How long had they been walking like that? Leopold stopped in his tracks and gave a low warning.
“I hear something. Very faint.”
Sound? Right. Terren scoffed — and then the actual cry of a troll reached his ears.
“……”
Leopold drew his sword and readied himself, muttering.
“At least three. I can handle it. Terren, stay where you are.”
“Don’t go around saying my name like that. I’ll do what I want, so stay out of it.”
“I told you not to talk like that.”
“If you can’t stand the sight of me, just throw me to the trolls.”
“Enough!”
He snapped at Terren and launched himself into the air. Three, four, five… an ever-growing number of trolls surrounded them. A guttural cry rang out. But the lives of the trolls soon met their end at Leopold’s blade.
Leopold’s longsword, swung from midair, drove into a troll’s neck. Leopold vaulted up onto the troll’s shoulder — and before the creature could even react, he plunged the blade straight through.
Thwuck — blood sprayed, and the troll met its fate on the spot.
Terren watched the scene in a daze. He brainwashed himself.
Trolls are beasts with just enough intelligence to use simple tools. The five trolls gathered here were most likely a family unit. A living creature — someone’s precious family, someone’s precious life — had just been snuffed out. This is the taking of a life, a grave sin, an act no different from murder—
…Damn it.
No matter how he framed it, he felt absolutely nothing.
The conclusion was clear. Even if he killed those trolls himself, it would bring no change to his Dark Sorcery.
But still — you never know.
Terren Meyer reached into his coat and drew a dagger, hurling it into the back of a troll’s neck.
The troll with the dagger lodged in it cried out and thrashed violently. Leopold, who had been hunting monsters with dazzling skill, turned to Terren with wide eyes.
Terren walked straight toward the troll. The monsters that tried to attack him were already being held back by Leopold, so he moved without difficulty.
Leopold had already slashed into the troll’s legs to make it easier for Terren to finish it off.
The troll had fallen, but it was still alive. Terren Meyer gripped the dagger embedded in the troll’s neck and wrenched it free. Then he drew it clean across the throat.
Terren muttered, his face smeared with blood.
“Maybe killing an orc would make a difference.”
No change to his Dark Sorcery. Not even a speck of guilt. Terren Meyer exhaled in hollow defeat.
That too, a failure. Killing a higher life form might change things, but the odds are slim.
What’s left — animating a corpse with magic and then crushing it again.
Killing a higher life form.
Or else…
Leopold called out.
“Terren, you’re quite good with a blade.”
He had already killed all five trolls without Terren noticing. It was truly remarkable skill.
Even royal knights struggled greatly to take down a single troll. And yet this sixteen-year-old boy was this strong.
It was a level Terren Meyer could never reach even if he spent his entire life with a sword in hand.
Leopold had said it was out of the question — but at this rate, it seemed entirely possible he’d become the royal palace’s first Sword Master within three years.
And if he was this strong…
He could beat everyone except Yuhan or Arnold.
It was partly because the Dark Sorcerers hadn’t committed many killings yet — but still. It was astonishing.
In his past life, Leopold — who had been a Sword Master — had died at a single gesture from a Dark Sorcerer. So his strength had never fully registered.
Is Dark Sorcery just that formidable, or have I been underestimating him?
The troll carcasses and the blood splattered everywhere were horrific to look at. Leopold said,
“This isn’t the end. More will come.”
“…The sun has completely set. Wiping out all the monsters on the mountain will take a long time — do you intend to press on even so?”
“No — no matter how good my eyesight is, daytime is better than night. We’ve spent all our strength today, so it’s better to rest.”
Having said that, Leopold made his characteristic guilt-ridden expression, as though he were about to put on another show of selflessness. Terren found the sight of him hesitating so insufferable that he snapped.
“Say it.”
“Terren, I’m sorry, but it looks like we’ll have to spend the night here.”
“Where else were you planning to spend it if not here?”
“If you hated it too much, I was going to go back down and find an inn. But looking at your reaction, it seems I was worrying for nothing.”
They wandered the area looking for a suitable spot to camp. Fortunately, there was a cave nearby, and they made their way inside. Terren used magic to start a fire, and Leopold encouraged him with exclamations Terren had no desire to hear.
“I should have brought sleeping bags. Will you be able to sleep in a place like this?”
“Stop worrying about useless things and shut up. Just being in the same space as you is already unbearable.”
