Chapter 76
Chapter: 76
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 076
>Chapter Title: Salt Crystal Determination (7)
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>After walking for quite some time, guided by something that could have been a ghost or a spirit, Seongjin encountered Sir Karmen, who was surrounded by the capital guard and getting thoroughly beaten.
‘…He’s not the type to take a beating like that without fighting back.’
Seongjin had always considered Sir Karmen one of the more noteworthy knights among the palace knights, so this struck him as odd. But soon enough, he realized the man was desperately shielding someone.
No matter how you sliced it, this wasn’t a normal situation, even if it was the capital guard doing their job.
Judging as much, Seongjin decided to intervene.
“Hey, hold it right there.”
Strangely, the moment he encountered Sir Karmen, the ghost vanished on the spot. Maybe that had been its goal all along.
Either way, he didn’t have time to worry about ghosts right now.
“The capital guard is rounding up every single person with a rash in the imperial capital and dragging them to the Heresy Tribunal. All under the pretext of the Devil’s Curse!”
Seongjin frowned at Sir Karmen’s words.
The gray plague had already been revealed to be caused by monster eggs.
On top of that, the Heresy Tribunal had long since concluded it was a plague, not a curse.
The [Monster Task Force] was about to be established, and they just needed to extract the eggs from every patient they found.
Who was behind this, and for what purpose?
Did the Holy Emperor even know about it?
More importantly, the condition of the patient Sir Karmen was protecting looked dire.
It had been quite some time since the Loperum egg had parasitized him, it seemed. The rash was fading, and his entire body was turning gray.
[The egg’s still alive.]
The Demon King, after examining the patient, whispered the info.
[But something’s off. There are an insane number of salt crystals in that guy’s head. What the hell? I’ve never seen anything like this.]
At the Demon King’s words, Seongjin’s intuition suddenly whispered to him.
He needed to take this man somewhere and investigate.
This might even be connected to the root cause of the gray plague.
“We’re taking this patient with us. Step aside and don’t interfere.”
Seongjin quietly urged the capital guard to back off, and in the end, they obediently lay down on the ground and cleared a path.
Well, he wouldn’t deny that a bit of force had been involved in the process, in pursuit of efficiency.
And Sir Karmen stared at Seongjin like he was some criminal of the century.
After all the trouble of saving him from the beating, and this was the thanks he got? Ungrateful bastard!
Seongjin hoisted the patient onto his back in place of the battered Sir Karmen and hurried toward the imperial palace.
He’d judged that the palace infirmary, where Karmen had originally been headed, felt somehow unsafe.
For now, he’d protect the patient in the Pearl Palace, then track down the whereabouts of the other patients who’d been taken.
Considering what had happened to the academy students imprisoned by the Heresy Tribunal, it was a miracle if they weren’t just beating the patients to death on the spot.
‘First, I need to report this to Father…’
To do that, he’d have to come clean about sneaking out of the palace first.
Security around the palace was bound to get even tighter from now on.
Dasha would give him an earful, too.
It was definitely going straight into the ears of Masin, the head of his guard.
‘…Sir Masin’s going to be furious.’
Seongjin let out a quiet sigh.
Not wanting to waste time, he took a winding route to avoid running into any more capital guards. Fortunately, Sir Karmen—looking like he could barely walk—somehow managed to stagger along behind him.
All the while, the Demon King kept chattering nonstop about what he’d discovered.
Namely, the salt crystals filling the patient’s head.
[At this rate, channeling is flat-out impossible.]
For salt crystals to function properly like Bartosi’s, they needed the right form and size first and foremost.
But this patient was different.
The Demon King described it as if someone had sprinkled glass dust all over his brain—an eerie state. Each one was so pathetic it was embarrassing to even call them crystals.
‘So does this guy hear voices and stuff like that?’
When Seongjin recalled Sir Sharon’s case and asked, the Demon King denied the possibility outright.
[No way. The salt crystals in that mad knight we saw earlier were incomplete but still had some shape to them. These can’t even detect anything. They’re just grains of sand.]
In other words, they were nothing more than impurities clogging up his brain.
‘So what happens then?’
[His brain just rots away. The more there are, the worse it gets. With his head this messed up, I’m not even sure he can maintain consciousness.]
That made the gray plague the prime suspect, right?
He’d supposedly been a fine knight commander before, so it hadn’t always been like this.
Maybe the brains of gray plague victims gradually deteriorated like this.
Sir Haven had been found early and recovered without aftereffects, but it might be worth checking other patients whose illness had progressed further.
He considered asking Sir Karmen about the patient’s previous condition, but when he glanced back, the man was walking with a deeply serious expression, lost in thought.
-This man was once the commander of the Royal Guard. Please, don’t let the Heresy Tribunal take him!
The way he’d desperately shielded him even while getting beaten, and pleading so desperately with someone he’d always treated insolently.
