Chapter Four: The Mad King, the Decree, and the Secret Arrangement

Herscherik sat in his study, letting out a sigh as he closed a book much thicker than any normal seven-year-old could be expected to read. Sadly, the volume had not contained the information he was looking for, so he’d wasted his time reading it.

Three days had passed since he’d invited Kurenai and Ao to the castle. Since then, Herscherik had locked himself up in his study to perform some research.

It’s not here either...

Dejected, he carelessly tossed the book onto his desk. Its cover proclaimed that it was a complete compilation of texts related to the laws of Gracis.

“I’ve pored over every book that looked relevant, but still nothing...” the prince sighed, leaning backwards in his chair and staring up at the ceiling.

Herscherik was looking for records from the time when slavery was first abolished, trafficking was outlawed, and non-humans were forbidden entry into the country. All he could find were itemized lists noting what year each law was enacted; the circumstances surrounding the actual enactment of these laws were nowhere to be found. All these texts said was that these legal changes had been enacted by the king’s official decree two generations ago.

Something just feels off here...

Herscherik looked up at the ceiling, then back down at the book, frowning as he sat cross-legged on the sofa and groaned.

What had prompted him to research these laws in the first place was the appearance of Kurenai and the beastman Ao. Herscherik had reached that conclusion that he could possibly help them escape the country. All he had to do was transport them past the Gracis border before anyone discovered Ao was a beastman.

During Herscherik’s travels to right wrongs in Gracis, he had forged many connections—not just in the castle town, but all over the country. If he just waited until the time was right, he felt it was possible he could help the couple flee.

However, as he pondered the solution to the current problem, something still felt wrong to Herscherik. What had prompted Gracis to abolish slavery in the first place? Why had trafficking been outlawed? Why did the country so stubbornly refuse entry to non-humans? The more Herscherik read, the more questions he had.

He’d also tried asking his history teacher, who had just dodged the question and not given Herscherik any relevant information. In the end, the teacher had even wrapped up class early in order to drop the subject. Herscherik hadn’t found a satisfactory answer in any books, either.

“I guess I’ll just have to ask directly.”

Herscherik was out of leads he could pursue himself, so the only option he had left was to simply ask someone who did know. Having made his decision, he leapt up from his sofa and left the room in order to secure an audience.

After dinner that same day, Herscherik carefully knocked on the door of a particular room in the royal quarters. Upon hearing the owner of the room respond, he entered and bowed in greeting.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you this late, Father. I’m sure you must be tired.”

Herscherik raised his head to find a man relaxing on a sofa in front of a fireplace, greeting the young prince with a smile. The man had fair skin and straight platinum hair that looked as though it had been spun from moonlight. He was even more handsome than Herscherik’s beautiful siblings.

The man’s name was Solye Gracis—the 23rd King of Gracis and Herscherik’s father. The one feature he had in common with Herscherik was his emerald eyes. He could easily have been mistaken for someone in his twenties, but he was actually over forty years old, and despite looking quite young he was the father of almost ten children.

For as long as Herscherik could remember, his father had never shown any signs of aging. If anyone asked him for the secret to his youthful appearance, he would only answer with a puzzled look and an insistence that he hadn’t done anything special. Any woman who overheard this was sure to go mad with rage. Herscherik had concluded that his father’s butler of service, Rook, must have been the one maintaining the king’s youth—at least, he hoped that was the case.

Herscherik’s effortlessly ageless father greeted his favorite young son with a radiant smile and gestured at him to come closer.

“Don’t worry about it. Come here, Hersch.”

Hersch did as his father asked, and Solye easily lifted his son onto his lap. Herscherik—secretly an adult woman on the inside—started blushing in embarrassment, but Solye failed to notice as he stroked his son’s smooth, light blonde hair.

“Rook has been insisting I take a break anyway, and in any case, all of my fatigue vanished the moment I saw you,” Solye said. The hand he’d laid on his son’s head suddenly stopped moving as he continued, his voice sad but resolute. “But right now I want to do everything I can to regain the trust of my citizens. I want to—I have to—make it so every single person in this country can live in peace. That’s the only thing I can do to atone for all that I’ve done.”

“Father...”

Herscherik understood the weight of his father’s words. Solye had erred as a king—he had chosen his family over his country and failed to stop the rampaging tyranny of Minister Barbosse and his allies. As a result, the country had grown unstable and the people had suffered.

