#7
“……You’re saying you’ll monitor His Highness.”
“Hey, don’t pretend you don’t know. If someone like the Archduke came to find someone like me, there has to be something in it for you, right? So I’m offering to help.”
“……”
He tilted his head slightly.
It must have been unexpected for Ersen to so openly speak about how he was being treated as lowly.
“I have nothing to lose, and you… you won’t have anything to lose either. I swear this on my life.”
“Your Highness.”
Though he called out as if to stop him, his eyes had already grown unmistakably cold.
He was coldly assessing the unpredictable ‘Ersen’ who kept veering in different directions.
“Well, among the things I have, my life is about all I can stake for you. How about it?”
He muttered languidly and smiled wryly.
He shook his head back and forth, then nodded as if he had no choice.
“It can’t be helped. I’ll indulge Your Highness’s whim.”
“Ahaha, a whim.”
Mentioning his life had been the right answer.
It seemed he had decided to watch me more closely.
‘He probably planned to observe me today and eliminate me if I seemed like I’d be harmful to Crown Prince hyung.’
Since I was maintaining vicious behavior while taking an inscrutable attitude, it wouldn’t be strange if he killed me at any time.
“Good, then now.”
“Now?”
But if this matter goes well, there won’t be occasions like this in the future.
“Archduke, let’s go out for a walk with me.”
“Why would that be?”
“Because I want to see you under the sunlight!”
For just a brief moment, he looked at me with an expression of disbelief.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I don’t let opportunities slip by!”
“Aha?”
Now I need to give Marcus hyung time to search this palace.
“And think about it. I was just setting the mood to tell you something important, but then I suddenly saw you standing under the moonlight and got so shocked that I might forget what I was trying to say.”
“……My, you’re gilding me excessively.”
People must be saying compliments like this all the time in newspapers and behind his back, yet he pretends to be familiar with it while acting troubled.
‘He’s probably suspicious about why I’m praising him like this.’
As always, he wouldn’t consider even a grain of what I say to be sincere.
He’s pretending to be flustered, showing gaps to try to figure out my intentions.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll let you know ‘Ersen’s’ schemes one by one, not too late.’
If he believes in Ersen’s greed rather than me, then he could probably do it.
“I’m being sincere. So you’d better get used to it.”
I pretended not to know about his suspicions.
And I took the lead, dancing silently as I spoke.
“……Both hyung and you. I really like you all.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. You’re all capable and innocent……”
“……Innocent……”
“And you’re beautiful too.”
Unlike me.
He walked slowly behind me as I fluttered ahead.
Perhaps tired of pretending to be flustered by compliments, no response came back.
* * *
“Hmm.”
At that moment, someone was watching the two figures heading outside.
That someone slowly raised their body from where they had been lying with their arm as a pillow on top of a long dresser, about half a step away from the window where the Archduke had been standing.
And they sat down casually like an idle gentleman, resting their chin on their hand and muttering.
“How peculiar……”
Bored, half-lowered silver-gray eyes.
The man had grown his dark purple hair to his shoulders and wore diamond-shaped purple earrings.
At a glance, he looked like a free-spirited mage, but when he came down from the dresser and began walking leisurely, it became clear that he was a knight.
Though his footsteps made almost no sound, there was precision in his movements.
“It’s not easy to be so composed when looking at Kyle like that.”
Moreover— what’s with that suspicious behavior?
Setting aside that thick-skinned conduct, it was irritating how he acted like he knew something despite being in a position where it would be difficult to know important things.
“Haam.”
After letting out a big yawn, sharp alertness returned to his languid, drooping eyes.
He looked intently in the direction where Ersen had disappeared with the Archduke with keen eyes, then smiled wickedly.
“Hmm. Originally I was thinking of investigating the room where that evil spirit died.”
It was a very mischievous smile.
“—Try to drag it out for a long time. It doesn’t seem like checking just one place will be enough.”
Though it was a small mutter, Skyle probably heard it all.
He’d probably drag it out for about half a day.
That should be enough time to figure out what that thing was hiding.
“Though what is there to see in this desolate palace.”
Marcus Il Naha.
One of only seven Sword Masters in the Empire, and the most friendly to outsiders among the half-demon clan.
Though weak, he was even born with the unique magic of ‘stealth’, making him specialized in hiding somewhere and destroying things.
Though searching and just slipping out wasn’t really his style.
