Rodele and his two lackeys advanced across the plains.
He pressed forward without looking around, seemingly unconcerned—but if he kept going like this, he would wander deep into the heart of the plains, straight into the territory of the magic beast Sabnock, the lord of this land.
"Honestly... that idiot prince really might go through with it."
Watching Rodele from a distance, a man let out a sigh.
He was a middle-aged man clad in black.
Hiding among the shadows of the scattered trees on the plains, occasionally weaving illusion magic as he went, he had been tailing Rodele without making a sound.
(No wonder His Majesty is worried... the boy is already on the verge of stepping into the demon realm. Is this assignment even worth the effort, in a sense?)
The man was one of the court magicians—that is, a retainer of the king who also happened to be Rodele's father.
Because Rodele had announced his participation in the Magic Hunt Festival, the man had been dispatched as a monitor to keep him from causing trouble.
(And sure enough, he's heading straight for the restricted zone... a man who never fails to exceed expectations—in the worst possible way.)
If Rodele kept going, he would enter the territory of Sabnock, a place no one should ever set foot in.
Provoking a colossal monster that had already annihilated multiple frontier development parties was absolutely unthinkable.
(Honestly, I'd almost rather feed His Highness Rodele to the monster right here and now... but well, I can't exactly do that.)
The monitoring magician sighed.
The reason the king had neither punished Rodele nor confined him to the detached palace was that Rodele was a major powder keg.
If something were to happen to Rodele, people in the queen dowager's faction or neighboring countries might take action.
The king couldn't afford to act rashly, since no one could predict what consequences Rodele's death might bring.
"For now... I suppose I should stop that idiot prince."
At this rate, Rodele would step into the restricted zone.
But he had to be stopped first. By any means necessary, if need be.
The watchman stepped out from the tree where he had been hiding, preparing to appear before Rodele.
"I'm afraid I can't allow that."
However, before the watchman could reveal himself, a voice came from shockingly close range.
"...!?"
The watchman tensed in alarm at the whisper right beside his ear, but before he could react further, the back of his neck was struck.
A violent impact shot from his neck to his brainstem, and he crumpled to the ground without even a sound.
"Kah..."
The watchman lay sprawled on the ground, letting out a faint cough.
Dragging himself along the ground, he somehow mustered enough strength to raise his face—and there stood a man with a familiar visage.
The watchman's eyes widened as he called out the man's name.
"You are... Marquis Eiger...!"
Berrio Eiger.
He was Rodele's guardian and the leading figure of the queen dowager's faction.
It was said that in his younger days he had been a renowned magician... and yet he had slipped right behind this man who was supposed to be among the elite chosen by the king, as though it were nothing.
"Why... are you..."
"To think I could get behind you like this—recent court magicians really have gone downhill. And you intended to stop Her Highness? You, a mere magician?"
Eiger looked down at the fallen watchman and spat out the words.
His gaze was hollow, yet the depths of his eyes burned with a deeply unsettling light.
It was the look of a madman—one who seemed to be seeing reality, yet was staring into an abyss that existed nowhere here.
"To dare impede the will of His Highness Rodele, beloved of Her Majesty the Queen Dowager, is an act of insolence. A mere servant of the king should know his place."
"Y-You fool... do you mean to defy His Majesty the King...?"
"The king is irrelevant. Every word that august personage speaks is absolute truth. Defiance is not to be tolerated!"
Muttering those fanatical words, Eiger raised his hand.
An icicle roughly a meter long materialized in his grasp.
Eiger aimed the tip of the pointed icicle at the man on the ground and trembled his lips.
"All is as Her Majesty the Queen Dowager wills it..."
"Stop—"
Eiger swung the icicle down without mercy.
A wet, squelching sound rang out, and spattered blood stained his face.
The man's body went limp, all strength draining from it, as a dark reddish-black stain spread across the ground.
"Now then, Your Highness Rodele. Please, do as you wish. It is all in accordance with the Queen Dowager's will. Everything has already been decided as it should be..."
A look of ecstasy spread across Eiger's face.
He averted his gaze from the dead man and looked off into the distance.
There, at the far end of his line of sight, Rodele was walking toward the depths of the plains, flanked by his two entourage.
Rodele's back, departing without ever noticing the watcher. Eiger gazed after that receding figure and bowed deeply—so deeply he folded at the waist.
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