Chapter 28: Weakling (1)

Authors Note: Here's the chapter. As always, let me know if you find a mistake, and please follow, rate, and favorite since it really helps bring more visibility ^^

"Your highness. Wake up, your highness. We've arrived."

As he felt something gently tapping his cheek, Caellum's eyes snapped open, and he almost screamed in fear when he saw the incredibly realistic serpent mask that was being illuminated by a flickering lantern as if he were in a horror movie.

"…de-demon?"

"No, your highness, it's me, Yaga. Are you having a nightmare? Ai-go~" Yaga's voice came out from the masked figure, allowing Caellum to return to his senses.

'Oops. My true thoughts came out.'

"Ah, sorry. Was I out for long? It seems that we're back in the tunnel leading to the palace."

"Yes, your highness. It's been about 30 minutes since you dozed off. You must have been tired."

"Something like that. The people following us. Did you lose them?" Caellum asked curiously as he stood up from the ground and dusted himself off.

"Of course. Well, there was one slightly persistent kiddo, but I eventually left him behind hoho~. He's a bit too green to deal with someone like me, so I made sure to teach him and all the other flies a lesson. It's a bit unfortunate that I didn't have more time to play around more, but your safety comes first, your highness, so I did the best that I could with the little I had and left them all alive just like you asked."

Seeing Yaga's wicked smile as she removed the serpent mask, Caellum swallowed and looked away.

'Let's not ask any questions. I don't want to know any details so I can plausibly deny everything later. As for the people who were taught a lesson while she played around, well… at least she left you alive?'

It was a sobering thought.

"I see. Well, uh…thank you?"

"Of course, your highness. I enjoyed the opportunity to swat some flies around after a thrilling evening of rat hunting. Shall we head back? These old knees of mine are hurting, and I'd like to get some rest before my shift in the kitchen. I'm on bread duty, you know?" Yaga asked as she led, pointing in a particular direction with her lantern.

"…Sure."

After peeling off his own blood-crusted mask and finally getting some fresh air, Caellum reoriented himself in the tunnel and began walking before stopping.

"Wait. Do you have an extra bag, or do you just want your payment in the bag Red gave me?"

"I haven't delivered you to your doorway according to our deal, your highness," Yaga replied neutrally.

'But I don't particularly want to be seen handing a giant sack of money to you by my doorway in case anyone is watching it. And I don't particularly want you to be coming in and out of my room either.'

"You've been professional and very helpful, so I'm willing to pay up early. Our deal is completed. Thank you for keeping me alive tonight. I'm grateful for your help." Caellum took out the bag containing 1/3 of his earnings tonight, 334 gold coins plus a little extra as a tip, and stuffed it into Yaga's hands before quickly walking ahead, before she could refuse again.

He felt as if he didn't; he might hold on to the money and never let it go.

Jingle jingle~

"Aigo, you're so generous to this old lady and are contributing to my retirement fund. Many thanks, your highness. Let's do this again~."

'Let's not. My wallet and my heart can't take it.'

As he walked, Caellum's expression flashed between depression each time he heard the bag of coins jingle behind him and the satisfaction of having a productive day before settling somewhere in the middle.

While he was a bit sad to lose so much money after a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of winning 1:100 odds, in his mind, the scales were still tilted towards him, and if he thought about it, he'd gained much more than he lost.

Firstly, he was alive and safe, which was the most important thing. Getting money was good, but if he wasn't alive to enjoy it, then it was worthless. Additionally, because of Yaga, no one followed him back, which meant his identity as a prince was safe.

Secondly, he may have discovered someone in a similar situation and locked him in for a favor. Between now and the time he planned on leaving, Caellum would use the opportunity to get closer to Hollow and slowly extract information about who he really was, how he ended up in this world, and if there was a way to go back.

Thirdly, he had secured a spot to host gambling games in the black market, which would help him gather money and information, the two things he lacked most right now. There were too many suspicious people like Red or even Hollow who didn't exist in the book as far as he remembered, and since his information was worse than lacking, he needed to remedy that immediately.

