How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 32

At Nihil’s barely audible words, Evan raised one eyebrow. His voice was quiet, and the name itself had a very unfamiliar sound to it.

“Requi… Requi? Requies? Is that a name?”

“It’s Requies.”

“Requies. Hmm, am I pronouncing it correctly? But why didn’t you tell me that name from the beginning?”

“Because that child gave it to me…”

“……”

“Somehow, it means ‘sanctuary,’ which is far more than I deserve. Besides, the pronunciation doesn’t quite fit the language spoken here.”

Evan nodded, rolling the unfamiliar word around on his tongue a few times. The pronunciation was strange, but it sounded much better than Nihil, a name with such a miserable meaning. And sanctuary… Surprisingly, it seemed to suit the boy’s atmosphere rather well, too.

Evan was just about to compliment him on having such a wonderful name when Nihil spoke first.

“But that name has been forgotten now.”

“…Has that child forgotten you completely, too?”

“Probably. No, actually, I don’t know. I haven’t seen them… Besides, I intended to erase that child’s memories of me, too, so there’s little point in me sitting here feeling sorry for myself like this…”

“Why would you erase them?”

“That child was put in danger because of me. And… even if, by some slim chance, they haven’t forgotten me, so much time has passed that they must have by now. It’s too late for regrets.”

“Just how long ago did you part ways with that child?”

“……Five hundred years.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

The curse slipped out of Evan’s mouth before he could stop himself. It was the first time he’d sworn since becoming the prince’s escort knight.

“Y-you… How old are you? No, more importantly, you’re still longing for a child from five hundred years ago? There’s no way they’re still alive!”

“I was asleep back then, and I only woke up recently. From my perspective, it’s practically as though we parted just the other day. Do you know what it’s like to wake up from a nap and find the child you’re looking after has disappeared?”

“Of course I’d be shocked if I woke up and a child had disappeared, but… No matter how you look at it, five hundred years is—!”

“And they might still be alive. Of course, the most likely possibility is that they died in the War Against the Heavenly Demons.”

“The War Against the Heavenly Demons? That distant era you only read about in history books… Wait. Was that child a nonhuman being?”

“They were human at first. They stopped being human later, though.”

“……? What does that even mean?”

“…I interfered too deeply in that child’s life, and in the end, their fate became distorted.”

“???”

Evan felt as though his head was about to explode.

He’d long suspected that Nihil wasn’t an ordinary human, but the more the boy revealed, the more confused he became. At this point, figuring out Nihil’s identity wasn’t even the main issue anymore.

Before he knew it, Evan was pointing a finger at him.

“Y-you! You won’t bring any harm to His Highness, will you?”

“I never interfere with another person’s fate unless absolutely necessary. Besides, I don’t have enough power left to do that right now, and the backlash would be too severe.”

“Haven’t you already interfered with his fate? What exactly counts as interference?”

“Don’t worry. As long as I keep things within certain limits, his fate won’t be distorted. I’ve already adapted to being human, and I need to be careful with my body, too.”

“Are you saying you’re just an ordinary human now?”

“Then what do I look like to you?”

Without thinking, Evan examined the boy from head to toe. He had no horns, wings, or tail. His hair and eye colors were unusual, but that was about it.

“……Still, what kind of human child can get hit by a carriage and come out unscathed?”

“Unscathed? My skull was cracked, and I was bleeding like a fountain.”

“……”

At that shameless reply, Evan narrowed his eyes at the wildcat.

“Well, I’m a little sturdier than an ordinary human, and my senses are more developed. But if my head is cut off, all my blood is drained, or my heart stops, I die just the same. I’ve never starved to death, so I can’t say for certain, but I do feel hunger, so I assume I’d die from that, too.”

“…Under those conditions, any living creature would die, not just humans.”

“Is that so? Anyway, as long as I don’t completely twist causality, a certain degree of involvement is fine.”

“…I see.”

“So I won’t do anything that harms your master. Though there’s little point in explaining all this at length when you’ll forget it anyway.”

Evan flinched again.

These were the sort of revelations that should be almost impossible to forget. How could he possibly forget any of this?

“I’m not going to forget that you exist altogether, am I?”

“No. Judging from my experience so far, you’ll probably only forget tonight’s conversation. Unless you become aware of my death.”

“Your death? What happens if you die?”

“My existence will be completely erased. As though I’d never existed in the first place.”

“…Does that mean the fact that I hit you with the carriage will disappear?”

“No. The past itself doesn’t vanish completely. Hmm, it’s a little difficult to explain. A blank space appears where I should have been, and that space gets filled with something reasonably plausible. A wildcat, for example, might be enough to fill it.”

“…Do you really feel like joking at a time like this?”

Evan narrowed his eyes and glared at him, but Nihil merely chuckled and shrugged.

“When else am I supposed to joke?”

“A wildcat wouldn’t be able to read fairy tales to the prince!”

“The memory of someone reading him a fairy tale would remain. But he wouldn’t wonder who that ‘someone’ was. His memories would be jumbled up, but no one would find anything strange about it. They’d simply… accept it.”

“……”

“And that would be the end of it.”

At Nihil’s calm explanation, Evan’s face twisted.

It was so… utterly empty.

What had this boy been thinking when he’d given himself a name that meant nothingness?

“…Would leaving a written record be useless, too?”

“It’s not as though I’ve never tried that before. If people forget me naturally, there’s no particular problem. But the more I make them recall someone they’ve forgotten, the more hostile they become toward me. It would be troublesome if you started feeling hostile toward me now.”

