The imperial capital in the dead of night.
During the early hours, when everyone was fast asleep, I stepped into the basement of a certain building.
After sitting across a table, I faced a certain bastard.
“Ain, why don’t you join my side?”
Out of nowhere, the bastard started barking nonsense.
It was so absurd that I didn’t even bother to respond. I simply looked at him with a deadpan expression.
He no longer wore his mask.
Perhaps he no longer needed it.
The gentle tone he used when speaking to Hela was gone.
The expression that once mimicked innocence had twisted into that of a sly fox.
Crossing his legs, he gazed at me with ease.
A charisma worthy of a king could be felt emanating from him.
“…Haha! Just a joke. A joke. I was only saying it for fun.”
“That didn’t sound like a joke at all.”
I didn’t bother wearing a mask either.
There was no reason to.
The person sitting alone in front of me was not a prince.
He was nothing more than an archenemy.
Just a damn bastard.
“So? Why did you call me here?”
“You’re speaking rather curtly today…? I am still the Fourth Prince, you know.”
“I don’t intend to change how I speak.”
“…Well, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, I think it’s even better. It adds a fresh touch.”
“Get to the point.”
“Why don’t you take a seat first?”
I swiftly pulled out a chair and sat down.
I had no idea what he was about to bring up, but…
That earlier job offer had been downright unpleasant.
I wanted to wrap up this useless conversation as quickly as possible.
“You may think I was just making a joke earlier, but I was actually quite serious.”
“And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“I want to bring you over to my side, Ain.”
“…And why is that? It’s not like you’re lacking anything.”
“I am. In fact, I lack quite a lot.”
Zeleon interlocked his fingers and placed his hands on the table.
With a lingering smile, he spoke in a straightforward manner.
“Do you remember how many assassination attempts were made on Hela Leonherit over the past two years?”
“……”
“The official reports I received list 167 cases. There might have been more.”
167 times.
That was the number of times the imperial family had targeted Hela.
And it was also the number of times I had stopped them.
…To be honest, I didn’t remember the exact count.
It was possible that the actual number was even higher.
Tap, tap.
Zeleon tapped his fingers lightly on the table before continuing.
“All 167 attempts failed. Because of your presence, Ain.”
“…So?”
“I must say, I was quite impressed. I had heard that the Third Princess hired a guard through the Adventurers’ Guild, but I never expected him to be this capable.”
“Well, maybe that’s because the people you hired were just worthless trash.”
“Haha, now that’s a bit harsh. They were at least Expert-level, you know?”
He placed a few documents on the table.
At a glance, they seemed to contain information about me.
But the contents were sparse. Just a few words here and there.
“I consider myself quite skilled at gathering intelligence, yet I couldn’t find a single useful piece of information about you.”
“……”
“The mercenaries you dealt with were so cleanly disposed of that there was nothing left to salvage, and the Adventurers’ Guild is keeping your information tightly under wraps.”
He sure did his homework.
That only made me feel even worse.
“Ain, you are exceptional. Without a doubt, the most brilliant gem among all I have ever seen.”
“Seems like our dear prince has pretty low standards. Is it because you’re only seventeen?”
“And yet, you’re the same age as me. Possessing an almost excessive level of competence for someone so young.”
“…….”
This… something feels off.
Was the Fourth Prince always like this?
There was a strange difference between how he acted now and how I remembered him from the game.
A question I had long pushed aside began to resurface.
“…Let me ask you one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Why the hell are you all so desperate to kill Hela?”
It wasn’t just Zeleon.
The upper ranks of the imperial family, currently locked in a fierce struggle for the throne.
Why were they so intent on eliminating the Third Princess, someone who had no power to oppose them?
It was a question that had nagged at me every time I went through the tutorial.
Does Hela possess something that could threaten them?
It was a logical assumption.
Yet nothing in particular came to mind.
His answer was crucial.
“Is that what you’re curious about?”
“How could I not be curious? You’ve been relentlessly coming after her for two years now.”
“Hmm… Well, to put it simply, it’s a matter of legitimacy.”
“…Legitimacy?”
I mulled over his words.
Imperial succession… legitimacy… power struggles.
It made no sense, but there was only one possible conclusion.
“Are you saying Hela ranks higher in the line of succession than those bastards?”
“Those bastards… I doubt anyone other than you, Ain, would refer to my brothers and sisters that way.”
“Just answer me. What the hell do you mean?”
Hela was an illegitimate child, born between the emperor and a commoner.
She was also the youngest of his children.
No matter how I looked at it, the idea that she ranked higher in the succession order made no logical sense.
“Ain, where do you think the empire’s legitimacy comes from?”
