How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 19

Nihil was beginning to regret his decision, wondering whether he had done the right thing.

Honestly, what use would he have for lessons on the art of kingship?

He had gone along with it because the guard dog had been barking and he was worried the seaweed might get soaked in its own sap. But now he was stuck following Rianus around and attending his lessons whether he liked it or not.

The only consolation was that even on the days when lessons ran late, they would all be over by three or four in the afternoon.

“Oh, aside from regular lessons, we sometimes have horseback riding or archery lessons once the weather warms up. You won’t have to study with my brother then, so don’t worry.”

“……Mm-hmm.”

Nihil’s replies grew slower, and his voice became quieter with each passing moment. Unable to bring himself to resent Rianus, he could only shoot a half-lidded glare at the guard dog standing beside him.

Evan knew perfectly well how much Nihil had contributed, so he merely rolled his eyes. Then, deciding that perhaps it was best to make the most of a bad situation, he curled his lips into a slight smile and gave Nihil a thumbs-up.

At that, Nihil could no longer even muster the energy to complain. He simply let out a deep sigh.

Later, Rianus fluttered off to the bathroom to wash up, leaving Evan and Nihil alone in the bedroom, where the sound of running water echoed. Nihil, who had practically merged with the sofa, quietly opened his mouth.

“Tell me why you were barking today.”

“…When exactly did I bark?”

That morning, he had been standing guard outside, quietly and obediently, yet this wildcat had told him to bark some more. Then, after seeing the fondant au chocolat, the little menace had accused him of drooling.

Apparently, this wildcat really did think of him as a dog.

Unable to figure out what Nihil meant, Evan narrowed his eyes and tried to read his intentions. But there was nothing to be gleaned from the boy’s perpetually expressionless face.

Of course, he had been bustling around early that morning and had made a bit of a fuss about having Nihil attend lessons with the prince. But when Nihil had told him to bark some more, he had definitely been doing nothing at all.

Hmm, no. I did hit the wall once, though… Could he have heard that?

“Didn’t you keep sighing after you came back from meeting Rian’s tutors today?”

“…You could hear that from inside the bedroom?”

Evan’s eyebrow twitched. Then he clicked his tongue with an utterly exasperated expression.

Not the sound of someone hitting a wall, but the sound of a sigh?

He couldn’t remember whether he had actually sighed, but he had certainly been in a foul mood after encountering the queen and the First Prince. So there was a good chance he had.

“You were sighing like the world was about to collapse. How could I not hear you? I couldn’t get any sleep because of you.”

“……”

That wasn’t his fault. Shouldn’t Nihil blame his own oversensitivity for reacting even to the sound of a sigh coming from outside the door?

Annoyed by the way the wildcat seemed especially sensitive to everything he did, Evan narrowed his eyes and glared at him. Then a thought suddenly crossed his mind, and he froze.

Wait. Could this brat have woken the prince because of me?

“Spit it out already.”

Nihil urged him on with the same indifferent expression, but Evan couldn’t answer right away. He could only open and close his mouth.

Come to think of it, Nihil wasn’t the sort to ask someone to play with him first.

If anything, he would have found it annoying. He might have been a little ill-mannered, but he wasn’t so utterly depraved that he would wake a sick prince just for fun.

Nihil had been the one to notice the prince was ill and arrange for medicine in advance. Just like Evan, he had stayed by Rianus’s side and nursed him until his fever went down. Even afterward, when Evan had been making too much noise, hadn’t Nihil gotten annoyed and thrown a pillow at him?

With a dawning sense of disbelief, Evan stared down at Nihil in shock.

“You! Don’t tell me you woke the prince up so violently because of me?”

“If it weren’t for you, I would’ve let him sleep longer. When a dog is whining, you have to wake its master to soothe it.”

“……”

Seriously, that wildcat dog—

“From the looks of it, you’re not going to tell your master about this yourself, so just spit it out.”

“……”

Evan hesitated.

He had actually forgotten that he’d encountered the queen and the First Prince because the wildcat had made such a racket waking the prince.

He wavered over whether to tell Nihil, but somehow, he felt that this brat could make even the most serious problem seem utterly insignificant. In the end, partly to lighten the burden on his own mind, Evan opened his mouth.

“…The First Prince knew about the prince’s illness, even though we never informed him.”

“The First Prince?”

“Yes. Even the servants in this palace didn’t know until His Highness told them himself, so I doubt the information leaked through them. I only told the tutors that the prince would be absent. I never mentioned that he was sick. Of course, since he’s been ill so often, they might have guessed that was the reason for his absence, but…”

“You don’t know where the information leaked from? There’s only one place left, isn’t there?”

“You mean one of the tutors is the culprit…?”

Evan tilted his head.

With the exception of the Duke of Thesaurus, most of the tutors maintained a neutral position. There hadn’t been any swordsmanship lessons that day, so Evan hadn’t even met the duke to inform him of the prince’s absence.

It was possible that one of the tutors supported the First Prince, but the First Prince seemed to have learned about Rianus’s condition before the tutors had. Surely they couldn’t have been the ones to leak the information…

While Evan was still pondering the matter, Nihil let out a deep sigh, as though he found him hopelessly dense.

“Your mouth, you idiot.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think about it. Who else could it have been?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! If I’d told someone, why would I be sitting here worrying about it?”

“You didn’t tell the palace servants or the tutors about his condition. But there was one person you had no choice but to inform about Rian’s illness, wasn’t there?”

