Chapter 270
Be More Dignified Than Anyone (3)
At first, when the Crown Prince awoke, Adelia However, her joy soon passed, and her heart had begun to sink. It all happened when the prince said, “Will you raise up Carls next to you there? I haven’t slept properly and skipped some meals.”
The Crown Prince’s face was filled with anxiety when he said it was painful for him to see the proud Carls kneeling.
“I’m afraid I’ll fall.”
Hearing that, Adelia stopped her tears for the first time and whispered to herself that she was scared. The prince had never said anything like that, even when Winter Castle had fallen to the army of countless orcs, or when he went forth from the castle, determined to deal with the Warlord. Everyone knew this.
“Why?”
Only the Crown Prince himself was unaware of this him that he did not know; such words felt wrong in her mouth. For her, it would be the greatest disrespect to commit.
And so, while she kept her mouth shut, she looked at the prince’s face, which was pale and tired after hearing the news of Winter Castle’s duke. Adelia was not familiar with the prince having such a face.
In the deep of night, when he groaned and moaned without anyone knowing, his face looked the same. This was the first time Adelia saw him show such a weak face in his waking hours.
His Highness’s behavior, clenching her hard enough that it hurt, was also different from usual. Somehow, the prince looked smaller today. She could see he did not feel well with his emaciated face and thin body.
Unlike usual, his expressions changed countless times within a short period, and the anxiety that was constantly there made him look diminished. That was what made Adelia afraid, and she couldn’t even think of leaving his side. Lying next to him, she drifted out of sleep. She heard the prince talk to someone. Keeping her eyes shut, Adelia gauged the energy of the late-night visitor. A person possessing unique, sharp energy stood by the door. It was not difficult to guess who it was: Arwen Kirgayen, the only one whose energy was this sharp. Adelia closed her eyes even tighter.
Right now, Arwen was not someone that Adelia wanted to encounter. Why did she, who had been stuck in her room all this time, come to visit the palace this late, without anyone knowing?
To Adelia, who had poured out curses and harsh words, Lady Arwen had said that she would be leaving for her family’s fortress soon. One fact Adelia had known from the very beginning was that when everyone was unsure and hesitated, Arwen had stepped up and carried such a heavy burden. After the events, Adelia couldn’t live with herself because she had failed to protect the prince, and she hated herself because she had not even fulfilled his final request. This made Adelia spit out her resentment at one she had so sincerely loved.
Had Arwen made excuses in the face of Adelia’s great anger, she would have felt a little less guilty. But the honest woman had stood there, enduring all the resentment silently. This had made Adelia even more embarrassed and regretful. She knew it was stupid and selfish for her to be so hateful.
It was then that a hand had clenched Adelia’s tightly, energetically—the Crown Prince’s.
“It’s all my fault.”
His voice was full of regret and guilt.
“I did something that I could do to no one else.”
At the same time, his voice was also stronger than ever. Adelia couldn’t stand it anymore, even in her semi-wakeful state. She opened her eyes; so near that she could touch his face were she to reach out, was the Crown Prince. The twenty-two-year-old prince seemed as if he was looking at a faraway place, and his gaze remained unprecedented, solid.
**
Not long after Adelia again woke up, Bernardo Eli arrived. He stood in front of the prince, attempting to hug him, who had just woken up, with a liquor-smelling body. The prince merely told him to go wash and change his clothes, and Adelia feared an energetic hug would damage the prince’s weakened body. Eli acted as if he was shocked, and left. However, he soon reappeared, his appearance improved, and he still wanted to embrace the prince.
“Don’t come! Just stay there!”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a hug?”
Adelia couldn’t stop herself from laughing, finding Eli’s persistence ridiculous.
“Yeah, you have to laugh like that,” the prince told her.
Even in the middle of the prince’s quarrel with Eli, Adelia continued to laugh, liking his warm words and improved disposition.
“Aren’t you too discriminatory? Why reject me?” Eli asked as he looked at the prince.
“Does it hurt your heart?”
His Highness was just like his former self. Eli, though, despite his profanity and ire at the prince’s supposed lack of selflessness, seemed very grateful today that his master yet lived.
“I’m going.” Eli, who had been begging for a long time, woke up.
“Don’t you want me to hug you?” he tried one last time.
“I won’t let you hold me.”
“I’m really going.”
“Go.”
It felt a little regretful for Adelia to see that Eli was about to leave the room, and she regretted that the prince’s lively words would come to an end.
“You better never die, Bernardo.” It was then that the Crown Prince spoke.
Stopping at the door, Eli looked back. “Until the time that the Eli family is reborn as the best family of knights on the continent, you may not die, you must not be killed.”
“I am greedy not to die—so, am I fated to live forever?”
Eli, who had stood blank for a while, unable to understand, distorted his expression.
“Look to the future!” the prince urged. “Soon, the day will come when everyone in the world will call the Eli family the best!”
Then he again told Eli not to die.
“Don’t face some blue-skinned monster, with both of you stabbing each other in the heart, with you dying a useless death.”
Eli’s expression looked strange as he heard such a strangely detailed scenario.
“Is that a bad story you’re telling, or are you worried?” Eli asked
“It means don’t die by getting your heart pierced.”
