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Chapter : 12
“Your older brother personally searched through the slums and had people gouge out eyes to take with him.”
Silence fell.
In my right eye, there was no natural eyeball that an ordinary person should have. Instead, occupying that place was an artificial eye glowing with an alien blue light, slightly different from my left eye.
“…The Crown Prince did that?”
“Yes.”
A flicker of contempt toward the man called the Crown Prince passed through the purple eyes.
“Unlike you, the revenge I want isn’t for them to die.”
“…?”
“No—honestly, I don’t even want to care whether they live or die. But they can’t die until my revenge is finished. If I’m going to kill them, it’ll be after everything is over.”
Because of that, the gaze that had bordered on contempt was quickly tinged with confusion.
You wouldn’t understand.
If I grabbed just anyone and told them a story like this, this would probably be the most common reaction.
“The family I loved abandoned me, and my lover not only betrayed me but even searched the slums and gouged out my eye. On top of that, I remember nothing from before meeting them, so I don’t even know who my real parents are… Doesn’t it sound like a dramatic play?”
As the events I’d gone through flashed through my mind, emotion slowly seeped into my words.
The Crown Prince said nothing and simply listened in silence.
“A sixteen-year-old girl was thrown out onto the streets with nothing. What do you think happened next?”
“……”
“You think I got kicked out and then miraculously became a spirit mage and went straight to the tower? Don’t make me laugh. I wandered the slums for two years.”
Right before I starved to death, the spirits came to me.
The moment those words left my mouth, I realized my mistake.
I drained the tea that had gone cold on the table in one gulp.
Only after my emotions settled somewhat did I lower my gaze.
“…Sorry. I’ll be going now.”
The Crown Prince remained silent.
I didn’t expect an answer anyway.
Until the very moment I stood up to leave, the room was wrapped in silence.
“Good work.”
Just as I was about to open the door and step out—
“…?”
The Crown Prince whispered softly.
His voice was so quiet that only I could hear it.
I felt my eyes waver.
“What did you say…?”
The Crown Prince was staring straight at me.
“I don’t know exactly what you went through. I know it’s not something you can talk about easily. But… yes. I’m glad you survived. You did well.”
“……”
I couldn’t say anything. I just stared blankly at his face, then snapped back to my senses, shut the door as if fleeing, left the Crown Prince’s palace, and climbed into the carriage.
I closed my eyes.
My eye corners, long since dried up, throbbed as if tears might spill out.
Why was that?
I had no family.
No—maybe I did, but I couldn’t remember them. Even though I was young, my memories from before the age of six were completely gone, as if they’d been carved out.
Then I encountered life at the Duchy of Isien—and was abandoned.
I rolled around in the slums before coming to the Spirit Tower.
Family… not quite, but I had built some trust and close relationships with the people of the Spirit Tower.
No—calling anyone family felt impossible with wounds as deep as mine.
Even now, people who had become precious to me—Shie, Jema, Alec.
Everyone at the Spirit Tower only knew that I’d had a hard time. I’d never really received comfort from them, so maybe that’s why what I felt now was so overwhelming.
Even if he didn’t understand all of my pain, I never imagined that a single, direct word of comfort—“you did well”—would strike my heart so instantly.
The Crown Prince… might actually be a decent person.
Two years ago—around the time he was nearing the end of being eighteen—he joined a monster subjugation mission with the knights and imperial mages, as he did every year unless he was at war.
A scouting party that had left ahead of them discovered a habitat of C-rank monsters deep within the Calavis Mountain Range on the empire’s border, and he immediately headed there.
He was riding high on his success as a Sword Master, which probably made him even more excited to go.
But—
When they entered the habitat guided by the scouts, the first thing they saw were the corpses of monsters.
Some had their heads torn off. Others, their torsos.
Each one was missing a piece.
And then—
[Kuuaaaaaargh!!!!]
Hell unfolded before his eyes.
An A-rank monster slaughtered everyone who had come with him in an instant.
Corpses began piling up around him, and terrified, he dragged his injured leg and hid among the bushes.
The wound on his leg, poisoned by the monster’s saliva, was rotting rapidly.
Rustle.
At that moment, he saw them.
A person wearing a robe.
Deep in the mountains and forest—where people rarely came because of monsters—and despite the obvious fact that one should flee upon seeing such a creature, that person didn’t move.
They were simply watching him.
He realized instinctively: that person was powerful.
[Help me……]
With the last of his strength, Rihar grabbed the hem of the person’s robe.
The robe slipped off.
Long blue hair fluttered free.
The woman didn’t show her face. She merely summoned a cold, piercing ice sword along with the spirits and killed the monster, then pulled her robe back on.
Afterward, she slowly approached him and placed her hand on the wound that covered nearly his entire leg.
Though the wound was rotting and he couldn’t feel much, he still remembered it.
Warmth had been nestled in the woman’s small hand.
[Ugh……]
Before long, the wound was completely healed, and the woman left calmly.
All that remained was himself, staring blankly in the direction she’d disappeared.
He wanted to see that beautiful, cold trace of power again.
Rihar opened his eyes.
Pale blue hair.
A spirit mage.
Her hair color was different now, but he’d heard rumors that the former young lady of House Isien had been adopted because she resembled Arienne in hair and eye color alike. Then perhaps her current hair had been dyed so she wouldn’t be recognized.
