LP 3.8 The Prince’s Rebellion

Lucian coughed briefly. He could feel the crowd stirring, having noticed the unsettling atmosphere flowing between the commanders at the front. It was just as the cheering began to fade strangely.

Having composed his expression, Lucian soon curved his eyes into a smile. With a blossoming grin, he raised his hand and waved to the people.

“Waaaaah—!”

The crowd immediately forgot everything and cheered again at the sight of the beautiful and prestigious prince’s smile. Fake petals fluttered through the air, and people reached out their hands, desperate to get even a little bit closer.

“This is how you do it, brother,” Lucian murmured quietly. It was just loud enough for Bastian, standing beside him, to hear. Bastian’s face crumpled further.

“You arrogant brat…”

“I’m giving you a special tip, so why the attitude? Besides, there are many eyes watching. Behave yourself.”

People were packed tightly in the streets, at the windows, and on every rooftop to watch the spectacle. Seeing the grip on the reins tighten, Lucian sneered inwardly.

If only Arabella had been here, he would have certainly dumped this role onto that woman.

Compared to Bastian, who was already heavily armed, Lucian was dressed in much lighter lightweight armor. Calling it lightweight armor was a stretch; honestly, it was a baseless outfit. It was too flashy to be a knight’s, yet too armored to be a royal’s.

However, the subjects who had gathered to see him didn’t care about such things. Rather, he was just the right amount of authoritative and just the right amount of beautiful, which was enough to instantly shift the protagonist of this procession to Lucian. Compared to the blonde young prince in loose armor, Bastian, who had even pulled on a helmet, looked at a glance like his guard knight.

A young girl stepped forward hesitantly and held something out to Lucian. It was a bracelet made of woven thread and hair—an object to wish for good luck in war.

Leaning down from his horse, Lucian accepted it with a gentle smile. The girl’s face flushed bright red.

The commoners didn’t care which prince was marching where or for what purpose. It was simply that Lucian was the more familiar prince, so they gave him the tokens of good luck.

Lucian stealthily handed the bracelet to Bastian. No one had given him anything so far.

“Would you like to take it?”

“…Get that filthy thing away from me,” Bastian spat.

“Planning to become the king of beggars, are you? Ha! It is a position well-suited for a filthy bastard.”

Even at words intended to grate on his nerves, Lucian shrugged nonchalantly.

“Beggars? It is because they breed and labor that the national treasury fills.”

“…….”

“And only when the treasury is full can you play your petty little war games, brother. Though you’d have no way of knowing, since you’ve never done a day of administration in your life.”

“You foul-mouthed—!”

Bastian’s hand moved. Lucian was faster. His hand, clad in riding leather gloves, grabbed Bastian’s metal gauntlet and pressed it down. Their builds looked similar at a glance, but it was difficult for someone who had lived only as royalty to defeat someone trained as a knight with raw strength. The face inside the helmet turned beet red.

After a brief standoff, Bastian eventually backed down first. Shaking off Lucian’s hand with deliberate roughness, Bastian muttered a curse through his teeth, and Lucian simply turned his head away.

They were both equally displeased anyway.

The bracelet dangling around the hand holding the reins caught his eye. The colors of the bracelet, braided with green thread and brown hair, somehow reminded him of someone who wasn’t here.

‘…I was eighteen then, and I gave flowers to Your Highness.’

At the faint voice that naturally surfaced, Lucian’s eyes narrowed. In the meantime, a few more people held out gifts, including bouquets. While he accepted them with a habitual smile, he couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Eighteen. That Mage who was eighteen.

…Kosha, who came to me and handed me flowers at eighteen.

When he first heard it, he had dismissed it as nothing, but somehow… the more he imagined it, the stranger it felt. Now, the combination of those words itself felt odd. Eighteen? That’s too young. That Mage, who probably hadn’t even lost his childishness… How old was I then? What was I doing?

Would it be acceptable for that scatterbrained Mage—who would have been even worse as a child—to enter the castle recklessly and offer a bouquet to an adult man, and a knight at that?

Lucian’s mind developed its own logic. The fact that giving flowers or protective gifts to knights was primarily something children did, and that eighteen was an age where a man could receive a knightly investiture, was completely absent from his mind at this moment.

Suddenly lifting his head, Lucian scanned the cheering crowd. A suspicion crept in that perhaps that disobedient Mage had escaped and come to watch. Of course, that was impossible. He had left him tied up securely.

It was a good thing he tied him up. But… would he be disappointed? If he liked watching processions like this. I wonder if he’d want to see it. If he likes seeing me dressed up, I can just show him privately once I go back…

But did that guy only give flowers to me? Lucian glanced back. Among the knights following him, there were a few who were also receiving bouquets or gifts.

According to the precise design of the strategists, the knights accompanying Lucian on his external schedule consisted mostly of those with handsome features and soft impressions. It was only natural that they would gain popularity by association.

Wouldn’t that Mage have just offered this and that to any handsome man in armor he saw?

The suspicion that suddenly reared its head felt quite plausible…

“What nonsense are you thinking about, you clown?”

