The Regressed Prince Holds Many Secrets

Chapter 1

I was staring down at my own lifeless body.

“What a futile end, Shion,” she said, giggling.

“To collapse just before the throne I so desperately craved.”

I didn’t answer.

I was dead, after all.

“But don’t worry. When I open my eyes, it’ll be the past,” she whispered.

“Yes, regression. Another chance. That was the promise, wasn’t it?”

Her words were sweet.

Too sweet for a hero like me, who’d lost comrades, honor and everything that made me who I was.

“This time, I should reach it. That imperial throne, the destiny I never grasped.”

She called my name, the name of a failed hero.

“Now, return, Shion Pollinglight.”

A silver flame flickered.

“With a soul bearing seven secrets, I’ll reach the pinnacle of the great empire.”

Time twisted.

The future became the past, the past the future.

Her fading whisper lingered in my ears.

“But don’t forget. The final secret will overturn everything.”

* * *

I lay on a bed as a child.

A nightmare must’ve gripped me; my delicate face was contorted.

“Not yet, not yet…” I groaned, my body drenched in sweat.

Then, trembling violently, I snapped my eyes open.

A sharp, steely glint flashed as I bolted upright.

“I, Shion of Merion, am still…!”

My shout trailed off.

“…Huh?”

I looked around blankly.

No blood’s stench.

No spears, swords, or clamor.

Just soft bedding and warm sunlight.

My body felt heavy, the sheets clinging to me from sweat.

“This is my room. From when I was very young.”

Startled, I stepped forward—thud.

My chin stung.

Moving felt awkward.

My limbs seemed shorter, and they were.

Sprawled on the floor, I stared at my hands.

“And I’ve become a child.”

Lying there, I gazed at the ceiling.

A sparkling crystal chandelier, the bedding’s scent, the maple-stained view outside the window.

It felt faintly unfamiliar, but nostalgia soon hit me. Overwhelmingly so.

“Then this is…”

As a child again, I was certain.

I’d returned to a place I could never come back to.

“Regression, another chance!”

* * *

“The past, huh.”

I mulled it over, finding it oddly amusing.

“All those events… they haven’t happened yet. The calamity, Serena, that war…”

My head grew cluttered, so I looked up.

The crystal chandelier gleamed brilliantly, its brightness making me frown.

Faces flashed through my mind.

My secrets, too.

Suffocating quietly, I shook my head.

“Calm down, calm down…”

I exhaled slowly.

“Let’s go over it. What I need to do, who I am, as if explaining to a reader opening a novel for the first time…”

As if that could be the case.

My memories were tangled—battlefield blood, the woman who sent me back, the destiny I mustn’t forget, the secrets buried in my soul.

But first, the most important thing, what I must not forget.

“I am Shion. Shion of Merion.”

I reaffirmed my name.

My breathing steadied.

“I was called a hero and aimed for the imperial throne. Yes, the throne, the pinnacle of the great empire. I had to reach it.”

I looked at my small, pale palm.

A child’s, untouched by hardship.

No toil or scars, just fragile whiteness.

Unfamiliar.

Painfully surreal, yet real.

“But I failed and I died… yet I’ve returned to the past.”

I sorted my questions.

“How old am I now?”

I scanned the room.

Things I hadn’t noticed came into view.

Maybe because I’d steadied my breathing.

I saw my reflection in the window, pulled out toys hidden under the bed, and spotted books on the desk.

I soon confirmed it.

“Around eleven years old. So… I’ve gone back nineteen years.”

The books on the desk told me the most. Ancient Poetics, Understanding Mana, Hortus Linguistic Discourse… No doubt about it.

My memory’s sharp.

These were what I studied at eleven.

A name was written on the covers.

ZIONIS.

I let out a strange exclamation.

“Zionis!”

My old, nostalgic name.

“Right. Nineteen years ago, at eleven, I was Zionis. Before I took the name Shion.”

Facing a name I’d long discarded stirred new emotions.

Seeing it carved a fierce certainty in my heart.

“Names are strange. They make it real in an instant. That I’ve returned to this time, this land…”

I looked outside.

Mottled maple leaves.

Beyond them, a human city—stone paths, bell towers, palaces.

An orderly, splendid city. Beyond, the land stretched on, fertile and rich, endlessly.

“This land is called Cordis.”

A land pulsing with life and vitality.

A grand, lofty civilization of a thousand years.

The great nation holding the continent’s heart.

“My father’s empire.”

* * *

CORDIS, the great empire.

It hadn’t fractured.

It hadn’t declined.

It hadn’t dulled.

For a thousand years, it stood proudly at the continent’s center.

Everything was the empire’s—the most fertile lands, vast rivers, wisest sages, bravest heroes, and greatest emperor.

Praise the Great Emperor Continua.

He was the master of the thousand-year empire, one of the three greatest emperors.

“And my damned father.”

I, Shion Pollinglight, am the son of the Great Emperor Continua.

