Chapter 94
Shudder, shudder!
Where had the swaggering figure from earlier gone? Harol trembled, his face pale.
The moment Tallein fled, everything was over, so Harol squeezed his eyes shut.
The Royal Knights were at his side, but not one of his retainers was.
“Life is strange. Who would have thought things would be turned completely upside down like this? Just moments ago, I was a fugitive and you were the king.”
“……I’ll hand over the throne. In exchange, spare my life. I’ll live quietly as though dead in exile.”
“You killed your parents and siblings without the slightest hesitation, yet I suppose your own life is precious to you? Judging by how you’re begging for it.”
Clench!
With both eyes still closed, Harol clenched his fist.
A mere hour ago, he could not even have imagined such a situation, but unfortunately, this was reality.
Therefore, Harol continued with a resigned expression.
“……Please.”
“I’m sorry, but I have no choice.”
“What?”
“And even if I did, I have no desire to let you live. We’re brothers, but we’re also enemies. You’re the one who killed my parents and siblings.”
“Do you really have to go that far?”
Harol asked through gritted teeth.
He wondered whether blood truly had to be shed in a situation like this.
He had ruled through bloodshed, but Gent had no reason to do the same.
Even for the sake of his public reputation, Gent needed to show mercy.
“I want to ask you the same thing. Did you really have to go that far?”
“……”
Harol closed his mouth.
He had nothing to say about that.
No—more precisely, he did have something to say, but he could not bring himself to say it because he did not think it would help.
“I wanted to see your face.”
“……Crown Prince Lloyd.”
“I wanted to ask what on earth you were thinking when you prepared for war.”
“If I tell you, will you let me live?”
Lloyd let out a hollow laugh at Harol, who had slaughtered countless people like flies yet continued to look after his own safety to the very end.
In a way, he thought it was truly impressive.
Haines, who stood beside him, wore an incredulous expression, as if he felt the same way.
“You really do want to live.”
“The outcome has already been decided, hasn’t it? I’ll give you everything you want. I won’t come near the capital again and will live quietly. So…….”
“Who are the black knights? At the very least, I assume you know them well.”
“You want information about them, it seems. Then I’ll tell you everything. If you promise not to kill me…….”
Thud!
Harol could not finish speaking.
Lloyd’s foot had driven deep into his abdomen before he knew it.
The blow, infused with mana, made Harol clutch his stomach and slump to the ground.
“Gugh!”
Yet he could not lunge at Lloyd.
Haines stood half a step behind Lloyd, glaring menacingly, so Harol did not even dare think of drawing his sword.
In fact, Haines was suppressing him with sheer pressure to keep him from trying anything foolish.
“You still don’t seem to understand the situation. You’re in no position to make demands of me. You might survive only if you obediently answer my questions. Shall I start by cutting off your arms and legs?”
“W-wait!”
At Lloyd’s chilling words, Harol hurriedly raised a hand.
Even if he had to die, he wanted it to be painless.
Harol did not want to die under torture, so he looked up at Lloyd with a forced smile.
“Wait?”
“Please, wait…….”
“Now you seem ready to have a conversation. Tell me everything you know.”
Lloyd’s eyes gleamed coldly.
He had already decided to kill Harol, but he had not the slightest intention of letting him die peacefully.
He intended to force every scrap of information out of him, then kill him after inflicting enough pain to make him wish for death.
He also intended to make him understand in no uncertain terms the price of starting a war.
“Umm!”
“I suppose you still have the leisure to rack your brains. You’re taking your time.”
“N-no! I was just organizing my thoughts! So I could tell you in chronological order!”
“That’s not your concern. Just tell me everything. Only answer my questions. And for your information, we have three more mouths besides yours, so you’d do well to remember that.”
In short, Harol’s expression darkened at the warning not to even dream of plotting anything else.
Nevertheless, he did not let go of the last thread of hope.
He was determined to survive somehow.
Hoping that an opportunity might come to him as it had to Gent, Harol groveled and began recounting everything from the moment he first met the black knights up to the present.
Jade drank tea as he looked down upon Solad Castle, whose atmosphere had become completely different from the day before.
He was enjoying a leisurely teatime amid the peaceful scenery.
“How come you haven’t left your room?”
“Because I have nothing to do. There’s no particular need for me to go out, either.”
“True. Jade handles sylphs by the thousand, after all.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“I always sleep about the same. I’m not particular about where I sleep. But you don’t seem to have slept well, Baron Steven.”
Steven, who had come to Jade’s room with Arelia, smiled awkwardly.
As he had said, he had not slept a wink all night.
Despite having developed dark circles under his eyes, however, he was not all that tired.
“There were a lot of things to sort out.”
“That sounds like a jab at us. Are you saying we do nothing but play and eat?”
“Of course not. I would never think that, Lady Arelia.”
Steven waved his hands emphatically as if to deny it completely.
He wasn’t, nor was anyone else.
If anything, most people praised the two of them.
Everyone knew that the war had ended with minimal casualties because Jade and Arelia had been there.
“Your overreaction to a joke makes that hard to believe.”
“Absolutely not. I, for one, am grateful to the two of you, and so is everyone else. No one thinks you do nothing but play and eat.”
“Then that’s a relief. What about the Fifth Prince?”
