Leopold Delua had always been this kind of person. Strange and repulsive — the sort of human being Terren’s mind simply couldn’t comprehend.
The two most unbearable things about him were his pathetic hypocrisy and that bizarre, meddlesome curiosity he directed at the most pointless things.
Terren had wanted Leopold to turn around and go straight back to the Academy — to prepare for the classes coming up in a day or two.
All Leopold had to do was send word to the royal palace, and the royal knights would handle a few forest monsters without any trouble.
There was absolutely no reason for Leopold to involve himself.
And yet the man was impossibly stubborn.
Under normal circumstances, Terren would have left without a second thought and returned to the Academy on his own. The reason he’d failed to walk away from Leopold — instead staying and dragging out this pointless argument — was one thing and one thing only: that threatening remark Leopold had made.
“Come with me, and I’ll make sure I never set foot in the slums again. What do you say?”
Terren was, if he was being honest, uneasy. Because if Leopold Delua were to die, everything would be over. Leopold was the kind of man who threw himself headlong into any injustice he witnessed, and right now, a Dark Sorcerer was traveling the country, leaving bodies in their wake.
Leopold staying out of the slums alone might mean nothing in the grand scheme of things — but Terren Meyer’s mind wasn’t working properly. In the end, he’d made the mistake of stopping in his tracks and letting himself get drawn into an argument with Leopold.
“Your Highness, stop talking nonsense. Go back to the Academy right now. You can send a letter to the royal palace and have them deal with the monsters.”
“We’re pressed for time — who has the luxury to sit down and write a letter? That’s inefficient. I’d rather not let the people suffer any unnecessary losses.”
“And you don’t think charging off to hunt monsters is its own kind of loss?”
“Terren, you really are sweet. You keep acting like you’re worried about me — but that’s excessive anxiety. I’m strong enough. And besides, this is something that actually benefits me.”
“…Fine. Do whatever you please, Your Highness.”
Leopold flashed a mischievous smile.
“Want to come with me?”
“Stop acting like we’re close and get out of my sight.”
“I already told you — what goes around comes around. If you come with me, I’ll never go near the slums again. What do you say?”
Terren Meyer stared quietly at the ground. Leopold had learned by now that this was him holding back his anger.
He’d pushed Terren to the edge of his patience — and yet Leopold didn’t feel bad about it. If anything, it was oddly satisfying. He was genuinely surprised by his own capacity for cruelty.
The reason Leopold had proposed going to hunt monsters together wasn’t solely because he wanted to mess with Terren Meyer. The truth was, he’d come to find that spending time with Terren wasn’t unpleasant.
Terren was truly strange. He despised Leopold to an almost visceral degree — and yet here he was, still lingering nearby, worried enough about someone he hated that much to keep him in sight. He went around acting as though he loathed every person alive, and yet on his days off, he slipped quietly into the slums to hand out food to street children.
The boy he’d found three years ago in the Ruden estate had grown into someone almost unrecognizable.
“Monster bounties start at a minimum of five gold. Trolls are twenty gold each.”
He’d caught the slight turn of Terren’s head at the mention of bounties — it hadn’t been his imagination after all. Terren lifted his bowed head. Those dull, ash-grey eyes fixed themselves on Leopold.
“Follow me. I’ll make sure you walk away with at least a hundred gold.”
A hundred gold was roughly equivalent to a noble family’s annual budget. An extraordinary sum.
Terren had no choice but to nod.
He needed to confirm whether it was monsters or a Dark Sorcerer responsible for the massacres being carried out in the mountains. And besides —
Does Black Magic grow stronger when you kill monsters?
This was a question Terren Meyer had only ever turned over in his mind in his past life, right before the end.
In his past life, he had spent years studying Dark Magic.
Killing people indiscriminately to grow stronger — that was ancient history. Later on, true to his nature as someone who had always been drawn to research, he had conducted every manner of experiment.
He’d learned many things through it all, but one of them was this: the foundation of Dark Magic was killing intent.
The thick, clinging energy that surged through him whenever he killed a person — it was the result of killing intent exploding outward. The shock of taking the life of a thinking, reasoning being with his own hands was incomparable to anything else.
So then — what if, hypothetically —
What if he recognized monsters as thinking beings?
