76
Arpel wandered aimlessly around the imperial palace, separated from Rohan who was still feeling regretful. Though they were allowed to stay in the palace thanks to the Emperor’s offer, that was all.
While they were permitted to roam inside, it wouldn’t be good to be seen thoroughly searching the place by anyone else. They couldn’t forget that the Emperor’s eyes could be anywhere as long as they were in the imperial palace.
This was why Arpel chose to move only along paths where he sensed no human presence.
‘If there’s something in the palace…’
Deep underground, in the very depths of the palace.
While he couldn’t guarantee that there was anything related to specters in the palace, if there was, the most likely place would be deep underground. Although Arpel could sense the power of specters better than anyone, he felt nothing of the sort within the range he could see with his naked eye.
If there was irrefutable evidence so deep below that he couldn’t even sense its aura, there must be a way to go underground somewhere in this vast palace.
His steps, with no particular destination, roamed here and there inside the palace. For Arpel, moving around without being detected by ordinary people wasn’t particularly difficult.
Among the places he went was a garden full of colorful flowers in bloom. It was arguably the most splendid garden he had seen so far.
‘I should have brought Rohan along.’
Even while looking at the imperial garden filled with beauty that would amaze anyone, Arpel only thought of Rohan.
He would whisper with a flushed face about how pretty the garden was and ask to walk together. He would carefully take Arpel’s hand, intertwining their fingers and holding on tightly without leaving any gaps.
Thinking like that, he could almost feel the sensation at his fingertips. Rohan’s firm hand that he had held countless times before.
He was awakened from his endless reverie when he sensed a presence nearby. Arpel rubbed his face in embarrassment. To think he had been lost in thought until someone came this close. For some reason, he felt his face heating up.
The garden was wide open, so there was nowhere to hide. Realizing they were at a distance where they would inevitably meet, he turned his gaze towards the approaching person.
It was a gardener, struggling to walk while carrying various seedlings and tools needed for tending the garden, piled up like a mountain in his hands. Arpel, who had been silently watching him, turned his body in a direction to avoid meeting him.
“Oh, oh…!”
That would have been the case if what the man was carrying hadn’t suddenly lost balance and collapsed.
Arpel, who briefly glanced at the things falling precisely towards his head, chose to avoid them rather than catch them. Dirt-covered objects of unknown use fell with a thud onto the lush grass.
“Oh…”
The voice that came out was dazed, as if he had naturally expected Arpel to catch them. But that wasn’t Arpel’s concern. There was no hesitation in his actions as he took a step without even giving a glance.
“Ex-Excuse me!”
“What is it?”
“If you could help me pick these up…”
“No.”
The man’s attempt to get help failed. In the end, he couldn’t detain Arpel any longer, and Arpel left the spot.
The garden he investigated like this didn’t have anything particularly noteworthy. Since he wasn’t necessarily moving with the intention of finding something, there wasn’t really any disappointment… but there was a strange annoyance on Arpel’s face.
Starting with the gardener whose appearance he couldn’t even remember, subtle approaches increased. More and more people kept dropping things in front of him, and some even tried to bump into him while staggering.
Of course, Arpel avoided them all. He didn’t look back even when he heard the sound of someone falling flat on the ground.
But even that had its limits. As it was getting increasingly bothersome, he glanced at a man who was obviously approaching with the same tactic. He caught the man who was about to fall as if he had tripped on something, timing it to when their paths would cross.
“I-I’m sorry…!”
At the same time, he felt an irritating sensation on his wrist. His gaze, without a hint of agitation, turned downward.
“…You’re doing unnecessary things.”
At that moment, as if by magic, the ground turned pitch black. Before the man could react in fear, shadows crawled up his body and tightly bound him. Not just his limbs, but even his tongue was firmly restrained so he couldn’t speak carelessly.
Thud. What fell to the ground was a needle with a glistening tip, as if coated with something. It had been aimed at Arpel’s wrist just now. Although he hadn’t bothered to stop the action out of curiosity, the needle hadn’t managed to inflict even a single wound on Arpel and was bent in a strange shape.
“Hngh… ugh, guh!”
“Do you have the same poison?”
He asked, but there was no response. The man neither nodded nor shook his head. Although Arpel saw his eyes wavering, probably from agitation, there was no change in his expression.
