#85
“Phew… Right. What do you have to say?”
Crown Prince hyung asked bluntly with an attitude as if he was letting it slide.
I hesitated and couldn’t immediately continue speaking.
‘Strange. Didn’t our act end with that ball?’
I suddenly realized that the way he treated me was clearly different from before the ball.
Perhaps it was too late a realization.
“As you can see, I’m busy. Hurry up and speak?”
“Hmm.”
I stared at him with a strange feeling, then hid my awkwardness and spoke ambiguously.
“What would Crown Prince hyung and I have to do together just the two of us?”
“…Ah.”
As if he had truly forgotten, he let out a belated exclamation.
“Come, your hand.”
When I asked for his hand, he made a serious expression and thought for a moment, then slowly extended his left hand.
It was the hand I always held whenever I lifted his curse.
After lightly grasping it, I poured the blood from my pocket onto it while infusing power. Not a single drop of blood fell to the floor as it was absorbed through his arm into him.
“I was surprised at first, but now it doesn’t bother me at all.”
I raised an eyebrow at him speaking during the detoxification, which was unlike him.
When I was using nullification, I had no leisure to speak so I could only listen.
“You never told me what you killed to obtain that blood.”
Though I never said I killed anything.
“When I think of my mother, only memories that could appear in fairy tales come to mind. Like her saying the Great Mage would protect me before bed, or her putting those macarons you like in my mouth. By the way, they didn’t taste good.”
By mother, he meant the deceased Empress.
Though the Empress’s death was known to be from illness, people probably suspected Eris had something to do with it.
I thought it was a reasonable suspicion too.
However, it was difficult to guess why hyung was bringing up this story now.
Was it because he was unconsciously sensing that this would completely lift the curse?
It could be that he wanted to hold me accountable for Eris’s crimes before lifting the other three’s curses.
‘It’s shameless thinking, but I hope he won’t lose his mind.’
It felt like another heavy stone had been placed on my chest.
Thinking about how much he must have suffered before regression when I tried to get close to him, even more so.
“But from the day she passed away, I started craving sweets.”
Then he continued speaking.
“How was it for you?”
In a completely unexpected direction.
What?
I almost asked back without realizing it, but barely managed not to lose concentration.
Seeing something in my expression, hyung sighed.
“You said you don’t remember clearly. So I interrogated the palace servants in your quarters.”
Hm?
“Strangely, it was full of only those who held grudges against you. Let’s skip that for now.”
A few remaining drops of the blood I had gathered dripped down. As I was persistently watching that, I heard hyung’s voice in my ears.
“Ersen. Answer me. Reducing the people who would kill you before your twenty-second coming-of-age ceremony. Isn’t that your real purpose?”
Ah. It’s over.
It was over, but the situation I expected probably wouldn’t come.
Whether it was hopeful expectations or pessimistic ones.
Hyung added words before even hearing my answer.
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, so speak openly.”
“Well… Crown Prince hyung.”
Should I call this a misunderstanding?
It wasn’t true, but if it was a situation where he was interpreting me in a bad way, there was no need to clarify either.
While I hesitated with a confused expression, hyung opened his mouth again.
“If you tell me, I’ll…”
With an expression like he might kill someone.
But the words didn’t come together easily.
As I blinked waiting for the next words, Theodore hyung, who had been staring at me with distorted eyes, lowered his gaze.
And said.
“I can promise minimal protection.”
“…Protection?”
“Of course you wouldn’t hope for just that much. I won’t bother predicting how far you could go for your own safety.”
Whatever words followed, I couldn’t have calmed the surprise I felt at that moment.
“However, in exchange for providing protection, you must stay quietly in your quarters as you have until now. You mustn’t meet with any of us except for using your nullification ability.”
“Protection…”
“If you just change your purpose, it won’t conflict with the contract we made either. What do you think?”
I stopped repeating ‘protection’ and quietly looked at Crown Prince hyung.
“Is that a refusal?”
“…Mm.”
I quietly pondered his words.
No matter how many times I thought about it, with my dizzy head, there was only one answer I could give.
He had tried to promise me protection.
Whatever the conditions, that fact didn’t change.
…Would it be wrong to be happy?
Wouldn’t it be too shameless to be happy here?
My eyelids trembled as I thought, then I raised the corners of my mouth.
Because what I couldn’t accept also didn’t change.
