“…No. I can't agree with anything you're saying. Life is sacred. They may not understand everything I say, but they're still human beings, one and all, precious existences who must never be treated carelessly. Even if you don't understand it, it's an undeniable truth. Someday I'll…”
Leopold spoke, then caught himself. Talk like this was, in one light, nonsense; in another, it was seditious thought. Either way, it was equally damning.
He knew perfectly well that he was strange. But Leopold's mind reasoned that way, and if you asked him whether it was fate, he would answer yes. A cruelly unkind destiny given to him alone. A punishment of enduring, all his life, a loneliness that had seeped into his very bones.
The boy with his jet-black hair pulled into a tight knot, still a little smaller than him, was forever mocking him.
Every time they exchanged words it grated on him, and at times he was so insolent that Leopold could barely contain his anger, yet in the end here he was now, having set aside even the dignity a prince was meant to keep, muttering things that seemed strange even to himself.
“Your Highness has surely never nearly starved to death.”
Teron kept picking at his words. Yet, absurdly enough, Teron Meyer's dagger-like insults were slowly cracking Leopold out of his shell.
“That's right. I never have.”
“Filthy and reeking, never once having read a word of writing in their lives, incapable of anything resembling thought, rummaging through garbage bins every single day just to keep from starving to death. Are you saying we should call things like that human?”
“Of course. They simply haven't been educated. They're precious human beings all the same.”
“They're nothing but beasts thrashing about to survive. For the common folk, life is endless suffering. If you truly wanted to make them happy, you shouldn't have tossed them bread. You should have cut them down in a single stroke.”
“…Everyone wants to live.”
“They want to live because they're alive. Once they're dead, their hellish lives are gone.”
Life is suffering. And to live as one of the destitute in the Kingdom of Deluah was suffering greater still. Something the noble prince would never know for as long as he lived.
Teron could hack innocent lives to pieces without a shred of guilt. He still believed that killing the street urchins was the act of saving them.
And yet Teron Meyer regretted it to the marrow of his bones. Why on earth? Truthfully, he still couldn't understand it. And yet he regretted it. Sometimes he even dreamed of dying slowly, little by little, amid piles of corpses that gave off the reek of blood.
The kindling burned pleasantly, and they said nothing more. In the endless silence, Leopold slipped out of the cave, saying he'd scout the surroundings. Teron slumped face-down onto the cave floor just as he was.
When he closed his eyes for a moment and came to, Teron Meyer was face to face with a monster.
That monster was truly strange.
Its shape was human, but it had no face. No, perhaps it had had one. Teron looked at something that was like a face and yet was not a face, and gagged. He realized his own hands were trembling violently.
He hurriedly looked around and saw a dagger fallen on the ground. Teron moved his shaking legs and picked up the dagger lying abandoned far off. He had to kill that monster, and fast.
If he didn't kill it right now, he would die.
Dagger in hand, Teron Meyer approached the thing, which stood perfectly still, one step at a time.
Feeling his whole body convulse, Teron dropped the dagger he was holding.
And then he strangled its throat.
Ah, it choked and thrashed. The feeling of a life crumbling away. This exhilaration that surged through his whole body when he killed a person. Teron's black magic ran wild throughout his body. The strangled thing kept resisting, then gradually melted, oozing down to the floor.
Teron Meyer, feeling true bloodlust for the first time in ages, snickered. The small laugh soon turned into a roar of laughter. He made an ugly sound, laughing until he cried.
Ah, how could he be this happy. How could killing that thing be this delightful.
“…Teron.”
In that instant, a sound came from far away.
This place was surely a black space sealed off on every side, so where on earth was the sound coming from?
“…Stop it, st-op it!”
The black space Teron was in began to warp.
Teron Meyer kept struggling to kill the thing. But the warping space was already stretching the distance between him and it ever farther apart.
“Teron Meyer!”
A dreadful pain fell over him, and Teron let out a fit of coughing.
Choking so hard he could barely breathe, he kept blinking at the blurred view before him, until at last he came face to face with a pair of aqua-colored eyes.
“Have you lost your mind? What in the world is this, right now…!”
Leopold was gripping both of Teron Meyer's hands tightly. It would be more accurate to say he was restraining them.
