Chapter 296: Is He Going Through Puberty? (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 296: Is He Going Through Puberty? (4)
A mage’s faith is a remarkably solid thing.
If a knight’s loyalty is akin to a one-sided affection for their master, a mage’s faith—their trust—is a blind devotion that harbors not a single shred of doubt.
In a way, breaking that faith is nearly impossible.
To abandon one’s trust in another, a person must first convince themself that the object of their faith was never trustworthy to begin with. However, the very premise of that act creates a logical contradiction, for it is in itself a betrayal of that trust. A knight or an ordinary person might not see the issue, or would simply brush it off, but the breed known as mages could not. Their minds, which lived and breathed by the perfect proof of cause and effect, could not comprehend such a paradox.
And yet.
There was one great individual who had made that impossibility possible in an instant.
“They say all mothers in the world are strong… but now that our little brat is playing mother, it seems his guts are plated in mithril.”
Naturally, this referred to Calian’s truly extraordinary, utterly insane lackey.
She hadn’t felt this betrayed when she saw rock-solid, frozen french fries. Nor when she faced his proud expression as he boasted of drinking four glasses of beer when she had only permitted him two. Even when web-footed Coco poked its beak out of the pure white egg he had nurtured for nearly a month, she had never once wavered in her trust in Arsen.
Ever since the day Euria had crossed the Kairis border to hunt barbarians and run into a certain blue-haired mage, she had trusted Arsen.
There was no particular reason for it.
Just as there was no particular reason to believe the sun would rise in the morning.
“Or did giving me flowers teleport his guts to another dimension?”
As she muttered, the gentle spirit Pier continued to hover around Euria.
“You must have received flowers,” Rachel remarked, remaining perfectly calm even with Pier—whose presence was refreshingly cool to the bone—drifting nearby.
Only then did Euria stop talking to herself. She recalled Pier and nodded.
“Yes. For once, he gave me flowers that weren’t the usual cliché, so I thought he was doing pretty well. I didn’t realize he had a death wish.”
“…Well, at least one of those things was original.”
“The moment I get back and see his face, I might just put him to sleep forever. Coco’s gotten quite a bit bigger, too.”
“Don’t be like that. Go easy on him. If we had been on guard, we wouldn’t have fallen asleep so easily. It’s partly our fault for letting our guard down. Besides, what could we do? It was the Prince’s orders.”
“Prince Calian probably just told him to make sure we didn’t go anywhere. I’m sure the brat took it upon himself to put us to sleep.”
With a chuckle, Euria scanned her surroundings.
‘I suspect some of the Secritian nobles are targeting my younger brother, so I plan to go out with him for a bit.’
‘Do you mean they are targeting Prince Calian, not you, Prince Franz?’
‘My… younger brother.’
‘Ah… My apologies. I only said that because he is not someone who can be easily targeted. Do you happen to know why they would want to attack Prince Calian in Secritia? The mages here have been quite favorable toward him.’
‘Because of his public image.’
‘Pardon?’
There was only one reason they would target Calian despite the risks. In the eyes of the Secritian nobles, it must have seemed easier to join forces with Franz than with Calian. To them, it must have looked like Franz had been stripped of many things by his younger brother.
Evan, whom Franz had held onto until the very end, had been cut down by Calian’s own hand. Gray, who had met with Randel several times, had inherited the Brissen succession. To an outsider, it would appear as though Calian had completely wrested control of the Brissen family away from Franz.
In contrast, Calian’s position as Crown Prince was practically guaranteed, even without the support of Secritian nobles. To them, Calian was a useless card.
Furthermore, Alan, who doted on Calian, had rarely stepped forward to help him publicly. Thus, they likely had no concerns about the man who had sought no significant retaliation even after losing his own son.
On top of that, the fact that Calian had draped his cloak over Chase and declared war on Devlan the day he arrived was not public knowledge. Instead, the popular rumor was that Devlan had pulled Calian away during a breakfast hosted by Chase. And while it was known that Chase had met Franz several times at the Kairis Royal Palace, Chase’s efforts to help Calian in Kairis would not have been disclosed to the nobles.
Therefore, in the eyes of the Secritian nobles, a strange dynamic had formed: Devlan and Calian on one side, with Chase and Franz on the other.
‘It seems the Secritian nobles have devised a plan to drive out Devlan without getting their own hands dirty.’
