How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 71

Rianus stared at the pit with trembling eyes, then cautiously rubbed his lower abdomen. Fortunately, there were no signs that he needed to go. He took a small step backward, thinking that if he lived here, he might end up suffering from constipation.

Watching Rianus retreat from the makeshift toilet, Nihil smiled meaningfully. Then he suddenly gave the boy a hard shove in the back, only to catch him immediately afterward.

“Waaaaah!”

Rianus shrieked in terror and clung to Nihil. Nihil enjoyed teasing the child, so even when Rianus scolded him not to play such tricks, he merely flashed a sly grin.

When Nihil refused to promise that he wouldn’t do it again, Rianus spoke with tears welling in his eyes.

“N-Neil, big brother… Don’t push me.”

If he was worried about being pushed again, he could simply run far away. But apparently, that option never occurred to the seaweed-headed child.

Carrying Rianus, who clung to him like a koala, Nihil headed into the backyard. He struck the heatstones together and dropped them into the prepared water and pot. Then, he casually tossed a matchbox to Yvonne, who had soot all over his face and was struggling desperately to start a fire.

While waiting for the water to boil, Nihil patiently answered the curious seaweed’s endless questions. Just then, Dave emerged from the warehouse and cautiously approached him.

“Neil, do you happen to have any more of the medicine you gave that little kid, Brie, at the guards’ headquarters? I-I’m not saying you have to give me any. I was just wondering if you had some extra……”

“……”

Nihil didn’t answer. Instead, he carefully rose to his feet.

“Nerr, wait here with Kitty.”

“Okay!”

“Myaaaang~”

When he entered the warehouse, he saw Jane fidgeting anxiously and a pile of blankets rising and falling in the corner.

Nihil approached the pile. Despite the considerable noise made by the excited children talking about the pigeons, neither the boy nor the little child had woken up. They simply breathed quietly in their sleep.

The sleeping boy was the one whose nose Nihil had bled earlier that day.

Nihil gently lifted the blanket, took the children’s wrists to check their pulses, and rummaged through his bag.

“D-Dan had a f-fever, so I-I put him t-to bed, but it s-seems like his f-fever is g-getting w-worse. P-Pan was w-watching over h-him and must’ve f-fallen asleep.”

Jane glanced nervously at Nihil from beside him. Having the tall boy fidgeting around nearby was distracting.

“S-so, wh-what do y-you think?”

“You’re distracting me. Stand still.”

“S-sorry. I-I stutter……”

Nihil checked several glass bottles in his bag before speaking.

“I don’t care if you stutter. And the little one is fine. It’s just a cold. As long as you bring the fever down and make sure he eats well, there shouldn’t be any problems.”

“T-the little one? D-does that mean P-Pan is sick, too?”

“Who knows?”

Nihil left the question hanging meaningfully, then carefully picked up little Dan, still wrapped in his blanket.

Suddenly, a strong smell of blood filled the air.

 

***

 

“……”

Nihil hurried out into the backyard and momentarily lost his words.

Rianus was standing there with his hands drenched in blood.

“Big brother, you’re back! Am I doing it right?”

“……”

Nihil looked around, trying to figure out what on earth had happened. He had rushed outside while still holding the child.

Kitty was standing on her hind legs, watching him anxiously, while the children stood a little farther away, wary of Rianus, who was smiling brightly with a knife in one hand and a headless pigeon in the other.

After spotting the pigeon heads scattered around, detached from their bodies, Nihil finally understood the situation. He slowly opened his mouth.

“…You… did it yourself?”

“Yeah. Everyone was scared, so I did it.”

When Rianus had asked how to prepare the pigeons, Nihil had explained that they needed to cut off the heads and drain the blood first. However, he hadn’t expected the boy to take matters into his own hands in the short time he’d been away.

The pigeons’ necks had been severed a little… brutally, but there didn’t seem to be any other problems. Nihil let out a quiet sigh of relief.

When Jane came rushing out after him, Nihil assured him that nothing was wrong, handed him the sleeping child, and told him to wake the other boy and bring him outside, too.

