Chapter 250 — 제라이츠

Chapter 250

Zeraitz

Crown Prince Zeraitz left the conference room with a face gone rigid.

“Your Highness.”

Patran, head of the Inspectorate’s Fourth Directorate, hurried after him, worry written all over his face.

“Say nothing.”

“…”

All he got back was ice.

Patran bit down hard on his lower lip.

‘I can’t… I can’t just leave it like this!’

He knew it instinctively.

If this moment slipped by, his body would be found before long—cold and dead.

It was his idea to spread those leaflets to splinter the rebels—whispers that the Crimson Lion was about to defect to the Imperial Army, that he’d be coming out under a white flag.

His idea to insist they pin the blame on Elric, who had taken the Crimson Lion under his wing.

All of it had been his.

But the quarry he thought was in the bag flipped cleanly to Elric’s side, and the thread began to tangle. Now, they’d even ended up showcasing Elric’s power to the central nobility.

There was no way Crown Prince Zeraitz would sit idle and spare the man who had smeared mud across his face.

To live, he had to grab hold of anything—if only the Crown Prince’s coattails.

“Your Highness! Spare me!”

Patran darted around in front of Zeraitz and prostrated flat on the floor.

To step on the Crown Prince’s shadow and block his path was the kind of impiety that deserved instant death, but with his life hanging by a thread, he had no room to care.

Zeraitz’s face tightened as he swept a quick look around.

They were outside—others might see.

Fortunately, the quick-witted Imperial Guard and Inspectorate agents formed a human screen, keeping the shameful scene from prying eyes.

Sparks leapt in Zeraitz’s eyes.

“Get up.”

“Your Highness!”

“Up.”

“Only spare my life!”

“I said, get up!”

When Zeraitz finally snapped and barked it, the agents rushed in to pry Patran off him.

But before they could seize his limbs, Patran cried out.

“Five days! Grant me five days.”

Zeraitz lifted a hand, halting the agents mid-motion.

“What did you say?”

His voice was flat.

Patran swallowed hard. His life hinged on how he handled this moment. If there was any mercy, it was that he’d managed to seize a chance.

“Give me just five days.”

“Five? Why?”

“I’ve obtained material related to Elric Mervinger. Evidence that he’s dabbled in Taboo and Heresy. That—within that time—I will dig it out and lay it at Your Highness’s feet!”

The Empire, having nurtured the Mage Tower to grow to rival the Lion Ducal House, had granted mages great privileges and rights.

Conversely, the laws governing them were exacting.

Anything that could so much as graze the peace and governance of the Imperial House was labeled a ‘Taboo,’ and even the faintest whiff of impious thought was designated ‘Heresy’ and crushed.

Of course, with the Mage Tower’s power now so great, such laws often got quietly brushed aside.

Even so, they were the sort of statutes you could stretch to fit anything, if you needed to make a case.

Which was, after all, what the Inspectorate mostly did.

Zeraitz’s eyes narrowed.

“Be specific.”

“There was a tip that he’d learned Body-Tempering. And when he crossed into the Black Snowfield, we caught signs that he forged deep ties with the Beastkin.”

Body-Tempering.

An ancient art the Empire and the Mage Tower had declared Taboo.

The Beastkin.

Once they had swept across the continent and dealt the Empire a humiliation.

And that had to do with Mervinger?

“…Why did you sit on that information instead of reporting it?”

“Proof was hard to secure at once, and there were only plausible signs… I meant to confirm before speaking, but—! I beg your pardon. I’ve committed a capital offense. Forgive me.”

Zeraitz stroked his jaw. The annoyance in his eyes had, before he knew it, brightened with a touch of hope.

This might not be enough to topple Elric outright. The fortress he’d built looked sturdier than expected.

‘But there’s a world of difference between having something to batter those walls with and having nothing.’

You had to pound on them to find a chance to break through.

“Two days.”

“B-but that’s…!”

Too short a time to investigate anything properly.

Patran jerked his head up, but—

“Handle it within that.”

One look at the Crown Prince’s resolute eyes told him there would be no bargaining. He had to tuck his tail.

For now, even being given this much of a chance was enormous.

“…U-understood!”

“His grip is growing by the day. He’s even strutting around openly with that bastard Cromhel now. Find a link there as well—anything. Clear?”

“I will bear it in mind.”

Thud! Thud!

Patran smashed his forehead against the floor several times. Zeraitz wondered, briefly, if the man’s skull might shatter at this rate, but knowing it was meant as a pledge of loyalty, he paid it little mind and swept past.

“…”

Patran didn’t dare rise for a long while after.

The agents watched their superior’s posture for a time, then hurried off after the Crown Prince.

Only after a long stretch did Patran lift his head.

Blood was streaming in dark rivulets from the split in his brow.

He didn’t even dare to wipe it away.

He only bit down hard on his lower lip.

‘Even if I bring him proof of Taboo, the Crown Prince is already a sinking ship.’

Having long angled for the Director’s chair of the Fourth Directorate and made himself the Crown Prince’s shadow, he knew it well.

The keen mind that had once made him stake everything on Zeraitz had, at some point, begun to cloud.

Come to think of it, that was when Elric Mervinger entered the picture.

