Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 99
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 99
At that hour,
in the Imperial Palace.
The Emperor’s chambers. Emperor Tylearius, called the Sun of the Empire, sat on the sofa in his room and stared straight ahead in silence.
“Report.”
At the Emperor’s word, the chief attendant, who had been waiting beside him as still as a dead mouse, reported on various matters.
And then.
“Lastly, regarding House Asteri…”
He finished his report with the fact that House Asteri’s eldest son, Lion Asteri, had been subjected to an assault of a certain nature.
“Hoo.”
The Emperor let out a deep sigh.
Who was behind it was obvious.
It was surely the child who resembled him perfectly.
The First Prince, Terus Sol Ionis.
It was that reckless bastard’s doing.
‘That halfwit.’
The First Prince truly did resemble him perfectly.
Plenty of fear, and even more greed.
On top of that, his thinking was somewhat shortsighted, and he was frivolous in a way unbecoming of imperial blood.
But that much was fine.
He was the Emperor’s son, after all.
Wasn’t the Empress a daughter of the most powerful family among the central nobility, at that?
No matter how much he rampaged around like an untamed colt, there was no one who could rein him in.
Except.
‘Except when he made a move against House Asteri.’
The Emperor’s fist clenched tight.
The greatest difference between the Emperor and the First Prince was how well one understood the might of House Asteri.
To be precise, the might of Petrick Asteri.
Gulp.
The Emperor swallowed dryly.
The war against the demons had ended before the Emperor was born.
But in those days, Petrick Asteri had still been exceedingly sharp-edged.
Wherever remnants of the demons were, he would appear and sweep everything away, and the nobility were no exception.
“Never make an enemy of House Asteri.”
Hadn’t the late Emperor always said as much?
Such was the power of one called an Archmage.
If he suddenly decided to overthrow the Imperial Family and claim the throne himself, they would be helpless to stop him.
Of course, in his own hot-blooded youth, he too had once needlessly provoked House Asteri.
Because he believed the one highest beneath the heavens ought to be the Imperial Family!
But that thought naturally did not last long.
One night when the moonlight was unusually faint.
Tylearius woke with the sensation of suffocating.
The curtains were flung open and fluttering, and violet eyes that did not seem human flashed.
A cold sweat broke out, and he wanted to scream, but no voice came out.
His lips barely twitched, and as if even that was irritating, the violet eyes gazed at him in silence.
Yes.
Petrick Asteri had breached the tight security and come in person to the prince’s chambers!
“H-hi, hiiik!” “Your Highness.” “…” “When I am protecting you, behave and accept that protection. Do nothing rash.”
Petrick Asteri did nothing besides utter those words.
He maintained his courtesy toward the Imperial Court as always.
Yet that alone made Tylearius feel a suffocating terror, and he lost consciousness after wetting himself.
From that day forward, Tylearius did not rashly touch House Asteri and lived as quietly as possible.
For he had faced the threat that his life could be taken.
Deep in his bones, Tylearius still carried the terror of that memory.
And yet.
His son had failed to come to his senses and done something reckless.
It was no doubt because of the Second Prince, Kyle.
‘Tch.’
The Emperor clicked his tongue inwardly.
He had certainly disposed of everyone with whom he had shared a single night’s passion.
Or else secured their eternal silence.
And yet one had survived among them.
What’s more, that life had been tenacious enough to crawl up from the very bottom and claim the seat of a prince.
And those eyes that looked at him…
They were not red eyes that resembled the sun, but dark blood-red eyes filled with hatred for him.
‘Still, just a wretch with base blood mixed in.’
The Emperor rubbed his arm as though suppressing a creeping chill.
At any rate, if the Second Prince was a thorn in his own side, how much more so must he be in the First Prince’s?
‘Even so, I told him to wait.’
The Second Prince, Kyle, was fated not to live long anyway.
The day the Second Prince took his seat as prince — hadn’t a priest come to inform them?
That he appeared to be cursed.
Curses were originally sorceries of the demons.
He would surely weaken, unable to endure for long, and die.
Yet the First Prince couldn’t contain himself even for that short time and committed this flimsy deed, thinking to make an example of House Asteri, which stood with the Second Prince’s faction.
“So. Are they all dead?”
It seemed regrettable talents would end up dead for nothing.
“No, Your Majesty. On the contrary, they are said to all be alive.”
“What?”
“That is, according to the rumors…”
Only then did the Emperor realize that they were all tied up in Lungen Territory.
If Count Lungen or Marquis Petrick Asteri applied even a little pressure, the name of whoever was behind it would without a doubt be coughed up.
That could not happen.
‘There was already much talk that he fell short of the Second Prince as it was.’
The Second Prince’s ability to handle official duties was exceptional, as if he hadn’t climbed to this position for nothing.
That was all the more reason he must not be caught.
If, by any chance, the Second Prince and not the First Prince were to seize the seat of Crown Prince…
‘My life would surely end there.’
The Emperor did not want to die.
Who in the world wants to die?
‘The one fortunate point was that Asteri’s child had not been hurt in the slightest.’
And the fact that he was not the heir of the family, either.
‘They said he was a fellow with no magical talent whatsoever.’
If that were the case, then Petrick Asteri would not take the matter too sensitively.
The chief attendant, seeing the Emperor fall into troubled thought without a word, studied his mood and ventured carefully.