A voice mixed with a metallic rasp sounded in his ear. His mind, buried in a delusion like sweet poison, was instantly dragged back to reality.

They had reached the outer fortress wall of Ostbrahe. This tedious accompaniment was finally over. Lucian hid his expression and smiled softly.

“I was just distracted because I felt a new sense of emotion seeing you off, brother.”

“…….”

“It was an honor to be able to see you on your way.”

The choice of words was peculiar.

‘Seeing you off’ and ‘the way you are going.’ Both are used normally today, but in archaic language, they were expressions used to refer to conducting a funeral.

The royal language is the one that retains the most traces of the oldest speech. No matter how ignorant Bastian, who was born and raised in the royal court, was, there was no way he wouldn’t understand that. His face turned crimson.

The strength in the brothers’ clasped hands increased. Veins bulged in their necks, and their shoulders pressed against each other.

“Show off as much as you can while you still can. You don’t have much time left.”

“Is that so?”

“When I return, you will be crawling at my feet like a dog, begging for mercy.”

Bastian’s voice dropped low. The expression vanished from Lucian’s face.

“Wash your neck and wait for me, you filthy bastard.”

The thick hand in the metal gauntlet gripped tightly and then released roughly. Following that, with a shout of “Hyah!”, his black horse bolted forward. The group of attendant knights galloped along with him toward the plains.

At the magnificent sight of the knights riding with flags fluttering, a final cheer echoed from inside the castle gate.

“…He still hasn’t learned how to watch his tongue,” Lucian murmured lowly, watching the scene impassively. Then he turned to his own knights.

“From now on, the King’s safety is the top priority. Double the guard and security personnel, and ensure at least two of our own people are included in every detail.”

“We shall obey.”

“The royal physician, royal apothecary, royal attendants—everyone who comes into contact with the King—must have their identities re-verified. Identify their families and hold them as hostages; if they have no suitable family, exclude them from duty for the time being.”

“We will keep that in mind.”

The responses came back disciplined and without hesitation. After confirming each familiar face with a look, he finally raised his voice.

“Peace and glory to Izelant.”

“Peace and glory to Izelant!”

It had become clear that Bastian was plotting something with this expedition. It was unlikely that such a coward would act this way without some kind of ‘guarantee.’ Moreover, 5,000 soldiers were mobilized this time.

The scale was larger than any situation he had clashed with Bastian in so far. The man definitely had something he was relying on.

And whatever that was, naturally, Lucian had no intention of giving it up.

So, for now, he would start with what he could do.

Lucian slowly turned his horse. He handed the bouquet and the bracelet of woven hair and thread to an attendant knight.

“Dispose of this inconspicuously.”

The attendant knight, who already knew his temperament well, accepted it silently and bowed his head.

Regardless, since he strictly had a person in his inner chambers, he couldn’t return with a bracelet containing another woman’s hair.

---

Feeling a hand fumbling over his body in a half-asleep state, Kosha blinked his eyes open.

He wondered if he had fallen asleep again, but in truth, it was closer to having fainted. This was a common occurrence when mana could not circulate properly in the body for a long time, but unfortunately, both Kosha and Lucian were ignorant regarding the body of a Mage.

Lucian had presumptuously climbed on top of the fainted man’s body, and absurdly, that was how Kosha regained consciousness. In reality, it was closer to the Mage’s consciousness reacting to the mana remaining inside Lucian’s body.

“Ugh, who…?”

Kosha, pinned down and face-down, barely managed to mumble. Instead of an answer, a large hand dove toward the area of his lower abdomen and untied the drawstring of his pants. The hand then seeped inside his underwear and began to grope his lower half and thighs at will.

“Your Highness?”

“Is there anyone else here besides me?”

A familiar voice whispered in Kosha’s ear. Ah, I thought… Just as Kosha, who had been squirming a bit, sighed in relief and let his body go limp, Lucian suddenly frowned at the strange reaction.

“What, was there really someone here?”

“Pardon?”

“I’m asking if someone came in here and touched you while I was gone.”

At the suddenly stern voice, only the innocent Kosha was flustered. And unconsciously, the incident with the silver-haired Mage flashed through his mind.

That Mage had lightly touched Kosha’s shoulder… Of course, he probably wasn’t asking about that. However, the problem was that his answer was slightly delayed because of it.

“Ah, no?”

“…….”

At an answer that looked suspicious to anyone, Lucian remained silent for a moment. The hand that had been kneading the inner flesh of Kosha’s thigh pulled out of the waistband and gripped Kosha’s cheek, turning it.

Their eyes met. Green pupils rolled away, avoiding the blue-gray eyes.

“Who would dare do such a thing…”

Kosha added awkwardly. It was half due to the mage’s instinct.

That woman was right. The Mage would not convey her regards to Lucian.

Because he hadn’t yet sufficiently judged what kind of existence she was. Whether she was an ally or an enemy.

Staring at Kosha as if gauging him, Lucian suddenly pulled Kosha up into a sitting position and took the shackles key out of his pocket. What’s this? Kosha’s eyes widened.