Now that the minister was gone, however, Solye had started to take an active part in governing the country. He handled not only the allocation of personnel, but also an overhaul of the tax system, a revision of the budgets put together by corrupt nobles, diplomatic strategies, restructuring of the military, and much more.

While he had been busy during the reign of the minister and his minions, the king’s workload now seemed even higher. The only reason he hadn’t succumbed to overwork was his butler of service. Rook had a good grasp of his master’s personality and capabilities, made sure he ate well and took frequent breaks, and also adjusted his workload.

“I’m all right,” Solye said.

“Father, you’re not alone anymore,” Herscherik responded, who yet again seemed to want to shoulder everything by himself.

Herscherik’s two oldest brothers, who were of age, had volunteered as their father’s assistants in order to do what they could do to ease his burden. Herscherik, too, was going over old paperwork in the hopes of helping his father, and his other siblings were also doing their part. Even the queens were supporting the king.

“You have the queens and my siblings. I’m also doing whatever I can, even if it’s not much.”

“Thank you, Hersch...”

Solye’s expression softened and he patted his son on the head just one more time.

“Now then, Hersch—what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Well...”

Herscherik trailed off, apparently not knowing what to say. Solye gave a small chuckle before putting his son’s unspoken thoughts into words.

“Could it be related to the couple you brought to the castle? The man, in particular?”

Herscherik’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You knew about them?”

“I have a dependable butler of my own, of course.”

When it came to keeping track of the goings-on inside the castle, Rook had no equal—though Solye chose not to mention the fact that rumors also tended to spread like wildfire through the castle whenever Herscherik was up to no good again.

Herscherik steeled himself as he looked straight into his father’s eyes, the same color as his own.

“Father, why doesn’t Gracis permit non-humans to enter the country? Why are we so desperate to eliminate other peoples?”

“Oh, where to begin...”

Solye recalled that this was not the first time he’d sat with his son on his lap like this to discuss something important. His son was heavier than he had been back then. Herscherik had grown—not just in stature, but in his very presence.

As they’d sat together on the green fields back then, his son had wept over his powerlessness, and Solye had been unable to find any words of comfort. As a mere puppet of the nobility, there was nothing he could say. All he could do was stay by his son’s side until he had finished crying. But Herscherik had overcome his weakness and saved the country. Unlike Solye, who had given up in the face of his own helplessness, Herscherik had fought on unrelentingly.

Normally, Herscherik would have been too young for this discussion, but Solye knew that there was no evading his son’s questions. And unlike that day, he now possessed the words to answer him.

“Hersch, how much do you know about how non-humans were treated in this country, as well as about the slavery and trafficking that used to take place here?”

Herscherik thought back to the book he had read earlier that day.

“I’ve learned that the king of two generations ago—my great-grandfather—outlawed trafficking, abolished slavery, and had every non-human shipped to the countryside in order to be disposed of.”

His history teacher and every book he’d read had all said the same thing.

Solye nodded in response.

“And you thought something seemed strange about all that, didn’t you?”

Herscherik thought quietly for a moment before responding.

“I don’t understand why my great-grandfather would make such a drastic royal decree. Slaves were an important source of labor as well as a personal asset. Forcibly getting rid of them must have been a significant blow to the economy. Besides, there must have been opposition from nobles who owned slaves.”

As a result of the values instilled in him during his previous life, Herscherik himself did not want to accept the existence of slaves. Though they may look slightly different, humans and non-humans alike were all people with their own personalities and feelings. Herscherik felt an intense reluctance—even disgust—at the thought of treating them like objects.

At the same time, though, he understood that slaves were a valuable asset. Having many slaves in your possession also meant having to provide them with food and clothing in return for their labor. Thus, the wealthier you were, the more slaves you could own—slaves whose labor you could use for your own profit. Having all that labor taken away by decree of the king must have sparked much discontent and confusion.

“It’s also strange that he went to the trouble of rounding them all up in the countryside,” Herscherik continued.

Why did they have to gather every slave in the kingdom in one place before executing them? From a utilitarian point of view, it would have been much cheaper to simply kill them all on the spot. Herscherik couldn’t understand why they would spend all that money needlessly.

“You’re absolutely right, Hersch,” Solye said, agreeing with Herscherik’s opinion. “Now, to change the subject for a moment... my father was known as the ‘Wise King.’ Had he not been assassinated by Minister Barbosse, this country would likely have developed in a way that befitted its standing on the continent. Meanwhile, the king before him—my grandfather—was known as the ‘Mad King.’ I’m sure you’ve seen him referred to that way in some history books.”

