As soon as Jun entered the room guided by the knight, he bowed his head and quietly approached the Emperor before getting down on one knee.
“I have come at Your Majesty’s summons.”
“Hmm. The reason I summoned you this time is different from the rewards mentioned at the banquet.”
Different matter?
Jun immediately realized that this wasn’t an ordinary summons.
Of course, someone of the Emperor’s stature wouldn’t call Jun over something trivial.
So this is about Javier.
Just as Jun predicted, the Emperor’s next words followed.
“On the way here, I heard news that the Third Prince’s carriage had crashed. Fortunately, he wasn’t seriously injured, but I wanted to hear from you regarding the incident.”
If someone else had been in this position, they would likely have felt as if their chest were being crushed.
In a way, this was practically an interrogation before the Emperor.
However, Jun, with his head still deeply bowed, let his eyes gleam.
He had already been debating whether to bring this up to the Sword Soul separately.
“I will answer sincerely to anything, Your Majesty.”
“First, I heard you were the one who discovered the scene of the Third Prince’s accident. Did you notice anything unusual there?”
“I actually recorded the scene using a phenomenon recorder. May I show it to you?”
“You have my permission.”
Jun took out the phenomenon recorder from his dimensional bracelet and handed it to the Emperor.
“I believe it would be much clearer for you to see this yourself than for me to explain it verbally.”
“Hmm. Do you have anything else to add?”
“If you do watch it, I strongly recommend doing so only in the presence of those you can truly trust.”
“…Very well.”
That was the end of their conversation.
With his head still bowed, Jun rose and exited the room backward, while the Emperor looked at the recorder with a troubled expression.
The Emperor turned to Aden, who was standing beside him.
“Brother. Weren’t you also at the scene? From what that mage said, it seems like there’s something important on here.”
“Well… I climbed up first to tend to Javier. The mage came back about ten minutes after me.”
“Hmm.”
Soon after, the First Prince and his twin sister Natalie entered the room.
“Father. Did you hear anything from that mage?”
“Yes. He handed this to me.”
“That’s…”
“I’m about to watch it now.”
The phenomenon recorder Jun had handed over began projecting a recreation of the scene into the air.
The first image showed Aden’s back as he climbed the cliff with Javier in his arms.
At the time, Jun’s reason for recording the surroundings with the phenomenon recorder wasn’t particularly grand.
Given the potential fallout of an imperial member almost dying from a fall, he simply wanted to prepare against possible accusations.
However, there was something that had raised his suspicions.
No matter how you look at it, the escorts accompanying an imperial member died far too easily.
Jun was now a fifth-circle mage and had encountered many powerful individuals.
Those escorts weren’t the type to die so cleanly just from a carriage crash.
There must’ve been some kind of scheme involved…
He began to wonder if this might be tied to some story he wasn’t aware of.
Naturally, that question led him to search the area thoroughly.
And then—
“……”
Among the dead, the coachman’s corpse stood out as being unusually intact.
The two who looked like guards had their limbs broken, but while the coachman’s body was stained with blood, the rest of it was completely unharmed.
“I don’t sense any life from him…”
And his mana wasn’t that of someone still alive.
A sinister aura was slowly gathering. Like that of the undead.
But it was still only at the level you’d expect from an ordinary corpse.
Just as Jun was about to turn his head away—
The memories of his past life stirred.
[Mental Art: Marionette Line]
Black threads were summoned and shot toward the corpse.
The moment the black threads pierced the corpse’s forehead and the area near its ears—
“……!!”
The corpse, which had seemed truly dead, suddenly opened its eyes wide.
“How……?”
“Who are you?”
“Guh!”
Because of the spell that disguised a living person as a corpse, the man’s physical abilities had been greatly reduced. But even so, he resisted Jun’s [Marionette Line].
Jun responded by pouring in more mana.
“I-I, I-I-I-I….I-I-I-I ammmmmm……!”
Just a little more…!
Was it that the man was more skilled than expected?
The coachman continued to fiercely resist Jun’s magic until he eventually began bleeding from his nose.
Looking closer, Jun realized the man had bitten down on a hidden poison pill between his teeth and taken his own life.
But even as he died, he glared at Jun with venomous eyes and spoke.
“…For… Sir…xter…”
With a barely audible whisper, he breathed his last.
“……Dexter?”
It was the name of the First Prince.
***
“……”
The recording device stopped playing, and silence filled the room.
Then, the first to speak was none other than the First Prince, Dexter.
His face had gone pale.
“Father, I swear on all my honor, that just now――”
“I know. I know you weren’t behind this.”
“……”
“Brother. You were right. Someone is targeting the imperial family.”
Someone had deliberately approached Javier and planted a spy.
And in the process, they were clearly trying to sow discord between the Third Prince and the First Prince.
Everyone present could see that now… but the real problem was Beneth, Javier’s mother.
If she were to see this—
No matter what the truth of the incident was, she would surely use this as an opportunity to tarnish Dexter’s honor.
Although the Crown Prince had not yet been chosen, the Emperor had never intended for the relationships among the imperial family to crumble like this.
Before long, the Emperor spoke with a grave expression.
“Sword Soul. In the name of the Emperor, I command you to thoroughly investigate all those involved in this incident. Natalie, mobilize all your connections in high society and assist the Sword Soul in the investigation.”
“I shall obey Your Majesty’s command.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And…”
The Emperor then recalled someone’s image in his mind.
“Dexter. I will give you a separate opportunity, so speak with that mage. From what I can tell, he hasn’t shared all the information with us yet.”
“I will do so.”
The Emperor, as if weary, closed his eyes briefly, then opened them slightly and stared into space.
There was clear fury in his gaze.
***
It was late at night.
