How the Prince Makes Friends Chapter 8

Evan, whose mind was completely occupied with driving the wildcat out, felt as though his true intentions had been exposed and hurried to change the subject.

Come to think of it…

“Why do you talk like an old man trapped in a child’s body?”

“An old man in a child’s body? Are you really so desperate to find something to pick on me for?”

Nihil replied, then lowered his eyes and rested his chin on his hand, tapping his lower lip at a leisurely pace.

Evan actually had far more to say about the boy’s habit of speaking as though he had no superiors and everyone else was beneath him than about his strange manner of speech. But seeing him seemingly lost in thought, Evan eventually closed his mouth.

Only after quite some time did the boy appear to have gathered his thoughts. He lifted his head and met Evan’s gaze.

“It’s a habit.”

“…?”

What was that supposed to mean? Was being rude a habit?

Unable to understand the meaning of the boy’s statement, which had skipped both the beginning and the end of the explanation, Evan furrowed his brows and jerked his chin, signaling him to elaborate.

Nihil couldn’t be bothered to explain everything in detail, but since Evan had kindly let him back into the bedroom earlier than expected, he decided to make a special exception.

“I only talk this way because I’m imitating you. I haven’t been speaking for very long.”

“Are you a newborn or something? How can you have only recently learned to speak?”

“That′snotsomethingyou,whohavelivedbarelytwentyyears,shouldbesaying.That’s not something you, who have lived barely twenty years, should be saying.”

“…?”

Evan tilted his head at the unfamiliar language that had suddenly come out of the boy’s mouth. Was it a foreign language?

Seeing Evan’s reaction, Nihil gave a quiet snort and continued explaining.

“It’s not as though I’m consciously imitating you. Simply put, I’ve assimilated. Outsiders are likely to be treated with suspicion or taken advantage of wherever they go, so without realizing it, I end up mimicking the other person’s speech and behaving like a local. I haven’t been in this kingdom long, and the unfamiliar accent makes it easy for me to pick up the way people here speak. Once I’ve been here long enough to get used to the local accent, my manner of speaking won’t change so easily. So don’t worry about it.”

Listening to that explanation, Evan thought about it.

It was somewhat strange to imagine that this was similar to how a child who hadn’t quite mastered a language might imitate the way their guardian spoke.

In Nihil’s case, it seemed to be an unconscious response driven by the instinct to survive. But when he thought about it, didn’t that mean the boy’s current rude manner of speaking came from imitating either him or His Highness?

Pushing aside his unpleasant feelings, Evan asked about something else that had been bothering him.

“You haven’t been in Harpense long, have you?”

“Is Harpense the name of the kingdom?”

“…Where were you before that?”

“Probably… somewhere in the Eastern Continent.”

“How did you get across without an identification pass? Did you enter illegally?”

“…”

The boy fell silent for a moment. From the looks of it, he had indeed entered illegally.

Evan was pleased to think he’d found a straightforward legal way to get rid of the insolent wildcat. However, he kept his expression stern and began interrogating him as though he hadn’t reached any conclusions yet.

“I asked how you got here.”

At Evan’s insistence, Nihil hesitated before finally opening his mouth. His eyes remained lowered.

“…I was caught by human traffickers… and handed over to a pirate ship disguised as a merchant vessel.”

“…”

Evan fell silent.

He had nearly become the kind of irredeemable piece of human garbage who took pleasure in kicking out a poor child who had been kidnapped by human traffickers.

A brief silence followed. Evan felt just the tiniest, practically microscopic bit of guilt, and his aggressive attitude softened slightly.

“What?”

When Evan didn’t respond, Nihil raised his head and met his gaze. Despite claiming to have been kidnapped by human traffickers, the boy remained utterly expressionless.

“…Never mind. Did they brand you as a slave?”

“Of course not. I blew up the pirate ship and escaped. It burned quite nicely.”

“…”

Evan was once again at a loss for words.

The boy, who had seemed just a little pitiful a moment ago, had once again proven that he was no ordinary child.

The boy was dangerous after all. Then Evan suddenly remembered the pirate ship incident that had occurred just recently.

“Don’t tell me that happened about ten days ago?”

“Roughly… around then, I think.”

“…”

Could this boy really have been responsible for that explosion? It had been such a major incident that the royal family itself had gotten involved.

A ship belonging to a large merchant company from the Eastern Empire had been found carrying a great number of illegal slaves. What had initially appeared to be an ordinary trading vessel turned out to be a pirate ship, and it had been loaded not only with enslaved people but also with drugs and stolen goods. The discovery had caused an uproar in both the Eastern Empire and the kingdom.

The investigation had revealed that the pirate ship had no connection whatsoever to the major merchant company it had impersonated. However, because the pirate organization itself was enormous, the case was still under investigation.

“Anything else you want to know?”

“…”

“If not, I’d appreciate it if you stopped talking to me. I don’t want people calling me an old man in a child’s body, either.”

The meaning behind those words was obvious. If Evan kept talking to him, Nihil might end up making that old-man-like way of speaking a permanent habit, so he was telling Evan to shut up.

Evan had plenty more questions, but he decided not to ask any more. The more he dug into the boy’s past, the harder it seemed it would be to get rid of him. He had a dreadful feeling that the human trafficking incident was merely the tip of the iceberg.

“Oh, and if you really must talk to me, try speaking like a five- or six-year-old.”

“…”

You little fucking wildcat.

“Your meal is here!”

