They'd been moving for a while when Leopold stopped in his tracks and gave a low warning.
“I hear something. Very faint.”
Something, my foot. The moment Teron scoffed, a troll's cry actually rang out.
“...”
Leopold drew his sword and settled into a ready stance, muttering.
“Three at least. I can handle them. Teron, you stay right there.”
“Quit throwing my damn name around. I'll manage on my own, so butt out.”
“I believe I told you not to talk that way.”
“If you can't stand the sight of me, you could just toss me to the trolls for dinner.”
“That's enough!”
He snapped at Teron and leapt straight up into the air. Three, four, five... more and more trolls surrounded them. A gurgling shriek rang out. But the trolls' lives soon met their end on Leopold's blade.
Leaping into the air, Leopold swung his longsword and buried it in a troll's neck. He vaulted lightly onto the troll's shoulder. Then, before the troll could so much as react, he drove the blade straight in.
With a wet spurt, blood sprayed, and the troll met its fate then and there.
Teron watched the sight blankly. He drilled the thought into himself.
Trolls are fundamentally beasts intelligent enough to use simple tools. There was a high chance the five trolls gathered here were all related as a family. A living creature that was some other troll's precious family, its precious life, had just been crushed to nothing. This was killing, a grave sin, an act no different from murder—
Damn it.
No matter how he thought about it, he felt nothing at all.
The conclusion was clear. Even if he killed that troll with his own hands, nothing would change about the black magic.
Still, you never knew.
Teron Meyer pulled a dagger from inside his coat and hurled it at a troll's nape.
The troll with the dagger lodged in it let out a cry and thrashed. Leopold, who had been cutting down monsters with dazzling skill, went wide-eyed and looked at Teron.
Teron walked straight toward the troll. The monsters trying to attack him were already being held off by Leopold, so his movements were unhindered.
Leopold had already slashed into the troll's legs to make it easier for Teron to kill it.
The troll had collapsed, but it was still alive. Teron Meyer put his strength into it and pulled out the dagger buried in the troll's neck. Then he cut the neck clean through.
His face caked in blood, Teron muttered.
“Maybe killing an orc will make some difference.”
Nothing changed about the black magic. He didn't feel so much as a speck of guilt. Teron Meyer let out a hollow breath.
This too was a failure. Killing a higher creature might change things, but the odds were slim.
What remained was to animate the corpse with magic and crush it again.
Killing a higher creature.
Or else...
Leopold shouted.
“Teron, you're good with a sword.”
Somewhere along the way, he'd already killed all five trolls. It was truly remarkable skill.
Even royal palace knights struggled greatly to kill a single troll. And yet a boy of sixteen was this strong.
It was a height Teron Meyer would never reach even if he spent his whole life gripping a sword.
Leopold said it was out of the question, but at this rate it seemed possible he'd become the palace's first sword master within three years.
And if he was this good...
He could beat anyone, as long as it wasn't Yuan or Arnold.
It was partly because the black mages hadn't committed many killings yet, but even so, it was astonishing.
In his past life, Leopold had been a sword master, and yet he'd died at a single gesture from a black mage... so his strength had never really registered.
Is it that black magic is that formidable, or that I'd been underestimating him?
The trolls' corpses and the scattered blood were horrible just to look at. Leopold said,
“This isn't the end. More will come.”
“...The sun has set completely. Wiping out the mountain's monsters will take a long time. Are you still going to press on?”
“No. However sharp my eyesight, day beats night. We've spent all day just wearing ourselves out, so it'd be better to rest.”
Having said that, Leopold put on his trademark guilt-ridden expression, as though about to play the hypocrite again. His hesitation was so unbearably grating that Teron snapped at him.
“Just say it.”
“Teron, I'm sorry, but it looks like we'll have to spend the night here.”
“And where else were you planning to spend the night, if not here?”
“If you really hated it, I was going to head back down and take a room at an inn. But looking at your reaction, I suppose that was needless worry.”
They wandered the area looking for a suitable place to camp. Luckily there was a cave nearby, and they went inside. Teron used magic to light a fire, and Leopold, letting out an insufferable exclamation of admiration, encouraged him.
