Chapter 86: Bloody Prince (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 86: Bloody Prince (1)
#2 The RoFan Male Lead Alliance (Collapsed)
At the curse filled with the sincere spite of the dark mages, everyone’s eyes turned toward Esid.
In response, Esid shook his head with a panicked expression and shouted at those around him with all his heart.
“It’s not me!”
Seeing Esid deny it so abruptly, everyone took a step away from him.
“I’m telling you, it’s really not me?!”
Ellen Leon of Leon.
Arwen Dale of Dale.
As royalty of the two nations representing sword and magic, respectively, they were unprecedented geniuses recognized even within their own kingdoms.
Even searching through the histories of both royal families, which had produced countless swordsmen and mages, they were born with talents that had no equal.
Because of that, they didn't really know what defeat felt like.
Nor had they ever felt the emotion of fear.
“……”
“……”
However, those very same boys, Ellen and Arwen, were feeling fear right now.
‘I’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about Esid lately.’
‘Was this all part of his plan too?!’
Before their eyes was a scene that, depending on the person, could remain a lifelong trauma.
Of course, since the victims were all dark mages...
The fact that dark mages were in such a state at an Academy exam site meant they had been in the middle of some conspiracy.
Thinking coldly, Esid’s actions(?) were actually worthy of praise.
“I—I understand.”
“I would have steeled my resolve too, if dark mages were pulling something in my country.”
So said Ellen and Arwen.
However, the physical distance between them and Esid was widening—slowly, but noticeably.
Of course, it was still slower than the speed at which their hearts were drifting apart!
“I’m telling you, it’s really not me?!”
Esid felt wronged.
However, there was clear evidence in the form of the victims' tears of blood.
“Urgh! If only I had been summoned perfectly... I would have sacrificed my very soul to kill you, Esid!”
A dark mage, whose face was protruding vertically by only half, screamed in agony.
Struggling, he raised his wrist—the only part of his arm that had been summoned along with his face—and shouted.
“Can you still say that after seeing this wrist you severed?!”
“…I did that?”
“You loathsome bastard. I saw your face with my own eyes!”
When?
Esid felt truly wronged.
“……”
“……”
But his so-called friends...
Whether they knew how he felt or not...
“Hey.”
“……”
“……”
“Hey!”
Watching them drift away faster and faster, Esid barely managed to hold back his tears.
The table was set.
I had even washed the spoons and laid them out neatly.
All they had to do was pick up a spoon and enjoy the meal.
“They’re being very picky eaters.”
These damn RoFan male leads were still a total mess.
“Would you want to eat if the side dishes were alive and squirming?”
I pondered Uncle Aeryun’s words for a moment after he had snuck out to join me.
“My performance bonus is practically doubling itself right now; why wouldn't I eat this?”
Even if dark mages were popping up around the RoFan leads as if they were respawning, a dark mage was still a dark mage.
Outside of the Imperial Academy and the immediate vicinity of the RoFan cast, finding them was still an incredibly difficult task.
Since they were preparing dangerous schemes for the continent in hidden locations, the intelligence agencies of every nation were spending astronomical amounts of money and manpower to find them.
And here were such dark mages. Not just one, but over a dozen, beautifully packaged and ready for pickup?
For an ordinary agent, this was a feat that would earn them at least a double promotion. Who could possibly resist?
“It looks like the Prince is resisting just fine, though.”
“I guess he’s too full since he’s royalty.”
But who was I?
I was the training officer for the Leon royalty.
If a royal threw a tantrum at the dinner table, I was the kind of person who should be able to pick up the spoon and shove the food into their mouth for them.
The Imperial royalty wasn't my responsibility, but to protect my own innocence, I had to be willing to endure this much trouble.
“It can’t be helped.”
I pulled out an artifact I had prepared.
“…What’s that? Wait. I think I’ve seen that somewhere before.”
Uncle Aeryun tilted his head as he looked at the button-shaped artifact in my hand.
“Of course you have. You’re the one who gave it to me, Uncle.”
When I nodded, Uncle Aeryun thought for a moment before letting out an exclamation. “Ah!”
“Isn't that an explosion artifact?”
“That’s right.”
A trap-type explosion artifact.
Usually, I received potions, but ever since Daisy—who provided much higher quality potions—showed up, I tended to squeeze these kinds of artifacts out of people instead and share them with Violet.
“But why that?”
“To use it, obviously.”
Click.
The moment I pressed the button with my finger, there was an immediate reaction.
Boom!
“An explosion?!”
“Urgh! Is it an attack from the dark mages?!”
“Aaaargh! Esid! You bastard!”
“Esid?”
“I-It’s a trap by the dark mages! I said it’s not me?!”
“You truly are a child with that filthy imperial blood. To leave us in this state and then try to frame us!”
“Even a three-year-old wouldn't believe a word that comes off your tongue!”
Boom!
“I will curse you from hell, Esid!”
“I’m telling you, it’s really not me?!”
The screams of the dark mages and Esid’s own cries echoed together.
“……”
Uncle Aeryun looked at me with an expression that said he had a lot he wanted to say.
“You should probably call Prince Erild now.”
I decided to let it slide since there was still much to do.
“……I already called him.”
“That was fast.”
