#24
“Your Highness.”
“About ten people could sit here… hm?”
“I’ve prepared a special seat for Your Highness. Come here.”
He pointed playfully to the spot beside him with one corner of his mouth raised, making me burst into laughter.
As if he was just joking around.
“The thing is, hyung. That spot is too shaded… I’ll consider it if hyung comes without his muscles.”
Marcus laughed, his cheeks trembling.
He was laughing, but looked quite menacing.
“I’ll leave the facial muscles alone…”
“Haha! Come here while I’m being nice. I prepared rope too, you know?”
“Hyung sits on something so cushy while I get tied up with rope?”
As I grinned and teased him, Marcus nodded.
“That’s how it should be. How else would I know what else Your Highness has hidden?”
“That’s true enough.”
“…”
When I genuinely agreed with his words and nodded earnestly, he instantly looked deflated.
If he just stayed still, he’d be a mysterious handsome man, but making that expression made him look like a world-weary office worker.
‘At least I’ve loosened up one of them.’
Next, I was about to work on bringing the atmosphere to my side by looking at Sercil and Crown Prince hyung, but the Archduke stepped forward as if he’d been waiting.
“Then shall we go with this one?”
He lightly pushed my shoulder with just the right amount of intimacy.
Following his guidance for a few steps, the chair that had only shown its back from my side was revealed.
The chair that didn’t match this gorgeous but formal and elegant reception room was…
‘…A cat… cushion…?’
It wasn’t just a cushion, but that was the vibe.
The very fluffy-looking pale pink chair was shaped like something sculpted from clouds.
“…What is this?”
When I only saw the back, it looked like an ordinary chair, but the front was quite unique to the point of feeling slightly malicious.
“Shall we call it Your Highness’s exclusive seat? Please sit.”
“No…”
It was quite spacious, as if considering that whoever sat here would writhe in shame.
The color was too sweet and the fantastical aesthetic that would make one’s brain rest was off-putting, but…
I couldn’t let the atmosphere get ruined by squabbling over a chair.
“Archduke. Being this pushy isn’t the basics of negotiation, is it?”
Grumbling playfully, I bounced over to the spot he’d guided me to and sat down as if squeezing myself in.
‘Huh.’
It was surprisingly comfortable.
When I sank in deeply, pulled up my knees, and crouched, it felt incredibly cozy.
“You’ll definitely have a much lower body temperature when you wake up, so I specially prepared this chair. Don’t you like it?”
“…I-I like it.”
I ended up stuttering slightly without realizing it.
The Archduke slowly tilted his head and smiled gently.
“That’s a relief.”
“…Sigh.”
I quietly watched the Archduke, then sighed and dropped my head onto my knees.
And in that position, I playfully tugged at the hem of the Archduke’s clothes with my fingers a couple of times.
“Archduke. You’re innocent, but you know all too well that you’re beautiful…”
“You have to use what you can.”
The Archduke answered as he sat beside me.
Was this a sign that he’d gotten used to my nonsense? His responding face looked very comfortable.
“Hmm…”
Eventually, he naturally avoided my gaze, then looked around at everyone and said to Crown Prince hyung.
“Then let’s begin.”
Crown Prince hyung, who had been staring at me without taking his eyes off me from the moment I entered, cracked his neck left and right once each.
It made cracking sounds.
I whistled playfully and smiled wickedly.
Now then, how should I sort this out?
* * *
Crown Prince Theodore Mayer looked at that leisurely face spinning around with laughter and thought.
‘He’s definitely changed. The problem is the trigger, and his purpose.’
Of course, if it were before, he would have concluded by finding out the trigger and purpose, then confining or killing the Second Prince to prevent him from doing anything foolish.
But now it’s different.
“That thing back then was definitely nullification?”
“Otherwise, wouldn’t I be a corpse right now, Your Highness the Crown Prince?”
“That’s right.”
Now the Second Prince Ersen had become something he needed to grasp.
An existence he had to hold in his hands and drain beyond its limits, no matter how far its abilities extended.
“Then first, I’d like to say thank you.”
“…”
From the moment he entered—no, to be honest, from the moment Ersen became strange—Theodore had been observing him.
He had consistently monitored him through his two friends even when Ersen couldn’t perceive him, and from when they laid him in the side room prepared for emergencies until now, he hadn’t let him slip from his detection range.
Thus, the steadily accumulated information was gradually revealing answers.
‘He was flustered.’
Very briefly, bewilderment crossed Ersen’s face.
As if facing something incomprehensible, he looked at Theodore, then rolled his eyes and made a sound like “Hmm” as if surprised.
