How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 1

‘Rianus.’

For the first time in a long while, my older brother spoke to me.

‘Yes!’

I answered eagerly, delighted that he had spoken to me. After all, he was the only person who ever did.

‘I hear the Duke of Thesaurus is planning to invite young noblemen of your age who are learning swordsmanship to his estate for a gathering where you can get to know one another.’

‘At the ducal estate?’

‘Yes. Would you like to go?’

‘But, Brother, I…’

I hesitated. I was a child cursed by mana, after all.

‘You’re learning swordsmanship, too, aren’t you? I doubt anyone will care about that.’

‘D-Do you think it would be all right for me to join them?’

Whenever my brother spoke to me kindly, something unpleasant always followed.

I knew it. I had been fooled time and time again. And yet, perhaps this time would be different. That small glimmer of hope…

I was afraid of missing an opportunity that might never come again.

‘If you can’t join them, who can? No one practices swordsmanship as diligently as you do.’

‘Then I’ll go! When is it?’

‘Tomorrow. Be there by four. I have something to discuss with my instructor, so I’ll go ahead.’

‘Yes! I’ll see you there, then!’

Perhaps this time, I could make a friend and have someone to talk to.

Even if I could never wield aura for the rest of my life, surely I could at least talk about swordsmanship with someone. I had practiced diligently and worked hard to carry myself with the same composure as my older brother.

But I should have been suspicious from the very beginning. After all, what kind of social gathering was held at such an odd hour?

‘Look, the Swamp Prince really did come. Though he’s rather late.’

‘His eyes really are two different colors.’

‘I heard he was cursed by mana because the two kinds of mana inside him became mixed together.’

‘He may be too young to know any better, but I never expected him to be so completely oblivious…’

‘By the way, he really is tiny. Are you sure he’s the same age as the First Prince?’

The Duke of Thesaurus’s estate was the home of Queen Helia’s birth family and the maternal home of Lawrence de Harpense, the First Prince.

It was a den of vipers where not a single person would welcome the Second Prince, who had no powerful backers to protect him.

‘Why does he even bother learning swordsmanship? I heard he’ll never be able to wield aura, let alone sense mana itself.’

‘I heard His Majesty ordered that the princes receive equal education, so they attend the same classes.’

‘Shouldn’t their abilities be at least somewhat comparable for that to be considered fair? His Majesty is being rather unreasonable.’

What exactly was so unreasonable?

Was it unreasonable that I was expected to keep trying despite never being able to wield aura? Or was it unreasonable that someone as incompetent as me had been allowed to attend the same lessons as my older brother?

The whispers. The laughter, as faint and insubstantial as the wind. The young noble heirs who dared to look at a prince standing right before them, only to avert their gazes without even offering a greeting.

I should have been angry. I should have punished them for insulting a prince to his face.

But I couldn’t.

The moment I saw those reddish-orange eyes—the exact same color as the queen’s—curving into a crescent as they mingled among the others, my lips refused to part.

It was as though they were telling me, You fool. You’ve been tricked again.

And so, once again, I was fooled.

And once again, I ran away.

‘The royal carriage is passing!’

In a small, secluded village with little foot traffic, the sky was filled with gloomy, dark clouds. Something that could have been snow or rain drifted through the air, lashing against the villagers’ cheeks, which were already numb from the cold.

The sleet had begun falling only a few minutes earlier, yet its arrival could not have been more unfortunate.

Neither snow nor rain, it quickly soaked the ground and seeped into the collars of the villagers’ clothes as they lay prostrate on the road.

A traveler passing through the village tilted his head in confusion at the sight of people lying face-down at intervals along the road.

‘What on earth is going on? Why are you all out here in such freezing weather?’

An elderly man who heard his question immediately grabbed him and forced him to lie down.

‘The royal carriage is passing! Hurry and get down!’

‘Wouldn’t it be enough to bow our heads and pay our respects?’

