Worse Than a Beast
King Carlos II remained silent for a very long time. He simply sat upon his throne, staring quietly down at the floor of the audience chamber.
If Iris had been here, she would have openly shown her displeasure. If Gerard had been the one standing beside me, he would have tried his hardest to hide his discomfort. But the person next to me was neither of them—it was Daisy. And Daisy wasn’t the type to blatantly reveal her displeasure like that. To truly make her angry, you would need to point a sword at me.
“Your Majesty. You’re not sleeping, are you? You can’t fall asleep.”
“...”
Yes, she showed no displeasure, but she also had zero sense of gravity. I had no idea what part of the king had given her the impression he was dozing off. For a moment I wondered if she was trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere with a joke, but the look on her face was one hundred percent sincere, so I simply turned my head away.
Fortunately, the king seemed to regain some composure thanks to Daisy’s words. After maintaining his silence, he finally began to speak, slowly parting his lips.
“...May I ask why you suddenly came here and began inquiring about the prince?”
“I’m curious, and there are things I need to know. There are many reasons.”
At my answer the king closed his mouth again. I had waited long enough. It was time to push forward. Since that prince would be arriving soon, I wanted to confirm everything clearly.
“If it’s uncomfortable for you to speak, then let’s drop the subject. I have no desire to make Your Majesty uneasy. Since that was the reason I returned to the royal palace, I’ll take my leave now.”
It wasn’t that you summoned me—I came because I wanted to. By making that point clear, I gave the king one final chance. Either open your mouth and spit out the information I wanted, or keep agonizing over it by yourself.
“Very well.”
Fortunately, Carlos II was neither stubborn nor excessively prideful. Given the situation, it seemed he desperately needed help.
“However, I have one condition.”
“What is it?”
“I would prefer fewer ears listening.”
At those words I subtly glanced at Daisy standing beside me. The king was clearly asking me to send her away for a while. I looked at her, expecting her to excuse herself on her own, but whether she failed to notice or was pretending not to, she simply kept staring at me.
“Why, Master?”
“...His Majesty said he wants fewer ears listening.”
“Ah, don’t worry. There’s no one here but you and me, Master. The audience chamber has already been completely cleared out, so you can speak freely.”
“Not that, Daisy.”
“Yes?”
“It means one more person needs to leave.”
Only then did understanding seem to dawn on Daisy. She let out a small “Ehh?” of protest and pointed at herself as if to ask, Me? You want me to leave too?
When I nodded, she suddenly began shaking her head vigorously.
“I don’t want to! Why should I?! I’m a Hero too! If it’s something that could cause problems, I have every right to hear it!”
“That’s for this master to judge. I’m telling you to step outside for a bit, aren’t I?”
“I said no! I’m staying right here! I want to listen! It’s so unfair that only Master gets to hear everything!”
“Daisy Blossom. I’ll say it once more. Please step outside.”
“Yes, sir.”
She might be terribly clumsy, but she was good at obeying. Unlike Iris, there was no need to drill a chestnut into her skull using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. Simply lowering my voice and calling her full name was enough.
“Then I’ll wait outside the audience chamber! Please call me when you’re finished talking!”
Click.
As I watched Daisy disappear from the audience chamber far too easily, King Carlos II wore a dazed expression. He turned his head and spoke.
“You truly are their master. To handle those Heroes so easily...”
“I wouldn’t lie about something like that. It would be strange if the Heroes were simply playing along with this charade.”
“That is true. Yes. Those are the right words.”
King Carlos II muttered to himself and nodded. Then he let out a deep sigh, as if the very ground beneath him might collapse. Forcing his reluctant lips to move, he began to speak at length.
“As you have heard, the prince we sent outside—my son—is returning.”
“I heard. The people of the royal capital and other cities brought the news.”
“Correct. It spread through the mouths of the citizens.”
“It seemed strange to me. The royal palace I saw yesterday showed no signs of preparing to welcome a returning prince.”
“...”
“It was as if the prince you hoped would never return was coming back anyway.”
My words must have struck the mark, because King Carlos II bit his lip. He bit so hard that blood began to seep from between his lips. That alone was clear proof that something truly horrific had occurred. I stood quietly and waited for the king’s next words.
“I have one daughter and one son.”
“Is that so? I didn’t realize there was also a princess. I suppose I haven’t paid much attention to worldly affairs.”
“No. Others know little about her as well. She is my firstborn who should have inherited this position, but after a tragedy that occurred long ago, she greatly dislikes showing herself in public.”
“It sounds like something very bad happened.”
“...Yes. Exactly. Just as you said. Something bad—something that should never have happened—did occur.”
He tried to act as though it didn’t affect him, but at my level, his eyes and breathing alone told me everything. I could sense how violently King Carlos II was shuddering inside.
“My son, who returned claiming to have subjugated monsters and demons. In truth, I didn’t simply send him outside. I drove him out. To be precise, I sent him away so that he would disappear completely from this world.”