What was this patient’s connection to Sir Karmen?
It also bothered him that a former palace knight commander had ended up looking like a vagabond.
Sensing he might be treading on something deeply sensitive, Seongjin gave up on asking more and shut his mouth.
When they finally reached the palace’s second east gate, Seongjin felt a bit dejected.
The unmanned side gate was now lit up like broad daylight with torches.
Armed Royal Guard knights stood in formation around it, and here and there, paladins in the uniforms of the Saint Aurelion Order were visible.
And at their head stood Sir Masin.
‘In the end, I dragged the head of my guard out in the dead of night…’
He hadn’t expected to sneak back in the same way he’d left, but this level of fanfare made it feel like he’d caused a major incident.
They must have found out he’d slipped away, right?
But when exactly had they discovered it?
How had they pinpointed the second east gate so precisely?
Such thoughts raced through his mind only briefly. The palace knights spotted Seongjin’s group and came rushing over in alarm.
They were shocked in sequence: by the young prince carrying someone on his back, by the fact that the person being carried looked like a complete beggar, and by the palace knight—who should have been escorting the prince—being covered in wounds and barely able to stand.
While handing the patient over to the knights, Seongjin spotted Sir Kurt’s face and gave him instructions.
“This man is a guest of the Pearl Palace. He has the gray plague, so take him straight there—no detours—and show him to Physician Ninnias immediately. Tell her to hurry with extracting the egg first.”
Sir Kurt stood there with his mouth agape, as if deeply shocked by something. Then he snapped out of it and ordered the other knights to weave knight capes into a makeshift stretcher.
In the midst of that, Seongjin noticed Sir Karmen staring endlessly at the stretcher bearing the patient.
That guy’s totally spaced out.
“…Put Sir Karmen on there with him.”
As Seongjin waved his hand dismissively, two palace knights approached and supported Karmen.
Sir Kurt, who had been directing the process, gave Seongjin a strange look for a moment, then bowed politely.
He then led the stretcher with the patient and Sir Karmen toward the Pearl Palace.
Only then could Seongjin finally turn to face Sir Masin.
He’d half-expected the man to come running up and chew him out the moment he saw him, but surprisingly, Masin stood at a distance, silently watching Seongjin with a stiff expression.
The atmosphere felt off, so Seongjin hesitantly approached and opened his mouth.
“Uh, um…”
“…”
“…Sorry for sneaking out on my own, Sir Masin.”
Masin looked down at Seongjin wordlessly for a moment, then removed his own cloak and draped it over Seongjin’s shoulders.
He carefully adjusted it to cover the torn old cloak and pajamas underneath.
“Sir, Sir Masin…”
“There is no need for Your Highness to apologize.”
Looking up at the firm reply, Seongjin saw that Masin’s face was laden with all the sorrows of the world, utterly downcast.
“I am the head of security for the Pearl Palace. This incident is entirely my failure.”
“Huh? I’m the one who left, so why…”
“I have done a great deal of reflection in light of recent events.”
Reflection? You?
“I forced my own standards on Your Highness and failed to show sufficient trust. I made Your Highness feel the need to exclude me and act on your own. I drove you to make this perilous outing alone in the dead of night. All of it is my own shortcomings.”
This guy’s dead serious.
Seongjin was horrified.
No, wait, no! You stubborn old man!
Don’t dig yourself into a hole over a little midnight stroll!
“Despite failing to fulfill my duties properly, I dared to meddle and give unsolicited advice to Your Highness. I am truly ashamed.”
“Uh, I mean…”
“I should have followed Your Highness with faith from the start, yet as a vassal, I abandoned my duty and still demanded your trust. Now that I realize it, I don’t know how I can face you with any dignity…”
“…Sir Masin?”
“I’ve only recently taken on the role of Pearl Palace security, and now how can I show my face to His Majesty? If I could make amends with death, I’d gladly die and revive a hundred times…”
“Stop! I was wrong, Sir Masin!”
I swear I’ll never sneak out without you again!
So please stop at the mental breakdown level! Don’t drill down to soul-crushing guilt!
As Seongjin flailed in panic, the Demon King asked in disbelief.
[…Are you the one calming that guy down? Or am I imagining it?]
>* * *
>The moment Seongjin arrived at the Pearl Palace, he received a summons from the Holy Emperor.
He’d planned to go anyway. If someone was arbitrarily rounding people up, it was something that absolutely needed to be reported to the emperor.
After quickly changing clothes, Seongjin headed straight to the main palace.
Perhaps because it was deep in the night, the main palace was still shrouded in darkness. Only the Holy Emperor’s office was brightly lit.
“The Royal Guard should have gone into full alert, but fortunately, His Majesty sent a messenger to the Pearl Palace beforehand, before things escalated.”
Masin explained with a face that hadn’t yet shaken off its gloom.
