"Unfortunately, this cannot happen."

A person had once again appeared from the dark part of the cabin and caught us unprepared.

"Wonderful. Extra load." Hiroshi said, as he got disappointed by the sight he saw,

King Heinrich's son himself, Arthur, had infiltrated the ship just like we had, but managed to stay there quietly listening to us for a long time without coming within sight of any of us. And to the confusion of the incident, everyone, including me, looked at Arthur in deep amazement and tried to understand what was his intention at first when he entered the ship.

Just like an unnatural power, he had been invisible to come up here. But at last, he was in front of us.

The expressions on the faces of my friends were quite obvious to their surprise. While being astonished, the prince's sentence was interrupted too. And we wanted him to make a statement against it.

But the main thing that we had and wanted, was another question in mind. And before we even set that out, stepping forward, Babu asked the question we all wanted to.

"Prince? What are you doing here?"

We were all still standing there with our bare feet stuck like to the ground, and looking in every direction at his body to see if it was real or not.

But to my surprise, nothing in my vision was changing. It was Prince Arthur, and he was there.

"I have heard certain speeches in your conversation with the king, including that you are going to the third kingdom. That is why I am here."

Then one word after another, Hiroshi made it clear to the prince what kind of situation we were in,

"Our trip is already dangerous enough, and we are not in a position to carry extra cargo. And besides that, we can't come to a sense of saving you in danger. You should have stayed at the palace with people who could really ensure your safety."

"I know what a responsibility I have come into by coming here, but I do assure you, you will not get into any trouble because of my choices. So all I ask you is to let me accompany you to the meeting of the kings, and then I shall return to my kingdom, where I belong with my father."

"But Hiroshi is right too. We have already come up with a set of plans, where all of us have a standing point to figure out our next move and such. But you coming here randomly, won't solve anything, and will only add to it."

"I am not that immature to seek out help from strangers to my kingdom. While I mean no harm with my meanings and words, like I said, I can take care of things that I will face and stop myself from being a burden."

Even though we all wanted to offer the Prince a much more satisfying option and stop this from going worse, we couldn't stop at that moment. If we did stop for just a moment, Miron would get the littlest hint of us, and that would have been so dangerous.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

So giving one last look at each other, we finally gave up on convincing him.

*sigh* "At least we are not going to deal with that psychopath killer for once."

"And what if, when we get to the third kingdom, we leave the Prince in a safe place? Then he can be safe under the patronage of the king, and that could prevent him from coming with us. Otherwise, it will be very dangerous for him."

"It is not that easy too, Panda."

"But how?"

"The fact that the Prince just disappeared while his kingdom was under war, and then randomly appeared in the third kingdom is quite absurd, but interconnected events. If we just let the prince go, we will put the Prince's life in greater danger, not only for the hunter to catch up with us and collect clues. So it would make more sense for him to stay with us right now, and if we can travel at the required level of privacy, there will be no problems."

"But unfortunately, it is very difficult to trust the kings, especially at this time."

"Why is that?"

"My father said that trouble had been diagnosed for the fourth and fifth kings. However, he, like me, has not seen other kings for many years, or has not arranged any meetings and received information about what is happening. I know that they are my father's brothers, but how much can we trust them at this time? Dozens of high-ranking people, people with power in their hands, are controlled by only a few Epic ones. But what if they're under control, just like my little uncle? What if they're working on epics? And sincerely, we don't know any of those."

"Does that mean you want us to turn you over to them?"

"That and a little more that I will want later on. I want to go before my father and see it in person."

"And I'm still trying to figure out what kind of surplus he really is." Hiroshi said, as he leaned toward me and wanted not to be heard.

But to my surprise, The Prince did something the opposite of what Hiroshi said and meant.

He seemed very sad and his eyes started to tear up.

"The black knight. No. Akihiko. He was like a brother to me. When we were growing up together, we even made promises to each other. We were both going to be knights and protect this land together. But one duel after another, as our dreams collided with each other's will, the door opened by life closed on us. It's not his fault, and I can never accuse a person of such a sublime thing as death. However, I lost my comrade at the very moment when I was closest to achieving the result. I lost my friend. A true hero to everyone in the kingdom. If it had been him, we could have reached the heavens."

He then lifted his head with teary eyes, and little drops falling from his face, he said,

"But I guess I'm the only one left who can keep that promise, huh?"

He was trying his hardest to not cry and the scenery we had over him, his lips shaking, body frozen, eyes slowly closing and a fading away hope, it was so hopeless and painful to watch him like that, thus thousands of feelings were vanishing inside him, and was breaking both him and us.

At such an unexpected moment, we all felt like shot in the head, and didn't know what to do.

To a such strong and loyal friend like him, we have once been reminded of the nobility and the chivalry of Akihiko. His actions, moves, purposes, goals, beliefs, dreams, everything he had. Was affecting the ones dear to them, and changing them. Just like his closest friend Arthur, everything he had done was impactful, done by someone who put everything he had on the line with an enormous amount of effort.

It was a miraculous thing to watch but was crushingly painful at the same time.

Leaving us speechless, we had no idea how we could soothe him in a complex situation like this. How to lessen his pain. However, the desire in his eyes, even if it was self-evident, was a bad thought. His heart seemed to have lost the rotation it had, to have remained in a dark way of life.

He was so lost, that I found myself comparing his dark feelings, to the dark desires that I had in my heart.

To the ones I couldn't get out.

*I guess this is how it feels like to feel the same thing over somebody.*

I clenched my fist with pain, over and upon him.

*I didn't like it.*