Chapter 24 : Liar and Liar

Rasia Abalan entered the 1st Prince's Palace feeling quite refreshed.

He didn't particularly like the tedious meetings themselves, but he thought it wasn't bad to look down on the frightened faces of the nobles.

Especially today, he was feeling even more satisfied by the fact that he had screwed over that arrogant brat from the Piteos Ducal Family.

He remembered the arrogant Agoni Piteos, who had blocked his path at the last Hunting Competition, citing tradition.

Because of that damned ancient tradition, he had only half-succeeded in his plan to perfectly solidify his position at the Hunting Competition.

It was a wish he had made with the judgment that there was nothing better than protecting the First Emperor's temple and elevating his name to get into the Emperor's good graces.

But because that senile Duke Piteos suddenly stepped forward, it all came to nothing.

Duke Piteos paid with his life as the price, and the 1st Prince himself was the one who took his life, but he wasn't one to care about sacrifices made by others.

Now that time had passed, only the anger stemming from the fact that a vermin-like bastard had interfered with him remained in his head.

The one who taught Rasia, who was like that, a way to screw over the remaining ducal family brats was his clever younger brother.

-Duke Piteos likely risked his life to save the vagrant children in that area. I hear the remaining Acting Duke is building a hospital nearby now. That too is highly likely to be a project for the vagrant children.

Realizing that he had interfered with him for the sake of those damned spawn of vermin, the 1st Prince became even more furious.

To him, who was like that, the 2nd Prince whispered.

-Interfere in their work, Older brother. There will be nothing more humiliating than for the very person who killed the Duke to mock what he protected with his life.

The 1st Prince nodded at that.

Above all, he liked the 2nd Prince's added words at the end.

-And if things go wrong, the one to take responsibility is already decided.

Rasia Abalan held back the laugh that was already threatening to burst out and entered the office.

And in there,

“Ah, you're here? The meeting must have ended later than I thought.”

“Uwaaaak!!!!”

The disgusting black vermin brat who had been tormenting him the most recently was waiting.

***

“Hey!! What are you! Weren't you only in the bedroom? Why are you here?”

Even while jumping in surprise, he showed off his personal skill of shouting in a hushed voice, as if he had properly learned that he shouldn't be loud.

“I never said that.”

When I shrugged and replied, he seemed to have nothing to say, clamped his mouth shut, and glared at me.

“Seeing you enter with a smile, the meeting must have ended satisfactorily?”

“Are you here for treatment again today?”

He asked, pretending not to hear my words, as if he was embarrassed about showing his idiotic, beaming smile in front of me.

“No, I came to receive payment today.”

“What is it this time?”

The 1st Prince looked at me with displeasure.

Well, it's nothing major.

“You must have agreed to help with the Piteos Ducal Family's facility construction.”

The question, 'How do you know that?!' was written all over his face, but I ignored it and continued.

“It's a small favor related to that.”

The brat's expression was distorted at once.

“No matter what you say, I can't cancel that, so……”

“No, the 1st Prince must take charge of it. Don't you know you should listen to people until the end?”

At my advice, an incredibly wronged look flickered across the brat's face for a moment.

“First, proceed as slowly as possible. For long enough that all the people of the Empire can hear the news that the Imperial Family is helping the Piteos Ducal Family build a large-scale hospital.”

That shouldn't be difficult.

The 1st Prince tilted his head and asked, puzzled by my request, which even he seemed to think wasn't very difficult.

“What the hell is your purpose?”

I couldn't answer right away, because his question was a more fundamental one than I expected.

It was also a problem I hadn't thought about deeply since possessing this book.

Purpose, huh.

In fact, I had lived a life without purpose, to the point where I couldn't even remember when I last had one.

When I lived in the world outside the book, there was nothing I could grandly call a life's purpose.

Just paying off my loans, and getting through the day without dying, maybe?

