How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 55

Evan’s eyes widened before he twisted his face into a self-deprecating smile.

You’re already good enough, so don’t be impatient.

Ridiculously enough, those few words had brought him so much relief.

Was he really that greedy? He had always thought he was perfectly content with his life, but apparently, even he had been concerned about his progress as a swordsman.

There was one thing he could say with complete confidence, however.

“I have never once regretted becoming His Highness’s escort knight.”

“Yeah, yeah. What a good puppy.”

“…Do you really have to call me that?”

“You told me not to call you by your name.”

“When did I ever say that?”

“Then shall I call you by your name?”

“……”

Evan imagined Nihil addressing him by name. It seemed so awkward that he was about to shake his head.

But Nihil was a little faster.

“Don’t get your hopes up. I won’t call you that.”

“Who said I was hoping for that…?!”

Evan’s face flushed as he indignantly shouted, having somehow become someone who had been hoping to hear his name. Then he froze, startled by how loud his own voice had been.

Realizing he had once again fallen for Nihil’s teasing, Evan sighed and rubbed his face.

The boy looked as though he knew nothing about joking around, maintaining that detached expression of his all the while. Yet whenever the opportunity arose, he teased Evan relentlessly, making his blood boil.

Not wanting to get dragged into it any further, Evan quickly changed the subject.

“So when will we know whether I’m going to awaken?”

“I don’t know when, but I think you’ll awaken someday. Which brings me to my next question. Could you provide me with blood regularly?”

At the request for a regular supply of blood, one of Evan’s eyebrows rose.

He found the idea a little unsettling, but even if he refused, Nihil would probably sneak in and take his blood just as he had tonight. In the end, Evan sighed and agreed.

“How much?”

“Once a month. One or two drops should be enough.”

“That’s all?”

Since the amount required was much smaller than he had expected, Evan’s expression relaxed a little.

If it was only one or two drops, he could provide it indefinitely without suffering any ill effects.

“I’d like you to keep supplying it until there are signs that your awakening is approaching.”

“That’s not difficult, but why are you so interested in my awakening?”

“I told you. You’ll go on a rampage.”

“…Were you serious about that?”

At the mention of going on a rampage, Evan’s face creased again.

Although it sounded highly suspicious, if Nihil was telling the truth, Evan could understand why the boy had gone to such lengths to obtain his blood.

Evan gestured for him to explain further, and Nihil continued.

“When the time comes and I see signs that you’re about to awaken, I’ll lock you in a cage without hesitation. I told Rian you might bite his neck clean off, but the awakening ritual of wolves is far more savage and violent than you can imagine.”

“……?”

Something about Nihil’s explanation struck Evan as strange. But the shameless, domineering wildcat gave his puppy no time to ask questions and continued speaking.

“You’ll lose your reason and fail to recognize anything around you. You’ll pierce living bodies with your claws and tear people’s heads off with nothing but the strength of your jaws. And it won’t stop at one person, so surely…”

Unable to bear Nihil’s increasingly gruesome description, Evan’s expression hardened. He interrupted and raised a hand.

“Wait. Explain that properly. Wolves? I thought you said dogs.”

“I never said your ancestors belonged to the canine race.”

At Nihil’s shameless response, Evan gaped at him in disbelief.

You called me a puppy! You said I’d rampage like a rabid dog! You said I smelled like a dog!

The boy had even scolded him for barking too little and told him to bark more.

You wicked little bastard! What kind of wolf goes ‘woof woof’?!

Evan felt deeply wronged. He wanted to argue with Nihil right then and there.

But Nihil casually tossed out a response, as though he could practically read Evan’s thoughts.

“A dog and a wolf belong to the same canine family, don’t they?”

“No, well, yes, technically! But the connotation is different, and… Ah…”

Evan let out a hollow sigh, unable to continue, and collapsed into a chair. Wearily, he rubbed his face with his palms several times.

Arguing any further would only exhaust him. Besides, he had no chance of winning a verbal battle against a wildcat in the first place.

Even if he reacted angrily, he would only give the boy more material to tease him with.

And now that he thought about it, whether his ancestors had been wolves or dogs, he was still human himself!

Nihil patted the utterly drained Evan as though trying to comfort him.

The gesture only served to provoke Evan further. He slapped Nihil’s hand away, and the boy snorted disdainfully before resuming his explanation.

“To be precise, your ancestors belonged to the Moonfang Clan, supposedly the strongest among the wolfkin. I’d have to look up the details, but they were given that name because their fur supposedly took on the beautiful color of moonlight at night. However…”

Nihil glanced at Evan’s pale grayish-brown hair and continued.

“…Yours is nothing but a faded mutt’s coat. It’s not even remotely like moonlight.”

Under Nihil’s half-lidded gaze, Evan instinctively turned toward the mirror and placed a hand on his pale grayish-brown hair.

He could feel the short, coarse strands between his fingers.

Evan stared at his hair, which looked even yellower in the candlelight, for quite some time before arriving at a firm conclusion.

The room was too dark to distinguish colors clearly, but his coarse hair certainly bore no resemblance to the moonlight softly illuminating the sky outside.

After finishing his brief contemplation, Evan lowered his gaze slightly and met a pair of large, dark eyes through the mirror.

Feeling awkward under that unwavering stare, he quickly lowered his hand and turned toward Nihil beside him. The crown of the boy’s snow-white head was clearly visible.

Nihil was still looking at him through the mirror without turning his head.

When Evan placed a hand on his snowy hair, the boy finally turned and looked up at him.

