Chapter 42: 027. Imperial Prince is Going Home -1 (Part Two)
“...Isn’t that obvious? Why do you ask something so apparent?”
Luan tilted his head. He couldn’t figure out the intent behind that question.
Harman continued on. “What if the Seventh Imperial Prince has been hiding his true self all along? What if he accepted the fate of being treated like trash for the sake of Lady Yulisia? So that he could... raise sufficient strength. He... acted like a mangnani, and... deliberately got himself banished...”
The first prince looked at Harman with a pair of pitying and sympathetic eyes. “It seems that dealing with that fool for too long has tainted even your mind, Harman.”
“...”
“The road must’ve been long and tiresome. You must be feeling fatigued from the recent events, as well. Not to mention, dealing with that fool would’ve been exhausting, too. You should take your well-deserved rest.”
It was exactly as Harman thought. No one believed him. Well, all the things the Seventh Imperial Prince had done were beyond acceptable, after all.
However, the Paladin didn’t give up.
The young Seventh Imperial Prince was still polishing the dagger of revenge even now. No matter how much strength you shored up, it would crumble down quite easily if no one provided a sturdy pillar of support.
A pillar, a necessary backer for the boy, simply had to be found somehow, somewhere.
Harman sighed under his breath.
He planned out a new itinerary and quickly headed back to the Land of the Dead Spirits.
**
Several weeks had gone by since the end of the ‘Tide of Death’, yet the Ronia fiefdom as a whole still hadn’t regained its normalcy.
Gril frowned deeply as he organised the corpses that had thawed out from the ice.
“Just for how long am I supposed to do this?”
He was a farmer, not some corpse caretaker or some such. However, he couldn’t voice his complaints too loudly, because...
“Fuu-wuu...”
The feudal lord of Ronia was personally overseeing the disposal of the undead corpses along with his knights, that’s why.
“How did a personage such as him get demoted to this place? How?”
Gril could only click his tongue in dismay. While he was doing that, his fellow villager, Hans the hunter, sneaked closer to him.
“Gril! Hurry, my man. Take this...!”
Hans pulled a piece of paper out from his inner pocket and forcibly shoved it inside Gril’s clothing.
“What’s this?”
“It’s something that came out of an undead. Hurry up before the guards say something!”
“What on earth...”
Hans seemed to have already lined his pockets well, since he was carefully putting away a bulging pouch within his clothes.
“I’m telling you, there’re plenty of valuable things to be found here!”
“...”
Gril sneaked a glance at the soldiers currently engaged in their duties before taking a closer look at the piece of paper Hans had given him. As he was never taught how to read, he had no idea what was written on this thing. But regardless, the paper itself seemed to be the luxurious sort that the nobles often used.
It seemed old with the way it was torn, and the ink blotted and smudged. That only made it look more valuable, though.
Gril carefully tucked this scrap of paper back in his inner pocket.
He still had no clue what this was, but he figured that it’d be a good idea to ask Charlotte to have the Imperial Prince take a look at it at a later date.
And it’d be really great if the item could fetch him some coin, too.
historical
Gril smacked his lips in anticipation and returned to his job of disposing the corpses.
**
(Back to 1st person POV.)
“As I thought, it tastes really great!”
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the feast placed on top of the table right before my eyes.
The first thing I did was to use a spoon to take a sip of the soup, and slowly cut into the slab of steak with my amateurish knife skills. Then, I brought the chunk of meat into my mouth.
Aaah, I’m getting all choked up with emotions here. That’s how happy I felt right now.
This was the sense of satisfaction I was longing for!
This sense of happiness! It wasn’t something I could feel back when I worked as a gravekeeper in the monastery.
“...Not being able to move freely is still a bummer, though.”
I took a look at my own body. Currently, my arms, legs, whole torso, and even my head were all wrapped up in swathes of bandages.
It was like looking at a mummy, really.
According to the Priest in charge of taking care of me, I’d been in a coma for the past three weeks or so.
<ul>
It’s a case of divinity exhaustion, your highness. It was severe enough that a normal person would have ended up as a cripple, but... it seems that you’re in a stable condition now. Just how much divinity did you use anyway, your highness?
</ul>
Apparently, I was fed a combination of holy water and various medicines during my three-week-long coma. Even then, my bones hadn’t fully healed yet. There was some residual mental fatigue to worry about too, which was why I needed to rest for a good while longer. That’s what I’ve been told anyway.
Whatever the case might have been, it also meant that I now didn’t need to partake in the community service work of sorting out Ronia fiefdom’s situation.