“I should've at least brought a sleeping bag. Can you really sleep in a place like this?”
“Quit fretting over nothing and shut up. Just being in the same space as you is dreadful enough.”
Leopold gazed at Teron for a moment, then smiled faintly.
“Thank you for coming with me. Let's carry the troll corpses out all at once tomorrow.”
The campfire crackled as it burned. Teron leaned his back against the cave wall and buried his face in his knees.
He wanted to kill a person, and soon. No, he had to.
He didn't want to skulk around the slums hunting for vagrants like some petty criminal trying not to get caught.
He didn't want to be trembling over merely killing a few vagrants.
The reason Teron Meyer, who had been a vicious murderer, was carrying on so pathetically was entirely because of the boy in front of him.
After a long silence, Teron let out a small, slow question in a hoarse voice.
“Does Your Highness really hate killing that much?”
Leopold blinked and asked back, as though puzzled.
“Why the sudden curiosity about that?”
Lit by the flames, his glossy golden hair looked brighter still. His innocent gaze, holding that same firelight, gave Teron a considerable sense of revulsion.
Teron Meyer said nothing more.
As if he'd lost all will once again, he simply chased the embers with a hollow stare.
Watching him, Leopold spoke in a low voice.
“I do hate it.”
“...I see.”
“I hate killing, and I hate watching things die.”
“I know.”
He knew very well.
Thanks to that man, he'd seen all manner of terrible sights in his past life, and he'd go on seeing them from now on too.
“You know? Have you really been that interested in me?”
Leopold wore an intrigued expression. There was a faint sarcasm within it, probably a small spark of malice toward a commoner who insulted royalty at every turn.
Teron answered in a sharp voice.
“I haven't seen the stupid things you do just once or twice, so how could I not know?”
“...Do you hate me that much, Teron?”
The sixteen-year-old boy somehow looked pitiful. For an instant, a rage that felt as if it would burn past combustion and disintegrate rose up in Teron Meyer, and he clenched his gums. As the faint taste of blood registered, he sneered.
“I do. I wonder just when the noble prince will finally admit it.”
Leopold was unruffled. He no longer frowned at Teron's rude tone.
This was a strange, fresh change. It was a first, even counting his past life.
Instead of offering Teron advice, gentle and dignified, the prince of Deluah said something unexpected.
“I've thought about it for quite a while, too. I understand why you hate me.”
Even seeing Teron's expression twist, he went on as if it were nothing.
“Whatever my intentions, I know my actions could look, as you say, full of hypocrisy and elitism.”
“...”
“I thought I'd done my best in my own way. Honestly, I didn't realize I could be such a hateful, detestable person to someone. Either way, this too must be my failing. So I want to apologize.”
Shut up. Right now.
Teron Meyer wanted to scream it. But no voice would come out of his mouth.
“Would that be all right?”
No, it wouldn't. A nausea surged up as if stomach acid were flooding back. His face twisted of its own accord.
Seeing Teron like that, Leopold hesitated for a moment, but in the end he ran that loathsome mouth right to the finish.
“I'm sorry. From now on I'll try not to judge and act as I please. You won't have to feel any displeasure.”
“Leopold Deluah, just shut up, please. Everything you say is dreadful.”
As Teron commanded, he fell silent. But it seemed he was, in the end, nothing more than a sixteen-year-old brat. Lost in his own emotions, he ended up clouding Teron's vision with rage once again.
“You spout awful things every time, but you're the kind of person who shares food with the starving poor. Not a single soul in the Royal Academy, no, not one among the royals, the central nobility, or the provincial nobility, would ever think to share bread with the poor. They'd assume that just going near them would give them some deadly disease.”
Leopold gave a scornful smile.
“Innocent lives are dying even now. In the Ruden domain, they say a great famine struck this year and thirty percent of the domain's people died off. If they'd only released the grain packed tight in the storehouses, every one of them would have lived. I knew of the count's plundering and yet did nothing. But you, you were entirely different from me. The way I see it, you're...”
Teron cut Leopold off.
“Don't be stupid. For those vagrants earlier, dying was a blessing. Handing out bread today was the same as adding another day's worth of suffering to them.”
“What?”
“Can His Highness not understand plain speech?”
