Chapter 298

In the deep night, I left the cabin of Cariosa, drying my hair with a towel.

The next day, we had our training, and everyone was resting except for the minimal guard detail.

“Isn’t it said that mixing bodies before heading into battle brings bad luck?”

“It’s better than a promise to mix bodies after this fight, Valenciaunos.”

“That was close. I could have died.”

“I will kill you a hundred times.”

The conversation we had before entering resurfaced momentarily and then faded away.

I really don’t understand the ways of the world.

As I drew up my mana, the uniform unraveled from within me like thread.

Step by step, the sleeves, buttons, and pant hems took shape.

The chest tightened up last, and I adjusted my collar.

I felt a familiar presence from around the corner.

I called out to him without any surprise.

“Loerelai. Didn’t I tell you not to follow me?”

“I’m just worried about you, Your Highness.”

The boy-turned-young man, the mage, squinted his eyes in protest.

I playfully gave him a light smack on the head, enough to slightly distort his handsome, delicate face.

“Your complexion is starting to match your hair color.”

“!”

I smiled as I asked.

“Be honest, Loerelai. You came to see me, didn’t you?”

The orange-haired mage gasped.

“No, Your Grace.”

“Do you know why nobles often fall into homosexuality as they age?”

“It’s a subject I have no interest in.”

“Having an illegitimate child at that age would be quite a headache.”

“I… didn’t know that.”

I secretly laughed and tossed out a verbal bait.

“But you and Cariosa aren’t in a relationship to worry about having an illegitimate child, are you?”

He bit right into it.

“Why wouldn’t we? We should definitely be worried. In the capital, the Emperor is killing all the royal illegitimate children and royals…”

I smiled as I replied.

“I was the one who executed that.”

Now he was completely trapped like a fish.

“What?”

“So you don’t have to worry about me.”

“No, when did I ever worry about you, Your Highness? I was only worried about you, my sister…”

As he spoke, perhaps realizing his words contradicted themselves, Loerelai’s face went pale.

I pointedly stated.

“Then why did you bring up the Emperor instead of speaking of the bishops of the Asenorta territory?”

He answered with a voice that sounded like he wanted to find a mouse hole.

“…Because I’m afraid the Emperor might attempt to conquer Asenorta, which has stolen the blood of the royal family.”

“When Duke Cariosa decided to come and get me, I let it slide, didn’t I?”

“…”

“Jeilliriss knows everything. She knows that on the day of the accession, Cariosa took a few royals and left and that they are still locked somewhere in the castle. I let it slide because as a high noble, you can manage something like corruption.”

Loerelai clenched his teeth.

I said lightly with a grin.

“Don’t worry too much. I will definitely come back alive.”

He slowly moved his lips.

“It’s Cuith Az, right? The last one you absorbed.”

Exactly.

This was the information I had expected.

I nodded inwardly with a smile.

“Yeah.”

“That’s the biggest problem. Fight without using your powers of resonance as much as possible. That way, your soul will be less harmed.”

“Really?”

“It’s the most alien mutation. Using Az’s power is like a body that keeps stretching and shrinking. The soul has no choice but to confuse its master.”

I gave him a meaningful smile.

“Thanks. I’ll take that into consideration. If I fall again, you’ll heal me again, right?”

Loerelai clenched his teeth and lowered his head.

I chuckled and lightly patted his back.

He kept shaking his head till the end.

Toying with people’s hearts—regardless of gender, especially those who had a fondness for me—wasn’t exactly comfortable.

No, to be honest, it was unbearably uncomfortable to the point of making my head throb.

But I had come too far to care about my feelings.

“Lady Trentia.”

“Your Highness, what brings you here at this hour?”

“Let’s head down briefly. I need to meet that assassin.”

* * *

The soldier guarding the prison area wore an awkward expression.

This was because someone without a retinue of eastern knights had demanded an audience with Cariosa.

