Chapter 57 – Contradictory Affection

Reyes Brinita returned to the palace like the wind.

His inferiority complex, extreme emotional swings, easily excitable temperament, and sky-high pride had been his driving force all his life, bringing him countless achievements.

At the same time, they also made him taste bitter failure at crucial moments.

Even so, Reyes never tried to change his personality, because he firmly believed himself to be a worthy and outstanding person.

To change meant acknowledging one’s own flaws. Reyes’s pride did not permit that.

So he remained consistent.

Kenneth Brinita had long been accustomed to his younger brother’s temperament. He judged his twin sibling with cynical eyes and did not take responsibility for his inferiority, but he was quite tolerant of Reyes’s rudeness. That was true even now.

He did not rebuke the younger brother who barged into his private quarters unreasonably, disrupting the King’s scant time to rest.

“What is it?”

He asked, in a tone that was not particularly gentle.

Normally, Reyes would have been deeply wounded by such indifference. But right now, his eyes burned with a sinister passion.

“I found an unregistered attribute mage.”

“What?”

Kenneth asked back, still seated in the plush chair as he received his brother. It was hard to read any emotion from his words. Perhaps that was because Reyes was too worked up.

Reyes moved closer to Kenneth.

“He was even strolling around Reedblon like it was nothing! Using horrific magic that manipulates our people’s minds. Kenneth, we have to arrest him immediately.”

“Start by telling me his name.”

“Ashton Bryant.”

The brothers met each other’s eyes and fell silent for a moment. Reyes, for once, was watching Kenneth’s face closely. The King’s brow and lips twisted—and then a booming laugh burst out.

“Ahahahahahaha!”

The laughter was so loud it filled the King’s private lounge and spilled out beyond it.

“Kenneth! Don’t laugh.”

“Hahahaha, how could I not, Brother? Who did you say is an unregistered attribute mage?”

“This isn’t something to dismiss as a joke!”

Reyes was furious that Kenneth was taking the matter lightly. Kenneth—who had become King by snatching the title of firstborn by a mere one-minute difference—sometimes made such wretched judgments. More than once, Reyes had thought it was hardly reasonable to entrust a country to a man like this.

“But it sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? He’s Letona. Even if a Brinita person migrates to Letona and has a child, no mage is born. A mage isn’t a gift of bloodlines. It’s a gift of the land. You know that.”

“If I went to live in Letona right now and tanned my skin under the harsh sun, I’d look like a perfectly fine Letona.”

“Ah, I see. So, Ray, you’re saying someone born in Brinita as a remarkable attribute mage migrated to Letona? Why, exactly?”

“Because of the solvent business, obviously!”

“Oh, that solvent business—wouldn’t he have achieved even better results if he’d conducted it as a Brinita citizen?”

“Stop playing word games. There’s a witness!”

Kenneth laughed again. Waving his hand as if to say, “Fine, then, let’s hear who this witness is,” he asked who it was.

“Helio. Sabina’s slave.”

“Alright. And what did the boy say?”

Reyes recounted the series of things he’d discussed with Helio. In his excitement, his speech was fast and rough. Still, Kenneth listened with patience. Yet even after hearing the story to the end, his conclusion did not change.

“Alright, Ray. Let’s say all of that is true: a mage with such an outstanding attribute migrated to Letona, became a criminal, and then, despite the risk of being exposed as an unregistered mage, returned to Brinita. My logic can’t make sense of it, but perhaps the man really is that stupid.”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“Oh, I’m not being sarcastic, Brother. Why don’t you listen with a bit more of an open mind?”

Reyes pulled off his gloves and bit his nails. Meanwhile, propping his chin in his hand, Kenneth spoke with a hint of amusement.

“Even if all of that were correct, I simply can’t believe he’s a mage. Aren’t the three conditions for dispelling magic famous enough that even idiots know them? Doesn’t the fact he spouted such absurdities prove he’s a complete outsider to magic?”

“That’s….”

