Chapter Eight: The Deception, the Deal, and the Potential

“Search for Prince Herscherik immediately!” Grim ordered his minions, staring at the charred annex in the distance. Watching his underlings hurry toward the building, Grim returned to his manor with a saddened expression and heavy steps.

When he reached his manor, his servants shared a look with each other. If something were to happen to the king’s beloved prince on Grim’s land, he would be held partially responsible, even if there was no negligence on his part. Considering that, the servants could understand why their master’s steps faltered. Then, they realized that their master losing status might lead to them losing their jobs in turn, and they let out a collective sigh of anxiety.

Grim trudged all the way to his office and closed the door behind him. The room was barely lit, but Grim wasn’t bothered by that. While the fire raging through the annex had been extinguished, half of the royal guards that had accompanied the prince were killed in the process. Even though the prince wasn’t included in the line of bodies retrieved from the wreckage, Grim was certain of the prince’s demise—which, in turn, signified that Grim had avoided his doom by a narrow margin.

“I did it...! I did it! Ahahahahahaha!” Grim laughed uproariously from the relief of being alone in his room. The count didn’t doubt that he had succeeded in assassinating the prince by hiring those thugs, saving his own skin in the process. The official story would be that robbers broke into the annex while the prince slept and set the building on fire after looting everything that wasn’t nailed down. The royal guards slept soundly, exhausted from their long journey, unable to save the prince as he burned to death. Drugging the royal guards was a nice touch. Grim didn’t expect the royal guards, the elite among knights, to simply do nothing while the prince died in the fire. While they’d invalidate his whole scheme if they managed to save the prince, it might have been too suspicious to have the entire travel party die in the fire without any resistance. So, Grim had drugged the guards’ meals just enough to make them believe they were merely tired. As expected, the guards mistook their drug-induced lethargy for exhaustion. This made them lackluster night watchers, allowing the thugs to easily deal with them.

His Excellency will deal with the king. Dealing with the nobles will be annoying... Well, the prince had no patrons. I can spin this however I please. Things would not have been so easy if Grim had been forced to eliminate the First Prince, whose mother was the princess of an allied nation, or any of the other princes whose mothers were all from powerful noble families. That being said, it was a serious matter that a person of royal blood, albeit a prince born of a peasant mother whose existence no one acknowledged, had died on his land, even accidentally. All the same, Grim was a member of the minister’s faction of nobles. Barbosse had made moves to gain leverage over the other nobles in case of situations like these. Grim only had to request the minister take steps to quell any commotion he expected the assassination to cause, just as he had done for the incident with his predecessor. While there were power struggles within their faction, Grim believed he could easily deal with any other aristocrats who attempted to improve their rank at his expense.

“How surprising that the prince’s butler was Shadow Fang...” Everyone in the underground knew that moniker, and Grim had learned of his existence through his occasional dealings with the underground guild but was never able to afford his services. Luckily, one of the thugs he had hired through the underground guild to manage the townsfolk knew about Shadow Fang’s career change. “I’m saved!” Grim thrust his fists into the air. He barely kept himself from toasting to his successful endeavor with the best liquor in his cabinet to maintain his cover while the search for the prince was being conducted.

Then, someone interrupted Grim’s celebration. “That’s good to hear.”

Grim froze at the sound of a childlike voice coming from a dark corner of the room. As if to thaw Grim’s frozen thought process, the lights came on in the office. In the corner, on the genuine leather sofa that Grim had specially ordered himself, sat the very prince he thought was dead. Herscherik smiled at the count, his legs leisurely crossed.

“H-H-H—”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m still alive.”

“How!?” Grim finally squeezed out.

Herscherik only shrugged and looked up at Kuro standing beside him. “I have a very talented butler, as you well know.”

Kuro accepted the compliment with a smile and turned to Grim with a cold expression.

