#95
The man looked down at the sleeping Prince for a moment.
It was a ridiculous thing to say, but it felt like he had brought home a stray cat of unknown temperament.
A cat that seemed sick and dirty, requiring a lot of care, making one hesitant to adopt it, but also reluctant to send it back to the streets.
If it were a real cat, he would have found it a caring owner to stay by its side and look after it, but unfortunately for the Prince, the Prince was human.
“……”
If he weren’t a prince but an ordinary person, he would have taken measures to allow this person to recuperate for months.
That would have been the appropriate condition.
A very faint golden light appeared in the man’s blue eyes.
He observed the Prince’s body deeply, down to the innermost parts.
‘Certainly an unusual constitution.’
Light mana can gently mix with all mana if the caster desires it.
However, the Prince’s body doesn’t mix gently and only gives way when forcibly suppressed. Considering that a person’s temperament is faintly reflected in their mana, it feels strangely fitting that gentle coaxing doesn’t work.
‘And the walls are solid despite having little mana.’
No, this isn’t a level that could be called little.
Often, when the Prince’s condition was poor, his mana would nearly run out.
Without the Archduke’s control ability to create gaps and forcibly squeeze in without breaking the solid walls, and his possession of light mana, it would have been a disaster.
‘That too seems to be reaching its limit soon.’
The Prince’s body, which had been improving slightly, collapsed helplessly again the moment the detection curse was lifted. Incidentally, this was another piece of evidence that the Prince was the subject of curse-breaking, a fact he had shared with his friends before the Prince awakened.
However, what he shared with his friends was simply proof that Prince Ersen was the subject of curse-breaking rather than curses, while he remained silent about the Prince’s specific condition.
“……Acquired depletion syndrome, then.”
He had been steadily observing the flow of the Prince’s mana.
There had been many opportunities since the period of bedridden recovery from injuries was long.
The conclusion he reached was that the Prince was a patient with acquired mana depletion syndrome.
However.
“It’s definitely a curse.”
The absence of markings that appear on the body characteristic of depletion syndrome meant this was an acquired disease.
Either contracted through an accident, or through a curse.
But looking now, it seemed definitely to be a curse.
He could feel it so clearly that he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t noticed it before.
Half-demon mana.
Countless branches of thought spread through his mind before instantly narrowing down the possibilities.
Cursing a prince with succession rights is difficult. No matter how cursed, if you touch a legitimate prince living in the imperial palace without reason, the royal family has no choice but to move.
‘In the case of the 2nd Prince, the range of “touching” is broad, but curses definitely fall under that category.’
However, at the same time, if one were willing to bear the side effects, anyone could curse Prince Ersen.
If the half-demons were moving with something like a sense of mission for some reason.
‘No.’
That’s not it.
If it were an ordinary curse, regardless of who cast it, he would have noticed on the first day he properly examined the Prince.
Thus, the conclusion he reached was that it was from one who had been revived.
An impossible thing.
But when it came to half-demons, one had to think flexibly.
‘Curses from the dead leave no traces unless they’re of the highest grade.’
If Prince Ersen’s mana depletion syndrome was due to a curse, and the one who cast it hadn’t stopped at simply cursing the Prince.
Since a curse that merely causes illness couldn’t be of the highest grade, it should be viewed as a curse linked to other curses.
‘This curse itself isn’t of the highest grade, so it was affected by the caster’s condition.’
Coincidentally, the recent highest-grade curse included the curses on four people, including the Archduke himself.
‘Really, if we assume an even more coincidental case, Your Highness. You seem to have something to explain.’
No.
Even if the Prince was definitely an accomplice who had a hand in their curses, there was something more important now.
“……Eris.”
Skyle spat out the name of the dead evil spirit in a very small voice.
“What, Archduke. You knew after all?”
Yes, he knew.
And he wanted to hear it from the Prince’s mouth.
It seemed he had hoped to hear more, but it was fine to hide it.
