It was past midnight.
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on my door. Since I could not sleep anyway, I got out of bed and flung the door open.
“You.”
Khalid’s smooth brows crumpled terribly as he stood outside the door.
“What? Did something not go well?”
Had the straw-puppet mage not moved the way we wanted?
Hazel said she locked him in his room properly.
When I asked, a little uneasy, Khalid let out a low sigh.
“How can you open the door without even checking who it is?”
“Huh?”
“At this hour, no less. It’s dangerous...”
I tilted my head.
“Because I obviously knew it was you.”
And I was a liiittle happy to see him too.
“Are you dangerous? Hm? Are you going to attack me?”
I asked as a joke, poking him lightly, but an awkward silence came back.
“...You never know.”
“Whoa.”
What was this? Had his winning streak as a swordsman made him competitive about everything?
“Anyway... I’m coming in for a bit.”
For some reason, the back of Khalid’s neck had turned red as he strode into the room. At the same time, he smoothly draped the large robe he had been holding over me.
Why had he wanted to give me clothes so badly since before?
“As expected, the message bird went up.”
He got straight to the point while stirring the fireplace with a poker.
“Hazel gave him a room with a balcony facing the back of the estate. He ate a full dinner, bathed, checked that there was no one watching him, and then maybe because he felt safe, he moved right away.”
I took the letter Khalid held out.
“The direction of the message bird?”
His lips twisted in a slight smile.
“The Imperial Palace.”
“So he really is approaching the King of Casalia.”
I read the letter Khalid had intercepted.
< Reveal tomorrow that the Princess of House of Zebbert is a mage. It must be done before the Babilon Emperor and the nobles.
I intend to appear when the timing is appropriate, so prepare the blood-relationship-determining potion in advance. Even if I do not appear, it would be best to cast the stone first.
If you obey this instruction, the alliance between Casalia and Arcadia will remain firm forever. >
A cold smile rose to my lips. How could it be this perfectly in line with expectations, without a single hair out of place?
The letter had added the following words too.
< The important thing is to emphasize that the Princess is not an ordinary mage, but a high-rank mage of Arcadia and the Mage King’s “seventh.” >
I quietly imagined it.
The image of the King of Casalia appearing at my coming-of-age ceremony and moving according to the instructions in this letter.
“The reason we ended up facing off against the Magic Kingdom like this was all because of the Princess of House of Zebbert!”
He would probably shout something roughly like that.
“They stole a child who was practically the Mage King’s own ‘child’ and hid her until now! Who truly lit the spark of war on this continent?”
The Babilon nobles would be shocked, and the hall would sink into silence. But it would only be the calm before the storm.
“And is that all? The magical beasts that have been appearing so frequently across the continent! Was that not, in truth, also because of the Princess? How could we possibly stop mages once they decide to attack us? Our Casalia was damaged by those attacks as well!”
And while saying that, he would subtly justify his own collusion.
The mage would probably appear right then, carrying the tampered blood-relationship-determining potion.
“That mage is the Princess’s birth father! I will confirm whether true mage blood flows in the Princess! House of Zebbert will not be able to escape responsibility for all this!”
I was.
I crushed the letter with a crunch.
I was House of Zebbert’s weakness.
A mage from an enemy nation, hiding her identity.
If someone wanted to use me maliciously, there were any number of ways to do it.
“My coming-of-age ceremony almost went spectacularly to hell, huh?”
“Ruby.”
I tried to speak calmly, but the voice full of rage came from behind me instead.
It was Khal, who had been reading the contents with me from behind, one hand braced on the sofa back. He was smiling faintly, but he looked extremely twisted out of shape inside.
“Should I go kill him right now?”
How did he know my heart so well?
“Give me permission.”
His mouth was pleading, but his eyes were blazing.
I turned all the way around, climbed onto the sofa on my knees, and faced Khal. When I lightly reached out, he ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) reflexively bent at the waist.
Clack. The edge of my hand lightly tapped the crown of Khal’s head.
“No sudden acceleration.”
Though I did like it very much.
“First, shall we catch the potato king with this?”
I thought of the King of Casalia, covered in spiteful little lumps like a potato.
