What Is Love?
I opened my eyes, having broken free from the dream. The place where I woke up was the imperial palace. I'd told the Emperor in advance to prepare for a moment like this, so I'd been staying here. For the record, the Emperor was right beside me. When I said I'd catch the culprit tonight, he insisted on waiting with me.
“I’ve found the culprit.”
“Who is it?”
“The Second Princess. I roughed her up a bit, so she’s probably throwing a fit right about now.”
“Is Elios all right?”
“Yes. He’s fine now, and he’ll stay that way.”
I had already driven out the root cause, after all. He would live without any more trouble from now on.
“Then I’ll bring the culprit here. Since we’re talking anyway, we might as well do it face to face, don’t you think?”
“I’ll leave it to you.”
I nodded and immediately used spatial teleportation to arrive inside the room where Reina stayed.
“Ughhhhhhh!”
There she was, still writhing in agony. She must have been in incredible pain; her whole body was twisting violently.
“Tsk tsk. You should’ve lived a decent life.”
“You…!”
Reina glared at me, her eyes swirling with a mess of emotions. Of course, she immediately started convulsing again.
“At this rate we can’t even talk.”
No helping it. I approached Reina and removed the excruciating pain she was suffering.
The princess, who had barely regained her senses and was about to speak, found herself grabbed by the scruff of her neck and teleported in front of the Emperor instead.
Reina looked around in confusion at the suddenly changed location, then turned her gaze. There stood the Emperor, staring down at her with eyes colder than they had ever been.
“Reina.”
At that single word from the Emperor, her entire body shook as if struck by an earthquake.
“F-Father, t-that is… how it happened was…”
“I believe I told you clearly. The throne must be earned through proof. Have I not said it to you countless times? Don’t tell me you’re going to claim you didn’t know.”
“I-I know it well. I-I’ll explain everything. A-all of it… so please, just once…”
“I nearly died at the hands of my own sister and brothers. To survive, I had no choice but to kill them. But I intend to end that bloody cycle in my generation.”
The storm of blood shed for imperial power is far too cruel. The Emperor, who had lived through that era, gazed at his daughter with eyes completely devoid of warmth.
“Yet you tried to break that very rule. You must receive fitting punishment, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Father… I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I won’t do it again, so can’t you overlook it just this once? I’ll go apologize to my brother too! Please!?”
“It’s already too late. If you still did something like this after all my warnings, there’s nothing left to say.”
The Emperor’s decision was absolute. Beyond the fact that she was his child, he had no mercy left for someone who had broken the rules.
“From this moment on, the Second Princess shall be removed from the line of imperial succession. Furthermore, you are to leave the imperial family and live in the south. I will prepare a separate estate for you. Stay there.”
“F-Father…!”
Reina tried to rush forward to cling to him, but I immediately pinned her down with gravity magic. It wasn’t for the Emperor’s sake.
At this rate, someone’s actually going to die.
I’d known the Emperor for roughly ten years now and prided myself on understanding him fairly well. The look on his face right now suggested that killing someone wouldn’t be the least bit strange. That’s how furious he was about the broken rule.
If Reina kept throwing herself at him like this, we were going to witness a rather unpleasant scene. Honestly, whether Reina died or not didn’t matter to me. She wasn’t my acquaintance, so it was none of my business. But watching the Emperor murder his own daughter right in front of me didn’t seem like a pretty sight.
That’s why I kept her pressed down so she couldn’t approach any further. Even so, Reina, unable to accept her reality, kept desperately reaching out. It was pointless.
The Emperor looked down at her for a moment, then murmured softly.
“Imperial Guard.”
At those words, several members of the Emperor’s personal guard appeared.
“Take Reina to her room and keep watch. Make sure she doesn’t try anything foolish.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
They nodded and dragged Reina away. That left only me and the Emperor.
Well, the other guards are still here, but…
They wouldn’t show themselves anyway, so I didn’t count them.
“Is it over now?”
“It would seem so.”
“You don’t look particularly pleased.”
“Would any father be happy when his child crosses the line?”
“Well, that’s true. Still, thanks to this, it looks like a decent one has finally emerged among your children. I don’t see anything bad about that.”
“A decent one?”
The Emperor looked at me with a puzzled gaze, clearly not understanding what I meant.
Instead of answering, I simply smiled.
“You’ll find out eventually. Anyway, since the matter’s settled, I’ll be going now. You know about the budget, right? Be sure to add the extra.”
“Good grief. At this rate I might have to open the imperial treasury. The royal family’s wealth is going to run dry.”
