Chapter 77 :

Chapter 77 - The True Nature of the Discomfort

There was only one person who remained calm before Rasia’s corpse.

“Burn it.”

The emperor, who spoke the same line as in the original, left the hall without another word.

Among the imperial family members who could not understand what had happened, I was thinking about something different while facing the same event before my eyes, just as I had on the day I first discovered that the original had been moved forward.

Still, can Ratel defeat Dito?

He won’t die, right?

In the original too, he faces Dito after Dito absorbs Rasia’s power.

Back then, he barely defeats Dito and even succeeds in infiltrating the imperial palace.

The timing has moved six months earlier, but that condition is the same for both him and Dito.

I pressed down the anxiety tormenting one corner of my heart and gripped the table.

Why on earth did he die?

“So this is how you end after talking so proudly.”

Everyone’s gaze gathered at the voice coming from the head seat in front.

The owner of the voice was the Fourth Prince.

He, who had been looked down on by Rasia all this time, proudly took Rasia’s seat and sat down.

And as if to show everyone, he infused power into the Prasa.

He probably wanted to show everyone who was now the strongest candidate for the next crown prince.

Thinking that, for someone who called himself a god, what he was doing was no different from an animal, I fixed my gaze on the table.

In any case, there should be no one among those here who could defeat the current Dito Abiran.

Completely unaware of that, his confident power was infused into the Prasa, and bundles of light quickly spread across the table.

The bundles of light created by his Manis stretched out without hesitation and passed halfway across the table.

......Was that guy’s power always this strong?

Until now, in a formal event where the hierarchy had already been decided, no one had ever tried to show off their power in front of Rasia.

Naturally, there had never been an opportunity to accurately measure the power of the others aside from the emperor, so I had not thought about it until now.

It wasn’t like they were combat power measuring devices, and there had been no need to do so.

The bundles of light he created flowed down through the inorganic material and gradually came closer to me.

But his power crumbled before it could reach my seat.

As the light scattered, things I had passed over without much thought until now floated separately in my head.

The emperor’s power during the first ritual, which stretched farther than described in the book and reached even the lowest seat at the very end.

The enormous wolf Rasia had shown during the hunting festival.

And Rasia, who collapsed half a year earlier than in the original.

Because I had been frantically blocking water leaking from here and there, the huge question I had passed over knocked on my head again.

Why did Rasia Abiran suffer a seizure earlier than in the original?

What was eating away at Rasia’s lifespan was the power circulating inside his body.

If his lifespan had shortened, couldn’t that also mean his power had become too strong?

—The power of this world surged greatly when you entered it. Naturally, I thought you were the master of the prophecy.

El’s muttering words, which had passed by like a brush, grew my anxiety even further.

Until Rasia coughed up blood, the only thing that had changed from the original was my existence.

The elements floating in my head gathered into one place.

What if, when I came into this world, I touched the power of the world?

What if, for reasons I did not know, that affected the power of the imperial family?

......Then how much stronger is Dito now compared to the original at the same point in time?

While my head spun round and round, exclamations of surprise at the Fourth Prince’s Manis rang out from here and there.

After that, the Fourth Prince’s confident voice was heard several times, and the commotion gradually died down.

I quietly stayed in my seat, then rose together with the imperial family members who were slowly beginning to leave.

Rasia’s more than ten siblings split into two groups.

The group going to look at his corpse, and the group leaving the room.

I blended into the latter and left the formal dining hall.

Walking neither too slowly nor too quickly.

Black hair, black eyes.

The seventh younger brother who, until recently, had been no different from a nonexistent person inside her.

* * *

It was the First Princess, Mentil Abiran, who sent out everyone who had been treating Rasia’s corpse as a spectacle.

“Your behavior before the death of a sibling is far too ugly.”

At her pointed words, everyone had to look around cautiously and leave the hall.

Saying she wanted to watch over her elder brother a little longer, she even sent out all the attendants inside.

Mentil gently stroked Rasia’s pale and cold face.

Rasia, who would have cursed if he had been alive, merely kept his eyes quietly closed.

“I told you, didn’t I? To think it over a little more carefully.......”

Her voice, mixed with sorrow and regret, no longer reached Rasia.

“If you regret it even a little, please grant my request.”

As if she had not expected anyone to remain, Mentil was startled by the sudden voice from behind and raised her head.

The owner of the voice revealed himself from the shadow of a pillar.

Even if I rushed into the fight between the Second Prince and Ratel right now, there was nothing I could do.

Even if I squeezed in between them with nothing more than the ability to transform into animals, it would be nothing but a dog’s death.

If one path is blocked, one must find another.

I looked at Mentil Abiran while hiding my tension.

“Seeing that you skip the formal greeting and go straight to the point, it seems you’ve become a little comfortable with me now.”

She answered with a smile.

That was a relief.

At least she was not ignoring my words.

Letting out a small sigh, I opened my mouth.

“I’m not comfortable, but Your Highness the First Princess is the only person I can ask.”

“I’m not sure whether that’s something pleasant to hear or unpleasant.”

She giggled, then continued.

“If you say, ‘Kind elder sister, please, I beg you’, I’ll think about it.”

Her face was so playful that it almost seemed false that she had been looking at Rasia’s corpse with regret a moment ago.

It was a joke that Celos would have raged over, but I was nearly thirty years old, and right now, I had no time.

“Kind elder sister, please, I beg you.”

At my serious request, her face sank slightly.

“If it’s about Dito, there’s no need to worry. If you have no ability, he won’t covet you.”

Her tone sounded as though she already knew what I knew.

It seemed she had read Rasia’s mind before he died.

In any case, it seemed certain that she had joined hands with Dito Abiran.