The best way not to get dragged into Reyes’s pace was to keep him from speaking at all. The royal prince’s twin brother knew that better than anyone.

“Or, Ray, are you saying the man is such a genius that he made a new magical discovery on the level of Walter D’Vialis after leaving Brinita? Oh…. A stupid genius, huh.”

Now Reyes’s face flushed—not with excitement, but with humiliation and rage. Even his lips trembled. Kenneth was dismissing Reyes like this again. Again!

“So you have no intention of believing me at all?”

Unfortunately, Kenneth had little interest in how his younger brother’s mood shifted.

“Of course not. Don’t be too hurt over just this one matter, Brother. Think of all the many things where our opinions matched.”

Reyes played his last card.

“Get a grip, Kenneth. There’s a witness. Are you going to ignore the words of the people?”

Even then, Kenneth let out a laugh. This time, it was cold and merciless. The King—who always wore a smiling face—wiped his expression clean, turned blank, and tilted his head.

“Helio. Isn’t it difficult to say that boy’s mind is… fully intact?”

“…What did you say?”

“He’s the child who was kept locked in that horrific mansion until his knees were shattered, then put up at the auction house. Marquis Meolin’s residence is an environment where it’s even harder to keep one’s sanity. Especially at such a young age. The boy is pitiable.”

Reyes had nothing to say. Kenneth sighed and sank deeper into the chair, loose and relaxed.

“Is that all you came for? I’d like to take a short nap.”

He even closed his eyes after saying it. A chill Reyes hadn’t felt when he came flying back to the palace began to creep over him. With all the color drained from his face, he stared down at his twin brother, then turned away.

Reyes, who normally made no sound as he walked, deliberately stomped as he left the room. Just before his hand reached the doorknob, Kenneth’s voice came from behind him.

“If you truly can’t bring yourself to retract the claim, then bring more solid evidence than a single person’s testimony. But you should be careful if you can…. If you casually point at a foreigner as a suspect in a serious crime and reach an embarrassing conclusion, you may end up in an unpleasant situation with Letona’s Governor.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,”

Reyes ground out through clenched teeth. Kenneth laughed pleasantly.

“And Ray……. Ever since you were young, you sometimes ruin things by being hasty. It’s advice I’m giving because I truly love you, so don’t twist it.”

Those words filled Reyes with frustration and shame. Those two feelings were his closest friends. And his driving force as well.

Reyes vowed that he would uncover proof that Ashton Bryant was an unregistered attribute mage—and make Kenneth apologize to him.

The door opened and shut with a loud sound, and Kenneth quickly fell into a nap as if nothing had happened.

***

It was only two days before leaving Berna that Sabina’s thoughts finally returned to the burned-image recording device that had been shoved into one corner of her bag.

Ashton called it, roughly, a “camera,” but Sabina’s position was that she could never accept that.

“It works completely differently.”

“But the function is the same.”

“This is much better.”

Sabina wanted to explain, in more refined vocabulary, that the device she had invented was far superior to Letona’s primitive camera. But Letona speech was too limited for that, and it felt somehow embarrassing to get heated over such a minor issue and launch into a long speech in Brinita.

So she gave up on explaining. Instead, as if trying to prove its superior function, she left behind many recorded images. White sands under sunlight. Rolling waves. A village like a toy. Sunflowers displayed at the market. A cat that began peeking in through the window after she secretly set aside a flounder for it.

And Ashton, going about everyday life.

He was a model that suited Sabina perfectly. The best part, especially, was that he didn’t seem conscious of the recording device at all. He would be sitting in the living room or standing at the counter doing what he needed to do, and when he noticed Sabina holding the recorder, he would smile faintly and focus on his work as if he hadn’t seen anything.

So Sabina was able to leave behind many natural images of him.

Over the course of two days, she left behind 87 recorded images. Ashton clicked his tongue as he discarded the emptied scrolls.

“How can you take that many?”

“Why can’t I take a lot? I can just get more scrolls.”

It was something she could say only because she monopolized a significant portion of the raw materials essential for making scrolls.