“Have you heard the most recent news?” One of the servants in the royal palace looked at an older colleague, “The crown prince has returned from the dead.”
The old servant clicked his tongue, “He didn’t return from the dead. The crown prince was never dead.”
“You say that now! Before the crown prince returned, you said something else. Didn’t you say that you saw the Devil the child! That the child’s soul was taken by the Devil! Was all of that a lie?” The servant complained to his old friend.
“I saw the Devil marking the crown prince, but there is no way that I saw the crown prince’s soul leave his body. I might be a Gifted One but I cannot see souls,” The old man responded in annoyance, “But it is a fact that no servant saw the crown prince after the child had been marked. It was later that the royal family announced the crown prince’s death. They were devastated, and the Queen didn’t recover until Sophia’s birth. Nobody suspected them of lying. Even now, I cannot imagine the royal family lying to us. I’m certain the situation is a lot more complicated than we think.”
The younger servant nodded slowly.
“Does anyone know what it means to be marked by the Devil?” a third voice asked, and the young servant turned around. The servant’s eyes bulged, and he stammered, while the older colleague mistook the newcomer’s voice for the younger servant’s.
“The topic has been avoided and was considered nefarious, but rumors started to spread the day after the crown prince was marked. According to those rumors – I don’t know for sure if any of them are true – the Synther household kidnapped the crown prince to use him as the sacrificial lamb to initiate a ritual to call upon the Devil. The information about the ritual was blocked, but I was one of the few servants on the King’s side who rushed to the Synther household when we found out what was happening.”
The old servant sighed deeply.
“Unfortunately, we were too late. The last thing we saw was the Devil – a creature of untold horrors – touched the crown prince. He was inflicted by the Devil’s Touch.” The old servant commented, highlighting the last two words as if everyone was supposed to know what it meant.
“What exactly is the Devil’s Touch,” The newcomer asked out of curiosity.
However, instead of answering, the old servant spun around to lecture his colleague, “We are not here to gossip. You should know that better than anyone after getting reprimanded for gossiping all—....day…”
The old servant’s eyes widened slowly as he realized they weren’t alone. But not only were they not alone, but the newcomer was an unfamiliar man with black hair that was pulled back and held in check by a beautiful dragon hair pin. However, the hairpin wasn’t important. The newcomer’s azure eyes were the crucial factor.
“Crown prince!” The old servant exclaimed, “I am terribly sorry!”
Percy lifted an eyebrow at that. The servant trembled like a thin branch in a typhoon. He was…afraid.
“Don’t mind me, please. You were about to say something about Devil’s Touch. What exactly does it mean to be marked by a Devil?” Percy inquired.
He might have heard about the crown prince getting marked by a Devil but had been oblivious that the crown prince in question was none other than…him.
I still don’t get it. I don’t feel princish. There is no way I am a prince, let alone the heir to the throne. I do not really feel like a devil touched me, either.
Percy tilted his head with the last comment that flashed through his mind and figured he would have to take that back.
Nevermind. My Ego has, quite literally, the grimace of a demon or devil on it. And the Lesser Demons ignored me when I unleashed the abomination of my Ego. Does that mean my Ego was altered by the Devil’s Touch? Is that what it means?
“O-of, of course, Your Excellency,” The trembling old man answered after bowing several times to him. Percy suppressed a wince and the urge to shake the old man and beg the old man to treat him like a normal human being. Unfortunately, the last few days showed that this tactic was inefficient and created the opposite effect.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“D-Devil’s Touch…means. It means that someone has been touched…touched by the power of a Devil, “The old man stuttered, trying to regain his composure, “In some old scripts, it is said that those affected by Devil’s Touch are pursued by misfortune. But the misfortune will not only befall those affected. It will befall everyone close to the one touched by the Devil.”
The old man had more to say but didn’t stop trembling. Percy lifted his hand, which was enough to seal the servant’s mouth.
The rumors are getting worse. They haven’t been this bad when I returned. I didn’t feel particularly unlucky. I might have encountered demons twice, but there are more demons in the entire kingdom in the first place. Does that mean the rumors are wrong…or am I mistaken about something?
Percy had been a little worried because nobody told him what happened after the Synther house kidnapped him. Nobody wanted to tell him what had happened, whereas the King and the Queen – his parents – tried to squeeze as many pieces of information as possible out of him. He didn’t have to be a genius to understand that everyone was trying to hide something…or that they didn’t know what happened. But that wouldn’t make any sense. Right? His parents had to know what had happened. But then…shouldn’t they know where he had been all this time?
Too many questions flashed through Percy’s mind, and none of them had been answered in the last few days.
“The Queen told me about a royal library,” That wasn’t exactly the truth, but Percy didn’t care at this moment. He heard someone talk about the library, so that is where he was headed, “Where can I find it?”
After wiping their sweat-covered foreheads, the servants motioned to him to follow. That was exactly what Percy did.
He was led through several corridors – most of them were new to him – until they ended in a corridor with several massive gates.
“The mana here is stronger than elsewhere,” Percy murmured, “I guess the largest gate leads to the library, but what are the other rooms used for?”
“One of the rooms is Sophia’s training chamber. She learns to control her mana in the room left to the library gate, your Excellency,” The young servant answered in a hurry.
“To ensure Sophia doesn’t have to run through the royal palace between the lessons,” Pery chuckled. That was cunning. Sophia wouldn’t be able to escape her Instructors by using the complex infrastructure of the palace to her advantage. Once the study session was over, the librarian would bring her straight to the mana training chamber, where the other Instructor would be waiting for her. There was no escape.
“Emilia Dark’s alchemy room is also located nearby. She dotes on her granddaughter and likes the library as much as her experiments. You can find her in this room,” the young servant points at an ivory door, “Or in the library.”
Emilia Dark was the elderly woman who’d sold potions to him a few times already. She was also the Queen’s mother and, therefore, his grandmother. That had been a bigger surprise than his being the crown prince everyone presumed to be dead.
“Thank you for helping me,” Percy said, hinting a bow. The servants paled at that and responded with an even deeper bow, “We are overjoyed to be of your service! Don’t hesitate to request our aid. We will be there for you, Your Excellency!”
Percy pressed his lips together but nodded.
He considered entering the royal library immediately, but his curiosity about his grandmother’s alchemy lair was more significant. He approached the ivory door and knocked once. Nobody answered. He knocked again after a few seconds, but there was nothing. After knocking a third and fourth time, Percy gave up. He considered entering the room nonetheless but decided against it.
I might be a little rude, but I know it’s mannerless to do this. I can check this place later.
Percy turned back to the library gates and approached them. He had to use considerable strength to push the gate open, but that was no issue.
Percy entered the library once the gate was open. He closed the gate behind him and turned around, unraveling the majestic view of dozens, if not more than a hundred, shelves filled with books.
Only the ceiling and the floor weren’t covered in books. That wasn’t the whole truth. Parts of the floor were also covered in books. The royal library was humongous, yet there was still not enough place to fit every book. That was shocking.
“It’s a good thing Sophia is doing all that studying. I’ll never be able to fit all of this into my brain;” He murmured, despite knowing that he would have to spend countless hours in this place whether he wanted to or not.
Percy was fully aware of the importance of information. Knowing something had saved his life multiple times in Raewood, whereas being oblivious to other things nearly cost his life when he was around the Glacia Knights and Melissa Reeze.
He could not escape the royal library after learning how crucial knowledge was first-hand.
Still, Percy couldn’t help but sigh.
It was about time to study again.