The eastern sea men wouldn’t yield to unjust external pressures, but Crown Prince Valencius was too great an external pressure for a single soldier to handle.

“No, if it’s too much, you don’t need to open it. I can just go and wake Cariosa. I just finished washing up, so she’d be thrilled if I bother her again.”

“You really must see him for just a moment. He’s a dangerous assassin.”

“Don’t worry. I have Lady Trentia with me.”

The soldier, ultimately unable to withstand the authority of royals, opened the way, and Valencius entered the prison area past the chancellor.

He opened the prison door and faced Sayah Yan.

Sayah Yan was sitting cross-legged.

The difference from when I saw her during the day was the length of her hair.

The soldiers of Tempesta had used what one would expect from military organization to somehow seal off her strange abilities.

Sayah Yan’s hair had been cut into a very short bob, as short as Lady Trentia’s.

It was fortunate—or unfortunate—that it had not been cut evenly like it had been eaten by rats.

Valencius grinned at the sight.

“They say that if someone looks pretty even with a short haircut, they’re really beautiful, and it suits you quite well. Not as well as Lady Trentia, though.”

There was a strangely similar vibe to what I felt with Loerelai in her.

“Valencius?”

“I told you to call me Duke.”

She squinted and chuckled softly.

“Your Excellency, what brings you here? Did you come to mock me? Or to make fun of me?”

Valencius had a slightly perplexed expression.

Thoughts of the young noble nobles he had captured before reincarnation came to his mind.

It was to intentionally spread rumors to lure out resistance forces.

“I’m done with that sort of thing. It’s not a story I miss at all.”

“Then why are you here?”

He raised his chin and got to the point.

“If I have what I want from you, I’ll let you and your lord live together.”

For a moment, Sayah Yan’s eyes trembled.

He smiled and continued talking.

“Don’t think it’s a lie. My side is pretty desperate here.”

A trained warrior does not yield to despair, but it isn’t despair that breaks a heart that cannot be shattered with a golden hammer; it’s hope.

Sayah Yan squinted and then opened her eyes tightly.

“All I have is this body. I doubt you’d want anything from me, Your Grace.”

She made an effort not to harbor hope.

But Valencius, like a devil wearing the guise of a smiling angel, proposed.

“How did you use your abilities without mana earlier? That’s still a physical transformation, right? It’s functional. How did you suppress the opposition of your soul? Tell me that method.”

“Just like Cuith Az. If Loerelai is right, Sayah Yan’s soul should be segmented as she can’t adapt to her mutated body.”

However, he didn’t think that Sayah Yan looked like she was under any pain from using her abilities.

“Whether it’s a mystery from the Eastern Continent or not, there’s something there. If there’s something I can learn, I think it’s alright for me to hold on to hope too.”

Sayah Yan wore an honestly bewildered expression.

“I don’t know what you mean by the opposition of the soul, but I’ve seen comrades bleed from the nose, become shells, or mentally break when honing their skills.”

Valencius held back an urge to cheer loudly.

Externally, Sayah Yan looked to be in her late teens.

No matter how carefully she learned, it would be difficult for her soul to adapt to a body that shifts and morphs, so there must be some method to control that.

“That should be resolved through meditation… As far as I know, aren’t knights from the western continent meditating as well? There should be no problem at all.”

“You’re rambling.”

“I can’t summarize ten-plus years of training in a few words.”

Valencius stood calmly and waited for her to organize her thoughts.

Sayah Yan didn’t seem to be teasing him.

Before long, she opened her mouth.

“It might be difficult to understand, but focus on the outside, not the inside.”

“That should have always been the case, though?”

“You need to stop caring about how your body is changing. Of course, it’s assumed that you can do this. Only then can you change without backlash.”

That was an answer that veered slightly away from my expectations.

Valencius frowned and drew in a breath.

“Ugh.”

Loerelai said not to change as much, while Sayah Yan was saying to accept change.

