Chapter 19 : Inferiority Complex

I wonder if Duke Piteos arrived safely.

I sat on the sofa placed in the middle of the 1st Prince's bedroom and thought blankly.

I was sorry for making him suddenly meet the protagonist without knowing anything, but well, he wouldn't die.

Anyway, at a point where the original work's start had quickened, making the teacher and disciple meet as quickly as possible wouldn't have been a bad choice.

If it went well, I might even be able to find out if the flow of events had quickened not just in the Imperial Castle, but also where the protagonist was.

Because the place where the protagonist lived was a place where it was difficult to check the progress of events from here.

It just pricked my conscience a little that I had made the oldest Duke Piteos suffer the most.

“Hey! Why did you only bring this much this time?! You have to bring more so I can get better faster!”

At the voice that shattered my thoughts, I turned my head toward him with a blank expression.

“Are you yelling at me right now?”

“……When did I ever raise my voice? It's not that, it's just frustrating.”

Rasia lowered his voice with an expression that said he was annoyed to death.

Much better.

I buried myself in the sofa and gestured for him, who was infusing energy into the stone, to continue.

He was annoyed, but he followed my words because he had already experienced that it helped improve his body's condition.

I leaned back against the sofa's backrest again and said to him.

“That is hard to obtain, but if you do too much at once, you, 1st Prince, will die.”

To be precise, he would die by someone who noticed a conspicuous change in him.

“What?! Why are you telling me that only now! Is this dangerous like the hookah too?”

“What are you talking about now? What about the hookah.”

When I asked back, the 1st Prince answered with a dumbfounded expression.

“Didn't you say that on the day you first barged in here. That if I was worried, I should quit that first! I heard that and quit everything immediately.”

“Ah, that just meant you should quit something that wasn't good for your health.”

The 1st Prince's face immediately flushed red with anger, but I didn't care.

Even if he acted like that, inwardly he was probably just thinking about skinning me alive after this treatment was over.

The 1st Prince poured and drank the water prepared on the side table to cool his boiling anger.

I watched him gulping down the water with a bitter feeling.

Truthfully, the hookah was indeed ruining his body.

And that water he was drinking, the food he ate this evening, everything he consumed was making him sick.

He was pouring poison into his own mouth right now.

This wasn't something that could be solved by killing the head lady-in-waiting or the cook.

Unless the seed planted in his body was resolved, he would have to live relying on this treatment for his entire life.

I erased the unnecessary thoughts and handed him the last stone I brought today.

“This is the last one. It's not like this itself will kill you, so don't be scared.”

“Right. Thanks a lot.”

Grinding his teeth, he snatched the stone and focused his mind on today's final treatment.

And around the time the work was finishing, the sound of a careful knock echoed on the bedroom door.

“Your Highness the Prince, the 2nd Prince has come to visit.”

“Tell him I'll be out soon, so wait in the drawing room.”

The 1st Prince, perhaps his mood having improved, roughly handed the stone to me and spoke to the waiting lady-in-waiting.

“I'll be going, so you disappear in that bizarre way you came in.”

At his blunt words, I answered by shrugging my shoulders.

He looked displeased by that, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything and went out.

I captured that image of him in my eyes.

The image of an older brother going to meet his beloved younger brother who had planted the seed of disaster in his body.

***

Finding myself once again sitting at the long table where all sorts of blond heads were gathered, I had to worry about how to kill this boring time.

Last time, I tried passing the time by ignoring the 8th Prince picking a fight next to me and counting the number of wood grains on the table, but it wasn't very effective.

I didn't know why they called all twenty-plus people to a place where only three of them would be buddy-buddy anyway.

The others kept their seats with solemn expressions, as if the same repertoire every time wasn't boring at all.

It was really no different from the last ritual.

Ah, there was one thing that was different.

This time, that 8th Prince, Cellos Abalan, had joined that boring crowd.

It was the first family ritual held since the hunting festival.

My unlucky half-brother didn't even talk to me, perhaps because of the promise related to polite speech he made to me today.

If he did, he would have to show himself using polite speech to the 7th Prince in front of everyone.

