By Zephyria 
I carefully observed the faces and changing expressions of the hunters. Ralph and the man beside him didn’t show much change, but the other three were visibly shaken.
Among them, the one who had glared at me hostilely earlier was the worst.
“This dog-like barbarian bastard…”
He even had a foul mouth. Abyss removed the masks of all the dead and approached me.
“That one was no ordinary fighter. If it weren’t for… um… the bird that Aska… raises, I would have struggled quite a bit.”
He must have been momentarily flustered because he couldn’t call him ‘Your Majesty’.
“Struggled? These uncivilized bastards are saying the funniest things.”
As Abyss finished speaking, the man who had cursed earlier sneered again. Then, Ralph, opening his tightly closed mouth, warned him.
“Shut up and stay still.”
“Sorry.”
After their brief exchange, silence fell for a moment. I just stared at them silently. Eventually, Ralph spoke first.
“What are you bastards? Don’t give me that nonsense about being an ecological survey team.”
“What are you bastards? Don’t give me that nonsense about being hunters.”
When I repeated his words, Ralph closed his mouth. Looking at his fierce eyes, filled with determination, I suddenly began to get annoyed.
I took the bracelet from Aska’s wrist and dangled it in the air.
“Is this why you were shooting arrows and making such a fuss since morning? Did you kill the traveling merchants that way too?”
“What the hell are you talking about, you crazy bastard!”
The man who had been warned by Ralph earlier couldn’t control his anger and shouted again. Having figured things out to some extent, I held out my hand towards Abyss. Abyss handed me the blood-stained sword.
First, I cut off the heads of Ralph and the man beside him who had been calm all along. Blood spurted out, their heads rolled away like balls, and their heavy bodies collapsed to the ground.
“Aaaagh!”
Next, I killed the screaming man and the one next to him. The one who had been calling me a barbarian and uncivilized was half out of his mind at the sudden turn of events.
I roughly wiped the blood off the sword and handed it back to Abyss, saying,
“Clean up this trash and put that one inside the tent. I need to have a little interview later.”
“Understood.”
Abyss and the remaining few subordinates began to clean up the bodies. While they were preparing, I decided to take Aska inside.
“Are we going back as soon as this is over?”
As soon as he came inside, Aska took off his hood and asked.
“We should. They seem to have been sent from Calderia.”
“Really?”
Aska’s eyes widened as if he hadn’t expected it.
“Why? How did you know?”
“Just a combination of things… Anyway, if my guess is correct, we’ll probably have to meet the royal family soon.”
“The royal family?”
I hesitated to directly say they were his family. I hesitated and carefully opened my mouth.
“There might be some arguments. Are you okay with that?”
Aska tilted his head at my question.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we might end up fighting, exchanging nasty words that get on each other’s nerves. Unless they’re completely insane, it won’t escalate to bloodshed, but still.”
Considering what I had done to Aska in the past, bringing that up would naturally lead to the exposure of the fake princess incident. Ah, but since he was a royal anyway, he wasn’t fake. Even though he grew up in the slums.
So, instead of sending a princess, they sent a prince?
“What’s there for me to be not okay with? They’re people who have nothing to do with me anymore.”
“You haven’t met them once since then, have you?”
“Nope. Anyway, I’m fine with it, so that kind of thing…”
Aska frowned and trailed off. Then, he looked at me with curious eyes and asked.
“If I said I wasn’t okay with it, what would happen?”
I thought carefully before answering.
“Well, since it’s the first time meeting your family, I’d have to be as polite as possible. Bring some gifts… And say we mistakenly thought they were bandits and eliminated them, what else can we do? We’d have to offer condolences and lie.”
Aska tilted his head at my words.
“Then can’t we just pretend we don’t know? If we just dispose of the bodies, no one will know who killed them.”
“Too many people saw us when we were moving, so they’ll eventually find out. We could keep hiding, but that would put Sakira’s merchant group in danger. It’s better to take the initiative and go first.”
“What if they still hold you responsible even after giving them condolences?”
At first, I thought Aska was joking. But looking at his expression, he seemed genuinely worried. I was a little taken aback, but I calmly explained.
“They can’t say that to me.”
“Why?”
“Who would hold me responsible? Unless it’s the Emperor, there’s no one in this world who can say that to me. Ah, there is one person.”
“Who?”
I almost said it was him. But if he knew this fact, he might act even more recklessly than he does now and give me a headache.