“……”

“To borrow their words, looking at me makes them feel as though they’re falling into an abyss. They find me deeply unpleasant and irritating. They want me out of their sight immediately… Something along those lines. More than anything, it’s not a pleasant feeling to be hated by people you’ve grown attached to.”

Evan quickly abandoned his idea of secretly leaving behind a written record. If Nihil was telling the truth, the more Evan tried to recover his memories, the more likely he was to hurt the boy. All he could do was hope his memories wouldn’t be erased.

Suddenly, Evan wondered what it felt like to have one’s memories erased.

Would he wake up one morning and find everything gone? Would it hurt?

Without thinking much about it, he blurted out a question.

“When will my memories be erased?”

At Evan’s question, Nihil closed the cap of the fountain pen he’d just been about to open and gazed steadily at him.

Unable to bear that almost clinical stare, Evan was about to speak again when Nihil quietly asked him a question.

“Do you remember where I learned to write?”

“You said you taught yourself by copying scripture.”

“And what else did I tell you?”

“And…”

“……”

“A-and…”

Evan couldn’t continue.

Was his memory really this bad?

“It’s already starting to happen.”

“What?”

Already? Just like that? I didn’t even notice anything!

Evan stiffened and stammered.

“…That’s impossible! I just… I just have a bad memory.”

“Do you remember my other name?”

“……”

“Who gave me that name?”

“……”

Did we even have that conversation?

Evan was bewildered, but Nihil continued asking questions.

“When did I part ways with the child I raised?”

“F-five hundred years ago.”

Having managed to answer only one of Nihil’s questions, Evan was horrified.

His memories were being erased in real time.

His pupils trembled. He could no longer recall the conversation they’d had only minutes ago. All that remained were lingering emotions, faintly sorrowful, that he couldn’t even be sure belonged to him.

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t resist. Accept it.”

“H-how can this happen?”

Evan’s jaw trembled uncontrollably. The realization that his memories were being erased sent a flood of fear crashing over him. He didn’t want to have his memories taken away.

It felt as though his entire self were being stolen. What if he ended up forgetting who he was, too?

Evan glared at Nihil as though he wanted to kill him.

Everything, everything was this boy’s fault. He was the source of this fear. If only he weren’t here…!

“Evan.”

Suddenly, someone called his name.

That single word, spoken in a familiar voice but carrying a meaning utterly foreign to him, brought Evan’s movements to an abrupt halt.

At some point, the large, rough hand of a knight had reached out to choke the slender neck of a small child.

“W-why… Why was I…?”

Evan stared down at his own calloused hand, the one that had been about to squeeze that delicate neck.

What he’d felt toward this little boy was unmistakably murderous intent. Where had that emotion come from? It was as though someone were manipulating his feelings.

Yes, this emotion must have been planted inside him by some higher being, an entity far beyond his reach. It had to be.

Surely something this vicious and horrifying couldn’t possibly have come from within him.

“Forget it. Don’t think about it anymore.”

The quiet voice once again brought Evan back to his senses.

“I hate pain. I hate the clubs swung at me, the stones thrown from every direction, the arrows steeped in poison, the sharp swords reeking of blood, and the raging flames that burn my entire body. All of it…”

“……”

“That inexplicable hostility… I…”

“……”

“At first, I resisted, too. But the people I cared about only grew more and more broken.”

“……”

“So I’m asking you. Just forget.”

Nihil gently took hold of the large hand that had come dangerously close to his neck.

His small, delicate hand was warm and steady. Its warmth passed into Evan’s palm. There wasn’t the slightest tremor in Nihil’s fingers.

If anything, Evan was the one trembling.

He took a deep breath, struggling to regain control of his emotions. If he made one wrong move, he might come to his senses only after the boy’s impossibly thin neck was dangling limply from his hand.

Seeing that Evan had calmed down to some extent, Nihil spoke again.

“It won’t harm you. It’s simply a natural phenomenon, so there’s no need to worry.”

Despite having nearly been strangled, Nihil calmly and gently tried to reassure Evan. He even patted the knight’s large hand as though comforting a child.

Having somewhat come to terms with his situation, Evan gazed down at the small hand holding his own large, rough one.

Just how much has this boy endured on his own?

How many times must someone go through this before they can remain so calm after nearly being strangled?

Was that why he hadn’t flinched when I’d held a dagger to him? Because his life had been threatened so many times… so often that he’d grown numb to it?

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me. If you think about it, it’s all my fault.”

“……”

“Besides, I used you as a test subject because there was something I wanted to confirm. I’m the one who should apologize…”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t remember you.”

“……”

Nihil’s eyes widened slightly.

“And stop calling me by my name out of nowhere. It’s creepy.”

Evan grumbled.

After being called knight bastard, son of a bitch, and puppy, hearing his actual name spoken aloud was shocking in an entirely different way. Perhaps that was why he’d managed to come to his senses so quickly.

“…You said that back then, too…”

“Did I tell you not to call me by my name before?”

Evan wondered when he’d ever said such a thing, but he couldn’t remember. After all, this was the first time Nihil had ever called him by his name.

Nihil gave him a faint smile, promised not to call him by his name again, and released his hand. Then he extinguished the last remaining candle.

Darkness settled over the room. A plume of white smoke rose into the air before dispersing into the void.

“It’s time to wake up from your dream, puppy.”

Evan closed his eyes.