He must have hated that to death, as Cellos quietly kept his mouth shut and just glared at the table.

Because of the sense of disharmony that sight created, a few people did glance at him.

But if the 8th Prince had suddenly shown himself calling me 'Older brother' and using polite speech, it wouldn't have ended with just side-glances from those around.

That wasn't what I wanted either, so I didn't bother poking the fellow.

So, does this mean I just have to count the table's wood grains now, without the 8th Prince's quarrels?

My goodness, to think a day would come when I'd miss even a fingernail's worth of that fellow's rude quarrels.

As I was folding my arms, having such silly thoughts, a voice mixed with laughter came from behind.

“You look bored.”

Those seated at the end of the table were startled by the appearance of a person they normally wouldn't even dare to look at, and straightened their already-stiff postures.

“We greet the 1st Imperial Princess.”

It was the 1st Imperial Princess, Mentil Abalan, who had her wheaten-blond hair elegantly twisted up, revealing her neckline.

It was the first time we were facing each other since our encounter at the Hunting Competition.

She scanned her surroundings, her blue eyes twinkling.

And finally, she met my gaze and smiled brightly.

“Yes, it's a meaningful family event, so even if it's a bit boring, don't show such a bothered face.”

It was a joke meant to lighten the mood, but no one smiled at her jest.

That might have been the wiser reaction.

If they forced themselves to laugh in such a rigid state, vomit might come out instead of a smile.

“You all lack laughter.”

Mentil, who steadfastly feigned crying even in this uncomfortable atmosphere, continued to joke as she looked around at us in the lower seats.

“I hear the third son of the Crisa family is about to start an interesting struggle in the central lands that Duke Piteos protected. It would be nice if we all went to watch before the next Tinas ritual comes.”

For something said as if suggesting a walk, the content was brutal.

The central lands were the lands Duke Piteos protected from Rasia at the Hunting Competition.

The third son of the Crisa family meant Duke Piteos's aide who had collapsed, Tollin Crisa.

For at least one year, according to tradition, the Imperial Family wouldn't carelessly touch it, and other nobles wouldn't covet land that the Imperial Family had once desired.

How to utilize that land was, in effect, the first task given to the acting Head, Tollin Crisa, that would determine the future of the Piteos family.

From Tollin's perspective, it would be a precarious tightrope walk carrying his remaining family on his back, but to Mentil, it seemed to be nothing more than a rather interesting spectacle.

When no one answered rashly, Mentil now turned her body completely to me.

Her action, intended simply to show friendliness, was creating a volatile situation for me.

Giving the impression that the 1st Imperial Princess was close to me was something that drew too much attention from people.

The attention of characters from the original work, whom it was not good to encounter, would also be focused on me.

My goodness, what could be more terrible than that.

I made the first move before she could open her mouth again.

“I am aware that you are very busy with preparations with His Majesty, the Emperor before the ritual. I am concerned that you might be wasting your precious time on us.”

I could feel the other standing Imperial Family bastards staring at me like I was a madman for wagging my tongue with all my might, but it didn't matter.

Fortunately, the 7th Prince had no reputation to lose in the first place.

What I had to be wary of was a rising reputation, not a falling one.

“Wasting? What is there to regret about spending time with family.”

Mentil, who couldn't know my inner thoughts, replied.

“There will definitely be those who think differently from you, Mentil.”

“You're a child who cares more about others' gazes than I thought.”

Mentil showed no intention of rebuking me.

She seemed to genuinely think my answer didn't suit me.

“That is also true, but what I care about is the future.”

“The future?”

I nodded.

“My future, sitting at the lowest seat, is not in my hands. It is in the hands of the one who will become Emperor.”

What do you think is the reason the 3rd Prince fawns over the recovered 1st Prince?

Because he's afraid of how the 1st Prince, having become Emperor, will deal with him.

No one was saying it, but they were all probably doing their utmost not to fall out of favor with a powerful member of the Imperial Family.

Because they didn't know if they might end their long, long lives in some harsh place far from the capital.

Mentil's brow furrowed, having understood my words that I, too, was no different from them.

