Marked by the Third Prince
Something about this atmosphere feels off…
Jeraid, the third prince of the Halrot Kingdom, found his mood souring at the unusual air that hung over the gathering.
Among all the princes he was the most handsome, and even at his young age he displayed that beauty without the slightest restraint, monopolizing the affection of every young lady present. If he simply played the cunning little darling, they would squeal and fuss, desperate to coddle him.
Yet right now those same young ladies had gathered around someone else entirely.
“So then that mercenary Lefra tripped right there and…”
“Mm-hmm. You must have had a rough time.”
“And then? What happened next?”
Lillian and Akina had stepped away from Kaisent for a moment, claiming they needed to discuss something important with him. The young ladies had seized that opening and swarmed around the boy instead.
What the hell is that brat?
In the place where he himself ought to have stood, a pure-white little thing now held court.
Why are they flocking to some demi-human like that?
Once his escort knight informed him that the white-haired boy was a demi-human, the emotion that flooded Jeraid was pure, visceral disgust. Part of it was simple revulsion toward demi-humans, but deeper still was the instinctive certainty that this creature was endangering his own position.
They’re enjoying themselves far more than they ever did around me.
Jeraid had always used his looks and his royal rank to monopolize the ladies’ attention. Kaisent, by contrast, drew them in effortlessly—through nothing more than a kind, untainted nature and the beauty and charm inherited from a noble bloodline, free of any calculation. Realizing that the boy was, in every way, a superior version of himself, the third prince felt a fierce loathing take root.
He wanted nothing more than to thrash the white brat on the spot, yet doing so would brand him the one who ruined the party and bring all manner of trouble down on his head. So he forced himself to endure it.
This chance meeting would one day grow into an affair that decided the very fate of the Halrot Kingdom—but that was a story for the distant future. What was certain right now was that Kaisent had earned the third prince’s lasting, venomous resentment.
The next morning.
The royal party ended after a single day.
Ordinarily such gatherings lasted several days at the least, yet this time no one voiced a single complaint about the shortened schedule.
We have to make money!
We have to strengthen our military!
Even a scrap of territory with Black Soil would be pure profit!
Every noble had rushed back to their domains, desperate to amass wealth and military power. The king had also declared that any lord who failed to clear the undead from his own lands would be barred from the subjugation army—an order meant to weaken the nobility without letting them collapse entirely and shrink the Halrot Kingdom’s strength.
“I shall await you at my territory, Princess.”
“Yes. We will see you there.”
“And do not forget what I said at the end.”
“…It would be wiser not to raise your hopes.”
Having accepted Akina’s proposal, Lillian watched the margrave head for the teleportation facility with a final reminder that she would be waiting.
If Countess Akina helps train us, we can grow far stronger.
Lillian and Priscilla had both reached Master rank and could wield the abilities they knew Masters possessed, yet they still fell short of using that power at full capacity. Their sudden leap had come not from their own strength but from Kaisent’s gift of fortune. Half a year of training under Countess Akina would let them perfect their Master-level skill.
“Lillian.”
“Hm?”
“What did Countess Akina say at the end?”
“…It’s a legend.”
“A legend?”
The founding king of Luciarkenel had been, like the founders of so many other nations, one of the provincial lords who rose in revolt against the Dimeneus Empire’s tyranny and plunder after that empire had once unified the Western Continent. The West had become a living hell—a lawless land where strength alone decided everything. Seeing that devastation, the founding king, though not free of ambition himself, decided to build a kingdom out of fear that the entire continent would otherwise be reduced to ash.
Years later, while expanding his power, he received word that a great host of monsters was battling someone deep in a certain forest. There he witnessed elves fighting the beasts. By the time he arrived the elves had been nearly wiped out; the monsters, having tasted flesh, were about to scatter in every direction. He managed to exterminate them, but the elves were already gone.
It was then that the Shinmok—the Divine Tree that had lived in harmony with the elves—begged the king for aid. If he would help it grow, the tree promised bountiful harvests in return. In an age of war, food meant power. Yet the founding king’s abilities were not extraordinary enough to claim vast lands. After he died of old age the Shinmok with which he had contracted vanished without a trace. Later generations of the royal line searched the forest where the tree had once stood, but never found it again.
“So the royal family treated it as little more than a founding myth, or else assumed the Shinmok had simply grown and moved elsewhere.”
“Didn’t anyone go looking after the kingdom fell?”
