The Prince's Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 43

Chapter 43: First Trial (3)

A brief silence fell over the small cabin.

A strange glint suddenly flickered in Sage’s faded eyes.

“Why did you think that?”

“Pardon?”

He asked again, catching Edwin off guard.

“I asked why you thought that. You’re a prince of this nation, aren’t you? Then why do you think you’re truly ‘just anyone,’ no different from others?”

Edwin hesitated at the sage’s question, then carefully opened his mouth.

“I followed Leo around earlier today and met the villagers.”

He continued in a calm voice, “They weren’t any different from people outside the plague village.”

“Not different?”

“Everyone had something they could do, something they had to do.”

The young prince’s expression darkened more and more.

“But I didn’t have anything I could do. Not that I ever had anything I had to do before.”

An unwelcome presence no matter where he went, a troublemaking prince, a useless chess piece.

A prince destined to die without even leaving behind the name given to him by his parents.

All of Edwin’s countless nicknames flashed through my mind.

“And when I came face to face with that monster, I realized it even more clearly.”

Edwin’s small hands clenched tightly.

“That I’m nothing but a powerless, ordinary kid who can’t do anything.”

Even after hearing Edwin’s answer, Sage remained silent for quite a while.

He simply stared at the boy quietly.

“Hey, what did you say your name was again?”

The silent man suddenly asked him his name.

“Edwin Anaxinian Ventrume… sir.”

“Edwin, huh. Means conqueror.”

Sage repeated the name and then laughed heartily.

“Haha, for someone with such a clueless face, you’ve got quite the grand name.”

Whether it was a compliment or an insult was unclear, and Edwin rolled his eyes awkwardly.

Sage chuckled as if finding Edwin’s reaction amusing.

“Not bad for a little brat.”

“Not bad?”

“Yeah. Not many people know they’re just as ordinary as everyone else. Even among the dried-up old folks, it’s rare.”

Sage grinned, showing his teeth.

“That’s why I like you, prince.”

Strangely enough, the old sage seemed quite pleased with the young prince’s answer.

“Young Prince, I have another question for you.”

Sage’s expression softened considerably.

“Do you know what I do?”

Edwin nodded. “I heard from Leo. He said you’re the great man who created the cure for Scale Disease.”

“What? He told you even that?”

Sage rubbed his brow as if suddenly tired.

“Even so, I’m sure my name has long been forgotten outside. I’ve been hiding in this village for over ten years now.”

The old sage muttered a regretful soliloquy.

Then he turned the topic back to Edwin.

“So, you said you saw the villagers as you arrived. That you thought you were no different from them.”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you have any other thoughts?”

Edwin paused again, then slowly answered, “A little… I felt sad.”

“Why’s that?”

The boy hesitated, then answered in a small but clear voice, “They’re just sick people suffering from illness, but they die and vanish without leaving anything behind.”

What is he thinking?

I quietly watched Edwin’s face, which looked somewhat sad.

“Because leaving nothing behind, with no one remembering you—that’s a sad thing. Being forgotten is a sad thing.”

Sage listened to Edwin’s answer and stood up after a long silence.

“Yeah, I used to think that way too. That’s why I fought to the very end.”

Perhaps he was recalling the past, when assassins chased him.

Sage let out a bitter laugh.

“Well, in the end, I ended up like this—just as pathetic.”

Sage Rill, the great sage.

He was so extraordinary that he had no choice but to live hidden in a place like this.

“I should’ve hidden the fact that I made the cure back then.”

“You mean the cure for Scale Disease?”

“Yeah, the cure that completely heals Scale Disease.”

Just recalling the memory seemed to leave a bitter taste in Sage’s mouth.

“It’s already been over ten years since I first developed that cure. It’s been a long time.”

He lowered his gaze, steeped in regret.

Watching him, I remembered events from around that time.

Sage’s face as he furiously argued with me when I came to kill him still lingered in my mind.

“I can save the world! Why do I have to die? Isn’t that ridiculous, even to you?”

It really was ridiculous.

Sage had been threatened with death solely for creating a cure for Scale Disease.

“Why? Isn’t creating a cure for Scale Disease something amazing? Right, Rachel?”

“It’s amazing. That’s exactly why he ended up with even more enemies.”

