Chapter 108

Meanwhile, at the same time—

“What is going on...? House Schletz is Her Majesty Queen Grace’s family!”

Lucas and I were in full emergency mode.

All of a sudden, knights had begun occupying the city, and far in the distance Marquis Schletz was shouting at the top of his lungs.

He was declaring that the King would be summarily executed for a number of crimes.

“Lucas. Whaddaya do?”

“What do you mean, what do we do?”

“I think Dad’s trying to start a rebellion.”

“...What?”

With both of us leaning out the window side by side, we turned to stare at each other.

I knew Argen was going to receive a severe punishment, but I had never expected Calypse himself to become the leader of a rebellion.

If he had joined forces with House Schletz, was he planning to put Queen Grace on the throne?

I was trying to guess what would happen next when Lucas shouted in protest.

“What do you mean, D-Dad’s rebelling? Dad’s the hero of this country!”

His face had been pale ever since he heard the word rebellion.

It seemed he thought Dad was doing something wrong.

“That’s exactly why he’s trying to rebel! The King of this country does whatever he wants!”

“That’s... true, but...”

Lucas faltered and shut his mouth.

He, too, seemed to have been deeply disappointed in King Argen after the public sparring match.

As the heir of House Kreutz, he must have realized that Argen had been openly trying to push our family aside.

But right then—

“W-what about His Majesty the King? You’re running away by yourselves?!”

Directly beneath the window—

a voice rang out from a secluded alleyway, making my ears perk up.

Huh? That voice sounds familiar.

“We’re escaping precisely for His Majesty’s sake. There should still be nobles staying in their townhouses near the center of the city. We need to ask them to send reinforcements as quickly as possible—”

“Oh. It’s Mister Tree!”

I stuck my head out the window and shouted.

The man below froze stiff as ice and looked up at me.

It was Tree, King Argen’s aide.

“Uh.”

The instant our eyes met, he stared blankly at me for a moment, then went, “Uh—uh?” and widened his eyes.

Apparently, he had only just recognized me.

But why is he here?

He was King Argen’s aide.

If the royal castle was in chaos right now, shouldn’t he have been with Argen?

Could he possibly have been—

running away?

“Oh.”

My eyes widened as the thought suddenly struck me—

“...Uhhhh!”

Tree, equally startled, hurriedly covered his face and took off running.

“W-wait, sir! Where are you going?!”

The man who had been with Tree panicked and ran after him.

I stared down at them with my mouth hanging open.

Wow.

He really was betraying Argen and running away.

I thought he was one of Argen’s closest aides, too.

No loyalty at all.

“Lucas, we have to catch him first!”

“Go out there and catch that man right now! Right now!”

At my words, Lucas ordered the knight commander, who had been watching with us.

The knight quickly threw open the door and raced after Tree.

I’m not losing either—!

Boing.

I tossed off the blanket I had still been wrapped in and tried to climb over the windowsill—

“Dandelion, you’re still in your pajamas!”

Lucas grabbed me in horror.

Normally I would have changed clothes first, but this was an emergency, so I used the cockroach method and skittered down the wall.

Lucas floundered for a moment, unsure what to do, then jumped out the window too.

“Lucas, power ready—!”

“Hey! It’s dangerous, so stay behind me!”

Back and forth.

We raced each other as if competing to get ahead.

Soon, the knight commander’s back came into view.

And Tree, who was fleeing from him, as well.

I closed one eye and roughly calculated the distance between us.

Good. He’s well within range.

Since I was wearing pajamas, I did not have my poison needles.

But I still had more than enough weaponry to catch him.

Keeping my fist closed, I stuck out my thumb and index finger to make a finger gun and aimed at Tree.

Then—

“Lucas, power pew!”

I mimed firing with a bang, and Lucas dashed past me—

“I told you to stay behind me!”

The instant he stomped his foot, sharp icicles formed.

Crack-crackle—!

Ice spikes erupted forward as though charging straight down the alley.

A moment later, Tree’s frail scream rang out from not far away.

We hurried around the corner and found him °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° sprawled on the ground after tripping over the icicles.

“Yes! Success!”

Smack!

Lucas and I high-fived excitedly.