Nihil rolled up his sleeves.

“Good work, Nerr. You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

“No!”

“Still, knives are dangerous, so let’s do this when an adult is around to help.”

“Is it okay if I do it when I’m with you, big brother?”

“Of course. Come here. Let’s wash your hands first.”

“Okay!”

Nihil scooped out some of the water he had heated with the heatstones and washed Rianus’s blood-covered hands. Rianus wiggled his fingers in the warm water and giggled.

“Nerr, were you scared or uncomfortable?”

“A little uncomfortable, but… we were going to eat them anyway, so someone had to do it, right? I think it’s foolish to hesitate when something needs to be done.”

“That’s right.”

“And if I hadn’t done it, you probably would have, Neil.”

“I probably would have.”

“I don’t want to be a little brother who leaves everything to you and does nothing himself.”

“Good. Well done. Next time, I’ll teach you how to drain the blood properly.”

“Okay!”

The children who had been watching nervously from a distance began approaching one by one.

They had done nothing but stand there, watching in disgust while a much younger child wielded a knife and cut off the pigeons’ heads. They couldn’t exactly complain if someone called them cowards.

Dave found himself seeing Nerr in a completely different light. He had assumed the boy was a sheltered flower who had been spoiled by his older brother, but he was every bit as extraordinary as Nihil.

He was nothing like Dave himself, who had spent his life knowing nothing beyond the comfort of his sister’s arms.

Nihil began placing the pigeons, which had drained most of their blood, into the water heated with the heatstones.

The children gathered around to watch, fascinated that the water had boiled without a fire.

Rianus was still amazed by the heatstones himself, but perhaps wanting to look mature in front of the other children, he calmly explained how they worked, pretending he knew all about them.

A few dozen seconds later, Nihil lifted a pigeon out of the water and grabbed a handful of feathers, pulling them out.

After inspecting the bare patch, he apparently decided the bird was ready. He lifted it from the water and handed one to each of the children.

“Pluck.”

At the short command, Yvonne and Dave began plucking the feathers first. The cat, who had wandered over in the meantime, joined them and started tearing at the pigeon’s feathers with her teeth.

Dave looked at the cat with a mouthful of feathers and spoke hesitantly.

“She really is smart……”

“Myaack?”

“I’ll give you one pigeon, too, Kitty. Share it with the doggy.”

“Myaaaaaang~!”

At Nihil’s promise to give her an entire pigeon, the cat happily plucked even more enthusiastically. As a result, the pigeon rolled around in the dirt a little. It remained to be seen whether the doggy would appreciate that.

“Neil, big brother, can I try, too?”

The curious little kitten was peering over at them.

Nihil had expected Rianus to be more squeamish, but since the boy seemed to be handling it well, he handed him a pigeon without hesitation.

“Nerr, if you grab the feathers firmly and pull quickly in the direction they grow, they’ll come out easily. No, don’t grab so many at once. You might tear the skin off with them. Here, look. Like this.”

“Mmph, like this?”

“Yeah. You’re doing well.”

Rianus beamed at Nihil’s praise. The children who had been plucking the feathers haphazardly watched Nihil carefully and began imitating him.

By the time Jane returned to the backyard with Pan, who had only just managed to wake up, most of the pigeons had been plucked bare and were lined up for everyone to see.

Pan, still half-asleep and barely aware of his surroundings, spotted Nihil and Rianus and pointed at them in alarm.

“W-why are th-they here?!”

Nihil was finishing plucking the remaining feathers from a pigeon that Kitty had worked hard on but hadn’t quite finished.

He answered indifferently, “We need to prepare the pigeons, so go get a knife.”

“No, I’m asking why you’re here! It was you, wasn’t it, Big Brother Yvonne? You brought home more strays! I hate that guy!”

“Ha ha, I d-didn’t bring them home as strays… Um, Pan, you should get along with them, okay? I-I’ll go get the knife.”