“How shall I direct them to handle it, Your Majesty?”
There was only one method.
To take direct action before someone from House Asteri came.
“Tell the First Prince to confine himself to his quarters until my birthday.”
“Understood.”
“And I will go to Lungen Territory personally.”
The Emperor rose from where he sat in the darkened room.
He was not going for the sake of his child.
He was going only to avoid unsettling Petrick Asteri, and to keep the Second Prince from profiting from the matter.
The Emperor did not cherish his children.
They were merely a means by which he might spend his old age in comfort.
* * *
Lion shouldered the barley and headed to the well outside the kitchen.
The well of House Asteri.
It was a space provided for the servants to do the washing-up and laundry.
Naturally, the nobles did not come here.
They had no need to draw water or do laundry themselves.
“Oh!”
“I-isn’t that the young master?”
“It is the young master!”
And the higher-ranking servants usually did not work out in the open like this, either.
For that reason, the people here were mostly apprentice servants or those of low rank.
Some were children who had still not lost their baby fat.
Naturally, having no direct opportunity to meet or speak with their superiors, there were even those who could not recognize Lion’s face.
‘But is it the eldest young master or the younger young master?’
‘I don’t know either. But he’s wearing fine clothes, so he must be a young master of our house.’
‘If he’s come to a place like this, probably the eldest young master? They say he’s eccentric.’
In any case, it was into such a place that Lion had appeared.
“…What should we do?”
“Shouldn’t we do something to assist him?”
They were naturally awkward and at a loss.
A few of them even jumped in surprise and hid their laundry.
Nobles by nature disliked seeing such things.
Of course.
‘First, I need to sprout the barley.’
The person in question had no such thoughts.
He had come only because this spot was perfect.
Ignoring their reactions, Lion planted himself in front of the well, naturally drew water,
sat back down, and poured the barley from the sack into a large tub, washing it with a swishing sound.
‘Let’s see…’
For the most part, all the grain kernels had shed their hulls, but occasionally a few that had kept their original form were visible.
[Two-Rowed Barley]
-High starch content.
-The kernels are plumper than six-rowed barley.
[Usage - Cooking]
[☞Click to view recipe.]
The barley we commonly encounter is six-rowed barley.
So the malt that forms the base of sikhye is usually made from six-rowed barley as well…
‘It doesn’t matter.’
It was simply a matter of adjusting the sediment that settles at the bottom of the malt water later.
‘Provided the barley sprouts well first, of course.’
Lion trimmed the barley, removing the whiskers and any foreign matter.
Making malt took more hands-on work than expected.
First, these barley grains needed to sprout vigorously.
Short malt, with sprouts equal in length to the grain, is used to make beer; malt with sprouts about twice that length is what we know as yeotgireum, the malt used for sikhye.
‘When I was little, I thought yeotgireum was literally “oil” because of the name.’
No matter how much of this and that Lion had made to eat himself since childhood, he had never made sikhye at home.
The store-bought kind was higher quality, for one.
So it was the owner of the rice shop he used to frequent who taught him that the word yeotgireum came from the meaning that the barley sprouts grew long.
“Done.”
Lion filled the barley he had trimmed with plenty of water again and skimmed off the grains that floated to the top.
The ones that float are unusable.
“Peep.”
When Lion moved to discard the barley, Nature slipped out of his pocket and pecked at the barley in his hand to eat.
That tiny beak of hers was still a beak, and with her peck-pecking, the kernel inside was revealed.
“How’s the taste?”
“Peep.”
Nature wore an expression as grand as if to say, “Leaving food behind means punishment,” and continued its meal with dignity.
‘Good grief.’
She’d grown more emotionally expressive than expected.
Leaving Nature to it, Lion rinsed the barley several more times and then filled the tub with enough water to just submerge the grains.
And then…
“Where’s the shadiest spot around here?”
He spoke to the apprentice servants who had been sneaking glances at him all the while as they worked.
“Sir?”
“D-did you speak to us?”
“What are you doing! Answer him right away!”
“Hey. You go!”
The apprentice servants twittered among themselves and then pushed forward the youngest apprentice.
If a slip of the tongue was made, they seemed to think it would be overlooked if it came from a child.
“Ov-over there. The path to the Knight Order is the shadiest!”
Fortunately, the young servant answered in an impressively clear manner.
“Really? Thanks.”
“Um, it’s a bit of a distance, so I could carry it for…”
“I appreciate the thought, but finish what you were doing.”
With that, Lion took a s’more sandwich from his bag and handed it over, then heaved up the water-filled tub and rose with a grunt.
‘The Knight Order’s direction, huh.’
Lion had rarely gone to the area where the Knight Order was.
Since the Knight Order inherently involved many dangerous factors, whenever he had headed that way in his chronically frail days, Sylvia or another servant had always steered him elsewhere.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter now.’
Lion strode off with long steps.
Watching his figure, the young servant took a bite of the s’more sandwich with a crunch and murmured.
“But… they’re in the middle of training over there just now…”
When the Knight Order was in training, not only apprentices but regular servants were also barred from entering.
It was because the training was nearly indistinguishable from real combat, and thus quite rough.
“It’ll be fine, right? He’s the young master, after all.”
“Right.”
The apprentice servants murmured among themselves and then returned to their work.