Prince Argantir was a young man with neatly cut platinum hair, slender eyes, slightly curved eyelids, and a subtly upturned corner of his lips, giving him a handsome face.
He was probably about twenty-two?
Even when he stood there expressionless, his face seemed to radiate a soft smile, which might indeed appear delicate and harmless to others.
Yet, to me, he felt entirely different. More like the exact opposite.
In the world I came from, every character with a smiling face was either a puppet master, a betrayer, or a serial killer.
To me, Argantir had the impression of someone who would suddenly draw a sword and slice a person in half while chuckling nonchalantly.
Next to me stood a girl who acted just like that, so I didn’t feel particularly frightened or threatened seeing the smiling villain in the flesh.
◆◆
Was he trying to assert dominance or something?
As soon as Argantir saw us, he accurately identified both me and Friede.
Not just my identity, which had a slightly weakened recognition-inhibiting effect on it, but even Friede’s identity, which I thought few would know besides Gunther’s party.
If I said I wasn’t surprised, that would be a lie. Honestly, I was quite shocked.
It felt like a sudden visit from an intelligence bureau agent reciting my breakfast menu from earlier that day.
Somehow, the Shadow of the Eagle’s intelligence was far better than I had expected.
…He couldn’t possibly know what we did for breakfast today, right?
“Thank you for graciously accepting my rude invitation, Prince Argantir.”
I bowed slightly and greeted him politely, placing a hand on my chest, before taking a seat in the chair set before Argantir.
“Ah. Uh…thank you, Your Highness!”
Friede stumbled over her words, clearly uncomfortable with court etiquette, then hurriedly sat down next to me.
There was no need for introductions; the other party already knew our identities.
“It’s a relief that you’re aware of your rudeness.”
“…….”
Argantir shot me a pointed look.
It wasn’t incorrect, so I couldn’t argue against it.
When you think about it, what I did was essentially threaten the prince of a nation by saying, “If you don’t want your private life exposed, come here.”
Without even mentioning a word about his own identity.
…Saying it out loud now, it really does sound crazy. If I hadn’t had any knowledge of the original work, this plan would have been a reckless idea I couldn’t have even conceived of.
Still, I was confident that Argantir would come here.
If his personality and beliefs were the same as in the original novel, he wouldn’t be able to ignore the message I sent.
Well… I suppose I should apologize first.
I slightly lowered my head and offered a polite apology.
Bringing up that point so openly was likely a roundabout way of saying I felt he would want to hear my apology.
“…It was unavoidable from my side, but acknowledging my rudeness is indeed my fault. I sincerely apologize for that—”
“No need.”
…Oh, wait?
Argantir cut me off in a firm tone. His expression clearly said, “Stop with the nonsense.”
“Don’t waste my time. Do you think I came all this way just for a fake apology?”
A fake apology? How could he say that? Even a child who blew their parents’ retirement savings on crypto wouldn’t look more remorseful than I did right now.
“…I apologize.”
Of course, that was a forced expression.
“If you’re aware of your rudeness, it’s only right to apologize with something that can make up for it, rather than talking nonsense. So speak. You mentioned my brother’s safety inappropriately, did you not?”
Argantir commanded that I skip the nonsense and talk about Heid. As expected, he seemed particularly interested in his brother’s well-being, much like Heid was interested in his.
Of course, both interests were not necessarily positive.
The first prince who lost his hereditary rights to his younger brother, and the second prince who gained those rights. It was easy to see that their relationship was on thin ice.
Even though they were publicly known to be on good terms, that was merely a facade; the truth was almost entirely the opposite.
The Shadow of the Eagle, initially created to support his brother from the shadows, had now been utilized for entirely different purposes.
“Yes, I’ll tell you.”
I nodded.
Initially, I had planned to negotiate my conditions first and then start talking…but judging by how he was talking, I figured that if I did that, he might just throw the conversation out the window as an act of annoyance.
