A low, muttering sound drifted in. 

The ceaseless murmuring sounded like the wind, or perhaps the cries of a small beast.

It was a place so pitch-black he couldn’t see anything in front of him. He opened his eyes wide then blinked a few times, but he couldn’t see a thing. Waving a hand right in front of his face yielded the same result. It was absolute darkness.

A darkness that felt somehow sticky and damp clung to his entire body. Within that unpleasant, eerie darkness, the damp, gloomy voice echoed endlessly.

*Mumble, mutter, murmur……* The ceaseless sound, like someone chanting a spell, grated on his nerves like a rat scratching in the dark.

It was a long while before he realized it was a human voice. Growing faintly louder then softer, faster then slower, the voice was very gradually swelling in volume. Just as it hovered on the edge of comprehension, it suddenly pierced his ears with absolute clarity, and from that very moment, it erupted explosively.

Growing endlessly until it threatened to tear his eardrums apart, the sound – now a horrifying shriek brimming with resentment – repeated only one single phrase over and over,

I hate you…… 

I hate you…… 

I HATE YOU….!!

* * *

“——.”

Isaac snapped his eyes open.

Even after opening his eyes, he remained pinned to that spot for a while, as if trapped by sleep paralysis, lying perfectly still. The back of his neck was damp with sweat.

The yellow, fading sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting long shadows across his forehead. It seemed his brief nap had turned into quite a deep sleep. Isaac sat up. When he rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, it came away slick with cold sweat.

The voice still seemed to cling to his ears.

That weeping, muttering voice, brimming with resentment ‘I hate you, I hate you,’ which eventually escalated into an ear-piercing, shrieking roar. Isaac knew whose voice it was.

It belonged to the wizard. The wizard who had surrendered his body to the witch Alikisa was screaming his hatred.

It seemed that was the only consciousness he had left. Stripped of reason and intellect, only pure hatred remained.

It probably wouldn’t last much longer. As long as the witch continued to exert her magic, a human body could never endure it for long. The wizard’s body must have reached its absolute limit, and under normal circumstances, his consciousness should have vanished long ago. He had drained vital energy from people in a desperate bid to maintain his own consciousness, but now even that stolen energy was being poured entirely into Alikisa’s original body. Thus, the wizard’s consciousness was likely hanging by a thread.

A fading consciousness writhing in hatred as it premonished its own absolute death. The malice and curses that clung stickily to his entire being.

“…….”

Feeling a sudden chill, Isaac hunched his shoulders and rubbed his arms as he looked around. Among the bushes, one cat had its rear end raised high, fully concentrated on hunting a grasshopper or some other insect. Another was vigorously sharpening its claws against a tree trunk.

The prince was nowhere to be seen. He probably hadn’t gone far.

Roberni’s subordinates had been constantly hovering around them, waiting for an opening, so the prince never left Isaac out of his sight for long periods. Having tailed them for days on end without ever finding the prince and Isaac sufficiently separated, the subordinates were beginning to show signs of impatience. Just recently, unable to contain their impatience during a brief moment when the prince stepped away to scout the surroundings, 4 men who rushed to attack Isaac had their heads cleanly severed and their bodies tossed into a ravine.

“Where did the other one go? Did he follow Prince Kyan?”

Just as Isaac murmured while looking at one of the cats, the prince emerged from the dense trees along with the sound of footsteps on the dirt. ‘A tiger. An actual tiger!’ Trailing right behind him was the cat that occasionally liked to pretend it was a tiger.

“Did you take a look around?”

The prince gave a short nod at Isaac’s question. It seemed he hadn’t found anything of note.

Isaac turned his head toward the slope where the view opened up. Far beyond the densely wooded foothills, a gently sloping mountain ridge was visible. The ridge, dotted with a few snow-capped peaks, stretched out long, encircling Kuslo.

It was the exact scenery that had served as the backdrop when he saw the pond where Alikisa’s body was submerged. That pond had to be somewhere nearby, not far from here.

The ridge was visible from the same angle and at a similar distance as before, and this entire area was covered in birch trees turning a vibrant yellow. So it was definitively somewhere around here, yet the pond was nowhere to be seen.

