How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 131

Reception Room.

Morris Allier sat some distance away, looking down at his son, who was trembling uncontrollably.

“Noah, I heard you caused quite a commotion.”

“…….”

At the quiet reprimand, the little boy shrank even further into himself. He had always been a timid child, but he seemed especially terrified whenever he was around his father. Displeased by that sight, Morris couldn’t help letting a sharp remark slip from his lips.

“I heard you made a fool of yourself by crying. Twice, no less.”

“…….”

Morris irritably raked his fingers through his hair as he watched his son lower his head without answering.

Despite being as wealthy as a ducal house, how much had he been looked down upon by other nobles behind his back simply because his family had started out as merchants?

Idiots with nothing but their names to boast about.

His teeth ground together.

He had even resorted to paying bribes to secure an invitation to the luncheon, all so his son could make useful connections.

And that wasn’t all. He had distributed expensive gifts to the children of the other noble families who attended today. As for Her Highness the Queen, he had presented her with a pair of earrings set with red diamonds, of which only about thirty existed in the entire world.

The pair alone was worth as much as a small castle.

“Why on earth did you cry?”

After all the effort I’d put into you, how could you not even stand up for yourself?

“I-I’m sorry…”

“Didn’t I ask you why you cried?”

“I-I did something wrong…”

“Go apologize properly to His Majesty today, then visit Her Highness and the First Prince as well!”

“…H-Hic…”

Morris hadn’t even approached him, but his son stumbled backward anyway. He had never once raised a hand against his child. So why was the boy so frightened of him?

Seeing his son move farther and farther away, Morris suddenly felt a surge of frustration and shouted.

“Noah!”

“……!”

Crash!

At the raised voice, his son fell backward and struck his head against a low table. Morris hurried over in alarm, but Noah screamed.

“AAAH! D-Don’t, don’t come! AAAAAH!”

Noah clutched his head and shrieked repeatedly, thrashing as though having a fit. At his son’s cries of Don’t come near me, Morris’s face twisted, and he eventually took a couple of steps back.

Why did the boy behave like this only toward him? Even when he was born, the child had burst into tears at the sight of his father. When Noah was little, Morris had assumed he was simply frightened by the sight of a large adult man.

But his son only cried when he saw him. He smiled so brightly at everyone else, yet whenever he saw Morris…

“Noah…”

“U-Ugh… D-Don’t come! Don’t come! M-Monster…”

Morris felt anger surge through him.

“Why, why do you act this way only toward your own father?! Do I look like a monster to you?! I’ve never laid a hand on you! Ever since you were little, you’ve had a fit whenever you saw me. How could I possibly touch you?!”

“M-Monster! Don’t come! Go away! N-No!”

“Does my voice sound like a monster’s roar to you?! I never asked much of you. But what have you done to me?! You threw glass bottles at me, poured water over me, and even stole and threw the sword that had been carefully preserved as a family heirloom! Can you see these wounds and scars?! You did all of this! Did you truly want to kill your own father that badly?!”

“AAAAH! N-No! No!! G-Go away! D-Die! AAAAAH! Disappear! Just disappear!”

Die?

Morris felt as though his blood were boiling.

Had the boy really thrown the sword because he wanted to kill him? Did his child truly see him as a monster?

The old wound on his shoulder throbbed. Even the scars that should no longer hurt seemed to ache.

“…So you’ve finally driven a nail straight through your father’s heart.”

With those words, Morris took a step toward Noah. He heard the boy screaming and begging him not to come closer, but ignored him.

He thought that perhaps, if he could just touch him, the boy might finally understand that he wasn’t a monster.

But that was nothing more than his own arrogance and misjudgment.

Cornered, the child climbed onto the terrace railing.

“N-Noah! That’s dangerous! Get down!”

“D-Don’t come! Don’t come!”

“I said it’s dangerous!”

“Ah, A-Aah…”

“Noah, I-I won’t come any closer. Just… get down.”

