A guy who would hate it? Veil Khalid’s thoughts were always hard to predict. It had been like this ever since he’d opened his eyes on the bed this morning.
This was the first time he’d been in a position of being pushed around by other people.
‘How did I end up like this……’
How had other people endured this? At first, he felt insulted enough to grind his teeth at every single little thing, but after going through the incident with Headmaster Silvanus, he’d rather become humble.
It seemed like only Headmaster Silvanus could resolve this matter, but there seemed to be no room for that. Even revealing his identity to Rowen was proving difficult.
Nigel exhaled deeply with his body flattened from the pressure he felt above and below.
The place where Veil Khalid stopped after a moment was somewhere Nigel could never have imagined.
‘This is… my room?’
It was right in front of Nigel Kaiserion’s dormitory room. Since he wasn’t even superficially friends with Veil Khalid, Nigel had never even had a meal alone with him, let alone invited him to his dormitory room.
To think he’d find Nigel’s dormitory room so easily. Moreover, before coming here, Khalid had definitely said he’d ‘gotten a good idea.’
‘What’s he planning to do in my room….’
While Nigel was thinking that, with a swing, Veil Khalid opened someone else’s dormitory room door wide as if it were his own.
As expected, he’d thought the guy wasn’t right in the head normally, but seeing him do crazy things behind people’s backs as if it were nothing was very Veil Khalid indeed.
“As expected, our prince is busy with Student Council work from early morning.”
Even his muttering about knowing someone else’s entire schedule was a sight to behold. The moment Nigel, trapped in Khalid’s grasp, was about to say something—to say ‘ribbit.’
‘……!’
Swoosh— Nigel flew through the air in an arc from Veil Khalid’s hand. Then he fell onto the bed sheets.
Despite landing on the soft wool blanket, a squelch sound came out.
‘Ha. Throwing a frog into my room, even onto my bed? What kind of crazy thing is this, and he’s not even a child.’
Nigel was so dumbfounded he momentarily forgot he was that frog. Khalid was severely lacking in awareness that he was the heir to a kingdom.
Nigel tried to get up and glare at Khalid but flopped face-first. Balancing on four legs was harder than expected.
Damn it…! While Nigel was quietly despairing, Veil Khalid spoke as if kindly explaining to the frog sprawled on the bed.
“This is some bastard’s perfect dormitory room. Feel free to turn it into a complete mess.”
Veil Khalid, who had no idea in his dreams that the frog was that very Nigel, had a proud face.
‘I knew he disliked me before, but I didn’t know he hated me enough to personally pull off something like this.’
Honestly, from Nigel’s standpoint, who had never disliked anyone to that degree, it only felt like excessive emotion.
While Nigel was thinking such thoughts, Veil Khalid seemed to realize only then that he’d entered Nigel Kaiserion’s room for the first time.
With a creeped-out face, he examined the books organized by subject, magical tools, and writing instruments on Nigel’s desk and muttered:
“Wow, it’s really organized to a suffocating degree.”
He walked to Nigel’s desk and used his finger to dishevel the perfectly aligned quill pens.
“How can anyone even live in a place like this? As expected, he’s not in his right mind.”
He wanted to shout not to touch other people’s things carelessly, but all that came from Nigel’s mouth was a strange sound.
“Ribbit!”
Veil Khalid, who’d been muttering to himself, turned his head with a slightly startled face. Then he soon giggled and shook his head from side to side.
“You startled me, I thought someone came in.”
Not knowing that Nigel’s insides were boiling, Khalid examined a few magical tools and parcels placed on Nigel’s desk. Especially for some unknown reason, he seemed to be checking the sender tags on the parcels.
‘Had Veil Khalid ever sent me a parcel?’
Even Nigel, watching that, thought such a thing. Khalid lightly untied the ribbon on one of the parcels with a swoosh. It was a red ribbon.
‘Why that?’