A solitary hollow of a pond, as if hiding among the dense trees. Overgrown with blue moss, untouched by human footsteps for a long time, within those waters lay Alikisa’s body.

They had been scouring this area for days trying to find it, but a pond like that simply wasn’t visible. Because there were so many large and small ponds and springs, and all of them looked so similar, they had returned multiple times to places they had already checked, doubting if they had mistaken one for it or if they had already found it but failed to recognize it. Yet, no place gave them absolute certainty.

“It must definitely be somewhere around here……”

Isaac muttered, taking in the landscape. That ridge, the bright yellow birch forest surrounding them—everything was exactly as he had seen it then, except for the pond.

But then again, that made sense. There was no way that wicked witch would ever hide her body somewhere it could be easily discovered. It was probably hidden away somewhere. 

The terrain surrounding this area was exceedingly rugged and treacherous, with a high altitude above sea level, and no proper paths leading to other regions, so it was a place rarely visited by people. Yet if someone were determined to find their way here, it was by no means an impossible feat. Still, the eerie, deathly stillness of the atmosphere, so profound that it seemed even wild beasts couldn’t be bothered to venture here; and the blue moss blooming in the water…… all of it showed that this place had long since been entirely forgotten by the world.

“The path must be hidden somewhere.”

The prince spoke. Then he sat casually on a flat slab of stone, drew the sword from his hip, gave it a few light flicks, and began sharpening and polishing it. Blood was dripping from it; he must have slain some wild beast while scouting.

Indeed, this man, no matter the angle from which one looked at him, was as beautiful as a painting. Though his entire body was covered in sand and dust, his clothes torn and stained with the blood of wild beasts, his ink-black hair disheveled and coarse…… it shouldn’t be easy to remain as flawless as a sculpture, yet he was.

As Isaac sat staring at the prince in a daze, the prince, as if feeling the gaze, paused in cleaning his sword and glanced at Isaac. It wasn’t exactly surprising, but at the gaze that seemed to ask ‘What are you looking at?’, Isaac lightly shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess if a person’s underlying canvas is stunning, it doesn’t matter if their hair or clothes are a bit of a mess……”

“A bit of a mess…..?”

“……, No, I meant that since I’m a bit of a mess, it would be nice if my canvas were as good. Something like that.”

Isaac sneakily averted his eyes. ‘Oops. I should be careful. You shouldn’t say things like this to a man holding a sword……’

「Yoo-hoo~」

「You’re really going all out, our Manbang-ie!」 He could see the cats over there bobbing excitedly, though he didn’t know what they found so amusing.

Isaac had never been the overly polite or formal type to begin with, but he was becoming increasingly comfortable in his speech. For a while now—probably around the time he became absolutely certain that this man would eventually kill him after everything was over—Isaac’s mind had, in a way, become somewhat at ease. Perhaps it was because he recognized the fact that no matter what efforts he made, that cruel truth was something that could never be changed.

Ever since that day, the prince had been glaring at Isaac noticeably.

Glaring might not be the most accurate expression. He was someone who originally had an expressionless face and a cold gaze, so it hadn’t changed drastically. But the amount of time he spent staring intently at Isaac had increased.

When Isaac would suddenly turn his head while doing something else, he often found himself locking eyes with the prince. At those times, Isaac would also silently look back at the prince. He would stare as if engaged in a staring contest with the prince, who would slightly raise an eyebrow but never avert his gaze.

Then, at some point, the prince would either click his tongue and turn his head away, or motion for Isaac to come closer and bite him—it was always one of the two. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. But Isaac decided not to think about it.

Because no matter how hard he racked his brain, the final answer always came back to that single cruel truth: that the prince utterly loathed witches, and that he himself would surely die by his hand. Dwelling on it only deepened the gloom in his heart. Living in the moment and staying relaxed seemed like the best option.

‘…… Still, I shouldn’t push it too far. If I speak too carelessly and he gets pissed off and lops my head off before we even find Alikisa, it’s all over. Well, since I’m still useful for finding Alikisa, he probably won’t kill me easily just for speaking a bit too comfortably.’

