Poisoning
Silphy Calyps, the crown prince's maid, remained prostrate before him as she took the dagger.
The Calyps family had long been the dogs of the imperial bloodline.
Imperial hunting hounds who felt not the slightest hesitation in assassinating anyone the royals ordered them to kill.
Silphy Calyps looked up at the master gazing down upon her.
The prince spoke as one might command a dog.
"Leave me."
A dismissal.
The moment that chill voice struck her ears, Silphy fled the bedchamber as if driven out.
Boom—
The instant the heavy door slammed shut, the taut string of tension that had held her together snapped.
"Ah... ugh..."
In a secluded corner of the sparsely trafficked corridor, Silphy collapsed to the floor and gasped for air.
The cold of the marble seeped through her thin maid's uniform.
But it was not the chill of the floor that froze her to the bone.
The pain of the blow to her solar plexus throbbed belatedly—a hideous, twisting agony, as if her organs were being wrung.
Yet Silphy could not even properly register the pain.
"......."
Her trembling hands clutched the jet-black dagger the crown prince had tossed to her moments before.
An unsettling mana rose from the scabbard like a heat haze.
At that cool, heavy sensation, the scene inside the bedchamber flashed through her mind once more.
In truth, Silphy Calyps had entered the Imperial Palace to kill that arrogant monster.
The Calyps family, purged by the empire.
Her family members beheaded before her eyes, and a young younger sibling left with the illness that had come with their house's fall.
Silphy Calyps had taken work as a palace maid.
She needed money.
And more than anything, she wanted revenge.
Hiding her identity and disguising herself as the lowest of maids had made for a wretched life.
Every night she hid a worn silver fruit knife beneath her pillow and endured by imagining only the act of cutting the monster's throat.
But then—
The First Prince, Riftan von Astel.
That ten-year-old boy seemed to have received every grace and every malice the world had to offer at once—brilliant and cruel.
Looks, talent—an overwhelming existence lacking in nothing.
And in equal measure, a pure demon with no humanity whatsoever.
That was why.
When that demon had left only her behind and offered her the fruit knife, Silphy had thought her heart would stop.
Has he seen through my identity?
Extreme terror.
But when he then ordered her, "Kill me," that terror transformed into fierce murderous intent.
Mad monster.
If this is your arrogance, then I will gladly kill you.
Casting aside all hesitation, she had driven the blade toward his heart—and for the first time she had tasted a thrilling sense of liberation.
But then—
—Thud!
What followed immediately was pain as if her bones were shattering, and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.
One kick had made her feel as if her breath itself had been cut off.
Only ten years old.
Yet the reflexes housed in that small body could never be called human.
Even if dozens of assassins charged him, she doubted they could so much as touch a single hair on that monster's head.
The instinct that ran in the Calyps blood told her so.
I will die like this.
The crime of holding a blade to a prince's throat would never be small.
In the moment she had braced for death—
—Thud.
What fell in place of execution was a dagger.
A luxurious dagger that made the heart race just to look at it.
"Next time, you will pierce my throat without fail. That is what I mean."
That low, arrogant voice still circled her ears.
Silphy's pupils trembled.
This person...
Silphy swallowed dryly.
He already knew everything.
Her identity, her murderous intent, even her desire for revenge.
He had seen through it all—and still he had not punished her.
Instead, as if mocking her trifling vengeance, her weakness, and her worn-out weapon... he had placed real power in her hands, power enough to kill him.
Did you come at me with only that much resolve?
If you truly wish to kill me, go and grow fangs worthy of the task.
It was the most cruel and arrogant mercy a strong man could bestow upon the weak.
The grace that the bloodline of the imperial family—masters the Calyps had served all their lives—bestowed upon his dog.
Humiliation, terror, despair.
In the whirlpool of all those emotions, a single bizarre spark leapt up.
"Ah..."
Leaning against the corridor wall, Silphy clutched the dagger tightly to her chest with both trembling hands.
"You said you would be looking forward to it..."
He was looking forward to it.
To his hunting dog sinking her teeth into his throat.
A bizarre heat slipped out between her red lips.
"Then gladly. I will do everything in my power to pierce your throat."
The prince had known Silphy's will all along—
"Only I."
The hand gripping the dagger went white at the knuckles.
"I will prove that only this blade can kill you."
Your death belongs to me alone.
"What are you doing there?"
