“That's not it. Do you think I'm crazy enough to do something that insane?”
“Something insane? You just did.”
“Enough with the pointless wordplay. I don't have the energy to keep humoring your nonsense.”
Leopold snapped back, stung.
“Is that any way to talk to someone who's worried about you?”
“It's been nothing but nonsense. What worry?”
Irritated, he flung Teron's dagger far away. When Teron Meyer glared at him fiercely, he gave a firm command.
“Don't even think about touching it again.”
“...Have you lost your mind?”
“No? I'm at least saner than you.”
“Give it back right now, Leopold.”
“You keep pulling these insane stunts, so why should I hand it over? As the First Prince of the Kingdom of Deluah, I have the right to protect a citizen in danger.”
“Quite the saint, aren't you. Cut it out and give it back. I won't put up with this any longer either.”
Somehow, Leopold found it funny. The nerve, when he didn't even have the strength to stop him!
This whole situation was bewildering, and Teron Meyer was, truly, a strange, deranged man... yet this moment, with him genuinely seething with rage, brought Leopold at least a small measure of relief.
“Then come here. I'll heal you.”
“I can heal myself, so leave me be.”
“Oh? Then you do it. I'll watch you do it myself, right now.”
“No. Why should I?”
“Then I won't give your dagger back either. How long did you think I'd tolerate your rudeness?”
Grinding his teeth, Teron Meyer spread a magic circle. As he poured healing magic into his own wrist, he muttered a ceaseless string of curses under his breath.
Leopold ordered, “Heal your throat too.”
“Who are you to give me orders?”
“As you said, I'm a prince, and you're nothing more than a student at the Royal Academy, aren't you? In that case, you'll do as I say.”
When Teron ignored him, Leopold, unbothered, stepped closer, meaning to cast healing magic on him. Teron Meyer bit out in a low voice.
“I'll do it myself.”
“Good thinking, Teron.”
In the end, Teron spent his own mana and healed himself completely. Since it was rare for a wound to be perfectly healed even with healing magic, such magic was usually only used as a supplementary aid to treatment. Leopold blinked, startled.
“How is this possible? The wounds are all healed.”
“They were shallow wounds, that's all.”
“Shallow or not, this magic doesn't have that kind of potency to begin with.”
It was thanks to the mana amplified by black magic. Teron said nothing in reply. Leopold's eyes sparkled with admiration.
“Fascinating. I've never seen anything like it in my life.”
All Leopold knew were the basic, academy-level spells, which was exactly why he could marvel like that without noticing a single thing out of place.
Teron slumped down again just as he was. He was terribly tired, but a joy that transcended all of it washed over him.
Ten years, counting his past life. He had achieved what he'd failed to accomplish in all those ten years.
Self-harm strengthened his black magic too. Even more than killing a person did.
The first time he'd slit his wrist after waking, it had worked; the second time, it had failed. When he'd strangled his own throat, it had worked.
What connection ran between these?
His heart pounded wildly, beyond his control. He couldn't fall asleep the whole night through.
The next day, too, they spent the entire day hunting monsters. Leopold showed no sign of tiring, and in the end he accomplished the feat of slaughtering every last monster that dwelled on the mountain. He really was something.
Just butchering and hauling the carcasses took ages, and trading those carcasses in for the bounties took a truly long time as well.
It was nearly night by the time Teron arrived back at the academy, his body caked in blood. In his hands he held about 300 gold.
An enormous sum. It was an amount that could rival not just a noble house's coffers but the budgets used by the royal palace itself. Because killing even a single monster required a tremendous amount of manpower, those bounties were set so high. Honestly, if not for Leopold, he could never have earned this kind of fortune so easily.
Only then did Leopold pull off his robe and toss it aside. He muttered, “How should I deal with these clothes?”
Whatever else, they'd spent two full days together, all day long. Even in his past life, he'd never exchanged this many words with anyone.
Teron Meyer stepped close to Leopold and snatched away his blood-soaked robe.
Leopold looked surprised, then smiled faintly.
“Thanks.”
Leopold Deluah.
The First Prince of the Kingdom of Deluah. The queen's legitimate son and the boy first in line to the throne. Clever, and, though Teron loathed to admit it, good, and, in proportion to that goodness, horrifyingly repulsive.
