The Knife at My Own Throat

I set out to find someone who possessed the consonants and vowels I needed most.

I wandered through every corner of the Imperial Palace, and if what I sought wasn't to be found there, I was prepared to head into the city itself.

There.

Whether it was sheer luck, or heaven itself lending me a hand, I discovered one of the consonants I needed — Rieul — in the knight guarding the door to the prison where my mother was held captive.

The young knight noticed me watching him from a distance and bowed his head politely.

I want to see my mother.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but at this time the Imperial Consort cannot receive anyone at all."

Not by any means?

"No, Your Highness. Not by any means."

I could feel the regret welling up in him as he looked at me.

If he harbored sympathy for me, then luring him into a quest would be all the simpler.

I took the dagger Mary had obtained for me, gripped it in my hand, and pressed it against my own throat.

"Y-Your Highness!"

How utterly pathetic he looked, flustered like that.

I pushed the dagger in deeper, just barely breaking the skin of my neck.

A faint metallic tang of blood spread through the air, and crimson drops ran down the blade, falling one by one to the floor.

"Please, you mustn't do this!"

The moment he panicked and stepped forward, I drove the dagger in even deeper.

It hurt.

My breath was coming fast and shallow.

The neck carries an artery — one slip, and you die on the spot.

Of course, having already acquired the word Healing, I was never in any true danger of dying — but the knight before me had no way of knowing that.

"Calm yourself! Please, calm yourself!"

Had he really never imagined that a child of barely seven would hold his own life hostage?

He was completely at a loss as to how to handle the situation.

As a knight, he surely ached to knock the dagger from my hand with a swift strike — but in this position, the smallest movement could cost my carotid artery dearly.

"I'm begging you... please, just set that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dagger down, and let's talk. Won't you?"

The knight, sweat beading on his brow, spoke to me with a desperate, pleading expression.

"Bertolt! What on earth is going on?"

From far down the corridor, another knight came running — perhaps arriving for a shift change.

He had grasped the gravity of the situation; urgency was etched into his very voice.

Since the request had already transformed into a quest, that alone satisfied me, and I lowered the dagger from my hand.

The blade clattered roughly to the floor, soaked in my blood, skittering across the stone.

"Your Highness! Hold on, we must treat that wound at once — I'll fetch a physician!"

Bertolt rushed over and tried to lift me to my feet, but I waved him off, bending down to retrieve the fallen dagger.

Then I began to walk away, wiping the blood clinging ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the blade against my clothes.

From his standpoint, however, the mere sight of the dagger back in my grip was evidently still too great a threat, for he seized my shoulder in a rough grip.

In response, I murmured in a voice too quiet for his ears to catch.

"Overwhelm."

When a word was manifested through the power of Kotodama, some were cast directly like Incineration or Freezing, but it seemed others, like Overwhelm, took the form of a kind of buff.

In any case, what mattered was subduing this knight, so I took hold of the hand gripping my shoulder and dragged it straight downward.

By any common-sense measure, there was no way a knight's stance would crumble at the strength of a seven-year-old boy.

"What the—?!"

And yet, as though he had lost his footing, the knight before me was pulled down by my yanking strength and collapsed flat onto the floor.

Perhaps the situation was simply too absurd — his face was a portrait of pure incomprehension.

Do not touch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me. I will see the physician myself.

My throat throbbed with a searing pain, blood trickling down and slowly beginning to crust over.

Anyone who saw it would recoil in horror.

"Healing."

Only after confirming that no one remained nearby did I cast one of the words I had acquired, healing my wounded neck.

If the wound vanished without so much as a scar, it would only breed suspicion — so I left the raw scar exactly where it was.

Either way, with this, the remaining words, consonants, and vowels I needed came to four in total.

And I had three days left before my mother's execution.

There was no time to spare for anything else.

I was placed under house arrest.

It was the worst possible outcome — and yet, entirely the result I had expected.

The imperial prince had staged suicide attempts three times in two days; of course they would confine him.

...I can't force my way through.

Beyond my door, three knights stood watch.

The power of Overwhelm applied to only a single action, a single word.

So long as three knights guarded that door, a frontal breakthrough was impossible.

Still, I had gathered no small harvest over those two days.

I had obtained three of the things I needed.

All that remained were Siot and Nieun.

But my mother's execution would be carried out at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.

House arrest or no, I could hardly sit quietly in my room and do nothing.

My only remaining option is escape through the window.

The building stood three stories tall.

A seven-year-old boy leaping blindly from that height could well die.

And beyond that, it was broad daylight now — the grounds swarmed with people.

