I spoke in a voice tinged with laughter, trying not to let my voice sound choked.
He let out a quiet laugh.
As if he had momentarily forgotten the distance between us, a gentle gaze reached me.
“I didn’t know.”
“Liar.”
When you were just trying to confirm with me.
“I’ll tell you in advance, I didn’t know either?”
“Ahaha, is that so.”
Liar.
At those eyes that said so, I only shrugged my shoulders.
So he believes that I’m not the one who cast the curse, but at the same time, he’s considering the possibility that I might be in league with the one who cast the curse.
“And what Eris left me is just that palace.”
Liar.
While believing nothing, the Archduke readily nodded.
“I see, Your Highness.”
“Mm-hm. Any other questions?”
“No. This is sufficient. Your eyes are full of sleepiness. Please rest now.”
He laid me down and covered me with blankets up to my neck.
“Please sleep comfortably.”
With an affectionate whisper, he lowered his head close to my face. Beyond his gentle gaze, his platinum hair flowed down like spreading light.
I suddenly felt as if I was trapped not in the Crown Prince’s palace or the Archduke’s residence, but in the Archduke himself.
And I soon realized.
No matter how the external situation changed, my every move would not escape his sight.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
