Chapter: 18
Luciano let out a disbelieving laugh, then narrowed his eyes.
“It has been three years since Ain’s madness began. His mother has fainted countless times from stress. If what you say is true, then he hid it for three years without even his mother or attendants knowing.”
“Yes.”
“And how did you notice something like that?”
I had suspected it from the beginning.
It bothered me that there had been no mention of Prince Ain’s madness in the game.
But I couldn’t say that, so I only explained how I became convinced.
“Because he only eats my food.”
“…What?”
“Well, it’s a long story. When I first tried to cook for Prince Ain, the cooks came and harassed me.”
At first, I thought they were trying to stop me from getting a chance to impress the prince.
But when I thought about it, it was strange.
“There would be no reason to try to impress a prince who was supposedly mad, right?”
“So?”
“They had been given orders by Prince Gaspar. They were putting medicine into Prince Ain’s food.”
Just in case, I secretly followed the head chef, and he really was going in and out of Prince Gaspar’s tent.
‘The head chef moved around at dawn, so it was exhausting.’
Thanks to that, I was still sleep-deprived.
I also secretly checked the medicine Gaspar had given the head chef.
It wasn’t life-threatening.
It seemed intended to gradually weaken Ain and make him collapse.
If Prince Ain collapsed, it would be easy to search his tent or body.
That was why Prince Ain used madness as an excuse not to eat the food.
“The other cooks sent dishes with medicine mixed in, but he somehow noticed every time and only ate the dishes I made.”
“So he had figured out in advance which dishes had been tampered with.”
“Yes. A person like that could never truly be mad.”
Luciano looked convinced.
“Impressive.”
“Right? It’s amazing that he acted like that for years.”
“No. I mean you.”
In the quiet warehouse, he looked at me with strange eyes.
For a long moment.
His steady gaze made me awkward, so I turned my eyes away.
Then Luciano chuckled and spoke again.
“Does my brother know?”
“…Know what?”
“That he did something wasteful.”
“…?”
I blinked, wondering what he meant, and he tossed something toward me.
I caught it reflexively. It was a small pouch.
‘What is this?’
I opened it, and my eyes widened.
Jewels.
Crystals, pearls, and even diamonds were inside.
“Th-this…”
I stammered in surprise, and he said,
“It’s in place of the yellow crystal Ain promised to give you.”
Yesterday, I had given up the yellow crystal and fed Prince Ain.
I had thought it was a little disappointing, but how did he know?
I bowed deeply.
“I’ll work hard!”
As expected, if you’re going to be a servant, it’s best to serve in a noble household. Prince Luciano was incredibly generous.
I had earned a year’s worth of my mother’s nursing expenses overnight, and I smiled brightly.
*
‘I have to earn my keep.’
Since I had received a year’s worth of my mother’s nursing expenses, I moved diligently to produce results.
I carefully observed Prince Ain to find out what he usually did.
Of course, I didn’t forget to watch his surroundings as well.
I also kept in close contact with Luciano.
To give me time to observe Prince Ain, Luciano temporarily halted the departure to the north.
It was good support.
And on the third night after arriving at the camp, I was now targeting the attendants.
“You made this for us?”
“Yes. It’s called hotteok and misutgaru. Please eat it before it gets cold.”
“Ohhh…!”
The attendants happily ate the hotteok.
When they groaned because they had burned their mouths by eating too quickly, I immediately handed them chilled misutgaru with ice floating in it.
The mountain of hotteok I had baked quickly disappeared.
‘Now, if this happens…’
“Ahh, I’m getting sleepy.”
“Seriously…”
A sugar spike was making drowsiness wash over them.
Especially on a night like this.
If you were already exhausted and then became sleepy, what would happen?
You would hate working to death.
“I still have to clean that damned snake cage.”
“I studied myself to death, passed that difficult exam, and finally became a palace attendant, only to end up tending a snake…”
“And not just any snake. I feel like I’ll die while cleaning that cage…”
The attendants muttered with half-closed eyes.
I pretended to tidy the dishes while listening to them, then widened my eyes.
‘Good, this is my chance.’
“Would you like me to clean it?”
“…Really?”
The attendants looked at me with suddenly alert eyes.
“Yes. I worked at an animal farm, so I cleaned animal cages a lot.”
“That would be nice, but…”
One of the attendants looked at me suspiciously.
“Why are you being so nice to us?”
I had expected that question.
If someone treated you too well, you naturally became wary.
I recited the excuse I had prepared.
“I was allowed to work here temporarily thanks to Colonel Ragoni’s consideration. If I can build connections with the palace attendants, then, um…”
I deliberately trailed off, and the attendants grinned.
