#11
‘From his expression, it seems he saw that record.’
Besides the diary on the wall, there was another record of Ersen’s that he would have seen in my room.
That was literally a diary, and on its last page I had written ‘I had family too.’
That can be interpreted in so many ways, can’t it?
‘For instance, that 2nd Prince Ersen might have recovered his memories.’
Marcus hyung began looking at me with an indecipherable expression.
What was he thinking?
I didn’t know for sure, but I was certain he would choose to monitor me rather than protect the Crown Prince at the Foundation Day service.
While also monitoring the half-demons incidentally.
“So, how is it?”
“What?”
“The perfume I prepared.”
I slyly wiped away the cold sweat flowing due to my condition and asked him subtly.
“Is it fragrant enough?”
His gaze seemed to follow my hand wiping the sweat, then returned to my face.
* * *
Should I stop here?
Marcus thought while carefully taking in every detail of the 2nd Prince’s physical reactions.
After joking around once, he bid farewell and left that unpleasant place.
With steps more comfortable than the palace’s owner.
“It’s gotten dark.”
After leaving the 2nd Prince’s palace, he muttered while looking at the moon-lit sky.
A cool smile had already formed on his face.
The most rational person in the Empire had once said to him:
“I’m struggling desperately not to become a beast, but Marcus, you’re already a beast.”
‘Even when that guy jokes, he has to joke like that?’
But he had laughed heartily at those words from the Archduke.
Because he knew it was both praise for being someone whose intuition was more developed than logic, and a complaint that it was troublesome.
He was a fun friend to tease.
Though in a different direction from Marcus himself, the fact that they both suffered many misunderstandings from the world created a sense of kinship……
And so he cherished them.
Skyle, Crown Prince Theodore, and the people of the Marquis Naha family he acknowledged as family, plus a few others.
People who weren’t half-demons.
People who had important parts of their lives stolen and destroyed by half-demons……
But today, his intuition rang out.
That something very important was about to happen to those people.
The trigger was, surprisingly, 2nd Prince Ersen, whom he had treated as nonexistent because he was annoying but trivial.
“Kyle. You can come out now.”
“You knew.”
Among his people, the friend who had suffered particularly great damage from half-demons suddenly appeared from somewhere and stood beside him.
Still with his dazzling appearance and a smile without a single shadow cast over it.
“How could I not notice fireflies in the middle of winter?”
The two walked side by side and exchanged brief conversation.
“His Highness is waiting.”
“Until this hour?”
“You contacted him saying you had something urgent to report.”
“Mm. I did. ……I was planning to tell him tomorrow morning, but this works out better.”
Skyle showed not even a corner of that hatred toward his friend who had become a member of the half-demon clan.
‘Rather, he comforted him.’
Just treating him no differently than before was great strength to fifteen-year-old Marcus.
It wasn’t just Skyle. All of Marcus’s precious people had done the same for him.
So Marcus decided to treasure them most dearly.
Therefore, the 2nd Prince should behave well.
The moment he was judged to be harmful to them, he would die.
“You’re here.”
In the office that was still brightly lit, the Crown Prince, their friend, welcomed them.
“Right. You’re saying the 2nd Prince seems to have recovered his memories?”
“No, that’s not it.”
Marcus first denied it, then smiled wickedly as he leisurely sank into the sofa.
“No. Should I say it doesn’t seem like it?”
“So there were circumstances worth suspecting.”
Marcus listed everything about searching the room where Eris had taken her life and what he had discovered in Ersen’s room.
Theodore’s brow furrowed.
Skyle leaned diagonally against the desk, looking out the window with an unreadable expression as he listened, then spoke.
“If he has recovered his memories, there are things we should check.”
Whether he knew anything about the curse that Theodore and Skyle had been suffering from for several years.
And whether…… though the timing made it unlikely since it was after Eris’s death, if that demon Eris was somehow related to this curse.
Things like that.
“However, more urgent than that is the meeting he mentioned.”
“Right.”
Marcus agreed with Skyle’s words.
Skillfully controlling his anger while lowering his vividly shining gray eyes.
“Your Highness. May I accompany the 2nd Prince tomorrow?”
“If possible, me too!”
Theodore tapped the desk with his fingers a couple of times while thinking, then slowly nodded.
Then he said.
“I’ll also stop by the temple tomorrow.”
The two men hesitated.
But they soon acquiesced.
Considering they had to sit back and watch half-demons act presumptuously for years because of the curse, there was no time to delay.