“U-Ugh… Hic…”

“Noah, good boy, all right?”

“F-Father…”

Morris’s eyes widened. He had never once been called Father before. Forgetting that his son was standing on the railing, he unconsciously moved closer.

“D-Don’t…!”

“……!”

The frail little body suddenly dropped out of sight.

“NOAH!!!”

 

***

 

“…….”

“…….”

Several minutes had passed since they had been summoned, yet silence still lingered in the room.

The little one’s father repeatedly opened his mouth as though to speak, only to close it again and sigh.

Just as the little one’s father finally seemed to gather his resolve and was about to speak, Nihil quickly beat him to it.

“This is your fault, Father.”

“…And what exactly have I done?”

Sedes couldn’t help wondering what he had done wrong to deserve having his son’s plump cheek bitten. If giving birth to such an adorable child was a crime, then perhaps that was his sin.

“You’ll dream about shrimp heads tonight.”

“…….”

Nihil was essentially reprimanding him for serving grilled prawns instead of something better.

“…So that was a problem too. I… merely ordered them to add a shrimp dish.”

“Do not shirk responsibility.”

“…….”

“Well, the cake was acceptable.”

Although all the strawberries on top had gone straight into the little kitten’s mouth.

“Then… I’m glad.”

Sedes nodded, relieved that at least he had managed to do one thing right. But silence soon fell over them again.

Sedes took a sip of tea, then noticed something was amiss. He raised one eyebrow and put his teacup down.

“…That’s not the issue here.”

“So it doesn’t work on you.”

“…….”

Sedes rubbed his face, thinking that this must be how everyone ended up getting dragged into Nihil’s nonsense. But there was little he could say at this point, so he spoke with a sigh.

“Please don’t bite the prince’s cheeks like that.”

“I won’t be able to once he’s grown.”

Nihil calmly savored his tea before continuing.

“You should try it too, Father, if you ever get the chance. Before he gets any bigger. They’re very soft.”

“Th…”

“More importantly, Father, I’d like to ask you about a child named Noah Allier.”

Nihil quickly changed the subject before he could be scolded any further. What was wrong with letting a child put whatever he wanted in his mouth? The man was being far too strict.

Sedes looked at his son’s rude friend, who had cut him off mid-sentence, then realized he couldn’t win. So he gave the answer Nihil wanted.

“He’s the only son of Baron Allier. Have you heard of the Allier Trading Company?”

“Not at all.”

“…You really aren’t from Harpense, are you?”

“Are they famous?”

“Famous doesn’t begin to describe them. With the exception of magical artifacts, which are firmly under the control of the Magic Tower, it’s hardly an exaggeration to say that the Allier Trading Company controls everything else. Their wealth may even surpass that of a ducal house. They’re a family that rose to nobility through commerce alone. If the Allier family handled those heating-stone products you wanted to popularize, the process would go much more smoothly.”

“I see. But I made their only son cry twice today.”

“…….”

Sedes was at a loss for words. He opened his mouth to ask why on earth Nihil had done that, but eventually sighed and closed it again.

Nihil offered a brief explanation.

“I didn’t mean to make him cry.”

“…I see.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“I know. In the first place… that child doesn’t have a particularly good reputation within his own family, so I doubt this will cause much trouble.”

“Didn’t you say he was their only son?”

How could an only son have such a poor reputation within his own family? Nihil tilted his head in puzzlement, and Sedes added an explanation.

“I heard he… has a mental illness. Though he seemed perfectly fine today…”

“A mental illness. So that’s what it was.”

“…What was it? Are you saying that’s why he ran away from you and fell over crying?”

“No.”

Nihil gave a brief reply, then abruptly pushed back his chair and hurried toward the terrace.

He leaped up, planted his foot on the railing, and reached out. His hand barely managed to catch something falling from above. But the weight immediately shifted forward, and Nihil’s own body was dragged over the edge.

Damn it.