“Obviously—”
I froze.
A name suddenly came to mind, cutting off my words.
The legitimacy of the empire.
Naturally, it was tied to the empire’s very foundation.
A thousand years ago, the emperor who unified all the kingdoms and established the current empire.
The first hero’s closest friend. …And someone I had known long, long ago.
If legitimacy stemmed from that first emperor…
“Don’t tell me… Hela bears a holy mark?”
“…For an outsider to know about the holy marks of the imperial family…. Ain, you never fail to surprise me.”
“Just answer me.”
“You’re correct. When Hela turned eight, the holy mark of the guardian deity Tantalion appeared on her body.”
“………”
What the hell.
A curse nearly slipped out of my mouth.
It was such an absurdly sudden twist in the setting.
A holy mark signified divine favor.
It was another form of divine blessing, granted only to those deemed worthy.
Throughout history, there had been only a handful of cases where a holy mark appeared on someone who was neither a saint nor a holy figure.
The most notable of them all was the first emperor of the Leonherit Empire.
And now Hela had received it? From the guardian deity of the empire?
The guardian deity Tantalion.
In the past, he had been nothing more than a mere spirit—
A spirit that had once protected the imperial family of Leonherit when it was still a kingdom.
As time passed, he ascended to become a spirit king, and beyond that, he reached the pinnacle of all spirits, becoming a spirit god.
When the kingdom he once protected flourished and became an empire—
Tantalion bestowed a holy mark upon the first emperor.
It had become a symbol of the empire itself.
“…If Hela fully manifests the holy mark?”
“Then, of course, the imperial throne would be all but guaranteed for her. After all, she bears the blessing of the guardian deity, the very embodiment of legitimacy.”
It was a headache.
Why had the guardian deity suddenly given Hela a holy mark?
Not once since the first emperor had such a thing happened.
A dull pain throbbed in my head.
To think this ridiculous reason was why they were trying to kill Hela.
It was absurd.
…No, more than that.
One question had been answered—
But another, far more troubling one, had surfaced.
Perhaps this was the real issue.
“Why are you trying to kill Hela?”
Zeleon was Hela’s archenemy.
By nature, they were destined to oppose each other.
But that alone wasn’t reason enough to kill her.
Just like Hela, he had already been pushed out of the imperial succession struggle.
At the very least, he wasn’t like the others who sought to kill for the throne.
Something about this feels… off.
It was strange for him to hand over this kind of information so easily.
I knew him well from the game.
A psychopath who tormented Hela in every possible way and tried to kill her.
Then what about him now?
There was something oddly relaxed about him. He had an agenda.
His desires were pointed in a different direction. It seemed like he had a different purpose than in the game.
Almost as if he were… a different person.
“Ain, I think you’re misunderstanding something. I have never directly harmed Hela. I’ve never even hired mercenaries.”
“But you left room for others to act. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had to go through all that hell.”
“What can I do? That’s just my fate.”
“…What?”
“It’s an inevitable force beyond my control. I have to kill Hela in order to survive.”
My thoughts came to a halt at his unexpected answer.
A possibility I had vaguely considered… had just become reality.
He knew his own fate.
“…You. What are you? How much do you know? Where did you get your information?”
“I should be asking the same thing. What are you, Ain? How much do you know?”
“Answer my question first.”
“You answer mine first.”
He countered my question with another.
No further answers came.
Like a conversation stuck in a loop, the back-and-forth was going nowhere.
He was deliberately avoiding giving an answer.
“…You.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“………”
“It won’t be easy for you to refuse my offer.”
Just as I was about to draw on my aura—
His words sent a cold chill through me.
Outside the building, the presence of two people could be felt.
…Of course, there’s no way he’d be here alone.
Even at a glance, they were warriors of a level far beyond mine.
Both of them were at least at the peak of the Expert rank.
His bodyguards, perhaps?
Do I really have to kill him?
There were still too many unanswered questions.
But keeping him alive to extract more information was too great a risk. He was an unpredictable variable.
Nothing was more dangerous than an enemy whose motives were unknown.
I watched his face as I weighed my options.
Judging by the confidence radiating from him, he must have been convinced that I wouldn’t dare kill him.
Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.
“I still like you, Ain. If you come to my side, I can resolve your doubts—”
“Hey, you. Your tongue wags too much.”
“…….!!”
Bang!
Killing him with my strength alone would be difficult.
But it wasn’t impossible.
I scattered my aura and lunged at him.
At the same time, an overwhelming surge of aura came rushing from behind me.
His bodyguards had made their move.
.
.
.
.
.
That day, a storm of blood swept through the empire.
And the Fourth Prince died.
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