His wrists held fast, Teron coughed endlessly, then in that instant felt the pain draped over the back of his neck and the energy of his black magic thrashing violently at his core.
“Do you have any idea what you just did?”
Leopold shouted. Teron shook his head.
“You were strangling your own throat, in your sleep…”
Strangling his own throat?
Teron roughly yanked his wrists out of Leopold's grip and groped at the back of his neck. It stung, and it made him want to retch.
In his stomach, filthy, sticky mana churned.
A sensation he hadn't felt in ages.
Teron smiled wide.
So this was it.
This was it!
But why? All of a sudden?
It wasn't as if he hadn't done similar things before.
And yet the corners of Teron's mouth slipped beyond his brain's control.
He grinned foolishly, then pulled away from Leopold and, without hesitation, slashed his own wrist with the dagger.
Blood flowed, and it hurt. The black magic, already rampaging, surged as if it had to release its energy outward that very instant.
He had grown stronger! Just like when he killed a person!
But the joy lasted only a moment.
Teron slashed once more. And yet the rampaging black magic stayed exactly the same.
The ripple he'd felt each time he grew stronger was there no longer.
Why, why wasn't it working? The very moment his dagger was about to bury itself deep into his forearm again, Teron Meyer had the blade snatched away and his whole body bound.
“Let go, let go, you madman, Deluah!”
Teron Meyer thrashed. But the hold would not loosen. So enraged he'd lost all reason, Teron went straight for Leopold, trying to bite him and tear off a piece of his flesh. At the same time, their eyes met.
“Snap out of it!”
The aqua eyes shook without mercy. Leopold's face was stained with panic and fear.
“Please, snap out of it, Teron… hm? What on earth is the matter with you!”
Suddenly he came to his senses. In an instant he became aware of how he must look to that damned prince.
In truth, this was the first time he'd seen the ever-composed Leopold in such an unsightly state. Sunk in deep self-disgust, Teron let the strength drain from his body. And then he set his mind to work.
Why hadn't it worked just now? Because he'd been awake? Because he recognized himself as “himself”? Did it only take effect while he was asleep? But when he'd cut himself the first time, he'd definitely felt himself grow stronger.
Whatever the case, this was a remarkable achievement.
Even now the laughter wouldn't stop. Once a possibility showed itself, he could turn it into the right answer by whatever means necessary.
He wouldn't have to keep being a murderer, despised by Leopold, any longer!
Teron Meyer became aware of the golden-haired boy pouring healing magic into his wrist while muttering to himself.
Now he found him less repulsive. Teron replied evenly.
“Get away from me at once.”
“Get a hold of yourself!”
“I'm perfectly fine, so back off. Stop making a fool of yourself.”
Leopold obediently drew back from Teron. Even so, he kept stealing glances at him.
He seemed to be reading Teron's mood. He was struggling to feign composure, but his agitation was plain to see. Teron reluctantly explained himself.
“It's because I had a nightmare.”
“You call that an explanation?”
A sharp reproach came back at once. But then Leopold made a face as though he'd blundered, and quickly added,
“Then why did you do that just now?”
Ordinarily Teron would have ignored it entirely.
If only the sight of that fellow fretting so anxiously over him weren't so hard to watch.
“I thought it was a dream.”
“Are you insane?”
“I'm perfectly sane. Now that I know it wasn't a dream, nothing like this will happen again. So stop with the ridiculous fuss.”
“…What kind of dream did you even have.”
Faced with that insolent tongue, Leopold felt relieved that Teron had finally returned to normal.
He could feel his pounding heartbeat gradually steadying. And yet he was still afraid.
In all his life, Leopold had never seen anyone put a blade to their own wrist so calmly. It made no sense that he ever would have.
Who on earth could wound themselves without the slightest flinch?
And a fellow that rude and insolent, no less…
The sixteen-year-old boy was left dazed by the fresh mental shock. His skill at managing his expression was of no use anymore either.
At the naturally trembling tail of Leopold's words, Teron let out a sigh.
“Your Highness, I'm fine.”
“…Fine, you say?”
“I had a nightmare. When I woke, I doubted whether this was real, and I did it without thinking. Nothing like this will happen again.”
“Teron, don't tell me… the wound you got back in the pine forest, was that your doing too?”
How clever of him.