The prince repeated the same request over and over again: “Don’t die with a pierced heart.”
“I never once planned on dying like that. So get rid of your anxiety, if you really are anxious,” Eli grumbled with a sad face, then left.
“Adelia.”
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“You don’t die, either.”
Adelia nodded with a grim face, feeling the desperate anxiety contained within the prince’s words. She promised that she would never leave him alone.
“You must not die without closing your eyes within half a day, crying in pain, bleeding from stab wounds in each arm and leg, and your chest and waist respectively. Yeah… Never die like that.”
Although the example was overly detailed, Adelia did not speak, fearing that she might refuse an order by doing so.
“You look uncomfortable. You’re not the one with all the tears and snot on them, so it doesn’t make sense,” the prince said jokingly.
Adelia, remembering that she had not taken care of the prince because everything had been so busy, prepared to change his clothes as always. When she began, she suddenly hardened.
“What?” The prince looked at her, asking what was wrong, but she didn’t answer—no, she couldn’t answer.
The prince was supposed to have his funeral in three days, and the clothes he wore could be said to be his burial shroud.
“But… I said I hate white clothes, so what is this I’m wearing?”
“I’ll help you change!”
Hearing his words, Adelia hastily helped the Crown Prince remove his clothes—so that he would never realize the nature of the garb he was wearing. It was a close call, Adelia thought.
**
It was from that day on that the Crown Prince told people they should not die, giving strangely detailed examples to each person he met.
“Don’t die miserably with your limbs cut off, laying on the ground next to a pile of corpses, Carls.”
“I… Yes, Your Highness.”
“Never.”
“Yes, I’ll never die like that.”
During those times, the people looked very uncomfortable but facing the Crown Prince, they only replied that they would not die so, for he was full of pure goodwill.
Two days later, when Duke Balahard and the king finally reached the capital, Adelia suddenly realized a surprising fact: during the past two days, the Crown Prince had never expressed feelings of being cramped and wanting to go out. He didn’t even ask where his sword was, which he would normally seek first. He just laughed and chatted with those who had come to him.
Adelia knew it was entirely impossible, for the Crown Prince was unable to remain still even for a while. Perhaps the real miracle was not that he had returned from death, but that he was maintaining a calm demeanor at present. The palace knight Carls Ulrich, whose eyes unexpectedly met Adelia’s, shook his head quietly. His eyes told her that he knew of her feelings, but that he did not want to provoke the quiet prince by asking about it. So, she, too, forcibly erased the doubts that had popped into her mind. Good things, pleasant things—she recalled only that.
That evening, those who had departed from the capital soon returned.
‘Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!’
Then, there came heavy footsteps, and someone opened the door; it was the duke. Vincent had not even brushed the dust from his shoulders and head, and he just stood before the door looking at the prince. No, he stared.
The king appeared later and stumbled when he saw his eldest son lying in bed and staring at him.
“Sir Schmilde… Am I seeing correctly?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Then, you mean that the man over there is my son?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The king approached and touched the prince’s face.
“You are really Ian, right?”
Instead of answering, the prince smiled gently—a warm smile that he had never before shown to his father. The king opened and closed his mouth several times, and then he hugged his firstborn, careful not to harm him in any way possible. The Crown Prince, in his father’s arms, then raised his hand. He wanted to reach out and hug his father, but that proved to be quite difficult.
The king, who had been holding the Crown Prince for a long time, quietly released him from the embrace and withdrew.
“Your Majesty. I am not a man of many words, I don’t want to be, but I think I should be so now.” It was then that Duke Balahard spoke. He was terribly polite, yet his voice was strangely cold.
“I think the title of Duke of the North that I renounced will be absolutely necessary within this moment.”
“In the first place, I never retracted your title,” the king said.
“I’m still a duke. That’s fortunate,” Vincent coldly laughed and entered the room, his armor rattling. “If I admonish a person who has already strayed, now that I know my position here, will your Majesty rebuke me for my blasphemy?”
“I have pledged not to look at your sins unless we speak of your recent controversial attempt of taking the ranks of the northern army into the forest. However, what you want to do is not that, but rather to condemn your cousin, who is like a brother to you, for his transgressions.”
“Now, wait…” The Crown Prince protested, only then noticing the unusual atmosphere, but no one listened.
Duke Balahard went to stand in front of the prince, then he began pouring out words in a ferocious voice. These were words far too disrespectful to say to a country’s Crown Prince. At the same time, despite their coldness, they were also words everyone wanted to say. Even Adelia unwillingly cheered for Duke Balahard as she watched.
“Uh, ah…” The Crown Prince began to mutter stupid sounds, not knowing why such terrifying words were pouring from the duke’s mouth.
“Woo,” Vincent took a rough breath after releasing the words he had held inside himself for a long time. His eyes, staring at the Crown Prince, were cold as ice. Yet, they did no stay like that for long, for warmth quickly arose in the duke’s eyes.
“So…”
‘Warak!’
With an attitude that was now more like melting snow, the duke hugged the Crown Prince.
“Don’t be like that again.”
At this, the prince gave no answer.
“Thank you for coming back, your Highness.”
The prince’s face remained blank, almost as if his soul had escaped from him.
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