“Let’s see. Now, shall we check if our great Prince has hidden any naughty pictures or something?”
Marcus smiled coldly and rolled his shoulders.
Then he instantly disappeared into another shadow.
His destination was the most intimate part of the 2nd Prince’s palace.
The third floor where the bedroom of the deceased Imperial Consort Eris and the current Prince Ersen were located side by side.
* * *
‘What should I do to kill time?’
I pondered while being conscious of the Archduke who was silently following me.
Actually, since I was under house arrest, I couldn’t leave this palace.
So only the garden within the 2nd Prince’s palace was possible……
The problem was that the unmanaged garden really had nothing to see.
There wouldn’t be much to look at for long.
‘Come to think of it, isn’t this the first time this person has stayed in my palace for this long?’
At the sudden thought, I unconsciously hesitated.
‘Oh right, that’s true?’
I became serious without realizing it.
Somehow I seemed to be getting a little anxious too.
What was certain was that no matter how much it was to kill time, I didn’t want to show him that desolate garden.
“Your Highness?”
The Archduke who had come to stand beside me at some point tilted his head slightly and called to me. His attitude was that of a worried person, but the atmosphere was only chilly.
Looking quietly at that face observing my expression, I slowly pulled up the corners of my mouth.
“Archduke. Come to think of it, you seem dressed too lightly. Won’t you be cold like that?”
He slowly closed and opened his eyes.
Then, rarely, he asked with an openly suspicious look.
“……Are you talking about me?”
“Of course. Look at this. Your face already seems to have turned pale!”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, then smiled brightly.
As if telling me to calm down.
“I’m naturally on the pale side. You don’t need to worry.”
I felt like I could almost hear the word “dare” implied.
I made a strange “hmm” sound and shook my head playfully.
“That can’t be right. I want to stay with the Archduke for a long time……”
Ah, that place would work.
I thought I saw a strange expression flash by, but dismissing it as a mistake, I clapped my hands.
“Right, let’s go there. Just trust me, Archduke.”
“……So you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll guide you to a warm, bright, and pretty place.”
As I hummed and started walking again, he just watched me quietly before belatedly starting to follow.
Unlike before, he walked alongside me.
“This is all a crumbling building, but there’s exactly one place worth seeing.”
“It’s a palace with modest beauty. Anywhere is fine with me, Your Highness.”
“No way. We’re going to keep seeing each other, so I can’t ruin the first impression. —Good, if we go in this way, we’ll get there.”
The place I guided him to was somewhere ambiguous to call a garden.
It was a location I discovered while secretly searching Eris’s room after my regression.
‘I found records that Ersen used when he was young.’
The records weren’t anything special, just something like a diary scribbled on the wall with his finger.
When I entered the room that hadn’t been permitted to me before my regression, it turned out to be Eris’s room.
The wall of that room was double-layered, and when I removed one layer, the wall behind it appeared.
‘That’s where it was. Ersen’s picture diary.’
Since it was written when he was young, before he was seven years old, the sentences were composed of short phrases.
Roughly summarized, it was content about how mother told him to kill everyone and he would help mother……
‘It was written in blood.’
At the end of the diary, there were no words, just a drawing.
The figure of a woman who had hanged herself.
As if drawn over several times, only that drawing was particularly dark.
That’s how I learned the full story of the shocking incident that Ersen experienced when he was seven years old. He had seen his mother take her own life.
I walked with a leisurely pretense, calming my troubled heart.
Anyway, what was important now was another part of the diary.
It was around the middle of the records. He wrote about finding a secret place, saying that if you opened the back door between the warehouse and building, you’d find a pretty space surrounding a small pond.
After discovering that record, I had gone there alone about twice, and it was quite worth seeing.
The problem was……
‘This is a magical space.’
Well, it’s not a curse, so it should be fine for him.
It’s not good for my body, but that……
‘Rather, it might give him certainty that I have something he doesn’t know about, so wouldn’t it be killing two birds with one stone?’
……Actually, I was a bit impatient because I wanted to show him that place quickly.
“Hurry, come in.”
“……”
Creak—.
I arrived at the destination and opened the small door.
After jumping first to cross over to the other side of the door, I urged him on, and he looked back and forth between the garden visible beyond the door and my face with a calm smile.
Perhaps because it was dark in front of the door, his face was also half in shadow.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
