Chapter 18

Inside the cell, Darren Garritson sat on a crude wooden bed, waiting irritably.

By his reckoning, he should have been out of there long ago, relaxing comfortably in a clean room. Yet he was still stuck in this foul-smelling, damp place.

(This is strange. I didn’t expect them to discover the tampering with Cliff’s corpse so quickly, but there shouldn’t be any evidence that I killed him. And if it comes down to it, all I have to say is, “I tried to arrest a man who seemed to be the culprit, but he resisted, so I killed him. I’d been ordered to capture him alive, and I thought I’d be reprimanded, so I tampered with the body.”)

Darren believed there was no way he could be charged with any crime when all that had happened was a guard killing a murderer. After all, there was nothing linking him to Cliff once Cliff’s hair had been cut and his beard shaved.

(More importantly, I put that brooch somewhere easy to find precisely as a precaution for situations like this, so what’s going on?)

The chancellor had probably ordered Darren’s room searched immediately afterward, so he thought they should have found it by now, yet nothing seemed to be happening.

(Knowing that chancellor, he must have ordered them to search every last corner. So there’s no way they simply haven’t found it…)

Darren firmly believed that the brooch bearing the royal crest could mean only one thing. Namely, that it was “proof that its owner was a member of the royal family.”

(Once they see it and realize who I am, they’ll come rushing over, kneel at my feet, and say, “Please forgive our insolence until now, Your Highness, the King’s Brother”…)

Four years earlier, when Darren’s parents, who ran an inn along a highway a short distance from the royal capital, died one after another in an epidemic, he had found it among his mother’s belongings.

At first, he had no idea what it signified. He merely thought it was pretty and looked valuable enough to fetch a decent price at a pawnshop.

Still, because it had belonged to his mother, he had vaguely decided to keep it. Then one day, by sheer chance, he saw a newspaper article and learned that the design was the royal crest.

At that moment, he had thought his heart might stop from shock. Before long, however, delight and expectation gradually welled up inside him. Perhaps he himself was royalty.

Suppressing his mounting excitement, he went around questioning neighbors and relatives, and his suspicion gradually became conviction. His mother had indeed worked at the royal castle when she was young, while his father had suddenly become financially comfortable around the time he married her and settled down as the proprietor of a small inn.

Before that, he had scraped by doing petty business with travelers, barely making enough to survive.

No matter how he looked at it, the only explanation seemed to be that his father had “been paid to marry his mother after she became pregnant with a nobleman’s child.” And then there was the brooch. Once all of that was taken into account, only one answer came to mind: he was 【the illegitimate son of the previous king, Demarco II】.

He had considered the possibility that the current king was his father as well, but James IV, who had been crown prince at the time, had been abroad and absent from the kingdom for more than a year before Darren’s birth, so that possibility seemed impossible.

Moreover, the Roman numeral II had been engraved beside the clasp of the brooch. Darren reasoned that it either stood for Demarco II or meant “second child.”

“So that means I’m His Highness, the King’s Brother…”

Come to think of it, Darren had helped with the family business from childhood as the inn’s handsome young poster boy, and guests often told him that he had “refined features” or “a face far too beautiful to be wasted in a place like this.”

And he remembered that every time someone said such things, his father had looked displeased. His mother, on the other hand, had always seemed delighted, though Darren had assumed that was simply because people were praising her handsome son.

(No wonder Dad made that face. It was basically the same as being told his son didn’t look anything like him.)

His mother had been beautiful even from a child’s perspective, and Darren, who had inherited her amber-colored hair and greenish eyes, indeed looked almost nothing like his ordinary-looking father, who had dark-brown hair and eyes.

(Of course I didn’t. We weren’t even related. Though Dad probably didn’t know who my real father was. Otherwise, there’s no way he would have worked me that hard. Still, to think I was royalty…)

Once he had realized that, he had initially thought about announcing his identity immediately, but that was when he finally regained a little composure.

After all, stories about a nobleman’s illegitimate child carelessly revealing himself after his parent’s death, only to be murdered by his stepmother or legitimate siblings, were common enough in plays.

In particular, Marquis Blacker, the father of the royal consort, was notorious for his extreme words and actions, so Darren had no idea what might be done to him.

(But what happens if I’m the only person left who can inherit the throne?)

It was just as that thought occurred to him that his cousin Cliff invited him to join his group.

“Even if you inherit that tiny little inn, you’ll never make much money, right?”

