Chapter 196: I'm Going to Raise a Dog (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 196: I'm Going to Raise a Dog (3)
Someday, I'll have to tell him, he had thought.
It was a story he had put off time and time again.
As Calian recalled it, a wry smile touched his lips.
The one who knew every single detail of Calian's secret was Alan. The one who must absolutely never find out was Lemain. And naturally, the one he wished to keep in the dark until the day he died was Yan.
"Well, now..."
And then there was Arsen—the one who stirred a paradoxical desire in him. He desperately wished Arsen would realize the truth, yet at the same time, hoped he would never find out.
Calian knew Arsen wouldn't be satisfied with the simple explanation Lemain had accepted—that Calian merely possessed the memories of a Sword Master. With all due respect to the king, Arsen was a bit sharper than Lemain.
Arsen's vibrant blue hair had grown long, a consequence of being too busy to cut it. Calian suddenly found himself thinking that while it was so different from the short hair Arsen had kept back then, it also bore a striking resemblance.
"Why do you follow me, Sir Hertz?" Calian asked, his gaze fixed on the tips of that blue hair. It was a question he had never posed before.
Arsen didn't answer immediately, simply looking back at him. Calian continued.
"I don't recall ever treating you particularly well. I find it curious—and somewhat strange—that you follow me so devotedly."
If it was because of the black hair and red eyes he shared with the other Valkan mages, then Arsen wasn't truly following the current Calian. After all, the original Calian—or rather, Bern—had never possessed such short, pitch-black hair, nor those flame-like eyes that burned with some unknown fire.
A pair of clear, bright blue eyes met Calian's. Gazing at him with eyes the color of the sky over a winter beach just after sunrise, Arsen smiled faintly.
"You don't have to answer me today, Your Highness. I'll wait."
To the question of why he followed him, Arsen could have easily replied that Calian was the only person he considered good, but he chose to say only this.
Watching him, Calian let out a soft chuckle.
He understood exactly what Arsen meant.
"This is why I could never bring myself to keep you at a distance, Sir Hertz."
Arsen already knew Calian had a secret. He was saying that if Calian was asking this question because he was still deciding whether it was safe to share the details, then he would simply wait.
Calian understood the meaning behind his words completely. And so, he spoke.
"Right. You deserve an answer of equal weight. Since you are, after all, the one who ended my life."
* * *
The scent of mint was sometimes refreshing, and sometimes sweet.
Before he knew it, he had grown fond of the aroma and found himself unable to let go of his teacup.
"Ah, now that I think about it."
The man's fingertips tapped the rim of his teacup as he murmured quietly. Just as the small ripples in the still tea subsided, his deep violet eyes turned toward Teilan.
"It didn't occur to me to wonder if that mage knew the truth as well."
The blue-haired mage who seemed to hang on Calian's every word. Chase hadn't considered whether that mage knew about Calian's past.
Noticing Teilan looking at him as if to ask what on earth he was rambling about now, Chase offered a gentle smile.
"I thought the mage was trustworthy, so I instructed them to deliver the letter to Prince Calian through him if they couldn't meet Prince Franz. But it never crossed my mind to consider whether he actually knew about Prince Calian's past."
He was only just now realizing that he had dragged 'that mage,' Arsen, into this without knowing if he was aware of the truth about Calian.
Unaware that this belated realization was about to interrupt Calian's quiet afternoon with his cat and force him to once again display his knack for getting caught, Chase smiled faintly and continued.
"Hmm. What if he didn't know?"
Of course, recognizing a situation and devising a solution were two different matters. With an expression that clearly said, Well, they'll figure it out somehow, Chase chuckled softly.
Teilan, easily catching the "whatever happens, happens" nuance in Chase's tone, asked with a bewildered expression, "If you mean that mage... is he that mage?"
The mage whose name he could never quite remember—the one said to have taken the lives of Chase's younger brother, who was also Teilan's disciple, and Chase himself. He was asking if this Arsen was that very person.
Despite the incredibly vague question, Chase didn't laugh or scold him. He simply nodded, understanding that Teilan had spoken so vaguely because he couldn't bring himself to say it outright.
"Yes," Chase replied, adding an explanation. "He seems to be repaying his debt well enough now, but I didn't consider whether he was doing so because he actually knows the details."
Saying this, Chase mentally tried to list those who might know Calian's secret to gauge if Arsen was among them, but he soon gave up. He could almost hear Franz's voice in his ear, saying it would be faster to count the people who didn't know.
Because almost everyone around Calian seemed to know the truth, Chase's mistake had been not giving it a second thought.
"Besides, I thought it might be better for him to repay his debt knowing the truth."
Upon hearing this, Teilan, rather than asking if it had truly been a mistake, simply lifted the teacup before him. The scent, both refreshing and sweet, was quite to his liking as well.
It was a fragrance that suited the third prince perfectly, he thought.
* * *
He didn't ask why Randel was laughing.
He didn't ask why he smiled like that.
He didn't try to gauge what Randel's smile contained, or if it contained anything at all. He had no desire to show any more interest in someone who had only ever watched from a distance.
— Do not make a fuss. Nothing will change anyway.
Standing before someone who did not remember the past, he did not mention that he remembered every single bit of it.