But come nightfall, the palace security would tighten into a steel ring, and slipping out into the city would become all but impossible.

I'll aim for the lunch hour.

The time of day when relatively few people moved about the palace.

I tied my blanket to the table and began piling it high with anything heavy I could find.

With Healing at my disposal, I only needed to jump from a height that wouldn't kill me.

So thinking, when the appointed hour finally arrived, I gripped the blanket tightly, opened the window, and began lowering myself beneath it.

To be perfectly honest, every human being carries some measure of acrophobia.

And in the body of a small child, that fear was doubled.

By the time I had descended to roughly the second floor, my hands clutching the blanket were trembling so violently I had to squeeze them shut around the fabric.

Now. I had to let go here.

I wouldn't die. Not from this.

Worst case: broken bones, or perhaps internal injuries from ruptured organs.

As long as it wasn't instant death, I'd survive.

I tried to smother my dread with endless self-suggestion, but it was useless — my breath came ragged and fast, and my mind went blindingly white.

Yet after a long, agonizing hesitation, I bit down hard on my lip and released my hands.

The sensation of gravity dragging my body toward the earth made my knees go weak.

My hands and feet went numb, slipping entirely beyond the control of my reason.

They say most people who take their own lives this way die of heart failure before they ever reach the ground.

THUD—!

It hurt.

First of all, the impact had knocked all memory of how to breathe right out of me.

My legs and arms, bent at grotesque angles, swam into view before my eyes.

Even having landed on grass and blunted the worst of the fall, the pain felt like it could kill me.

Tears spilled down my cheeks in a steady stream, and a soundless scream closed in around me from every side.

"...Healing."

At the end of it, I clawed back the breathing I had forgotten, forced the word out through desperate lungs — and the power of Kotodama seeped into Healing, setting about mending every injury in my body.

I felt the agony that had been ringing up my spine and into my skull snuff out one ember at a time; a soundless gasp of relief escaped me, but there was no time to savor it, and I hauled myself upright at once.

Move.

As I approached the main gate of the Imperial Palace, I could see the knights standing guard before it.

Fortunately, with so much traffic flowing in and out of the palace grounds from both directions, the gate stood open.

All I had to do was draw those knights' attention, and I could make my way into the city and acquire the remaining consonants and vowels needed to construct the truth.

If I delayed, Mary would come to bring my lunch, enter my room, and realize I was gone — and I could be caught without accomplishing anything at all.

...I need to turn their eyes with Incineration.

But there was nothing nearby suitable for burning.

Nothing, that is, except people.

Considerable hesitation surged up within me — but with bloodshot eyes, I lifted my head.

If my mother had to weigh every soul in this world against me, she would choose me. Without a moment's doubt.

Yes — and I was exactly the same.

If I had to weigh every soul in this world against my mother, I would choose her. Naturally. Inevitably.

Wasn't the answer already decided, then and there?

I didn't care what stains followed me afterward — the infamy of a prince who had committed senseless murder.

"...!"

Yes, that was precisely what I had resolved to do — and yet I bit my lip until it nearly split and clamped a hand over my mouth.

The sight of myself trying to rationalize an act I knew to be wanton murder was simply too ugly to bear.

Those guards surely had precious families of their own — and those families surely held them precious in turn.

So I held my breath a little longer and waited, heart pounding, with desperate patience.

Fortunately, before long, a maid came into view carrying an enormous pile of laundry — and I cast Incineration straight at her burden.

WHOOSH!

Flames erupted without the slightest warning.

The maid, of course, panicked, screaming as she dropped the laundry in a heap, and the knights hurriedly rushed toward the source of the cry.

Now.

The gap had opened.

I drove both legs forward at a dead sprint, straight through it.

Perhaps because the spot where I'd caused the fire lay a considerable distance from the main gate, no third-party eyes caught me as I went.

And so I slipped out of the Imperial Palace without a hitch — but my young body couldn't endure this punishing run for long, and my legs gave out beneath me, dropping me to the ground in a heap.

"...Hah! Hah!"

My mouth was bone-dry, and vertigo struck hard enough to make the world flicker and strobe before my eyes.

Worst of all was the pain ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in my ribs on both sides, as though they were crushing the air from my lungs — it was unbearable.

Is this what it feels like when a person dies of exhaustion?

I had to get moving before anyone laid eyes on me.

But my body refused, whispering that I should simply lie down right here and rest a while.

Still, with so little time remaining to me, I forced my tottering frame upright and pressed on.

And there, at the end of it, the city came into view — Veronica, the Imperial Capital of the Empire.