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Chapter 8
“Are we going all the way to the canyon?”
“Yeah. Just as commanded.”
The two dressed in black stealth suits ran through the darkness.
The sack carried on the back of one of them was just the size to fit a small child inside.
‘The Fourth Prince’s fate is wretched as well.’
The spy recalled the child sleeping soundly inside the sack over his shoulder.
Kebeniark Heteroben.
Born of a lowly mother, he had managed to become Rayna Heart’s disciple.
That had offended the Empress.
What if that worthless thing didn’t know his place and dared to aim for the position of First Prince?
No, he was a mere bug and could never grow to such a degree, but even so, they could not stand by and watch him act like a human.
“Kill him. Without anyone knowing.”
The Empress had planted her own faction within the knights leaving for Ribeiro.
She handed them a potent, odorless, and colorless sleeping poison.
The Empress’s spies mixed that sleeping agent into the soup consumed by Rayna Heart’s party.
And so, without realizing it, everyone who ate the sleeping agent fell into a deep slumber.
“Set fire to the tents. They ordered all the knights killed.”
It was intended to make it look like the work of bandits.
“Shall we take Viscountess Heart’s life as well?”
“Exclude the Viscountess.”
If Rayna Heart died, the Emperor would investigate personally.
Until the deed was done, Rayna Heart had to remain fast asleep.
Taking Kebeniark from beside the sleeping Rayna, they lit a potent sleeping incense inside her tent.
Seeing that no one was pursuing them…
“It seems we’ve succeeded.”
“We shouldn’t let our guard down just yet.”
If they killed the Fourth Prince just like this and threw his body into the canyon, their mission would be complete.
‘A life worse than never being born at all.’
The spy carrying the sack over his shoulder thought to himself.
As a person belonging to the Empress, he had frequented the imperial palace.
Naturally, he had seen the Fourth Prince a few times.
A filthy beast. A wild animal neglected inside a cage no one visited.
A wretched little thing he didn’t even want to approach, fearing the parasites swarming on him might get on his hands.
Rayna Heart had picked that up?
To be frank, seeing him properly groomed, he had thought he was a completely different child.
A child who had inherited the deceased Second Imperial Concubine’s breathtaking beauty intact.
‘To follow his mother right after becoming human.’
The spy mourned the child’s death in advance.
Perhaps ending his life right now was a good thing for the boy.
Once something began to bother the Empress, she never let it go until she saw its end.
A night sky where clouds embracing the moon drifted by.
Beneath it, a pitch-black, bottomless canyon came into view.
“We’re here, so right here—”
BOOM!
A massive boulder slammed down right in front of them as they stopped near the canyon.
“What on earth…!”
“Get out of the way!”
The two spies immediately pivoted to change direction.
However—
THUMP, BOOM, CRASH!
Faster than their reaction speed, boulders flew down and embedded themselves into the ground.
Boulders easily reaching four meters in height blocked every direction, sealing off their retreat.
The only person capable of casting such magic in an instant was a single individual.
‘That sleeping incense was meant to put a massive beast to sleep…!’
Unbelievable as it was, she seemed to have awakened.
Rayna Heart.
“You know.”
The spies raised their heads at the sound coming from above.
Sitting atop the boulders that trapped them like a prison, an eighteen-year-old mage looked down at them with quiet silver eyes.
For a moment, their gazes were stolen by her long, fluttering light-purple hair overlapping with the moon,
before Rayna opened her mouth:
“The thing inside that sack—is that our kid?”
At her voice tinged with rage, the spies swallowed hard.
A little over ten minutes prior.
The campsite, now a sea of fire.
The spies slipped a sleeping agent into the soup.
What popped up before Rayna’s eyes as she searched for Kebeniark was a semi-transparent window.
Although it appeared to be showing the contents of the novel, this situation was something that never happened in the original story.
However, Rayna didn’t have the luxury to question it.
‘Spies.’
A force acting on someone’s orders had deliberately put everyone to sleep and kidnapped Kebeniark.
The contents of the window changed continuously.
They sought out the highest and deepest canyon. So that no one could ever find the child’s corpse. So he would spend an eternity alone within it.
‘Corpse?’
Her mind turned icy cold.
Even as she thought Kebeniark wouldn’t die since he wasn’t an extra, she couldn’t help the anxiety welling up within her.
Rayna lifted her head to scan the surroundings. High canyons. Not far off, a cliff similar to what the text described came into view.
“Water.”
After casting magic to douse the surroundings engulfed in fire with water, Rayna immediately teleported to that location.
Climbing high up into a tree, she saw two figures disguised in black running toward the area.
‘It’s those bastards.’
And with that, she blocked off all their retreat options with boulders.
Rayna asked the spies again, who were looking up at her with panicked expressions:
“I asked if that’s our kid.”
“Kugh.”
Beside the spy holding the sack, the other spy spat blood from his mouth.
