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Chapter 9
“Your Highness, today you will be studying Kingship, Ancient Languages, and Military Science.”
As the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Michael had been subjected to an intense education from a very young age.
“Make him into someone worthy of being called a person as quickly as possible.”
Those were the Emperor’s orders—to mold the prince into a complete Crown Prince without delay.
Michael entered full-scale Crown Prince education at an exceptionally early age, studying subjects that most imperial family members would not learn until their teenage years.
“Oh! Your Majesty! Prince Michael is undoubtedly a genius.”
“Is that so?”
The problem was that Michael possessed extraordinary talent. He absorbed every lesson, no matter how advanced for his age, as though it naturally belonged to him.
And from an ordinary person’s perspective, that was the beginning of his misfortune.
“Then we can move up the schedule.”
“Your Majesty? But… His Highness is already attending many classes…”
“Silence. Who was it that just claimed the prince was exceptional? Are you saying you lied to me?”
“T-That is not what I meant… How could I ever dare lie to Your Majesty?”
“Then there shouldn’t be any problem. Or is there?”
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
Emperor Dietrich played a tremendous role in creating Michael’s bleak childhood.
His first contribution was ordering that the prince’s already accelerated education be pushed even further.
Michael’s instructors were placed in an impossible position.
The prince was already spending nearly all of his time receiving an education comparable to that of a fully grown adult.
Adequate sleep and time to play for emotional development had disappeared from his schedule long ago.
Even for a grown adult, this schedule is brutal… and now it has to be even faster…?
His conscience as an educator made him hesitate.
But the Emperor’s command was absolute.
In the end, the instructor revised the curriculum according to Emperor Dietrich’s wishes.
“Your Highness, this morning you have Geometry and Geography. Later in the morning, you will debate with the philosopher we invited. Beginning in the afternoon, you have Law, Military Science, and Astronomy. During Military Science, you will briefly leave the palace for cavalry tactics training.”
From classes before dawn to assignments that lasted until midnight—
It was not a schedule a child with a still-developing body could possibly endure.
The merciless timetable drove Michael onward without granting him even a moment’s rest.
Because he slept so little, chronic exhaustion became part of his daily life.
Fortunately, he had been born with an exceptionally strong constitution.
Had he not possessed such remarkable stamina from birth, he would have collapsed hundreds of times over.
He still keeps up without any problems.
Even those who had initially worried gradually stopped paying attention once they saw the prince completing every assignment without complaint.
But they didn’t know.
While enduring that overwhelming education, the prince had missed the most important period of his life—
The time when he should have learned human emotions.
Michael came to view every person exactly as Kingship had taught him to.
Without emotion.
If achieving a goal required it, he would use any means necessary.
His way of thinking was built entirely upon efficiency, devoid of human compassion or morality.
Yet because he accomplished every task placed before him flawlessly, no one realized what was missing inside him.
“Your Highness, the answer to this problem is…”
It was only after his teacher, who had watched him for many years, began to vaguely sense that something was wrong…
“May I ask why you chose this method?”
“Isn’t cutting off the flow of information the correct answer?”
“That is correct. But there is only a single spy. Why did you write that the entire village should be annihilated?”
“Because that is the most efficient solution. The question clearly states that speed in information warfare is critical.”
“That is true. However, imagine this were a real situation. If actual human lives were at stake, what would you do?”
“…?”
By then…
It was already far too late.
“What would be different?”
In the end, Prince Michael grew into the budding image of a ruthless ruler who knew no mercy.
“Pardon?”
“Did I not tell you? Now that you’ve completed your Crown Prince studies, it’s time for you to assist with my state affairs.”
Michael felt no joy whatsoever.
Ordinarily, entrusting the Crown Prince with real governmental duties was proof that he had earned the Emperor’s trust.
Being permitted to participate in imperial affairs would normally be considered a great honor.
But Michael understood perfectly what the Emperor truly meant.
“As it happens, one of today’s matters concerns a petition from a provincial territory. I’ll leave this one for you to resolve.”
The Emperor simply had no desire to leave the capital where his lover resided.
