With a confused look, the figure from under the desk stared back up at the intruder, forming a tableau of opposing symmetry in the dark office. The figure was none other than Herscherik, who was spending another night dauntlessly scaling the mountains of papers, reading one sheet at a time using his faint magical light under a desk in pursuit of his research. He was a month into this nocturnal investigation and had only just begun to understand the vague outlines of governmental entities and workflow. He was so enthralled with his reading that night that he didn’t even notice the intruder until he heard papers rustling on the desk above his head. Of course, Herscherik hadn’t expected anyone else to come here at this time of the night, and the intruder had not made a single sound until he touched those papers.
I don’t think he lives in the castle. He’s wearing all black...
Herscherik was looking up at the figure clad entirely in black as if he were trying to blend into the night, right down to a black cloth covering his mouth and a black hood drawn over his head. Only the intruder’s eyes peeked through. Those eyes were dimly lit by the cloud-shrouded moonlight coming through the window, but his irises almost seemed blood-red upon close inspection. Herscherik could easily tell by the intruder’s eyes that he was stiffened with surprise.
I wouldn’t know what to do if some random kid crawled out like this, either, Herscherik thought, chuckling in his mind.
Neither of their situations were going to improve by spending more time staring at each other.
“Um, you’re going to get in trouble.”
Herscherik opened his pocket watch. The night patrol would have almost reached the office by now. Just as he checked the time, Herscherik could hear footsteps coming down the hallway. The intruder was clearly unnerved. After a moment’s hesitation, Herscherik leaped into action. He swiftly placed the papers he was reading back where he had found them, slipped by the mysterious man, and exited out to the hallway. The intruder snapped out of his surprise—he would have been able to react quicker if he hadn’t been so taken aback by the completely unexpected encounter. By the time he tried to restrain Herscherik for fear of the child notifying a castle guard, Herscherik was already out in the hallway.
...I could take care of the night patrol, along with the kid.
He preferred not to kill children, but now that the child had seen him, Shadow Fang was left with no choice. With a quick flick of his wrists, a pair of daggers appeared in his hands. Trying to approach them from behind, he peeked out into the hallway to find a soldier and the child in conversation. More accurately, the soldier was scolding the child.
“Prince Herscherik, how many times must I ask you to refrain from your nighttime adventures!?”
“I-I’m sorry...!”
The intruder was frozen once more at the bizarre sight of the child (a prince!) apologizing as a soldier, the prince’s subject, scolded him as if the prince was his own son.
“I’ll walk you back to your room. If I find you out at night again, I will notify His Majesty.”
“Okay! I’ll make sure you won’t find me next time!”
“Prince Herscherik...” The soldier sighed and began leading the prince down the hall.
His tone was still that of a father talking to his son. Shadow Fang could easily imagine the resigned chuckle on the soldier’s face. Herscherik let the soldier take a few steps before turning around and giving the intruder a smile and a wave. Then, the prince caught up with the soldier and engaged in a bit of small talk. The guard’s full attention was now on the child.
After that chain of unexpected events, the intruder could only watch motionless as the child and the guard walked away. He couldn’t get those events out of his mind as he searched for the prized piece of paper all through the night. Dawn came before the intruder could find what he was looking for, forcing him to retreat for the time being.
Herscherik, the Seventh Prince of Gracis, was the king’s youngest and most beloved son. Back during his third birthday ball in early spring, a certain count’s acts of treason had come to light, which became the talk of the nation for a while. That incident and his birth were the only times Herscherik’s name ever entered the public consciousness. Even at his birth, the people of the kingdom didn’t pay him much mind. He was the Seventh Prince, after all. By that time, the people had celebrated more than two dozen royal events under the current king. The nation was plagued with enough corruption that the people were more concerned about putting food on their tables than any one act of treason, too.
This was the gist of the information Shadow Fang had obtained in his underground guild’s headquarters.
“Was he seriously a prince?”
Sneaking into an office at night to look something up?
That night, the intruder’s curiosity would get a few more answers.
“Good evening... Mister Intruder?”
When he infiltrated the same office again that night, the very same child was waiting for him by the window. Unlike the previous night, the room was illuminated by ample moonlight. The child’s blond locks shone with mystique, further accentuated by his glimmering blue eyes. Shadow Fang detected no animosity from those eyes, but the young prince standing there at this time of the night was an inexplicable sight. The intruder instinctively drew his dagger.