Leopold watched Terren for a moment, then smiled faintly.
“Thank you for coming with me. Let’s take the troll carcasses back all at once tomorrow.”
The campfire crackled and burned. Terren leaned his back against the cave wall and buried his face in his knees.
He wanted to kill someone soon. No — he had to.
He didn’t want to slink around the slums like some petty criminal, hunting for vagrants just to avoid being caught.
He didn’t want to tremble at the mere thought of killing a handful of vagrants.
The reason Terren Meyer — once a ruthless killer — was making such a pathetic display of himself was entirely because of the boy sitting in front of him.
After a long silence, Terren let out a small, slow question in a hoarse voice.
“Does Your Highness truly despise killing that much?”
Leopold blinked and asked back, puzzled.
“That’s what you’re curious about all of a sudden?”
In the firelight, his glossy golden hair looked even brighter. Those guileless eyes, equally lit by the flames, gave Terren a considerable sense of irritation.
Terren Meyer said nothing more.
As if he had lost all will once again, he only followed the embers with hollow eyes.
Leopold watched him, then spoke quietly.
“I hate it.”
“…I see.”
“I hate killing, and I hate watching things die.”
“I know.”
I know it very well.
Because of that bastard, I witnessed all manner of things I never should have seen in my past life — and I’m set to keep seeing them from here on out, too.
“You know? Were you really that interested in me?”
Leopold tilted his head with a curious expression. Within it was a faint edge of sarcasm. A small, petty sting directed at the commoner who insulted royalty at every turn.
Terren answered in a sharp voice.
“I’ve watched you do one foolish thing after another — it’s not as if I could not know.”
“…Do you really hate me that much, Terren?”
For a moment, the sixteen-year-old boy looked somehow pitiable. Terren Meyer felt a surge of rage so intense it seemed ready to ignite and burn him to ash, and he clenched his jaw. He tasted the faint bitterness of blood at the same moment he spat back with contempt.
“I do. I’m rather curious when exactly Your Highness the esteemed prince will finally accept it.”
Leopold was unbothered. He no longer even frowned at Terren’s insolent manner of speaking.
This was, unexpectedly, a remarkable change. It was the first time he’d experienced this — even including his past life.
Instead of offering some smooth, dignified rebuke, the prince of Delua said something Terren hadn’t anticipated.
“I’ve thought about it quite a bit, actually. I understand why you hate me.”
Even as he watched Terren’s expression twist, he continued as if it were nothing.
“Whatever my intentions may have been — I understand now that my actions could appear, just as you said, to be full of hypocrisy and a sense of superiority.”
“……”
“I thought I was doing my best in my own way. I honestly didn’t know I could be someone so detestable, so hated by another person. Either way, that is also my failing. So I want to apologize.”
Shut up. Right now.
Terren Meyer wanted to scream. But his voice wouldn’t come out.
“May I?”
No. He couldn’t. A wave of nausea rose up in him as if his stomach acid was surging back. His expression twisted on its own.
Leopold hesitated for a moment seeing Terren like that — but in the end, he kept working that revolting mouth of his all the way to the finish.
“I’m sorry. From now on, I’ll try not to judge and act on my own assumptions. You won’t have to feel discomfort on my account.”
“Leopold Delua, please just shut up. Everything you say is awful.”
He shut his mouth as Terren commanded. But he was, in the end, nothing more than a sixteen-year-old brat. He had sunk so deep into his own feelings that he made Terren’s vision blur with rage all over again.
“You say terrible things every time — but you’re also someone who hands out food to starving people in the slums. Every single person at the Royal Academy — no, not one person among the royals, the central nobility, the regional nobility — has ever thought to give bread to the poor. They’d think they’d catch some fatal disease just from getting close.”
Leopold let out a short, contemptuous laugh.
“Innocent lives are dying even now. I’ve heard that in the Ruden territory, a great famine struck this year and three-tenths of the people there perished. If they had simply opened up the granaries that were packed full, every single one of them would have survived. I knew about the count’s exploitation and I couldn’t do a thing. But you — you’re nothing like me. In my opinion, you…”
Terren cut Leopold off.
“Don’t say something stupid. Those vagrants from earlier — death would have been a blessing for them. Handing them bread today was no different from adding one more day of suffering to their lives.”
“What?”
“Does Your Highness not understand plain speech?”