So he dumped every task that required traveling outside onto his young son.
“Judging by how you handled the last matter, I believe you’re more than capable of taking care of something like this now. Don’t you agree?”
Little by little, the Emperor began pushing every troublesome responsibility onto the prince.
He disliked spending much time governing the Empire.
Claiming that practical experience would benefit the future Crown Prince, he worked Michael like a substitute carrying out his own duties.
That day, he had summoned the prince for exactly the same reason.
Michael sat silently during the tea gathering with the Emperor and his consort, staring expressionlessly into his teacup.
“I hear you’ve already been helping Dietrich with many official matters lately. It’s amazing considering how young you still are.”
During these tedious gatherings, the only one who ever spoke to him was the Emperor’s lover, Anat.
The Emperor himself had little interest in Michael as an individual.
Unable to ignore the woman favored by the Emperor while standing before him, Michael answered simply.
“It isn’t anything remarkable.”
“How modest. That’s definitely not something you inherited from Dietrich.”
Anat seemed to believe she was showing kindness to her lover’s son, always acting excessively gentle whenever they met like this.
Yet Michael found her behavior far from welcome.
“You really do look exactly like Dietrich when he was younger.”
Whenever she looked at Michael, it was never truly him she was seeing.
Her gaze always overlapped him with someone else.
Whenever her eyes slowly traced his face as though layering another familiar face over his own, the prince felt an unusually sharp sense of disgust.
“Him?”
“Dietrich.”
“Anat, you shouldn’t be looking at another man besides me. You promised you’d only look at me.”
“Oh, goodness. Another man? He’s your son.”
Whenever his father acted as though Michael were a rival trying to steal his lover’s affection, the prince felt like spitting out the tea in his mouth.
His father had never looked at him with the eyes of a real parent.
But moments like these made the Emperor seem especially repulsive.
“Oh, Anat. I’ve decided to grant your wish and free the beastfolk slaves.”
“Oh my, really? That’s wonderful. Ever since I saw them in that play, I’ve felt so sorry for them.”
“Of course. Is there anything I wouldn’t do for my angel?”
And that…
Was the true reason the Emperor had called him.
“So, Prince, investigate the current situation of the beastfolk slaves and draft a plan immediately.”
The animals inside us are pitiful, so let’s free them.
The beastfolk slaves I saw in the play looked so pitiful, so let’s free them.
Such simple words.
Yet the amount of time required to actually carry them out was immeasurable.
Worse still, there wasn’t even a compelling reason that made the mission absolutely necessary.
No one cared in the slightest about the consequences that would follow.
This wasn’t the first time Michael had been mobilized because of the Emperor’s lover’s whims.
But after witnessing firsthand how utterly meaningless the origin of this assignment was, he felt the faintest stir of irritation.
What a pointless waste…
For someone whose emotions rarely fluctuated, it was considerable displeasure.
Because of the sudden proposal to abolish beastfolk slavery, he had come to investigate the current situation firsthand, hoping to implement the policy gradually so that such a drastic institutional change would not severely shock the Empire’s economy or society.
He had visited a slave merchant to inspect conditions that might be overlooked in written reports.
What he had never expected…
Was to meet a white-haired girl unlike anyone else.
The girl possessed an unusual aura.
Unlike the other slaves, who shrank back fearfully at the arrival of someone who appeared to be of high status alongside the merchant, she remained different.
It wasn’t merely because of her rare hair color.
While everyone else cowered with frightened eyes…
She looked directly into his own.
“…?”
Michael felt something strange.
For just a fleeting instant, it seemed as though joy had crossed her round eyes—
As if she had been waiting for him.
Even though they had never met before.
…Was she waiting for someone?
Perhaps she had been expecting someone who resembled him.
Maybe a childhood friend she had left behind in her homeland.
After all, people projecting someone else onto him had become rather familiar thanks to those cursed tea gatherings in the Imperial Palace.
“…”
For some reason, merely imagining that the girl was searching for someone else in him irritated him.
Perhaps the tea gathering at the Imperial Palace had upset him more than he had realized.
In an unusually sullen voice, Prince Michael said.