“What? Why?”

Edwin frowned as if he couldn’t understand.

The one who answered his question wasn’t me, but Sage.

“I had no intention of selling the cure I made. I was planning to distribute it freely to the sick. That was the problem.”

As soon as word got out that Sage had developed the cure, swarms of merchants came running.

“They were all heads of the most prominent merchant guilds in the Empire. They each offered a higher price and demanded the recipe.”

But he refused them outright.

He wanted to stick to his beliefs.

“But it seems someone among them leaked the information to the Holy Kingdom. By the time I went to petition His Majesty to distribute the cure for free on a national scale, the Holy Kingdom had already put pressure on the Empire.”

The Holy Kingdom threatened that if the Empire manufactured the cure for Scale Disease, they would no longer dispatch high-ranking clerics to the Empire.

“That wasn’t all. They said they wouldn’t engage in diplomacy, and the Holy Emperor would never attend imperial events again.”

As with other kingdoms across the continent, the Empire always invited the Holy Emperor to national ceremonies.

Because for great state affairs, divine approval was customary.

“Why did they do that? If there’s a cure, the priests wouldn’t have to suffer anymore either. Why? Why did the Holy Kingdom do that?”

“There was only one reason.”

Blasphemy.

Before that on word, Sage’s grand plan to overcome Scale Disease crumbled to dust.

“How is that blasphemy! Blasphemy is… that’s when someone insults God!”

Perhaps from anger, Edwin’s speech dropped all formal tone.

“I don’t get it!”

He demanded with a reddened face.

“How is saving people an act of blasphemy?”

“It wounded their pride that a disease treatable only by divine power could be cured by a mere mortal’s potion.”

Edwin couldn’t say anything.

“For that reason, His Majesty rejected my proposal, and after that, it was hell.”

To make matters worse, the Holy Kingdom secretly dispatched paladins to hunt Sage.

On top of that, the merchants he had scorned sent assassins after him as well.

To add a footnote, one of those assassins sent by the merchants was me, ‘Kyla Angel.’

“I kept running and running. Eventually, I got so worn out I tried to end my life. If it hadn’t been for a deal a certain girl offered me at that moment when I was about to give up everything.”

Sage’s eyes briefly turned toward me, but I ignored it.

Meanwhile, Edwin seemed incredibly curious about the ‘deal’ Sage and I had made.

His eyes lit up as he clung to Sage.

“What kind of deal was it?”

“She said she’d help me escape from those chasing me in exchange for collecting my life’s worth later. I had no other choice. I wanted to survive, no matter what.”

Before we knew it, Sage had returned to the overbearing attitude he had when we first met.

“Damn it, now that I think about it, I got the short end of the stick! I remember giving her thousands of gold coins because she said she’d save me and asked for more than the other client!”

“If only you hadn’t insisted on releasing the cure under your name, you wouldn’t be stuck living in a place like this.”

“Yeah! I was greedy! I wanted to go down in history as the great sage! The great sage who defeated the ‘curse of the devil,’ Scale Disease! How awesome does that sound?!”

Sage grumbled in a tone laced with irritation.

“That was definitely the deal we made…”

He trailed off and suddenly turned to me.

“So, Kyla, what’s that girl doing now, huh?”

“What?”

I nearly hiccupped from the sudden surprise but managed to hold it back.

“She stormed off in the middle of that story earlier. Kyla—what’s that brat, who didn’t even die, doing now? Still butchering humans for money?”

Who’s he calling a human butcher, this old geezer.

I replied coldly, hiding my displeasure, “Human butcher? What kind of vulgar comment is that in front of His Highness.”

“So fussy. I’m just telling the truth.”

Sage raised his chin as if he never said anything wrong in his life.

“What’s so great about making money by killing people? Isn’t it the most vulgar job in the world?”

As soon as I heard that, a flush of heat rushed to my face.

For some reason, the fact that Edwin was standing beside me suddenly became very distracting.

“She’s such a pitiful girl.”

What now? Giving poison and then pretending to offer the cure?

I looked at Sage with narrowed eyes.

To my surprise, he wore a face genuinely full of pity.

“If she hadn’t strayed down that path, she could’ve lived a happier life than anyone else.”