“But why?”

Herscherik remembered seeing that name in a book that he had needed to request permission to read. While killing off every slave in the country could certainly have been considered an act of madness, at the same time it had resulted in the abolition of slavery. If one ruthlessly considered only the ends and disregarded the means, one could view this act as a necessary evil. So why was he known as the Mad King in every history book? Herscherik suddenly found himself grappling with a newfound question.

“I’m told that, to put it kindly, my grandfather had a gentle nature—put more bluntly, he was a coward.”

While Barbosse’s faction had dominated during Solye’s rule, during the time of Herscherik’s great-grandfather there had been several different factions of nobles who fought for power. Being so conflict-averse, Herscherik’s great-grandfather had let the nobles do as they pleased and took a passive approach to governing.

“However, there was one issue on which he would not yield—he did not take any consorts beyond his beloved First Queen.”

As timid as he was, he refused any nobles who tried to force him to marry their daughters. He had two children, a boy and a girl. It was a tight-knit family.

And suddenly, tragedy had struck.

“One day, his queen was killed by a beastman.”

Herscherik fell speechless as he waited for his father to continue.

“Well, that isn’t quite accurate. The child of a slave ran out in front of my grandmother’s carriage, startling the horses and causing the carriage to fall over. My grandmother hit her head during the accident and subsequently died.”

Upon losing his beloved wife, the king went mad. He enforced the abolition of slavery specifically to exterminate the beastmen who had stolen his queen from him, ending with him executing every slave in the country. Having eliminated all non-humans and forbidden any more from entering Gracis, he also outlawed trafficking. Any who broke the law would be executed—and if necessary, the king himself would wield his sword to strike them down.

“Some nobles did object, but my grandfather sentenced them all to death without mercy. The once timid king became mad after losing his wife, obsessed with removing all non-humans from the country.”

Back then, the king had been asked, “O, My Liege—have you lost your mind at the loss of your queen?”

The king had responded, “Having lost my beloved wife, how could I not? As long as I can eradicate every last one of those filthy creatures, I care not if I go down in history as a madman.”

“That is why people started referring to him as the Mad King behind his back, as the death of his wife drove him to kill every slave,” Solye continued.

This was a dark moment in the history of the Gracis family. Herscherik now understood why his history teacher had refused to tell him about it. At the same time, a feeling that could be described as both anger and sadness welled up inside him.

“I can’t believe it...”

Herscherik knew full well the pain of losing someone dear to you—that impulse to destroy everything, your whole world turning black with despair, a rage intense enough to burn you alive... As well as the feeling of her blood on his hands. He still remembered it all vividly. This profound sense of loss still remained like a hole in his chest, as though someone had ripped out his very heart.

Jeanne... He spoke her name in his mind. Any time he remembered Jeanne, the first thing that came to mind was her final smile.

Herscherik felt his great-grandfather’s loss as if it were his own. Even so, he had never thought to fill that void with something else.

Seeing his son’s expression turn dark, Solye laid a reassuring hand on Herscherik’s head.

“At least, that’s the story the public knows,” Solye said.

“Huh?”

His dark expression gone, Herscherik stared at his father with confusion in his emerald eyes.

“What I’m going to tell you now is something that’s been passed down orally to members of the royal family once they reach a certain age. I was actually planning on telling you when you were older, but now that it’s come to this, I don’t have much of a choice.” Then, Solye shrugged before continuing. “You’re aware of the Lustian Confederation, yes?”

“It’s a union of countries populated by beastmen and demihumans located in the south of Grandinal.”

Many countries, large and small, existed on the continent of Grandinal. Out of those, four particularly large countries—one in each cardinal direction—served to keep each other in check. Herscherik’s own kingdom of Gracis occupied the north, while the empire of Atrad commanded the west. In the east was the military nation of Felvolk, and finally the Lustian Confederation lay to the south.

Solye nodded at Herscherik’s answer.

“The confederation is large, but historically speaking it’s still a very new country. It only took on its current form very recently—during my grandfather’s reign, in fact. Before then, the southern continent was covered in a number of smaller countries. They formed an alliance to be able to oppose other, larger countries. Upon founding the Lustian Confederation, they also called for the liberation of all beastmen and demihumans around the continent. As you know, many of the non-humans who live in human-populated countries are slaves. That was especially true for the other three major powers on the continent—including Gracis, where most slaves were beastmen or demihumans.”