Could it have been Rien?
Rien troubled him in a different way than the woman from his memories.
An indifferent, cold woman, yet somehow amusing as well.
Her presence was extremely faint.
How should he describe it? She carried an atmosphere like an illusion that would shatter at a touch, as if she might vanish in an instant.
And before he realized it, he’d become completely captivated by Rien’s aura.
Her dark eyes only seemed to show something like vitality when she spoke of revenge—or when she met someone connected to it, like earlier.
“Did you think I got kicked out and then miraculously became a spirit mage and went to the tower? Don’t make me laugh. I wandered the slums for two years.”
The only time he’d seen anything resembling genuine emotion from her was not long ago, when she’d spoken about her past after an audience with the Emperor and briefly grew agitated.
He wanted her indifferent eyes to reflect him.
Rihar flinched at the thought that had surfaced unbidden—then accepted it.
He wanted to be fully reflected in her eyes.
He wanted to make her care about him more—at least as much as he cared about her, or even more.
In the Lupium Empire, the Emperor was a cunning man and equally adept at political maneuvering, so the people followed him quite faithfully, calling him a wise ruler.
The Crown Prince, for his part, was firmly etched in their minds as kind and intellectual, and his approval was also quite high.
In truth, if one considered who protected their safety the most, the Prince—who had gone to battlefields and subjugation missions countless times since childhood—should naturally have had the highest support. Unfortunately, the people only cared about what happened right before their eyes, or close to them.
Busy just trying to survive day by day, they had no reason to care about wars fought far away at the borders.
To them, war was nothing more than a distant, dangerous story.
“…Really, sister. Honestly, with the Emperor’s looks and all… I don’t quite understand why he’s called a wise ruler. Don’t you think so?”
Pulled from my thoughts, I raised my head.
Lilia—who had long been eager either for me to visit her estate or for her to come to ours—had shown up early in the morning the moment Shie and I gave permission. She’d immediately plopped down next to me on a long white bench in the garden and started chattering away.
“Lilia, you said you’re cousins with the Cr— no, with Rihar, right? Then with the Crown Prince, your relationship—”
“…Sister.”
At the noticeably gloomy tone, I looked up.
Lilia’s face, which had been relaxed and smiling, was now unusually stiff.
“The Crown Prince, the Empress, and even His Majesty the Emperor—everyone in the imperial family except Rihar and the Third Prince—is an enemy of the Schtrien family.”
Lilia had just turned eighteen.
She was still young.
Even as a noble lady, it seemed she couldn’t fully control her expression here. As she spoke, her face twisted as if she were about to cry, as though recalling someone.
“Poor Aunt….”
I silently pulled Lilia into a hug.
Then came the day of Adriel’s birthday banquet.
From the break of dawn, I was dragged around here and there by Shie.
“Shie, I’m sleepy—”
“This is something the maids are supposed to do, but I’m doing it especially for you. You’re today’s star.”
“No, originally it’s the Third Prince’s birthday ban—”
“Be quiet. You might be fine with it, but I’m not.”
What exactly wasn’t fine?
Barely keeping my eyes open, I staggered along like a corpse as Shie pulled me.
I’d always needed a lot of sleep, and being forced into a bath at the crack of dawn made me feel like I might die.
And once I was in the water, I started feeling even more drowsy…
“…!”
Feeling something hot touch my hair, I snapped my eyes open.
Perhaps noticing my flinch, Shie looked at me through the mirror in front of us and shot me a cool glare.
“You wake up early, don’t you. We’re almost done, so don’t move.”
I stared blankly at the mirror, then startled and tried to turn around at the sight reflected there—only to be forced to face forward again by Shie gripping my head firmly.
In the mirror, someone who wasn’t quite me was staring back.
No—it was me, but unfamiliar…
Had my eyes always been that striking?
“I told you. If you dress up, you’d be way prettier than those people.”
At some point, I was already fully dressed.
Shie practically shoved me out of the estate.
The Crown Prince, who’d been waiting by the carriage in a black uniform with a pale violet handkerchief—the same color as my dress—tucked into his breast pocket, looked at me and froze.
Was something strange?
“…You look different.”
“…?”
I didn’t notice it then, but as he said that, the tips of the Prince’s ears were faintly flushed.
“Siissteeer!!!”
As soon as we arrived at the imperial palace and I stepped down from the carriage, a child dressed in an elegant formal outfit ran straight at me and hugged me.
“Ad— no, Your Highness.”
Just as I hesitated over whether to use honorifics—since he was the Third Prince—seeing his dejected expression, I carefully called his name.
“Adriel?”
His face brightened instantly, and he rubbed his head against my waist.
He was very easy to read.
When I gently wrapped my arms around the child’s shoulders as he showed no sign of letting go, he began acting even more spoiled.
Smiling at the sight so fitting for his age, I lowered myself and whispered into his ear.
“Adriel, happy birthday. I’ll give you your present later at the banquet.”
Today was also the day my engagement to the Crown Prince would be announced, but for this child, it was the one day a year that was truly his—his birthday.
And according to Shie, this was the first time it was being celebrated with a formal banquet.
For a member of the imperial family, lavish banquets from the age of one were normal, but because he’d never even received the Emperor’s attention, this—at eight years old—was his first.
The child’s cheeks flushed red at my congratulations.