It didn’t seem like this prince would ever miss or fail once he set his sights on a target, but Isaac had no intention of just sitting there and dying. He would have to find a way to escape somehow. Once they caught Alikisa——once he got the tinderbox.

“Am I actually somewhat useful to you?”

Isaac, who had been lost in thought for a moment, blurted out the question. Kyan lifted his gaze from his sword blade and stared blankly at Isaac.

“You’re talking about a reward. What do you want?”

Indeed, he’s a quick-witted man. Say one thing, and he grasps ten. On one hand, it made conversation easy, but on the other hand, it reminded Isaac that he always needed to watch his words.

“Well, I’ve heard the King’s treasury is full of incredibly rare treasures…… Can I take a look around and pick one thing I like?”

This answer seemed safe enough. The prince, who had been staring at Isaac putting on his most innocent face, soon gave a light nod.

“When all this is over.”

‘Done.’

Isaac’s heart pounded. This man kept his word. Once this matter was concluded, Isaac would be able to enter the treasury. And the tinderbox. If he could just get his hands on that.

‘…… Whether I die or run away, the time I spend with him like this will come to an end, but I will achieve what I wanted.’

Isaac watched the cats that had been prancing around near the prince for a while now. One was even circling right next to him. Then suddenly, Isaac locked eyes with the prince. While wiping his sword blade, Kyan was looking at Isaac. He slowly swept his gaze over Isaac, as if examining every detail.

That gaze. That was how the prince often looked at Isaac.

A gaze that seemed to be quietly examining something he didn’t understand. Like looking at something he didn’t know what to do with. At those times, Isaac didn’t look away and met his gaze, and as he did, his heart would grow unexplainably heavy.

‘Once I leave.’

‘Whether to the other side of the veil, or to the Land of the Dark Moon, once I disappeared, that man would be all alone. Just as he was now, and just as he had been in the past.’

That was the only thing weighing on his mind. And probably, even in the moment his head flew off by that man’s sword, or the moment he departed for the Land of the Dark Moon, that would be the very last thought to cross his mind.

“…….”

The prince decisively sheathed the freshly polished sword at his hip, then crooked his finger in a subtle beckoning gesture toward Isaac. Isaac immediately and obediently stepped closer to him.

Having gone through passionate, unending intimacy dozens, even hundreds of times, their bodies now automatically moved in seamless harmony with one another——or rather, Isaac found himself decisively seized by the prince’s strong arm, which reached out, gripped him firmly by the hip, and pulled him down onto his lap, their lips pressing tightly together once more.

The prince sucked on his lips, then frantically entangled his tongue with Isaac’s, greedy and ravenous as though it were the very first time their bodies had ever merged into one. That searing, fervent kiss stirred an exceedingly strange sensation within Isaac. It was an act meant to let him drink vital energy, but since the prince didn’t explicitly say so, it felt like a caress without any reason. And so, this lingering, endless kiss felt sweet—like an affectionate caress exchanged between lovers. Natural, without any ulterior motive. Just an act done simply because he wanted to.

‘…… To be having these thoughts while kissing the man who’s going to kill me, I must have more nerve than I thought. What do you mean ‘no reason’?’

“Shall I take another look?” Isaac whispered in the brief moment their lips parted.

He was scrying the witch almost every day. Because observing the witch consumed an immense amount of stamina, he couldn’t do it too frequently, but he checked about once a day.  However, there hadn’t been any significant findings. Most of the time, she was either walking through a village or forest path, or staying in a room somewhere. The only time he had seen her submerged in the pond was that one specific time.

“I wonder what she’s doing right now……”

The prince had shared his vital energy, so now it was time to check on the witch. Just as Isaac was about to close his eyes, the prince’s brow suddenly twitched in a frown.

“I suppose drinking vital energy is all you care about.”

The tone of his low muttering was harsh. Before Isaac could even collect himself enough to react, the prince pulled him back in without a word and overlapped their lips again. And, as if his feelings had been hurt, he sucked and chewed on Isaac’s tongue hard enough to cause pain——just then.

*Bop.*

A fluffy, pitch-black front paw pressed down on Kyan’s jaw.