Except for the needle in his hand completely crumpling with a chilling metallic sound. Although his body was bound, the man’s eyes were fine, and seeing this sight, he was terrified.
Having carefully controlled his strength to leave just the needle tip intact, Arpel slowly brought it to the man’s neck. The needle, aimed precisely at the rapidly pulsing spot, seemed like it would pierce the thin skin at any moment.
“Ugh! Ugh!”
It was a fervent nodding, as if he would speak immediately. Arpel, who had been watching this struggle indifferently, moved the shadow accordingly.
“If you lie…”
“I-I’ll do it! I’ll tell you everything!”
There was no need to threaten further. The man’s face turned pale just from the shadow, which had been moving forcefully until just now, swelling in size as if opening its maw. The way he collapsed onto the ground as soon as he was released could have seemed pitiful to someone who didn’t know the situation.
As Arpel had expected, the man was a pawn of the Salvation Church.
“I-I was told it wouldn’t kill at this level… I really didn’t intend to kill…!”
He said he had received a request along with a substantial amount of money, and couldn’t refuse it. He repeatedly apologized, saying he had quickly accepted because he was told there would be no need to kill anyone. Arpel, not even sparing a glance at such a man, looked at the vial containing the liquid that had come from his possession and asked:
“Are there others besides you?”
“Th-There are, but I can’t remember well… I do remember the meeting place!”
The man, blurting out things he wasn’t even asked, seemed that desperate. Arpel listened to the explanation without interrupting, waiting until the man ran out of information to say and closed his mouth.
His end was already decided.
“…!”
The shadow that sprang up from the ground swallowed the man whole. After putting the crumpled needle and the glass vial containing the poison into the pocket of his clothes, there was no trace left that anyone else had been here.
“Who’s there?”
Just as he finished tidying up his slightly disheveled clothes, the timing was perfect. Arpel turned his gaze in the direction of the voice. The sound of someone walking followed.
This was one of the reasons why he had quickly cleaned up the situation. It would have been a very complicated problem if someone had seen. And then, Arpel’s brow twitched briefly as he stared straight ahead.
Although not as extravagantly dressed as last night, he was wearing a formal uniform which inevitably caught the eye. Rather, with less extravagance, the angles of the clothes stood out more, enhancing the businesslike and cold feeling. The atmosphere that seemed to make it difficult for anyone to approach easily resembled the Emperor.
“You…”
That atmosphere was shattered in an instant. The one who opened his eyes wide, as if encountering an unexpected person, was none other than the Crown Prince.
Arpel remembered the promise he had made with Rohan just yesterday, that he would no longer meet with him alone. Because of this, Arpel was about to leave after giving a light bow.
“…Wasn’t there someone else here?”
The words that eventually came stopped Arpel in his tracks. In the end, he had no choice but to stop his departing steps and face him.
“No. There wasn’t.”
“…I see.”
There wasn’t a trace of hesitation on the face telling the lie. The Crown Prince, Luciel, seemed to keenly examine Arpel’s face, but apparently not suspecting that he had lied, he soon nodded in acceptance.
That should be enough now. Just as Arpel was about to say he would be leaving since the matter was concluded:
“I was looking for you, as it happens.”
“…You mean me?”
“Yes. I heard you had left your post, but I didn’t know you were in the palace.”
Arpel’s expression twisted. In the very brief moment when Luciel blinked. He quickly composed his expression so that the other wouldn’t notice, but still.
“If it’s alright with you, would you like to take a walk in the garden with me?”
“……”
“I… have something I want to say to you.”
Perhaps misinterpreting the lack of a prompt reply as a refusal, he hastily added. Only then did Arpel remember the clear interest he had shown the day before. Unfortunately, it had been erased from his mind due to the events that followed and his conversation with Rohan.
Although Arpel’s single glance was merely intended to gauge his intentions, the one receiving that gaze had a much more flushed face. Knowing that his expression had been cool until just before they met, this change was all the more noticeable.
However, given that the one making this polite request was the ‘Crown Prince’, and considering that the place where Arpel and Rohan were currently staying was the ‘Imperial Palace’, it couldn’t be unilaterally ignored. After a brief deliberation, Arpel gave an affirmative answer.
“…Alright.”
Rohan’s voice, pleading so earnestly not to meet alone, came to mind, but… Arpel decided to follow Luciel, who was walking ahead.
Thinking that just for a very short while, a short while would be fine.