When Evan had first met him, the boy had been covered in dust, making his hair appear ash-gray. But in reality, it was so white that it seemed impossible for it to be any whiter.

As Evan found himself wondering whether Nihil’s hair resembled moonlight more closely, the snow-white creature looked up at him with the same haughty, insolent expression as ever and spoke.

“The Moonfang Clan’s awakening ritual is said to be the fiercest and most violent among the wolfkin. That’s also why their survival rate is lower. Your blood is diluted, so I can’t be certain the same thing will happen to you, but there’s no harm in preparing in advance.”

“How do you know so much about the Moonfang Clan?”

“I happened to encounter one before. He was going berserk because of his awakening ritual.”

After answering, Nihil seemed to consider something before speaking again.

“Unless we can find a Moonfang to help subdue you, it’ll honestly be difficult to restrain you without injuring you. So if I build you a doghouse, you’d better go inside without complaint.”

“……”

“I’ll make it sturdy.”

At that, Evan pictured an ordinary doghouse.

Nihil probably didn’t mean an actual doghouse, but it was the only thing that came to mind when he heard the word.

Evan imagined himself cramming his body into a tiny doghouse. Unable to endure any further damage to his dignity, he vigorously shook his head to dispel the thought.

“Make it big enough to fit my whole body.”

“……What on earth are you imagining?”

Nihil raised one eyebrow as though Evan had said something utterly bizarre.

Still, he was somewhat relieved that the puppy seemed more cooperative than expected. If Evan resisted, Nihil might have to resort to cutting off his limbs one by one.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Evan asked eagerly, willing to cooperate as long as he didn’t have to fold himself in half to fit inside the cage.

It was possible the awakening might never happen at all, but he couldn’t simply ignore something that might endanger his master.

Nihil thought for a moment before answering.

“Actually, I don’t know much about them. All I know is that their fur sparkles under the moonlight…”

“…Sparkles?”

“Yes. It was beautiful.”

Nihil murmured that he hadn’t particularly liked their temperament, but their fur had been to his liking.

Evan thought it was utterly useless information. Still, he briefly imagined what shimmering hair might look like before shaking his head.

He was glad his own hair didn’t glow in the moonlight. If it did, he would stand out terribly at night.

“Anyway, is there somewhere we could find information about them?”

“…The Royal Palace Library is probably the largest collection around. It’s close, too. The academy might be another good option. There are so many eccentrics there that someone may have conducted extensive research on other races. You could easily enter the Royal Palace Library with His Highness, and if you ask Lord Carus, he might be able to obtain the records for you or arrange a visit to the academy.”

“Right, I…”

Nihil nodded slightly in agreement, then let out a short sigh and glanced up at the ceiling. He looked a little troubled.

Evan wondered if there was something on the ceiling and looked up as well, but couldn’t find anything that might have caught the boy’s attention.

“What is it?”

“The kid… seems to have woken up.”

“……?”

“We’ve more or less finished talking, so I’ll head back upstairs.”

Nihil made this astonishing announcement as casually as if he were discussing the weather. Then he leisurely left the bedroom, leaving Evan behind in a state of shock.

Only after the door clicked shut did Evan come back to his senses. He drew on his mana and spread it around, trying to sense the prince’s presence.

“……”

Until now, Evan had been confident that if anything happened to His Highness, he would be the first to notice and rush into the prince’s bedroom.

No matter how quiet things were, he could always react immediately to murderous intent.

That was why he had chosen the room directly beneath the prince’s bedroom, ensuring the shortest possible route in an emergency.

But that only applied when something happened to His Highness.

He wasn’t capable of detecting something as ordinary as the prince waking up, the way that wildcat could.

Evan felt a slight sense of crisis as an escort knight.

If Nihil was as perceptive as he seemed, he might already have sensed the energy Evan had hastily spread throughout the area and been snorting at him in disdain.

Evan had released his mana without thinking, but the belated realization that he might as well be broadcasting his inferiority complex made him feel faintly embarrassed.

Nevertheless, out of sheer stubbornness, he spread his mana even farther, straining to track Nihil’s presence.

How long had he been doing that?

Enough time passed for Evan’s once-fluffy clothes to become soaked with sweat, yet he couldn’t detect Nihil’s presence at all.

He could sense the prince, who had tossed and turned in bed before falling asleep again. He could even sense the cat sleeping in a strange position in front of the fireplace.

But the wildcat’s presence was nowhere to be found.

Could he still not have reached the bedroom?

Although the distance between their rooms was short, the staircase leading up to the prince’s bedroom was quite far away. Evan wondered if Nihil simply hadn’t entered the range in which he could sense him.

But just before he spread his mana any farther, Evan corrected himself.

No matter how far away the staircase was or how long the route might be, it shouldn’t have taken this long to reach the bedroom.

Did something happen to him on the way?

Worried, Evan rose to his feet, wondering whether he should have escorted the boy himself after all.

Perhaps it was because he had been concentrating so intently, but the sound of sweat trickling down his jawline and dripping onto the floor seemed unusually loud.

However, just as he reached for the doorknob, Evan let out a hollow laugh and nearly knocked his own head against the door in frustration.

The moment he had decided to leave the room and search for Nihil, he sensed the boy’s presence.

Right beside His Highness, who was fast asleep.

Evan finally understood.

He simply hadn’t been able to sense Nihil’s presence. Just as he hadn’t been able to detect the presence of a Shadow Knight whose abilities surpassed his own.

That was all.