As expected, the letter had the seal of the Magic Kingdom stamped on it.
To prove in writing that he was a mage of the Magic Kingdom, this was the only method.
Seals are similar to magic tools.
They contained a distinctive magic, so even ordinary people who were not mages could confirm the shimmering light in the seal with their own eyes. It made them difficult to forge or copy.
“But I have thiiis.”
I got down from the sofa and opened a drawer.
Inside it, the stele formulas I had collected so far were bound together. Somehow, it had turned into an encyclopedia of magic circles.
I had spent years collecting magic circles hidden all across the continent. And since I also had Wigeria, a method for tampering with a seal was not difficult at all.
“Huhu. A little forgery like this is nothing. Huhuhuhu.”
“You sound like the leader of a criminal organization.”
With a fully charged backup battery beside me too, I quickly used a magic circle and copied the letter’s seal. Along with the handwriting.
Then, after pondering for a little while, I wrote one more letter with my own hand and handed it to Khalid, held between my index and middle fingers as insolently as possible.
“Go forth.”
“Yes, my master.”
The underling swiftly disappeared.
*****
I must decide.
The King of Casalia paced back and forth through the room with an anxious face.
I truly must decide now.
In his hand was a letter stamped with the crest of the Magic Kingdom.
It was a letter from the mage. Written in it was an instruction to assist the Magic Kingdom’s plan more actively.
< I need the medicine you possess. When the morning sun rises, meet me at the location below.
If you obey this instruction, the alliance between Casalia and Arcadia will remain firm forever. >
He had wondered if it was a forged letter, but compared to the letter he had previously received from the Magic Kingdom, the same seal had been stamped on it. Just in case, he had also asked the stationed mage from Casalia he had brought with him to confirm it, but the result was the same.
Far in the distance, dawn was breaking.
When the red sunlight began to lift its head, the King made up his mind as though burned by that light.
Yes! This is for the greater cause!
It was not betrayal.
It was the best decision to protect the Kingdom of Casalia, and perhaps this was even an excellent diplomatic strategy.
And if Sebelena gets engaged to a decent Babilon man this time!
Even if this became a problem, the Babilon Imperial family would not be able to turn away from him easily.
The mood with the Emperor had been good.
So perhaps it would not be bad to simply marry Sebelena off and have her settle here.
“It is fortunate that I have a daughter left.”
Her personality was a little stiff, but thanks to his bloodline, she was beautiful. How fortunate was that?
If I had raised her from childhood, I could have brought her up more to my liking.
All the princesses in the royal palace had been raised that way and sent off to marry into other nations. Praise for the modest and obedient princesses had been widespread, so he thought he was quite a decent father.
Squeeze. His thick hand gripped the potion.
“I must hurry. Hurry...”
It was a good thing he had prepared it before coming to Babilon. Though that, too, had been an instruction from the Magic Kingdom.
With bloodshot eyes, the King dressed incognito and left the room.
It was still early dawn.
There were not many people passing by.
The separate palace the Emperor had provided, saying he should stay comfortably, was extremely large and spacious. Since he had brought many attendants from Casalia as well, it was like a small Casalian royal palace inside the Babilon Imperial Palace.
No one recognized the King hidden beneath a gray robe.
“Hah, hah!”
He ran hard.
The place where the mage had asked to meet was before the seventh ornament in the garden near the north gate of the Imperial Palace.
He had said there was a small side path behind it, and that if one followed that path, it would reach a dog hole in the Imperial Palace wall.
The wall...
He thought about it suddenly, then realized.
Come to think of it.
Was this not his first time leaving the separate palace like this?
When he tried to leave out of curiosity, the Emperor would somehow appear and make it impossible. If not that, then a party would suddenly be arranged in the separate palace, or musicians invited by the Emperor would come, or if not that, a painting salon would open...
I-It must be my imagination.
After all, there had been no problem leaving just now.
He was loitering near the ornament with the robe pulled low over his head when he heard rustling footsteps. He turned, taking out the potion he had brought in his pocket.
“Mage...!”
Suddenly, something cold touched the side of his neck.
His green eyes flew wide.
