#81
“The Archduke is here. If I seem like I might lose my mind, won’t the Archduke stop me?”
The words spoken like a joke didn’t sound light at all, so Skyle silently kept his mouth shut.
He had uncharacteristically lost words to respond to that strangely firm trust.
“You came with me, didn’t you?”
“Ha.”
Absurdly, the Prince was saying he trusted him.
That he could entrust his back to him.
His eyes closed briefly. That silence was the prelude to some resolution. Instead of showing emotion, he made a vow. To protect. To stop him. And—to definitely keep the promise he had made.
And very quietly, he placed one hand on the Prince’s arm.
That hand was warm. Yet also firm. A person whose actions came before words. That touch wasn’t comfort but a ‘boundary line.’ A warning not to cross this line and, at the same time—a promise that staying within this line meant protection.
“Don’t overdo it. I’ll also keep what I promised.”
At those words, Ersen slowly nodded and managed to smile with difficulty.
“Mm-hmm!”
Despite answering like that, one hour later.
Ersen had returned to the infirmary inside the Crown Prince’s separate palace and was lying in bed.
Theodore stood beside him with his arms crossed.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Ersen chuckled.
“Hyung-nim Your Highness. You came?”
“That weird way of addressing me, I told you to pick one.”
“What does it matter?”
“How’s your body?”
“I’m fine.”
“What do you mean fine? Now you’re openly raiding half-demon hideouts, breaking barriers, and even using strange powers?”
“Eh, why are you so surprised by that much?”
The Prince’s face was pale as he annoyingly waved his hand back and forth.
“That’s the problem because it’s not just ‘that much.'”
“Don’t worry. I told you, didn’t I? I don’t break easily.”
Theodore sighed. His fingertips tapped the air and stopped.
“Do it in moderation. If you push yourself this hard… you’ll only regret it later.”
Ersen closed his eyes.
And muttered words no one could hear to himself.
‘I know. I know that well.’
He was already doing too much regretting.
* * *
Marcus was investigating that collapsed warehouse.
When he arrived, the warehouse was already in a state close to ruins. More than two sections of the walls had collapsed, and the ceiling structures were hanging loose after being torn away. The floor was covered with black stains, debris, and seal fragments.
He quietly inhaled and stepped over the broken door frame.
A space where blood and mana residue were intertwined. There, he moved more familiarly than anyone. Touching the scene with his hands, reading it with his eyes, and reproducing the battle scenes one by one in his head. This wasn’t simple investigation, but ‘feeling’ it.
“Definitely… there are traces mixed with blood here.”
He spoke to himself in a small voice. Those words were as careful as retracing memories. The spot where his fingertips slowly swept the dry floor and stopped—there was a faint dot. A blurry mark between the floor grain that someone might have passed over.
He lay prone on the floor and carefully traced the touched marks.
What touched his fingertips were hard fragments and cold mana residue. But between them, there was a very faintly wet sensation. Traces of blood. Marcus immediately placed mana on his hand. It was a method to track the remaining energy.
Mana remained thickly, faintly melted.
Even though quite some time had passed, the mana’s coagulated state was maintained. This had a different texture from ordinary human or half-demon mana. Generally, mana would quickly evaporate or oxidize, but this was faintly pulsing as if alive.
He lifted his fingertips to his nose.
A sensation so faint that ordinary people wouldn’t perceive it. But Marcus was different. From childhood, he had learned the smell, properties, and binding states of mana. He wasn’t a simple soldier, nor a simple knight. He was—someone who read mana with his body.
The problem was that those traces belonged to neither human nor half-demon.
That sensation was too alien. A strange texture as if all elements of the natural world had been mixed together and fermented. And within it, one faintly familiar smell brushed past.
‘Ersen Mayer. And.’
…Eris?
“The mana of the dead.”
Precisely, Eris’s mana was circling around this strange trace before becoming blurred.
As if what caused this trace was that mana.
That meant, in other words, that there existed someone who used Eris’s mana to cast magic or curses on Ersen Mayer.
If the observer hadn’t been Marcus, he probably would have withdrawn at this point and then questioned Ersen.
Whether there was someone who held a grudge against Ersen.
But Marcus knew Eris. Well, Eris had directly cast the ‘binding’ curse that forced him to live as a half-demon.
Marcus slowly stood up.