Herscherik quickly waved his hands in show of non-resistance. “W-Wait a minute! No one else is here. And the guards won’t come by for another hour. Don’t worry.”
“...What do you want from me?” the intruder growled, not dropping his guard.
However, Herscherik seemed relieved that the intruder was willing to hear him out. “I want to ask you something.” He then produced a piece of paper. The intruder looked it over without sheathing his dagger. It was an order for military supplies, a cornerstone of their national defense. The intruder looked at the prince, perplexed. Herscherik added with a serious expression, “Are these prices more or less than market price?”
Shadow Fang’s thought process ground to a halt, as he couldn’t discern why the prince could possibly be asking him this. He answered honestly. “More than double.”
Depends on the quality, but these prices are an absolute rip-off, he silently added.
Shadow Fang lived among ordinary citizens by day, so he frequented the market like everyone else. Every single item on that paper had been absurdly marked up.
Herscherik, having somewhat expected this answer, sighed and scratched his head. “I thought so... I expected a bit of markup, but...” Herscherik mumbled on to himself for a while before letting out another loud sigh and turning to the intruder. “Thank you. No one in the castle would give me a straight answer. Oh, I’m Herscherik, by the way. What’s your name?”
“...I don’t have one,” the intruder answered. He didn’t know why he had answered so honestly. It just seemed ridiculous to be on guard around Herscherik, who carried neither fear nor malevolence about him as he smiled at the intruder like they were old friends.
“Then... I think I’ll call you Kuro.”
That was the name of Ryoko’s big black dog she’d had while living at her parents’ house. The neighborhood children were intimidated by the dog and cried at the sight of him, but Kuro was a gentle and friendly dog who seldom even barked. Ryoko’s trusty hound was the first thing that came to mind when Herscherik initially saw the intruder clad in black from head to toe.
“What are you doing here, Kuro? I would like to thank you in some way.”
“You know I broke in here, right?” The intruder, Kuro, could not understand how the prince could speak to him without a shred of caution.
After seeing the look in Kuro’s eyes, Herscherik looked up to the ceiling with a little uh huh. “I know how good you are at that from the fact that you’ve made it into the castle. If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it the first time we met. Since I’m still alive, I figured that you have some other objective.”
I’m sure you could chop my head off in the blink of an eye.
Herscherik was well aware that he had no chance in a fight. Still, he needed someone with information on the outside world. Meria didn’t answer any of his questions, he couldn’t bother his overworked father, and he dared not ask any of the ridiculously prim-and-proper queens. As for his siblings, they attended the academy during the day and Herscherik rarely saw them. In any case, he thoroughly doubted that any of them would sincerely answer a three-year-old.
“We’re accomplices now. I mean, I don’t want to die. To be honest, I’ll give you whatever you want if it’ll get you out of here sooner.” Herscherik formed a smile.
Herscherik had simply spilled his guts, but Kuro saw his smile as somehow dauntless. Still, as an inhabitant of the underworld, Kuro had a policy of taking advantage of everything he could. Without sharing any information relating to his client, he told the prince what kind of report he was looking for and when it must have been turned in.
Herscherik pondered for a few moments before pointing to a particular pile of papers. “Probably somewhere in all those unprocessed papers, then.”
Dubious, Kuro rummaged through the pile to quickly find the paper he was looking for.
“That’s the one, isn’t it? I thought some of the details and numbers were off... That’s fixed in the new report, I’m sure.” Herscherik’s knowing response was met with a sharp glance from Kuro, but the prince only shrugged in response.
Later on, Kuro would conclude that the prince only gave up the paper because he had already read through it. If Kuro had been after a paper the prince hadn’t yet seen, he would have bought time before giving it up, and if the paper contained something important to the little prince, he would have tried to saddle Kuro with an inconsequential paper instead. Kuro would later become certain that this was how the prince would have acted, had circumstances been different.
As Kuro continued giving him an inquisitive look, Herscherik grinned and added, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. No one would believe a little kid like me if I did... Not yet, anyway.” The smile on his face was unbecoming of a child his age.
After making it out of the castle, Kuro went and shoved the paper he’d retrieved into his client’s face in exchange for his reward. This incident would only bolster his reputation and result in a huge influx of castle-infiltration gigs coming his way. Kuro had no intention of stepping foot in the castle again, but he still couldn’t get the little prince out of his mind. He would continue to take these quests now and again and run into the same prince in the most unexpected of places.