‘Do you mean they intend to use Kairis’s strength? To drive out Devlan using Kairis’s military in exchange for eliminating Prince Calian?’
‘Probably.’
‘Sigh… I understand for now. But the only person in Secritia capable of harming Prince Calian would be someone like Sir Castrin. Or could it be… Zeon again?’
‘We need to confirm whether it’s Zeon or not.’
‘If it isn’t Zeon, how could they even dream of attacking Prince Calian?’
‘The Secritian nobles wouldn’t think that way. They don’t truly know how much my younger brother eats, or how well he fights.’
Even the nobles of Kairis did not know the true extent of Calian’s martial prowess.
When Zeon first attacked Calian, he had barely escaped with his life. Later, on the day Zeon members attacked Euria and Arsen, Calian and Alan had gone together to rescue them.
Furthermore, the reason for Calian’s injuries after his fight with Evan was rumored to be ‘a severe wound sustained from an attack by Secritian spies.’ This was a deliberate falsehood, born from the belief that if the Kairis nobles realized just how strong Calian was, they would never stand by and watch him be named the next king.
Consequently, people did not know exactly how strong Calian was. Even if it were Zeon, while they wouldn’t be fooled into believing Calian was so grievously wounded by mere spies, they certainly wouldn’t imagine that he had easily handled Evan, only to get a hole punched through his stomach because he was distracted at the last moment.
‘I suppose that’s true. Then, how can we help you?’
‘They told me they would watch for an opportunity to target my younger brother, and since they’re bound to attack eventually, I plan to head out today before they can reinforce their numbers. Come quietly and help us fight. Bring that crazy blue-haired mage with you.’
Calian had put on quite a show in front of Devlan, successfully making himself a target. Franz believed that rather than letting Calian be threatened by both the nobles and Devlan, it was better to confront and resolve one side immediately.
After all, Devlan was sharp enough to see through the nobles’ reasons for wanting Calian dead. If so, he would likely try to deal with the nobles first before handling Calian himself.
‘Then what should Dame Grace do?’
‘I want her to wait and come along when Crown Prince Chase moves.’
‘Wouldn’t it be dangerous to lure the Crown Prince of Secritia outside?’
‘He only needs to appear for a moment after the fight is over. Since Devlan and the nobles won’t know whether Crown Prince Chase will help me or my brother, observing his movements will tell us who we need to keep in check first.’
And so, after her conversation with Franz, Arsen had come to find her when night fell. Euria, whose only thought was to follow Franz’s instructions and guard Calian alongside Arsen, had let her guard down.
Consequently, she fell asleep, and when she woke up, Eila was there.
Now, she was traveling with Rachel to carry out a new request from Calian, delivered by Eila.
As the scenery flashed past at a speed accelerated by Rachel’s ability, Euria unconsciously searched for something familiar and spoke up again.
“Are you sure you know where Bridget Forest is? I feel like we’ve been running through the same place for a while now.”
“Are you asking a teleportation mage if she’s lost?”
“No. Never mind.”
Inside the magic academy, Euria was the principal and Rachel the vice-principal, but since Rachel was older, they had decided to speak comfortably with each other outside of work. Of course, this had been decided on Rachel’s first day, over a night of sharing glasses of Himolica.
“There are likely many Secritian soldiers near the forest. If we want to observe and interfere if they try anything foolish with the Elf forest, it’s better to remain inconspicuous. That’s why we’re taking a detour. Don’t worry, we’re not lost.”
“Yes, I understand. But to think you even know the side paths. Have you been here before?”
Rachel nodded.
“Rachel, I’m sorry. I guess this wasn’t the right path. If we keep going, we’ll eventually reach the forest, but we’ll have to take a pretty long detour.”
“See? I told you the person who gave us directions didn’t seem to know the way. I said we should ask one more time, but you insisted you were right.”
As memories of passing through this very path surfaced, Rachel began to speak of things she rarely brought up.
“The places where Elves live have many mysterious herbs and things that can be used as medicine. So, before I had Veronica, Ronil and I visited once, and we took this path back then. Not long ago, the Crown Prince of Secritia invited my father, so I stopped by briefly while I was here. Ah, that time it was with Veronica instead of Ronil.”
“Ah… You did mention that the two of you traveled a lot.”
“Yes. My father’s wanderlust was quite extreme. I liked wandering around too, and so did Ronil, so we would both follow him. We lived a fun life.”