And slowly muttered.
“This might be, Your Highness is also like us.”
The words he couldn’t bring himself to finish were one thing.
That the Prince might also be a cursed victim like the four of them.
Marcus hardened his face heavily.
* * *
Night is the time that suits half-demons best.
At the northern fence of the Crown Prince’s separate palace, under the shadowy trees, a small shadow waved its hand.
The masked man barely moved his lips to speak, but his voice carried clearly into the garden.
“Your Highness the Prince. We are not enemies.”
Ersen didn’t laugh upon hearing those words. Walking quietly down below the wall, he said.
“After openly intruding, saying you’re not enemies is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?”
“We came to negotiate. There should have been words from Lindel.”
“Ah, Lindel. He must be healthy enough to let me hear his voice now?”
The shadow stepped back one step. But soon extended his hand again.
“This is material Your Highness must see directly. It’s a list of items that half-demon upper management has ordered to be retrieved. Among them.”
“My seal would be included.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Activation orders have also been issued for Skyle Rodias, Marcus Il Naha, and Sercil Lindea.”
A short silence flowed.
“This, you brought it to deliberately shake me up, right?”
“We have no intention of shaking Your Highness. We simply want to work together.”
“Lies.”
Ersen whispered. Then he gripped the seal in his hand tightly.
“But I also happen to need something, so for a little while, I might as well let myself be shaken.”
Prince Ersen’s face as he said this was much more gloomy and dark than the visitor had imagined.
‘…Indeed, could this be the bloodline of that Lady Eris?’
Half-demon Yunen, one of the cores of half-demons called Sacrifices, looked at the Prince he had considered more vermin than themselves until now with a strange expression.
He had heard from Lindel that he had been struck by the Prince using a weapon that only pure-blood demons could properly use without difficulty.
Since Lindel was neutral between the Sacrifice faction and the Inheritors within the half-demons, he had accepted Yunen’s request to hide that fact from the Elder to some extent.
‘I bought time because I had a purpose.’
Just when he was beginning to doubt whether he was truly a being worth taking such risks for due to his weaker appearance than expected.
The Prince mentioned the positions of Sacrifices within the half-demons and asked what he wanted.
And it had led to now.
“What are you doing? Not going?”
“Then, we’ll meet again.”
The Prince waving his hand back and forth looked like an innocent demon.
‘As expected, he leaked the treasure information knowing this would happen.’
He probably knows all about how half-demon internal affairs are shaking with just that one piece of news.
Half-demon low-ranking elder Yunen nodded heavily.
His gamble had a much higher success rate than expected.
But departing Yunen didn’t know.
*Cough.*
That the Prince, whose physical condition had worsened again due to using the seal, was coughing up blood he had been holding back.
After coughing up blood for a while, the Prince quietly assessed the state of the blood he had spat, gauging the poison and mana contained within.
And muttering quietly, he smiled faintly.
“Good.”
* * *
Sercil waited until around midnight and finally went to find the Prince’s room. The door was closed, and inside was quiet. He hesitated and then gently opened the door.
“Your Highness…?”
An empty bed. Arranged blankets. And one teacup that hadn’t cooled.
At that moment, Sercil’s fingertips trembled.
‘…Did he go out alone?’
Sercil left the room and quietly walked along the corridor.
The empty gallery was somehow lonely.
How long had he walked? Finally, he was able to encounter him at the entrance to the garden.
Prince Ersen.
“Fairy-nim?”
“…Your Highness.”
“Why are you here?”
Sercil didn’t answer for a while.
He hid his indifferent gaze and opened his mouth with a pretty face instantly overwhelmed by anxiety.
“Why do you go out without saying anything? I was worried.”
Unlike usual, Ersen didn’t smile. He just sat on the corridor railing where the garden was directly visible, swinging his feet gently while staring at Sercil.
Not too late, Ersen answered.
“I didn’t know Fairy-nim would worry.”
It was strange.
It was strange that it sounded somewhat sad.
Sercil dismissed it as a misunderstanding and took a few steps closer.
“How could I not worry? It wasn’t long ago that Your Highness came back injured from outside.”
“Oh my, I didn’t intend to keep our Fairy-nim from sleeping.”
Sercil smiled brightly.
And approached, extending his hand as he spoke.
“Let’s go in, Your Highness.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