“...”
The title of prince is only granted to direct bloodline descendants. In other words, the prince I had ordered to go and die was the son of the king sitting before me. As a parent, who would wish death upon their own child? Even Carlos II, who spoke those words, had hands and feet that trembled. It showed just how difficult it was for him to say it aloud.
“They say a child may harm their parent, but a parent should never harm their child.”
“Yes. That is only natural.”
“Yet if you still did it, there must have been a reason. I’d like to know it. The reason you drove Your Majesty’s son outside the capital to his death.”
“...That child had an extreme obsession with his sister.”
“You mean he treated her too excessively as family?”
Carlos II slowly shook his head. At that gesture, the curse fuck? involuntarily burst out inside my mind. No way. It couldn’t be. Not even a distant relative or a cousin. Don’t tell me this insane bastard viewed his own blood sister as an object of romantic desire...
“He tried to rape her.”
“Fucking bastard.”
“...”
“Ah, I apologize, Your Majesty.”
“No. It is the truth, so what can be done? That boy is worse than a beast. It’s not as if there are no other women around the prince. How could he turn his own sister into an object of lust? Even thinking about it makes me nauseous. I can only understand why you would speak that way.”
“...”
“Because of that incident, my daughter—who had always been bright and cheerful until then, my proud successor—has shut herself in her room since that day and refuses to come out. Fortunately the worst was avoided, but she still suffered immense mental trauma. She may have kept her purity, but her soul was gravely wounded.”
“So you drove out the prince who committed such an act. It wasn’t merely a beastly attempt to covet his sister—he completely destroyed the successor to this kingdom.”
At my words, King Carlos II nodded to show his agreement.
“I wanted to kill him. She resembled the late queen, and she was a child who could have become a far greater ruler than I. I wanted to kill and erase the bastard who ruined her. However, the bond of blood is not something that can be severed so easily. He ruined my child, yet that culprit was also my child. How could I kill him with my own hands?”
It was something I couldn’t understand, yet at the same time I had no choice but to understand. I didn’t know a parent’s heart well, but blood ties were said to be tougher and stronger than anything else. How could one kill their own child? Even I couldn’t conceive of harming my disciples, and they shared not a drop of my blood. So how could anyone do it to their own flesh and blood?
“Therefore, what I chose was to drive him out to a land overrun by monsters and demons. With almost no guards, in complete secrecy, I packaged it as the prince simply patrolling the region.”
“So since you couldn’t bear to do it with your own hands, you tried to borrow the claws of monsters and demons?”
While it made a certain kind of sense, I couldn’t deny it had been a foolish decision. If he had truly meant to erase the prince from the world, if he had wanted to eliminate any future threats, it would have been better to act without hesitation or regret.
“There was no news for a long time. So I believed he was dead. Since the palace knew the full horror of what had happened, no one showed any curiosity about the prince or spread information outside. Everything grew quiet.”
“But that prince suddenly returned alive. And quite boldly at that—talking about subjugating demons and the like, as if he were a triumphant general returning from war.”
At my words, King Carlos II clutched his face and nodded. According to him, the prince had never possessed any exceptional skill. He had basic swordsmanship and horsemanship, but that was all. They had thrown him into ruined lands without any escort, so he should have died without question. Even if he claimed to be the prince, people would have treated him as insane and beaten him to death—or so they had thought.
King Carlos II muttered weakly.
“...A prince with no real skill returned alive from that harsh place.”
“It seems the gods have given me punishment for abandoning blood ties. They sent him back to torment his own father.”
“Do you truly believe that?”
“If not, what else could it be? More and more people are appearing, claiming to have witnessed his heroic deeds. They say they didn’t know he was the prince, that they thought he was simply a skilled mercenary, that they received great help from him, that he saved their lives. Such stories are spreading. The nobles and citizens are already praising him and showing signs of wanting to follow him. If this is revenge, then it has been a very successful scheme.”
At the king’s words I simply stared at him quietly. Perhaps sensing my gaze as he sighed heavily, Carlos II, who had been clutching his forehead, lowered his hand and looked at me.
“...Do you have something to say?”
“Do you really think that’s all there is to it? Because I don’t.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“A person with neither skill nor talent survived hell. Up to that point, one could speak of divine grace or sheer luck. But isn’t there one strange point? You said he exterminated them—subjugated them? Monsters are one thing, but demons are different. They aren’t beings you can cut down simply by swinging a sword a few times, Your Majesty.”
Carlos II thought for a moment before replying. Could the prince, consumed by rage at being abandoned, have undergone an awakening? Didn’t people say that even nonexistent talent could suddenly appear?
I shook my head at the king’s opinion.
“Would a flower raised in a hothouse suddenly awaken at this point? I consider the possibility extremely low. Rather, isn’t it more likely that pests have been hiding inside that flower all along, using it as bait? Disguising themselves as butterflies to enter that comfortable greenhouse?”