It felt like he could easily draw his sword and say he’d hear my story slowly in the organization’s underground prison.
So, it seemed better to first lay out the information and then demand compensation afterward.
If Argantir decided to wipe his hands clean after just hearing the information, things could get quite serious… but given our differences in position and status, resisting would only hurt me.
Well, if Argantir’s personality was like in the original, it wouldn’t be a problem anyway.
The original Argantir was a ruthless person who could train orphans into assassins out of gratitude, but surprisingly, he was diligent in matters of reward and punishment.
As long as I wasn’t despised, he wasn’t a bad person to deal with. As long as I wasn’t despised.
So….
“A few days ago, an Abyss Priest contacted me. He believed the accusations against me to be true and tried to draw me in as an ally.”
I decided to bring up the story that Argantir would be eager to hear, trusting that his personality would align with the original.
“Accusations? That’s an intriguing perspective.”
“…Most of it is false.”
I insisted, maintaining an upright posture while claiming that the charges against me were false.
While it was true that some of my actual deeds were mixed in, just because 20% of the falsehood was true didn’t make the whole accusation true, right?
So I remained steadfast.
“Hm… I’ll let that slide for now. Please continue.”
“Yes. This person wasn’t even an ordinary Abyss Priest. He was a finger of the Exorcism-Devouring Society… in other words, a high-ranking Abyss Priest.”
Argantir raised a slender eyebrow, slightly intrigued.
He seemed to be getting a bit interested. He must have heard of the Exorcism-Devouring Society since they ruled over the underworld of Hervor.
“His self-identified name was Ord Zenbel. As you may know, he was once known as the Nightmare of Bisenberg—”
“That monster bastard?”
“…Yes, that monster bastard Ord.”
I confirmed in a somewhat sullen voice.
The derogatory title of “monster bastard” was more widely known than I expected. The moment I heard his name, that moniker sprang to mind immediately.
I now understood why Ord’s Doppleganger was so irritable when he heard that term.
If the entire world remembered him as the “monster bastard,” I wouldn’t blame his personality for being as dirty as a rag used for wiping filth.
He was somewhat a pitiful character. Not that I felt sympathy for him, mind you.
“Ord proved his ability to control monsters and then offered me a proposal. He planned to assassinate the hero of this country and wanted my cooperation.”
I described in detail the proposal Ord had made to me, the plan, and how I had dealt with it.
I included even the fact that the Ord I encountered wasn’t the real Ord but rather a Doppleganger.
It seemed to be more interesting than expected; Argantir rested his chin on his hand while nodding repeatedly, listening intently.
“—That’s how it happened.”
As soon as I finished my story, he expressed his satisfaction with a light clap.
“Excellent. Truly excellent. It was a remarkably intriguing story. If only you could overlook the issue that there is no tangible evidence.”
Just as I expected, he pointed that out. As he said, my story lacked any supporting evidence.
Had Ord not been a Doppleganger, I could have presented his decapitated head as evidence, but unfortunately, since he was a Doppleganger, he had long since melted into nothing.
“While there’s no evidence… I swear on the goddess, it’s the truth. I had no intention of deceiving Your Highness with a plausible lie—”
“You don’t need to swear. It’s my job to verify the reliability of the information.”
Fortunately, Argantir made it clear that he didn’t mind doing the legwork of finding the evidence himself. That was the role of the information guild, after all.
But then, why the heck did he keep bringing that point up and explicitly criticize it? I couldn’t figure out the reason.
Could it be that he just wanted to poke at me?
This guy, Argantir. He’d been acting antagonistically towards me earlier and still continued to act that way right now. It was strange—he didn’t seem to be hostile but was annoyingly nitpicky about everything.
I honestly wanted to snap at him and ask why he was acting like that, and if he had a complaint, to stop being passive-aggressive and just say it straight.
Of course, if I had done that, I was sure I’d earn a death sentence instead of an answer, so I held back.
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