Loerelai was more trustworthy than Sayah Yan, but Sayah Yan was someone who had used strange abilities right in front of him.

“Your form blurs, your hair grows longer, and you can block Lady Trentia’s punch. If all of this can be done with physical functions instead of mana…”

“Are you perhaps a half-spirit?”

“Spirits have been gone from the human realm for hundreds of years. I haven’t even met a spirit mage yet.”

Sayah Yan replied as if wondering why he asked such a thing.

Valencius nodded and turned his body.

At this point, he felt he had heard as much as he wanted.

“Duke. The promise—”

Sayah Yan called out to him desperately.

“I must protect Tarti at all costs.”

Valencius paused for a moment, trying to smile wickedly but ultimately contorting his face.

After wrestling with an overwhelming sense of self-loathing, the Bandit Duke finally spoke.

“Alright. I promise. I will definitely save Tarti. Of course, you will too.”

“If necessary, I can die…”

“No. You must also live. It seems safer for you that way.”

Sayah Yan had an air of someone who could hold a guarded attitude instead of relief.

For some reason, she looked at the shadow that draped over Valencius.

“Duke…?”

It seemed like her words didn’t come from absolute fondness.

“You both must be alive so that you won’t think of other things.”

And when Valencius finally spoke again, both Sayah Yan and Lady Trentia hardened their expressions.

* * *

“There’s an imperial port in the southeast. Tarti will rebuild the navy from there.”

I said that while looking at Sayah Yan.

I heard Lady Trentia gasp behind me.

Sayah Yan frowned at her scarred face.

“I don’t understand.”

The androgynous voice trembled.

I said with a hint of laughter.

“The navy isn’t something you can build overnight. The concepts of pirates, merchants, and navies aren’t that rigidly separated either. If there are eastern nobles who want to see the revival of clans, I’m sure they can be gathered.”

She gave a crooked smile.

“I remember what you said on the ship. Nobles need someone to serve them.”

“Exactly.”

“Are you saying you’ll give Tarti someone to serve?”

“Right.”

“Though it’s not my place to say, isn’t it unnecessary? The imperial family has a white shark with seven fleets at their command.”

I didn’t answer that question.

“…You cannot be serious?”

Sayah Yan looked at me in disbelief, and Lady Trentia called me with a trembling voice.

“Prince Valen.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m a bandit, but I’m not that kind of scoundrel.”

I had no intention of putting restraints on Cariosa.

I completely trusted her, admired her immensely, and now I had no choice but to trust her.

I had already given her the title of Duke, allowed her to refer to herself as a Queen, and had given her the entire southeast sea, including the Three Isles.

If I intended to control her, I wouldn’t have given her all that, and if I did give those things to her, then I shouldn’t intend to control her.

What the imperial family expects from her is the deterrence of kings from the Eastern Continent, suppression of pirates, and the subjugation of the Undersea People.

That was aligned with Cariosa’s interests as she aimed to become the king of the eastern seas, so one could expect her to struggle faithfully.

However, if there ever comes a time when the navy is needed for reasons other than that, if the moment arrives when we need to head not to the eastern seas but to the northern seas, when there comes a time to use the navy as expendables, I couldn’t expect Cariosa to cooperate fully.

Of course, she would grant me her ships and soldiers upon seeing my face.

But that kindness would ultimately be a limit to what kindness can allow as a sacrifice.

I knew there would come a day when I would need a fleet without limits.

In the not-too-distant future, there would be a revolt of the merfolk in the southern seas.

I needed a fleet for that time.

A noble born admiral would be perfect.

If I had taken her lover as a hostage, even more so.

“If you stay loyal to the imperial family, I will definitely spare both of you.”

Sayah Yan let out a small groan.

“Ugh.”

“If possible… I’ll even spare your clan left on the island. So don’t let your guard down and behave yourself.”

Finally, hope glimmered in her scarred eyes.

I smiled satisfactorily and asked.

“What’s your answer?”

Her response, of course, was as I had expected.