Chapter 226: 41st Floor: Protect the Ugly Prince
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 226: 41st Floor: Protect the Ugly Prince
This was a Trial that was supposed to be undertaken by sixteen able-bodied men.
But now that a pink-haired wench with nothing to her name but her face and figure had shown up alone, the woman couldn't help but be flustered.
She twirled a lock of her violet hair around her finger, her face clouded with worry.
Just then, a system message appeared, providing information about the Trial.
[Ding~]
[Please protect Prince Shota]
'Hmm... Prince Shota?'
I tore my gaze away from the large-chested Maman and took a closer look at the prince standing beside her.
He had the golden hair and golden eyes characteristic of the royal family... but now that I looked closely, his face was bizarrely shaped. His eyes were uneven and crossed, and they were nearly shut due to ptosis. He had a flat, pig-like nose and sparse, gapped teeth.
His jaw was decent enough, but with no muscle on his frame, he looked frail.
'Ah, it's that one.'
The name had me confused, but seeing his face jogged my memory. Luckily, it was a Trial I knew, one of the more common A-rank ones.
The one commonly known as the 'Protect the Ugly Prince' Trial.
The objective is to safely escort the prince, who is fleeing an imperial power struggle, to the countryside of another nation.
I didn't remember everything, but I could always ask my viewers as I went.
That's why I could say with confidence:
"I am more than enough on my own! I will serve the prince well!"
"......"
The Maman didn't answer.
Her expression was still one of disbelief. She let out a heavy sigh, like someone who'd just been scammed.
'Not a great start. Then again, I wouldn't believe me either.'
It wouldn't be right to do something threatening to a normal person in a reception room just to prove my strength.
I searched my memories.
Since this is a possession-type Trial, the past of this body's owner flowed into my mind.
This body's owner was a mercenary knight.
'What's a mercenary knight?'
I quickly found the answer in my memories.
She was the top graduate of the Royal Knight Academy in the Khelum Kingdom, a vassal state of the Alucion Empire.
However, on graduation day, she crushed the balls of all the young noblemen who falsely accused her of 'sleeping her way to the top' and then fled.
'Whoa... what a crazy bitch...'
She was already ostracized for being a commoner and a woman, so all that resentment must have built up and exploded.
She ended up here after wandering abroad as a mercenary. It sounded like a train wreck of a life, but apparently, she was a fairly famous fixer among adventurers.
'Is graduating at the top of my class the only thing I have to boast about...?'
A noble wouldn't understand if I started talking about my life as an adventurer.
"I graduated at the top of my class from the Khelum Kingdom's Knight Academy. You can be confident in my skills, so please, trust me with this!"
I answered confidently, but the Maman continued to sigh heavily. I might have started to get frustrated myself, but fixing my gaze on her chest calmed me down.
My mind and body seemed to stabilize on their own.
'She's got a pretty face and huge breasts. Almost on the level of the Building Owner Auntie. Is this why the Emperor fell for her?'
While I was leisurely assessing her appearance, she seemed lost in thought.
"Haaaah... could this also be the Second Prince's doing...? I sought help from a place beyond the reach of his influence in the Empire... Ah... fine... I'll trust you. I'll still pay your fee, so please do your best until we reach the kingdom. Since our destination happens to be the Khelum Kingdom, you might even be of some help."
I wasn't sure if it was a good thing, but it seemed she had no other choice but me. Of course, I was genuinely confident I could handle this alone.
The 41st Floor: Protect the Ugly Prince.
It's actually a rather infamous Trial.
This is because the probability of failure is much higher than the probability of death.
"You may go and rest now. You too, Prince."
"Yes, Mother..."
Prince Shota took the hand of a lady-in-waiting beside him and moved with her support. The lady-in-waiting's expression soured for a moment, as if she'd touched something filthy, before she schooled her features again.
'So it's her.'
Now was my time to step in.
"Just a moment. I was hired to be the prince's close personal guard. From now on, I will be the one to attend to Prince Shota."
"What? No, this is the imperial palace, there's no need for that during the day... And I don't believe 'close personal guard' was part of the arrangement...?"
The Imperial Consort was slightly taken aback, but I pressed on.
"No! We don't know what could happen, when, or where. Besides, shouldn't we get to know each other beforehand?"
Hearing my words, Prince Shota's eyes widened. I was probably the first person besides his mother who had ever wanted to befriend him.