"To do both is greed."
It was a warning not to blame others as if he were the only one hurting, all while ignoring his own sins. It was a reminder that having received many wounds did not erase the wounds one had inflicted.
Mulling over those words, Randel turned his gaze to Franz.
"How regrettable."
"There is nothing to regret," Franz replied without hesitation to the remark that it was a shame he couldn't do both.
Looking down at Franz's face, Randel spoke quietly.
"Are you trying to say I'm no different from His Majesty?"
The words were delivered with undisguised displeasure at being compared to Lemain. After staring at Randel for a moment, Franz spoke slowly.
"How could you even think that?"
Even without a detailed explanation, Randel would have understood. Yet, Franz went out of his way to elaborate.
"...His Majesty at least knows the difference between the one who stabs and the one who is stabbed. When someone who has been far worse than him—never better—says something like that, how am I supposed to respond?"
At the very least, Lemain had not tried to hide behind the excuse of having no choice. He had not played the hypocrite, pretending to be a victim himself.
"No one in this palace is like you, brother. A fitting sentiment for someone who believes himself the sole victim of injustice."
There was no need to pluck a rose and wave it before his eyes. Franz already knew that Randel considered Lemain the lowest of the low. He also knew exactly how the claim that he was worse than Lemain would sound to Randel.
So, he simply used words Calian had once said.
Because of this, Randel stared into Franz's eyes once more. He had always disliked those eyes but had never avoided them, so Franz met his gaze in silence.
Toward Franz's eyes, which now shone with clear resolve, Randel asked, "Does seeing it that way change anything?"
He was asking why one should bother to see reality for what it was when, in the end, nothing would change.
Franz smiled.
"You realize it's already too late."
Knowing he wasn't finished, Randel remained silent.
"And you also realize that it shouldn't have been."
"I don't know what you think is too late."
"In any case," Franz said, raising his hand.
His long, slightly bony fingers pointed toward Randel. Not at his seemingly empty eyes, but toward his chest, where his heart surely held many other things.
"You won't open it anyway. So why are you so curious?"
Staring quietly at the pointing finger, Randel looked back up at Franz. He spoke in a low voice to this Franz, who was so different from the brother he used to know.
"How unexpected. To be having this conversation with you."
Franz stared into Randel's eyes, his own gaze packed with emotion.
"I found it unexpected, too. How could I have known that someone who can't even manage something so small would dare try to use my younger brother for his own gain?"
Having his own words thrown back at him, Randel let out another chuckle. Watching him laugh quietly, Franz stood up without another word.
He had said all he needed to say and was about to leave when Randel's voice stopped him.
"Tell me before you go. Why did you change like this?"
Going out of his way to visit Randel and make a request. Returning a new wound for the old one, refusing to back down, and stubbornly standing face-to-face. What was the purpose behind such persistence?
Franz, who had already risen, looked down at the back of the still-seated Randel and spoke in a low voice.
"To live. While raising a cat. While breathing."
The third prince said he would raise a dog.
If the second prince said he would raise a cat...
Then who was supposed to raise this kingdom?
Without answering that question, Franz turned and walked out with heavy, deliberate steps.
* * *
Speaking as Bern, he had done it only once.
Speaking as Calian... well, how many times had it been?
When he was Bern, he might have been terrible at lying, but he had been exceptionally good at hiding things. How had he become so bad at it now?
Was it because he was sick and tired of hiding?
Or was it simply...
"...Perhaps because I grew greedy for someone to recognize me. Before I knew it, I didn't really feel like hiding it anymore."
Having finished telling the whole story, Calian spoke. He took a sip of black tea to moisten his dry throat. His mouth tasted bitter again, making the tea taste like coffee.
"Still, I thought about hiding it from you, but at the same time, I wanted to tell you first. That's how I've spent the past year."
He rambled on.
He had told the entire story from beginning to end without once looking at Arsen's face. Still avoiding his gaze, Calian drank his tea and pulled Lucy, who had wandered over, into his arms.
Using magic, he brushed off the cat hair that clung to his black clothes. Even so, more fur stuck to him, so he channeled his mana once more.
He wasted time on such trivial things, persistently avoiding Arsen's gaze.
"Is that really true?" Arsen asked after a long silence.
It was an unbelievable story, so the question was perfectly understandable. Calian was about to nod when Arsen added:
"Are you saying I truly worked under the Vice-Commander, your older brother?"
Ah.
Wait.
"That's the part you find hard to believe?" Calian slipped into informal speech without even realizing it, his head snapping up to stare at Arsen.
Arsen was smiling.
His face was so different from the day he had ended the life of a battered, dying Bern.
He didn't thank Calian for telling him or say the story was too unbelievable to process. He didn't look at him with pity like Alan, show anger like Kyrie, or shoulder guilt like Franz.
He didn't harbor any twisted pride about having taken Bern's final breath. He simply smiled, wearing an expression Calian had never seen on him before.
"I'm sorry for not remembering."
Not for ending his life. Not for going to war.
He was apologizing for failing to keep his promise.
That was all he said.
Staring at Arsen, Calian smirked.
"How could I possibly do that?"
How could I...
How could I ever keep this crazy mage at a distance?