How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 45

The carriage carrying a little kitten and a wildcat was making its way through every corner of Sharton Street, heading deeper into the district. After weaving through streets lined with brothels, taverns, and illegal gambling dens, it had now entered the slums.

“Rian, put your hood on. It’s fine to look around, but your eyes are unusual, so be careful not to make eye contact with anyone.”

Nihil, whose hood was pulled so low that only the lower half of his face was visible, spoke to Rianus, who was peeking out the window to look around.

Rianus acknowledged that his heterochromia was unusual, but he didn’t think his eyes were nearly as strange as Nihil’s. After all, wasn’t it fairly common for animals to have eyes of different colors, too?

“Worry about hiding your own eyes and face, you wildcat.”

Evan, who was driving the carriage, muttered under his breath.

“Even though you’ve been kidnapped twice and nearly sold…”

“…”

Rianus couldn’t help smiling brightly at Evan’s words. It was as if the knight had said exactly what he himself had wanted to say.

Nihil pretended not to hear and changed the subject.

“What do you think of Sharton Street now that you’ve seen it for yourself, Rian?”

“I’m not sure. The more I look around, the more perfect the proposal seems.”

Rianus made no comments about how dirty or frightening the streets were, or how pitiful the people looked. Instead, he kept his eyes on the purpose of his visit and assessed the district with a cool, objective gaze.

“I’m still not sure about the relief project, but the redevelopment plan seems to cover everything. It’s dirty and shabby now, but the location is excellent. Redeveloping it would definitely generate enormous profits. The problem is the illegal immigrants who’ll be driven out and the abandoned children who have nowhere to go. But I’m seeing fewer children than I expected.”

“Children live in groups, but they don’t go around in large crowds. The adults would find that annoying. They’re probably hiding in narrow alleys, waiting for an outsider who looks easy to rob.”

“Uh… why?”

“Because they need to pick pockets.”

Nihil jingled a small pouch he had prepared, then opened the little window facing the driver’s seat and tossed it to Evan.

“Watch carefully, Rian. This is how the children here survive.”

Evan caught the pouch and hesitated for a moment. Then he stopped the carriage and hung the pouch loosely at his side, making sure it was visible without being too obvious.

“Young master, I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Huh?”

“…If that wildcat gives you any trouble, scream.”

After adding that in a low voice, Evan left Rianus, who was staring at him in bewilderment, and headed toward an alley. Wondering where Evan was going all of a sudden, Rianus peeked out the window to watch him.

Just as Evan was about to turn the corner, a small, thin boy who looked around thirteen or fourteen suddenly darted out and collided with him.

The boy was so emaciated, as though he hadn’t eaten in ages, that he bounced off Evan and landed on the ground some distance away.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

The boy sprang to his feet as if he hadn’t felt any pain and repeatedly bowed in apology. Even after Evan waved his hand and told him it was all right, the boy apologized several more times before disappearing into the alley.

Evan calmly turned around and returned to the carriage as though nothing had happened.

“Did you see that, Rian?”

“Hm? That boy?”

“Yes. He stole the pouch.”

Rianus jumped to his feet. He had been watching through the narrow window, but his view was too restricted for him to see how the boy had rushed out and stolen the pouch.

“What? When? I couldn’t see properly! Then shouldn’t we catch him?”

Nihil grabbed Rianus’s hand just as he seemed ready to tumble out of the window and pulled him back into his seat.

“Calm down, Rian. We went out there intending to get pickpocketed in the first place, so there’s no need to catch him. There wasn’t much in the pouch, anyway. Though your knight did something rather pointless.”

“…It was just a few broken pieces of cookies.”

Evan offered his excuse. He had secretly slipped the handkerchief that had held the cookies into the boy’s pouch.

Rianus hesitantly opened his mouth.

“Then… wouldn’t it have been better to put more money in the pouch?”

“Exactly. If he felt sorry for the boy, he should have prepared gold coins. At the very least, he could have brought plenty of cookies instead of a few measly broken pieces.”

“…”

“But why do you think he deliberately prepared broken cookie pieces?”

“…”

Rianus pondered the question. He couldn’t imagine his friend asking him this for no reason. But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t figure out the answer, so he shook his head.

“I… don’t know.”

“Children like that generally fall into two groups. Some survive entirely on their own, but most need a guardian. So bad adults take them in under the pretense of giving them shelter or protection, then make them work or force them to pick pockets. Or a bigger, stronger boy might act as their leader and exploit them himself.”

“Then it would be better to live without relying on adults!”

“Rian, it’s not that easy. When young children are abandoned alone in an unfamiliar place, they naturally look for adults first. What would you do if you were abandoned here all by yourself?”

“…Wouldn’t I look for a guard?”

