The Seventh Prince Runs Away from Awkward Situations

Chapter 6 : The Hunting Competition (1)

The 1st Prince, Rasia Abalan, headed to his bedroom with a confused heart.

He had dismissed his people and was on his way back from visiting the court physician.

That foolish old man, upon hearing he had gushed a nosebleed, had worn an expression just as uncomprehending as the 1st Prince.

It was only natural.

The imperial family rarely gets sick.

A body twice as strong as others, unaffected by poison, and impervious to illness.

Along with Manis, it was an element that made them gods.

But to suddenly gush a cupful of nosebleed.

That quack old man, who had checked his pulse with trembling hands, just repeated that there was nothing wrong, like a grandfather clock.

Unable to overcome his anger, he had tried to throttle the court physician, only to gush a nosebleed one more time.

“Dammit!”

Roughly wiping the tip of his nose with his sleeve, the 1st Prince kicked the door open and entered.

Usually, he would have dragged in a line of maids and servants to attend to him, but he could not show such an unsightly state to his subordinates.

Why did it suddenly become like this?

Until this morning, he hadn't felt anything wrong with his body.

He had spent the day no different from yesterday.

But when he used Manis at the ritual, it felt like fire was flowing through the veins of his whole body.

And the red blood that had flowed down his hands.

For the first time in his life, something akin to fear was felt in Rasia's mind.

Surely, it doesn't become like this every time I use my power?

What has happened to my body?

What if I am dying every time I use my power?

When the hypothesis was formed that he might not be able to use Manis from now on, his blood ran cold.

……In that case, what will my life be like until now?

It was a body that had lived its entire life to become the Emperor.

But if he became a half-wit who couldn't use Manis, he would become a nobody.

He would become no different from those servants over there, whom he regarded as insects.

“No, that can't be. In any case, he said there was nothing wrong with my body.”

He repeated it to himself, but he knew better than anyone that he wasn't convinced.

Feeling his fingertips trembling with anxiety, Rasia reached for the side table.

Inside the drawer was a hookah that the 2nd Prince had once gifted him, saying it came from a faraway country where brown-skinned humans lived.

Originally, he had said it was a drug because it was addictive, but since the imperial family doesn't get addicted to narcotics or poisons, he just had to enjoy the pleasure it gave.

He didn't do it often, but there was nothing that put his mind at ease like this.

It was the moment he grabbed the long-necked hose to put it in his mouth.

“If you're anxious, it would be wise to cut back on that first.”

An emotionless voice came from the window.

“Who is it!”

Rasia shouted roughly in the direction the voice had come from.

From the shadows, a black figure slowly revealed itself.

At the appearance of the unexpected person, Rasia frowned.

Black hair and black eyes.

A height and build that fell far short compared to his other siblings, who were nearly 2 meters tall.

It was his half-wit younger brother, who was worse than an insect.

“Ha! You must be crazy. Do you even know where this is, for the likes of you to…….”

Soon after, Rasia, his pride wounded by the fact that he himself had been startled by such an insect, flushed red and was about to roar.

“I know, right.”

Though he couldn't, thanks to his calm younger brother who cut him off without a single change in expression.

“What……?”

Presently, the 7th Prince looked straight into Rasia's eyes and continued.

“Someone like me has entered the room of the next Emperor, said to be the second safest in the Empire, without anyone knowing, and you're not even scared. As expected, the 1st Prince, unlike me, must truly be a child of the gods.”

At the end of those words, the young, black-haired prince smiled cynically for the first time.

At that sight, Rasia felt a chilling sensation sweep down the back of his neck.

It was just as the bastard said.

Even if he had dismissed the people around his bedroom, this was the 1st Prince's Palace.

Beyond the floor the bedroom was on, knights loyal to him were still patrolling tightly, and devices were installed on the outer walls of the building to prevent anyone from climbing.

A place where no one could recklessly enter, nor was able to enter.

But this bastard in front of him, just when on earth had he gotten in here.

The fear of the unknown, which he had not felt in his peaceful life until now, was striking the 1st Prince multiple times today.

***

This guy, he's simpler and more of a coward than I thought.

No matter how out of it he was from the sudden situation, for a guy who's called the next Emperor, he couldn't hide his expression at all.

I had just said it to test the waters, but the 1st Prince was visibly flustered.

“You…… what, you've lived as if you didn't exist until now. Lying flat, like an insect……. But how are you here…….”

As if he had already gushed a nosebleed and had all sorts of thoughts on his own, the guy's face contorted more and more.

“I'm asking how you got in!”

I felt like I was going to make my eldest brother, who was almost thirty, cry, and I also thought someone would come if he raised his voice any more, so I opened my mouth.

“I climbed the wall.”

Fortunately, the 1st Prince shut his mouth.

Though he started looking at me like I was sick in the head instead.

“……You?”

The 1st Prince glanced at my arms, which looked feeble compared to his (the forearms of an average 20-something), and frowned.

True, if I said I had climbed the 4-story high building wall with these arms, avoiding numerous traps, I'd probably look at me like that too.

“No, it was a joke.”

“Then what?”

The 1st Prince frowned and asked, as if he was starting to feel a different kind of fear, the kind one feels from a madman.

“Actually…….”

When I lowered my head and deepened my voice, the 1st Prince focused on me with a tense expression.

“I flew like a bird.”

The guy's face, which had been listening seriously, went blank for a moment, then gradually flushed red.

“You, you bastard, are you messing with me right now…….”

He wouldn't believe me even if I told him the truth, so I had no choice.

I shrugged and cut off the 1st Prince, who had quieted down thanks to that.