Teron blinked. He stared fixedly at the golden-haired boy before him.
He must not die. Leopold Deluah must not die.
Somehow, by whatever means, you at least...
“Teron.”
He called softly.
“At the academy, if there's ever something I really need, would it be alright if I spoke to you?”
Teron Meyer replied, “...Do as you please.”
The First Prince smiled. Teron looked away.
In a life that was long if you called it long and short if you called it short, he had never once seen that man smile at him like that, or speak to him like that.
Why on earth was he doing this? In an instant his mood soured, and Teron Meyer simply turned away. Leopold said his farewell.
“See you.”
“Teron!”
A bright voice rang out. Teron, who had been gathering up his books and about to slip out of the classroom, flinched in surprise.
Stealing a glance behind him, he found a boy with dazzling golden hair grinning and waving at him.
Beside him stood another boy, the pitiful, pitiful Lloyd van Acker, who scowled and glared fiercely at Teron Meyer. Wretchedly, he'd been fated lately to keep coming face to face with the person he hated most in the world.
Teron Meyer gave no reply. But he no longer ignored Leopold and walked past him the way he used to. At this change in him, Leopold tossed out a playful joke.
“So now you actually listen to me.”
“Just say what you want.”
“So cold. Let's spar together in swordsmanship class later.”
“No.”
Teron Meyer refused flatly. Fighting would only get him beaten to a pulp and defeated, and all the while he'd have to be beside a celebrity of the Royal Academy. How conspicuous would that make him?
“Why?”
“I want to be left in peace.”
“Then come somewhere quiet with me.”
“...Tell me later. I have to get to my next class.”
“Our next class is the same one, though.”
Leopold beamed.
Damn it. Teron scowled at the prickling stares that were slowly multiplying.
Shameless as he was, once he became aware of the sheer number of stares pouring down on him lately, there was no way his mood wouldn't turn foul.
It was the same now. Cold glares fixed on him. Their gist was mostly along the lines of A lowborn commoner, daring to... And this was all because of Leopold Deluah.
Ever since they'd hunted monsters together, Leopold had started acting all friendly with him. Right inside the academy, no less. At every possible moment.
At first Teron had scowled and insisted he not be spoken to, but the more he did, the worse Leopold's strange affliction grew. The more Teron recoiled, the more Leopold delighted in it, clutching his stomach with laughter. Undaunted by Teron's venom, he kept striking up conversation endlessly.
The wish to live quietly was already a lost cause. That damned man repeated his antics as though he felt no shame at all before others' eyes.
And even after he learned that filthy rumors, enough to make his blood boil, were circulating... Teron decided to let go of everything. Once he did, even the little bit of self-consciousness he'd had disappeared. There was even some fun in watching Lloyd's face beside him now, flushed crimson as he choked down his fury.
He let out a sigh.
“Do as you please, then.”
“Hey, Leo... you always sparred with me in swordsmanship class. What am I supposed to do?”
“That's for you to figure out. Don't think I don't know how wide your connections are.”
“...That damn plague of a commoner.”
Leopold smacked Lloyd van Acker across the mouth. Teron Meyer sneered at the sight and walked past them. Lloyd's face flushed red. His maroon eyes blazed up in fury.
But what did it matter? He couldn't do anything anyway.
It was an undeniable fact that his life had grown easier thanks to Leopold.
Quite a long time had passed since Teron discovered the method for strengthening black magic: self-harm.
First, summer vacation went by.
In that brief span of only two weeks, Teron busily took care of the things he absolutely had to do.
His greatest achievement was uncovering the principle behind how his black magic grew stronger.
Even over the break, he holed up in the academy, staking out a corner of the pine forest all day and repeating all manner of experiments.
He cut wounds into every corner of his body, introduced magical formulas, and even used potions. As a result, within a single week Teron Meyer was able to grow as strong as when he'd killed dozens of people. The method was as follows.
First, killing intent directed at oneself strengthens black magic.
But self-loathing wouldn't just surge up out of nowhere while sitting idle. Borrowing the power of potions and magic, he first used illusion magic to conjure up figures.
The mistakes he'd committed throughout his life, the people he'd faced...
