The Extra Prince Sets Out To Conquer The World

For a moment, conflict flickered across Yekatrice’s eyes.

She is fundamentally a good person.

No matter how much it’s for the sake of the world, she can’t be without hesitation in killing an innocent person.

Moreover, since she owes me a favor, she won’t be able to kill me.

Nevertheless, there is only one reason why she is conflicted.

At my cold gaze, Yekatrice shook her head.

“How could I kill the benefactor?”

“But if Arcana knows that the seal is within my body, the situation is different. You will probably try to deprive me of my freedom and monitor me.”

“…!”

At my conjecture, Yekatrice couldn’t deny it.

If she couldn’t bring herself to kill me, she just needed to monitor me so I couldn’t leave this land.

The concern she has is the conflict over whether it’s right to confine me here for the rest of my life.

Confirming that fact, I was sincerely relieved.

As long as she doesn’t kill me right away, deceiving a naive magician who doesn’t know the ways of the world is as easy as eating cold porridge.

“You asked if I’m the 1st Prince, right? That’s correct. I am Yuan, the 1st Prince of the Duplion Kingdom.”

When I admitted to being the 1st Prince, Yekatrice swallowed her saliva.

I leisurely boiled water in the magic kettle and asked,

“Let’s put aside the discussion about my freedom for a bit, there’s one thing I need to confirm.”

“Confirm what?”

“How much of your fate remains? One year? Two years? It doesn’t seem like it will exceed three years, am I right?”

At my question, Yekatrice looked at me in surprise.

“How…!”

“To twist fate, you need to know that fate.”

Perhaps recalling that I was fated to have died long ago, she nodded her head.

“…Probably a little over a year. I can’t know the exact date because it’s based on astrology, not foresight.”

At her affirmation, I put black tea into the boiled water.

“Then after you die a year later, Jade will succeed you and remain alone in this lonely land to guard the seal. No, if my subjugation plan succeeds, will he guard me instead of the seal?”

“…”

“Whether the subjugation succeeds or fails, it means a boy who is only sixteen years old with a bright future ahead of him must sacrifice his freedom in this frigid land.”

I tilted the teacup as if steeping and poured the black tea, handing it to her.

“Is that really what you want?”

She fell silent and looked down at the black tea placed in front of her.

It wouldn’t be what she wants for Jade to spend the rest of his life tied to this land like her.

Although she had to avoid contact with people due to her fate as a ‘reader of the stars’, Jade doesn’t.

Like the successive generations of Sages of the Winter Wood, she would want to give freedom to at least her disciple.

As a master, she wouldn’t want to add a new burden to her disciple.

“What are you trying to say?”

At her sharp voice, I leisurely drank the black tea.

“I just want to know. Whether that’s really what you want or not.”

The answer was already there.

“Of course! …Of course I wouldn’t want that. He’s like a son to me. If I hadn’t accepted him as my disciple, he could have been freer. Because of me!”

“That’s enough.”

I stopped Yekatrice, who was self-reproaching in agitation.

“Saying anything more will only meaninglessly hurt you.”

It’s truly a meaningless regret.

Both the disciple and master’s thoughts of caring for each other are admirable, but I refuse to get caught between the two.

“Now that the confirmation is over, let’s talk about my freedom again. No, should I say Jade’s freedom?”

I smiled wryly at Yekatrice.

My sweet poison was already spreading in her ears.

*******

“Ugh, it’s terribly cold!”

I shivered, clutching the thick fur coat.

The Winter Wood Forest inside the barrier was relatively warm, but as soon as we left the barrier, it was cold enough to die.

Is it because it’s past midnight?

Still, thanks to Jade’s magic, it wasn’t so cold that my tongue would go numb like when we first approached the barrier.

It’s not a magic that warms you up, but one that increases resistance to cold, so the temperature itself didn’t change much.

“If we go down a little more, the temperature will rise.”

At Jade’s words, I smiled bitterly. Even that risen temperature is still below freezing, so it’s hard for my frail body to endure.

“I want to quickly reach Unicorn’s habitat.”

Unicorn’s habitat was adjacent to the Empire’s territory, quite far from the Kingdom.

The Bastille Mountains are so vast that going north leads directly to the Empire, which doesn’t even border the Duplion Kingdom.

Being close to populated areas, the temperature will remain above freezing no matter how cold it is at this time of the year.

In other words, it’s a time when monsters are insanely active, so it’s no different from a suicidal act for ordinary people to enter, but that’s a separate issue.

Still, it’s better than freezing to death.

“Young Master, but if we go down to the operation area, won’t we encounter the Imperial Army?”

As Gilbert was curious, there was a territory on the Empire’s side that protected the Empire from the Bastille Mountains, like the Blantzbarg territory of the Kingdom.

“If we keep going, we’ll reach the Azlan County, but it’s fine because two of the former Eight Great Sages of Magic intentionally separated the territory and the mountains by about ten kilometers, so they don’t purposely enter the mountains to subjugate.”

Jade added to my words.

“You mean the Bastille Grand Gorge. The gorge created by the combined efforts of Echelon, the Sage of Geometry, and Euphrates, the Sage of Vibration, serves as a barrier that blocks most monsters except flying types.”

Of course, there are cases where monsters bypass the gorge and cross over to other areas, so they don’t completely avoid subjugation, but they’re not as active as in Blantzbarg.

Like how we came to the barrier, we rode the ice golem controlled by Silua and descended the mountain to the west.

Perhaps tense about having to directly face Unicorn, Precia meditated in a corner, and Gilbert also reviewed the strategy while looking at the map.

Jade had a complicated expression as various emotions intersected.

“Yuan.”

“What is it, Jade?”