“Ah.”

Then, apparently remembering that he had been angry with me until just a moment ago, Lucas put on a fairly scary expression and roughly pulled me into his arms.

“Ghk.”

“You. Stay right here in my arms. What kind of trouble are you planning to cause next?!”

Wouldn’t you call it being quick to act rather than causing trouble...?

What would’ve happened to Mister Tree if I hadn’t been here?!

It felt unfair, but considering my past record... maybe Lucas wasn’t being entirely unreasonable.

“Hmph.”

Anyway, we had succeeded in stopping Tree.

Still forcibly held in Lucas’s arms, I was dragged over toward him—

“Stop!”

A large hand suddenly blocked our path.

“Poison has spread across the ground. It’s dangerous to go any closer!”

It was the knight commander.

“What do you mean...?”

Poison?

Here, all of a sudden?

Still held in Lucas’s arms, I raised my head to see what was going on.

Beyond the knight commander’s body, an astonishing sight came into view.

The enormous icicles decorating the path ahead were being covered by something.

The stone road.

The bricks of the mansions.

Even the dandelions and wildflowers growing between the stones.

It was as if we had stepped into a black-and-white film.

Only the area surrounding Tree had been swallowed by darkness in the middle of the colorful world.

As though everything there had lost its life.

“This is...”

“What happened?! My icicles!”

Lucas’s lips trembled in horror.

Even the icicles he had created were not merely turning black.

They were melting.

Icicles created through ice power never melted.

They were not ordinary ice.

There was only one thing capable of breaking another person’s power.

A stronger power.

Which meant that someone capable of erasing Lucas’s icicles would have to be—

“Hi, Aisha.”

That was when it happened.

At the familiar, melodious voice that sounded almost as though he were humming, I jerked my head up and found its owner.

Right.

Someone capable of erasing Lucas’s power could only be—

“This is our second time meeting today.”

Avin.

The protagonist of this world.

The hands of the robed boy were stained black.

So he really is a poison power user.

If it had merely been poison he had applied, sticky black liquid should not have been dripping from his pale hands.

Drop.

Drop.

It looked as though it were being produced by his body itself.

But how? He shouldn’t be able to use two powers at the same time.

My thoughts were in chaos, but that was not the important issue right now.

“...Avin. If you’re trying to run away, just come with us. You didn’t know anything and the King was using you, so once the war is over, you might be pardoned.”

Avin was a good person.

At least, he had been in the original story.

I did not know why Argen had managed to win him over, but if we could clear up the misunderstanding—

“Hmm. I don’t know.”

But—

“Aisha, ever since I was at the Pose ducal castle, I really wanted to become a useful tool. Like you, the one Duke Pose favored.”

The answer was nothing like what I had expected.

“The King used me as a useful tool, and I liked that.”

He was not the boy I knew from the original story.

I did not know which twisted part of this altered plot had affected him, but the values of that once-kind boy had changed.

“I’m not a tool—”

“But a useful tool should be used by a capable master, right?”

I stared blankly at him in confusion and tried to argue, but Avin cut me off with a pretty smile.

“I thought His Majesty King Argen would be different from Duke Pose, but it looks like he isn’t a capable master either. So I’m going to find a different one.”

“A different master...?”

“Aisha.”

He suddenly called my name and took one step forward.

Standing in that black-and-white world stained by poison, Avin looked back at me and asked,

“Will you be my master?”

Damn it.

He’s doing this again, even now.

Scrunch—

I put every ounce of strength I had into making the ugliest face possible as a rejection.

Lucas, who had been watching, flinched with a startled squeak.

“Aw, I’m kidding. Maybe. Well, half of it was serious.”

“Y-you have to hurry and run, Avin!”

That was when Tree, still sitting on the ground because of the icicles, called out to him with a trembling voice.

Then he held out a hand, as though asking Avin to help him up—

“Okay. Take my hand... Ah.”

Avin laughed and was just about to take it when he turned back toward me.

“Ugh!”

Tree missed his hand and fell flat on his rear, but Avin did not care.

His gaze remained fixed on me.

“What happened in the sparring match earlier has been bothering me.”

Then he continued,

“So I’ll tell you something as an apology.”