3

Abeeb Kingdom, detached palace.

“Prince Felix, it is time for your medicine.”

Into the dark room, a maid dressed entirely in white medical clothing entered, reverently holding up a silver tray.

On the silver tray were a potion, pills, an ointment, and bandages.

“Understood. Leave.”

Felix, crown prince of the Abeeb Kingdom.

It had been nearly five years since Felix began suffering from a skin disease of unknown cause.

Once, he had been an extremely popular nobleman because of his beauty, but now he lived a life almost entirely shut away.

In this country, beauty was power itself.

The royal family, standing at the pinnacle of the power known as authority, all boasted beauty that reached the height of handsomeness and loveliness.

Among them, Felix had been known for his peerless beauty.

Hair like golden silk. A strong and beautiful body like a sculpture of white stone. Purple eyes.

As a kingly figure, he possessed every beauty necessary. Among royalty, he was royalty itself. That was Felix.

The first time symptoms appeared on Felix’s body was after he cut the tip of his finger on grass in the garden.

A red rash began to appear around the cut, the wound became wet and inflamed, and it took two whole months to heal.

From then on.

Everything suddenly began to torment his beautiful, smooth, ivory-like skin.

Beautiful flowers, lavish evening formalwear, mellow wine, perfume, luxurious meals.

When they touched his skin, red rashes began to appear, swelling and leaking bodily fluid.

Recently, even sunlight had begun to make his skin react red when it touched him.

Accompanied by itching, it was not only extremely unpleasant, but when the condition appeared, the itching made it swell, the swelling tore the skin, blood dripped, and it was quietly painful.

At first, he wrapped bandages around himself and deceived people’s eyes, but when he became irritated from itching even during tea parties and the symptoms began to appear as far as his neck, he could no longer endure it and began shutting himself in his room.

Eventually, he heard that the hot springs bubbling up in the mountain region where the detached palace stood, deep beyond Abeeb’s royal capital, were good for skin diseases. Recently, with symptoms spreading even to his scalp and eyebrows, Felix fled the royal capital and began living shut away in the detached palace under the name of medical treatment.

Before the onset of his illness, Felix had boasted a golden, radiant beauty, but now his eyebrows had fallen out, and because of the skin disease on his forehead, a large section of hair on the left side of his face was gone, leaving him in a miserable state.

Felix let out a great sigh and tugged at the hair on his left side.

A whole clump of luxurious golden-thread-like hair remained in his hand, and from where the hair had fallen out, unpleasant bodily fluid seeped out and ran down his cheek.

Inside the detached palace, a barrier of purification magic applied by a saintess of the Temple had been spread throughout, and not even a speck of dust had fallen.

Even the maids serving Felix were so careful that they purified themselves and changed into medical clothing before entering Felix’s room, and yet Felix’s symptoms worsened immediately if even the slightest care was neglected.

(Could I possibly show such a body to the people?)

Crown Prince Felix, famous for his great pride, had announced only that he was “recuperating” as the reason he did not appear in social settings and remained shut away in the detached palace.

(If only it were not a skin disease, but a lung illness or a heart disease, then at least I could preserve appearances before the people.)

However, the ceremony for his investiture as crown prince was scheduled for next year.

If he were so seriously ill that he could not even appear at the crown prince investiture ceremony, doubts would be cast on Felix’s right of succession to the throne.

A skin disease was not an illness that consumed one’s life. But the situation was serious.

The royal family, at their wits’ end, had secretly even visited the Eastern Witch, but they were only told that there were no traces of a curse, then had an outrageous hush money fee wrung from them, and that was the end of it.

Next week, a goodwill ambassador from the neighboring country would come to the Abeeb Kingdom.

Among the goodwill ambassadors, the Saratoga Magic Count, who had succeeded in refining the elixir, would participate and come all the way to this detached palace for what was called a greeting but was in fact a medical examination.

Rumors of the beautiful magic count had reached the ears of Felix, who lived shut away.

The Saratoga Magic Count was a great contributor to the neighboring country’s revolution, but he had amicably dissolved his engagement with the queen and had not appeared on the political stage either. On the contrary, the person he had recently become engaged to was said to be a plain country girl who had worked as a miller and had been employed as a lowly worker in his greenhouse.

(The Saratoga Magic Count, is it? I heard he is about the same age as me.)

Felix threw himself onto the bed and thought vaguely.

(What kind of man rejects a queen and makes a miller his wife?)