However, the liberation of beastmen and demihumans was not the only purpose of the proclamation. As a newly founded country, Lustia was still vulnerable, and were another country to interfere it would endanger the alliance’s existence. This proclamation served to destabilize other countries so they could not take advantage of Lustia’s position.

Just as the confederation had hoped, the call for liberation soon had an effect on the countries that employed beastmen and demihumans as slaves. Gracis was no different—the slaves were thrilled by the possibility of freedom.

Though slaves were guaranteed food, shelter, and clothing, their treatment varied widely depending on their owner. While some would give their slaves clean clothes and as much food and rest as they needed, many would only give them the bare minimum to survive as they worked their slaves to the limit—and there were far more of the latter than the former.

It was no surprise that the Lustian proclamation resulted in much conflict between humans and non-humans in Gracis, just as it did in other countries. As the slaves pleaded to be liberated and to live free of oppression just like citizens, the humans feared the loss of valuable labor. As time went on, conflicts between humans and non-human slaves became more and more common.

“That’s when the king lost his queen in an accident,” Solye explained.

The queen was brought to the castle, barely clinging to life, and the royal doctor informed the king that there was nothing he could do. The queen wished to spend her last moments alone with the king, telling him of her final wish before drawing her last breath.

“Final wish?” Herscherik asked.

“She wished for the king not to detest the slaves—the beastmen—and instead, to liberate them from their bondage.”

Herscherik suddenly understood everything—what his great-grandfather had done, and why he had become the Mad King. Solye continued, with the air of a teacher examining a student’s answer to a problem.

“Even if the king decreed that slavery was now ended, the humans would never accept having to treat as equals people who had been their possession only the day before.”

It was plain as daylight that those rifts already present in society would simply continue to grow before spiraling out of control. There were even slaves who were bound by magic and whose owners could take their lives on a mere whim. Even if every slave joined forces to revolt, humans would have snuffed them out as easily as blowing out a candle.

So the king made his move before it came to that.

“As a last resort, the king announced the mass execution of all slaves. In reality, he had ordered his most trusted servants to help everyone they could to flee the country.”

The records stated that all slaves in the country were gathered in one place and disposed of. In truth, the gathered beastmen and demihumans were secretly transported out of the country to the Lustian Confederation, after which the two countries severed all contact.

Solye had learned of all this from his aunt, who had married a noble outside of the capital. Upon ascending the throne as a young boy, he had been taught the royal customs by his father’s younger sister, since he’d lost his immediate family to the minister’s plot. She also told Solye the secrets of the royal family that not even the minister knew about.

As they conversed, Solye observed Herscherik. His son’s expression had stiffened, and given his intellect as well as his unfathomable empathy, it was clear that he had understood everything.

“For the sake of the slaves and my great-grandmother’s wish, my great-grandfather voluntarily chose to go down in history as the Mad King,” Herscherik said after a moment’s silence.

Herscherik found it hard to believe that this had truly been the best solution. At the same time, though, perhaps the king had not had many other options available to him at the time.

Solye nodded.

“My grandfather made sweeping changes to the country, knowing that he would go down in history as a terrible ruler. Thanks to him, slavery was abolished in our kingdom, and trafficking is now a thing of the past.”

Though it meant distancing Gracis from the non-human population, it was still the right direction for the kingdom. It was not the best option, but it was also not the worst. Only the king and the queen had to suffer for it; Gracis itself remained stable, allowing it to survive until the present day.

“Does this resolve your doubts about the situation, Herscherik?”

Seeing his son nod, Solye finally moved on to the meat of the matter after this long preface.

“Despite that, there have been several instances of beastmen entering the country—by no fault of their own. Even if you outlaw something, there will always be people who break the law, you see. Especially since beastmen are now a rarity in Gracis.”

Solye was, in other words, implying that there were those who would illegally smuggle beastmen into the country to sell on the black market as slaves. It was easy to imagine how these now-rare beastmen would be treated.

“Whenever we discover something like that, we immediately shelter the victim and send them to Lustia in secret. Of course, during my entire reign there have barely been any instances of this happening at all.”

Around the time the law was first enacted, some cruel nobles still continued to buy slaves, but the two kings before Solye had executed these nobles one after another, all but eradicating the problem. As word of how anyone involved in trafficking was treated spread to neighboring countries, slave traders decided that the danger wasn’t worth the potential profit and began to avoid Gracis altogether.

