His words began as mutterings, but gradually rose to shouts that echoed down the corridor like a child’s tantrum. The smell of alcohol clung to him with every word, but his eyes no longer held the haze of drunkenness. The moment he heard Bapharos’ name, it was as if sobriety snapped him back to reality. 

“Do you care so much for this servant? Enough to forgive him, even though you’ll never use your arm again?”

Riog spoke as he glanced past me. I turned to follow his gaze and saw Zetak standing there. He must have come when he heard the commotion. Riog’s voice had echoed down the hall, loud enough for Zetak, with his acute hearing, to have picked it up from the garden. Had it only been that, he might have ignored it. 

“Why are you all wet?” 

Zetak was soaked from head to toe. Had it started to rain? I’d told him to wait in the garden, so maybe he’d been caught in the downpour. When I reached out for him, Zetak stepped back, avoiding my touch.

“Why are you…”

I stopped mid-sentence, my attention drawn to Zetak. A faint, unpleasant odour clung to him – not strong, but enough to tell me that whatever had soaked him wasn’t just water. Riog sauntered over, chuckling as he took a drink straight from his bottle. 

“Completely soaked, eh?” he said with a mocking grin. “I saw some servants throwing mop water at him earlier. What a pitiful sight. Maybe they’re picking on him because he’s been tainted by a demon.” 

Riog laughed as he spoke, but I couldn’t understand it. No one – servant or noble – had ever dared to approach Zetak in this way. Who in their right mind would take such a reckless risk against someone who had merged with a demon? They all knew that if Zetak lost control, their lives would be in vain. 

“Did you order them?” 

It was the only explanation. No one would risk their lives like that without an order. When I turned to Rog, his mischievous grin confirmed my suspicion without a word. 

The moment I saw that grin, my body moved before I could think. My hand shot out and grabbed Riog’s collar, pulling him forward as my knee slammed into his stomach with crushing force. The energy behind the blow gave him no time to react.

Riog gagged, vomiting the alcohol he had drunk. I had no need to wait for him to recover. I grabbed his hair, lifted his head and slammed him to the ground. The impact echoed loudly and the alcohol he had vomited splashed onto his face.

“Y-Your Highness! Oh dear, what are you doing?”

Riog’s servants screamed in panic and fumbled around, but since I was of royal blood too, all they could do was stomp helplessly.

“Ugh… Ack, w-what the hell… what’s happening…”

I pressed down on his chest with my knee, pinning him to the ground. I grabbed the bottle out of his fumbling hand and tipped it over his face, pouring out the rest of the alcohol.

“Ugh, what—what are you doing?!”

Riog, who had been gritting his teeth, fell silent as soon as our eyes met. I looked down at him, his complexion growing paler and paler. His jaw quivered slightly, his teeth clicking together. I understood why. Raised in a sheltered environment, he’d never experienced this kind of killing intent.

I couldn’t kill him – not here, in such an open space. If I killed a sibling here, I wouldn’t escape unscathed either. But it wasn’t unusual for someone to get hurt in a fight. We both wielded swords, so injuries could be serious. For example, a broken arm, or the broken arm becoming a cripple like someone else’s. Such an accident could easily happen.

Even if I ended up with disciplinary action, what would it matter? In fact, it might not even end with disciplinary action. I grabbed his right hand and applied pressure to his wrist. Divine power wasn’t omnipotent. There were some things that even a high priest couldn’t heal. For example, if the broken parts were joints. Even if divine power was used to heal them, like mine, the appearance would be healed, but the function would be lost.

“You damned bastard! Let me go! Let go of me, damn it!”

Riog’s face turned pale as he struggled desperately. Though he was learning to control his energy, he was still inexperienced and couldn’t break free of my grip. I could feel the bone beneath my grip begin to crack, making a disconcerting creaking sound. With the energy concentrated in my left hand, I could easily shatter a human bone like an eggshell.

“Stop it! I said stop!!”

Perhaps because there was someone in front of him who could no longer wield a sword, Riog panted exaggeratedly. He flailed about like a child, but with my knee pressed firmly against his chest, it was all in vain.

Then Zetak grabbed my hand. His eyes were calm and steady. When I held still, Zetak slowly peeled my fingers from Riog’s wrist.

Why did he stop me? Had I acted unnecessarily, interfered where I shouldn’t have?

As Zetak pulled me up, I found myself standing over Riog. Riog, holding his now broken hand, trembled with rage and humiliation. The second sense of defeat, the second humiliation – whether it would turn into rage against me, or cause him to give up the sword and fall into ruin, no one could say.

“Do not dare to touch this child again. Next time it won’t end as a warning.”

Riog stared at me, but his gaze lacked strength. His attempt to hold his gaze lasted only a moment before he lowered his head, gritting his teeth and holding his injured right hand.

I found it strange. Did he break so easily? At least when he fought Bapharos, he fought to the end.

“Giving up rather easily, aren’t you?”

“Wha…?”

Riog looked up at me, his face expressionless and confused. His vomit-soaked hair clung to his forehead, making him look utterly pathetic.

“As long as you don’t mess with this child, I won’t hurt you. There’s no need to be so afraid.”

“What are you…?”

“You may have a bad temper, but that doesn’t mean your talent is wrong. If they call you a genius, don’t get bogged down in trivialities – just go your own way.”

In human terms, Riog was certainly a genius. He knew this all too well, so why did he stop here? Was shame really such a powerful force?

“Bapharos lost to me too. But he doesn’t let it bother him. What’s the difference between the two of you?”

This wasn’t so much a statement to him as a question to myself. Come to think of it, it was true. Riog had succumbed to his shame and drowned himself in alcohol. He had become a loafer, picking fights with his servants.

But Bapharos didn’t let his loss to me affect him at all. Both of them had lost in front of many nobles – yet they accepted that shame in very different ways. Could it be that the effect of humiliation depends entirely on how each person deals with it?

Riog looked up at me with a dazed expression, almost as if he were lost. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end no words came out. As he remained silent, I turned and walked away. As we left the corridor, Zetak let out a small sigh.

“Are you going to seduce my brothers now?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were doing fine, but in the end, what was all that…?”

Zetak rubbed his forehead and said.

“Give me back the moment when I felt touched, damn it.”

He seemed rather annoyed, and understandably so. After all, he’d had mop water thrown at him – he couldn’t possibly be in a good mood.

“Why did you let it happen? You could have easily avoided being splashed with water.”

Zetak didn’t answer, but in his silence I felt I already knew the answer.

“You held back because I told you to stay out of trouble, didn’t you?”

For some reason, I felt a strange surge of emotion. He usually ignored my words when it suited him, but now he followed them so obediently. It was just the harassment of a few servants. He should have broken their arms or legs and made sure they never dared look down on him again.

Regardless of whether there was a royal order behind it, did he really just take the water without resisting? Since when did he start following my orders so diligently?

“Next time, don’t hold back. If someone oppresses you, you don’t have to take it. Even if it’s a noble, do what you want.”

Touching a noble would cause complications – that’s why I had stopped him when he tried to kill Karial. Yet here I was, saying the opposite.

I knew I was contradicting myself. My rational mind said no, but my mouth moved on its own. It felt as if the words were coming from my heart rather than my head.

“A holy trial or whatever – who cares? If things get tough, I’ll carry you out of the palace. Is there anywhere I can’t take you? If necessary, we’ll just hide somewhere in the mountains and live our lives.”

That would be difficult, realistically speaking. It would not be easy to evade the priests’ pursuit, and if a noble was killed, the family would surely send out their own search party. But none of that mattered to me.