“Aha. You need a job.”
“If that’s the case, we can help.”
“You’ve helped us several times already.”
I smiled brightly and bowed to the attendants.
“Thank you. Please leave the cage cleaning to me.”
“Fine. If you come to the capital, come find me. I’ll arrange a good position for you.”
The attendants laughed heartily.
Then they said they were counting on me and left with huge yawns.
I quickly entered Prince Ain’s tent.
The prince’s tent was empty.
That was fine.
‘First, I need to check Yeppi.’
I looked around and quickly approached Yeppi, the Death Servant.
Yeppi, coiled inside the cage, hissed.
“Hi, Yeppi. Are you hungry?”
I pushed small pieces of raw chicken into Yeppi’s cage.
Yeppi hissed, but did not eat the chicken.
“So it was you. …A tracker.”
That was right.
‘A tracker isn’t an object. It’s an animal.’
More precisely, an animal is turned into a tracker.
The process goes like this.
Feed a special item to the animal you want to make into a tracker.
Once the item dissolves into the animal’s body, the process is complete.
If you consistently feed it something related to the item or person you want to track for more than fifteen days, it will track the target.
Once that happens, the tracker will not eat other food, so it will not mistake the target.
‘Just like Yeppi refusing to eat the raw chicken.’
Having found the answer, I grinned.
I had thought Yeppi might be a decoy and that they might have another animal somewhere else.
But animals are hard to keep secretly.
Still, something was strange.
‘Why did they choose Yeppi as the tracker?’
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand.
“The Death Servant is too big…”
That was when I muttered it.
“I didn’t know it would grow that large. At first, I thought it was just an ordinary snake and chose it.”
“…!”
At the voice behind me, I stiffened.
It was Prince Ain’s voice.
Even though the owner of the tent had arrived, I couldn’t turn around.
What he had said was meaningful.
What I had said could have been interpreted as wondering why he kept a Death Servant.
But Prince Ain had accurately grasped my inner thought: ‘I don’t understand why he chose a Death Servant as the tracker.’
I heard the sound of him walking closer.
“Death Servant hatchlings are easy to mistake for snakes, aren’t they?”
He walked in front of me, where I was crouched by the cage, and met my eyes.
Prince Ain said,
“That’s why I chose a Death Servant as the tracker.”
“…”
“Why are you silent? You should deny it here.”
“How did you notice?”
I quietly looked into Prince Ain’s eyes.
“Hmm. I didn’t expect you to become honest so quickly. Why did you choose that option?”
“You looked like you wanted me to say I didn’t know what you meant. If I had, wouldn’t you have cut off my head?”
“That would be too cruel. I was only going to tear your mouth open. Your stew was delicious, so that was my repayment.”
Ain stood up.
Then he sat on the cot and crossed his legs.
I also stood and approached him.
I stopped at a certain distance and looked at him.
Ain was looking at me with an interested expression.
“Are you not running away because you think someone powerful is protecting you? Luciano, I mean.”
“…”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know? You underestimated me.”
“…”
“Gaspar is laughable, but Luciano isn’t, right? So I thought it would be useful to pretend to be fooled.”
That was why he had let me into the tent and eaten my food.
He had kept a spy close to lower Luciano’s guard.
I stared at him.
“Why are you revealing your true intentions now instead of continuing to pretend to be fooled?”
“You’re a child who even knows how to identify a tracker. It’s natural to dispose of you.”
He gestured toward the raw chicken in front of Yeppi and continued.
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”
When he tapped the table beside the cot, burly men entered from outside the tent.
They seemed to be men Ain had secretly kept nearby.
“You’ll simply go very far away by ship and do the same kind of work you did at the camp. Your name will change, of course. Something like Slave Number 34?”
I flinched, and he waved with his usual sweet expression.
“Then goodbye.”
The men began approaching me.
With a stiff face, I looked at the curtain that served as the tent door.
The prince made a low sound.
“Trying to run away? That will be difficult. They are experienced assassins.”
“You even hired assassins? Mercenaries would have been enough.”
“How naive, for someone who was once the daughter of a great family. If an opportunity arose, it would be nice to get rid of Luciano or Gaspar, wouldn’t it?”
“I was waiting for that statement.”
“What?”
Prince Ain looked at me as if I were talking nonsense.
At that moment, the curtain was cut in half and dropped to the floor.
And the face that appeared was…
“What a shame, Ain.”
…Luciano.
*
Ain’s face immediately hardened.
He stared at Luciano in disbelief, then turned his gaze to me.