The lady-in-waiting's expression twisted again before returning to normal. It was so fleeting that anyone but me would have missed it, but it was a clear show of displeasure.
There was a reason I was doing this, of course.
The reason this Trial was so infamous.
If I just let him go like that, that lady-in-waiting will 'accidentally' push him down the stairs and kill him. Her true identity is a subordinate of the Second Prince, sent to eliminate the First Prince, Shota.
You might wonder if a simple push down the stairs could kill him, but Shota dies as easily as a sunfish. Besides that, he chokes to death on his food, slips and hits his head, and just keels over and dies without anyone even trying to kill him.
People have compiled a list of nearly 100 different Death Endings for him, which says it all.
Naturally, those who were only on guard against external assassins missed this and all failed.
The reason he dies so easily is simple.
It's because Prince Shota is cursed.
'This kid is a pitiful one, too...'
To explain how he came to be cursed, we have to go back to his father, the Emperor.
It all goes back to when the current Emperor was just a young crown prince.
Displaying extraordinary martial prowess from a young age, he loved fighting on the battlefield himself. His father, Prince Shota's grandfather, was an emperor known as a warmonger and a conqueror who had unified most of the continent. The prince thrived in this environment, a fish in water, fighting on numerous battlefields.
Then, one day, he was cursed by a royal who had made a pact with an evil god.
"All the children you bear shall be afflicted with a terrible curse!!!"
Slice!
He swiftly cut the man's throat, but the curse had already latched onto his heart. Not even the highest of priests could remove it. All they could do was prevent it from getting worse.
Some time passed. He killed his father, his siblings, and all other rivals to ascend the throne at a young age.
Then, one day, an incident occurred.
During the Empire Founding Day banquet, he slipped out, and while drunkenly wandering the gardens, he came across a beautiful woman and raped her on the spot.
He already had a wife and several concubines at the time, and he had always used contraception because of the curse. But that night, perhaps because he was drunk, he simply shot his semen deep inside her womb.
Her name was Layla Benevint.
The mother of the cursed prince, Shota.
And funnily enough,
"The curse has weakened. It may even be possible to remove it completely."
He had passed his curse on to Shota, and free from its grasp, he went on to father perfectly healthy children. Naturally, the women who would bear his children from then on were not Shota's mother, but the Empress and the daughters of high-ranking nobles who served as imperial consorts.
The family of Shota's mother, who had been raped by the Emperor, was a minor barony, so they couldn't even think of protesting. No, in fact, the head of the barony was thrilled and eagerly sold his own daughter.
The First Prince would come from his family! The curse was well-known, so it wouldn't bring shame upon them. In fact, wasn't it thanks to her that the Emperor was freed from his curse? After securing a reasonable reward and gifts, the baron cut off all contact with his daughter, not caring whether she suffered at the hands of the Empress or the other consorts. It was partly to avoid trouble and partly because he didn't want to make enemies of the daughters of more powerful nobles.
It was a decision made after a realistic calculation of profit and loss, one that harbored no foolish dreams of his cursed grandson ever becoming emperor.
And so began the desperate struggle for survival in the imperial palace for the cursed son, Shota, and his effectively single mother, Layla.
Harassment, neglect, and persecution were a given. The Empress, who controlled the budgets for the various detached palaces, gave Layla's just enough money to barely survive, making survival itself a struggle.
At first, Layla despaired over her life.
But she didn't abandon the child she had borne. Perhaps it was because without her son, she would have nothing left, or perhaps it was a sense of kinship, of being two lonely souls in this palace.
The problem was her frail son's medical expenses. Surprisingly, the rotten, garbage-person Emperor turned out to be helpful.
He seemed to like Layla's body and frequently came to fuck her. It was, of course, always unannounced, violent rape sex.
He would show up even during the day if he got an erection, get his nut, and leave. He treated her like a cheap whore or a toilet for his sexual release.
And yet, he would say things like, "Hey, replace this cheap-smelling furniture. What? No money? I'll tell the Empress."
His actions were purely for his own benefit, but thanks to them, she was able to eat well and afford the medical bills and medicine for Shota, who was always suffering from various illnesses.
Of course, the Emperor didn't just come to the detached palace to force himself on her.
If she was attending a tea party, he would strip her and rape her in front of everyone. She was fucked countless times in front of her son and her ladies-in-waiting.