While there were still those in the kingdom who had beastman blood, they appeared as humans to the untrained eye and thus posed no problem. Even in the rare event that their lineage was discovered, they would be sheltered and transported out of the country in secret or sent to live somewhere far away where no one recognized them. The people responsible for managing all of this was Rook’s family—the Febvre house, who were sometimes ridiculed behind their backs as the “royal family’s guard dogs.”

“Hersch, make sure you protect that beastman.”

“I will!” Herscherik responded with a bright smile, the very opposite of the expression on his face when he had first entered the room.

“Just to be sure—the woman traveling with the man is human, right?”

“Yes, she is. Also, I think the two of them are lovers.” This last part, though, was only Herscherik’s guess.

If they had actually fled from Felvolk, they were likely to be master and slave. Almost all beastmen in Felvolk were former inhabitants of territories conquered by the militaristic nation. Most of them ended up enslaved. Kurenai was most likely Ao’s owner.

However, they didn’t behave like master and slave. Kurenai always prioritized Ao’s life, while Ao tried to protect Kurenai. They preferred to stay in the same room, and over the past three days Herscherik had never seen them apart. In fact, they seemed to always want to be as physically close to each other as possible, sheltering together like a pair of birds. They really did seem more like lovers than master and slave.

“I think the only way to get them out of the country is to send them together,” Herscherik explained.

“I understand,” Solye replied. “It’s still too early, though.”

Herscherik agreed with Solye. The whole country was currently busy preparing for the upcoming harvest festival, with many visiting from abroad. Someone instead leaving the country at a time like this would attract unwanted attention. Even if they tried to smuggle them across the border stealthily, it wasn’t as though you could make them completely invisible. They had to figure out a way to get the pair out of the country in a way that didn’t attract attention.

“It would be better to wait until after the festival and have them leave together with the tourists returning home,” Herscherik suggested, at which Solye nodded.

“We’ll wait for the harvest festival to end and send them off alongside all of the merchants returning from the capital. They can pass through the Principality of Parche and then travel to Lustia from there. Humans live in Lustia as well, though they are few in number. I’m sure they would welcome the woman too.”

“Yes. Thank you so much, Father,” Herscherik said. He looked up at his father from his place on his lap.

“It’s not you who should be thanking me, Hersch.” With a slightly bewildered expression, Solye looked at his son. The boy couldn’t have looked happier if he was the one who had just been saved.

“Even so... Thank you.”

At his son’s insistence on thanking him, Solye couldn’t help but stroke the prince’s light blonde hair once more before setting him back down on the floor.

“Now then, it’s quite late. You should get some sleep.”

“I will. Good night.”

Herscherik bowed before turning around and approaching the door. As he did, Solye called out to the prince’s back.

“Herscherik.”

Herscherik stopped and looked behind him with a puzzled expression. The action seemed so endearing to Solye that he broke into a gentle smile as he continued speaking.

“Thank you for trusting me enough to talk to me.”

Herscherik first seemed surprised at hearing this from his father, but his expression quickly changed into a smile. Until he learned of the secret agreement concerning beastmen in Gracis, Herscherik had thought that what he was doing amounted to breaking the law—as unjust as that law might have seemed—and that he may be facing execution, even as a royal. And even though it might have been his only option, Herscherik hadn’t been sure that consulting his father was truly the right thing to do. At the same time, however, he trusted that his father would never do something so unjust.

“Father, there is one more thing I’d like to ask.” Herscherik’s question was something he had hesitated to say. “Do you think this country should stay the way it is?”

Gracis was exclusionary toward non-humans. While this may have been for the best until now, with the minister gone, the country now stood at a crossroads—to change or stay the same. Herscherik, therefore, posed this question to his father.

Solye closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again and replying boldly.

“I feel this country may need to change. The will of the people has evolved with time, and I think Gracis must evolve as well.”

No hint of hesitation could be seen in Solye’s eyes.

“Thank you, Father.”

After expressing his gratitude once more, Herscherik turned and left the room.

After closing the door, Herscherik took a deep breath. What his father had told him had gone beyond Herscherik’s wildest expectations—about his country’s treatment of beastmen, its royal secrets, and even his own father’s character.

Well, it looks like I am going to be able to do something for those two.

Herscherik breathed a sigh of relief at the realization that he would be able to transport the couple outside the country without even needing to make use of his own contacts. However, another question came to mind.

