#108
Skyle’s office in the Crown Prince’s palace was distinct from his personal office as a minister in the outer palace.
That place was a space he held solely as the Crown Prince’s close associate and friend.
Therefore, depending on the matter, there was no need to worry about what might happen there.
And so, suddenly, an uneasy thought occurred to him.
‘He wouldn’t have started interrogating him already.’
Marcus’s eyes gradually darkened as he recalled the chains that had appeared on his chest with disgust.
He hadn’t yet sorted out his thoughts about Ersen’s past when the curse’s acceleration had progressed, giving him a headache.
However, separate from his unsorted thoughts, he couldn’t help but worry.
‘He did say there was no reason to interrogate him.’
But if Skyle himself had said there really were no suspicious points about Prince Ersen, if there was no need to hold him responsible for this situation at all, he wouldn’t have bothered keeping him in that office.
In other words, to sum it up:
‘There is something to investigate.’
As always, he had thought Skyle would tell him only after being certain and had let it pass.
“Now that it’s come to this, I can’t just sit quietly and wait.”
Muttering as if chewing his words, Marcus arrived at Skyle’s office in an instant.
But just as he was about to knock on the door.
Marcus clicked his tongue and lowered his hand.
“What, where did you go?”
Leaving the kid here alone?
He barely managed to hold back those words.
‘…Kid, what am I saying.’
Just because he called him hyung, was he unconsciously feeling as if he really were a younger brother?
It seemed he wasn’t quite normal right now.
“……”
As Marcus roughly tousled his hair while asking, Skyle, who had appeared quietly beside him at some point, looked at Marcus expressionlessly.
“I had business to attend to at the estate.”
“Suddenly?”
“……I think it’s for the same reason you’re here.”
It wasn’t that their moods were sour, but both their voices were slightly sharper than usual.
Sensing this, the two fell silent for a moment.
Unlike usual, it was Marcus who broke the silence.
He glanced at Skyle, who had a doll-like, emotionless expression, and let out a deep sigh.
Then he nodded and pointed to his chest with his finger.
“The subordination curse has manifested.”
“……The half-demons will try to take you first, then.”
“Right. So, about that. I think we need to change the order.”
If the Sword Master fell to the half-demons, even if they lifted Skyle’s curse, the situation would turn bad. It wasn’t that they couldn’t defeat the half-demons, but the sacrifices would be too great.
‘Most importantly, it would become a situation where we can’t deal with the half-demons without killing Marcus.’
They had planned to lift Sercil’s curse first and send him back to his family home to continue their long-standing fight, partly because Sercil was suspicious, but also because they wanted to send back Sercil, who was relatively less entangled with the half-demons, so he wouldn’t become a sacrifice.
The Lindea family was one of those whose bloodline must not be severed.
But if Marcus was about to be taken away immediately, that changed things.
He had known this.
But Skyle couldn’t immediately agree.
“……Kyle?”
Marcus paused, sensing something strange.
He had thought Skyle was either angry or had hardened his expression upon recognizing the severity of the situation, but looking again, it seemed that wasn’t all there was to it.
Only then did his thoughts reach one fact.
“Don’t tell me you.”
Skyle silently nodded once lightly.
“Damn it.”
Marcus gritted his teeth.
The acceleration. He had received real-time updates about it. As soon as Skyle learned of it, he had sent word to Theodore and directly informed Marcus by sending a golden bird.
Since Skyle had expected they would have at least a few days before acceleration symptoms appeared, he had thought the symptoms were appearing faster only for himself.
“Don’t tell me all three?”
As Marcus asked in dismay after choosing his words, Skyle tilted his head slightly.
Then he turned his head to stare behind Marcus.
Marcus felt he could tell without looking back.
He could sense Sercil’s presence, and it felt distinctly different from when he had seen him just before.
‘We’re screwed.’
Glancing back, he saw Sercil, noticeably a few centimeters taller, approaching with light steps and stopping.
“Hearing that, it seems you two have also run into problems!”
His smiling face was the same as before, but the atmosphere was subtly different.
‘Did his features… get bolder?’
His appearance hadn’t changed, but even with that slight difference, the atmosphere was quite different.
It seemed more than just his appearance had changed.
“Sercil. You don’t seem to have had your curse strengthened.”