'The Emperor's Personal Whore.'
'The Emperor's Personal Toilet.'
'The Emperor's Fuck-toy.'
Those were Layla's nicknames.
The garbage-person Emperor didn't care about such rumors. In fact, he enjoyed even more sadistic and humiliating sex.
'I quite like the way you moan as if you're begging for your life.'
No one could stop the mad, psychopathic emperor who held absolute power. In fact, they were relieved that the tyrant's anger was directed at a powerless noble girl and not at them.
As if to remind Layla of her place, the Empress would grant her additional funds for her detached palace every time the Emperor paid a visit, like giving a prostitute her fee.
As a bonus, she also gifted her lewd dresses and cheap jewels that only a whore would wear.
A noble's dress is expensive. Though she was called the Emperor's personal toilet, she was officially an Imperial Consort and was forced to attend various official events.
So, rather than spend a fortune on a decent dress only to have the Emperor rip it to shreds, she used that money to buy books for Shota and hire private tutors.
Everyone knew she was the Emperor's personal toilet anyway, so no one said anything about her wearing lewd dresses.
In fact, she was criticized if she didn't. They'd say she was neglecting her duty to soothe the Emperor's temper and would even strip her clothes off.
She couldn't get pregnant. Mages hired by the Empress would forcibly hold her down and cast contraceptive magic on her after every one of the Emperor's visits.
That was how she raised Shota, by spreading her legs like a whore and enduring coercive, violent sex.
But now, that too was coming to an end.
The Second Prince, Chris, who was the spitting image of the Emperor.
As the son of the Empress, backed by the most powerful duchy in the empire, he began to reveal his ambitions upon coming of age. For the record, Shota was also an adult; his growth was just stunted by the curse.
Chris had already killed all the other competitors.
The only one left was Shota.
He had been spared because he wasn't considered a rival, and Layla had survived by desperately clinging to the Empress's skirts and begging for their lives, using her status as the Emperor's favorite plaything. But the end was drawing near.
She wasn't foolish enough to harbor the vain hope that he would be spared because he wasn't a threat.
Even when all this was happening, the Emperor sided with the Second Prince, saying, "Is it not the natural order for only the strong to survive?"
Still, Layla succeeded in making her first and last deal with the Emperor.
In exchange for sending Shota to a foreign country, she agreed to live as the Emperor's personal slave for the rest of her life. The Emperor found it amusing that a woman who would spread her legs whenever he commanded would make such a proposal, but perhaps because he'd grown somewhat fond of her body, he agreed.
He arranged for their asylum in the kingdom and provided a substantial amount of support funds. That was the trash Emperor's final act of mercy.
Most of that support fund was used to hire an escort, but the mercenary who appeared after a hefty payment to a foreign adventurer's guild was none other than Lee Do-hee.
Her last remaining funds had turned into the lewd Lee Do-hee, which is why she had been so utterly dejected just now.
But she couldn't delay any longer, so she had accepted it. Or perhaps it was closer to resignation.
Of course, Lee Do-hee didn't know all these details.
*
"Now, Your Highness. I will be your close guard from this moment on. I'll follow you everywhere, so please, just think of me as if I'm not here."
Lee Do-hee ditched the lady-in-waiting and followed the prince to his room.
"E-Everywhere? Y-You don't mean the bathroom, do you?"
"Of course. I must maintain a distance of no more than one meter at all times. Don't worry. I'll only look at your back when you're doing your business."
"Th-That's not the problem..."
"Ahem, that's what a close guard does!"
Naturally, this frail prince could die in the bathroom or even in his sleep. He used to have a doctor and other guards, but they had all fled or been killed as the Second Prince's influence grew. The Second Prince's mother, the Empress, had also completely cut off the budget for this detached palace, so they could no longer afford to hire anyone.
That's how the spy managed to slip in as a lady-in-waiting.
'I can't let my guard down for a second. I have to stick to him like glue, at least until we're on the carriage to the kingdom.'
The detached palace where the prince and Layla lived was quite small and old.
It wasn't far from the main palace, but it was so poorly maintained that it felt like a haunted house.
'But how do they eat? Do they cook for themselves? Or does that lady-in-waiting do it?'
Everything about this place screamed 'perfect for dying'.
And just then,
The old chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the corridor snapped with a creak and fell right towards the prince.
'Here comes the bullshit.'
