#12
“You’re riding a horse?”
“What, are you going to walk there?”
“No, I understood that you dislike it.”
I laughed and avoided answering the Archduke’s probing words.
Marcus hyung-nim, whose expression had strangely hardened compared to earlier, followed along riding a black horse.
‘Then the Archduke is.’
As expected, he’s on a white horse.
They rode elegant steeds and headed toward the temple with uncomfortable faces, flanking me on both sides.
The gazes from the street that used to pour down on me with negative meaning when I went to the temple had subtly changed today.
‘It’s only natural though.’
I smiled mischievously and continued making trivial conversation.
Both Marcus hyung-nim, who clearly didn’t want to respond, and the Archduke, who kindly engaged in conversation, were listening to my words.
No, it felt like they were reading not just my words but my attitude, expressions, and gaze as well.
“As expected, Priest Yuan isn’t here.”
“Since I’m substituting for him. I’ll guide you.”
“Actually, Archduke, you don’t need to guide me. The place I’m going is already decided.”
After arriving at the temple, we left our horses and naturally walked with me at the center.
The peaceful atmosphere was disturbed not long after.
“Your Highness.”
The Archduke tilted his head and stopped me.
“Yeah?”
“This isn’t the prayer room, is it?”
“Isn’t this the way to the confessional?”
Marcus hyung-nim also tilted his head and muttered.
I looked at them with puzzled eyes, then nodded.
“Yeah. I pray there.”
“…Must you?”
“They guided me this way…?”
They looked surprised.
Both the temple’s blatant snub and my obedient heading to the confessional were unexpected.
“Are you alright?”
The Archduke asked with feigned concern.
“The confessional is… a place given only to prisoners facing execution…”
“Archduke, really. You’re such a gentle person…”
I heard hyung-nim’s disgusted “What?” but I didn’t mind and nodded while speaking in an affectionate tone.
“I’m grateful just for being guided. They probably hated having to guide me to death, but they still guided me to a place where I can pray, right? It’s perfect for the prayer I need to make.”
“Why would Your Highness…”
The Archduke had sorrowful eyes.
A face that could touch one’s heartstrings with just the slightest moisture in his eyes was looking only at me.
I just smiled at that question about what sin I could have committed and started walking again.
After arriving and entering together, I prayed as briefly as a pre-meal prayer and opened my eyes.
“…Your Highness. You don’t happen to think that praying means saying ‘pray-er’ like that in your mind, do you?”
“Hyung-nim, really. What do you take me for? It’s just because I only have one sin to confess.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, isn’t being alive a sin for me?”
After shrugging and answering, I gestured to them who were looking at me with narrowed eyes.
“Of course, the temple will think I’m praying for a very long time.”
“…You were deceiving them?”
“Yeah. …Ah, now there are no watching eyes either. Let’s slowly go out.”
Following my gesture, the two people quietly left the confessional as if they had no choice, throwing countless questions with their gazes.
Both acted very naturally as if their psychological distance from me had grown closer.
I praised them both several times inwardly while whispering:
“Now we’re going to raid the scene.”
I had to maintain the attitude of guiding them through some route that could access the half-demons’ intimate information.
But I couldn’t be misunderstood as being on the same side as the half-demons.
‘Well, once we go in, the elder won’t leave me alone anyway.’
It would be safer to draw the line in advance.
In their minds, I had to be someone who could be used because I was at odds with the half-demons, but whose schemes were unknowable.
“Archduke, you heard from hyung-nim too, right? We’re going to raid from now on!”
“Raid…”
“In front of the half-demon elder, all three of us have to act like we were touring the temple and accidentally stepped into forbidden territory. Let’s say I was wandering around poking into this and that, and you two appeared trying to stop me. If we don’t do it that way, hmm, maybe Theodore hyung-nim will be in danger?”
“I’ll act that way. But you must explain later, Your Highness.”
The Archduke answered without hesitation.
I smiled contentedly and nodded, then demanded hyung-nim’s answer.
Hyung-nim, who had been looking at me with strangely eerie eyes, slowly returned to his appropriately friendly expression like before.
“That much is easy.”
I immediately made the most sinister smile I could manage.
And I turned around and reached out.
An intimate space less than five minutes away from the confessional.
The door to the High Priest’s private prayer room opened soundlessly.
* * *
Half a day later.