“This, on the other hand, is guaranteed to make you rich,” he had said.

At the time, his cousin Cliff fancied himself some kind of major underworld figure and had gathered a group of similarly aged thugs to engage in activities little different from banditry. Apparently, though, he had landed a particularly lucrative job. The catch was that Darren’s cooperation was indispensable.

According to Cliff, a powerful noble had hired them to infiltrate the royal castle as guards and gather information, with a large reward promised in return. However, because Cliff already had several crimes on his record, it was impossible for him to pass the recruitment screening for the guards, which required an oath at the temple.

Darren, however, had spent his life helping at his parents’ inn, so his situation was entirely different. He would probably be hired without any trouble. Once that happened, Cliff said, all Darren had to do was occasionally switch places with him, and he would make sure Darren was paid handsomely.

Perhaps because their mothers were sisters, the two were extremely similar in build and even hair color, despite their faces not being identical, so Cliff believed that if they both grew beards, no one would notice when they switched places.

Darren, who was more interested in entering the royal castle than in the money, accepted immediately. His sole condition was that he would have absolutely nothing to do with Cliff and his companions’ criminal activities.

It truly was a job only he and his cousin could perform. Once both Darren and Cliff grew out their hair and beards, they became so alike that even their own parents might have mistaken one for the other.

Their eye colors and voices differed slightly, but even Cliff’s thug companions could not tell them apart, so all Darren had to do was make a habit of walking with deliberately loud, heavy footsteps so that the two would seem like the same person.

It was easier for Darren to learn to walk noisily than for Cliff to learn to move quietly. And so their life of Two Men Playing One Role began.

After being hired as a guard, Darren periodically switched places with Cliff, but there was no particular task that he himself had to perform. At most, he occasionally acted as a messenger, delivering notes from Cliff to a low-ranking worker whom their employer had separately planted inside the castle.

As a result, although he inwardly seethed whenever he caught glimpses of the lavish lives enjoyed by royalty and nobles, he simply continued carrying out his duties as a guard.

Darren had discovered that hidden passage by chance while on duty, about a year after he began working at the castle.

The low hidden door behind the castle-wall staircase had an extremely narrow entrance and apparently had not been used for a very long time, because a moldy odor had wafted out when he opened it. On top of that, the passage did not actually lead anywhere; at its end was merely a small chamber facing the moat.

Still, delighted at having discovered something new, Darren had carelessly told Cliff about it. Cliff immediately began using the passage as though it belonged exclusively to him, and before long, he had stationed several of his companions there permanently and turned it into something resembling a hideout.

(I’m the one who found it…)

Around that time, thefts also began occurring frequently in the barracks. Since they only happened when Darren had solid alibis, he was never suspected, but their employer apparently disapproved of what was happening.

The proof was that the intermediary began approaching Darren directly and started assigning jobs to him instead of Cliff.

That strange jar business had been one such job. Cliff’s employer had secretly commissioned Darren to handle it.

It was simple work: on his days off, he accompanied a certain man and buried jars at designated locations, and it paid quite well. The only problem was that Darren became sick every time he did it.

Since it was impossible for Darren to accompany the man every single time, he bribed several of his cousin’s subordinates and had them carry out the work instead. Some of them remained sick afterward and eventually died, but nobody cared if one or two thugs died. Even Cliff, who commanded them, had felt the same way.

Some time later, mana pools and massive outbreaks of magical beasts began appearing throughout the kingdom, but since guards responsible for protecting the castle did not participate in extermination missions, Darren’s life changed very little.

Time simply continued to pass while he remained unable to figure out how he could reveal himself as the king’s brother without placing his life in danger.

But on the day the Saintess was summoned, fate took a dramatic turn.

That day, following their employer’s instructions, Cliff had taken his place as 【Darren】 and had been assigned to stand guard in the summoning chamber. For some reason, however, Cliff later sent word through one of their employer’s agents asking Darren to switch places with him as quickly as possible.

Since the Third Platoon was also responsible for the security outside, Darren had managed to approach the area without trouble, but while he was watching from the shadows and wondering how they could switch places, Cliff happened to come out of the room, allowing Darren to call out to him once they reached a deserted spot.

Apparently, Cliff had been on his way to fetch the queen and the royal consort on the Saintess’s orders.

Still having no idea what was going on, Darren switched places with him, went to fetch the royal consort and queen, and entered the summoning chamber—where something magnificent was happening.