Fourthly, based on tonight's experience, he realized how dangerous people were and how desperately he needed protection. He'd thought he could coast by before, but that thought had been thoroughly sliced and diced the same way Kanaan the Ignorant Barbarian was.

A fighting ring organizer in the black market could be a fire mage with an anger problem, a scruffy-looking fighter could defeat a giant barbarian with a wooden sword, a palace chef was a deadly assassin who specialized in poisons, and a weakling ant like him could get squished easily just by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He had been lucky tonight, with Yaga nearby and her agreeing to protect him for money that he'd won, but relying on luck was an easy way to get killed, and he didn't plan on doing such a stupid thing.

1:100 odds didn't happen every day after all, so contingencies needed to be made.

Having a person like Yaga on retainer for his outings would be invaluable, and even if her daughter, Zahra, were a dud, it would still be a net positive. So before he left the palace again, the deal between them needed to be ironed out.

And during the months they protected him, he would keep looking around and assembling a team to serve as his guards once he left the palace and was no longer a prince.

One such person had been found in Hollow. And hopefully, rest would follow.

All in all, the day was a net positive. If there was one con…it was that this body needed to be fixed.

As he climbed through the wall that led back into the palace with Yaga's help and heading back to his room, once he made sure that nobody had touched or planted anything in the room, Caellum examined his body as he did every night.

And as always, it was disappointing.

He didn't know what was wrong, or if it had always been this way, but ever since he entered it, Caellum thought his body's reaction speed was slow, his strength pitiful, things always ached and hurt, and he was often out of breath doing the littlest things. It was pathetic.

While part of it was definitely a lack of conditioning and malnutrition from eating poison from the queen, there was clearly a deeper issue. After all, when he occasionally made Masha eat the food Toenail brought for extra money, apart from getting a bit sick(it seemed that she was building an immunity), none of her symptoms matched his.

It meant that these symptoms were unique to him, and there was something else that needed to be diagnosed to determine what the actual issue was, whether it was the effects of long-term poisoning or something congenital.

Since he had no plans to live like this forever, during his month-long cramming sessions in the library, Caellum had outlined three main options to cure his body.

Option 1 - Ask a saint for healing.

Unfortunately, the only saint he personally knew was the one for the God of Eternal Flames, who wasn't a god known for healing; according to the books, this god was more focused on smiting evil, smiting darkness, smiting his enemies, smiting heretics, and acting as if he were better than everyone else. In Caellum's opinion, not only was this god stupid, but he was also useless and could honestly drop dead. After all, what kind of god couldn't even figure out that the vow taken with his own saint didn't work on the right person? Truly stupid.

As for the saints of other gods, there was one rumored to be on the southern continent and another in the Gryphon Empire on the western continent, but since those two places were out of reach, the idea of getting healed from a saint would be tabled for now.

The next option, Option 2 - Poison and Potions, was one that Caellum was more hopeful about, and one he planned on pursuing as soon as his and Yaga's deal was inked and signed.

Based on the queen's animosity and the constant poison in his food, he had to assume he was poisoned by her since childhood, and what he was feeling was the remnants of a particular poison wreaking havoc in his body. And who better to help cure him than a poison specialist who ate poison for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sometimes bathed in it? Caellum planned to have Yaga diagnose and treat him, and he would continue his rehabilitation with potions once he left and she joined the 12th prince.

If option two didn't work, Caellum's last resort was a complete long shot with about a 1% chance of success. The method? Finding the Elemental Beast and asking for its blessing.

One of the things he had done in the library was research the general history of every nation, along with its mythology and the people and things that inhabited it, and try to reconcile it with what he remembered of the novel.

After all, this was a different world, a fantasy world, and while he had gotten lucky when talking nonsense about cinnamon in the throne room, he couldn't count on getting lucky again, and the more knowledge he had, the easier navigating things would be.

In this world, apart from the fantastical creatures like dragons, gryphons, and the like, there were creatures called Elemental Beasts, creatures that were formed from and embodied the various elements and could control them.

Like the Phoenix from the Emberfield Kingdoms' history, which was rumored to live in the ring of fire, an area of constantly erupting underwater and island volcanoes near the Emerald Isles, or the Black Ice Turtle Snake that lived in the land of eternal winter up north.