Once the Isabel he loved got tangled up with Elric, jealousy had begun to blind him.

And in the pitiless struggle for the throne, such a weakness could only become the foundation for ruin.

It turned out the hull of what had looked like a sturdy ship had a hole in it. They’d set out on a long voyage without ever knowing; what result could that have but this?

‘No reason to stay aboard a ship that’s going down.’

He’d asked for five days, but in truth, Patran reckoned two were plenty.

Plenty to chart a path for his survival—and his future.

* * *

As he passed Patran, Zeraitz weighed his options.

‘I can’t stake everything on that bastard.’

He ground his teeth.

He wasn’t a fool who kept trusting subordinates already proven incompetent.

‘Count Caliger. If that cur had just done what he was told, we wouldn’t be in this mess!’

If only he’d died out in some backwater beyond the Empire’s gaze, none of this disgrace would have happened.

Granted, if it ever came to light that he’d had dealings with Count Caliger, the blowback might fall on him instead—but that didn’t worry him.

He’d taken out every insurance policy for such a contingency.

There would be no evidence.

Everything Caliger had asked to have in writing had been enchanted to auto-destroy.

‘The Central Inspectorate… if only I’d had them.’

The Central Inspectorate—also called the First Directorate—existed solely for the Emperor. The public image the world had of the Inspectorate had been shaped by them; it wasn’t even an exaggeration to say so.

Yet because they never involved themselves in the struggle for the throne and always maintained strict neutrality, their very absence gnawed at Zeraitz.

If only they had chosen to back his hand, things would never have knotted this badly.

He’d even resolved that, once he took the throne, the first place he’d sweep away would be that impudent Central Inspectorate.

‘Wait.’

Zeraitz’s steps halted.

“Your Highness?”

“What is it, Your Highness?”

Seeing his expression turn grave, the Imperial Guard asked anxiously, but—

Zeraitz raised a hand to silence them. He needed to gather his thoughts.

‘It’s not as if there isn’t anything comparable.’

He slipped a hand into his breast.

His fingertips snagged on something small.

Was it a few nights ago?

The day he received the news that the Star Expeditionary Force was returning, someone had slipped into his tent under cover of darkness.

Not someone—something.

A Demon Lord.

—Crown Prince Zeraitz?

A woman whose allure could have snared any man alive. But after years steeped in sword and sorcery both, Zeraitz knew she wasn’t any ordinary human.

—And you are?

—My, such suspicion. Even I get hurt if you greet me like that. And there are so many bothersome sorts about.

She gave her name as Lapis.

One of the Demon Lords Grigori so proudly boasted of.

When asked how she’d snuck into his command tent, her answer was disarmingly simple.

She’d seduced them—coaxing the soldiers one by one until she could reach him.

Zeraitz was exasperated, but he could believe it. Lapis’s beauty was the sort a man might go a lifetime without seeing. And she knew it, and wielded it.

Yet she seemed to want no quarrel at all.

With monsters crawling everywhere, perhaps she reckoned a misstep could be fatal.

—We may be enemies now, but who says we must be enemies forever? Especially between a man and a woman?

—Between a human and a demon.

—I don’t think species matters all that much.

—Nonsense.

—I mean it. Depending on how things go, I could end up as your empress, couldn’t I?

—Enough with the drivel. What do you want?

—Elric Mervinger. I want him.

—So that’s why Grigori’s gone so quiet of late—because of him?

—In any case. What do you say? Humans have a saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Isn’t it fine if we join hands?

—Get out.

At the time, he’d seen no need to talk and simply threw her out. He’d even considered calling his men to seize her, but if she was hunting Elric Mervinger, she’d show herself again sooner or later. He didn’t bother.

But Lapis, unfazed by his contempt, had left him a slip of paper.

—If you ever think you need me, tear this. I’ll come at once.

‘Perhaps I should go to them instead…?’

—I’m on your side, Your Highness. Think about that empress’s seat I mentioned. Hee-hee!

“…”

A very brief hesitation.

Then Zeraitz shook his head hard.

Once you tied yourself to demons, they’d hold you by the throat forever. He could not imperil long-term designs for short-term convenience.

‘For now, before the final battle, focus on dragging Elric Mervinger’s reputation through the mud. If I move quickly, even Cromhel won’t be able to meddle.’

At least wartime had brought one mercy: with the Imperial House’s unity paramount, Prince Cromhel and the other princes and princesses weren’t tripping over themselves to jump into the succession.

Zeraitz meant to seize that opening with both hands.

Step. Step.

With that decided, his head felt lighter. His stride did too.

Which is why he failed to consider—

That the reason Prince Cromhel had shown no movement thus far might simply have been that he was waiting for his moment.

“Brother.”

“…What are you doing here?”

Thock.

Zeraitz came to a halt in front of his own tent.

The air was wrong.

Not only was Prince Cromhel there, but a good hundred soldiers stood fully armed and ready.

Cromhel himself wore the black plate armor he so prided himself on.

Beneath a visor pressed low over his brow—

Prince Cromhel’s voice rolled out, dark and cold.

“By charge of fomenting insurrection, you are under arrest.”

The Mage Who Devoured Talent