The Saintess, furious at having been summoned, was actually demanding the heads of the king and the princes! Realizing that an unimaginable stroke of good fortune had fallen into his lap, Darren offered his heartfelt thanks to the goddess.

(Goddess, this must be your divine will telling me that I am the one who should ascend the throne!!)

Unfortunately, Prince William ultimately survived, but he had been reduced to nothing more than a useless puppet controlled by the Saintess. On top of that, he had not even undergone his Crown Prince Investiture yet.

So all that remained was for everyone to learn who Darren truly was.

(My existence should be a blessing for the kingdom. So why isn’t anyone coming…)

【What Became of the Temple Head】

“For now, let’s keep moving. I’ll help you, so wrap this cloth around your feet in place of shoes. It should make walking at least a little easier than going barefoot.”

Even as Temple Head Adcock wrapped cloth around his feet as Chief Priest Baker had instructed, he was so furious that he could not stop complaining.

“I will never acknowledge that little brat as the Saintess!”

“Neither will I.”

“And those worthless ingrates who abandoned me! Once I return, I’ll excommunicate every last one of them!”

“Indeed. If we make it back, I certainly think you should.”

Once the two had somehow wrapped cloth around both feet, they began walking while following the many footprints already left behind. There was no one visible ahead; apparently, everyone else had already climbed out of the pit.

The pit was gently sloped but shaped like a bowl, and one careless step threatened to send them sliding backward, so they moved forward while leaning as much of their weight as possible toward the slope.

Whenever Baker could no longer bear to watch, he lent Adcock a hand and regularly cast healing magic on him, allowing Adcock to keep moving somehow.

Adcock knew that he ought to return the favor and cast healing magic on Baker as well, but he simply could not summon the energy to do it. He felt a slight pang of guilt, but decided that continuing forward was more important and chose to ignore it.

(If I give up, it’s over.)

Adcock kept himself going by thinking about everything he would do once he returned.

(Once I’m back at the temple, the first thing I’ll do is take a bath. Then I’ll eat. Something as extravagant as possible. Naturally, there’ll be alcohol too. I’ll open that special bottle of distilled liquor I’ve been saving. I’ll have the Duchess Dowager pour my drinks. Considering the trouble I’ve suffered this time, surely demanding at least that much as compensation wouldn’t be unreasonable…)

Thinking such thoughts, he continued forward one step at a time. There was nothing around them, and perhaps because of the bowl-shaped terrain, the sunlight beat down mercilessly despite it not even being a particularly hot season. The heat was unbearable, yet they did not even have water to drink.

Even so, they somehow continued walking and finally reached the rim of the pit.

(All I have to do now is climb this…)

Using both hands and feet, Adcock scrambled up the slope, which threatened to send him sliding back down at any moment. There was almost nothing to grab onto, pebbles wedged themselves beneath his fingernails, and sand got into his eyes and mouth, so the pain and irritation drained even more of his strength.

Then the chief priest began pushing him upward from behind, telling him to pull him up once Adcock reached the top.

Using the chief priest’s outstretched hand as a final foothold, Adcock somehow finished the climb, and by then, evening had completely fallen over the surroundings.

Panting heavily, he stared at the scene before him. Beyond the corpses of dozens of magical beasts, the walls of the territorial capital stood silhouetted against the twilight. He immediately understood that they had to reach those walls before nightfall at any cost—and that they had almost no time left.

The chief priest’s voice came from below his feet. Baker had stretched out his hand and was waiting for the temple head to pull him up.

(If I waste time doing that, I’ll never make it in time…)

Before Adcock had even finished the thought, he was already running. He could hear Baker shouting after him, but it could not be helped. Right now, reaching the city in time mattered more than anything else.

Just then, he heard an animal howl. He could not tell whether it came from a wolf or a magical beast, but it had sounded extremely close.

A chill ran down his spine, and cold sweat burst from his skin. His heart hammered so violently that the pounding itself was unpleasant to hear, but he could not stop moving.

Perhaps he should return to the pit immediately. The instant that thought crossed his mind, something struck him hard from the side and knocked him down. He tried to rise, only to find the face of a dog-shaped magical beast—a Bloody Hound—directly in front of him.

“Eek…”

At the edge of his vision, he saw that the chief priest, who had apparently managed to climb up by himself, was tumbling back into the pit, but there was nothing Adcock could do. The beast bared its fangs, and its drooling jaws drew closer…

(Why is this happening to me? This is all that little brat’s fault. If only that little brat hadn’t…)