#180 Demon King’s Castle Escape Operation (2)
Siana had been tasked with overseeing the residential zones within the Immortal Castle, but that did not mean she had completely discarded her status as an imperial noble.
In truth, swallowing up a minor noble house had only been a means to make approaching the upper echelons easier. Now that she belonged to the undying army, there was no real need for her to cling to status.
But after all the effort she had put in, would it not be a waste to simply throw it away?
Fortunately, her master, the Immortal King Hans, seemed to have judged that it still had some use, and permitted Siana to visit her family estate periodically.
And those rare moments granted to her were no different from a vacation, allowing her to escape this stifling, musty place and once again savor the life of a noble.
“Hmm-hmm~♪”
It was only natural that a hum slipped from her lips on that day. ‘As soon as I arrive, I’ll cleanse my palate with the finest black tea and cake. After that, I’ll enjoy some extravagance while shopping. Money is meaningless now anyway, so I should spend freely without holding back. First, I’ll fill in the shoe collection I’ve missed out on…’ Siana walked briskly through the gloomy castle, organizing in her head the things she would do once she went out.
Before heading to the teleportation magic circle personally installed by the Immortal King, she was making one final round through the area under her jurisdiction in preparation for her absence—
when, in the dining hall of the residential district, she came across an undead in a rather alarming state.
“My goodness, Andrew? Is that really you, Andrew?”
“Ah? Ha, hahaha… It’s been a while, noona.”
No… On closer inspection, he was not an undead, but a person—and one of the Awakeners from Earth who had been dragged here with her, Andrew Weaver.
His complexion was so haggard that his original appearance was nearly unrecognizable, his hair was matted as if he had not washed it in who knew how long, dark circles were sunken deeply beneath his eyes, and his pupils were hazy and unfocused.
He had been mechanically shoveling food into his mouth to survive, but at Siana’s voice, he turned his head blankly and looked at her.
“…Seeing you like this, I suppose there’s no point in asking if you’re all right. No matter how I look at it, you don’t seem all right.”
“Ahahat… Ah, it feels good to see a familiar face after so long. I hadn’t seen you in ages, so I thought you’d already forgotten about someone like me.”
“Ahem. You know that couldn’t be helped, don’t you? Still, I did mention something to Olivia in passing last time…”
At the barb hidden in his listless voice, she subtly averted her gaze.
To be honest, she had remembered him not long ago and thought about going to check on him, only to promptly forget again. ‘Well, there’s nothing to be done about what’s already passed. And when I think about it, it’s not as if I did anything wrong, is it?’
Of course, true to her nature as a demon, her guilt did not last very long.
Strictly speaking, they had been in a superior-subordinate relationship from the beginning, and now they were merely peers who had enlisted at the same time. Was it not something that she was at least taking care of him this much?
“But is the work that difficult? I thought you, of all people, would know how to handle things efficiently.”
It was not as if using his ability showed on the outside, so he could simply close his eyes and take it easy while sitting down.
She could not understand how someone as naturally lazy as him had been driven to exhaustion by work that was not even mainly physical labor.
“…It’s not that I didn’t try that. But that woman catches things like that with frightening accuracy. She said she could tell just by looking at the biological reactions in my body…”
“Ah, I see.”
Life-force detection, one of the basic abilities of the undead.
Certainly, for a being on Olivia’s level, using that to grasp the state of the person in question would be nothing at all.
She was also, quite literally, a real ghost.
“After I got caught a few times… they even assigned me a quota. If I couldn’t meet it, I wasn’t allowed to return to my quarters! To make it so I couldn’t properly rest in an environment overflowing with undead and black mana—doesn’t that make her no different from a demon?!”
As he recalled it, Andrew’s voice, which had been weak at first, gradually rose with indignation.
And at those words, Siana, an actual demon, felt her mood sour along with it.
To demons, being told one was demon-like was practically a compliment, but using it like an insult was another matter entirely.