After unlocking the shackles, Lucian fiddled with Kosha’s wrists a few times and then pulled the gray robe off Kosha’s body. Inside, he was still wearing a one-piece nightgown.

“Hands up, high.”

Lucian commanded dryly. As Kosha blankly raised his hands as told, Lucian abruptly stripped off the one-piece nightgown.

In an instant, he was naked, with only a single piece of underwear remaining on his lower half. As Kosha, now naked alone in front of the sparklingly dressed Lucian, awkwardly rubbed his thighs together, Lucian frowned and clicked his tongue.

“Can’t you keep your legs still?”

A sharp gaze scanned Kosha’s body thoroughly. As if checking for any unknown traces or marks. He obsessively checked the pale nipples, the navel, the protruding shoulder blades on the back, and the area around the ankles.

However, the Mage’s body was flawless, like the first snow that had fallen overnight. Only on the inner thigh where Lucian had briefly kneaded him remained a red handprint exactly the size of his hand.

Soft skin is useful at times like this, Lucian muttered to himself and then pulled new clothes over Kosha’s head. These were clothes he had brought specifically to change him into. That damn one-piece nightgown used to roll up to the thighs whenever the Mage so much as twitched, which had been an annoyance.

Having suffered this sudden ordeal, Kosha looked down in bewilderment at Lucian, who was attending to his dressing. It was absurd enough that he was putting on the pants one leg at a time as if dealing with a five-year-old, but the hand movements tying the drawstring and tidying the clothes were quite skillful.

How could someone who had been dressed by others his whole life be so proficient at this? In Kosha’s mind, it was already a given that Lucian must have had many past lovers. He must have even been a very affectionate lover.

Of course, now he was in a relationship where they slept together.

He had learned that a man who digs into the past or a man who is jealous is pathetic, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit prickly. So, he ended up nitpicking something he would normally have let the man do as he pleased.

“Your Highness… did you really perform an inspection because you were afraid someone might have touched me?”

To put it simply, he was testing the waters.

Lucian did not answer. After watching his reaction for a bit, Kosha expressed his dissatisfaction again.

“Your Highness, acting like you have a spouse complex makes you unattractive.”

Regardless, unnecessary suspicion wasn’t very welcome. Both from the perspective of a ‘lover’ and a Mage—wait, but are we actually lovers?—

Of course, he expected this to be dismissed as nonsense or ignored entirely. He had just been grumbling to himself without much expectation, but unexpectedly, Lucian’s reaction was intense.

“Spouse complex?”

He stood up abruptly with a stern face. A slightly surprised Kosha shrank back. Since he was already a large man and was standing there in full formal attire, the atmosphere alone felt overwhelming.

“You call this a spouse complex?”

He questioned back as if interrogating. It felt like something terrible would happen if he answered yes. No, to this extent? Flustered and overwhelmed by the momentum, Kosha first shook his head vigorously.

“A-ah, no.”

“…….”

“It’s nothing. I, uh, just heard it somewhere. I’m sorry.”

Eventually, Kosha apologized hesitantly. Lucian clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. However, the atmosphere had softened considerably.

“It’s not that I’m suspicious, it’s that you act in a way that makes people anxious.”

“Is… is that… so?”

“Yes, it is.”

He fiddled with the fluffy, messy curly hair, mimicking Kosha’s manner of speaking.

“Maybe it’s because you lived with strange geese, but you’ve been corrupted. Wandering around as you please and not listening. So how could I not be anxious?”

“Is it… that bad?”

Kosha had a shocked expression. Had I caused that many accidents? By Kosha’s standards, being compared to a goose meant he was truly incredibly disobedient…

At the dim-witted expression, Lucian laughed softly. The sharp atmosphere vanished in an instant, and he pressed his body against Kosha’s side again. He used the excuse of finishing tying the sleeve strings of the tunic, but he was far too close for that.

His lips clung to Kosha’s ear as if finding their rightful place.

“So, tell me.”

His voice was now sweet, as if soaked in honey. It was enough to make one swallow involuntarily.

“…Tell you what?”

“Have you ever given flowers or something to another man besides me?”

The swallow that was about to happen got stuck in his throat, and Kosha coughed slightly.

“Another man?”

“Like my knights? During the procession, I mean.”

The words were so absurd that his drifting mind snapped awake. Kosha opened his mouth agape.

“Your Highness…”

“It’s in the past, so be honest. I just suddenly became curious.”

“Do you not know how much effort goes into giving those…?”

Somehow, his tone was like that of someone pitying a child who knew nothing. As Lucian paused, Kosha continued calmly.

“Your Highness, to give a bouquet, first you have to enter the castle early and secure a spot. If it’s a big event, the competition for the front row is fierce, so it’s really hard. I even live outside the castle, so I slept outdoors in front of the castle gate all night. First of all, I wasn’t the only one sleeping outside, and the soldiers guarding the gate kept waking people up to check if there were any suspicious persons.”

“…….”