Judging the mission to be a failure, he had bitten down on a poison-filled molar to commit suicide.
‘This mission is a failure.’
The spy carrying the sack over his shoulder tried to bite down on his own molar as well. But then—
His entire body wouldn’t move.
Every muscle, his jaw, his tongue—even blinking his eyes was impossible to do of his own free will.
It felt as if countless invisible, tiny hands were digging into his body, seizing hold of every single cell.
‘To think such a thing is possible!’
Rayna Heart’s magic.
As he froze in horror, the spy then felt as if those hands were rummaging through his mind.
‘Arrrrgh!’
It was excruciatingly painful, yet he wasn’t even permitted to let out a painful groan.
Unable to scream, making only a gasp as if suffocating, the spy lost consciousness and collapsed forward.
Receiving the sack she had gently floated into the air, Rayna looked at the window that popped up before her.
The ones behind the spies were the Empress.
‘You should’ve told me earlier.’
She had used magic for nothing.
The Empress’s Palace of the Betuzenia Empire.
Tratsha Heteroben, mother of the First Prince and the Empress.
Together with the First Imperial Concubine with whom she had been chatting, she stared at the woman standing in the center of the room with a pale face.
An eighteen-year-old young archmage who still retained a youthful face.
“Rayna… Heart.”
She had appeared right before their eyes through teleportation.
The guard knights nearby rushed toward Rayna, but—
“Kugh…”
They were rendered helpless, their bodies bound by Rayna’s magic.
Throwing a man—unknown whether he was dead or alive—whom she had brought along onto the floor, Rayna asked the Empress,
“Did Your Majesty send them?”
Low, sunken eyes turned toward her. The Empress, Tratsha, denied it.
“I do not know these men.”
“Is that so?”
“Viscountess Heart! Observe your manners! You are in the presence of Her Majesty the Empress!”
Beside her, the First Imperial Concubine shouted at Rayna.
Instead of answering her, Rayna raised her hand.
“Magic…!”
A startled gasp came from the Concubine’s mouth, but her following words didn’t continue.
The spy, who was not yet dead, was lifted into the air.
The terrified Empress and Concubine. The immovable knights.
Inside the quiet room, Rayna recited a magic spell.
The spy stammered out words:
“The one… who ordered us to murder the Fourth Prince… was Her Majesty the Empress—”
“NO!!”
The Empress, Tratsha, screamed.
“Viscountess Heart! It was not me! It’s a frame-up!”
The hands gripping the armrests of her chair trembled violently.
She was terrified. Right now, there was nothing to protect her life from Rayna Heart right in front of her.
Neither the Empress’s power nor the imperial family’s military might.
Humiliating as it was, she had to beg that she hadn’t done it to that young mage.
Above all, she had to survive this moment to enjoy what was hers, after all.
Rayna looked at the Empress, who was frantically shouting.
‘Pathetic.’
They were mere royals like this.
What was so great about them that they had ignored and mistreated that child so much?
Rayna bit the inside of her lip. Kebeniark had left the imperial palace without receiving a single apology from those who had abused him.
‘On top of that, you send people to kill the kid?’
If not for her resolve to no longer interfere with the original story…
Instead of Kebeniark, she could have become the monster that swallowed the imperial palace.
Rayna walked toward the Empress, who was still claiming her innocence.
At her approaching figure, the Empress and First Imperial Concubine trembled like aspen leaves in the wind.
“Why would I try to kill the Fourth Prince, who is like a son to me!”
“H-Her Majesty is right! This is a frame-up…!”
Would the day ever come when Kebeniark received a sincere apology from these people?
Rayna looked down at them and spoke in a calm tone:
“I believe you.”
Rayna had no intention of killing her.
The Empress and Concubine felt relieved, but soon gasped upon seeing those cold silver eyes.
“So whatever happens in the future, the ones behind it better not be you two.”
A warning not to touch the Fourth Prince.
“Unless you want me to visit again.”
Leaving those words behind, Rayna Heart vanished somewhere.
Kebeniark opened his blue eyes abruptly at the morning sunlight.
He looked around. He was on a cozy bed in a place he had never seen before.
“Your Highness…?”
“Rayna!”
A fumbling hand grabbed Kebeniark’s shoulder and pulled him down.
Trapped under Rayna’s arm, Kebeniark asked her,
“Are you awake? Where are we?”
“I’m not awake yet, and this is Ribeiro.”
Rayna’s eyelids were tightly closed with the determination not to open them.
As if trying to put Kebeniark back to sleep, she patted his back.
“Sleep more.”
Last night had been long.
Exhausted, Rayna pulled the blanket up to her neck.
‘Lying in bed really is the best, after all.’
Underneath that blanket, Kebeniark snuggled into the arms of the yawning Rayna and closed his eyes with a smile.
‘I love Rayna so much.’