“Yes, yes. I’m glad to see you still have some energy left. But do you have the luxury to chatter like this right now? You should hurry and finish your meal, then get even a little sleep.”
“Urk! R-right. I got excited without realizing it. No, but noona, you were the one who spoke to me first…”
Grumbling at her reproach, he sat back down and began stuffing food into his mouth again.
Siana watched him for a moment, then gave a light shrug and turned away to resume inspecting the area.
Now that she had greeted him for the first time in a while, she intended to finish her duties quickly and leave this tiresome place.
Because her mind was so hurried—
she failed to notice the suspicious air Andrew gave off after she left him behind in the dining hall.
“Whew—.”
After staring at Siana’s back for a while with a gaze that was somehow relieved yet tinged with regret, he soon turned his head with a short sigh. ‘She was hard to see even normally, so this will be the last time I meet Siana-noona. It’s a bit regrettable that our farewell is like this… but it can’t be helped.’
More than nine years had already passed since he had been transferred to Auterica.
Now that his return was finally before his eyes, he continued eating with the intensity of battle, in order to endure what little time remained. ‘Now… very soon, there really isn’t much left. I just have to hold out a little longer.’
Dreaming only of escaping this hell.
***
The second residential district of the Immortal Castle, where contact with the outside was restricted.
“…It’s today, right?”
“It’s today.”
There, Princess Riley and Hesperon, who had been engrossed in magic training as usual, exchanged quiet words.
At last, the moment she had so desperately longed for had arrived.
The day she would escape the grasp of the Immortal King and reclaim her freedom.
“The situation happens to be not bad, either. The fact that the woman named Lilith who was watching us is away means there’s that much less chance she’ll notice the anomaly right away and respond.”
It had been only yesterday that Lilith had said she would be unable to come for the time being, then left a large amount of food behind and told them to handle their own meals.
Normally, informing prisoners of such information would have been unthinkable, but since this place was not an ordinary prison either, it was not particularly an issue.
However, that came with one unexpected problem…
“Still, my mind had been at ease since I hadn’t seen that face for a while. This is a bit regrettable.”
“What are you whispering about, Riley? You look awfully carefree. I suppose you’ve been living quite comfortably while eating the feed those bastards give you? Like livestock.”
Namely, the crown prince, who had been forced to stay holed up all this time, was now free to move around.
Crown Prince Simon Carte Azerion, who had been Andrew’s target in the early days of his imprisonment here, and Siana’s toy afterward.
He had spent each day being tormented and, even when alone, usually shut himself in his quarters to soothe his exhausted body. Yet after resting all day since yesterday, it seemed he had recovered enough stamina to wander around like this. ‘Is it because he grew up eating so many good things? His stamina is incredible, at least.’
Moreover, he had a fairly well-trained body as a knight, so it was not entirely incomprehensible.
Of course, when Siana saw that, she merely liked it even more, saying he was sturdy.
“Oh my, if it isn’t my elder brother. Have you finished today’s laundry and cleaning before coming out? If you forget even for a single day, you might be scolded later, you know? They might say your obedience training was lacking.”
“Ghk! You, you…!”
Having picked a fight for no reason only to be struck where it hurt, he opened and closed his mouth with his face flushed red.
It was incomprehensible why he would start a verbal fight first when there had never been any chance for him to win one in the first place.
“…Ha! You suit each other well, flocking together like that. To think you would be clinging to some vagrant of unknown origin. I suppose lowly blood cannot be hidden after all?”
In the end, he dragged Hesperon, who had merely been standing quietly beside her, into it as well, and began trampling over her entire maternal family.
At that, Riley’s eyebrows could not help but twitch this time.
Her maternal family was certainly a noble house, but they had the weakness of having originated from a merchant family without much history.
Even her maternal grandmother had married in from a wealthy merchant family, so it had inevitably become a favorite target for the conservative faction led by the crown prince.
Just as she opened her mouth again to counterattack—
“Well, now.”