“No. Even I thought it was just an old story that had become legend.”
Countess Akina had advised that, since the legendary sword of Halrot’s founding king had been drawn and revealed its true might, the legends of Luciarkenel might likewise hold truth—and that Lillian should seek the place out if the chance ever arose.
“But why would the countess tell you something like that?”
“She must have decided that Halrot’s strength alone would not be enough to topple the Saryeong Kingdom.”
If the Shinmok truly exists, it means it once lived within Saryeong territory. She’s probably telling us to learn about the Saryeong Kingdom from the tree itself.
To most humans the Saryeong Kingdom was nothing more than a horde of evil undead that needed to be purged. Yet Akina, charged with defending her homeland against them day after day, had begun to harbor doubts.
Are they really nothing but wicked undead?
She felt sorry for the Luciarkenel royal line, but that tragedy had not been born of malice or grudge; it had been a catastrophic accident of astronomical odds in which two castles fused and each side saw the other as invaders. Had the Saryeong Kingdom truly been a band of savage undead, they would have stretched their hands toward the nearest nation—Halrot—long ago, and Akina would have been the first to face that conspiracy.
That was why she had spoken of the Shinmok legend: so that if the tree still lived, Lillian herself might hear from it what the Saryeong Kingdom truly was.
After parting from Countess Akina, Lillian and Kaisent talked of many things on the way back to the inn. Inside, every mercenary of the company had already gathered; a momentous announcement was about to be made.
“Priscilla. The weapons?”
“I’ve already purchased them.”
“We’ll check them later.”
“Yes.”
While Kaisent and Lillian had gone to see Countess Akina off, Priscilla had bought military-grade arms.
“Everyone, attention!”
Climbing onto a table, Lillian focused every eye on herself and relayed, word for word, what the king had told her at the party: war with the Saryeong Kingdom in half a year; those who earned great merit and reclaimed human lands would be formally ennobled as lords of those territories; and an agreement had been reached for them to train under Countess Akina for the next six months.
“I will be honest. The war against the Saryeong Kingdom will be brutal.”
They would be facing the force that had destroyed an entire kingdom; ordinary mercenaries would be ground to dust without mercy.
“I have no intention of dragging subordinates who lack the will to fight into such a war. Anyone who wishes to leave may leave. I will send you off with no conditions attached.”
“……”
The sudden bombshell left the mercenaries speechless, blinking in stunned silence. Then a low murmur of discussion rose among them.
It would have been heartwarming if every last man had chosen to stay without hesitation, but reality was never so kind. Some had grown fond of the freedom and wandering life of a mercenary. Others simply hated the rigid discipline of regular army service. Still others felt genuine fear of the Saryeong Kingdom. For a tangle of reasons, a number of them decided to go.
“It’s been a pleasure.”
“I’ve served in plenty of companies, but you were the best captain I ever had.”
“If it were a war against another country I might’ve stuck around, but the Saryeong Kingdom… yeah.”
Roughly forty mercenaries left. None of them regretted the time they had spent under Lillian. A few even muttered half-joking, half-serious promises that they would come back if the assault on the Saryeong Kingdom failed.
Those who remained had their own reasons: men who wanted a stable position before age robbed them of the ability to fight; men who saw a chance for social advancement; men who simply trusted the skill with which Lillian had run the company all this time. Whatever their motives, only those still willing to face the Saryeong Kingdom stayed behind.
“This is the last chance. Is there anyone else who wants to leave? Don’t worry about what the others think—act on your own will.”
She urged them once more, but no one else walked out of the inn.
“Thank you. I have no intention of treating any of you as disposable. That is why I decided we will train for half a year under Countess Akina. There you will harden yourselves and learn to fight not as mercenaries but as soldiers. Any questions?”
When Lillian opened the floor, a veteran who ranked among the company’s elders raised his hand.
“If we’re going to learn to fight as soldiers, does that mean we’ll all be armed with magic guns?”
“Not every man, but at least two-thirds of us will be.”
“Arming that many will cost a fortune, won’t it?”
“Don’t worry about that part. I can’t speak openly, but we have a few trump cards of our own.”
“Well… if you put it that way…”
A few more minor questions followed. Then the heavy question every mercenary had been dying to ask finally surfaced.
“But why is Countess Akina showing us this kind of favor?”
“…I once had a connection with her, long ago.”
“Were you a knight under her command?”
