Finally, the moment the last button popped open.
Tight.
I reflexively squeezed my eyes shut.
I saw nothing.
Nothing...
"Look, Lady."
"......"
"Hurry."
"......Hngh."
But with his continued prodding, I reluctantly opened my tightly closed eyes.
I was startled to see his bare chest right in front of me, and I tried to close my eyes again.
'Wait.'
I noticed something strange and opened my eyes.
I wasn't mistaken.
On the Crown Prince's left chest.
'What is that?'
There was a dark, scorched mark.
The black mark, as if burned, was too large and irregularly shaped to be a mole.
"It's the trace of magic that you saw yesterday, Lady."
"Trace of magic...?"
It was hard to understand at once.
A trace of magic, I'd never heard of such a thing.
The amount of magic people are born with varies.
Some are born with special magic like the Rodbel family, some have vast magic like the mages of the Magic Tower, and some are not born with any magic at all like ordinary people.
Everyone has different innate abilities, but I had never heard of magic that leaves such a scar-like mark.
"It's not just magic, it's the magic of an evil god."
"The magic of an evil god?"
I flinched at the word 'evil god'.
The Crown Prince nodded casually.
Then he refastened his shirt and said.
"I'll tell you from now on. The identity of this magic, and when I first knew you. And what kind of relationship we should have in the future."
With those words, Crown Prince - Vedel Denab Arpedel smiled brightly.
It was a refreshing smile, but I sensed an omen of something huge coming.
"His Highness the Crown Prince is inherently so weak that he won't even live past the age of 10 if this continues..."
The voice of the attending physician, who prolonged his life every night beyond the bed canopy, was faintly audible.
Six-year-old Vedel opened his eyes with difficulty. Cold sweat soaked his whole body, blurring his vision.
Huff, huff... He gasped for breath and turned his head with difficulty.
Two figures stood beyond the canopy in the dim light.
One belonged to the attending physician, and the other.
"Is there no hope?"
"...I have no excuse, Your Majesty. I hesitate to even mention it, but as the Crown Prince's attending physician and a member of the Imperial family, I dare to say this. It seems that His Highness will have a hard time even making it through this year..."
"Is there no treatment at all?"
"He was born so weak. If he had caught a disease, there would be a treatment, but that's not the case..."
"Is there really no way? As long as his mind is intact."
"The health of the body affects even the mind. The reason why His Highness is so absent-minded and doesn't speak much is also due to his weak body, I believe."
"...Should I give up on the Crown Prince?"
"As the Crown Prince's attending physician, I will do my best to prolong his life. But Your Majesty, who must oversee the affairs of state, cannot devote deep attention to His Highness."
"If he's alive, there will be a use for him, tsk... I understand. Stop reporting on the Crown Prince's condition from now on, and inform me when he dies."
"...Yes, please take care."
Vedel lay still and listened to the attending physician's hopeless voice and the Emperor's words of giving up on him.
Despite hearing the desperate story, there was no major change in his heart.
Just.
'I'm going to die.'
Only a plain thought came to mind.
The reason why it wasn't surprising was simple.
Because that's what he thought would happen.
Every night was a crisis.
It was difficult to breathe and he had to exert all his strength just to get up.
That's why he was able to accept the truth calmly, but in fact, in fact...
'I don't want to die.'
People in the Imperial family secretly called him a 'glass doll'.
A glass doll that cannot move freely without the help of others, but must be handled carefully lest it break.
It was a very shameful nickname to attach to a member of the Imperial family, but Vedel thought it suited him very well.
As they said, he was a doll itself.
He himself struggled to even continue thinking.
To be exact, it was difficult to maintain consciousness.
It was as if his head would sink below the surface of the water if he let his guard down even a little, so he had to hold on to the end to be conscious and think.
'Then I'm really a doll.'
If I closed my eyes forever like this, would I not have to try anymore?
Sometimes, such a feeling of lethargy would come over him, but.
'No. I...'
He wanted to live.
That's why he desperately wished for it.
A savior who could save him, who could let him live like a human being.
There are particularly difficult nights.
Whenever that happened, he always had a certain dream.
It was a dream of a woman with black hair.
In the dream, she was a brilliant hero on the battlefield, a naive child, and a lovely woman.
The narrator in the dream called her 'Lucrecia Rodbel'.
After dreaming, his face would be wet with something that was neither sweat nor tears.
It was a continuous series of such days.
He struggled and managed to live past the age of 10 that the attending physician had declared, but he was still weak.
Even his consciousness became blurred.
He moved as others told him to, and when he came to his senses, he was in an unfamiliar place.
Whenever that happened, the strangeness he felt was eerie.
He was no longer human. He was someone's doll, and an ephemeral being who could die at any moment.
The more that happened, the more he struggled in his soul covered with a shell.
I want to live, save me... he said.
Then one day.
The night he returned after promising an engagement with Miracle Rodbel.
He was on the line of death.
'Huff, huff!'
'Your Highness! Come to your senses!'
The sensation of death came closer.
The Grim Reaper's scythe seemed ready to cut off his neck at any moment.
He sensed it.
I really... might die.
His eyes rolled back and his breath stopped.
The figure of the attending physician desperately shouting and the ceiling of the bed he had seen all his life blurred.
As all the sensations of life faded away and his vision turned black.
He saw it.
In the darkness like a night sky where even the stars had disappeared.
'I hope they, become unhappy.'
He saw them.
A man and a woman with jet-black hair.
They were.
'As you say, instead of helping you, you should also help me get out of here. For example, this is a deal and a contract.'
'Contract...'
'Yeah. I'm tired of this place now.'
They were making some kind of contract.
'You and I seem to have the same wretched circumstances. How about it, Miss Rodbel with the wretched circumstances. Will you make a contract with me?'
'...If I make a contract, can I really change everything?'
'That depends on you. But I can guarantee this one thing.'
Their contract was like that.
'...Okay. I'll do it, the contract.'
'I like it. With this, the contract is concluded.'
'We'll meet again soon. Because I'm going to where you are.'
It was concluded.
At that moment, a huge clock appeared before his eyes.
The clock hands turned backwards, and the woman's figure gradually became younger.
Vedel watched all of that.
In an instant, light scattered, and the moment he came to his senses.
"Yo, Your Highness! Do you recognize me?"
The rising sunlight greeted him.
Vedel stared blankly down at his hand.
At that time, he felt a special power residing in him.
Something warm like sunlight and fluttering like a gentle breeze.
He instinctively knew.
It was the power that the Emperor had told him about in his childhood, the power inherited only by a select few members of the Imperial family, divine power.
But the true realization was not that.
The true realization was.
'Evil god. Rodbel. Contract.'
A contract secretly made under the abyss of the world.
And, his true nature.
What the stain-like mark engraved on his left chest meant.
Who the existence of his salvation that he had longed for all his life was.
"I."
I've always been.
"An evil god."
I've been craving for you, Lucia Rodbel.
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