Occasionally, these Elemental Beasts would bestow their abilities onto certain individuals who passed their tests, and even more importantly, at least to Caellum, they could bestow items with the full force of their abilities to people.

Caellum vaguely remembered that the 12th prince had received Svalinn, an almost impenetrable ice shield, from the Elemental Beast after he helped it and the beastfolk fight the evil organization causing havoc.

Of course, while having an almost impenetrable ice shield was nice and would be useful in keeping him safe, Caellum had no plans to get involved with beast folk or the evil organization; that was for the 12th prince to deal with as scheduled.

Instead, his target was a different elemental beast, the Kirin, who was lovingly referred to as the guardian of the forest and lived in harmony with the elves, animals, elemental spirits, and all things related to the natural world.

Of the elemental beasts he had read about, the Kirin was the gentlest. It only ate sunlight, sipped the morning dew, and caused flowers to bloom wherever it walked. There were no recorded deaths or injuries, and it preferred to flee when spotted.

According to myths, if you could find it, it would grant you one of its abilities, and in the past, it had apparently granted a hero a prosthetic limb made of living wood and another with the power of healing, which is what he wanted for himself.

Of course, Caellum didn't know exactly where it was, but thanks to his subordinates' chatter and extensive research, he had a general idea of where to go and how to bait it.

Once he was out of the palace, while the capital city was dealing with the volcanic eruption and before any other incidents occurred, he would go hunting for Kirin, obtain a healing item, and leave the area before things went south.

But that was all for later, or hopefully not at all if Yaga could deal with the issue plaguing his body.

For now, he had to take things step by step.

Step 1 was knighting Zahra.

Which meant going to the knight training grounds in the morning.

After washing up, Caellum lay on the bare ground and quickly fell asleep.

And when he woke up, well into the morning, after wearing his only other pair of clean clothes, he tiredly made his way to the knight training ground, which was in a separate fenced-in area within the palace walls.

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky, and he could smell the sea.

The beautiful day genuinely put Caellum in a good mood.

If things went well this morning, he would have time to visit a craftsman to create his cards and everything he needed to host the very first poker game in the world and fleece Red out of some money.

As he entered the gate leading into the knight training area, he saw the guards flinch and do a double-take as they glanced at him.

'What? Never seen somebody with white hair before? Grow up.'

Ignoring the gate guards' exaggerated responses, Caellum continued walking, passing various training dummies, archery targets, and platforms that no one was using.

Curious as to why the place was so empty, he continued walking, turning the corner to head toward the training section with the main guard building.

Expecting not to see anyone again, Caellum was quite surprised to see about 50 people wearing matching clothing lined up in neat rows and columns, and even more surprised to see the people at the very front of the organized group.

It was his half-siblings, all dressed in similar training clothes, standing in a row.

The tall, muscular, blonde prince who looked like the queen, 12th Prince Lionell Jade Emberlin - Present.

The tall, red and black-haired prince who was the spitting image of the king's favorite concubine, 9th Prince Emrys Richard Emberlin - Present.

The annoying coral-haired princess, Caellum, had seen in the throne room when he was accused of poisoning the king, 6th princess Francesca Spinelle Emberlin - Present.

A person, Caellum, only recognized from portraits in the library, a tall man with broad shoulders, reddish auburn hair, and beard - 1st Prince Richard Emberlin IV - Present.

And finally, the grizzled old guy in full plate armor who was speaking was probably the guard captain, Aldis Vance.

'What the hell is going on here?'

'Is there some group training I don't know about, or are you guys in an alliance and working on your battle formations?'

'Do I have to participate? I'd really rather not since I haven't eaten yet.'

Caellum froze temporarily, scanning the faces of everyone while nonsensical thoughts filled his head, before shrugging and continuing to approach his royal siblings.

'Welp. Might as well see what's going on.'

As he got closer, the guard captain stopped speaking, and everyone turned to stare at him.

Unperturbed by the stares, Caellum continued strolling along while trying to make eye contact with a particular prince who refused to look at him.

Feeling a bit mischievous, Caellum began waving as he called out as loudly as he could.

"Brother! 9th brother! It's me! Long time no see!"