Then he curled up the corners of his mouth wickedly.
With just that one smile, Ersen’s emotions that had been nakedly exposed within reach just moments before suddenly distanced themselves.
“Our hyung… isn’t someone who casually says thank you. Right?”
Skyle had been smiling gently, then quickly rolled just his eyes to look at Ersen.
“Tell me what you want.”
“Exactly. If you say thank you, you’d have to say those words to me, but you’re saying it so easily…?”
“Hmm.”
Theodore came to one conclusion.
That chatter might be a disguise to hide his own bewilderment.
Though honestly, it didn’t look that way.
So Theodore wasn’t certain either, and played along pretending not to know.
“Seven years.”
“…?”
Even at the sudden words, Ersen only tilted his head slightly without showing signs of confusion.
Perhaps that earlier speculation had been a misstep.
“The time I’ve suffered from the curse.”
“Oh…”
“When I turned fifteen, my strength suddenly wouldn’t listen to me.”
Theodore lightly waved one hand, surrounding it with small flames.
Looking at the flames that drew perfectly the arc he desired, Theodore said.
“That much wasn’t a big problem. You just adapt to a new state. However…”
If what he wanted was information about the curse, then give it to him.
“The problem wasn’t that.”
“You said you go mad when you see blood… so you didn’t have time to adapt to that new state?”
“I don’t go mad from seeing all blood. The original curse seems to be that kind of curse, but when I see specific blood, I become particularly unable to resist the curse.”
I had only told my close friends in such detail before.
“Oh my, oh my…!”
Theodore continued speaking with a stoic expression while observing Ersen.
“Right. Like the scent coming from your stomach right now…”
Those gray eyes half-hidden by hair as black as a raven—I couldn’t get a sense of what he was thinking.
He seemed to be listening obediently, but actually, that face didn’t look like someone learning something they didn’t know.
“The blood scent of half-demons. Or the blood scent of those with unique magic was particularly… seductive.”
Conversely, that gave him a certain certainty.
‘He knew.’
But he had been waiting for him to say it with his own mouth.
Theodore sneered at the wretch who had been thoroughly beaten by him.
Despite being so severely injured, he had safely concluded the ball and recovered enough to move around on his own power in the few hours it took to return.
It was an odd recovery ability.
For something like that, the speed of wound healing itself didn’t seem particularly special.
‘For an ordinary person, it wouldn’t be strange to not wake up for several days with such injuries, but surely he’s not enduring pain right now.’
“Right now, thanks to you, the curse has subsided.”
“It’s not completely lifted.”
“Right. Then I’m getting a bit curious. You said your blood scent was due to poison you consumed, but now it’s become hard to simply believe those words.”
“That’s true…! So what?”
Indeed, what kind of monster are you?
What is the wretch before my eyes hiding?
If necessary, I should be able to deal with him.
But is there room to use him before that…
Arranging the important things in order in his head, Theodore said stiffly.
“So, I’m sorry right after expressing gratitude, but I must hear this answer.”
“Please speak.”
“What was your reason for hunting the High Priest?”
Wasn’t this entire situation something you orchestrated from the beginning?
At such a question, Ersen slyly moved his eyes and smiled mysteriously.
It wasn’t a smile with ulterior motives, but one where strange heat briefly leaked out.
Then he answered leisurely.
“He touched what was mine.”
“Yours?”
“The half-demons.”
Theodore silently stared at Ersen, then burst into a short laugh, “Ha, ha.”
‘He answered so obediently that he looked even more…’
Like a madman.
“…Indeed… so that’s how it was.”
The human before his eyes was indeed the child of a demon, Theodore thought.
‘That demon Eris was like that too.’
When she had obtained the position of Imperial Consort as if stealing it, yet didn’t give up the loyalty of the half-demons either.
Though it was from childhood, he remembered.
That woman who scoffed at the words that if one wanted to become royalty, one shouldn’t get too close to specific clans or nobles.
“Your Majesty. Has there ever been anyone who touched what was mine and lived? Then why are you saying such foolish words?”
She acted coquettishly only in front of the Emperor, but that didn’t mean she gave anything to the Emperor either.
Possessiveness.
The demon Eris’s emotions consisted solely of that…
“Are you saying that if anyone touches the half-demons, there will be no lifting of the curse?”
Fearless bastard.
If he had known with what eyes Skyle, sitting right beside him, was looking at him, he wouldn’t have said such words.
Just by showing resemblance to Eris, Ersen would have been confirmed in Skyle’s heart as someone who must be dealt with eventually.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