Fortunately, Rianus emerged from the bathroom soon afterward, so Evan never got around to smacking Nihil upside the head. The food hadn’t gotten too cold, either.

Evan naturally guided Rianus into a chair and carefully dried his hair with a towel.

Apparently, despite having no maid, the prince was accustomed to being attended to by his escort knight.

“Neil, come sit down. You must be hungry, right? Sir Evan, you too. You’ve only had one sandwich all day!”

Evan hesitated briefly, but then took a seat as though this weren’t the first time something like this had happened.

Nihil picked up the cloak he had been sitting on, draped it over his chair, and chose the seat farthest from Rianus.

It was a considerate gesture toward Rianus, who had just finished bathing and was now fresh and clean, unlike Nihil, who was still filthy.

Rianus failed to notice the consideration and felt a little disappointed. However, when he saw the abundance of meat dishes near Nihil, he concluded that his new friend must really love meat. He congratulated his past self for ordering lots and lots of meat, then enthusiastically tore into a roasted duck leg with his bare hands.

It wasn’t proper dining etiquette, but Rianus had deliberately behaved this way until his commoner knight grew accustomed to aristocratic table manners, since he had noticed how uncomfortable Evan felt trying to follow them.

Naturally, Nihil was the intended recipient of this consideration today. Evan understood the meaning behind the prince’s behavior by now, so he didn’t bother correcting him.

Neither of them could have imagined that Nihil, watching the prince’s kindness, was actually wondering to himself whether he needed to start by teaching the prince proper table manners.

The young prince, who knew nothing of Nihil’s thoughts, pushed a plate of steak toward his newly acquired friend, urging him to eat more.

Nihil hesitated for just a moment before deciding to eat anyway. He was hungry, after all.

It’s good.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper meal. As for table manners, he’d been tearing apart and devouring whole roasted rabbits with his bare hands until quite recently. What did it matter whether he held his fork and knife elegantly?

Rianus watched Nihil silently emptying his plate and smiled contentedly, thinking how fortunate it was that he was a prince.

At least he could make sure his friend had enough meat to eat until he was full.

By the time Evan was shaking his head in disbelief at Nihil’s appetite, which seemed to devour food almost instantaneously, Nihil had nearly finished his third plate. Then he paused briefly before beginning to stuff his cheeks full of food.

Once he had finished the rest, he stacked the empty plates and casually slid them toward Evan.

Then he turned his head toward the door. Gripping the fork and knife he had been using in one hand, he abruptly stood up, snatched the cloak from his chair, and dashed toward the terrace, hurriedly shutting the window behind him.

Because the cloak Nihil was holding got caught between the window frames, the window opened and closed once more. The two people left behind could do nothing but stare blankly for a moment at the bizarre sight of Nihil abruptly abandoning his meal and rushing outside.

Then Rianus caught the sound of footsteps.

“Someone’s coming.”

Only after hearing Rianus’s quiet remark did Evan begin to hear the footsteps, too.

They were light, quick little steps, probably belonging to a young maid.

Evan inwardly admired the wildcat’s animalistic instincts. The sound wasn’t impossible to hear if one listened carefully, but detecting it in the middle of an enthusiastic meal required more than good hearing. The boy had to be constantly on guard without ever letting his attention lapse.

Evan quickly straightened the chair Nihil had been sitting in and rearranged the dishes, which had been conspicuously piled up on one side of the table.

Before long, there was a knock at the door.

Rianus, looking slightly nervous, told the visitor to come in. A young maid with twin pigtails entered, carrying a tray with two glasses of juice.

“Your Highness, I thought you might be eating a little too much meat so late at night, so I brought some kiwi and pineapple juice to help with digestion. But… it seems the knight might need it more.”

The maid gave a quiet chuckle as she looked at the empty plates stacked in front of Evan.

Having suddenly become a gluttonous knight who had eaten more than three plates all by himself, Evan accepted the juice with a complicated expression and thanked her, unable to protest.

“His Highness really takes such good care of you, Sir Evan!”

No. This is unfair. That food was for the wildcat, not me!

Evan gave the maid an awkward smile, then shifted his eyes toward his master.

Rianus smiled just as awkwardly and rolled his eyes away from the knight’s gaze. He then asked the maid to prepare a generous breakfast for the following morning before sending her away.

The moment the maid left, the terrace window opened, as though Nihil had somehow known she was gone.

Nihil dashed back inside and shamelessly snatched the glass of juice meant for Evan, gulping it down in one go.

Then he calmly remarked,

“I thought I was going to choke to death.”

“You…!”

Having not only been falsely accused but also had his own juice stolen right before his eyes, Evan was overcome with indignation.

Of course you’d choke! You stuffed your cheeks full of food. What did you expect?!

“Why are you drinking that?!”

“Why wouldn’t I? It was brought to help digest the meat, so shouldn’t the person who ate the most meat be the one to drink it?”

“…”

The logic was so impeccable that Evan was left speechless. If they considered only the purpose of the juice, the boy was absolutely right.

Evan could only stare stupidly at the wildcat until Nihil sat down and speared another piece of steak with his fork, popping it into his mouth.

Rianus, who had accidentally been mistaken for a prince who took excellent care of his knight because of the maid’s misunderstanding, glanced between the two of them, looking slightly uneasy. Perhaps his conscience had gotten the better of him, because he quietly slid his own glass of juice toward Evan.

“Sir Evan, have this, at least. I’m sorry I haven’t taken better care of you.”

Evan had somehow ended up looking like a knight who coveted his own master’s food.