Not a hidden child, but the empire’s acknowledged heir, the Fifth Prince Zionis.

“Though I wasn’t thrilled about it.”

Reflecting on my noble bloodline brought me no joy.

“A great father. Great siblings. How utterly unappealing from my perspective!”

Six princes and two princesses with claims to the throne.

Eight siblings, but only one imperial seat.

The fight was bound to be fierce.

Backed by maternal clans, with poison on blades and froth at their mouths, all for that singular throne.

“Caught in their battles, I abandoned my name, my status, everything, and fled.”

Before regression, I had no choice.

Swept into my siblings’ conflicts, I gave up everything, clinging to life, crawling away like a dog, leaving this land.

I discarded the name Zionis then.

“I’ve returned to the empire I fled.”

With the old name came forgotten emotions, pricking from deep within.

Anger?

Regret?

So festered, I couldn’t tell. My eyes gleamed coldly.

“As the Fifth Prince Zionis once more.”

A chilling aura flickered in my gaze.

“Yes, if that’s so, this time, I’ll…”

At eleven, Zionis had fled.

Abandoning my beloved homeland, everything.

I had no choice.

But it’s different now. It has to be.

“I’ll change everything. I’ll reach it.”

I am Shion of Merion.

A hero who crossed nineteen years.

“The pinnacle of the great empire, that imperial throne.”

* * *

“But power. It’s about power.”

I looked at my hand again.

Still white and delicate.

“My body and mana are completely that of a child.”

My eleven-year-old frame was so frail it could pass for a girl’s.

Naturally, since I’d never trained properly to avoid my siblings’ notice.

The situation was worse than I thought.

“Above all, Septem Arcana. All but one sealed shut.”

Septem Arcana.

The seven secrets birthing seven arts.

The power that made me a hero, but all save one was sealed and with my mana like this, even the one left…

“It’s fine. With time, I can recover quickly.”

Having crossed time, I have many ways to grow strong. I am Shion Pollinglight, after all.

“For Shion of Merion, this adversity is… Hm?”

I perked up my ears.

Footsteps approached from afar, coming closer quickly.

“Someone’s coming. In quite a hurry.”

“Your Highness, I’m entering!”

* * *

“Have I risen? I knew you were awake!”

A man with chestnut hair burst through the door.

“Well, of course!”

He flung open my door without ceremony, yet didn’t care. Instead, he chattered loudly.

“I can’t dawdle like this! Oh, this is bad. Really bad!”

“…”

I stared blankly at him.

Chestnut hair, nagging chatter—it was exactly as in my old memories.

My lips moved.

“…Pies?”

“Yes?”

He tilted his head and I asked again.

“You’re Pies Roesti?”

“Yes. I’m Pies. Your Highness’s sole imperial guard. Is there another Pies?”

“Ha.”

“Right, there was such a man.”

Pies Roesti.

The Fifth Prince Zionis’s imperial guard, nursemaid and only companion.

In this palace where no one approached, he was always by my side.

“The day I fled the palace, Pies died in my place…”

Time is cruel.

I’d forgotten such a man, who gave his life for me.

My heart grew heavy and I gave a bitter smile.

Seeing me lost in thought, Pies spoke with concern.

“Your Highness Zionis? Is something truly wrong?”

“No, just glad to see you.”

“Glad?”

A face I saw every day, yet glad?

Pies tilted his head again.

But he soon forgot it.

That wasn’t important.

The situation was urgent.

“If there’s no issue, good! We’re out of time! Hurry and prepare!”

“Prepare for what?”

“What? What’s wrong with you!”

Pies exclaimed in shock.

“Are you saying you forgot what today is?”

“I did.”

“A joke… Wait, really?”

“Really.”

“Good heavens!!!”

I stayed calm.

Seeing no urgency on my face, Pies jumped.

Groaning, he clutched his head and bustled about.

“Anyway, anyway! We need to find your formal clothes. Everyone’s gathered, and I’ll be done for!”

“Gathered? Who?”

“Who else? The princes and princesses, Your Highness!”

“…Huh?”

My siblings—those who’d tear each other apart.

Why were they gathered?

Feeling I’d missed something, I looked out the window.

The maple leaves were still mottled.

It’d be a while before they fell.

“Could today be…”

At eleven, in autumn.

My siblings gathered…

A foreboding sense crept in.

“The tenth day of the tenth month?”

“You know well.”

Pies answered without looking up.

Where did you put your formal clothes? Ah, found it.

Wait, no pants or cloak! Can’t they give us a proper wardrobe? Such neglect! Ignoring his muttering, I continued.

“Then, the day of the succession proclamation?”

“Exactly!”

“…”

I slowly raised my head.

“Nineteen years back and it’s the first day of the succession war…”

I’d returned to the first day of the battle that twisted my fate.

In a child’s body, with no power!

I laughed.

I couldn’t help it.

“Damn it!”