“You're that afraid of merely being separated from the capital and living a less luxurious life than now……”

Mentil paused her words for a moment.

Her emerald-light eyes turned to my black hair.

Her words were right.

It was rare for the Emperor to directly kill other members of the Imperial Family.

Most were sent off to barren places on the frontier.

But for the powerless 7th Prince, being exiled to the frontier would be a sentence not much different from death.

She finally seemed to understand my situation, which was much closer to death than my other siblings'.

Mentil's eyes subsided.

I couldn't know what she was reminded of, but the fact that she had quieted down was a good sign.

“Yes, I'm very scared.”

When I answered her unfinished question, Mentil looked at me.

“I want to spend my time as quietly as possible, and as inconspicuously as possible. I don't want to stand out among the other Imperial Family members anymore. Because……”

I paused my words for a moment and met the green eyes of Mentil, who was listening to me silently.

“……I'm scared to death.”

……If Rasia, the likely candidate for Emperor, had heard it, he would have spewed all sorts of curses, saying the most shameless bastard in the world was right here, but the 'other Imperial Family members' I referred to here was pointing to something else.

Someone next to me scoffed, perhaps finding my honest answer ridiculous.

My pride wasn't hurt.

I didn't know if it was because the words I just spat out were half-lies, or because it was the ridicule of people who didn't matter in my life in the slightest.

Mentil, who had kept her silence with her mouth closed for a moment, turned her head.

“Do you think so too?”

The person she spoke to was someone I hadn't expected either.

“Ye, yes?”

Cellos, who was suddenly questioned, stuttered to the point of looking foolish.

Mentil stared silently at Cellos's face with a piercing gaze.

Cellos Abalan stood still, unable to say anything, yet unable to avoid her gaze.

Mentil soon turned her head, as if no further answer was needed.

“……My spirits have dampened. Everyone, be seated.”

And just like that, she turned her body and left to find her own seat without any lingering attachment.

I secretly let out a sigh and sat down.

If she lost interest in me completely out of disappointment from this, it would be for the best, and if not, I had at least bought time, so it was an action with nothing to lose.

As I caught my breath, making something akin to a wish that today's conversation would remain effective until I left, someone next to me spoke.

“What are you?”

I turned my head toward the 8th Prince, who had spoken to me for the first time since entering the banquet hall.

Cellos was looking at me with an expression of incomprehension.

He looked like a child who was unfairly deprived of a snack he was eating.

In a way, he also looked like someone whose pride was hurt.

It seemed he didn't like that he had been next to me and suddenly had a pathetic reaction in front of the 1st Imperial Princess.

Or perhaps he didn't like the 1st Imperial Princess paying attention to me.

The fellow, born under the same mother—that is, the Empress—was closer to the 1st Imperial Princess than I was, as I had a different mother.

And the fellow was quite conscious of that.

“‘You’? To your older brother.”

When I answered, Cellos's two eyebrows shot up.

“How can you be so…… Ah shh, never mind.”

Cellos moved his lips a few times as if to speak, then gave up and turned his head away with a 'pak' sound.

Not long after, the boring banquet began, so Cellos never opened his mouth again after that.

***

When Tollin woke up after being unconscious for a full day, many things had changed in the Piteos Ducal Family.

He was no longer the Head's aide but the acting Head of Family, and he had to protect the ducal family and the young Little Duke from the pack of hyenas trying to tear apart the unstable ducal family due to the sudden news of the Head's death.

Everyone whispered that they didn't know what the Duke was thinking, entrusting the position of acting Head to the timid and faint-hearted Tollin Crisa.

Everyone sneered that he was far too small a person to fill the Head's vacant seat, that the Piteos Ducal Family would collapse in an instant, and that the young Little Duke would become penniless and be thrown out onto the streets.

But not long after, completely different words were on their lips.

That the loyal dog protecting the ducal family had completely turned into a rabid dog, that anyone who touched the Piteos Ducal Family would have to see blood, that the Little Duke who would grow up under Tollin Crisa was an endlessly pitiful child—everyone's words gathered as such.

In conclusion, it was all about how Tollin Crisa had become a madman.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.