Yvonne glanced nervously at Nihil before escaping into the warehouse to fetch a knife.

Throughout Nihil’s explanation of how to prepare pigeons, Pan kept throwing a tantrum, repeatedly declaring, “I hate him!”

But no one took his side.

After all, Nihil was their esteemed provider of meat.

 

***

 

After preparing his own share of pigeons, Nihil left the children behind as they struggled with their knives and settled down a little farther away to build a campfire.

Rianus sat on a log Nihil had brought from somewhere, holding the cat in his arms as he watched.

“Rian.”

“Huh?”

Rianus turned toward Nihil with wide eyes. It had been a while since he’d heard his nickname.

“If one of those children suddenly died, what do you think you’d feel?”

“W-why? Why would they suddenly die?”

“Hmm, they’d probably be beaten to d—cough, cough.”

Nihil seemed to have inhaled some irritating smoke while blowing on the tiny flame. He coughed several times before continuing.

“They’d probably be beaten to death.”

“Beaten to death? S-suddenly?”

“Yeah. What would you think?”

“What would I think……”

Rianus felt a little bewildered as he looked at his friend, who was threading pigeon meat onto a thin branch. Nihil had somehow obtained salt and spices, and he was sprinkling them generously over the meat.

What was the intention behind that question? Perhaps his friend was testing him.

Even though he barely knew these children, the thought of someone he had shared food and conversations with dying was difficult to comprehend.

And being beaten to death, of all things.

Rianus glanced at Pan, who had collapsed earlier after being beaten by the man who called himself his father. Fortunately, the boy had recovered quickly enough to rejoin the group, but there was no way he hadn’t been hurt.

“Neil, I don’t know why you’re asking me this, but… I think we should prevent deaths caused by other people as much as possible. We can’t prevent every death caused by disasters or illness. I know that would be asking too much. But if a death can be prevented, then I think we should do everything we can to prevent it.”

“Hmm……”

Nihil seemed to consider this for a moment before taking a potato from his bag and tossing it into the campfire.

“So, basically, you’d save them if you could, right? Even if the child had bullied you?”

“Yes. I’d save them. And… I’ve been thinking about my assignment.”

“What about it?”

“Today, Dave said that the royal family removed the bodies, but nobody questions their deaths. I’ve thought about it a lot.”

Dave’s story had shocked Rianus to his core. The royal family treated the bodies of these people as nothing more than trash that might spread disease. There was no way simply carrying out a relief project would truly help people who were treated that way.

“…Neil, you were right. Trying to help people without understanding anything about them is nothing more than hypocrisy. Since coming here, I’ve realized just how ignorant I am. We really need a more fundamental solution, not just the simple distribution of supplies.”

“Hmm, I see. For example?”

“First, we need something that will change people’s perceptions.”

“What kind of perceptions?”

“Murder is a crime, isn’t it? There’s no law that says commoners can be killed just because they’re lowborn.”

In the Empire, where slavery still existed, slaves were treated as property. But the Kingdom of Harpense had no system of slavery, and killing another person was unquestionably a crime.

Yet these people were left unprotected because they themselves believed they weren’t entitled to protection, while the majority of people accepted that as perfectly natural.

Without even realizing it, they had abandoned both their obligations and their rights.

“First, we need something that will make them conscious of the fact that they officially belong to the kingdom.”

“Like an identity card?”

“Exactly! Like an identity card! But… Why don’t the people of Sharton Street apply for them? Is it because they feel that having one means being monitored? I suppose it’s easier to commit crimes when your identity is uncertain. But not having an identity card must impose all sorts of restrictions……”

As Rianus began guiding his own thoughts forward, asking and answering his own questions, Nihil smiled faintly and spoke.

“Can anyone apply for an identity card?”

“Yes. Any human aged fifteen or older who lives in the kingdom can get one, as can members of similar species. Of course, those other species would only apply if they lived alongside humans in human society……”

“Then let’s ask them.”

“Huh?”

“That’s why we came here, isn’t it?”

“W-wait, Neil!”