At that question, the old man grabbed the back of the traveler’s neck, pressed him down, and began explaining in a quiet, serious voice.

The traveler found the feeling of his clothes growing damp thoroughly unpleasant. However, the old man looked so grave that he decided to listen for the time being.

‘Not long ago, a young lord from some count’s family passed through the neighboring village and beat a child to death. What a vicious temper that man had… It was a day when the snow had piled up so high that it reached people’s ankles. And yet, he insisted on driving his carriage through in weather like that. While looking out through the window, he happened to make eye contact with a child. Apparently, he was enraged that some commoner brat dared to look down at him from a higher position. He dragged the child out and had him beaten right there on the spot. The poor child was covered in blood from head to toe before being buried in the snow and freezing to death!’

The old man continued his impassioned account, oblivious to how his voice was growing louder. As the traveler listened, his expression gradually hardened.

‘Good heavens! The child was beaten to death, and no one tried to stop it?’

‘How could anyone have intervened in that situation? We would have been beaten to death ourselves. The child’s parents begged and pleaded for mercy, but they were beaten, too. I heard they nearly died, but managed to survive with help from those nearby. Still, how could they go on living after watching their own child die right before their eyes?’

‘Why didn’t they submit a formal petition?’

‘Would those people bat an eye over the death of one commoner child? If nobles can behave like that, imagine how much worse the royal family must be. So you’d better keep your head down, too.’

After hearing the old man’s entire story, the traveler shuddered and obediently pressed his face against the ground.

He vowed that as soon as the carriage passed, he would find an inn, soak in a hot bath, and never set foot outside again until the weather improved.

Just then, he heard someone sniffle, followed by the plaintive voice of a woman.

‘Could you please hide my child? If his clothes get wet, I have nothing else to change him into.’

It was a mother and child who had been wandering from place to place. Beside the woman stood a grubby little child, sniffling as he looked up at his mother.

A man who appeared to be the village chief stepped forward.

‘The carriage is moving far too fast! I’ll let you stay at my house tonight, so hurry and lie down. You might end up watching your child get beaten to death!’

The woman’s face turned deathly pale. In a panic, she grabbed the back of her child’s head and pushed him down toward the ground.

A brief silence followed, broken now and then by the child’s sniffles. Then, from far away, came the sound of approaching hooves.

The sound grew closer at such an incredible speed that one might have thought something terrible was about to happen.

Thinking that the Kingdom of Harpense was truly a wretched place, the traveler waited impatiently for the carriage to pass.

‘Sniff, hic… sob…’

Amid the dark, deep-green hair swaying with every jolt of the speeding carriage, muffled sounds spilled out in fits and starts, somewhere between laughter and sobbing.

Perhaps it was the lingering chill of early spring, or perhaps he simply couldn’t contain his emotions. Either way, his small body trembled violently as he curled into himself, making him look even smaller than he already was.

Tears streamed endlessly through the gaps between his fingers, dripping onto his knees, but his hands were too busy desperately stifling his sobs to do anything else.

The knight driving the carriage felt his heart ache at the sound of his young master crying inside. There was nothing he dared do to comfort him. The sleet that had begun falling at such an inconvenient time only made matters worse.

After crying for who knew how long, the child decided he wanted to cool his swollen eyelids and opened the carriage window.

Sleet swept into the carriage on the cold wind. Like him, it was something no one welcomed. And now, cruelly, it lashed against his frozen cheeks.

‘Your Highness! You’ll catch a cold! Please close the window!’

‘…I want to leave it open a little longer. How much farther?’

‘Another two hours or so. We’ll be entering a village soon, so please get back inside.’

At the mention of a village, the child leaned farther out and looked toward the entrance. His eyesight was exceptionally sharp, allowing him to see clearly into the distance despite the sleet obstructing his view.

From where he sat, he saw the villagers scrambling about before hurriedly throwing themselves face-down onto the ground. Perplexed by their bizarre behavior, he shouted to his knight, who was seated on the driver’s bench.