“How…”
Then he shouted at me, as I stood there silently.
“Answer me!”
“If Yeppi is the tracker, then I thought stealing it would be impossible. It’s too big, isn’t it?”
“So?”
The next answer did not come from me.
Luciano strode into the tent and said,
“She said we should obtain it another way.”
I had thought that if I recognized the tracker, Ain would try to dispose of me.
Naturally, the method would be illegal.
We had aimed for that moment to catch him by his weakness.
I was also very grateful that he had brought assassins with him.
“His Majesty the Emperor strictly forbids contact with criminal organizations. If this becomes known, it will put you in a very difficult position.”
Ain scoffed.
“Would His Majesty immediately believe Luciano’s word?”
“What if my testimony is added as well?”
With those words, another person appeared.
Colonel Ragoni and soldiers.
Of course, Luciano and I had summoned them in advance.
‘The more witnesses, the better.’
Ain’s face became as hard as it could possibly be.
He glared at me and sprang to his feet.
“I won’t let this go!”
At that moment, Luciano twisted Ain’s wrist and subdued him.
Luciano looked at Ain with a cold gaze and said,
“Don’t touch my potato.”
What?
Soon Colonel Ragoni spoke to Ain.
“Please do not make this matter more complicated.”
It meant that if Ain caused trouble, they would immediately inform the emperor of what Ain had done.
Ain ground his teeth.
But then he sat back down on the bed.
*
“So this is the tracker.”
Luciano said as he looked at Yeppi inside the cage.
I nodded.
“If you release it, it will start tracking on its own.”
“If a monster wanders around civilian homes, it will cause a disturbance.”
“What if you inform the local lord in advance? The Death Servant is a monster with a talent for finding water veins.”
“So we tell the people not to worry, because we are releasing it to find water veins?”
“That’s right.”
“Not a bad idea.”
As we chatted quietly in front of the cage, an irritated shout came from behind us.
“How long are you going to stay here?”
It was Ain’s voice.
That was right.
We were still inside Ain’s tent, with Yeppi there, talking.
Of course, everyone else had been dismissed.
The only people in the tent were me, Luciano, and Ain.
I turned my head while still crouching in front of the cage and looked at Ain.
“Well, until Your Highness makes a choice.”
“A choice between handing over the tracker and cleaning up the matter of hiring assassins, or resisting and having the tracker taken away?”
Ain glared at me as if that could hardly be called a choice.
I spoke firmly.
“No.”
“Then?”
“You are choosing whether to hand the tracker to Prince Luciano and become an ally, or lose the tracker and become an enemy.”
“…An ally?”
Ain’s voice became strange.
Sensing the moment, I dramatically pointed at Luciano with both hands.
“To explain who this person is: he is the biological son of the First Imperial Consort, who rivals the Empress in influence. His maternal grandfather was one of the heads of the Seven Families and served as Chancellor. And he himself is the prince most trusted by His Majesty the Emperor.”
“…”
“…”
As I suddenly promoted Luciano enthusiastically, both princes looked at me with baffled expressions.
Even so, I kept talking earnestly.
“However, in the power struggle with the First Prince, who also has a maternal grandfather among the heads of the Seven Families, he is in the unfortunate position of being slightly disadvantaged simply because he is not the eldest son…”
“My position became unfortunate because you handed my achievement to the First Prince.”
“…Anyway.”
I avoided Luciano’s gaze and looked at Ain.
“If you board now, this is a jackpot stock guaranteed to bring high returns.”
“A jackpot stock?”
“A rising star expected to become a huge success. That sort of thing.”
Ain let out a hollow laugh.
“So because I can never become emperor with my maternal family’s weak power, I should give up and follow Luciano?”
He spoke sarcastically, but I answered calmly.
“I mean you should aim for the future.”
“What?”
“Just as you pretended to be mad while waiting for an opportunity, I mean you should stay beside Prince Luciano and wait for another opportunity.”
“…”
“Until Prince Luciano surpasses all the princes with powerful maternal families.”
Luciano scoffed.
“That is not something you should say in front of me.”
“Are you going to be surpassed?”
“Of course not.”
This time, I looked at Prince Ain.
“Do you think you would be unable to seize an opportunity beside Prince Luciano?”
“…Of course not.”
Ain and Luciano’s gazes collided fiercely in the air.
Ain spoke.
“If it is a temporary alliance, it is not a bad idea.”
“Let’s exchange the information we know.”
“Agreed. …And one more thing.”
Ain and Luciano approached each other.
Ain said,
“I will use that potato.”
“No. Not that potato.”
What are they doing?
This potato belongs to the Irregulars.