I lightly lifted the prince's body and jumped back.
CRRRRAAAASH!!
The chandelier crashed to the floor with a loud noise. If he had been under it, he would have been killed instantly.
'This curse... it's terrifying.'
The curse of an evil god.
It wasn't a curse that simply ruined one's appearance.
It was a curse that slowly drove its target to death, and the disfigurement was just a side effect to lower his chances of survival.
'So this Trial is about surviving this kind of bullshit while also fending off assassins...'
And the assassinations hadn't even started yet.
That would begin once we were in the carriage and a little ways from the capital. On the bright side, the instances of him just suddenly dying would decrease.
"Eek...! Th-Thank you..."
Prince Shota gasped for breath in my arms, clearly startled. I stroked his head, and he slowly began to calm down.
He seemed to be clinging to my chest a little, but it was a cute enough gesture. As long as I didn't have to look at his face.
'Sorry... but you're just too ugly...'
Having grown a little closer, we arrived safely at the prince's room.
We had already averted at least two Death Endings.
Creeeak...
The door to the prince's room opened slowly with a rusty groan.
His room, of course, had no ornate furniture or paintings. There was only an old bed and a desk with old books on it. The room was spacious, but with so little in it, it felt quite empty.
"Th-Thank you. Pant... pant..."
The prince seemed exhausted just from the walk here and collapsed face-down on the bed.
'Maybe it's better if I just carry him when we walk...'
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, huff... ugh, I-I'm fine..."
Nothing else happened after that.
Perhaps because we had thwarted two Death Endings on the first day, no other events occurred until nightfall.
The prince sat at his desk and studied.
He studied everything from history, accounting, mathematics, and physics to herbology and magical engineering. It was all clearly complex, stuff I couldn't understand.
'He seems smart, at least.'
This must have been difficult for him because of the curse, but he seemed to be enduring it with sheer willpower.
Layla prepared the meals herself.
Though there wasn't much to prepare. It was just some slightly hard bread and a simple vegetable soup.
When I asked what the lady-in-waiting did, I was told she leaves before 5 PM.
'An assassin who cares about her work-life balance. We'll see about that later.'
And then, it was time for bed.
"Umm... a-are we sleeping together?"
"Of course. I will not move more than one meter away from you."
"B-But for a man and a woman to share a bed..."
"Your Highness is simply someone I must protect. I have no personal feelings for you. Or could it be that you harbor such impure feelings for me?"
"Ah, no, not at all..."
'It'd be a problem if he fell for me... or would it be a good thing?'
Well, it did seem like a good idea to make sure this ugly kid obeyed my every word.
For reference, though he was a bit short, he was over twenty years old. The curse had only stunted his height.
"Then let's sleep together. Hurry and lie down."
I pulled the prince, who was backing away, into an embrace.
"Hmph...!"
And laid him down on the bed.
We lay facing each other on the narrow bed. To be precise, the prince was lying facing my large breasts.
He seemed to have some kind of respiratory issue like rhinitis, as I could hear his ragged breathing, but this was nothing. I was used to sleeping through the screams of men on the battlefield.
When I gently cradled his face with my breasts, he seemed to quiet down a bit.
"Good night, Your Highness."
"Yes... thank you..."
Seeing him a little more relaxed, I pulled the covers over him.
Flinch...
The prince fidgeted, increasing the area of contact between our bodies.
I guess he was a man after all. His hips were twitching slightly.
I realized now that his small cock was erect and rubbing against my thigh. We were both wearing thin clothes, so we could feel each other's body heat and movements, but...
'I can't do this. I don't want to see the 'Death by Coitus' ending just yet.'
If I pounced on the prince now, he would die from having his life force drained.
'First, I should awaken his Mana and have him drink my Breast Milk.'
And so, the next day.
The two of us woke up without incident.
The prince was flustered that his erect cock was touching my thigh, but the feeling of slowly rubbing his little dick against it must have been pleasant, because he soon fell asleep.
We'd only just met today, but it seemed he already saw me as a mother figure.
And then, it was breakfast time.
I quickly tasted the simple soup and potato salad that the lady-in-waiting had supposedly made.
'Mine is fine. So, what about the prince's?'
I took a bite of the prince's soup and salad and detected a sharp taste on my tongue.
"It's poison."
I quickly snatched the spoon just as the prince was about to put it in his mouth.