Nihil hurriedly pulled whatever had fallen into his arms and curled his body around it. The other person was larger than him, so he couldn’t shield them completely.

Looking up, he saw a middle-aged man on the floor above, reaching out beyond the terrace railing.

In the brief moment before they fell, Nihil estimated how many floors separated him from the man.

Three floors above.

He hadn’t brought any wires with him today. More precisely, the damn puppy had confiscated all of them just before they entered the palace. He had insisted that if the Queen caught Nihil with them, he might really end up in prison for attempted regicide.

Nihil hesitated over whether to use mana, then simply tensed his body and squeezed his eyes shut. A fall from around two floors up shouldn’t cause too much damage. It seemed better than using mana and drawing the attention of those things.

Just then, pain surged through his ankle. When he opened his eyes, he saw a shadow knight reaching through the railing, gripping his ankle and staring wide-eyed as he caught Nihil in midair.

“…Why are you just standing there? The blood’s rushing to my head.”

“…….”

“Slow as ever.”

At Nihil’s further reproach, the shadow knight hurriedly pulled him up. Once his feet were safely on the ground, Nihil laid the person in his arms down on the sofa.

Whether he had lost consciousness while falling or had fallen because he had already lost consciousness, Nihil couldn’t tell. In any case, Noah Allier had his eyes closed.

“What… What on earth…”

Sedes stared blankly for a moment at Noah Allier, who had seemingly dropped out of the sky, before cautiously asking,

“Do you… know what happened?”

“It seems a father and son had a little disagreement upstairs.”

“…How could a disagreement end with a child falling out of a building?”

Sedes muttered that a child had nearly fallen to his death right inside his own palace, then sank heavily onto the sofa.

“…I thought you were launching a surprise attack on me.”

Apparently, Sedes wasn’t the only one who had mistaken the situation. The shadow knights who had been hiding all revealed themselves and surrounded him.

If the captain hadn’t assessed the situation first, Nihil would have fallen all the way down with the child in his arms.

“What would I gain by ambushing you, Father? I still need my allowance.”

Nihil tossed out the joke casually as he checked the child’s pulse. It was a little unstable, but not enough to threaten his life, and there were no visible injuries.

“There’s nothing wrong with this child, so don’t worry.”

“…Is that so?”

Nihil covered Noah with a blanket and put his veil back on. Not long afterward, hurried footsteps came thundering toward the room, and the reception room door flew open.

“No—!”

Morris, who had been about to call out his son’s name, froze when he saw Sedes inside the reception room.

Why was His Majesty, who had been in his fifth-floor office when the report was delivered, now in the second-floor reception room?

“Come in, Baron Allier.”

“Y-Your… Hah… I-I apologize, Your Majesty. Hah… I-I didn’t know you were here. I-I was so… Hah… so worried that I… I was rude.”

“It’s all right. You had reason to be in a hurry. Your son is here, so take a moment to catch your breath first. Don’t worry. The child is unharmed.”

At those words, Morris sank to the floor and tried to steady his breathing. His disheveled hair and rumpled clothes spoke volumes about his state of mind.

“Come over here and have some warm tea.”

“…Th-Thank… Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“It’s only tea. There’s no need to thank me.”

“No. I-I must thank you for saving… for saving my son.”

“It wasn’t I who saved your son. It was this… well… child here. You should thank him.”

Sedes hesitated over what to call his son’s friend, then settled for a vague introduction.

Morris’s eyes widened when he saw his son lying on the sofa and the little white-haired child beside him.

He had clearly seen something white dart out and wrap itself around Noah when the boy fell from the terrace. But he had never imagined that it would be such a tiny child. The question How on earth? kept circling through his mind, but Morris soon lowered his head.

“Th-Thank you. I will repay you generously.”

“You needn’t thank me. I’m the one who made your son cry twice today.”

“……?”

For a moment, Morris wondered whether he had heard incorrectly and abruptly raised his head. But the child’s calm voice continued.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t scold him for crying, Noah’s father.”