“Hyung really. Despite appearances, you have good imagination. You’re saying this because the curse is all lifted now, right? Even though you know full well I’d refuse.”
“…”
Theodore hyung’s eyes had become as cold as when we first met.
I caught a glimpse of contempt too, but it wasn’t as strong as the first time.
After carefully confirming that, I shrugged and spoke nonchalantly.
“Don’t trouble yourself unnecessarily. Protection? That naturally follows when you have power. I don’t know what the palace servants said, but.”
“They said you had fainted. And when you woke up, you had no memory.”
“Well, it’s not like you didn’t know that?”
“They also said you never once looked for your mother.”
“Why would I need to look for her…?”
“They said you never questioned the palace servants’ attitudes either.”
“Sigh.”
“That wasn’t the reaction of a seven-year-old who had lost his memory.”
I finally understood.
Hyung had dug into Ersen’s past in a direction he hadn’t been interested in before. Under that influence, this good person couldn’t overcome his kind nature and was making a proposal that would eat away at himself.
“I wasn’t an ordinary seven-year-old, hyung.”
When I smiled ambiguously and stared at him, hyung tilted his head with a cold expression and said.
“Right. Looking at you now.”
“Looking at me now?”
“I think I may have overthought it.”
“Yes, yes, right?”
I nodded happily.
While dealing with me, I hoped you all wouldn’t suffer even the slightest loss.
I hoped you would just receive healing and move forward to reach the ending you should have fully grasped.
“So anyway, it’s time for you to help with my work again.”
I drew the most villainous, greedy smile possible and subtly changed the topic.
The moment his curse was lifted, there would definitely be half-demons who noticed.
The Crown Prince kidnapping incident that Lady Isabella Marsien was involved in was in progress. It seemed like even the next episode’s events, which had accelerated along with newly revealed facts, would continue together.
The illusion prison from the middle of the original work that the Archduke suffered from.
‘Though it seems we prevented it, I can’t be certain.’
Since they’ve started targeting the Archduke, they could use any means.
…I wanted to lift his curse before he became a target.
‘It can’t be helped. If it’s going to accelerate anyway, it’s right to ride that flow.’
Since there’s a high possibility my time is running out.
It would be better to actively utilize this flow instead.
Then the next thing to do should be to renounce succession rights as quickly as possible. Instead of the protective barrier given to full royalty weakening, I’d have more freedom of movement.
“Before that, I need to decide who to use nullification on next.”
Theodore hyung replied coldly with a face where lines were clearly drawn like the first day.
I nodded leisurely as if telling him to do as he pleased.
“Right, well.”
While swallowing the blood that kept rising.
* * *
Until she recovered her strength, she couldn’t rashly contact the half-demons either.
So the choice that Isabella, no, Eris wearing Isabella’s body made, was to utilize Isabella Marsien’s status.
“Mother, since it happened at my ball too, I can accept confinement without complaint. But… I’m so troubled by bringing shame to the family.”
The Duchess Marsien didn’t notice that her daughter had changed too much.
Nor that these weren’t words her daughter would say.
She just defended her daughter, saying she had finally matured.
She had no choice.
Unless one was a being at the pinnacle of curses as a pure-blood demon, possessing someone’s body was unimaginable.
“Our daughter. What should we do with you being so good? Darling, how can we punish this child because of such a person? Not even His Highness the Crown Prince, but just that, that cursed Prince…!”
“You must be careful with your words, Madam. …And don’t worry. I won’t let this matter slide either.”
Despite often clashing due to different ways of thinking, the Duke and Duchess Marsien had a good relationship.
And this matter was also a situation where the couple’s opinions aligned for the first time in a while, since Duke Marsien also wasn’t favorable toward Ersen.
If Isabella had jumped up and down asking for revenge, it might have been a little different, but now with an evil spirit inside her, she knew to choose the most effective method.
Thus.
“Something like stripping succession rights, His Majesty would accept too.”
Since it’s what he wants, let us play the role of priming the pump.
At the Duke’s quiet words, the Duchess cheered.
Rather than taking away his royal status itself, if they only took away the ‘succession rights’ of the Second Prince that the Emperor had always found annoying, there was a chance of success.
And a royal without succession rights was no different from a reserve noble, so the situation would change depending on what they did afterward.
Perhaps, even in a very bad direction.
And Marsien was a family with the power to drive the situation in a very bad direction.
A smile appeared on Isabella’s face.
Eris’s characteristic eerie, red smile.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
