9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 185 - The Young Prince (1)

Humanity’s most primitive emotion is fear.

***

The child lay quietly in the filthy sewers, writhing and twisting his body.

Every corner of his body ached without exception, and thick blood flowed from his mouth and nose.

‘Am I dying?’

His ragged breathing echoed in his ears.

What is death?

Why do people fear death? No, what exactly is fear?

He simply could not solve that riddle.

***

1835, a mansion in District 3 of Schufaben.

A small boy was born amid everyone’s blessings.

Snow-white skin, golden hair, and blue eyes.

Everyone admired his incredibly noble appearance, though no one was surprised. He was the spitting image of his parents.

The child’s parents were young, wealthy, beautiful, and virtuous.

The elegant and intelligent Count frequented the royal castle, teaching swordsmanship to the Crown Prince, while the Countess, blessed with captivating beauty and a voice as clear as a nightingale, became the flower of high society and patronized artists.

The two had met at a party in their youth, fallen in love at first sight, and after a long courtship, held a magnificent wedding and smoothly welcomed their first child.

They built the perfect family.

The Kingdom of Schufaben was mightier and more peaceful than any nation on the continent.

All sorts of strange ideologies were gradually emerging—nationalism, republicanism, liberalism, and the like.

The King, addicted to pleasure, threw parties every few days and squandered the national treasury building zoos and aquariums with enormous taxes.

But Schufaben was still fine.

The nobles enjoyed their lives, oblivious to the waves of change rippling beneath their feet. The Count and Countess were no different.

So the couple devoted themselves entirely to raising their adorable son.

He was a perfect child, except for the strangely unsettling fact that he rarely cried.

He never had so much as a common childhood illness and learned everything quickly.

He showed particularly genius-level talent in swordsmanship, to the point where the Count would click his tongue in amazement while teaching him. The moment he first grasped a sword, he displayed perfect form.

On top of that, the child was born with the purest magical bloodline, making him the Count and Countess’s pride and joy.

The Count and Countess first noticed something disturbing about their child in 1840, when he turned five.

On a bright summer day.

All three family members were out in the garden. The Count was reading, the Countess was painting a landscape, and the child was playing with a child-sized sword a short distance away—a peaceful moment.

“Woof! Woof woof!”

“Ah.”

A dog they kept loose in the garden became excited and came running toward the child, barking loudly. At the quiet sigh, the couple quickly looked toward the large tree.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

The Countess let out a blood-curdling scream. Blood was spurting from the child’s arm.

It was a wound so severe that chunks of flesh had nearly been torn away. Yet the child simply took out a handkerchief and calmly pressed it against the wound.

“Darling! Call the doctor!”

The Count’s face went deathly pale as he rushed over like lightning. He scooped up the child and patted him gently while whispering.

“It’s okay, son, it’s okay.”

“Father, my arm stings.”

The child’s face was twisted with pain, but his voice was calm.

Fortunately, the doctor and magical healer arrived quickly.

There was an incident where the shocked Countess fainted, but in any case, the wound healed completely.

“Our son is brave. You endured the pain so well.”

The Count stroked the hair of the child, who was lying down receiving a blood transfusion after losing too much blood.

“You must have been so terribly frightened. Our son is amazing.”

“What is fear, Father?”

The Count thought for a moment at his child’s question, then answered gently.

“It’s when your heart suddenly beats very fast, you want to run away immediately, and you feel like you’re about to cry.”

“Is that different from being hurt and sad?”

“It’s different. But when you’re hurt and sad, you become afraid.”

“……”

The Count smiled down at his child, who stared blankly lost in thought. Sometimes excessive academic curiosity could be harmful.

“Now get some sleep. When you wake up, all the scary things will be gone.”

“Yes, Father.”

The child obediently closed his eyes.

***

Several years passed.

One day, after school ended, the child sat on the playground swing waiting for the butler.

‘What exactly is fear?’

This was the topic he pondered whenever he had spare time these days.

This was a school where aristocratic children of similar status to his gathered. He had attracted everyone’s attention from the moment he enrolled, as always.

First in both studies and athletics.

Always composed, a model student who handled whatever was entrusted to him well.

However, the students avoided and shunned the child. At first they had approached him, drawn by his dazzling appearance, talent, and family background, but without exception, they all soon distanced themselves.

“He’s so creepy!”

“He’s really like a demon—the kind heretics believe in.”

“The teachers said he might be sick.”

That’s how the students whispered among themselves, and what the child read in their eyes was unmistakable fear.

The child had been exploring the emotion of fear since he was very young.

Fear is an instinct, a defense mechanism that developed to protect oneself.

But the child had never harmed anyone. If anything, he had helped people in trouble.

His parents had taught him that people should help each other. He had learned through long experience that being kind and altruistic earned others’ goodwill and allowed him to live comfortably.

‘Then why do they fear me? Everyone received help, not threats, from me.’

In the end, the butler never appeared, and only after the sun set and the moon rose did the child walk the long road home alone.

The large mansion had no lights, giving it not just a dark but even an eerie feeling.

“They must have run away.”

Even after opening the gate and entering, no response came.

The interior of the mansion was a mess.

All the servants had fled, leaving dust piled up everywhere and spider webs in the corners. And today, even the butler had—

From the kitchen came the stench of alcohol mixed with rotting food. As the child climbed to the bedroom, the voices of the Count and Countess could be heard from the far end of the corridor.