Upon being surrounded by the hired goons, Kuro had promptly taken them all out. He struck anyone who charged at him with a single blow to a vital organ or artery; the archers he slew with a single thrown dagger right between the eyes. Even the goons that had remained hidden were executed with a slit throat as Kuro silently appeared behind them. In a mere half a minute, Kuro was the only one standing in the woods.

After eliminating them all, Kuro made his way into the burning annex, kicking down the door to Herscherik’s room before picking up the prince, who was curled up in the corner under a blanket, and diving out of the third-story window and into the forest. According to Kuro himself, reaching the third floor of a burning building was much harder than fighting that pack of goons. No one saw Kuro leap from the window amidst the chaos of the fire. Herscherik, however, was forced to endure a roller coaster-like 90-degree drop, which led him to remain limp as a corpse in Kuro’s arms.

“15 was too easy,” Kuro said matter-of-factly. “Double them next time, and you might buy a full minute.” His implied threat was that there wouldn’t be a next time.

Hearing this, Grim began shaking as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped onto him in the dead of winter. He crumbled to the ground as he was struck with the realization that there was no way out for him. No one had ever escaped Shadow Fang.

“Now, Count Grim. It’s time for you to answer some questions. I guess you don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to... but then, I’ll just execute you right here and now for the attempted murder of royalty.” To the count, the prince’s smile seemed like the grin of a devil. “First off, why did you do this? I don’t remember any animosity between us when I arrived.”

When they had first arrived, Grim seemed all ready to charm Herscherik with a lavish welcome. At the end of the night however, he had committed arson and attempted assassination. Herscherik had to know what prompted such a sudden change of heart.

“Because... Your Highness had that pocket watch...” Grim feebly admitted, having given up on the ruse.

“Pocket watch? You mean... this thing?” Herscherik held up the pocket watch that Ruseria had given him. His habit of always carrying it with him had saved his life during the fire.

“That was Count Ruseria’s... So I thought that... Your Highness was connected to him...”

“Ah, I see.” Herscherik recalled that Grim had met Ruseria at his cell the night before his execution, demanding that Ruseria hand over some piece of evidence. Ruseria had refused. Herscherik figured that Grim must have turned over every stone in this very manor that had once belonged to Ruseria. After months of not finding anything and nothing happening to him, Herscherik must have come knocking at his door just as he was beginning to think he could relax. “So you tried to assassinate me.” As his curiosity was now satisfied, Herscherik couldn’t help but be impressed.

Grim wasn’t entirely wrong, after all. Herscherik and Ruseria were allied in a way, except that Herscherik didn’t know what evidence Grim wanted so badly. The only thing he’d received from Ruseria was that pocket watch and his loyalty. Herscherik did have to commend Grim for sniffing out a dangerous situation. Ruseria had passed almost two years prior, when Herscherik was still three years old. He hadn’t expected anyone to make a connection between him and Ruseria. After witnessing Grim’s eye for detail in spotting the pocket watch, as well as his self-preservation instinct in action, Herscherik could understand why Barbosse considered him somewhat valuable.

Then, Herscherik wondered exactly what piece of evidence Grim was looking for. It was something crucial that Barbosse wanted to erase, even going so far as to frame Ruseria for a crime he didn’t commit. Maybe that evidence could become a powerful weapon to Herscherik. However, the prince immediately reconsidered. It didn’t seem wise to fixate on that, especially when he didn’t even know if he could properly utilize it even if he knew what it was. What was worse, the evidence would have originated from Ruseria, who had already been sentenced to death for treason. Even if he could prove Ruseria’s innocence, he wasn’t sure how much weight that piece of evidence would carry. Besides, Herscherik wasn’t optimistic enough to think that he could find it when the minister’s faction had failed to do so over the course of several years. Another concern was for his own safety, in the event that news of him acquiring said evidence reached Barbosse. Herscherik knew better than anyone that he still lacked the power to take him on. It was too risky, considering that he didn’t even know if he could acquire the actual evidence. Not finding out about this might be safer in the long run.