“I’ll tell you in advance, I didn’t know either?”
“Ahaha, is that so.”
It didn’t matter if it was a lie.
“And all Eris left me is that palace.”
As if.
Looking at that black ring on his hand that had bothered him from the first moment he saw it, it was absolutely unbelievable.
But that didn’t matter either.
‘What’s important to me is whether you can lift all our curses, and whether you can live until you do, Your Highness.’
This Prince has no other use beyond that.
Right, there must be none.
The concern about nullification magic alone being unreliable had been resolved. If this person was connected to their curses, he would be able to completely lift their curses.
Then could he live until they were all lifted?
The Prince’s pale face looked like a corpse.
He seemed accustomed to coughing up blood, and his tolerance for pain was not just familiar but excessive.
He doesn’t know how to cherish his own body.
Such a person’s promises couldn’t be trusted.
It didn’t even seem to be unconscious behavior.
‘He knows his body’s condition and is hiding it.’
Knowing it very well, in fact.
Yet while the Prince spoke about Eris without much hesitation, he was hiding his own physical condition.
‘Does he think it’s not an important matter?’
When he was told to cherish his body preciously.
Skyle smiled with a benevolent and holy expression as if troubled.
And he gently brushed away the stray hair that had fallen onto the Prince’s forehead.
A smooth, white forehead was revealed. It felt exactly like an untrodden white snowfield, and for a moment Skyle was captivated.
Suddenly he had such a thought.
‘Should I share this with Theodore?’
No. That wouldn’t be good.
‘Theo has a surprisingly soft heart.’
If he knew the Prince was afflicted with a fatal disease, he would definitely retract his current attitude of keeping distance.
The same would be true for Marcus.
He had seen him make strangely complex expressions when looking at Prince Ersen several times recently.
It seemed that this detection curse had made him feel alarmed and change direction toward distancing himself again, so there would be no need to stir things up.
Needless to say about Sercil.
‘If I tell him this secret, there’s even the possibility he’ll share information with the half-demons.’
He recalled the moment when he had to bring Prince Ersen here instead of leaving him in the Prince’s room.
He hadn’t planned to have the Prince stay in his room from the beginning. But while going to lay the collapsed Prince on the Prince’s bed, he encountered Sercil, and when he entered the Prince’s room, he felt traces of a curse.
‘It must be his doing.’
Though in a shallow way.
If the Elder’s hand was involved, Young Master Lindea was currently in a dangerous situation.
He could tolerate betraying them considering they had been suffering from curses of the same level. But it would be good to prevent a situation where Margrave Lindea’s heir dies to the half-demons……
‘I don’t understand why he moves so boldly when he’s not even a particularly great magician.’
Anyway, there was no immediate problem with Sercil’s safety, so what needed immediate attention was Prince Ersen.
Normally he would have just left Prince Ersen at his quarters, but with his current poor condition, there was a possibility the Prince wouldn’t be able to endure if left alone.
So he had brought him to his quarters.
He would cherish and protect him.
To make him even more captivated by himself than now.
‘He probably doesn’t know how tense he was just a moment ago.’
It wasn’t tension from fear.
The kind of tension that comes from being helplessly captivated by someone, ready to give anything at their words, while desperately pretending otherwise.
‘Why am I such a meaningful existence to you?’
Though he still couldn’t understand it, it was certain that the Prince responded to his beauty.
Skyle smiled slightly.
Looking down at the most perfect hand he had ever held.
The Prince, perfectly trapped between him and the bed, sleeping, was like an injured bird.
Just like safely returning something precious that had been wandering outside to a safe, a strange sense of fulfillment surged and then disappeared.
‘If he finds out what I’ve discovered about his depletion syndrome, how will Your Highness react?’
Would he stay alive as much as Skyle wanted him to?
Would he make the effort?
“……If he wants it, it seems like it could happen.”
He murmured with an affectionate expression.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
