#15
“To think the High Priest was still sane after hearing such talk, how surprising.”
Marcus muttered as if talking to himself without a care. The High Priest flinched again, but this time no one paid him any attention.
“By the way, son.”
Marcus slightly gritted his teeth at the disgusting form of address.
The elder slowly arranged his face into a moderately human-like expression as before, then casually asked Marcus.
“I wanted to convey my intention to visit 2nd Prince His Highness, but he left. Would you relay the message for me?”
“……”
Feeling the elder observing his expression, Marcus made an indifferent, sullen face.
“Why to that wretch?”
“Must I confess all my schedules to my son one by one?”
“It’s because that wretch will likely be under my jurisdiction for a while.”
“Is it your jurisdiction, or you two’s jurisdiction?”
“I may not know, but I wouldn’t particularly recommend subtly belittling the Empire’s Archduke, would I?”
The elder smiled slyly. He nodded as if he understood, then pressed for an answer.
Marcus shrugged and said.
“It would be best not to touch him until after Foundation Day ends.”
“Hooh.”
While obediently giving an answer, he keenly observed the elder’s reaction.
‘He definitely reacted to that gray treasure or whatever.’
From that point on, the elder had no interest in the High Priest or anything else.
He was focused solely on the 2nd Prince.
Even knowing it would be disadvantageous if a report about this meeting reached the Emperor who opposed half-demons.
‘The excuse was too flimsy too.’
A discourse on sacrifices, what nonsense.
‘Normally he would have tried to order me to do something.’
It was behavior unlike an elder.
And those words also meant he had other matters to force Marcus through the binding curse.
Something important enough to treat the current situation as trivial.
‘That matter is related to the 2nd Prince.’
“I’ll be waiting too long then.”
“Hmm.”
Should I cooperate?
“At night, just once briefly wouldn’t matter.”
“Kuk…… How irreverent, son. His Highness the Crown Prince must have entrusted him to you.”
Watching the elder giggle while subtly probing whether it was the Crown Prince’s order, Marcus just shrugged without answering.
Then he smiled mischievously, completely different from the elder, and said.
“Well, I can’t stop whatever our Great Mage plans to do.”
“……”
The elder’s expression briefly hardened.
But knowing this was the best he could get from Marcus, he quickly recovered his mood. As Marcus thought, the elder had something else that was most important to him right now.
‘However, I’ll need to take measures to prevent the story from leaking.’
Curses are vulnerable to auxiliary types.
Still, someone at the elder’s level should have learned a few appropriate auxiliary curse types.
“Good. Very good.”
The elder’s mouth corners slowly rose, long enough to split his mouth.
Between the exposed white teeth, he seemed to glimpse blood.
A half-demon space where flesh, blood, and fishy smells coexisted.
Emitting the characteristic scent of one born there and living off all of that as nourishment.
Marcus openly muttered.
“Ah. The smell.”
Someone flinched and trembled in a corner where his gaze briefly touched. After glancing that way, he naturally turned his gaze away.
Marcus’s eyes were shining coldly as he left the High Priest’s prayer room.
* * *
“Then we’ll meet again.”
After the elder also left with his subordinate.
A small figure hiding in the High Priest’s prayer room hesitantly revealed themselves.
The High Priest calmed his trembling body and headed that way.
“H-High Priest.”
“Sercil.”
That Sercil was the child of a border count was only discovered after capturing him to use as a sacrifice.
Temple sacrifices are handled by beautiful novice priests.
It was a formal matter, not actual death.
They just had to act as sacrifices during sacred ceremonies after worship, and normally just lived confined in the temple.
Usually when there were no suitable novices, they would kidnap those without families to fill the role……
Unfortunately, they brought the wrong person this time.
‘Of all people, someone with such a clear status!’
It was the Foundation Day worship ceremony, no less.
No matter how much Sercil was hiding his status, he wasn’t so oblivious as to confidently use a noble as a sacrifice in a place so full of nobles.
So they had to silence him appropriately and send him back to his family……
‘Come to think of it, there’s no need to go through the trouble of silencing him.’
The High Priest recalled that the number of novices to provide to the half-demons had been insufficient lately.
Unlike the temple’s formal sacrifices, he’d become a sacrifice going to actual death…… but wouldn’t that be more profitable?