“After all, what you said yesterday, no, the day before yesterday considering the time… It was a lie to tease me, right? Thinking about it, you seemed like someone who plays mischievous pranks at that time.”

He saw it exactly right. When I see a diligent person, I somehow want to scratch their insides.

It was my bad habit.

Although he hasn’t lived that long, his eyes for judging people are precise, unlike someone who has been in seclusion for half his life.

But unfortunately, everything I said is true.

“I gave you the potion of courage. Check for yourself if I lied. You won’t believe me even if I say it’s true a hundred times anyway.”

At my playful words, Jade fake coughed as if embarrassed.

“That’s… Do you have a less strong liquor? I thought I was getting drunk just from the smell when I opened the lid.”

It seemed he at least tried to drink it.

“Tsk~! That’s a good thing, but you don’t know.”

Well, the liquor I gave him is too strong for a youngster who doesn’t know his alcohol tolerance.

“It’s just the right proof for a straight-laced fellow like you, so try drinking it. It’s so strong and hot that it feels like it’s piercing through your stomach, you know?”

Surprisingly, when a goody two-shoes develops a taste for alcohol, they often become closer to alcohol than books.

If done well, I might be able to gain a good drinking buddy.

“Yuan, you…”

When I chuckled, Jade tried to say something. But Silua’s words interrupted him.

“We’ve arrived at the operation area.”

Silua was careful not to let mana leak out as the ice golem’s movement stopped.

As the golem stopped, everyone fell silent and waited for my instructions.

“First, we find Unicorn’s pack. The search will be done by Silua and me, so everyone else standby.”

Silua took out a large number of fly-shaped miniature reconnaissance dolls that were prepared in advance.

“I’ll take from here to here, Silua from here to here, please.”

“Got it!”

A swarm of a thousand flies escaped from the ice golem and spread throughout the western Bastille Mountains.

“As expected, the fly type has too poor image quality.”

“It can’t be helped because of the reduced size. It’s even worse because thermal detection magic was forcibly added.”

Thermal detection was essential for searching in the dark night.

However, the visual information sent by the fly dolls had a lot of noise and there were too many of them.

For reconnaissance, dolls that are somewhat larger in size and can easily grasp the surrounding terrain with mana waves, like the bat type, were convenient, but they couldn’t be used for this operation.

Great demons are overly sensitive to mana, so they might flee before we can even approach them with vigilance.

“If Yuan oppa hadn’t limited the search range, I wouldn’t have dared.”

The vastness of the Bastille Mountains exceeds that of a decent kingdom.

Unicorn’s territory alone is close to the size of Gyeonggi-do, so if we don’t grasp the main base, searching with a thousand flies would be impossible in the first place.

Of course, even so, the search range is equivalent to the size of a small city.

After several tens of minutes passed, news of Unicorn came from Silua’s mouth.

“I found traces of Unicorn’s pack. Judging by the dark blue fur and the clarity of the footprints, it seems to have passed by within 2 hours at most.”

“Location?”

“On the map, west, section 3-6. It’s a basin terrain southeast of Mount Aras. The direction of the footprints is northwest.”

“Good, I’ll change the search area from the northwest side of the basin, so you come up from the southeast.”

And not long after, I found a pack of wolves with long horns on their foreheads in the distance, although blurry.

“Found it.”

Among the wolf pack, there was a wolf much larger than any other individual. That guy must be the great demon ‘Unicorn’.

The blurry image didn’t convey Unicorn’s majesty well.

I continued monitoring while being careful not to provoke Unicorn’s mood as much as possible.

Silua retrieved the fly dolls and moved the ice golem in the direction of Unicorn.

“Now that we’ve found Unicorn, let’s begin the operation. Everyone, prepare to move.”

When I declared the start of the operation, Precia and Gilbert checked the condition of their swords.

“Let’s all work hard.”

At my words, Precia smiled.

“I will bring the head before the tea gets cold after the battle starts.”

It was an uncharacteristic joke from her, but her confident and smiling appearance was charming enough to captivate anyone.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

As expected of a great demon sensitive to mana, we had to move stealthily while perfectly concealing our mana to approach.

Therefore, Precia carried Silua on her back, and Gilbert carried Jade.

Silua and Jade, being magicians, had no means to move quickly without magic.

Thanks to both of them being properly trained, they arrived at close range in an instant.

I also approached the limit where Unicorn wouldn’t properly detect mana even if I drew it out, carried by Zillian Original.

It was estimated that Unicorn, with its excellent senses, could detect mana up to a maximum of 3 kilometers.

I mounted the coil gun crossbow, modified from Silua’s workshop equipment, and confirmed Unicorn’s movements with optical magic.

“Navi, check the wind path.”

-Meow~!

“Nuni, maximum mana.”

Bzzt!

The two spirits devoured the mana stones in the ingredient warehouse using my mana as a medium.

I felt a little dizzy from the acute mana depletion.

At that moment, Unicorn was startled and looked in my direction.

It seemed to notice even if I used this vast amount of mana from a distance.

But it was too late to notice.

“Fire!”

The magic arrowhead attached to the crossbow left the bowstring, passed through the coil, and accelerated to seven times the speed of sound.

The arrowhead that flew along the wind path created by Navi hit Unicorn’s right eye.

No, in that instant, it turned its head and avoided a fatal injury!

To dodge at that speed, what kind of monster is it?!

However, it staggered greatly from the impact of the arrowhead lodged in its head.

At that moment, Precia, who had approached while hiding her body, rushed in with her sword and attacked Unicorn.

Simultaneously, Jade separated Unicorn and its pack with an ice barrier, and Gilbert and Silua ambushed the rest of the pack.

“Aooooo-!”

Unicorn’s cry resounded throughout the mountain range.