Even so, the reason she had kept her mouth shut was probably mercy toward one of her few blood relatives.

Just as she had stayed silent while Rasia was dying at Dito’s hand, and kept her mouth shut even though she knew I was saving Rasia in the opposite way.

“I didn’t come to ask you to save me. And I’ll pay the price.”

Mentil’s eyes widened.

“Now that I see it, you didn’t come to ask a favor. You came to make a deal.”

No, since I was speaking with her goodwill in mind, this was definitely a request.

“Please take it as a will.”

When I raised my head again and turned my gaze toward her, her palm was already right in front of my eyes.

Her voice came from beyond her white palm.

“What a pity. If I had known it would be like this, I should have thoroughly searched inside that black head of yours before I became attached to you.”

A brief standoff continued.

The one who broke the silence first was Mentil.

She opened her mouth as if whispering.

“......I am not such a merciless older sister that I would leave my younger brother to die. I can certainly preserve the life of one person like you.”

That was quite an appealing offer.

Rather than stopping Dito right away, receiving her protection for the time being and waiting for an opportunity was not a bad choice either.

There was such a thing as a way to survive inside a book where the protagonist had disappeared.

* * *

Duke Feedus watched the confrontation between Dito and Ratel with tension.

Prince Dito stared at the black-haired uninvited guest who had appeared suddenly.

Ratel’s golden eyes faced him without wavering.

Dito’s stiff face gradually loosened.

Though the corners of his mouth were raised, Duke Feedus thought it was a little different from the Second Prince’s usual expression that he had seen until now.

Because the emotion contained in his glistening eyes seemed like excitement, and also like anxiety, and somehow it did not suit his usual self, which always mixed composure and contempt.

Those thoughts of his retreated when Dito opened his mouth.

“I’m curious. By what means do you plan to take everything from me?”

He did not need to add, “How dare someone like you.”

Although he had been helped by Ratel, Duke Feedus thought the same.

Because Ratel standing against the imperial family looked far too insignificant.

He still did not understand exactly what mysterious ability Ratel possessed, but right now, he was merely one individual holding a single sword.

Before the imperial family, which had the world beneath its feet, he looked endlessly small.

“Easy.”

But why was it?

As he watched Ratel tilt his head and speak so arrogantly, the thought crept up that such things somehow did not matter.

Ratel raised his finger.

“First, your pride.”

A bead of light was created again at the tip of Ratel’s finger.

The sphere, which had been the size of a fingernail, gradually grew larger.

Compared to the things Dito had created, it was endlessly small, so it did not look as intimidating.

Dito raised the corners of his mouth without taking his eyes off it.

“If you plan to break my pride with a pathetic display of power like that, I’m disappointed.”

“To you, is something like this worth showing off?”

Ratel’s reply, as though he found him pathetic, was surely enough to touch his temper, if not his pride.

“If what you are doing now is not a childish display of power, then what exactly is it?”

“Watching you get scared.”

Dito’s expression vanished from his face once more.

“I am not scared.”

When Ratel moved his arm, the thing that had now become the size of a fist slowly approached Dito.

“Then were you blown backward by the wind earlier?”

Dito lowered his head and checked his two feet.

And the moment he confirmed it, he realized that things had really turned out just as Ratel said.

As if mocking Dito, the glittering sphere faded away before him.

“You don’t have to bother checking. You really are scared.”

The moment the blunt answer ended, a whip of fire flew toward Ratel.

But it only cut through the empty air where Ratel had been standing.

“I told you it was easy.”

At the voice coming from behind, Dito turned his body.

As if he would give him no chance to dodge, he pointed at Ratel with his finger.

A flame like a finely honed arrow aimed at him, but it did not hit Ratel.

Dito summoned more arrows.

He only had to erase every corner to dodge into.

The moment Ratel, having reached the end of the room, stopped briefly, Dito’s chance arrived.

Dito, fully heated with anger, spewed flames.

The flames he summoned poured down all at once toward one place.

After that, a fierce offensive that gave him no opening followed.

More, more, more.

A little more, he had to burn that bastard completely.

Dito’s flames became a pillar and enveloped Ratel.

The flames that shot up to the ceiling, which was not made of stone, reached the roof, and as fire spread, materials began falling.

Duke Feedus dragged his right leg and pressed himself against the wall of the room to avoid them.

The duke saw the Second Prince lose his composure like that for the first time.

He was the Second Prince, someone especially cheerful and gentle among the imperial family.

He, who always wore a pleasant smile to the point that it was difficult to find him not smiling, was now rampaging as though it did not matter even if the attention of everyone in the capital focused on this place.

Dito’s eyes glistened, fixed on the blazing flames.

This much should have killed him.

But Dito’s expectation missed again as the flame, which had been burning with enough force to leave not even bones behind, split in half.

Together with it, the sword that came rushing in barely grazed him, and a line of blood flowed from Dito’s neck.

Dito lowered the hand that had been clutching his neck and took one step back.

The clear knife wound had disappeared.

“Ha! Where did someone like you come from?”

Dito asked, unable to hide his excitement as he wiped the blood from his hand.

“Think of it as me falling from the sky. You people believe in that sort of thing well enough, don’t you?”

Ratel answered casually while putting out the embers clinging to his clothes.

The burns on his face and hands had already disappeared before anyone knew it.

Does that mean that side also possesses something like Manis after all?

......Then who is stronger?

Dito did not miss the moment when Ratel, who had calmly taken his stance, staggered once as he pulled the sword supporting his body out of the floor.

Excitement and, at the same time, sprouting anxiety, made Dito’s head dizzy.

He needed overwhelming power that could kill that bastard.