After possessing the book, I came to live a life even closer to death than before, and I was so frantic just trying to get through each day literally without dying.

So…… well, if I had to say.

“Survival, maybe?”

A look of incomprehension crossed the 1st Prince's face once more, but I sent him out of the office without another word.

As I flew up outside, I could see the Piteos family's carriage leaving the Imperial Castle in the distance.

The carriage carrying Tollin looked rushed and sharp-edged, just like him.

I continued to flap my wings, recalling his face, which had looked quite gaunt.

According to Tollin's speech I confirmed in the square, the project he was starting this time seemed to be a hospital project.

Unlike in the original work, where he trained an army and offered it.

***

The news that the 1st Prince had extended a helping hand to the Piteos Ducal Family sent ripples both inside and outside the Imperial Castle.

Some said that the abandoned Piteos Ducal Family had begun to receive the Imperial Family's protection again, while others claimed that the 1st Prince's involvement itself was intended to insult Piteos, and that the Imperial Family was preparing to completely trample the ducal family as it tried to rise again.

In the end, a faction that wanted to wait and see how things developed and a faction that believed they should latch onto the Piteos Ducal Family again in advance were divided, establishing their own subtle competitive structure.

Tollin's mind was just as noisy as the nobles' fussy movements.

Sitting in the office organizing documents, Tollin recalled the faintness he felt when the Emperor mentioned the 1st Prince, and he grabbed his head.

After returning to the ducal family, he was still spending his days busily.

No, because of the war of nerves the nobles were waging over the Piteos Ducal Family, he became even busier than before, with no time to spare.

Everyone else at the ducal mansion thought that Tollin would protect the ducal family like steel, just as he had after Agoni Piteos died.

Just as he had shaken himself off and stood up just one day after the Duke's death.

Tollin probably thought so himself, too.

No one knew the fact that when he sat alone in the office, he would stop what he was doing and agonize over the guilt that slowly crept in and strangled him.

He was even managing the Little Duke's successor education through reports, using the excuse that he was busy, though he had always checked on it face-to-face.

He just couldn't look at the child's face.

He was the one who killed the Duke.

The face that had agonized, unable to breathe; the Duke who had vanished in an instant.

All the things that had not disappeared from his memory for even a single moment.

And the 1st Prince, who had been smiling cruelly even at that moment.

Tollin had felt that since that day, the faith inside him had changed from what it was before.

But he was a weak human, and the place he lived was a world of gods, so he couldn't disobey them.

Having decided to protect what was left, he prostrated himself and tried not to get on their nerves.

After all, Tollin was in a position where he had to be careful of even his gaze in front of the 1st Prince in the meeting hall.

As if he were an ant before humans, he bowed his head to them and meekly listened to their demands.

In order to survive, and because that was the proper thing to do.

Thanks to that, the Piteos Ducal Family and his father were safe, but an unexpected sense of humiliation and guilt overwhelmed him.

He convinced himself that it couldn't be helped, that he had made the wisest choice, but he couldn't do anything about his emotions.

What would happen now?

Would the Little Duke see him confronting the 1st Prince?

Tollin was afraid of showing the Little Duke the sight of him bowing his head to his father's enemy.

Tollin, who had been running forward looking only ahead like a racehorse with blinders on, freely recalled the face of his old superior for the first time in a long while, a face he had tried so hard to erase until now.

If the Duke had reached Territum, the resting place of the dead, and was looking down on them, what would he say upon seeing Tollin's state?

Tollin suppressed his sinful heart and closed his eyes.

And, as always, he started working again, pretending nothing was wrong.

***

Fortunately or unfortunately, Agoni Piteos was alive and well in the surface world, so he couldn't look down on Tollin.

“Please let me go! I'm just an ordinary old man!”

Though he was doing his best to return to the arms of his family.

***

Agoni Piteos was currently still imprisoned in the underground jail, with his limbs tied.