Is he opening the parcel? While Nigel was lying flat on the pure white bed, Khalid approached Nigel holding that red ribbon. Then he roughly tied it around his waist (though he didn’t know if frogs had waists, but between the front and back legs).
“Still, it’s my first gift in a way, so I should wrap it.”
What gift?
Nigel struggled to untie the ribbon with his front legs, but the intricately tied knot couldn’t be undone with a frog’s blunt front legs.
Meanwhile, Khalid completed the knot while lightly pressing the frog’s soft belly with his thumb.
Soon after, Nigel became a ridiculous sight with a ribbon as large as his own body. Being turned into a frog was already overwhelming, but with his shabby appearance, Nigel wanted to bite his tongue and die.
“Good, perfect.”
Khalid nodded as if satisfied. Then, giggling, he winked once at Nigel on the bed and left, opening the door as shamelessly as when he’d first entered.
Bang.
The door closed, and silence once again filled the room. Nigel was left alone in the middle of the bed, his body decorated with a red ribbon.
Barely suppressing his desire to kill Veil Khalid.
Nigel ground his teeth while ruminating on his appearance, then suddenly shook his head side to side to shake off sleepiness. Was it because of the slightly chilly breeze? Drowsiness had been washing over him since earlier.
I can’t… fall asleep… Blink, blink. Nigel’s two large eyes flickered.
Meanwhile, Kaiserion Academy began to stir.
It was because of the Empire’s Crown Prince, Nigel Kaiserion, who hadn’t attended despite class having started.
* * *
The corridor was unusually unsettled.
Though it was just before the bell tower’s bell rang to announce the start of class, instead of entering classrooms, students were gathered here and there, buzzing. The one name commonly rising from their lips was singular.
“Did you hear? Crown Prince Nigel was absent today.”
“No way. Something urgent must have happened in the imperial family. Like last time.”
“He left the academy without even an outing permit? ‘That’ Crown Prince?”
“……”
Everyone in the academy clearly knew about Nigel Kaiserion’s perfectionist personality and the fact that he actually had the power to push people around for his own sake.
For such a Crown Prince to disappear from the academy overnight. It was absolutely absurd.
In the middle of the murmuring, Rowen Ashfield was crossing the corridor with a hardened face.
‘What are you going to do if you get cursed or something?’
He’d definitely warned Nigel like that yesterday. Nigel had snorted that things like black magic didn’t exist in the world, but no one knows what those harboring resentment might do. Only stubborn. Rowen slightly frowned.
“……”
Right now, he was looking for someone. It was a desperate effort to reduce even a little of the strange sense of dissonance he’d been feeling since morning.
And before Rowen’s eyes came Anthony’s curly brown hair, wearing the black cloak favored by the Alchemy Department.
“Anthony!”
Rowen’s smile, which was usually his pride, was nowhere to be found.
Flinch! Anthony, who’d detected Rowen’s anger from his voice, shrank his shoulders completely. Then he tried to hide his body among the crowd as if pricked by something.
But the situation didn’t follow Anthony’s wishes. The other students around subtly cleared the way, helping Rowen catch Anthony.
Thump, Rowen’s large palm covered one of Anthony’s shoulders.
“Anthony Drake. Didn’t you hear me calling?”
Gone was the cheerful man like the sun, replaced by a tone so cold it seemed ice would drip.
“Huh? Uh… I didn’t hear.”
Creak creak, Anthony Drake reluctantly turned his head back as if he’d met a monster. Rowen Ashfield had a menacing face that looked as angry as his voice sounded.
“…Is something wrong, Rowen?”
“Are you kidding? You know why I’m here, don’t you?”
Rowen gripped Anthony’s shoulder even more strongly. Anthony’s face twisted in pain.
“Wh-what are you talking about? I, I don’t know! Why are you like this?”
“You don’t know?”
The corner of Rowen’s mouth rose unpleasantly.
“I’m not in the mood for word games right now. Tell me before I kill you.”