“If I had been, I’d have been beheaded as a deserter by now. What matters is that so long as our goals remain the same, the countess will help us.”
In truth it had all been an effort to win Kaisent, but Lillian, dissatisfied with that reality, chose to lie. Watching their captain show no special reverence toward the woman known as the guardian deity of the Halrot Kingdom, the mercenaries began to speculate that she must have been the scion of some rather high-ranking noble house.
“If there are no further questions, we depart for Margrave Akina’s territory! Everyone, prepare to move out!”
“Yes, ma’am!”
After purchasing food and other necessities, the Wolf Mercenary Group set out for Countess Akina’s domain. When night fell and they made camp, and the mercenaries had drifted into sleep, three people naturally came together.
First, let me say this outright. These weapons are garbage.
Skynet had been given the magic guns in secret around lunchtime; by nightfall the reverse-engineering and analysis were complete, and the AI’s verdict was absolute.
“You can’t judge them by the standards of our world, Skynet.”
That is not the issue, Young Master. These weapons contain deliberately engineered flaws.
“Deliberately?”
The critical components were filled with cheap materials so that both production cost and durability would be lowered.
At Skynet’s firm declaration Priscilla exploded in fury.
“Those goddamn bastards! They charged ten gold apiece for this trash!!”
Not only had they gouged an outrageous profit on the magic guns—they had done it by deliberately producing garbage to slash manufacturing costs. Even though she herself had been born a noble, the casual way other nobles committed such acts filled her with disgust.
“I was prepared for something like that. Did the reverse-engineering succeed?”
Yes. The design of the magic gun itself was simple.
“If we manufacture with the resources we currently have?”
Eighty-two units are possible.
Lillian smiled; that was more than twenty guns beyond her own estimate.
“Lillian.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“I think you’ve been underestimating Skynet’s abilities. Of course Skynet would have already installed upgrades.”
Correct. Before Young Master arrived I prepared a superior version of the magic gun. I could make far more powerful weapons if I wished—
“But that would draw more attention than we need.”
Yes. Therefore I designed them so that, to an untrained eye, they appear no different from the existing models.
A pair of mechanical arms brought forward two magic guns.
The one on the right is the original; the one on the left is my modified version. Please try them yourselves.
Another mechanical arm carried a thin metal target plate a suitable distance away and locked it in place. Lillian took the original gun; Priscilla took the modified one. Both channeled mana to charge the weapons, aimed, and fired at the target.
Bang! Bang!
“This is…”
“I never imagined the difference would be this great.”
Having fired on the same signal, the two of them immediately understood just how superior Skynet’s modified magic gun was. Both rounds punched through the plate, yet the hole left by the original was ragged and uneven, while the improved gun had cut a perfect circle as clean as if drawn with a compass. The diameter of the improved hole was roughly twice as large.
A magic gun charged mana and then launched a mana-formed bullet by means of a mana explosion. Skynet had simply raised the mana conductivity, dramatically increasing the weapon’s power. In addition the structure had been redesigned for ergonomics so that anyone whose build was not extremely twisted, or far larger or smaller than an ordinary adult, would find it comfortable to use. Recoil had also been cut by more than half.
They swapped guns and fired again, confirming once more how thoroughly superior the improved model was.
Frankly speaking, even without me, human intelligence alone is more than capable of improving and advancing the magic gun. But in the world Young Master described, it has clearly been neglected simply because it is a “weapon for infantry.”
“That’s right. In particular, any modification that would let a magic gun fire without mana is blocked no matter what.”
Lillian agreed completely. The royalty and nobility of this world loathed the “barbaric” idea of democracy they had learned of from demi-humans. The thought of noble blood being dragged down by filthy commoners was intolerable even when it was only a tale from another world. Therefore no weapon that would allow an ordinary, talentless commoner to fire a powerful bullet merely by pulling a trigger—like the firearms of Earth—was ever permitted to be developed. Moreover, because magic guns were used mainly by professional soldiers who were mostly commoners, no one felt any real drive to improve them. While every other weapon advanced in countless ways, the magic gun alone remained a neglected, unfortunate armament.
And I have two pieces of good news for Young Master.
“For me? Two of them?”
First, would you hand me the gloves you are wearing?
“Sure, here.”
Whirr— whiiiiirr—
The mechanical arm mounted on the ceiling carried the gloves Kaisent used when forging swords and shields over toward the production plant.