It had been about two weeks since he was captured and brought here.

These people had taken all of Agoni Piteos's belongings and locked him up in this old, musty-smelling place.

The people who imprisoned Agoni provided him with the minimum amount of food to keep him from dying and gave him no explanation.

No matter how many times Agoni asked the person who came to give him food to let him talk to the person who imprisoned him, they just pushed the bowl in and left, as if they couldn't hear his words.

Today, just as Agoni was about to go mad and was thinking of attempting an escape even with his not-yet-healed leg, a group that didn't seem to be subordinates finally visited the prison.

Agoni struggled to stand up with his bound limbs and shouted at them.

“Please let me go! I'm just an ordinary old man!”

Most of those watching him from outside the prison were wearing long robes that dragged on the floor, and they looked at Agoni from a slight distance, as if treating him like a very dangerous barbarian.

Agoni Piteos desperately shouted at those who were interrogating him with his limbs tied, claiming that he was just a good-natured, somewhat unlucky, ordinary old man over 60, and that there was nothing they could get from him.

Perhaps because of his healthy build and height, which didn't look like he was in his 60s, it wasn't the least bit convincing.

“Ratel, is it true this man opened the cave entrance and came in?”

The old man with the longest beard asked the black-haired young man who had been leaning against the wall, quietly watching the situation.

He was the golden-eyed young man who had dragged Agoni from the cave.

Agoni looked at him, pleading for him to please reveal his innocence, but he didn't even glance at Agoni.

“Yes, I felt a strange energy, and when I opened the entrance, he was lying unconscious in the middle of the cave.”

“Hmm.”

At the words of the young man called Ratel, those who muttered that he wouldn't lie all looked at Agoni once again.

To be a dog of the Imperial Family, he was suspicious for entering this place recklessly, unarmed and carrying only a pile of stones; to be just an ordinary person, his spirit was extraordinary; and for it to be a coincidence, this place was a fortress of god that had thoroughly kept outsiders out for over 50 years.

“No, I don't even know what kind of place that cave is. I missed my step, fell off a cliff, and when I opened my eyes, that's where I was. You searched my body earlier, so you know. I don't have anything!”

Praising his past self for participating in the Hunting Competition in simple attire, Agoni asserted his innocence, mixing truth and lies.

His clothes were a bit high-quality, but compared to the status of a duke, they were simple, so he thought if he kept insisting, he might be able to deceive them into thinking he was just a wealthy merchant.

Fortunately, perhaps due to the impact of falling from the cliff, his outer clothes had become tattered, too.

“That's an absurd lie. The cave is a place touched by Lord Amica's breath. To say you just happened to come in must be a blatant lie.”

A man with a slightly younger-sounding voice among those wearing robes pointed at Agoni and said.

“If it's not a lie, it means a descendant of Abalan has found us. That also means the final bastion that protected us has fallen.”

When the long-bearded man who had spoken to the young man named Ratel replied, a sense of tension seemed to flow between them.

Agoni Piteos was so aggrieved he could jump out of his skin.

He himself didn't know how he ended up in a place like this, a hideout for heretics, but they didn't seem to have any intention of listening to his words.

Agoni moved to the prison bars and appealed to them.

“Send me back. My young child is waiting at home. I left a heavy burden with my colleague.”

This much, at least, was sincere.

Because when he thought about the young Little Duke and Tollin paying the price for what he had done, worry and guilt washed over him, and he couldn't stay still.

At his heartfelt plea, those who had been suspicious of Agoni just stared at him.

At their lack of response, Agoni hoped that perhaps they too would show a little kindness, like that young man who brought him from the cave, but.

“I'm sorry, stranger, but you cannot leave this place alive.”

The long-bearded old man who stepped forward thoroughly shattered Agoni's hope.

Agoni calmly asked.

“Do you people take a person's life based on uncertain suspicion?”

“If the whole can live through a small sacrifice, then by all means.”