If it’s meant to be, it’ll come to me, Herscherik concluded.

“Let’s move on. Schwarz?” The prince turned to his butler.

“Right here, Your Highness.” Kuro produced a set of papers from his pockets and displayed them so the count could recognize them.

Color drained from Grim’s face. “That’s—”

“Evidence that you’ve been smuggling our weapons to the Empire.”

To the southwest of the Gracis Kingdom stood the Atrad Empire. While Gracis had a longer history, Atrad had recently expanded their military and had begun to threaten Gracis’s dominance. In fact, there had been a few recent clashes at their border, as well as one large scale war in their history together.

The sheaf of papers Kuro had produced was a letter written to Grim from said Atrad Empire. Its content suggested that it was merely one entry in a continued series of communication.

Grim protested. “I was told to—”

“By who? We have a bunch more, by the way.”

Kuro pulled out more papers that proved Grim’s various wrongdoings. On top of selling weapons to the Empire, the list of Grim’s crimes included illegal taxation and intimidation of his people, falsified requests for national aid, defrauding the national treasury, and much more.

Herscherik was dumbfounded. He had initially noticed the corruption when investigating the armory inventory. Supplies that were supposed to be in the armory were never delivered. Actually, Herscherik had checked with the supplier in the castle town to find that the delivery address had been changed from the castle to a location near the border. He had immediately returned to the castle in order to verify this fact, but he couldn’t find a single paper trail that led to the change in delivery address. It didn’t help that reports of new shipments had been lacking due to interdepartmental drama, leaving the entire issue to fester unchecked for a long time.

Another thing to consider was that one of the pieces of evidence used to frame Ruseria was a letter from the Empire. Even if the letter itself was forged, Herscherik had thought that they must have needed some sort of reference in order to produce a convincing forgery of a foreign document. So, Herscherik had kept an eye on the person who wanted Ruseria gone the most and had shown his animosity.

Grim’s expression became sicklier as his crimes were uncovered, one by one. In the end, his face looked entirely devoid of color.

Grim squeezed out a response. “I’m not the only who—”

“You think you get a free pass just because someone else is committing the same crime?” Herscherik interrupted with audible irritation.

He didn’t subscribe to that sort of mindset. In fact, he actively despised it, even in his previous life. It showed an utter lack of responsibility. If this was the kind of mindset that had inundated the country, Herscherik thought, he had to change that.

After Herscherik coldly countered, Grim groveled onto the floor. “P-Please, spare my life! Please don’t kill me!”

“You think you deserve to live?” Herscherik’s tone was much too cold for his age. Kuro showed a flicker of surprise at the drastic change in his master’s tone and attitude. “Count Ruseria was killed for a crime he didn’t commit. You orchestrated that.” It would have been more accurate to say that Barbosse had orchestrated the execution via Count Grim, but that didn’t make a difference to Herscherik at the moment. “‘Only the strong and the cunning survive in this world. Those who are neither—the fools—are rewarded with death after a lifetime of servitude or pay for their insolence with their life...’ right?” Herscherik remembered every word of Grim’s remark, to remind himself of that night.

“Where did you—!?”

Herscherik lifted the corner of his lips. “By your own account, you turned out to be the fool... Do you have anything to say?” Even though he wore a smile, Herscherik’s blue eyes that had always glowed with kindness were as cold as ice as they stared down at Grim.

He knew everything, Grim conceded. The prince saw through it all... All the wealth and status he had built up so far was crumbling to the ground. His entire family would be executed now.

“Now, Count Grim... Let’s make a deal.”

“Huh?” Grim looked up at the unexpected proposal. A deal? A ray of hope returned the color to Grim’s face. “A-Anything, Your Highness. I’ll pledge my eternal loyalty if you’ll spare me!”