You could say it was a pretty good result overall.
“Are you happy with how it tastes?”
I glanced to my side after hearing that question.
Charlotte stood next to the bed, staring at me. Her face remained emotionless as usual, but her eyes at least seemed to be filled with anticipation.
To me, it felt like she was waiting for my honest impression on the meal she had painstakingly prepared.
I lightly waved the spoon around and replied, “It tastes freaking good, actually.”
“...Thank you.”
Charlotte smiled faintly.
Upon seeing her once more, I could only frown somewhat.
This kid, no matter how I looked, she was definitely not an ordinary person.
Let’s say that the witch named Morgana was weak because she ran out of her demonic energy reserve. Even if that’s the case, the event with the vampire would obviously be a whole different story altogether.
The feat of blocking the Vampire Count’s breath attack with nothing but a steel shield was a heroic sight, something that you’d only get to see in some legendary tales.
Sure, both Gril and I helped back then, but here’s the thing – the strength to withstand that attack for even a few seconds all by herself simply couldn’t have belonged to a regular girl of her age.
<ul>
...Your highness, did you know about this girl?
</ul>
Numerous Priests, apothecaries, and healers were dispatched to Ronia fiefdom. My treatment, as well as Charlotte’s, was taken up by the most skilled of that bunch, a healer directly employed by the Imperial Family.
<ul>
This child is definitely not ordinary, your highness. At this rate, it’ll be rather difficult to classify her body as a human’s, sir.
</ul>
That was the conclusion the healer arrived at after examining Charlotte. She wasn’t just ‘not ordinary’, but difficult to classify as a human being too?
<ul>
By any chance, was this child exposed to both divinity and demonic energy at some point?
</ul>
Yeah, that did happen.
Charlotte ate zombie rats back in her village and ingested demonic energy. And then, she got thrown into a puddle made out of divinity.
<ul>
In such cases, your highness, what would normally happen is that you’ll either die, become disabled, or end up as a cripple. However, I’ve seen one single case similar to what we have here. It happened about fifty years ago when his majesty the Holy Emperor fought the Necromancer King Amon, and fell into a comatose state.
</ul>
I scooped up the spoonful of soup and continued to recall what the healer told me.
<ul>
Back then, his majesty broke through the limit that all humans are born with. The collision of demonic energy and divinity destroyed his body, and yet it was rebuilt again. That process had been truly bizarre to behold. It was as if his physical body was going through an evolution.
</ul>
Through demonic energy, the emperor experienced death, then he was revived through divinity. His bones were crushed and hardened, his skin rotted away before new ones grew out, he vomited out dead blood as new blood replaced it, and then...
<ul>
Even though his exterior is the same as us, he had become a superhuman that exceeds the limits of a regular human body. The reason why his majesty was able to defeat Necromancer Amon was precisely because he ended up acquiring that superhuman physique.
</ul>
Apparently, the great hero Kelt Olfolse was Superman.
I stared openly at Charlotte and at the same time, activated the ‘Mind’s Eye’.
[Name: Charlotte
Age: 16
Traits: Cooking, hard working, extreme concentration, sloppy swordsmanship, superhuman physique, a versatile talent.
<ul>
I’ll work hard so that I can assist him!]
</ul>
“...?”
Charlotte tilted her head and touched her face, seemingly wondering ‘Do I have something on my face?’
“...So, the mythical total rebirth of one’s body only seen in xianxia novels do happen in this world, too.”
It seemed that this girl was destined to become a hero or something later on.
Just as I decided to return to my steak and finish it as soon as possible, someone knocked on the door and entered.
“Please pardon my intrusion, your highness the Seventh Imperial Prince.”
Paladin Harman stepped inside. He now observed proper etiquette which was rather different from before. I was wondering why I couldn’t see this dude for the past few days or so, yet here we were.
“Okay, so? What’s up?”
Surely he wasn’t here to tell me that I gotta go back to the monastery and resume my role as its gravekeeper. Or maybe worse, offer my services to Ronia fiefdom still in the middle of reorganising itself, right?
I’d definitely decline such an invitation.
Seriously, he wouldn’t force a patient still wrapped up in bandages to do manual labour, right?!
However, what Harman said next was completely out of my expectations.
“His Majesty the Holy Emperor is summoning you, your highness.”
“Wha...?”
“His majesty, Holy Emperor Kelt Olfolse, has issued an order of your immediate return, your highness.”
I ended up dropping the fork in my hand after he repeated his words.
< 027. Imperial Prince is Going Home -1 (Part One and Two) >Fin.