“…What is this?”
“Isn’t Your Highness Nigel Kaiserion part of the Student Council? Then while you’re here.”
Ezra’s voice was low and gloomy. After hearing his voice a few times, it felt clear that this was indeed the Alchemy Department president who usually wore his hood pulled deep.
Anyway, while I’m here, what? Nigel frowned slightly.
“I’d appreciate it if you could sign this.”
“…What?”
“It was bothersome to go all the way to the Student Council room, but this worked out well.”
What? Ezra tried to forcibly put the quill pen in Nigel’s hand. What are you talking about? Nigel avoided the president’s pale white fingers, which looked like they hadn’t seen sunlight in ages, and looked down at the parchment.
It was.
Nigel let out a hollow laugh.
What Ezra had presented was a revised version of the Alchemy Department’s festival proposal.
“This part here.”
“…….”
Ezra, who thought Nigel had stopped because he couldn’t find where to sign, kindly pointed his finger to a certain part at the bottom of the parchment.
The bastard was treating Nigel like a moving approval stamp for the Student Council.
He must have lost his mind from repeating experiments every day. The fact that he usually wore his hood pulled deep was probably the only way he could pretend to be a normal person.
“Do I look like I came here just to run errands?”
A cold voice leaked out automatically. If it had been another student, they would have immediately turned pale at the Crown Prince’s anger. But Ezra held out the parchment Nigel had ignored again and replied in a soulless voice.
“Not that, but…. I thought if you did it while you’re here, it would be good for both of us…. Efficient.”
“…Ha.”
He won’t listen.
Nigel sighed and pressed his forehead. As soon as he’d returned from being a frog to human, another headache found him.
A pain as if someone inside his head was striking his brain with a hammer. He desperately needed the medicine that Eden Lake would have, which he didn’t have on hand right now.
Rowen beside him asking “Nigel, are you okay? Does your head hurt?” sounded faint as if heard from outside the door.
‘I need to find Eden Lake.’
Nigel pressed firmly on his throbbing temples. He couldn’t let rumors spread in a place like this that the Crown Prince had an illness.
“I’m fine.”
After saying that curtly, Nigel struggled to straighten his disrupted balance. He chewed the inside of his mouth to swallow the still throbbing pain.
Thunk. Nigel pushed the parchment to the other side of the table.
“I didn’t come here in person for approval.”
When he took another step closer to Ezra, Ezra asked with a blank face, “Then?” To make him understand, Nigel spat out words in a low, sunken voice.
“I came to find the caster of a certain curse.”
“Curse…?”
Ezra finally showed a proper reaction. He tilted his head and said.
“What curse are you talking about? We’re…. alchemists. We don’t deal with things like curses.”
“Did my words sound like I was trying to play word games? I came knowing full well that when alchemy is applied to humans, it produces effects similar to curses.”
Nigel said with a growl.
But Ezra didn’t bat an eye. Rather, he tilted his head slightly as if he didn’t understand Nigel’s agitated attitude.
“Ah, you’re talking about something like reagents.”
Ezra’s voice was dry, but its content was precise like a dagger.
“Certainly, reagents made through alchemy do work on humans. In theory.”
Ezra twirled his quill pen while looking around the laboratory.
“But well.”
Pointing at the students coughing in the purple smoke, the stupid expressions of those who kept breaking beakers, he added calmly.
“The human-use reagents Your Highness is speaking of are high-level alchemy equivalent to at least 7-circle magic. If the ingredient mix is off by even 0.1 grams, it becomes deadly poison or explodes.”
“…….”
“As you can see, our department students are…….”
Ezra paused to choose his words.
There was visible effort to express it as politely as possible, but the conclusion was one.
“At a level where they burn cauldrons just from boiling water. If they had the skill to make such high-difficulty reagents, they wouldn’t be Academy students but would belong to an alchemy guild.”
It was too calm a truth.
Nigel closed his mouth. He wanted to refute it, but looking around, those words didn’t seem wrong.