“That’s a secret. Anyway, I don’t care either way, so you decide.”
“Who is it?”
“It exists. Oh, right. And find out where you found this bracelet. It doesn’t seem like it came from the Ruins we went into, and there seems to be another place nearby. You’re sensitive to strange feelings, so look for it.”
I handed the bracelet to Aska and said. Aska asked sullenly, as if he didn’t like it.
“By myself? Now?”
“We’re leaving soon, so it’s better for you to look for it quickly by yourself. Don’t go too far, and if you can’t find it, just come back. If you sense anything dangerous, don’t look back and come to me. Got it?”
I patted Aska’s butt and put his hood on.
“Where’s Pipi? Take him with you, just in case.”
“I told him to follow the retreating guys in case there might be an ambush.”
I couldn’t help but be surprised at the unexpected words. I never thought he would think that far.
“Then where’s Popo?”
“He can’t fight. He’s practically a pacifist.”
He looks like he’d be the best fighter, just by his appearance… I suddenly felt uneasy about sending him alone. When I closed my mouth and frowned, Aska sighed.
“Then I’ll be back soon, so don’t go anywhere and stay here. If you’re in danger, shout my name loudly. Got it?”
I was about to say, ‘What danger could there be?’ but I just nodded obediently. I quickly sent Aska off and called Abyss.
From now on, I would have to resort to vile and dirty threats, and perhaps even torture, and I couldn’t show that to Aska. That was a different matter entirely from simply cutting off someone’s head.
A little later, Abyss, who came into the tent, placed a paper that looked like a letter, a bottle containing liquid, and a dagger on the table.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
I picked up the small bottle first. It contained a small amount of green liquid, which looked like poison to anyone. There was nothing particularly strange about the dagger, so I immediately took the letter out of the envelope.
Reading it, it was a letter from his wife. It said that she was doing well and the children were doing well too. I scanned the letter with my eyes, neatly folded it again, put it in my pocket, and moved.
Abyss and I arrived at a place where a man was tied naked to a chair. His eyes were covered with a blindfold, so he could only sense our arrival by sound, and he visibly trembled.
While I was bringing a chair to sit across from him, Abyss removed the man’s blindfold. He squinted, as if blinded by the light, and looked at me. I waited for a moment.
“…”
“…”
Since it hadn’t been that long, the man quickly looked straight at me. He looked back and forth between me and Abyss with a tense expression, then bit his lip.
I waited for him to keep his mouth shut like that for a while longer before asking.
“What’s your name?”
“…”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to talk if we knew each other’s names? You can call me Kyle.”
He wasn’t so stupid, and as soon as he heard my name, the man’s expression became subtle. Suppressing with power or fame was the easiest way, but in a foreign country where the hierarchy wasn’t clear, it was unlikely to work.
As expected, the man scoffed.
“You’re the lost prince of Actan?”
I nodded three times.
“Don’t be ridiculous. If you’re a prince, I’m the Emperor.”
“Okay, should I call you Your Majesty then?”
“…”
He had scoffed just a moment ago, but the man’s expression hardened again. He glared at me and gritted his teeth.
“You want me to believe that you’re a prince?”
“Whether you believe it or not, the fact that I’m a prince doesn’t change.”
“How are you going to prove it?”
“Why do I have to prove that I’m me?”
His eyes trembled more and more anxiously as time passed. I couldn’t just keep waiting because I didn’t know when Aska would come back.
“Even if it’s a joke, it’s disrespectful to mention the Emperor’s name so carelessly, so let’s just say you’re a King from now on. How’s that?”
“…”
“Then what’s our King’s identity? You’re not a hunter, are you?”
“Why…”
I could see sweat beading on the man’s forehead. He desperately tried to act calm and asked me.
“Why me?”
“What?”
“Why did you kill everyone else but leave me alive? Are you angry because I cursed at you? Did you leave me alive just to get revenge?”
I shook my head at his question.
“No?”
“Then why did you leave me alive! Why me!”
The man suddenly went crazy like a madman. I watched the man, whose eyes had turned red and was shouting, for a moment, then laughed.
“Because you seem to be the most scared.”
“What?”
“You were the only one barking like a frightened dog.”
“…”
His eyes began to widen.
“I’ve done this kind of thing a few times, and I know that I usually get along well with guys like you.”
I couldn’t help but smile again at the fear that was rising so clearly.