‘Sir Evan! Why are the villagers doing that?’

‘They’re paying their respects to the royal carriage! It’s cold, so please get back inside!’

‘What? Who would throw themselves onto the ground in this weather just to pay their respects? Tell them to get up and go inside!’

‘If we stop the carriage and get out to deliver that message, they’ll only be even more frightened. It’s better to keep going.’

‘Then hurry up!’

‘…Pardon?’

‘Get us out of this village! Hurry, hurry! It’s sleeting!’

Evan was taken aback by his young master’s frantic orders, but he obediently urged the carriage to go faster.

He heard the child muttering that he should never have come in the first place, but Evan couldn’t bring himself to reply, That’s what I told you, wasn’t it? I said it would be better not to come.

He couldn’t possibly rub salt into the wounds of this fragile little kitten.

The little kitten, who had been sobbing quietly just moments ago, now seemed to have completely forgotten his tears. He opened the window facing the driver’s bench and repeatedly slapped Evan’s back.

Relieved that the prince seemed to have regained some of his energy, Evan nevertheless shouted in a tone of exaggerated grievance.

‘Your Highness, hitting me won’t make the horses run any faster!’

‘Faster! Faster!’

‘We’re already pushing them too hard! The ground is starting to freeze. If we aren’t careful, something terrible could really happen!’

‘The road is wide open! What kind of accident could happen? Just get us out of the village!’

The child began stamping his feet inside the carriage, having completely forgotten that he had been crying only moments earlier.

Why did it have to start sleeting all of a sudden? If only I’d left a little later! I should have held out just a little longer so the villagers could return to their homes.

At that thought, a pair of reddish-orange eyes, curved into a crescent, flashed through his mind.

No. I probably couldn’t have endured it any longer.

With tears threatening to well up again, the child forced them back and glanced outside the carriage.

Amid the scenery flashing past, he thought he caught a glimpse of a child whose cheeks and hands had turned bright red from the cold.

Why would anyone be out in weather like this? Why didn’t they have the sense to go inside?

Unable to take his frustration out on the villagers, the prince instead vented it on his knight.

‘Are we there yet? Go faster!’

‘How much faster do you expect me to go?! At this rate, something really— Aagh!’

Hiiiiigh!

The horses whinnied. He thought he heard the sickening sound of something being crushed, too.

The carriage lurched violently.

The knight poured all his strength into calming the horses. The carriage had nearly overturned.

‘What was that?! What happened?’

‘A child suddenly ran out in front of us… I think the horses hit him!’

‘What? Sir Evan, stop! Stop the carriage!’

The carriage was already slowing down, but after traveling at such tremendous speed, it couldn’t come to a halt immediately. It rolled a considerable distance before finally stopping.

The moment it did, the carriage door flew open, and a head of dark green hair popped out.

The people who instinctively raised their heads to see what had happened were startled to find themselves looking directly at royalty. They gasped and immediately pressed their faces back against the ground.

Seeing them do that, the child suddenly felt a surge of anger and shouted at the top of his lungs.

‘What is this?! Did you drop money on the ground? I can’t stand the sight of this, so all of you get inside!’

The child leaped out of the carriage and sprinted back along the road they had just traveled, paying no attention to the water soaking his shoes and trouser legs.

It’s all my fault. I shouted at Sir Evan, so he couldn’t see the child.

The child must surely be dead. There was no way anyone could survive being struck by a carriage racing so fast that the scenery blurred past.

He could hear his escort knight shouting something behind him, but his own ragged breathing drowned out the words. His legs felt as though the cold had frozen them stiff.

The sleet gradually soaked his hair and clothes. Each time he exhaled, a cloud of white breath rose into the air before scattering into nothingness.

How long had he been running?

In the middle of the road the carriage had passed, a pool of blood and something unrecognizable appeared at the edge of his vision.

The prince stopped without realizing it.

Then, after taking a few breaths, he cautiously approached the fallen figure.

‘…’

It was a child.