Euria was excellent at drinking, threatening, fighting, and killing, but she was not particularly skilled at comforting a new friend reminiscing about her late husband. As she was carefully choosing her next words, Rachel spoke again.
“So, don’t talk about killing someone so easily.”
Recalling how angry Euria had been about Arsen recklessly casting Sleep magic on them, Rachel looked at her friend, who was now staring back in silence, and turned her head away.
“I can’t believe he gave us directions when he didn’t even know the way.”
“If you keep blindly trusting people like that without double-checking, you’re going to regret it deeply one day, you know.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel. I’ll buy you flowers when we get back. I saw a flower shop on the way here, and the flowers in Secritia are beautiful.”
“What would I do with flowers? Buy me something delicious instead.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll buy you something delicious.”
“Words spoken in jest,” Rachel murmured, “can hurt deeply later on.”
*
It was quiet.
The sound of the horse’s hooves was steady and monotonous; if one didn’t focus on it, it soon faded from hearing.
He disliked cumbersome things and had no interest in the passage of time, so Franz had not brought a watch. He had also never learned how to tell time by the stars.
Therefore, Franz, who had been considering asking how much further they had to go, simply kept moving forward, staring silently ahead.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
He listened to the sound of the hooves, which repeatedly faded, returned, and then drifted away again. It was better to focus on that than on the scent of his younger brother’s blood, which would thicken, vanish as if washed away by magic, and then gradually return once more.
He knew Calian could not win against his stubbornness.
Yet, Franz knew he could not completely break Calian’s will, either.
Even if the Secritian knights saw droplets of blood falling in the darkness, they wouldn’t be able to tell if they belonged to Calian or Franz. Because of this, Franz had told him twice more to stop wasting his damn Clean magic. And Calian had ignored him.
The bandages, visible in brief glimpses, were repeatedly cleansed just as they grew damp with pooling blood. Franz, who remembered all too well how quickly the smell of seeping blood could thicken, finally spoke after a long silence.
“…It doesn’t seem to be healing.”
Their pace grew neither faster nor slower.
If the wound were healing, the bleeding should have slowed, but the rate at which the blood seeped out and the rate at which it was erased remained exactly the same.
“It’s because I’m moving. Even with the power of a blessing, there’s only so much it can do if the wound keeps reopening, wouldn’t you agree?”
That was a lie.
He might have believed those words if the horse Calian was riding were Estina. But Raven was no ordinary horse. He was a beast that knew how to tread carefully to avoid aggravating Calian’s wound. Even if the wound of someone sitting atop a horse walking so cautiously on such flat ground did reopen, the healing from the blessing should still have been faster.
Franz stared at Calian in silence.
Once again, mana stirred, and the smell of blood was erased.
“Is it not healing, or is it that severe? Which is it?”
Calian let out a soft chuckle.
Before those lips could utter something like, ‘My older brother is so clever,’ Franz spoke again, his voice sharp.
“Tell me.”
“The healing is just delayed, so you don’t have to worry. It will heal soon enough, once the detoxification is complete.”
Detoxification.
Franz stared at Calian, utterly speechless.
“…I thought you were immune to poison.”
“It’s more accurate to say my body protects itself rather than having a complete immunity. It must have seeped in through the torn flesh of the wound. Direct entry into the body is a bit more potent than ingesting or inhaling it. No wonder he swapped swords before charging at me. I suppose he intended for us to die together.”
The gray-haired warrior had suddenly discarded his sword mid-fight. Then, he had picked up the sword of a dead, brown-haired warrior to slash Calian before dying himself.
A sword with a serrated blade.
It left a wound that was less of a clean cut and more torn flesh. Feeling the sensation gradually fading from the area, Calian continued in a light tone.
“At any rate, once we return, I should ask them to prepare some of those strawberries you like. Your complexion looks poor, perhaps because the food here doesn’t agree with you.”
Watching Calian add, “Since my older brother is so sensitive,” Franz furrowed his brow.
“I don’t think this is the time for idle chatter.”
“It’s not your fault, brother. I just didn’t expect the warriors to use such a trick. I suppose I trusted them too much.”
After that wry remark, Calian briefly turned his head, then added with a bright smile, “So, what’s happening now isn’t your fault either, brother.”
Before Franz could even grasp the meaning of those words, a red aura flared to life in Calian’s hand.
Only then did he realize that they hadn’t been followed by just four men.