“A guard might help a lost child find their parents, but they can’t find parents for an orphan. The same goes for abandoned children. If you were abandoned in a place like this, you’d probably be kidnapped because of your pretty face and unusual eyes, then sold to a brothel or an illegal auction. You might even be captured by terrifying fanatics and offered as a sacrifice. Even if you somehow escaped, you can’t make food out of nothing, and you don’t know how to start a fire without anything to work with. You’d spend days starving and freezing through the nights. You might be all right if you asked an adult for help and they happened to be kind, but people like that are rare in places like this. Most people can barely feed themselves, so when an orphan comes sniffing around, they’re quick to chase them away. So what do you think would happen if you were cold, hungry, and frightened, and an adult finally came along and offered you a helping hand?”

“…I think I’d follow them.”

“Exactly. To a child, that helping hand feels like salvation. But once they follow it, what awaits them is brutal labor and violent beatings. Even so, they can’t escape. They don’t know how to survive on their own, so even when they realize the adults are bad people, they have no way out.”

“…That’s so sad.”

Rianus lowered his head. Nihil stroked his dark green curls several times before continuing.

“Rian, I didn’t mean to upset you. If that boy is under the control of bad adults, where do you think the things he steals will end up?”

“They’ll be taken away by the bad adults…”

“That’s right. And children like him don’t pick pockets alone. They’re organized into teams of children around the same age and made to keep an eye on one another.”

“…”

“Needless to say, they’ll be searched, too. The cookies would obviously be taken away. But the boy who found them would desperately want to eat them.”

“But if he eats them…”

“Right. Even if he eats just a little, if someone sees that the cookies are no longer whole, he’ll get beaten.”

“…”

Rianus lowered his head again. Rather than comforting him, Nihil continued explaining.

“But what if the cookies were already broken and carelessly wrapped in a handkerchief?”

At that, Rianus immediately lifted his head.

“I see! He could eat one broken piece without anyone noticing!”

Rianus’s eyes lit up as he looked at Evan. Now he understood why the knight had brought the cookies in a handkerchief despite their being broken, and why Nihil had gone out of his way to make sure he understood.

“Sir Evan wanted that boy to eat at least a little cookie. And he wanted him to be able to eat it without getting punished. Since the cookies were broken and not properly wrapped, eating one piece wouldn’t be noticeable.”

“You understand now, Rian.”

Nihil smiled and stroked Rianus’s head again. He genuinely wanted to praise the boy, but he also enjoyed the feel of his soft hair.

Rianus closed his eyes and leaned into the touch as he continued.

“And you didn’t give him gold coins because the adults would have taken them away anyway.”

“Exactly, Rian. Remember this well. Think about what you can actually do for that boy. When someone who knows nothing about another person’s circumstances steps in under the pretense of helping them, it isn’t generosity. It’s deception.”

“Neil, you’re really… um, anyway. You’re truly amazing.”

Rianus hadn’t realized his vocabulary was so limited. His friend was far beyond what the simple word amazing could describe, but he had no idea how to put his overwhelming feelings into words.

“Rian, we can’t relax just yet. We haven’t solved our assignment at all. Relief work is like handing out cookies, too. Your knight thought only of that one boy when he put the cookies in the pouch, but a single cookie won’t change the circumstances of those children. It’ll bring them a moment of happiness, but they’ll still be hungry and cold afterward. Moreover, large-scale relief work isn’t simply volunteer service. It’s an extension of political activity. Whether you become their savior or someone who deceives them remains to be seen, but no one wants to be resented after carrying out a relief project. That’s why the proposal has to be as close to perfect as possible.”

“Still, I think I understand what I need to investigate now. Thank you, Neil. So we’re coming back the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes. I have a lot to prepare tomorrow, so we might not be able to attend class together. Let’s head back to the palace now.”

After ending their conversation, Rianus and Nihil turned to look at Evan at the same time.

Evan had been watching them with quiet satisfaction, inwardly praising his prince for understanding ten things from just one explanation. Only then did he remember that he was the coachman. The carriage wasn’t going anywhere unless he got moving.

“Ahem. Then let’s head back.”

 

***

 

After returning from their inspection of Sharton Street, they ate a late dinner before going their separate ways to wash up in their rooms.

Back in his room, Nihil surveyed the small glass bottles neatly arranged on the shelves and the sacks of herbs occupying various corners of his spacious quarters.

The potions in the bottles were ones he had prepared to determine Rianus’s constitution. Now that he thought about it, Rianus was particularly bad at swallowing bitter things, so it would probably take far too long for him to finish all those medicines.

I suppose assimilation is the only option.

It was obviously faster for Nihil to take the medicines himself and record the results immediately than to administer them to Rianus one by one and observe his reactions. Besides, a considerable number of the medicines he had prepared were poisonous.

There was just one small problem: he needed Rianus’s blood to assimilate with him.

Nihil thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. He didn’t like the idea of injuring the boy, and since Rianus didn’t urgently need any medicine suited to his constitution, there was no reason to rush.

Nihil set the matter aside and was about to grab his robe and head to the bathroom when he heard footsteps.

They were heavy and steady, unmistakably Evan’s.

The footsteps were heading straight for his bedroom, so Nihil decided to wait a little rather than go directly into the bathroom. Before long, the footsteps stopped abruptly outside his bedroom door. Whoever was there remained still for a moment, apparently trying to assess the situation inside.

Nihil decided he had waited long enough and flung the door open.