“I’ll handle everything, darling!”

“You’ve been saying that for a month already! I’m tired of believing you!”

The Countess screamed sharply and burst into tears.

The King had died.

Before the corpse’s warmth had even faded, the Crown Prince was found poisoned to death, and the remaining brothers fought a deadly struggle among themselves. The nobles repeatedly allied, opposed, watched each other, and betrayed one another.

In that chaos, the one who ultimately seized the crown was the youngest prince, Leopold.

The Count was completely purged from the court. He had been a close associate of the dead Crown Prince and had long been the target of Leopold’s hatred.

The child had no interest in the reason why. He had simply noticed long ago that the family had completely collapsed.

“Aaaaah!”

That night, a faint scream echoed through the house, waking the child.

Following the sound, he headed to the Count’s room. When he opened the door, beyond the collapsed Countess, he could see the Count lying dead, blood foaming from his mouth. From the long poison needle stuck in his neck, the blood vessels had turned black.

“Sob! Sob sob!”

The child approached the Countess, who was wailing like an inhuman sound, and put his arm around her shoulder.

“Mother, please calm down. We need to move quickly.”

“You!!!”

The Countess glared at the child with bloodshot eyes and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.

“Why aren’t you crying! Why! Why aren’t you even a little afraid! Say something!!”

“I……”

“Your father is dead and you don’t care at all? Whose child are you, really?!”

The Countess knew she was unfairly pouring her rage onto an innocent child. But she couldn’t stop.

Ever since the incident when the child was five, the Count and Countess had gradually begun to feel unsettled.

The child was never afraid of anything.

Whether it was storms with thunder and lightning, a runaway carriage with broken wheels charging toward them, thieves breaking into the house, scary monster stories, riding a hot air balloon high into the sky, or even when they deliberately made stern faces and scolded him loudly.

The couple had never read fear in the child’s eyes.

At first, they had accepted it gladly. They thought he was born with a bold personality and an iron heart.

The Count had made a fuss, saying the child would become a great person. The Countess had been only slightly disappointed that she couldn’t see the child act spoiled.

But as time passed, they couldn’t help but gradually realize.

The child was a being born with the emotion of fear completely severed.

Fierce hunting dogs, disgusting rats, bottomless cliffs, pitch-black darkness, blood, pain, death.

No matter what he faced, the child never showed a ‘normal’ reaction. Those dry eyes that even parents found unsettling.

Especially when the child did something wrong and they scolded him harshly, the look in the child’s eyes as he apologized—that was absolutely not a look that could come from a young child.

Still, the Countess had loved the child.

Until today.

“Say something! Are you not scared of any of this? Mother might die too! Then you’ll be all alone! Aren’t you afraid even of that?!”

“Mother, I……”

The child tilted his head slightly.

“I don’t know what fear is.”

Smack!

The child’s head snapped to the side and then returned to position.

His cheek swelled red, but the child didn’t cry. No emotion could be read in his round, clear blue eyes.

“Ah, ahahahahaha……”

The Countess laughed like a madwoman. Of course the child wasn’t afraid.

The night passed.

Leaving the Countess, who alternated between laughing and crying, the child returned to his bedroom and went to sleep. When he woke late in the morning, he opened his eyes.

The house was silent.

He wandered through the large house, checking the condition of each room.

As expected, his mother was nowhere to be found. All the cash and valuable items had also disappeared. His father’s corpse remained as it was, though.

“I knew this would happen.”

The child muttered indifferently, then changed clothes and gathered food that was about to spoil.

And he left the house.

The King’s errand boys discovered the ruined mansion and the Count’s decaying corpse. The Countess and son were listed as missing.

***

The child wandered the streets.

The security in the back alleys of Lüdelheim, which had never been particularly good to begin with, had become even more chaotic after the change of kings.

Gangs fought territorial battles everywhere, and the number of beggars and pickpocket groups gradually increased.

The child left the wealthy District 3 and drifted down to the streets where the lower classes lived.

For several days, he simply hid while observing the situation, then sought out the gang with the most power.

“A little noble brat dripping with privilege! You want to join our crew, young master? You’re talking nonsense!”

“Hahahahaha! The pretty boy looks perfect for licking my lower regions!”

When the boss cursed, everyone burst into laughter.

“You seem like some nobleman’s bastard, but kid, if you want to keep your rear end’s virginity intact, you better scram right now.”

“I don’t mind, so please take me in.”

The child’s nonchalant response was met with silence.

“Well, you’ve got some guts, I’ll give you that.”

After a moment, the boss grinned wickedly.

“If you pass the test, I’ll take you in. Though I doubt a little kid can pull it off.”

The boss ordered him to kill a young man. Probably some leader from a rival gang.

Of course, he wasn’t serious.

No matter what, he wasn’t insane enough to order a ten-year-old to commit murder. He had no expectation that the pretty little lord could accomplish such a thing.

It was just a scheme to mock the trembling child, break his spirit, and turn him into an obedient slave.

But the child couldn’t understand why this was supposed to be difficult.

What was so hard about stabbing a knife into the throat of a human who was already beaten to a pulp and tied up tight?

“Gurgle!”

With a single movement, the knife cleanly sliced through the man’s throat.

“Are there more?”

As the child wiped the blood splattered on his face and asked calmly, the boss scowled deeply.

The child was beaten so severely that day that he could barely stand, then thrown into the sewers.

“Demon bastard.”

The boss spat and turned away.