“He confessed everything and died. His Highness the Crown Prince killed him personally.”
Arelia nodded.
Lloyd must have felt the same way she had when she personally killed Tallein.
Revenge would not bring the dead Clora back, of course, but it was still better than doing nothing.
Even if revenge was only self-satisfaction.
‘If it can soothe her soul, that alone makes revenge worthwhile.’
Arelia’s expression turned wistful.
Even now, she still found it hard to believe.
She felt as though Clora would be there if she went to Clora’s palace right now.
But that was merely wishful thinking.
“Did you learn anything through the black knights?”
“Well…….”
Steven’s expression darkened.
It was because they had learned virtually nothing despite capturing three of them.
“What is it? Why the long face?”
“All three of them had been subjected to mind-binding magic. And the Fifth Prince knew very little.”
“Mind-binding magic? Is that even possible on a Sword Master?”
Arelia looked startled.
Those who had reached the level of Sword Master had fairly strong mental defenses as well.
In fact, they were harder to subject to mind-binding magic than mages, so Arelia wore an expression full of doubt when she heard that they had been affected by it.
“If they willingly accepted it, rather than having it forced on them, it’s possible. It can also work if the mage’s power is greater than the Sword Master’s. The odds of failure are high, but it isn’t theoretically impossible.”
“Which do you think it was, Steven?”
“The former, I believe. He seemed to know about it himself.”
“This complicates things.”
Arelia looked displeased.
It was because she had the unpleasant feeling that something was still not right.
She had gotten her personal revenge, but somehow she did not feel relieved.
“There definitely seems to be someone behind this, but we weren’t able to find out who.”
“We couldn’t find any connection to the Faithe Empire, either. We locked the three of them up separately, but their reactions were exactly the same, making it difficult to determine anything.”
“Hmm.”
Jade nodded slowly as he watched Steven’s frustrated expression.
He had also retraced Tallein’s memories through the sword, but had not found anything in particular.
It seemed not to have been his personal sword but a supplied weapon, and he had used it only briefly, so little remained. Jade had also learned nothing about his mana cultivation method.
At least he had faintly sensed Tallein exchanging magical communications with someone, but he had not been carrying the sword then, so even Jade’s ability could not properly read the memory.
“We’re keeping every possibility open as we investigate. Stabilizing the Arhan Kingdom comes first, though.”
“That is the top priority. But the Fifth Prince certainly seems to have been a puppet.”
“His Highness the Crown Prince thinks so too. As does the Third Prince.”
“The Third Prince will take the throne, then?”
“Yes. He is the only direct royal left.”
Steven nodded slowly.
If Gent, the Third Prince, had not been there, they would have had to look among the collateral branches, but fortunately, he was.
The nobles and soldiers also seemed to welcome Gent.
He was, after all, the prince who had driven out the tyrant, and he had earned even more recognition by securing the staunch support of the allied Kingdom of Polstein.
“The Third Prince wouldn’t be bad for Lloyd, either. The alliance will grow even stronger.”
“That’s right. However, there is a small problem.”
“What problem?”
“The Third Prince proposed a political marriage to make the alliance even more secure, and the proposed bride is Princess Rainy.”
Steven’s gaze slid toward Jade’s face.
He was curious to see how Jade would react.
Contrary to his expectations, however, Jade quietly sipped his tea with an impassive expression throughout.
-What are you trying to pull? Hmph!
-She still hasn’t given up?
Jade did not notice, but the two spirits had watched Steven’s every move from beginning to end.
Therefore, Silestin and Elestra muttered with matching expressions of utter disbelief.
-This is ridiculous! You had nowhere else to stick her, so you stick her with Jade?!
-Because he wants to pair them up. Honestly, Rainy is exceptionally beautiful by human standards.
-She can’t even beat Arelia! Tell her to beat Arelia first, then come talk!
Silestin snorted in disbelief.
The more he watched, the more absurd Steven’s actions seemed.
-But he’s persistent. If this much hasn’t worked, it’s time to give up.
-Exactly. If he were going to give up, he would have done so ages ago. Why doesn’t he realize that?
-Because he doesn’t want to give up. Honestly, there’s no one like Jade, is there? Who else is there?
-The crown princes of the empires? Wouldn’t she think they were still better than Jade? They’d be a huge help politically, too.
Silestin did not even know whether the Western and Eastern Empires had crown princes, but he blurted it out anyway.
He assumed that, being empires, they naturally had heirs.
-Oh-ho, politics? When did you start using such difficult words?
-Hmph! I can use refined words too! I just don’t need to use them normally, so I don’t!
-As if.
Elestra scoffed.
He would sooner believe that an Undine was afraid of water than believe those words.
‘It’s even more chaotic without Whid.’
Jade secretly sighed at the sight of the two bickering again.
He could keenly feel Whid’s absence.
Then again, if Della had been there, the two would not have fought so noisily.
“Oh, Rainy? He’s fallen for her again already?”
“Hahaha, she can’t compare to Lady Arelia, but Her Highness the Princess is incredibly beautiful too.”
“She’s really come into her own. You could say she’s a flower in full bloom.”
Arelia readily admitted it.
Even to her elven eyes, Rainy’s beauty was extraordinary.
After all, some elven blood flowed in her veins, however faintly.
“However, His Highness the Crown Prince does not seem pleased.”