Monsters were, undeniably, living creatures. Orcs in particular had intelligence not so different from humans.
They had lives of their own. Happiness, unhappiness, pain. Families and companions.
If he perceived monsters as no different from humans, and then killed them — would there be any change in the Dark Magic?
It was an experiment Terren had long wanted to try. The First Prince standing before him was repulsive enough to make him want to kill, but when he weighed all the variables, following Leopold wasn’t actually a bad choice.
Terren took a step toward him.
Leopold’s eyes widened slowly, as though caught off guard. He broke into a bright grin and replied:
“Good. Then it’s settled — you’re coming.”
Leopold pulled a robe’s hood down over his head to keep his face hidden.
Dressed like a commoner and wandering through the capital’s streets, he looked like he was genuinely enjoying himself.
He was far more natural at it than Terren, who had spent his entire life as a commoner. He spoke warmly to people they passed and carried himself with easy courtesy. There was not a trace of royal arrogance to be found.
The sun was sinking lower by the minute, and the air had gone cold after the rain. Terren followed Leopold in sullen silence. After enduring Leopold’s absurd insistence on buying him a sword at the weapons dealer — and unleashing a torrent of bitter words in response — he was trembling with the weight of his own stress by the time they finally reached the mountain’s midslope.
“Terren, you just need to stay close behind me. Be careful not to do anything reckless and get yourself hurt.”
Terren ignored Leopold’s words.
“That dagger you’re carrying won’t be enough to kill a monster.”
“……”
“Don’t ignore me. You’ve never hunted monsters before. Listen to what I’m saying.”
Leopold coaxed him along in that revolting tone of his. A little deeper in, a dense forest of conifers rose to greet them.
Leopold glanced around with an air of familiarity, then immediately crouched to study the ground.
“The soil’s been compressed. Troll tracks.”
He gestured to Terren.
“There’s a habitat nearby. More than one or two, by the look of it. There were never supposed to be monsters in this mountain — I have no idea what’s happened.”
A few more steps, and the tracks began appearing in plain sight, as though they’d been waiting for them.
The sun was setting in earnest now. A red dusk bled across the sky. At this rate, they’d find themselves stranded in the pitch-black heart of the forest before they found a single troll.
Does he even think before he acts.
Not wanting to exchange a single word with Leopold, Terren had followed along without comment.
Terren had enough basic sense to know that entering a monster-infested mountain after dark, without a care in the world, was sheer madness.
But he had — reluctantly, in the end — placed a degree of trust in the clever and courageous First Prince.
Stupid and foolish, from the very first thought of trusting that awful man.
Terren stared at Leopold. Leopold glanced back at him, tilting his head as if to ask what was wrong.
Terren Meyer ground his teeth and stretched out his words.
“The sun is setting, Your Highness.”
Leopold smiled brightly.
“I know.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I can protect you on my own, so don’t worry.”
In that instant, Terren turned and walked away without hesitation.
Leopold startled and quickly came after him. The moment he grabbed hold of Terren’s hood, Terren Meyer rounded on him sharply.
“I’m seriously questioning my own intelligence for having exchanged so many words with you. Either get torn apart by monsters out here, or follow me. Your choice, Leopold Delua.”
“Terren, wait — just, hold on. Listen to me first.”
“Get out of my sight.”
“Royalty has night vision. It’s an ability that only those who carry royal blood are born with. No matter how dark it gets, it doesn’t affect me at all — my vision stays completely clear.”
What?
Something he’d never known in his entire life. Terren stood there, struck momentarily speechless.
“But… I hadn’t considered you. The truth is, even at night, I’m capable of protecting you on my own. You might not believe me, but my swordsmanship is good enough for that. Still, if you say no — I’ll follow your lead.”
“……”
“I apologize, Terren. Tell me what you want. What would you like to do?”
Terren was quiet for a moment, then gave a small nod and pointed in the direction they’d been heading. It meant: keep going.
Nothing was going the way it should. He had the strong sense that the plan had gone sideways.
But if he caused a scene here and insisted on going back down, they’d end up with an outcome that was neither one thing nor the other. Through the gathering headache, Terren thought: see this through to the end, and make it back to the Academy by dawn tomorrow, no matter what.
Damn Delua!
He loathed him with every fiber of his being.