If not for the curse, there was no way they would have left the half-demons alone, given that they had reached transcendent levels at the ridiculous age of their early twenties.
Including the 2nd Prince.
Skyle’s face changed to a very subtle expression for just a moment.
Nothing overlapped with what he had expected, but even so, it wasn’t greatly different from what he had been monitoring, so there was something lacking to be suspicious……
Recalling the recent meeting.
His body was more emaciated than it appeared. The neck that first caught his eye after unbuttoning his shirt looked like it would break with just one hand’s grip.
However, the smile on that face was completely unreadable.
Was it goodwill or hostility?
What did he know to be so relaxed?
And what was he hoping for……
“—That’s exactly the problem.”
The Archduke spoke, cutting off his thoughts.
And slowly withdrew his gaze that had been directed somewhere outside the window.
“The place we’ve decided to visit tomorrow is the temple.”
Cool eyes turned toward his friends.
Though it was something he really wanted to deny in a situation where they couldn’t find clues about the curse.
“Theo. We need to confirm whether the High Priest knows about that meeting.”
“……I’ll do it.”
Even then, they didn’t know what would happen at the temple.
Nor what they would see there.
* * *
The next day.
I was sitting on the corridor railing, slowly swinging my feet as I waited for them.
“Your Highness, you must change your clothes.”
Upon hearing that I was going to the temple with two of the Empire’s power holders, a palace servant who had never treated me gently approached and spoke.
“Clothes? Why?”
When I rested my hands on my knees and quietly pressed my face against them while staring at the servant, the servant hesitated.
Then spoke in a somewhat high-handed manner, as if pressing down on me.
“To meet such distinguished people in that state…… Huu. Anyway, come quickly. You should at least wear formal attire.”
“Hmm. I met them like this yesterday too though?”
“It would be better if you didn’t talk back.”
Even while openly arguing and throwing tantrums, the previous Ersen feared violence and would be dragged around with just a little threat.
‘Based on what was written in the diary.’
I roughly knew what kind of structure the relationship between the servants and Ersen had solidified into. Before my regression, I had sometimes used their ridiculous attitudes when acting weak and frail.
The servant didn’t wait for my answer any longer and began roughly grabbing my arm to drag me. The way they muttered curses was clearly meant for me to hear and be intimidated.
Actually, I wasn’t dissatisfied with these attitudes.
‘Eris is a demon hated by everyone.’
While taking out that anger on her child couldn’t be called right, it didn’t seem like a matter of right and wrong either.
Even I wanted to kill myself, so there was no way I’d feel dissatisfied with others’ hostility…… It was that kind of problem.
‘That may be so, but it seems like things won’t go your way right now.’
I muttered inwardly while looking at the servant’s back.
Well……
“It seems like it’s appointment time?”
A man with dark purple hair leaning diagonally against a railing pillar was looking down at me and the servant like a giant beast.
“Oh my. Your Highness, if you’re not ready yet, we’ll wait.”
“Archduke! You came?”
When I smiled like a fox and playfully waved at them, both men’s expressions became strange.
“I’m all ready. Our servant just worries a lot. I was in the middle of soothing them.”
The servant, who had frozen and couldn’t even make a sound, flinched.
I looked at him once and gave him a look. It meant to quickly get out of there.
Surprisingly, the servant properly understood what I meant for the first time.
He stared at me blankly, then hurriedly greeted the two men. Then he dropped me on the ground and ran away.
“Even if you dress up a pumpkin, it’s no different from drawing lines on it. But I guess the servants’ hearts don’t see it that way. I trust you two are different……”
When I spoke to them while scrunching my nose, the Archduke slightly curved his eyes and nodded.
“You’re sufficient even without dressing up. Then let’s go.”
“It seems your house arrest has been lifted.”
“Yes, safely.”
Probably gladly lifted it.
I smiled wryly as if I knew everything, thinking of Crown Prince Theodore, no, hyung.
“As expected of the Archduke.”
“……I guess I’m invisible, Your Highness.”
“How could hyung be invisible? Look how much shadow has fallen on our Archduke’s face! How nice it would be if that bulk would tactfully shrink a little……”
“Hahahaha!”
Hyung laughed only with his mouth, with an expression that seemed to say ‘this little shit?’
When I winked as if joking, he said.
“If you want to squeeze in beside us and go, keep it up, Your Highness.”
“You want to touch me? Hmm. Don’t overdo it, hyung.”
I dismissed it as nonsense and went ahead. The two men who had stopped moving for a moment soon followed.
Entering the stable, the shabby horse that had carried me around for nearly a week greeted me.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