Is getting them out of the country really the best way to help them?

It would mean risking their lives. But was that truly the help they needed? Why had they fled from Felvolk to begin with?

A human and beastman couple... Did they elope? Is that why they fled from their home country?

Based on her demeanor, Kurenai must have come from a rather respectable family. Meanwhile, being a beastman, Ao must have been a slave. The two of them perhaps fell in love and abandoned their country to be together. It was like something straight out of a romance novel.

As a plot outline it doesn’t sound too bad, but there’s just something strange about all of this...

Something wasn’t adding up to Herscherik. If they were just eloping, why had the two of them come to Gracis at all? It would have made far more sense to flee to Lustia in the south instead of Gracis in the north. Herscherik couldn’t get that part out of his mind, and he had a bad feeling about it. Unfortunately, Herscherik’s hunches had a habit of being right.

Could they be spies from Felvolk?

The likelihood of that was low. The series of events that had led them to Herscherik was far too coincidental—the chances of them ending up here had been one in a million. It was well known in the town that Herscherik was close to the fruit shop couple, but for Felvolk to have somehow discovered this fact and made a move on such short notice seemed unlikely. The owner only visited the border town to deliver fruit once every few months at irregular intervals. Even Kuro would have found it difficult to gather information like that on such ordinary people. Additionally, Gracis was—at least outwardly—refusing entry to any beastmen. It would make no sense to send a beastman as a spy to such a country.

In other words, the possibility of the two of them being spies was basically nonexistent, Herscherik concluded. Even so, their situation also seemed more complicated than a pair of romantic runaways.

When they first met, Kurenai’s dark eyes had examined Herscherik with a piercing gaze even as she maintained her soft smile and calm, unfazed demeanor. Oran had told him in private that the beastman Ao was likely a trained warrior, judging from his bearing. Herscherik himself had gotten the same impression. All in all, the couple did not seem at all like ordinary people.

It was likely true that they had fled, but why had they been forced to flee Felvolk? Who or what was chasing them? Why had they chosen Gracis as their destination? Herscherik groaned, racking his brain.

The two of them were not the only thing on his mind. He also couldn’t stop thinking about what Tessily had told him. Tessily must have come across information about them, or at least had a good guess at who they might be.

Be careful with the two people you brought here today. Herscherik found himself forced to agree with his brother. The two of them had to be hiding something. If they were neither spies nor an eloping couple, then they might be in even deeper trouble than Herscherik had realized. In the worst case scenario, their problems might bring great misfortune upon the kingdom of Gracis.

But even so, I want to save them. I want to be there for them. The option of not saving them simply did not exist in Herscherik’s mind.

Herscherik took a deep breath, as if trying to fill every bit of his body with air, before rapidly exhaling. He’d made up his mind.

“Hersch?”

“Wha—” Herscherik jumped and let out an undignified yelp as a voice suddenly called out to him from behind. He turned around to find Kuro looking down at him inquisitively.

That’s what I get for employing a former master spy. Wow, he scared me. It felt like my heart was going to jump out of my throat to say hello—or I guess good evening, considering how late it is. As he quipped at himself in his mind, Herscherik stared at his butler of service.

“Kuro...” Herscherik said in a resentful tone, making Kuro shoot him a confused look—but that only lasted a moment.

“So, what do I need to do?” Kuro said, completely deadpan.

Herscherik was surprised at first, but then broke into a smile. His butler truly did understand him. Kuro knew what Herscherik wanted to do without his master even having to say it out loud.

I’ll just do whatever I can—the same as I’ve always done.

Herscherik would extend a helping hand to anyone who was in trouble—it didn’t matter who. Of course his family and his country were all dear to him, but Herscherik had absolutely no intention of ignoring someone’s pleas for help just because they came from another country or they weren’t human.

All that mattered was what he himself wanted to do. Herscherik did what he did not for the sake of others, but for himself—and what he wanted to do right now was to save the two of them. No matter what anyone told him, he would continue to believe in himself and the path he had chosen. That’s just the kind of person he was.

If I’m going to help them, I’ll have to go all the way.

They did not seem like bad people to Herscherik, even if that was just another one of his unfounded hunches. All that was left was to do what he wanted to do—and what he had to do.

So Herscherik asked a favor of his butler just like always.

“Kuro, I need you to do something,” he said, giving his loyal butler a bright smile.