“Huh? I don’t want your loyalty. Flush it down the toilet with the rest of your shit.”

Herscherik decided to ignore what sounded like Kuro holding back laughter. Grim already had no other choice but to agree to his terms. Any defiance against Herscherik would spell death for him and his family.

As a chilly wind brushed against his cheeks with the scent of winter’s arrival, Herscherik smiled at the people that had come out to see him off.

“All right, Meria,” Herscherik said. “I’m looking forward to your letters. And if anyone has any trouble here, please let me know.”

The people nodded in acknowledgment. They had all heard how Herscherik miraculously survived the fire. As far as they knew, a gang of thugs had robbed the annex and attacked the royal guards, setting the building on fire on their way out. The entire gang of thugs were found dead in the woods nearby—killed by some mysterious person for mysterious reasons. In any case, the people had put the incident behind them.

“Please take care, Prince Herscherik... Thank you. For everything.” Meria’s wide, downturned eyes were overflowing with tears.

Herscherik smiled back at her. Her cousin, the one who had instigated Herscherik’s kidnapping, was thanking him so profusely that Herscherik was starting to get concerned. But, there was a good reason why the people were so grateful to Herscherik.

The day after the fire, Grim had announced to his people that he would be reimbursing the amount he had overtaxed them as well as loaning out funds from his private account to those who expected a difficult winter. The “loan” was essentially a grant, though, as he would not be requiring anyone to pay him back.

Just as Herscherik and his party exited the manor to leave for the capital, the townsfolk were waiting for them. Without divulging much detail, Herscherik had reassured the people and told them to contact him if there were any problems.

“Prince Herscherik... I am so glad that I could serve you.”

“I’m glad you were my nanny, too, Meria. I’m sure Father, and Mother in the Garden Above, would both agree.”

With one last hug, Herscherik parted with Meria and climbed into the carriage. He didn’t stop waving his hand at her through the carriage window until he could no longer make her out in the distance. Then, Herscherik slumped down on his seat and took as deep a breath as he could. At that point, he finally realized how tense he had been.

“I can only imagine how trying all this was, Your Highness.”

“Indubitably, Schwarz. But have I not articulated enough how unnecessary the formalities are when we’re alone?”

They shared a laugh. In fact, the previous night had been a long and taxing one for both of them.

“You sure about Count Grim?” Kuro asked, in his usual tone.

“I think... This is for the best.”

It would have been easy for him to publicize Grim’s crimes and strip away his land. But he couldn’t be sure if the next lord would act in his people’s best interest either. So, Herscherik figured that the best course of action was to simply keep Grim under this thumb. He had demanded three conditions from Grim in exchange for sparing him his life and keeping the truth of this incident from getting out. First, he had to rule his land justly, putting the good of his people before his own. Second, he had to cease any and all acts of treason, and cut off any deals he had made with foreign parties. Third, he had to provide any information he had about the minister’s gang to Herscherik.

Herscherik was insistent on making Grim follow through on the first and second condition more than the third. Those were the only reasons he could justify keeping Grim alive. If anything went amiss now, he would hear from the townsfolk. If the scheduled communication from them ceased, Herscherik would know that something was afoot. In addition, Herscherik added one more layer of blackmail to Grim on top of the attempted assassination and corruption.

“You used that kidnapping well to your advantage,” Kuro remarked.

“I mean, they do live on his land. I wasn’t even lying.” Herscherik had threatened to pin Grim for the kidnapping, too. “Father would believe me if I told him that Grim threatened me to keep quiet. It won’t even be a question if we present it with the evidence of him smuggling weapons to the Empire.” Herscherik’s innocent smile contrasted with his scheming.

But Kuro had implied something else by his question. “What about Count Ruseria?” He rephrased the question in a more direct manner.

Grim was responsible for Ruseria’s death, in some capacity. The route that Herscherik took, the one that he had said was “for the best,” wouldn’t clear Ruseria’s name. Kuro wondered how his master, who he thought had greatly respected Ruseria, felt about that.