Hesperon, who had been watching quietly from beside her, scratched the back of his head and stepped slightly in front of her. ‘No matter what, dragging family into it crosses a line.’
Besides, if one thought about it, that bit about lowly blood had included him as well, had it not?
He, too, had been born precious in his own way and raised pampered as an only son. This was an abusive remark he absolutely could not overlook.
“The person called the crown prince sure talks to his little sister in a spectacularly ugly way. And then you go around fussing about dignity? It’s absurd.”
“…What? Who do you think you are? How dare you interfere here?”
He had picked the fight first, yet now he was asking why Hesperon was interfering.
Was that not a scene that clearly revealed his usual self-centered way of thinking?
It seemed the training he had received all this time had not been very effective. ‘I’ll have to say something to Siana. It seems she’s been too indulgent because he’s a toy she likes.’
Judging by that attitude, still not cowed after being tormented every day for over a month, his ego seemed remarkably high.
To make an opponent like that obey completely, consistent attention and management were necessary.
“This is definitely something I need to talk to his owner about. Because his education is lacking, the beast she was raising ran outside and is baring its teeth at just anyone, isn’t it? Seems the trainer’s skills aren’t that good.”
Grind—!
“…Heron?”
When even a lower-class nobody who appeared to be nothing at a glance began mocking him, a chilling sound rang from Simon’s teeth.
Riley’s expression likewise turned worried.
For her, as a fellow member of the imperial family, this was an everyday occurrence. But given the prideful crown prince’s personality, it was obvious what would happen when someone he judged to be beneath him insulted him.
On top of that, the overseer who would control the situation was absent right now…
“Heh
—Fine. It wouldn’t be bad to make an example of you while I’m at it. I’ve been unbearably irritated lately anyway. …As long as I don’t kill you, those bastards shouldn’t say much.”
His subsequent reaction was exactly as she had expected.
“Wait. Are you planning to use force here right now—!”
At that, she hurriedly tried to bring the situation under control, but in truth, Simon, whose stress had reached its limit, had not a speck of patience left.
In the first place, the reason he had forced himself outside despite his poor condition was to vent that anger that felt about to burst somehow, so this could be called a convenient excuse instead.
Wooooong
—As if he had made up his mind, aura rose from him without hesitation and strengthened his body in an instant, sharply drawing up his dulled combat senses.
Like Riley, he had not spent long dedicating himself to training, but his age in his late twenties and his rather excellent talent were enough to make him a knight in his own right.
“Kuhuhut
—Let’s see whether your skills match that mouth of yours.”
At the very least, he was not an opponent that two people who had only just moved beyond beginner mages could face.
Even if he was not in normal condition right now.
And Crown Prince Simon, who had once again gauged their level with his now sharper sense, knew that fact very well.
With their level, they could never stop him!
“Heron! First, we—!”
He cut off Riley, who had opened her mouth urgently—
Kwaaang!
“I’ll make you crawl on the floor! You lowborn wretch!”
With his face hideously twisted, he kicked off the ground and charged at Hesperon.
His fist sliced through the wind as if to crush his opponent’s face.
And he—
Thwack!
“Khek!”
Crash—!
Took a clean hit from the entirely natural dodge and counterattack that followed, and rolled across the ground.
Crawling on the floor, just as he himself had said.
“Ghk, what… is this?”
“…Huh?”
At that unexpected situation, not only Simon himself, but even Riley, who had been hurriedly preparing magic, blinked in bewilderment.
He was not a high-ranking knight one could call a veteran, but among regular knights, he had reached a fairly high level.
In the first place, a knight was a human weapon that polished only combat techniques.
He was not an opponent some lower mage with no particular preparations could resist…
“You’re impatient, too. How is someone like this the crown prince? I’m worried about the future of this empire.”
But Hesperon paid no heed to their reactions, merely grumbling lightly and saying what he wanted to say.
All while mana from support spells, activated at some point, streamed from his entire body.