That’s when it happened.
A student urgently shouted from the corner.
“Uh, huh? Solution number 3 keeps turning black?!”
Without even turning his gaze from Nigel, Ezra replied indifferently.
“You put in too much mute root. Add two drops of neutralizer. Be careful because it’ll explode if you put in three drops.”
“Gasp! Thank you!”
As the student immediately hurriedly tilted the medicine bottle, the black smoke subsided like magic. Ezra didn’t even confirm the sight. His attitude was as if all the formulas and result values were already in his head.
“…….”
Nigel’s eyes narrowed.
Just now, that bastard got it right without even looking.
First, he had no choice but to acknowledge that Alchemy Department president’s skills. And also the fact that the culprit wasn’t here. As Ezra said, there was no way curse reagents could come from students at this level.
And above all, his head hurt as if it would split. It was his limit.
“…Let’s go, Rowen.”
All business was done. As Nigel turned around, Ezra smoothly held out the parchment again.
“You’re leaving?”
“…….”
“Won’t you sign it?”
Persistent bastard.
He could feel the surrounding Alchemy Department students sneaking glances at the standoff between Ezra and Nigel. They all wanted to put on a performance at the festival.
Nigel glared at Ezra with a fed-up expression. But he didn’t swat away the parchment like before. He roughly snatched it from Ezra’s hand.
Swoosh.
“Ah….”
A lament flowed from Ezra’s mouth.
Like a squirrel whose precious acorn had been stolen, he stretched his empty hands into the air with a tearful face. When Nigel rolled up the parchment and tucked it inside his cloak, Ezra’s gaze followed pitifully into that cloak as if being sucked in.
“Why are you taking that….”
“I need to review it.”
“……Pardon?”
Nigel added curtly.
“…Even I can’t unilaterally approve something like this.”
“Then?”
“If you revised the budget, the Student Council will review it again.”
“…….”
“……Just so you know, I’m not saying I’ll approve it. It could be rejected at the Student Council meeting.”
Despite the prickly retort, Ezra’s reaction was unexpected. Ezra’s blank eyes instantly widened and sparkled.
“Wow…….”
It was an expression like a child receiving a Christmas present, or a puppy receiving a treat. When color returned to the face that had been dry as a mineral doll just moments ago, the destructive power was considerable.
The pale, clear face revealed between disheveled black hair relaxed innocently. Ezra raised the corners of his mouth in a broad smile and brought his empty hands together in front of his chest.
“Thank you.”
“…….”
Nigel was momentarily at a loss for words in a different sense than before. If he had just continued being oblivious or dry, he would have ignored it, but suddenly smiling so innocently and blankly like that was absurd.
Ezra was blinking his already large eyes while looking up at Nigel.
He understood why the president usually wore his hood pulled so deep. If he walked around smiling blankly like that with a face like that, he would definitely be picked clean to the bone by scammers.
Nigel cleared his throat and quickly turned around.
“Let’s go, Rowen.”
As Nigel hurried out of the laboratory, Ezra’s voice persistently followed from behind.
“Please go safely… I really ask for positive review….”
It was a slow and deflated, but seemingly pleased farewell. As soon as they came out to the corridor, Rowen quietly asked.
“Are you really doing it? You said re-review was absolutely not happening.”
“…Shut up.”
Nigel answered with a furrowed brow.
“If you say that too, I feel like I’ll regret it more.”
Nigel moved his steps quickly. He didn’t want to stay in this chaotic Alchemy Department room for even one more second.
* * *
As soon as they left the Alchemy Department room, Nigel gasped for the breath he’d been holding. As soon as they came outside, the fresh air of the Academy forest seemed to fill his lungs. But the throbbing head showed no signs of improvement.
Crack, the sound of a twig breaking under his foot rang out. Rowen, who was beside him, wrapped his solid arm around Nigel’s waist as if he’d been waiting.
“Are you… really okay right now?”
