How to Live as the Enemy Prince

After Hina left, Calian sent Kyrie and two knights to Hanson village. It was a precaution since he was worried Hale Latran might try and take Norton’s wife hostage and threaten her.

Of course, there was also the high possibility that Hale would try to hurt Norton directly as well so made sure that the prison was well looked after too.

He then reached out to Alan, who was just on his way out of Rumein’s office after their conversation.

Teacher, I don’t think you should go to the Brissen Merchantry.

He knew Alan would question this. He had asked Alan to visit the Brissen Merchantry to plant the hint that Hale was turning his back on Brissen.

He had even asked Alan to warn Rumein that things might get a little noisy because he wasn’t sure how Brissen would react to Alan showing up – so of course Alan couldn’t help but find it strange that Calian was suddenly telling him not go there.

Did you find out something else? Yes. You can proceed with the other things except the Merchantry.

Calian stopped talking for a moment as he recalled what happened after leaving the dungeon prison a while ago.

***

After Calian left the prison, before returning to his room, the person he met was Maclom, the butler.

Even though he was Tensil’s priest, it was strange that he took such a subservient attitude in front of Hale which is why, while Hale was distracted contacting Brissen, Calian went to find him.

He had predicted that Hale might hold one of Malcolm’s weaknesses in his hands – so he was thinking that if he managed to solve that problem for Malcolm, then he would be of help locating some hidden details such as a log book of transactions of prove Hale’s treachery.

“Please save me, your highness!”

Those were the thoughts with which he had gone to visit Malcolm, however, when he saw Malcolm on his knees, head against the ground, begging to be saved, as soon as he realised Calain was there – well it was rather embarrassing.

Calian managed to conclude that Hale did hold one of Malcolm’s weaknesses, and it wasn’t anything terribly big either. Rather, it was the very common problem of money – he said he owed Hale quite a bit of money and was held as a butler under that pretext.

Therefore, when Calian said that this debt could no longer bind him to Kyris since Tensil’s envoy had come to retrieve all their priests, rather than being relieved Malcolm said,

“I know, but that’s not the problem I’m currency facing, your highness,”

He was asking to be saved for another reason.

“If the Count ends up being punished for this matter, I will also be involved, if it’s found that I was involved in the buying and selling of divine items, I will be killed as soon as I set foot back in Tensil,”

It seemed bringing up spies and all that to threaten Hale had scared Malcolm even more. Calian’s expression became confused when he heard Malcolm’s unexpected words.

“I know you bought divine items, but what do you mean you sold them? Didn’t you by then to offer to Tensil to gain favour with them?”

That was the impression under which Calian had been operating until now.

Hale sent the products he purchased from Blue Warbler to Tensil – that was how he remained connected to Randell but,

“We didn’t send it to Tensil,”

Surprisingly, Malcolm shook his head. Perhaps because he thought that the only person who could save his life now was Calian, interesting stories flowed out him one after another.

“The Count is completely hated by the representatives of Tensil, so he couldn’t gain access to even curry favour with them. But because Prince Franz seemed to be moving away from the title of Crown Prince, he found a way to reconnect that broken line,”

After Hale turned away from Randell the first time, he saw that Franz’s path wasn’t look too bright, and Calian too, hadn’t received him warmly so Hale had become anxious.

Which was why he tried to connect with Randell once again, but neither Randell nor Tensil’s people were willing to meet Hale.

Of course, while it was interesting, it wasn’t exactly surprising information. Malcolm, who glanced at Calian’s unmoved expression, told the next part of his story as though he had made his resolutions,

“The Blue Warbler bought information from the Count, and once they had the information from Kyrisis, they would search for new divine objects and sell them to the Count – the amounts being traded was quite large. So I wanted to hide from the Prince that I was a priest just in case he got caught. Anyway, the Count bought the items from Blue Warbler, and resold them cheaply elsewhere. He made the deal that if he got reconnected with Tensil, then from then on he would simply give them the divine items without charge,”

“So where did he resell them?”

***

Calian, who recalled how he’d felt when he first heard the answer to that question, told Allan,

I think Marquis Brissen made a mistake when educating his children.

“The Count sold them to Queen Silica’s older brother, Lennon Brissen, the owner of Brissen Merchantry,”

Lennon Brissen.

He had lined up with Tensil.

He had betrayed Franz and decided to stand by Randell.

It was the equivalent of Lenon turning his back on his on his father, Marquis Brissen and his sister, Silica. Calian had gasped without realising it.

All he had done was helped a stranded elf .

Calian, upon realising that he had found the wind that would bring Kyris’ second typhoon, asked,

What should I do?

The wise mage, Alan Manasil couldn’t answer his student’s short question and pressed a finger to his temple.

He immediately turned around.

He had to tell Rumein that his youngest son had seemingly caught a bear in the trap he had laid out to catch a fox.

****

While Rumein and Allen were talking for a long time about how to use the bear caught ina fox trap, Calian, who had started this problem, returned to his room after dinner.

Lennon was Lennon, but catching Hale came first, so Calian decided to continue his work as planned.

In the afternoon, Calian had asked Hina to open the cage at the start of dinner, so if the bird had indeed found its owner immediately, there out to have been a very welcome guest waiting in his room by now.

So he turned to Yan as he reached the door to his room, and said,

“Can you bring me a cup of tea?”

“Of course, I’ll bring it for you right away,”

Yan nodded without any doubt and left and Calian slowly opened the door to his room and went inside.

As expected, there was an open cage, and an open window and instead of the white pigeon, a Blue Warbler was sat on a chair. Calian smiled and used magic to lock his door just in case someone tried to come in.

“You came so quickly,”

Blue Warbler couldn’t be as relaxed as before, the expression on her face was stiff even without anyone there to help Calian.

The reason was simple.

It was because she had read the letter Calian had sent to her. Blue Warbler stood up and told Calian as much,

“It’s because the contents of the letter you sent me were so impressive,”