Their movements froze with their lips still touching. In that time, the front paw tapped rapidly across the prince’s cheek, ear, and the back of his neck. Pulling his lips away from Isaac, Kyan cast his gaze down chillingly.

The cat that had been prancing around the prince earlier was now jumping up and tapping its front paws tap-tap-tap all over the prince’s body. It looked as if it were chasing a flying insect.

“What are you doing……?”

Isaac muttered, but the cat ignored him completely and circled the prince. Then, occasionally, it would leap up and smack Kyan’s back or shoulder. It looked exactly like a cat jumping around trying to catch a butterfly or a flying bug.

But Isaac couldn’t see anything.

While Isaac was looking around the prince in bewilderment, the prince, who had been glaring coldly at the cat, suddenly shot out his hand. Without any difficulty, he snatched the cat by the scruff of its neck and hoisted it up. The cat dangled in mid-air.

“What are you doing.”

「We are playing. Do not interfere.」

When Isaac asked, the cat replied sullenly, its face clearly showing how deeply its pride was wounded and how displeased it was at being caught so easily. At that, the other two cats sitting a short distance away clicked their tongues.

「Why bother trying to catch them? Even if you do, more will just appear anyway.」

「Well, I suppose those big, black, fluttering things do look incredibly fun to catch.」

Even as they said that, the two cats wriggled their rears as if itching to join in, stealing glances around the prince. They had the eyes of cats watching butterflies.

Isaac swept his gaze over the prince once before narrowing his eyes at the cats.

“I think it’s about time you guys started taking better care of your eyes…… Getting old must be making you see things.”

「See things?!」

「Who are you telling to take care of their eyes, when you’ve got eyes so blind you can’t even see those things fluttering around?!」

The cats instantly bristled their tail fur and shrieked in outrage.

“What do you mean ‘fluttering around’, there’s nothing there.”

「Vengeful spirits are fluttering around! Circling round and round the cornucopia!」

The cats widened their massive eyes and yelled fiercely. Isaac snapped his mouth shut. He looked at the cats for a moment, then at the prince, before asking back.

“Vengeful spirits?”

「They’re just looking for any opening to do harm to the cornucopia.」

「If they find something suitable nearby to attach themselves to, they’ll latch on immediately and attack him.」

「Looking closely, it seems that wizard kid sent them. He must really, really hate the cornucopia.」

「Well, it makes sense. If you think about it, our Cornucopia is a bit detestable, isn’t he? 」, 「What do you mean ‘if you think about it’, he’s detestable just looking at him.」 The cats put their heads together and gossiped amongst themselves again.

Isaac turned his gaze away from them and looked at the prince. The prince, who could undoubtedly decipher what the cats were saying just from Isaac’s few words and actions, showed no sign of interest whatsoever.

That wizard.

Isaac suddenly recalled what he had seen while taking a nap a little while ago.

The sensation of even human consciousness having almost vanished, leaving behind only a sticky, clinging hatred. For the wizard consumed by Alikisa, that was the only thing left.

“Can’t we chase them away?”

Isaac looked around the prince, trying to guess where the things were circling him—invisible to his own eyes, but visible to the cats’. Judging by the continuous movement of the cats’ heads, the spirits seemed to be constantly fluttering and flying all around.

「When it gets to that level, no, you can’t.」

「A dying kid sent out vengeful spirits with nothing but sheer grudge left; imagine how persistent they must be.」

「Just wait a bit. They’ll disappear once he dies. And judging by the overpowering stench of rot, he doesn’t have much time left.」

「Besides, vengeful spirits only attack by attaching themselves to other things; they don’t have any power on their own.」

“No, but what if they attach themselves to a wild beast or something and attack?”

Isaac blurted out, but stopped mid-sentence. All three cats simultaneously widened their eyes, looking at him with faces that clearly said, ‘What do you mean, what if.’ ……Right. What wild beast could possibly attack and harm even a single hair on this man’s head? Isaac half-gave up and let out a sigh.

