He spoke with confidence.
“I'll shield you. Me.”
“By what means?”
“...By giving orders that the other students aren't to bully you, and keeping watch over them.”
“Of all the nonsense, this takes the crown. Your Highness, how is it your reasoning runs so short?”
“What did you say?”
“Never mind. Please just leave now. I'd like to be alone.”
Even without looking, Teron could feel the prince's face twist. But it was immensely satisfying.
Teron had decided to accept his own dreadful nature.
Sixteen or twenty-six, Leopold Deluah was just Leopold Deluah. So what did it matter?
“I offer my condolences on Your Highness's narrow-mindedness. Just because I refuse to cooperate, don't go brooding on your own and putting your ideas into action. A catastrophe will follow.”
“...Teron, that's enough.”
“Once again I'm being rude to the noble prince. Next time I'll get down on my knees and beg. Now please just leave, Your Highness.”
“Please, show some restraint... No, then what am I supposed to do? I saw you get attacked and wounded. Are you telling me to just sit back and do nothing?”
Leopold finally exploded. He cast aside the composure he'd been struggling to hold and gave in to his fury.
“Better for you to do nothing than to botch things with that stupid head of yours.”
At the surge of vitality he hadn't felt in a long time, Teron opened the eyes he'd shut.
Just how far would the prince endure?
That very curiosity was a fresh thing, growing steadily inside him. He was a little afraid it might change the original course of history, but in the end Teron trusted Leopold. That magnanimity of his.
Sure enough, like the boy he was, he clenched his teeth and gripped the blanket as if he'd tear it apart. The veins standing out sharply on his neck were unnerving.
Considering he'd been swallowing every insult imaginable from a mere commoner lately, holding out even this much was quite impressive.
“Without even the help of that stupid head, you'll go through the exact same thing all over again.”
“And even if I take your help, every student at the academy will think the same thing. That damned, insufferable commoner. We should abduct and kill him behind the prince's back.”
“What absurd nonsense...!”
“Do you think it's absurd?”
Leopold froze right where he stood. He caught his breath for a moment and looked at Teron. Then he admitted his words had been rash.
“You're right, you'd know better than me. I'm just a bystander who knows nothing.”
“You understand well. So now, please vanish from my sight.”
“Then tell me. What am I supposed to do to prevent something like this?”
Teron Meyer let out a snort of laughter.
“Why should I be the one to tell you? You should think it up yourself. Leopold, ignorant and arrogant as you are, now you're trying to foist your responsibilities off on me too.”
At those words, the First Prince of the Kingdom of Deluah nearly lost every last shred of his reason and lunged at Teron. He stopped only when he caught sight of the grotesque sight of blood seeping through the body wrapped round and round in bandages.
Leopold, who had delivered lecture after lecture about not being so insolent, ended up melting entirely under Teron's venom and began working out countermeasures on his own... but all he got back was mockery.
“That's utterly pathetic.”
“Ask a goldfish and it'd reach a better conclusion than Your Highness.”
“Is the thing on top of your neck good for nothing?”
...At remarks like these, he lost his composure again and again, his anger boiling all the way to the top of his head. The mood turned into a total mess, but in the end there was one answer that could win Teron's approval.
“Will this do? A rule established under the pretext of improving student welfare, without any word or deed that names you specifically.”
“...Do as you please.”
“Good. So this will do?”
Leopold was pleased, then abruptly felt anger rise up in him.
“This was for your benefit in the first place, so why should I be the one who's glad about it. For heaven's sake, show some courtesy toward a fellow student. It's because you act this way that the people who hate you grow so emboldened.”
“Right, it's all my fault. I know that too.”
“What? Don't twist my words. And think about it. Your very attitude right now is nothing short of insolent. How far do you think I ought to keep overlooking you?”
“Then kill me now. If you can't stand the sight of me, just execute me on the spot, wouldn't that solve it? It'd be good for Your Highness, good for the academy's students. Throwing a celebration party after my death would be just perfect.”
“...You'll bring about your own ruin thanks to that mouth of yours.”
His face flushed crimson, Leopold slammed the infirmary door shut and left. Teron heaved a sigh. Surely today was the day he'd seen that man lose his temper more than any other in the world.
In truth, he did wonder whether this was really all right. The only time he'd ever scraped at the prince's nerves this badly was after the two of them had become enemies.
