Chapter 519:
The King’s Elder Brother? Or Child?
“AS FAR AS THE PUBLIC IS CONCERNED, the royal family was trying to produce children who would have powerful magic abilities.”
Zinal’s answer made me scrunch up my face. That was the part they made public? It sounded pretty heinous to me.
“So, um, what’s the whole story?” I asked.
Zinal and Fische were both obviously disturbed.
“The royal family was using them…to operate a summoning circle.”
“What?!”
“A summoning circle?” My father stared at them both in bewilderment.
“That’s right. A summoning circle.” Zinal had a look of true disgust on his face. I hadn’t expected summoning circles to enter the conversation here as well. “We’re actually investigating whether it’s true or not. But according to one person’s findings, it’s true. The crown wanted to assemble the most powerful magic users in the land to operate a summoning circle under the royal castle.”
How horrible. But wait—
“But how does that make sense?” my father asked. “The strength level of a person’s magic doesn’t matter when it comes to summoning circles.”
I nodded in agreement. Before I understood the truth behind summoning circles, I’d found it hard to believe that somebody like me with very little magic could use them.
“Even less was known about summoning circles back then than there is now.”
That made sense. They didn’t know any better, so they brought the most powerful magic users together to operate the summoning circle so they wouldn’t mess it up.
“That reminds me, there was just one more story about that king. It’s from before he came to the throne.”
Before he came to the throne? So when he was the prince?
“Isn’t it about how his older brother, the crown prince, had the true claim to the throne?” Zinal asked.
Fische shook his head no.
“Really?” Zinal asked, craning his neck to jog his memory. Fische had corrected him earlier about the village name, too. Maybe Zinal just wasn’t as interested in history as Fische was.
“The king had an older brother? I never heard of that. I thought the eldest son always took the throne.”
Apparently, my father knew nothing about this, either.
“When the king took the throne, he burned all records of his older brother to hide his existence. That’s probably why.”
Fische’s explanation made me wonder…if the king burned all the records, then where did these stories even come from? It’s just one mystery after another. Do Fische and Zinal have the most incredible social network at their disposal? I shouldn’t ask… Yeah, I’d better not.
“So, what kind of story is it?” I asked.
If it was about the royal family, I wanted to hear it.
“It’s about the king’s older brother. He went to church and encountered an apparition there. Right?” Zinal asked Fische.
Huh? An apparition?
“No. Well, that’s partly right.”
Which part?
Fische seemed frustrated by Zinal’s oversimplified explanation.
“The long and short of it is, the crown prince was targeted by an assassin when he was out surveying. His bodyguards helped him escape, and he fled back to the castle…but the assassin intercepted him along the way. The prince’s bodyguards, heavily wounded from protecting him, ran off the road and into the forest. Then they arrived in a village not found on maps. There, they discovered a deserted church. They stepped inside it so they could rest their wounded bodies for just a little while, and they hid themselves in one of the rooms. The crown prince and his two surviving bodyguards were more heavily wounded than they thought, and they quickly came to terms with the reality that they would all die there in the church unless somebody came to rescue them soon. And as if to laugh in their faces, the church doors slammed shut. Realizing the assassin was there for him, the crown prince laughed in resignation. As the eerie laughter echoed through the empty church, the assassin faltered for a moment, but he charged through the church to accomplish his mission all the same. When he reached the door to a room, the laughter suddenly stopped. The assassin hesitated for a moment, then he listened inside the room. He heard faint voices, but he could not decipher what they were saying. He unsheathed his sword and kicked down the room’s door. Immediately after, the assassin was engulfed in red flames.”
He spontaneously combusted just by touching the door? Was it a summoning circle?
“Just before the assassin was engulfed in flames, a man appeared before the crown prince. When the crown prince saw him, he immediately recognized the man was not human because his body was transparent. The man asked the crown prince, ‘Do you want to live?’ and the crown prince laughed at the phantom in man’s clothing before him and answered, ‘Of course I want to live.’ The man smiled when he heard the response and said, ‘Then take my hand and I’ll save you.’ The crown prince grabbed the man’s hand without hesitation, and the next thing anyone knew, a bloodcurdling screech rang through the deserted church.”
Was that man a ghost? But the crown prince called him a phantom. Phantom? As in, a demon? Or a monster disguised as a human? Since he was transparent, that seems more like a ghost to me. So is this story about a ghost saving the crown prince?
Fische continued, “Once the screech subsided, the man healed the crown prince and his two bodyguards as well.”
If he healed their wounds…was he a ghost with the Light skill? Wow. I guess you can use that skill after you become a ghost.
“The crown prince tried to go straight back to the royal capital, but the man stopped him, saying, ‘You can no longer be king.’ He then said that since he saved the prince’s life, he must now do his bidding. The prince resisted, but the man said, ‘Then would you rather die right now?’ and rendered the prince speechless. He knew just how powerful this man was. The man vanished, taking the crown prince and his two bodyguards with him. Several years later, the crown prince’s younger brother was crowned king. Then about fifteen years later, this king died, and one month after that, the former crown prince’s son became king.”
What?! So not the former crown prince himself, but his son became king? What a twist.
“So that means the king’s bloodline was not interrupted, then,” my father said.
That was when I realized it. Of course, the bloodline was still connected. Now I felt silly for getting all worked up.
“Yeah, that’s what it means,” Fische agreed. “At first, some people raised doubts that he really was the former crown prince’s son, but the staff who had worked at the castle decades earlier confirmed it. After all, the boy looked exactly like the crown prince when he was young. Apparently, the resemblance was so uncanny that some of the servants were afraid of him.”
The resemblance was so strong people were afraid of him? Wait, then what happened to the former crown prince? If he went back to the castle, he would surely want to be king himself. So if his son was made king instead, that means…
“Um, did the former crown prince pass away?” I asked. “And what happened to his two bodyguards?”
“The former crown prince and his two bodyguards died in an epidemic, or so it says in the records.”
An epidemic… So I guess that means only the former crown prince’s son was at the castle.
“Did they reinstate the former crown prince in the royal records?” my father asked.
Fische shook his head no. But hadn’t he said that the record stated he died in an epidemic?
“Since the noblemen decided it wouldn’t be good if the royal succession drama went public, they claimed the boy was the son of the former king’s younger brother. That he had lived outside the castle because of the epidemic. That younger brother is the one who went into the records. The records also state that the younger brother and his two bodyguards died in an epidemic a little before the king died.”
Is it just me, or is the royal family way too creative with their records? First, they erased the older brother, then they added a younger one—oh, wait, maybe there actually was a younger brother!
“Did the king actually have a younger brother?” I asked.
Fische nodded. “He died because of the former king’s curse, but that was stricken from the record.”
Stricken from the record? Did Fische see the royal records at some point? I really want to know…but I shouldn’t stick my nose in too deep.
“Is anything in the royal records actually true?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische smirked cynically. “From what I’ve seen, it’s about fifty-fifty.”
Horrible ratio! Only half-true… They shouldn’t call it a record. More like a fabrication.
“Mr. Fische, isn’t there any more information about the man who saved the former crown prince’s life?” I asked.
I really want to know if he’s a ghost or a phantom.
“Around the time the former crown prince’s son ascended the throne, eyewitness accounts of a phantom with a man’s appearance began to circulate in the castle.”
A phantom… Maybe there’s no word for ghost here? I’ll have to ask my father later. Well, that aside…does this mean the former crown prince haunted his son after he died? What was that mysterious man trying to do?