#13
“Hmm.”
Marcus hyung, who didn’t know my condition, only glanced once at his biological father’s gesture but gave no particular response.
He only leisurely looked back and forth between the three people in the room and the Archduke confronting them, until the elder’s eyes trembled.
Eventually, he began wandering around the High Priest’s prayer room leisurely like someone who had received an invitation, examining this and that.
“What are you doing, Lord Marcus?”
The High Priest, who had barely regained his composure, asked with his white beard trembling. There was no trace of his famously gentle demeanor in that appearance.
Perhaps finding it amusing, Marcus hyung chuckled and said.
“For a prayer room, it seems rather splendid.”
And then, unfortunately, I recalled one fact.
Where I had seen that elder who was staring intently at me as I dangled from Marcus’s hand with a disgruntled expression.
Before my regression, yes…… I had encountered that half-demon elder, whom I had never been formally involved with, during the period when I was being tortured by the Archduke.
“Since Lady Eris is not here, it would be good to substitute with you.”
Sometimes there were a few people imprisoned with me, and he was one of them.
‘Now that I think about it, those people seemed to be half-demon survivors.’
Unlike now, his condition was poor then, so I didn’t recognize him immediately……
But to think he was an elder.
‘Does it really make sense that while claiming to protect the protagonists, I didn’t even know the face of the villain at the center of the threat?’
I keenly felt how inadequate I had been before my regression.
I had just been terrified and struggled desperately, but it seemed I had only done a bunch of useless things.
‘Elder-level half-demons don’t often appear where I can see them, so there’s that. But still.’
I couldn’t properly control my body due to my sinking heart and memories of being in the same prison with him back then.
At that time, he was a kind of…… tool used to torture me.
Whatever he did to me, however he played with me like a toy, the Archduke back then had only indifferently checked my condition and passed by.
Whether I was alive or dead. Whether I was sane. Only those facts mattered.
“Urk……”
I couldn’t tell if my body stiffening was due to fear or sadness.
“Heu, eu.”
“……?”
Somehow my breath was blocked, so I hastily cut off the continuing thoughts.
Even so, I couldn’t stop the groans from flowing out. Marcus hyung, who had been holding me and pressuring the three people, hesitated.
It was a very small sound, but probably everyone in the room heard it?
‘Damn, no.’
I immediately started throwing a tantrum.
“Hyung…… Those people are ignoring me. As if I’m not even here! I, urk, you said you’d protect me today! So teach them a lesson!”
Marcus looked confused as he watched me throw a pitiful tantrum.
After examining my face and neck area for a moment, he responded with a “hmm” sound.
“Protect? What nonsense. Your dreams are ambitious.”
When I raised my voice a few more times just like the 2nd Prince’s palace servants would grumble about my bad temper, he finally relaxed the tension in his eyebrows.
“Didn’t you know that His Highness the Crown Prince sent me as a watchman because he was worried Your Highness would recklessly cause trouble like this?”
“What’s that supposed to!”
“……Your Highness.”
Then the Archduke, who had been gently illuminating the dingy space with his own luminescence, slowly turned and approached me.
As if giving up on blocking them from my sight.
Instead, he said firmly.
“We have urgent matters to discuss among ourselves, so could you wait in the prayer room for a moment?”
Though his voice was affectionate, the face looking at me was coldly frozen.
He seemed to have sensed something from my reaction.
I quickly turned my head to avoid being caught flinching.
Then I pointed at the elder with my hand.
“I don’t want to! That person treated me like an object, so why should I?”
The elder looked at me with a machine-like expressionless face.
‘That gaze. I’m certain.’
The way he looked at me was slightly different from ordinary people.
Ordinary people might treat me as insignificant or hate me, but they at least recognized me as something alive.
But that person was different.
To him, I didn’t seem to be a living person from the start.
However…… if that’s the case, one sure method comes to mind for provoking him to achieve my purpose.
“I won’t leave until he kneels and apologizes.”
He couldn’t stand insolence.
He was a frightening person because his standard for ‘insolence’ was extremely unreasonable.
It was the same before.
That person reacted like a madman particularly when I glared at him, cursed him, or acted aggressively in any way.
‘I need to provoke him, but make him want to use me for trapping the protagonists.’