But then that 2nd Prince came in and ruined everything!
“You said I should stop that half-demon’s scheme…… I……”
Damn it.
The High Priest cursed the 2nd Prince once more in his heart.
He had grand dreams.
Dreams of escaping the current situation where he had to mind the Emperor’s mood no matter what, raising the temple’s prestige, and even turning this country into a theocratic state.
The greatest obstacle to that dream wasn’t the current Emperor but his son, Crown Prince Theodore.
Coincidentally, this was a point where his thoughts aligned with the half-demons.
Crown Prince Theodore’s unique ability was disguise.
At first glance one might think it was imitation magic, but disguise was magic with very high utility. The higher the power level, the more disguise could imitate not just appearance but temperament, atmosphere, and even mana.
But Crown Prince Theodore didn’t stop at imitation.
He…… that monster had the learning ability to make everything he experienced through disguise his own.
‘Plus he perfectly inherited the imperial family’s characteristic fire attribute mana.’
If he had wanted curse abilities, it wouldn’t have been impossible.
Though it was an ability only the naturally gifted could handle, if he understood the principles, creating something similar wasn’t impossible.
He simply…… chose not to.
‘No, now he definitely can’t.’
Since he’s being consumed by the curse.
Yes, the curse…… he had to prevent the Crown Prince from developing.
Once he fully matured, the High Priest’s dreams would completely disappear.
If it were just the Crown Prince, that might be different.
But beside him were two more identical monsters……
“High Priest?”
……So he had joined hands with the half-demons who claimed to have a way to kill the Crown Prince.
“Unfortunately, this seems to have worked out well in its own way, Sercil.”
“But the 2nd Prince drank that poison earlier.”
The High Priest didn’t know much about the curse afflicting the Crown Prince.
Just one thing—that based on that curse, they could turn the Crown Prince into a complete puppet.
The stages of that curse were destruction, binding, possession.
Those symptoms of seeing blood and going mad with slaughter weren’t originally something that could be endured.
Yet that monster was controlling it.
Those around whispered that the Crown Prince’s control wasn’t much compared to his natural mana, but no. Those were the words of people who knew nothing.
The Crown Prince’s mana control was at an unreasonable level.
And when he acquired that control through disguise, the one beside him was that Archduke.
‘That madman.’
A man enduring the most vicious curse with his pure power alone, without unique magic like disguise.
He even became a Great Mage in the process.
‘Of all things, a Great Mage of light attribute……’
The High Priest, who had been grinding his teeth, felt Sercil’s gaze examining him and quickly composed his expression.
“Rather, this worked out well. Originally, that poison was supposed to be drunk and sacrificed by some novice priest who volunteered for holy sacrifice……”
“Goodness!”
Sercil widened his eyes innocently.
“Since His Highness the 2nd Prince has taken his place, I can only be grateful. It’s God’s help.”
“Indeed. God seems to have understood the High Priest’s heart……!”
Though Sercil was reacting strangely obediently, the High Priest didn’t notice anything more.
The High Priest hadn’t seen how Sercil had raged like a wildcat when he was dragged in and while confined.
Seeing the pure-looking boy—he didn’t even know Sercil was an adult—looking at him with sparkling eyes made his recently withering faith seem to spring forth naturally.
“Then what should I do now?”
Sercil, who was originally supposed to steal the poison and become bait on his own, tilted his head and asked.
While gripping a dagger beneath an invisible hand.
“Hmm.”
The High Priest pondered.
The one who drank that poison would become an existence that stimulates the Crown Prince’s bloodlust for at least a week.
If blood were spilled in that state…… the Crown Prince would lose his reason and rush to kill the bait.
The Crown Prince in that state would be a ferocious beast itself that no one could stop.
‘He would kill countless people without distinguishing friend from foe.’
He glanced at Sercil.
He was pretty and looked devout, so it would be nice if he became a priest, but it was regrettable that he came as a sacrifice.
However, the regret was brief.
‘This meeting will reach His Majesty’s ears, so I can’t give any more cause for fault.’
Once might allow for excuses, but twice wouldn’t.
The High Priest made up his mind and spoke kindly to Sercil.
“You can stay here until the Foundation Ball, then attend the ball at that time and leave, Sercil.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