With nothing to his name now, if he provoked the prince carelessly and Leopold's patience finally ran out, Teron would be finished on the spot. But holding back the sharp words while looking at that insufferable face was nearly impossible.
The young Leopold was far softer and more naive than Teron remembered. He was at the age where he hadn't yet tasted the world's bitterness, where everything looked like it belonged to him. As a result, he was undoubtedly steeped in a laughable sense of justice, behaving in a stiff and pedantic manner.
That damned man was exactly the same when he grew up, but at least by then he had some sense of reality.
This was probably his peak.
Even though he hadn't eaten a thing, Teron felt his stomach turn. The more he traded words with Leopold, the more wretched his mood became.
It was a chronic affliction he'd suffered his whole life. He never wanted to speak with the man again. No, there would be no occasion to. At the very least, for the next two years, he had no need to pay careful attention to him.
The infirmary bed was ridiculously soft. He lay there listlessly on it, and before long, he fell asleep.
Ah, the little sun of the Kingdom of Deluah, higher than the heavens. That dreadful man I have to keep alive.
There was no question that Teron had come through unharmed thanks to that man. Leopold had cleaned up the aftermath splendidly. On top of that, he'd achieved the unlooked-for feat of enacting an entirely new school regulation.
Any student caught assaulting another is to be expelled immediately.
That rule, stumbled upon while Leopold got carried away tossing out one alternative after another on his own. To think he'd actually made it a reality.
He was a man who could block, with a single bloodline, all the loathing Teron Meyer received on account of a single bloodline.
Thanks to it, Teron wasn't expelled even after crossing blades with Milo's crowd. And he was no longer struck by errant wooden swords or fists. So he could pay back the ones who tormented him in exactly the same measure. Even if he made Lloyd van Acker tremble with rage, no disadvantage would come to Teron anymore.
As the stress that had been piling up bit by bit began to ease, his work on black magic was sailing along smoothly too.
After memorizing pretty much every ordinary magic formula, these days he'd been mixing various formulas together and transforming them, or trying to use them at the same time as black magic.
In his past life, he'd fallen so deep into black magic that he'd never done any proper research, but ordinary magic was a discipline with considerable research value in its own right. On the surface it looked unremarkable and weak, and generating mana with it was difficult besides. For that reason, magic had settled into being nothing more than a basic accomplishment for nobles. Support for mages was hopelessly lacking.
That was why black magic had flourished.
In reality, ordinary magic's limits were clear. So to others, it must have seemed there could be no further advancement. But if that were truly the case, how would black magic ever have been created?
Teron saw hope. It was a hope less than a small boat on a vast open sea, but even that he craved desperately.
And as for killing...
He'd more or less laid out a plan.
The hypothesis, What if black magic could be trained without killing?, he'd already turned over hundreds, thousands of times. There were in fact several methods he wanted to test. But if he busied himself with that in this urgent situation, he'd come to his senses only to find his liege had emerged from the cave and begun a massacre.
So, unavoidably, he would have to kill people in this life too. It left a bitter taste, but it was inevitable.
As it happened, the circumstances were favorable.
Teron thoroughly ignored Leopold within the academy, and Leopold Deluah did the same. Now and then he could feel the prince's gaze on him, but thankfully Leopold didn't come near.
Lloyd, seemingly having been scolded by Leopold, hurled every curse imaginable at Teron for a few days, but faced with Teron's retaliation, he began to fall back on ignoring him consistently. The students still occasionally mocked him or picked fights in public. But at least they didn't swing blades anymore. That alone was something, wasn't it?
With the peace of mind that had come to him, Teron went about completing his every preparation. He listened diligently in class and plastered his assignments and exams with top marks. In swordsmanship he swung his blade cheerfully, dutifully memorized magic formulas, and earned a very respectable score on the written administration exam.
Perhaps he'd been nervous. After hundreds of deliberations he'd finally admitted this was the best course, yet useless stray thoughts caught at his ankles once again.
Killing is a truly strange act.
It is the act of an intelligent creature, of its own will, killing one of its own kind.
Even more, the sensation felt when red blood flows from a human body, the pulse stops, and one finally realizes a single life has flickered out, is profound. A thrilling sensation rises from the fingertips. Gradually the heart pounds, and a wave of emotion surges all the way up to the skull. A feeling beyond words steeps the brain.
It was like opium. Once you started, you couldn't stop.
The first time, then twice, then losing yourself in mass slaughter. That was the clear-cut answer to becoming a black mage.
The addict decided to make his start in the slums.
