Chapter 14 – An Unexpected Accident

Lyle got up and looked at the mirror attached to the wall. The reflection showed the same thing. His snow-white skin, silver hair tinged with violet, the golden eyes that symbolized the Imperial Family—all were divided into only red or white, expressing darkness and brightness.

He couldn’t understand why. What had happened that made his eyes see everything with a red tint?

He felt uneasy. How long would this phenomenon last? Was it a side effect of alchemy? He felt as if he might be consumed by this unsettling mood.

Ah, what if Ethea wakes up and sees that horrible lump of flesh? She surely never expected the result of their vow of friendship to be something like that.

“Seisil…!”

Lyle nearly punched the mirror without realizing it. He had no idea how to handle this mess.

At that moment, a strong gust of wind blew into the refining room. The curtains fluttered, and through the gap, a passerby glanced inside. The passerby recognized Lyle and stopped walking.

“Lyle?”

At the familiar voice, Lyle turned around.

“It is you, Lyle! You rascal!”

There was the third prince, Ophel. Although his color perception was different now and everything looked red, the features were unmistakably Ophel’s. His arrogant expression and tone also made it clear.

Ophel, who was particularly meddlesome, seemed intrigued by what he’d found.

“What are you doing here?”

Ophel was born of the same mother as the Crown Prince and was the Crown Prince’s most cherished sibling.

That was because Ophel posed no threat to the Crown Prince. While Lyle hid his true self and acted lazy, Ophel was genuinely lazy and dissipated.

He was so foolish that even at over twenty years old, he couldn’t properly write the Empire’s script, and so extravagant that he held daily parties at his own villa, accumulating debts. Indulgence was his norm. He once hired a dark mage to enjoy hallucinations, and when caught by the Mage Tower’s mages, the angry Emperor told him, “You might as well die.”

Yet, the reason he wasn’t hated by his older brother, the Crown Prince, was that he was a useful informant. Even as he played around, Ophel had an uncanny ability to detect signs of rebellion or unrest. Meeting and mingling with various people, he heard all sorts of rumors, and since that information was valuable to the Crown Prince, he received plenty of pocket money and affection.

While he was adored by his full brother, his relationship with his half-brother Lyle was poor. Ophel himself might think of himself as a hearty, cheerful brother to Lyle, but ever since he’d harassed Lyle’s mother, Lyle had barely restrained himself from k*lling him.

And now, Ophel was here. Of all people, it had to be Ophel, not another sibling.

He often played in villages near the capital, so running into him was possible, but it was problematic for him to be at Ethea’s house.

‘Not here. Not now.’

Oblivious to Lyle’s concerns, Ophel tried to approach him.

“What brings you to this village? Friend’s house? Well, I can come in too, right?”

“Get out!”

In the urgent situation, Lyle shouted without thinking. He must never let Ophel see the magic circle and traces of alchemy in the refining room.

But Ophel, naturally rude, was already circling the yard, trying to enter the refining room.

“You brat, mind your manners with your brother…”

“Ophel!”

Lyle blocked his entry at the doorway, glaring at him.

“Hah, look at your eyes? Why do you hate me so much? If you keep acting arrogant, brother or not…”

“Who’s your brother? Are you crazy?”

“What?”

“It’s embarrassing to even call someone like you a brother.”

He tried to provoke Ophel to distract him. If Ophel, hot-tempered and simple-minded, took the bait, he might lose interest in what was happening in the refining room.

“Let go! Aren’t you going to let go?”

Lyle grabbed Ophel by the collar and barely dragged him out into the yard. He glared at him with fury and annoyance, as if he might kill him. Ophel, receiving that look, suddenly had his eyes turn completely black, whites and all.

“Ugh, gasp…!”

Not only that, but just from being grabbed by the collar, he gasped for breath as if he couldn’t breathe. Lyle, startled, let go of Ophel. Ophel, fallen to the ground, stared at Lyle with pitch-black eyes and muttered in horror,

“You… you monster… your eyes…”

Ophel then closed his eyes.

Lyle felt his heart drop. He hated Ophel and wanted to kill him, but if Ophel collapsed here and now, it would be a problem. He shook him to wake him, but Ophel wouldn’t get up. He was breathing, but seemed unable to regain consciousness.

Just then, Seisil’s voice came from behind.

