Knock, knock.
Anya struggled to lift his eyelids at the sound of knocking on the carriage. I’m coming in. With those words asking permission, the carriage door opened carefully.
“Are you alright?”
Riario was looking at him with an ambiguous expression. The first sensation Anya felt was an unbearably horrible smell. Something rose up from within him. Anya hurriedly covered his mouth and rushed out of the carriage.
“Ah…! Y-Your Highness!”
Riario’s startled cry rang out, but Anya had already burst from the carriage. And then Anya saw a wide pit dug into the ground. In the center of the pit were several long stakes, each with dozens of heads skewered on them like meat on a spit.
Terrified and in a state of panic, Anya began to run without even being able to scream. But he didn’t get far before he collided with something hard.
Could it be a ghoul?
Ughhhh. Overwhelmed by fear, Anya finally couldn’t hold back and vomited.
“Good heavens.”
Behind Anya, who was bent over vomiting, the knights collectively sighed. Lorea even turned his head away, holding his forehead.
“…”
In his field of vision, he saw dark leather boots now splattered with his own vomit and dark red blood. Ugh! Anya heaved up more vomit at that gruesome sight.
“Commander… are you alright?”
A quiet silence fell.
Shortly after, Anya’s trembling chin was roughly grabbed by someone. Evernight’s face filled his vision. There were the blue eyes that had been reflected in the bloody window earlier. The man indifferently turned Anya’s pale face this way and that, then pulled up the corner of his mouth. It was a cold smile with eyes that didn’t move at all.
“I told you I detest whining.”
Anya flailed his hands and feet, trying desperately to escape from Evernight’s grasp. Unfortunately, his cotton-like fists couldn’t even reach Evernight’s chest. Evernight released his hand without hesitation. As expected, Anya fell flat on his back.
The prince’s clothing—patched in places but cleanly ironed—was mercilessly soiled with mud. Evernight looked down with a bored expression at the white clothing, symbolizing purity, being contaminated with filth.
“Commander…! Still, he is a prince.”
At Lorea’s brief outcry, Evernight swept back his hair, which had become sticky with splattered blood. His features—as cold as a honed blade but handsome enough to entrance even monsters—were clearly revealed. He sneered at Anya, still struggling in the mud, as if he were nothing.
“He’s no longer a prince. He’s my damn companion whom I have to support for life. To survive in the North, he needs to get used to this. Don’t help him. That’s an order.”
He says it’s an order. Well, can’t be helped. Sisou shrugged toward Lorea. Lorea looked at the prince with sympathetic eyes before soon turning away heavily. The other knights also began moving busily to their own tasks.
When they poured oil on the ghoul heads skewered on stakes and set them ablaze, the already nauseating air became even fouler. Anya, lying face down in the mud, covered his mouth and wept profusely at that bizarre smell he was experiencing for the first time in his life. His clean face quickly became grimy. Now, even if the Emperor himself came forward and declared that child was his son, no one would believe it. He’d never had imperial dignity to begin with, but now he was worse than a street serf.
Anya lay in the mud for a long time, crying and sniffling. But no one paid him any attention. Anya also knew how to feel embarrassment and shame. After all, he too was human.
“Cough, cough!”
The smoke from burning the corpses was acrid enough to trigger involuntary coughing. Anya’s face was red and swollen from wiping away so many tears and snot with his sleeve. Self-loathing overwhelmed him with every breath.
‘Why am I like this? I’m just a burden to them… Since I’m no different from an idiot, I’ll surely be abandoned. That man will definitely lose patience and sell me in the slave market.’
“The road to the North is long and rough, Your Highness.”
As he barely held himself up with his thin arms trembling, the mage crouched down in front of him. He took something from his robes and held it out to Anya. On the mage’s palm lay a round, black pill.
‘Are… are you telling me to commit suicide?’
Anya shook his head while covering his mouth. Riario let out a small sigh. How old would he appear to be? Fifteen? Sixteen? Although the head chamberlain had mentioned that he’d recently become an adult, judging by his development, he didn’t look it at all.
The Emperor was truly, in vulgar terms, a man whose conscience had died. He had practically thrown away the young prince—whom he’d shoved into an annex and neglected—to the leader of the worst knighthood known as the ‘Dark Lions’.
The Dark Lions were knights who guarded the Night’s Wall, referred to as the end of this world. In other words, a place where one could die at any moment. He’d sent a mere child, no different from a defenseless lamb, to such a place where life and death interchanged.