“…Had no choice but to inform them…? Surely you don’t mean…”

Evan’s expression gradually stiffened.

There was exactly one person to whom he had no choice but to disclose the prince’s condition—and to whom he had to report the symptoms in detail.

The royal pharmacist.

Unable to believe it, Evan instinctively tried to defend him.

“…But he works for the main palace. His Majesty insists on complete neutrality. The nobles may offer subtle support to one side or another, but anyone employed by the main palace who openly supports one of the princes would be fired on the spot.”

“Hmm.”

Complete neutrality, you say…

So the only reason a prince without a mother hadn’t been cast aside in the royal palace was because of the king.

Nihil fell into thought. It seemed Rianus was loved more than he had initially realized.

“Well, regardless, the pharmacist probably won’t tamper with the medicine itself. That would be too dangerous if anyone noticed. But it wouldn’t be difficult for him to infer the prince’s condition from the prescriptions he collects and report it to someone else. He’s undoubtedly the source of the leak. And having information about a royal’s health leaked outside the palace is more dangerous than you think.”

“……”

It was bad enough that information had leaked, but the fact that the pharmacist of the main palace itself had fallen into the First Prince’s hands made the situation even more dangerous. Hadn’t Evan been collecting medicine from him every time the prince fell ill, without ever suspecting a thing?

If the pharmacist had done something to the medicine, then the prince would have—

“Don’t worry. There was nothing wrong with the medicine you collected this time.”

“…Then what should we do?”

Evan’s expression grew darker by the moment.

He had known this child for barely more than a day. He shouldn’t have been asking him for advice about something like this. But the situation felt so hopeless that he was ready to borrow even a cat’s paw for help.

“I’ll write you a list. From now on, when you collect the medicine, bring it back in the form of raw medicinal herbs that haven’t been prepared yet.”

At those words, Evan’s drooping head snapped up. His eyes widened.

He had been ready to borrow a cat’s paw, and here a wildcat’s paw was being offered instead.

Nihil remained expressionless, and that unwavering indifference gave Evan a strange sense of reassurance.

Still, he couldn’t help wondering.

“…You know how to prepare medicine as well as examine a pulse? No, how on earth…?”

“Didn’t I tell you I raised a sick child? I struggled for a long time to keep that child alive. I’m older than I look.”

Evan’s mouth fell open.

Could he really trust this boy?

A jumble of thoughts began swirling through his mind, but Nihil paid him no attention and continued speaking.

“…At first, I thought that if the child died, I would simply have to bury them. Death is a natural part of life, after all. But… I couldn’t bring myself to let go.”

Nihil’s expression remained impassive. Or perhaps it had twisted slightly.

The atmosphere suddenly grew heavy, and Evan held his breath, unable to say anything.

“When I thought about never seeing that child again, I couldn’t bear it. But I’d only ever existed to keep living. I had no idea what to do when a child fell ill. I… had never been sick myself. I didn’t know that you had to visit a physician when you were ill, that treatment cost money, or even how to earn money in the first place. I knew nothing.”

“……”

“That was when I first tried interacting with other people. I once approached a stranger and nearly got kidnapped. I went to an apothecary without any money and was thrown out. That was the first time I realized how helpless I was.”

Evan’s expression grew increasingly grim.

Noticing the darkening atmosphere, Nihil gave a light shrug and continued as though it were nothing worth mentioning.

“I don’t know how I ended up giving you such a long explanation. Don’t look at me like that. I’m exceptionally talented, so it didn’t take me long to adapt to society. Fortunately, that child managed to hold on for quite some time. Perhaps the illness wasn’t even that serious, and the child suffered longer because I refused to let go… Or perhaps they became sick in the first place because I hadn’t taken proper care of them.”

Evan understood that Nihil was trying to lighten the mood, but his own expression remained grim.

He knew all too well how terrifying it was to be helpless because of ignorance.

Evan knew better than anyone the helplessness of standing before a sick child and being unable to do a thing.

“I managed to get my hands on a book about medicinal herbs, but, amusingly enough, I couldn’t read a single character. And the illustrations weren’t enough to distinguish the herbs properly, either. Even after I learned to read, I had to taste everything that looked remotely similar to the pictures. Grass, flowers, fruit, roots—even tree bark. There was nothing I didn’t try eating.”

“……”

“I went around experimenting like that and sometimes ended up with stomachaches or fevers. It was terribly difficult since I’d never been sick before. I also came across quite a few poisonous plants, but perhaps my body was sturdy enough that I never died from them.”

It seemed Nihil had once held special feelings for the child he’d raised, yet the wildcat still spoke with such indifference.

Even though it must have been difficult to talk about, he was using his own past as nothing more than a means of persuading Evan. For some reason, that bothered Evan a little.

Still wearing a grim expression, Evan asked, “…Did the child recover completely?”

“Perfectly. We stayed together for a long time after that, too. I continued studying medicinal herbs in case the child fell ill again. I may have fed them too many tonics, because they eventually became stronger than necessary, and all that knowledge turned out to be rather useless. Anyway… my skills aren’t merely superficial, so you can leave it to me. Though I wonder how long the prince will keep me tucked under his arm.”

After saying that, Nihil calmly asked something along the lines of, “When do you think I’ll be kicked out, judging by your standards?” Then he muttered to himself.

Humans were such fickle creatures.