An unpleasant voice came from behind Silphy.
Hastily hiding the dagger, Silphy rose.
When she turned, Chief Chamberlain Harman stood with his chin raised.
A man of about thirty, tall, with slit eyes.
He looked Silphy up and down as she stood pale and drained, then smiled thinly.
"Tsk tsk. It seems you thoroughly crossed His Highness and paid dearly for it. And after I told you so carefully how to please the prince."
The chamberlain seemed certain she had been subjected to some terrible torment by the prince and then driven out.
"Wretch. You would do well not to forget that you still draw breath only thanks to me."
Transparent gaslighting.
It had been the chamberlain who pushed Silphy into the post in the first place.
Even so, Silphy only kept her head bowed as usual and gave no answer.
The chamberlain glanced about, then drew a small glass vial from his breast.
A colorless, odorless liquid swirled inside.
"It is nearly time to present His Highness with his medicinal decoction."
He forced the vial into Silphy's hand and whispered,
"Mix this into the decoction."
Silphy's eyes widened slightly.
Poison.
The reason the prince had lately been suffering from unexplained high fevers.
This man had been the culprit all along.
"I have mixed it in several times already, so the effect seems to be working quite well. At this rate he should collapse within a few days."
The chamberlain's eyes gleamed.
"No evidence will remain. And since you have already fallen out of His Highness's favor today, no one will suspect you—so do not worry and just do it."
With her head still bowed, the corner of Silphy's mouth twisted upward in a strange curve.
His Highness... with something as petty as this poison?
"...I will keep it in mind, Chief Chamberlain."
When I calmly examined the present situation—
"It seems there is still some time left before the investiture as crown prince."
My current status was First Prince of the empire.
My age was ten.
Therefore, going by the original work's setting, my mother—the current empress—would be lying ill in bed.
With her consciousness clouded, official authority rested with me.
But I was only ten years old.
In practice, the empress's husband held the power.
In other words, my father the imperial consort was serving as regent.
"Why must everything be so complicated?"
This damn speech pattern.
Anyway, to summarize: Dad was holding power in place of the young prince.
So then—
What was I supposed to do in a situation like this?
First: raise talent capable of cutting me down.
Second: create a system that would leave them no choice but to kill me.
The former I could take slowly.
After all, this body was destined to sadistically grind through countless heroines and male leads, intertwining them all.
I only needed to support them just enough so they would blacken and sharpen their blades of vengeance.
The problem was the latter.
In the original, the crown prince used the empire's rotten rule of law and bureaucracy to build a dictatorship.
If I wanted to bring about my own downfall later, I paradoxically had to normalize this rotten system first.
Only a sturdy nation would produce the legal procedures needed to send a tyrant like me to the guillotine.
"So it's time for normalization, then."
But how much could a ten-year-old child really move?
The range I could act in was, at best, the vicinity of this prince's palace.
Yet as a rule, the stench was always strongest right next to the rotten ones.
"Even after he became crown prince, the sycophants never stopped coming."
A tyrant would never keep honest, outspoken retainers at his side.
I already had a pretty good sense of who was rotten.
For example, the chamberlain who would later become a strategist under the crown prince's protection.
Ambitious types like him were the ones diligently brainwashing people and playing the role of yes-men.
Now that I had just turned ten, it would be best to cut him out while he was still only at the chamberlain level.
"The problem will be finding a justification for the purge."
I needed a pretext if I was going to take his head legally.
Just then—
Knock knock—
"Your Highness, I have brought the medicinal decoction."
The chamberlain's voice came from beyond the door.
"Enter."
The door opened, and the chamberlain carefully stepped in bearing a silver tray.
Behind him, Silphy—whom I had spared earlier—followed with her head bowed low.
With a face of utmost loyalty, the chamberlain set the steaming cup of decoction on the table.
"It is a specially prepared medicine so that it will not tax Your Highness's precious body. Please drink it at once, Your Highness."
In that moment, a faint, unpleasant sweetness brushed my sense of smell.
And a reflexive intuition struck me.
This has poison in it, doesn't it?
"......"
Ah. So that was it.
The reason this insane-spec body of mine had been suffering high fevers lately.
I looked back and forth between the teacup on the table, the bowing chamberlain, and Silphy standing behind him.
"...Yes. A specially prepared medicine, you say."
Then I supposed I had better drink it first.
I slowly reached out and picked up the hot cup.