Jun sat alone at his desk, studying a magic book.
Having reached the fifth-circle, his understanding had matured significantly.
With the [Intermediate Magic Talent], the highest circle he could aim for was the sixth-circle, so there was still a long way to go in his training.
“At this point, I’m starting to question whether I really need to rely solely on magic books to learn spells.”
It had been nearly two years since he began living as a mage in this world.
In that time, Jun’s comprehension of magic had deepened, and he had come to realize that his abilities were far from lacking.
It feels like I might be able to reinterpret some of the existing spells.
In fact, there were already some mages who took that kind of approach.
And lately, he had begun to feel something else…
The [Shield] spell is starting to show its limits.
New defensive spells like [Fire Will] and [Iron Rampart] weren’t bad, but both had unnecessarily wide areas of effect and the drawback of obstructing his line of sight.
On top of that, they consumed a lot of mana and put heavy strain on his mana circuits, even accelerating the onset of overheat.
What if I added a new attribute to [Shield]?
It wouldn’t be easy.
Since [Shield] was a low-circle spell, its pattern was simple, and forcibly adding an attribute pattern could cause the entire spell to collapse.
In that case, maybe I should expand the pattern further. But that would defeat the purpose… Then what if I layered multiple spells and infused the attribute in the process… That might actually work.
A pretty decent idea had come to him.
Jun jotted it down in Korean in his notebook and began experimenting with the spell in various ways.
It was around the time the night had deepened.
Knock knock knock.
Someone knocked on the door.
At this hour, there was no reason for any of his companions to come by, and if it had been them, they would’ve said who they were.
But the person beyond the door hadn’t done that.
So they came secretly.
He didn’t know who it was, but he had a pretty good idea why they had come.
Jun quietly opened the door.
“Nice to meet you, mage.”
“……Your Highness, First Prince.”
Standing there was the crown prince of the future, with golden hair as radiant as Aiden’s, wearing a confident smile as he looked at Jun.
***
“Would you care for some tea?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Jun used magic to boil water and quickly handed over a cup of tea, then sat down across from the First Prince.
“I suppose it’s only right to start with this. I want to sincerely thank you for saving my younger brother, Javier.”
“I only did what had to be done.”
“Haha. Just as Lord Arden said. Humble, I see.”
Taking a sip of tea, he spoke again.
“Hmm, I’m not usually this impatient. But the nature of this matter compels me to get straight to the point. I saw the recording device you showed His Majesty.”
“I see.”
“Let me ask you directly. What was your intention in showing that footage to His Majesty?”
In that footage, the mysterious coachman had gone so far as to swallow poison, leaving only the name of Dexter behind.
Naturally, Dexter had no knowledge of any of it, but if things went wrong, all the suspicion could fall on him.
Jun didn’t know for sure, but Beneth, Javier’s mother, likely wouldn’t have let it slide so easily.
“I believed it was right to give it to the most just person.”
Jun didn’t know much about the relationships between the princes or the emperor’s personality.
All he knew, vaguely at best, was that the emperor would die in the future and the two princes would come to despise each other to an extreme degree.
He’d heard bits and pieces of how that came to be but didn’t know the full story.
“So, it wasn’t out of suspicion toward me, but rather a way to prevent the story from leaking elsewhere.”
“That’s right.”
“Then, why is it that you don’t suspect me?”
At that question, Jun paused to think.
In truth, until he received the invitation, he had assumed that the imperial family’s relationships were just as bad as in the game.
However, on the way here, Jun heard from Arden that the relationship between the princes wasn’t as bad as he had thought.
Dexter, the First Prince, was said to be a man of good character, with no particularly rough edges.
Natalie, Dexter’s twin, was a painter obsessed with her art and had gained considerable fame in high society.
Lastly, the Third Prince Javier, while a bit timid, wasn’t someone with any real character flaws.
That’s why I figured that, unlike the game set in the future, there must be some hidden circumstances I don’t know about.
Of course, he didn’t take Arden’s words at face value.
Just because someone had observed another for a long time didn’t mean they truly understood their heart.
Even so, Jun had picked up the most crucial clue at the scene where Javier had fallen.
It was the presence of the black flower he had asked Maya about.
“Your Highness.”
“You may call me Dexter.”
“Yes. Do you happen to know anything about this flower?”
When Jun took out the black flower from his dimensional bracelet, Dexter frowned.
“I’m not sure… but it doesn’t give off a good feeling.”
“As you said, this flower has hallucinogenic properties. Its name is ‘Despairblossom’.”
“That’s quite a grim name. But what about it?”
“As I mentioned earlier, this flower induces hallucinations. And as its name ‘Despairblossom’ suggests, the visions it causes are filled with despair.”
“….…”
“To someone who lost close friends in a carriage accident… and is constantly compared to their siblings by those around them… what kind of hallucinations do you think this flower would show?”
“Could it be.…”
Only then did Dexter understand what Jun was trying to say.
“With that accident and this flower… you mean someone tried to break Javier’s mind?”
At that point, Dexter felt a chill run through his entire body.
It wasn’t because of what had happened to Javier.
It was the mage standing before him who sent shivers down his spine.
Just what kind of person is this mage?
Even with the prince collapsed, he stayed calm, observing his surroundings instead of panicking.
In doing so, he uncovered the hidden truth behind an incident no one else had noticed.
And he didn’t rush to report it to Aden. He waited patiently for the most appropriate moment.
The rumors don’t even come close to capturing who this man is.
For a moment, Dexter felt a greedy desire for this talented mage.
But he barely managed to suppress it.
This was no time to indulge in selfish ambition.
Instead—
“Then, Mage. In your opinion, how do you think this situation will unfold?”
At the First Prince’s question, Jun slowly began to speak.
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