“Your Highness, isn’t that Prince Ophel?”

Lyle turned around at Seisil’s flustered voice.

Seisil, with dark, sunken eyes, took in the situation. He’d spent the night preparing alchemy materials and designing the magic circle for Lyle, and though exhausted, he was curious about the result and wanted to help, so he’d just arrived at Ethea’s house.

But before he could see the result, he wondered what on earth was happening. Why was Ophel collapsed, and why was Lyle outside?

Even more surprising was Lyle’s eyes.

“Your Highness…”

Seisil sensed that something was going terribly wrong.

Red energy was flowing from Lyle’s eyes. The golden eyes that symbolized the Imperial Family were nowhere to be seen.

“What on earth happened!”

***

Whatever the case, revealing the truth could wait. The priority now was dealing with the unconscious Ophel.

In such situations, Seisil was clean and cold.

“Let’s kill him.”

Lyle was shocked at Seisil’s words.

“Seisil!”

Seisil continued calmly.

“He might go back to the Imperial Palace and snitch. That’s his specialty. If we remove him now, we can handle it without anyone knowing.”

Magic was meant to be used in situations like this, Seisil thought. But Lyle shook his head.

“No, if they track his movements from the palace, this place could become dangerous. Ethea could be at risk. So… it’s better if I draw attention instead.”

“Draw attention? How?”

Just then, the voices of Ophel’s group of men, his usual companions and guards, could be heard calling from the street.

“Your Highness Ophel, where are you?”

“Your Highness Ophel, are you playing hide-and-seek?”

It seemed they would soon discover the scene. Lyle carried Ophel out of Ethea’s yard.

Seisil cursed.

“D*mn.”

This way, k*lling Ophel was impossible. Seisil watched Lyle walk into danger, then used magic to hide himself immediately.

***

Things escalated. Lyle’s eyes returned to their original golden color, but the problem was Ophel, who had regained consciousness. He treated Lyle as a terrible demon, and even spread such rumors to others.

“Did you all see his eyes? Huh? Didn’t you? He’s a demon! Or maybe a monster! Whatever he is, he’s a creature that shouldn’t be in this palace!”

The Crown Prince, who couldn’t ignore Ophel’s words, imprisoned Lyle.

While imprisoned, Lyle secretly asked someone sent by Seisil to take good care of Ethea.

But Seisil couldn’t really do much. The many eyes of the Imperial Palace were watching Seisil, who was known to be close to Lyle. All he could do was stay buried in the Mage Tower library, reading books as usual. That way, he wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

Sometimes, Seisil managed to exchange letters with Lyle using magic. In one of those notes from Lyle, there was a description of the Homunclepet.

A dreadful creature made of blood, veins, and flesh. Lyle asked Seisil to investigate it.

Seisil had secretly read countless alchemy books despite his father, and prided himself on knowing a lot about Homunclepets, but he had never heard of such a result.

‘What went wrong? Did His Highness Lyle make a mistake drawing the magic circle? Or did I fail to follow the recipe? No, that can’t be. We practiced perfectly that day.’

So a day, ten days, a month passed.

Not in an alchemy book, but in a book about magical incidents and accidents that Seisil happened to read, he finally found the cause.

Depending on the case, a Homunclepet in human form can sometimes appear.

The Homunclepet recipe assumes the caster is an ordinary human or a mage with average magical power, but if the caster’s blood is special, that blood can affect the magic circle, and the result can deviate from expectations…

Seisil was very surprised.

Come to think of it, Lyle was not an ordinary human. Because of the blood inherited from his distant ancestor Drenai, the blessing of the Orodium spirit flowed throughout his body. The power to repel monsters, symbolized by his golden eyes, was proof of that.

Thus, his blood could influence the magic circle, causing unexpected results. He’d only expected a cat or dog, but something greater could appear.

“Ha! So, that blood and lump of flesh was trying to become a human and failed?”

But there were suspicious points to simply call it a failure. Ethea’s father had gone to the Emperor, asking him to call off the marriage with the King of Garental, explaining the situation. That meant there was something troublesome at the Ceremony of Hea, and it was obviously the Homunclepet Lyle had made.

“Could it be that lump of flesh didn’t rot, but transformed into something?”

Seisil waited for a moment when surveillance loosened. Then, in disguise, he secretly visited the Parazia household.