By Zephyria 
As I descended into the underground prison, Asella approached me, having spotted my arrival.
“We’ve taken care of everyone except the escort knight and the maid you mentioned.”
“No one escaped?”
“Not a single one.”
“Still, just to be sure, double-check their faces and identities.”
As soon as I finished speaking, Asella called a guard and instructed them to re-examine the identities and numbers of the corpses.
“Where are the two?”
“They’re locked up separately.”
“No resistance?”
“No, they haven’t said a word.”
It wasn’t my place to say, considering I ordered them all killed, but the fact that they didn’t protest even after witnessing so many people losing their lives in front of them, wasn’t that practically admitting their involvement in Aska’s kidnapping?
Or were they simply terrified? I was about to ask Asella again, but I figured I’d find out when I met them, so I started walking.
Who should I meet first? The order didn’t really matter, but… I remembered Jade calling me “Prince” and decided to meet him first.
I arrived at the solitary cell, opened the door, and entered. Jade was there, suspended from the wall with his arms and legs restrained. Whether he had suffered a lot mentally during that time, his once-shining blonde hair was now dull, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look like he hadn’t slept or eaten in days.
“Hello?”
I greeted him as I sat down on the chair Asella had brought.
“…”
But he wasn’t about to accept my greeting kindly. Jade stared at me, his eyes filled with a mixture of emotions, his mouth tightly shut.
“I came because I have something I’m curious about. What’s your name?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Is Jade your real name?”
“Does that mean there’s also a fake name?”
From the way he spat out the words, grinding his teeth, it wasn’t hard to tell how furious Jade was. Regardless, I can’t stand not knowing what I’m curious about, so I asked again.
“The ‘escort knight’ thing is a lie too, isn’t it?”
“What are you saying since a while ago? You killed innocent people for no reason, and now you’re insulting me?”
“So, the escort thing is real? How long has it been?”
“Just kill me. If you’re not going to kill me, at least let me contact Calderia. Even if I came as a hostage, where does it say you can just kill people like this? Does Your Majesty know about this?”
He hadn’t said a word when people were dying, but Jade was talking non-stop.
“Your Majesty? You mean His Imperial Majesty, the Incarnation of the Sun God and the Living Legend of Actan?”
“I heard that this Political Marriage was personally ordered by Your Majesty. I formally request an audience with His Imperial Majesty.”
“Haha.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Jade’s words.
“What are you going to say when you meet Your Majesty? That you’ve been treated unfairly and want a fair trial?”
What would Khalifa say if he heard this? Wouldn’t he first ask who you are? And maybe offer a drink and ask to drink together. If you didn’t drink, he’d kill you for disobeying his orders, and if you did, he’d kill you for stealing his drink.
Or, he might not even listen and just kill you on the spot for bothering him with something so trivial.
“Do you know that Aegis was kidnapped and almost died?”
“Is that why you killed everyone? Even innocent people?”
He seemed determined to pretend he didn’t know until the end, so I just went along with it.
“Where the hell were you, the so-called escort knight, doing? When Aegis was kidnapped by those thugs and went through all that hardship, where were you?”
“I admit that I didn’t perform my duties properly. But what crime did the dead people commit?”
“Doesn’t your country have something like guilt-by-association?”
“We don’t have anything like that!”
“Ah. In Actan, the law is that if something happens to the master, all the subordinates die.”
Even with my kind explanation, Jade’s anger didn’t subside.
“Even so, to do this without any explanation…!”
“Enough.”
I decided that there was nothing more to gain from talking, so I got up from the chair and reached out to Asella, saying.
“It seems like he has no intention of telling me what his identity is, so I’ll just figure it out myself.”
“What are you talking about since a while ago! My identity? Are you saying such things without any evidence? I am Jade Radfelger, Aegis’s escort knight!”
Asella placed a dagger on my outstretched palm. As I pulled the sword from its sheath, the sharp blade gleamed menacingly. I approached with the sword, but Jade showed no signs of fear.
It was the same even when I grabbed Jade by the collar and held the blade to his neck. At first glance, he seemed angry, but the clear gaze that stared at me was as cold as the ice water Aska had been splashing in.
I used the sword to cut the thread that fastened the buttons on Jade’s clothes. As each button fell to the floor, Jade’s chest was revealed.
I removed all the obstructive clothing, exposing Jade’s entire upper body. When I reached for the front of his pants, Jade finally spoke.
“What are you doing?”
Without answering, I cut his pants and underwear, letting them fall to the floor. Jade was completely naked. I took a few steps back and examined him from head to toe before saying.
“Asella.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Lukman now?”
“Shall I bring him?”
I nodded, and Asella quietly left the prison. Now alone in the prison again, we just stared at each other, maintaining silence.
As time passed, I was the first to speak.
“You can’t get out of here alive anyway.”
“…”
“You have to choose between dying comfortably or dying hard.”
“…”
Whether he couldn’t think of any more excuses, Jade was silent. Still, it seemed like he wasn’t acting anymore, so I asked what I was curious about.
“What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Young.”
Was that why he was so clumsy? Considering the gravity of the situation, being this clumsy shouldn’t be possible, but the current situation had an excessively childish aspect.
“Knowing the secret passage of the Imperial Castle, you don’t seem like just anyone, but the way you cause incidents is too hasty, clumsy, and stupid. You even got the way you call me wrong. At first, I thought you were just naive because you looked like Aegis, but a so-called escort knight shouldn’t be like that.”
I continued, thinking carefully about Jade’s actions.
“I thought that people in your country seemed to have a lot of animosity towards Actan, so I thought you were deliberately trying to make me angry? But that wasn’t it. If you guys were just a little less stupid and less clumsy, I wouldn’t have been so confused.”
The man, who had been quietly listening to me rambling on and on, frowned.
“I’ve only ever killed people my whole life, how would I know that kind of thing?”
“So, that’s why I’m asking why a kid like you, who can only kill people, got involved in something like this. And in the position of a close aide. I don’t understand that.”
“…”
“If you have a brain, think about it. How crazy is what you guys have done? And what about you guys compared to the seriousness of the incident? You look like a errand group gathered to buy five fruits and a basket of vegetables at the local market. Is this really something that Calderia led?”
At my question, the idiot with the alias Jade closed his eyes. I sighed and gave him a final notice.
“Are you going to answer my questions? If you answer well, I’ll listen to everything and kill you as painlessly as possible before I leave.”
“…”
He didn’t open his eyes or his mouth. Having heard the answer, I opened the door and went outside.