“Come on, why are you being so dramatic? It’s not like it actually hurts you. Don’t be so stingy when I’ve solved everything nicely for you.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. By the way, how is the business coming along?”
“What is there to say?”
I gave him a thumbs-up.
“It’s going so smoothly it’s making me nervous.”
“That’s fortunate. If you need more funds, just send a letter. I’ll support you as much as I can.”
“I certainly won’t refuse.”
I waved lightly and left the palace. The situation had unfolded in an unexpected way, but it wasn’t bad at all. My budget had increased, and it seemed one of the Emperor’s previously hopeless children had turned out to have some brains. All in all, it was a rather fruitful day.
Plus, the old man’s words had sparked an idea for a new spell. I was already excited at the thought of creating new magic again tonight.
Several days passed after that.
I’d been so absorbed in magic that I hadn’t paid much attention to outside matters, but Riel told me a rumor had been circulating among the nobles recently. It was that the Second Princess had been stripped of her right to the throne and banished to the provinces.
Honestly, it was less a rumor and more an established fact. Because it had happened so suddenly, there were still quite a few nobles who couldn’t quite accept it.
As the person directly involved in the incident—and the one who had personally beaten Reina—I knew the full story, so there was nothing surprising about it. Riel had also been there and knew what happened, so she wasn’t bringing it up with any special meaning. It was simply an update on how the world was turning.
Normally I would have given some kind of response, but right now I had something else on my mind.
“Where exactly is the problem…?”
Right after returning from that day’s events, I had spent my time creating new magic. But one question kept nagging at me.
Why had the effect of the magic I created at the Emperor’s request turned out different?
I hadn’t thought much of it immediately after returning from the palace, but the question grew larger and larger until I was now dissecting the magic circle piece by piece. I was trying to figure out where it had gone wrong and which part had changed.
But no matter how long I stared, I still couldn’t understand it. That was the truly difficult part.
This is tough.
Maybe it was because this was magic that touched the emotion of love rather than any other feeling. If it had simply been magic to erase emotions entirely, it might have been different. But creating magic that dulled a specific emotion—especially one related to love—was a first for me.
Fundamentally, to create magic that directly affects emotions, you need to have felt something similar at least a little. Since I had made it while spending two days doing awkward lover play with Riel and going through all sorts of suffering, it seemed some kind of error had occurred.
I should have actually liked someone before.
There had never been even a single romantic spark in my life. For the first time in my career as a grand mage, I had run into a wall.
To create magic, you ultimately need to ‘understand’ the phenomenon. Since I had never experienced it, I couldn’t understand it. Even though I had completed the magic, it hadn’t produced the desired effect.
But it wasn’t as if I could just decide to like someone right now and suddenly realize the emotion.
Guess I need to get some help.
In cases like this, there was only one method: ask someone who knew and had experienced love better than anyone.
Naturally, anyone inside the magic tower was immediately disqualified. There were quite a few couples, but honestly, I didn’t think they’d be much help.
It’s a bit much for me to say this, but…
There isn’t a single sane person among the mages in our tower. The fact that people who can only enter the tower by being crazy about magic are considered sane is strange in itself. Therefore, their romances weren’t going to help me at all.
It also felt wrong to ask Pirna, who had said she’d liked me for five years. Asking the person who likes me what liking someone feels like? Just imagining it was weird, wasn’t it?
So there was only one choice left.
It has to be him.
Having decided who to visit, I nodded. The person was set, so it was time to go see him right away.
The Second Prince, Elios.
Although he had been thoroughly beaten by the grand mage at the imperial banquet, he later reflected on it and finally organized his own feelings. Moreover, the grand mage had even told him it was fine to call him “big brother.”
What did that mean? It meant he had earned the grand mage’s trust.
At that fact, Elios felt a certain sense of pride. Who was he? He was the little brother of the grand mage himself. Just thinking about it made the corners of his mouth rise.
He spent his days carrying that sense of recognition and the determination to work even harder. But he couldn’t help but freeze when the visitor appeared before him.
To be exact, it was because of the question the visitor suddenly asked.
“So what did you say?”
“I asked if you know what love is.”
“…Pardon?”
It had only been a few days since he had finally sorted out his feelings for the person he loved. The grand mage suddenly showing up and asking what love was created such a bizarre mismatch that it couldn’t help but feel incredibly awkward.
Given how deadly serious the grand mage’s face was, it didn’t seem like a joke at all.
“…”
For a moment, Elios genuinely wanted to faint.
Ah, life.