“Kuk… ugh. Huk.”
I was facing eyes that glowed with a strangely sinister light while my neck was grabbed by the elder’s hand.
…For a moment, I thought I felt the gazes of two people—no, four people—who shouldn’t be here.
* * *
About twelve hours earlier.
Before the people inside the prayer room could respond, we opened the door. I acted like an excited 2nd Prince and asked the Archduke in an excited tone:
“Look here! This is the place I was aiming for. Archduke, you’ve never been here either, right?”
“Your Highness. This place is…”
Without even looking beyond the open door, I kept my gaze on the Archduke, and he made a troubled face as he pretended to stop me.
“You can’t enter carelessly. If you do this, I won’t be able to guide you from tomorrow.”
“What? Why! By whose authority!”
“By His Highness the Crown Prince’s authority… I suppose…”
Then, pretending to casually look inside, his eyes widened slightly.
I asked him with a puzzled expression.
“Why did you stop talking mid-sentence?”
“…High Priest-nim.”
“Huh?”
As I slightly frowned and tried to turn around, he pulled me and quickly hid me behind him.
It was too rough a touch to be protecting me. Rather, it was more appropriate behavior for hiding the scene before my eyes from me.
That is, from the perspective of those who were inside.
‘…We’re more coordinated than I thought?’
Then, pretending to arrive a beat late, Marcus hyung-nim appeared.
He approached while scratching the back of his head, then yawned and muttered:
“Damn it… Your Highness. If you came to pray, you should pray. Don’t wander around like a dog seeing snow for the first time.”
Then he even cursed quietly.
As I watched him while suppressing laughter behind the Archduke’s back at his excellent acting, he slightly avoided my eyes.
Then he hesitated, pretending to belatedly notice the serious atmosphere.
“…What? What’s wrong?”
Usually he acted carelessly without reading the room, but when things were serious, the aura of a Sword Master would inevitably leak out.
That cool aura tended to dominate the surroundings without distinguishing friend from foe.
The Archduke would be fine, but…
‘Is it intentional?’
Right. I get it. While this situation was interesting, he still didn’t like cooperating with me.
But thanks to that, I could very naturally act frightened.
I would appear exactly like the 2nd Prince himself—someone who throws tantrums here and there asking for attention, but is also cowardly and wary.
“Ugh. What, what… Why are you doing that, hyung-nim? Archduke?”
“It would be best for Your Highness to return now.”
The Archduke said in a slightly subdued voice.
“I… don’t want to! Why are you only keeping me from seeing? You said you’d protect me today…! J-just move aside.”
Marcus hyung-nim grabbed the back of my neck like catching a kitten and lifted me up as I struggled.
“So annoying I could die.”
Even while muttering that, his eyes were looking at me with interest.
I felt like I heard his inner thoughts saying ‘You’re acting quite brazenly?’
Right, it’s enough that only they know this is acting.
I was kicking at the air again, telling him to put me down, when I pretended to accidentally witness the scene inside the room beyond the Archduke.
“…Huh? There are people?”
Only then did the people inside the room, who had been frozen by our appearance, seem to come to their senses and flinch.
And.
“…What brings you two here!”
One of the three people sitting around the round table jumped up and shouted. There were three people who entered, but calling only two meant I wasn’t even in consideration.
I familiarly accepted that treatment while watching them with interest from mid-air. Of course, while pretending to be wary.
The Archduke said calmly:
“You speak as if I’ve come somewhere I shouldn’t.”
“Th-this is my personal space, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. And that statement means.”
The Archduke gently tilted his head and asked:
“Should I understand that you’re admitting to meeting with them privately?”
“That…!”
Then, one person who had regained composure faster than the High Priest waved his hands and interrupted.
“Stop, stop. Both of you, please calm down.”
Dark skin with silver-purple eyes. Silver hair and a hyena-like, base impression that at first glance seemed completely unlike hyung-nim.
‘This is what a dark elf would look like when aged.’
Is that what you’d call a distinguished middle-aged man? He had decent features, but somehow seemed to reek of foul odor.
So that’s him.
“You come sit here too. Put down what you’re holding and throw it in the corner.”
Marcus hyung-nim’s biological father.
I decided to secretly examine and memorize his face in detail.
‘But something feels familiar.’
The problem occurred right then.
Because something I shouldn’t remember began to surface…
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