“The curse has definitely ‘accelerated.’ Hmm. But this is how it turned out?”
His words, spoken with a shrug, still had that bright and innocent quality, but it was different from his previous flower-like feeling. Rather than a weak blade of grass swaying in the wind, he had become like an animal.
“Hmm.”
It was a troublesome situation, but it was enough to show his lack of composure in front of his friends.
Marcus hid the sharpness caused by the subordination chains and observed Sercil with interested eyes. Well, observation was necessary anyway.
“If things go well, I might even be able to spar with you?”
“Wow, really? What an honor!”
“More than that.”
Skyle, who had been standing quietly and had already accurately assessed Sercil’s condition, slowly opened his mouth.
“How did you know about the acceleration, Sercil?”
It was information he hadn’t shared with Sercil.
Even if Sercil took issue with this later, he had things to say about it.
But he hadn’t expected him to so openly reveal that Sercil had other sources of information.
‘Since that source is the half-demons, it would be natural to hide it completely.’
But what kind of change of heart was this?
When Skyle stared quietly, Sercil flinched slightly. A momentarily flustered expression crossed his face.
“Ah, that’s…”
“……”
“……A half-demon named Hascal requested cooperation and shared several pieces of information.”
“So you were told about the acceleration, that ritual, in advance.”
“Not that. Sometimes simple messages come through the communication device, and just a while ago, telling me not to be too surprised……”
“So it’s not just one or two communications you’ve had.”
“That’s right.”
Sercil looked back and forth between Marcus, who had gone cold and rigid, and Skyle, who wore an inscrutable, calm expression.
Then he spoke with a determined look.
“I received a proposal. If I cooperate with them, they can ‘completely’ lift the curse from me alone.”
Since Marcus had already sent away the passing servants when he arrived, and Skyle had put up a barrier as soon as he noticed Sercil coming, Sercil didn’t need to lower his voice.
‘The important thing is that he recognized I had put up a barrier.’
A gleam passed through Skyle’s eyes.
‘His sensitivity to mana has improved dramatically.’
Seeing this happen with just one nullification made Ersen’s talk of ‘becoming a fairy’ seem much more credible.
However.
Apart from seeing the possibility of him becoming another powerhouse of the Empire, there was something important.
‘He said ‘completely’ just now.’
In other words, it could be interpreted as meaning that only the half-demons had a way to completely lift the curse.
‘Then why did he change his mind now?’
Simply because his heart was swayed toward the Prince after experiencing nullification?
‘Or does he completely believe everything the Prince said?’
If Marcus said he believed everything Ersen said, that would be more understandable.
But wasn’t Sercil someone who had already decided once to join hands with the half-demons? If that purpose was ‘complete liberation.’
‘If he hasn’t abandoned that purpose, shouldn’t we assume he discovered something different from His Highness Ersen?’
Something beyond nullification.
After a moment of silence, Skyle gently raised the corners of his mouth.
“I see. Then what does telling us this mean?”
“It means I’ve made up my mind to side with you.”
“You’ll join hands with us?”
“Mm-hmm, to be precise, I’m betting on His Highness the Prince’s side.”
“So that’s why you’re so confident.”
Though Sercil pretended otherwise, he couldn’t hide his tension at each of Skyle’s gentle responses.
This was partly because Marcus was earnestly sending him looks from behind Skyle that said ‘bow if you want to live’—even mouthing the words—and partly because he was receiving Skyle’s killing intent head-on…
‘Killing intent… that’s right, but this is somehow…’
Somehow, it felt like it wasn’t human killing intent, giving him a strange feeling.
It must be his imagination.
“……If you ask whether I’m proud of it, I’m not. Since I owe you a debt… But I’d like to say I had no other choice.”
Skyle tilted his head with a bright smile as if telling him to continue.
It gave the impression that he was calmly calculating whether it would be better to kill this thing right now.
‘Is he really acting this way just because I almost sided with the half-demons?’
Suddenly, he recalled how Skyle had naturally intercepted the Prince in front of Sercil’s room. Though he had maintained a quiet demeanor, what Archduke Rodias had shown then was definitely obsession.
Why was that?
As soon as he recalled that moment, an expression of displeasure almost surfaced despite himself, so Sercil forced himself to raise the corners of his mouth.
Now seemed like the time to bow to this inhuman-like human.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