In the North, where the Night’s Wall that separated the living from the dead stood, this prince would never endure.
Riario pulled down the prince’s hand and personally placed the round pill in it.
“This is a secret from the Commander.”
He winked.
“When it becomes too difficult to bear, chew and swallow this. You’ll instantly fall into a sweet, deep sleep.”
With teary eyes, Anya looked back and forth between the round pill and the mage’s face. He tried to speak with his dry, parched lips.
“Why… wh-why give me s-something so pre-precious…”
Riario scratched his cheek in embarrassment. He felt sorry for this kid, but since the Emperor had mentioned the right of the first night, they had to safely bring Anya to their northern territory. If this half-wit prince were to die before then, the capricious Emperor might nullify Evernight’s bestowal of the duke title.
Knights tended to overestimate the stamina of ordinary people. Moreover, Anya didn’t even qualify as ordinary. He was the worst weakling Riario had ever seen. So he had no choice but to step in personally as a precaution…
“Let’s just call it a favor.”
Despite the somewhat insincere answer, Anya Claicer bowed his head deeply and clutched the round pill as if it were a precious treasure.
“Th-thank you.”
***
The journey toward the North progressed vigorously without rest. The Dark Lions showed little sign of fatigue even after riding horses all night.
“We have no choice but to camp outdoors today.”
However, when the warhorses they were riding made rough sounds and slowed their pace, they had no choice but to take a rest. As they drew closer to the North, the number of villages decreased rapidly. They looked for even abandoned houses, but when that wasn’t feasible, they set up camp in a safe area.
“I’ll patrol the vicinity. Mage, can you assist with magic?”
Although the mage, who had weak stamina, showed evident signs of fatigue, he nodded and dismounted. Sisou, with a spirited exclamation of “Hyeah!”, shot into the darkness like an arrow.
“We definitely eat the same thing, but that guy strangely has abundant energy.”
Riario shook his head and quietly sat down with his eyes closed. Beneath him, a magic circle spread out, emitting a strange purple light. It detected Sisou quickly circling the campsite. While Riario cast protective spells around them and explored the surroundings, the remaining knights set up tents and lit a campfire.
“Karen, your hands are rough but your work is neat. You’ll make a good husband.”
Sisou, who had quickly finished his patrol and returned, looked at the contents of the large pot placed over the campfire with a pleased expression.
“Shut up and just eat.”
Karen answered while stirring the stew—made with dried jerky, mashed potatoes, and a few herbs—with a wooden ladle. Due to the much colder temperature than in Maneregia, everyone gathered around the campfire to warm themselves. Having traveled all day, they were hungry no matter how much they ate.
“Ah… but what about His Highness?”
Sisou, who was voraciously devouring the stew, asked while glancing at the deathly quiet carriage. The knights were taking breaks according to their own biological rhythms, not out of consideration for the naive prince experiencing the world for the first time in the bumpy carriage.
“That sleeping pill provides the body with several days’ worth of necessary nutrients, so don’t worry.”
Since Riario had tipped the knights off about giving the prince a sleeping pill behind the Commander’s back, they didn’t think much of the deathly silence from inside the carriage.
“Riario, you did something unnecessary.”
Evernight was sitting leaning against a rock in a relaxed posture. The unrealistically handsome man sometimes looked more like a noble civil official than a knight. Perhaps because of his hair—black as the night sky, forming a vivid contrast—and his cool skin.
Who would think he was the commander of the Dark Lions, known for their notoriety?
“He’s just a kid. Besides, you seem to keep forgetting that he’s a prince, Commander.”
“Since the Emperor sold him to me, he’s now Anya Evernight, not Claicer. I decide where he stays.”
Evernight spoke in a dry tone while repeatedly throwing and catching a dagger. The sharp dagger—which seemed like it would cause terrible bleeding with the slightest touch—moved precariously in his hand.
“I have no intention of preparing a funeral until you officially receive your title.”
“Then… is His Highness capable of getting pregnant?”
Since you’re getting married to the Commander. Sisou asked innocently with his cheeks puffed up. In the world, there were occasionally males with bodies capable of pregnancy. Although the number was rare, they definitely existed. But as the cruel principle of the world dictated, minorities inevitably faced persecution.
“Since he can get pregnant, he was thrown to me as a ‘fuck you.'”
The dagger spinning in the air fell toward Evernight like an arrow. He lightly caught the handle and stuck it in his belt.