It was no small matter—the prince had suddenly vanished. The entire palace could have been in an uproar, but the Holy Emperor had reassured the Pearl Palace staff and tipped them off to go greet him at the second east gate.
“Wait, the second east gate?”
“His Majesty specified it exactly.”
The culprit who’d pinpointed the second east gate was the Holy Emperor.
Just how long had that man known?
“…And how did you know I was gone?”
Seongjin had prided himself on slipping out without a trace, so he was very curious about how he’d been found out.
But Masin’s answer was unexpected.
“Your Highness’s personal maid came to your room, saying something felt off.”
Edith?
“Yes. She said she couldn’t hear Your Highness’s voice. Apparently, you always mumble something like sleep-talking around the same time every night.”
“……?”
It was news to him.
I have sleep-talking habits?
Hey, Demon King? Know anything about this?
[…….]
The Demon King went silent.
He always kept his mouth shut like a frightened mouse whenever they came to the main palace, wary of the Holy Emperor, but Seongjin could vividly sense the guy’s uneasy feelings.
This bastard’s suspicious.
They arrived at the office just then, so his thoughts didn’t continue.
“His Majesty is waiting, Your Highness.”
Guided by Lewis, Seongjin entered the office.
He’d braced for a scolding over the major screw-up, but the Holy Emperor’s face, when they met, was calmer than expected.
“You’re here.”
“…Yes.”
With a relaxed expression, he gazed steadily at Seongjin and beckoned silently.
“……?”
Unsure what was happening, Seongjin approached, and the Holy Emperor’s hand slowly rose toward his forehead.
Tensing up, expecting a flick on the forehead or something, a brilliant beam of light suddenly burst from the hand touching his forehead and poured down over his head.
Only then did Seongjin realize he’d been feeling minor pains all over his body.
“Your aura flow is disrupted. You overworked it all at once, didn’t you?”
Come to think of it, he’d been a bit reckless with his aura while fighting the capital guard.
By now, he wasn’t all that surprised that this man could see even that.
Relieved as his shoulders felt much better, Seongjin rolled them around, and the Holy Emperor nodded toward a seat.
“Sit.”
It didn’t seem like he planned to make an issue of the unauthorized outing.
So judging, Seongjin obediently took the seat across from him and cut straight to the chase.
“Someone’s rounding up all the gray plague patients and hauling them to the Heresy Tribunal. They even swept up people with normal skin conditions under suspicion of early-stage curse. Did you know about this?”
“…….”
The Holy Emperor didn’t reply, but Seongjin could read the answer.
“Then why…”
Doubts piled up until they stuck in his throat.
In fact, Seongjin had something he’d wanted to ask the Holy Emperor for a while now.
-Father, didn’t you know the true nature of the gray plague from the start?
It was a question he’d harbored ever since receiving Dasha’s report on the Monster Task Force.
Wasn’t the link between the gray plague and the new plague a bit tenuous to call them definitively the same disease?
The early stage with rashes, and the late stage where the whole body turns gray and hardens.
Eggs extracted from early patients, stone fragments found in dead bodies.
To firmly connect them, you’d need to directly observe and prove the progression from one to the other first.
Yet the moment Seongjin relayed the info on the parasitic eggs, the Holy Emperor had immediately declared them the same disease—as if he’d been waiting—and ordered a new department formed.
And he hadn’t objected to Seongjin inserting himself under the pretext of consultation.
He clearly had some idea how knowledgeable Seongjin was about monsters and how easily he could detect parasitic eggs using the Demon King.
In any case, Seongjin had at least thought the Holy Emperor intended to resolve the gray plague.
“I thought the [Monster Task Force] was primarily aimed at resolving the gray plague crisis. But someone acting on their own like this goes against that goal, doesn’t it? Why let it slide?”
“…….”
A brief silence flowed.
“…The Monster Task Force…”
And at last, the Holy Emperor spoke, giving an enigmatic answer.
“…is a small gear that will one day support one pillar of Delcross, Mores.”
For a moment, Seongjin blinked, not grasping it right away.
Then, a conversation with the Holy Emperor from quite some time ago faintly resurfaced in his mind.
-Politics is like a massive clockwork mechanism, with every gear meshing perfectly without a single misalignment.
Wait, that was ages ago.
As he felt bewildered, the Holy Emperor continued.
“And the one moving the capital guard on their own right now is no different.”
“…One of the gears in that flawless clockwork?”
When Seongjin asked skeptically, the Holy Emperor nodded with an impassive face.
“Yes, a delicate mechanism that could break if tampered with carelessly.”
“…….”
“Do you find this situation absurd?”
As Seongjin met the Holy Emperor’s sunken gaze, the corners of his mouth seemed to twitch upward ever so slightly.
“Do as you wish. If you want to correct that absurdity, then it shall be so.”