Herscherik contemplated Kuro’s questions in silence before finally answering. “I think Count Ruseria would be happy with the situation... for now. He always put our country, and its people, before his own reputation or status.” Otherwise, Ruseria would not have done what he had two years prior. The man who held his head high as a true noble among nobles would agree with him—that’s what Herscherik believed.

“To tell you the truth... I did want to bring what Count Grim did to light, and bring him to judgment. I wanted to tell everyone that Count Ruseria did nothing wrong... But that would ultimately just be selfish.” Herscherik understood that that was the easiest and most cathartic solution. But Grim was on the bottom of Barbosse’s pyramid. If anything happened to Grim that would threaten the minister’s faction as a whole, Grim would become a scapegoat in the blink of an eye. That wouldn’t be a long-term solution. “I will clear Count Ruseria’s name, but now is not the right time,” Herscherik declared with determination. He tightened his grip on the pocket watch. It went pretty well for my first time, though. Herscherik sighed in relief. Even after the unexpected assassination attempt, things had turned out quite well for him.

No plan, no matter how intricate, ever went perfectly—especially in real life. Still, all the books and games Ryoko had experienced served as a good background. Ryoko had always tried to read ahead. At work, she anticipated the unexpected and prepared to finish her work without issue even when things went wrong. She had almost always guessed the mystery when reading or watching whodunits. She’d been killer at strategy games, too, by calculating her moves far in advance. She had even dipped her toes into chess, shogi, and go.

Herscherik was beginning to realize that Ryoko’s geek brain, as well as her experience as an office worker, could definitely work to his advantage. On top of comics and light novels, Ryoko often read weightier and more complex works—anything that had piqued her interest. She was a bibliophile at heart. Books reflected the author’s mind like a mirror. In a way, reading books was a way of peeking into the mind of others. The vast knowledge Ryoko had gained from reading countless books gave Herscherik an exceptionally wide point of view and flexible thought process. Things like observational skills, attention to detail, and critical thinking, skills Ryoko had acquired, had subconsciously shaped Herscherik’s style of intrigue.

“We’ll see how many years he’ll last...” Herscherik muttered, watching the scenery roll by.

“Years?”

“He’s done so much evil. Someone like him won’t have a change of heart so easily.” This was true in any world. Once on shore... Herscherik figured. Humans were built to forget inconvenient truths. “Besides, if Count Grim completely stops what he’s doing, Barbosse would catch on. He really has to pull this off well if he doesn’t want to be eliminated by his own men.” Grim only had one path to survival; it was up to him how long he could stay on it. They’re not as forgiving as I am, Herscherik reminded himself. I have to make my next move before they catch on... We’re just getting started. Herscherik imagined that this wasn’t even the first act of his war against Barbosse but merely the prelude. He tightened his fists.

Herscherik absentmindedly watched the scenery roll by. All the thoughts racing through his head seemed to have made him forget about being carriage-sick.

Kuro shivered as he watched Herscherik, although he was neither cold nor afraid. How many steps ahead is he thinking...? I don’t even know how far he’ll go. Kuro trembled with excitement at rediscovering the worth of his new master. His belief that was never swayed by emotion, his resolve that made him consider all options, and his forethought that calmly calculated the next move... Moreover, his empathy that never disregarded those around him. Kuro considered these qualities becoming of a king or even a hero. Kuro had also started to become familiar with some of Herscherik’s speech patterns. Whenever he was alone with Kuro, and whenever he tried to remain cold and calculated, he spoke in a different tone. When the prince was kidnapped, and when he was blackmailing Grim, Herscherik spoke in this particular tone. While he might not have appeared collected on the surface, Herscherik was rapidly calculating ahead. His tone in these situations contrasted with the tone he employed with his father or other family members, when he was trying to play the innocent young prince.