“Well, that's not what's important, anyway.”

“No, if that's not important, then what is!”

“Blood. You gushed it, didn't you.”

The 1st Prince bit his lip firmly, then said, as if spitting it out.

“Something like this is nothing to the imperial family.”

“In a week, you'll be vomiting blood from your mouth, too.”

The guy glared at me and said.

“What kind of bullshit is that? The court physician just…….”

“Must have said there was nothing wrong.”

This time, the 1st Prince shut his mouth completely.

A thick suspicion seeped from his expression, which asked how I knew that.

As in, 'Didn't you bastard do something to me.'

“I know you're flustered, but use your head a little. If I wanted to kill you, I would have just left you alone, without needing to take the risk of coming here. Even you can feel that if things go on like this, it'll go badly, right?”

The 1st Prince was still glaring at me, but I could feel that his spirit had died down a lot.

“You yourself probably know roughly what will happen if you don't listen to me now.”

As I spoke, perching on the sofa in the center of the bedroom, the guy flinched.

“You probably already know, but you'll gush blood every time you use Manis. The more you use it, the worse it will get. Right now, it's just your nose, which has weak mucous membranes, but if a little more time passes, you might spew blood from your whole body and die, even if you use just one drop of Manis.”

The color completely drained from the guy's face.

It's a relief that my first brother is simple.

He reacts just as he's given, even if I scare him just a little.

Though that's probably why he fell for it in the first place.

At the situation going as I thought, the corners of my mouth crept up cynically again.

“Congratulations. You're about to become the insect bastard you despised so much.”

“……What do I have to do?”

He finally seemed to be in a state to have what you'd call a conversation.

***

“Anna, as I thought, you were wrong.”

Lin whispered as she pushed the tray containing the untouched lunch and entered the dining hall.

“His Highness isn't just a little strange, he's extremely strange.”

“He didn't eat at all this time, either?”

“Not even one grape.”

Lin held up the bowl.

It was already evening, but the green grapes, left in the same state as when they were taken out at lunchtime, were a little dry.

Anna tilted her head as she looked at it.

Lately, he had been scraping his plate clean like a malnourished beast, so what was wrong now?

She felt a sense of incongruity at the Prince's change in behavior.

This time, it seemed that not only she, but a few others had noticed as well.

However, they were people who had no loyalty or interest in the 7th Prince in the first place, and were only thinking about surviving in a brutal daily life where they could die at any time, so they just let it pass.

Only Anna held a curiosity about him amidst the hard and difficult daily life.

Even if it was a change, it wasn't that the 7th Prince had become particularly kind or affectionate to the servants.

The servants still couldn't see the 7th Prince's face properly.

However, if the reason before was that he was holed up in his room, lethargically reading books or just looking out the window, lately, it was surprising because the prince was busy.

He was mostly in the study, rummaging through books or writing something diligently.

To the servants who entered to serve him his meals, he repeatedly just told them to get out with a cold expression.

Later on, he even threatened that anyone who looked for him when he was in the study would have to starve for the whole day.

Also, he would sometimes go outside the castle in comfortable attire and come back covered in dust.

On those days, the smell of alcohol wafted strongly from his clothes, so everyone thought that after being quiet for a bit lately, he was getting drunk and causing a disturbance again.

Among them, who were indifferent, only Anna again discovered the prince's clear gaze.

Anna instinctively realized that a big change had happened to the Prince this time, too, but she kept her mouth firmly shut.

She just muttered softly, “He must be going through a growth spurt,” to Lin, who was clearing the food, and continued to organize the dishes.

***

Clop. Clop.

I pressed my stiff eyes gently on top of the swaying horse.

1 month since the 1st Prince gushed a nosebleed at the ritual.

It seemed everyone was hushing it up, but they whispered behind his back whether the 1st Prince hadn't lost his ability as an imperial family member and his qualification as the next Emperor.

Opinions were also slowly emerging that since the possibility of the 1st Prince being appointed as the Crown Prince had lessened, the opportunity had gone to the 3rd Prince or the 1st Imperial Princess.

In the original work, to silence this, the 1st Prince overexertes himself and implores the Emperor to move up the hunting competition.

This unreasonable strategy of the anxious 1st Prince works, after a fashion, but it eats away at his body and shortens his lifespan.

And now, the flow of this world is following the original work faithfully to some extent.

The hunting competition was moved up, and the 1st Prince will show in front of everyone here that he can still use Manis fully.

The cogwheels are turning well, just a little early.

The problem is that I still can't tell if this is something happening only in this Imperial Castle, or if it's also happening outside, that is, to the protagonist.

The hunting competition and the nosebleed incident are intertwined in a chain of cause and effect, so I can assume that's the case, but the rest of the events, at least, cannot be known from within the Empire.

My job is to mediate in the middle so that the points where the two timelines connect mesh well.

To do that, I need to put the events here under my control.

And at the right time, I have to pretend to be dead and bolt far, far away.

As I thought, this kind of passionate role doesn't suit me.

Bwoo- Bwoo- Bwoo-

At the low horn sound that snatched back my mind, which had wandered off to future plans, I directed my gaze forward.

The sight of my siblings, riding white horses with golden manes, proceeding in a line, entered my eyes.

It is the procession for the hunting competition.

Of course, I am in the very last spot.

This is an event I could have skipped at my own discretion, but today, I chose to participate.

Because if my calculations are correct, today, I might get a chance to change an important person's fate and find out about the developments outside.

“It's a jet-black horse that suits an insect-like bastard like you, isn't it?”

Before that, I'll have to shake off this cockscomb bastard picking a fight with me from the side.