Originally I planned to negotiate by bringing some item the half-demons desperately sought, but this seems to come first.
With that person, I’d need to provoke him first for him to recognize me, and only then could I even bring up negotiations.
Sure enough.
“……”
Murderous intent began to dwell in the elder’s eyes.
“Your Highness.”
The Archduke made a troubled sound with eyes that said ‘what are you doing?’
I shook my head very slightly.
That meant don’t worry, my condition is stable. Though honestly, my body was still stiff and I wasn’t confident I could safely walk out of here.
‘But strength is gradually returning to my body.’
It’s okay.
I’m okay.
I unconsciously mouthed the word ‘okay’ for the second time before barely stopping myself.
Then I began glaring at the elder in earnest.
Marcus hyung, Skyle the Archduke, and the three people at the round table began exchanging glances among themselves.
“You don’t want to?”
As if contemplating how to handle this problem child.
“Then at least pour me a drink. Hmph.”
“……Whoo.”
Marcus hyung whistled softly. For now, amusement seemed to have overcome displeasure.
He looked at me as if asking if I was serious, and the Archduke also had his mouth slightly open.
But right now I’m just an ignorant prince who doesn’t know that person’s identity, right?
A moment later.
Judging that I had sufficiently touched a precarious line, I slightly frowned and stopped the approaching Archduke, casually dropping a remark.
“Otherwise I won’t give up the treasure. I have a gray treasure that’s truly amazing……”
Instantly, the elder who had been pretending to leisurely observe the situation flinched.
He stared at me as if he would devour me without even blinking, then very slowly formed an extremely cunning smile.
A gray treasure, he muttered like a snake whispering, then leisurely surveyed the Archduke, Marcus hyung, and the other two people.
Then he looked at me again.
“Let’s do that.”
With eyes that looked at prey.
“……!”
“……”
“E-Elder!”
“Elder, you!”
Marcus hyung whipped around to look at him.
The Archduke slowly lowered his eyes, then looked back at him with a gentle smile. One of the half-demons who had been restless beside the elder and the High Priest were openly shocked.
“Showing proper respect to His Highness the Prince is, well, a natural thing to do, isn’t it? Don’t you think so, Your Highness?”
“Hmm?”
“I happen to have prepared fine liquor, so come here and receive a cup.”
He pulled out a small bottle from his chest.
All the while, he never took his eyes off me.
‘Perfect.’
According to the original story, Sercil would have trusted the High Priest and stolen that liquor—no, poison—tonight as instructed.
‘Now Sercil won’t be used in the half-demons’ trap by drinking that.’
Poison that serves as bait to worsen the cursed Crown Prince’s condition.
Since I’m the one who’ll drink it now.
‘And probably the half-demons will be confused by this incident.’
Only the successor to the half-demon chieftain possesses the gray treasure in their heart that can supposedly control all half-demons.
And for the one who has that heart, half-demon poisons only take effect temporarily and weakly.
For example, with poison like this that makes one vomit blood with a scent that triggers the Crown Prince’s curse.
For the successor, instead of actually vomiting blood, they would only temporarily emit the necessary scent.
‘Thanks to being tortured, I realized a way to avoid immediately vomiting blood.’
My body, perhaps because it mixed half-demon and royal blood, had some peculiarities.
When in a state of fatal injury beyond a certain degree, the effects of poison or other curses appeared slowly until those wounds healed.
I had experimented with this directly, so I was certain.
It was as if two incompatible bloods were fighting each other.
It wasn’t a good phenomenon for mana depletion syndrome, but it was useful in many other situations.
Like now.
‘By the way, which side is the elder hoping for?’
The side where Eris’s bloodline is the successor?
Or not.
“Hmph, fine.”
I approached the elder in one breath, not hiding my subtle joy.
The elder looked me over with very eerie but leisurely eyes as I maintained a contemptuous expression, then offered it with quite a polite attitude.
Gulp—the liquid was only enough for one mouthful.
“Bitter!”
“Haha.”
As the elder laughed, I thought while emitting a scent that only half-demons and the Crown Prince could smell.
‘Archduke. Why are you so agitated?’
Because I made eye contact with the Archduke who was sharply staring this way.
‘……He couldn’t have noticed the wound on my stomach.’
Strangely, his face was frozen cold.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