“Hey, Kuro,” his master said, calling him out of his thoughts. Herscherik had looked away from the window and was now gazing at Kuro with a serious expression. “I want to protect Father. I want to protect my family. I want to protect my country. I want to protect my people. I’ll do anything to do that.”

Kuro couldn’t help but smile at those words. The core of his master’s unbound potential was the kindness and sense of duty to do right by others. If Herscherik had just wanted to survive, all he had to do was forsake his princehood. But that would never even cross his mind. He wasn’t merely kind, either. Herscherik knew that he couldn’t protect anything with only kindness.

After a beat, Herscherik continued. He held the pocket watch tight in his hand. “Schwarz, being with me is going to be a lot more difficult than the jobs you’re used to.” Herscherik wasn’t saying this out of hand, nor was it idle speculation. Changing the nature of an entire country was a feat completely beyond anything Ryoko had done in her life, and Herscherik knew that he would be dead if he made one wrong move. Kuro, once he had fully assumed his role as butler of service, would live and die with Herscherik. Right now, he still had a chance to turn back. “I can’t give you anything in return, Kuro. I might even endanger your life.” Herscherik spoke honestly only because he was speaking to Kuro. “I’m just a kid. I don’t have any muscles, or magic, or even any patrons. I will only ever be dead weight to you, Kuro. If something goes wrong, I don’t have the power to protect you or me.” Herscherik knew well that he had nothing—that he was practically powerless with only his words and Ryoko’s memories in his arsenal. That’s why he needed someone he could trust wholeheartedly. Someone he could trust with his life. “Will you still... fight with me?” Herscherik stared directly at Kuro.

Kuro saw a shadow of anxiety in his master’s eyes. He sensed that Herscherik was trying to conceal his own insecurity in order to give him a choice in his own fate. Once again, Kuro asked himself if he could remain by Herscherik’s side. Even now, leaving the prince was inconceivable. At that moment, Kuro realized that maybe Herscherik had given Grim a choice, too. Although Herscherik seemed confident that it would never happen, if Grim truly did have a change of heart, he would become one of the people of this country Herscherik vowed to protect. If that were to happen, Herscherik would protect him at any cost, even as the one who killed Ruseria. So, Kuro made his choice. Now he was confident that he had never served anyone else in this country because he had been waiting for Herscherik. Just as Herscherik could not go without helping those around him, Kuro could not go without Herscherik.

Kuro knelt down on one knee and bowed his head. Since they were inside the carriage, they were very close to each other.

“My Liege. My body is a sword that cuts through your enemies, a shield that protects you from harm, and a staff that guides your way.”

It was the same oath that Ruseria had sworn to Herscherik. Upon becoming his butler of service, Kuro had learned royal customs and etiquette from Rook. The Oath of Service was one of them. Kuro had just considered them a particular set of words at the time, but not now. The Oath of Service was a declaration of the soul, an oath that must not be broken. Breaking the Oath of Service would not only be a betrayal of his master but also to himself. “If you wish, My Liege, I will follow you past a million foes, to beyond the sky or the Darkness Below.” Kuro looked up to find his master astonished. “Allow me the honor of pledging my eternal loyalty to you.”

Herscherik closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again, his jade-like eyes meeting Kuro’s dark crimson eyes.

“I’ll allow it, Schwarz. But you have to promise me one thing.” Herscherik set the silver pocket watch down on the seat and pinched Kuro’s cheeks with his hands, just as Ryoko did to her niece in his dream. It was a gesture filled with hope that Kuro would keep his promise and determination to make him keep it. “You will not die before me. When you die, I die too.” He did not want to lose anyone else like he had lost Ruseria. He never wanted to lose anyone precious to him again. Herscherik knew that this promise would only serve to make himself feel better. Still, he couldn’t help but demand it. He thought he saw a light flicker in Kuro’s deep-red eyes.

“Understood full well, My Liege.”