Just then, a presence was felt from beyond the bushes. The sound of footsteps crunching softly on the grass, approaching this way—it was Rihan. Having grown accustomed to it over the past few days, Isaac could now identify him just by his footsteps. Originally, he was a man who appeared like a ghost without making a single sound. However, after suddenly appearing a few times while the prince and Isaac were in the middle of tangling their bodies and receiving sharp glares from the prince, he always started making his presence known like that when approaching. And if he heard the prince say ‘Stay there’ on his way over, he would stop and not approach any further.

Given how things already were, Isaac felt that blatantly showing them in the middle of the act, or saying ‘We’re doing that right now so don’t look and wait over there’, amounted to the same thing. Still, if he had to choose, letting only the sounds be heard was slightly better than showing it openly. Isaac had cast aside both face and shame ever since he started mixing his body with the prince.

“The witch has appeared.”

Rihan, who had approached the prince, spoke before even greeting. Isaac, who had been turning away to let them talk, stopped and turned back. To the prince, who merely raised an eyebrow very faintly without showing any other reaction and waited for the rest of the report, Rihan continued.

“About an hour ago, at a clustered village between the Iel Valley and the Minen Valley. It coincided with the time the soldiers went to distribute the flares, but they were slightly late. They ran into her just as she was coming out after devouring the villagers.”

Between Iel and Minen.

It was near the area they had pinpointed as highly likely for the witch to appear. Not too far from here either. A clustered village there wouldn’t have been small in scale. Roughly twenty-some households lived there……

“Were they all devoured?”

When Isaac asked, Rihan nodded. With his chest growing cold, Isaac took a deep breath.

“Casualties on our side?”

“Since they all carried anti-magic talismans, no one was directly caught in her witchcraft, but three were injured by the magical beasts the witch summoned. Two with minor injuries, one with severe injuries. We sent the severely injured soldier down to Kuslo.”

“I assume she slipped away.”

“She fled while we were dealing with the six mid-level magical beasts she summoned. One of our men barely managed to slash the witch, but it doesn’t seem she took significant damage.”

Rihan handed a sword to the prince. The weapon, presumably the one used to slash the witch, was smeared with something black and sticky. The moment it was drawn from the scabbard, an atrocious stench of rot spread through the air.

「Ugh, foul, so foul. What a foul stench.」

「He must be completely rotten to the core. It wouldn’t be strange if he died this very day.」

The cats sharply turned their heads away, baring their fangs and grimacing. Just as they said, the stench was terrible. Isaac’s face clouded as he stared at the blackened, discolored sword. It was the smell of a rotting corpse.

「At this rate, can he even hold out until the Grand Banquet?」

「That must be why Alikisa is so desperately trying to return to her original body as quickly as possible.」

The wizard was dying. The wizard who surrendered his body to Alikisa was now mostly physically rotted, his consciousness vanished, leaving only hatred behind. Isaac looked at the prince. The cats had said the wizard’s vengeful spirits were persistently circling around him, even though they were invisible to Isaac’s eyes.

“We’ll have to keep her bound to that body. At least until the Grand Banquet.”

Kyan, who had been lost in thought, murmured.

“Deploy soldiers to every clustered village in the vicinity. So she can’t be supplied with vital energy anymore.”

At the prince’s command, Rihan bowed his head without a word, turned around, and quickly vanished just as he had arrived. And so, only Isaac and the prince remained.

The witch’s body was at its limit.

Although Alikisa was surely scouring the land in desperate search of a suitable new vessel to transfer into, such a thing was utterly impossible amid the deep, treacherous mountain forests of the Heilen region. Someone capable of housing magic and willing to offer up their soul to form a pact with a witch—even in large cities teeming with the insatiably greedy, finding such a person was no easy feat. Her utmost priority at this moment was undoubtedly to swiftly reclaim her original body. And once the surrounding villages were all placed under strict military guard, her chances of snatching any vital energy would surely be completely wiped out.

By now, that witch must certainly be growing anxious as well.

“Don’t think about it, witch.”

Just then, the prince gently grabbed the back of Isaac’s neck and spoke. Isaac flinched slightly and looked at the prince. Meeting the prince’s expressionless gaze, Isaac let his shoulders slump and muttered, “Alright, I won’t.”

Though it wasn’t as if he could simply turn off his thoughts, his heart suddenly felt a little lighter. As if his depression and worries were being blocked by the prince.