I refrained from saying something mean like, 'If only you were this fast when the Academy was being breached.'
More accurately, it was because I could start to feel presence approaching from the distance.
“Let’s get out of here.”
The chances of being caught were slim, but nothing was absolute in a RoFan world.
To perfectly eliminate any variables, I decided to leave the area for now.
Prince Erild and his party, who had been investigating dark mages in Rias, dropped everything and rushed to the exam site upon hearing that dark mages had appeared where the Academy students were testing.
“Dark mages at the exam site?”
That couldn't be.
The professors guarding the entrance to the testing grounds were naturally bewildered.
This dungeon was a so-called ‘closed dungeon’ provided by the Rias side, with its structure and monster patterns already perfectly mapped out.
Since it had been used for decades to train new recruits and harvest dungeon byproducts...
As long as the entrance before them was guarded, there was no other way to enter from the outside.
How could dark mages have infiltrated the interior?
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. However, I trust the words of my agents just as much.”
Prince Erild calmed the flustered professors and requested entry for verification.
Since the Prince of the Empire himself was being so firm, the professors had no choice but to step aside.
Thus, Erild and the Imperial agents...
Checked the provided map of the dungeon and moved quickly toward the location mentioned in the report.
And what they saw upon arrival was...
“……”
A gruesome scene.
The smell wafting to their noses was the unpleasant scent of something being cooked.
Traces of explosions were scattered everywhere.
But even more horrific was the state of the corpses.
With fragments of hands, feet, and faces rolling around here and there, it was a sight difficult to stomach even for seasoned Imperial agents...
“Urgh!”
“W-What?!”
Erild and the agents, who were taking in the scene, couldn't help but be horrified when a face that was only half-there opened its mouth.
“As expected of dark mages!”
Dark mages weren't infamous for nothing.
They were a nuisance while alive, they didn't die quietly, and even in death, they scattered curses or used their souls to summon bizarre magical beasts.
Even so, to see someone moving with only half a face left!
“No, wait.”
Even in the chaotic situation, Erild calmly assessed the state of affairs.
It was perhaps only natural.
Aside from his gender identity, he was a man truly without flaws.
That was why he was the person closest to becoming the Crown Prince of the Empire!
“Look at the cross-section of the face.”
“…Ah!”
At Erild’s words, the agents looked at the cross-section of the half-face belonging to the presumed dark mage.
“A magic circle…”
He wasn't dead.
It was an accident caused by faulty spatial magic, something rarely seen nowadays.
“I’ve heard stories, but…”
Time and space.
Since the distant past, these were fields mages had struggled to conquer.
Unlike time, which still yielded no results...
In the realm of space, a few once-in-a-generation geniuses had succeeded in producing results.
The problem was the process.
“Uh, well.”
“It just kind of worked when I did it like this…”
Spatial magic was a field where theory existed, but the theory wasn't really theory.
What that meant was that while the conditions and values had been discovered through the intuition of a few geniuses...
No one knew why those conditions and values were necessary.
Because of that, several mages had tried to figure it out...
But all that was recorded in history were the numerous side effects of spatial magic.
And the conclusion was to just shut up and use spatial magic exactly as instructed.
Consequently, there hadn't been a single incident involving spatial magic side effects for the past several decades.
That was why, even as Imperial agents, they had never seen it in reality.
Naturally, they had assumed these were dark mages who had been brutally slaughtered, rather than victims of a spatial magic malfunction.
“…Hm?”
“…Eh?”
Because of this, the agents were even more bewildered.
A scene where people were brutally slaughtered was uncommon, but something they saw from time to time.
Even though it was technically a time of peace, local skirmishes happened quite often.
And occasionally, terrorists from old kingdoms would use themselves as mediums for suicide bombings.
Conversely, a disaster caused by spatial magic was even rarer than such scenes of carnage.
If this had happened due to the dark mages' own mistake, they could have just laughed at the foolishness of the dark mages.
“……”
“……”
“……”
Perhaps because of the explosions, several individuals stood noticeably far apart from one another.
They were faces very familiar to the agents.
Royalty of Leon, royalty of Dale, the rising stars expected to lead the influential families of the Empire...
And, perhaps it was just a feeling, but at the center of them all was the Imperial Prince, Esid.
“Hmm…”
Was it just a feeling?
It felt as though they were avoiding Esid rather than the explosions.
“Esid, are these your subordinates?!”
“Urgh! Just kill me already! Don't keep me alive just to humiliate me!”
As if proving that feeling to be true, several of the scattered dark mages who were still able to speak were cursing Esid.
“……”
“……”
At that, Erild looked at Esid in silence.
Esid was also looking at Erild with an expression of half-resignation.
“Brother. It’s not me.”
“……”
Esid had wanted to prove his innocence at least once, but seeing that it wasn't working at all, he let out a deep sigh and spoke.
“Fine. I did it.”
…As expected!
Esid glanced at the horrified expressions of the surrounding students, let out a hollow laugh, and then shouted.
“I don't know how, but anyway, I did it!”
That bizarre sight blended strangely well with the equally bizarre atmosphere of the surroundings.
—The Bloody Prince.
In the records of the Imperial Intelligence Bureau, a new line was added to the file on Esid at that very moment.