The Blue Prince's Hunting Competition (3)
“Tch.”
The assassin’s eyes twitched as if convulsing.
The moment he hesitated over whether to reveal his client’s identity, he had already forfeited his qualifications as an assassin.
“If you talk, I’ll let you go. I’ll even keep it a secret that you were ever here.”
“…You’ll keep it a secret?”
The assassin narrowed his eyes at my words.
“You expect me to believe that?”
To prove that someone had ordered the prince’s assassination, I would need him as a witness. Promising to let him go and even cover up his presence here was bound to raise suspicion.
“Then shut your mouth and die.”
The assassin seemed to waver for a moment at my words.
But the way his eyes darted around suggested he was looking for an escape route rather than preparing to confess.
‘As if I’d let that happen.’
The assassin, who had been inching sideways while watching me, suddenly widened his eyes.
He frowned, as if he had only just noticed something strange.
“…What is this? Paralytic poison?”
“That’s right.”
“Hah. If I didn’t have resistance, I would’ve collapsed long ago.”
The assassin glanced down at the arrow embedded in his leg before turning his gaze back to me.
“Now I’m really curious about your identity. Are you one of us too?”
“So who sent you? Why target the Third Prince?”
It was a ridiculous situation where we each only asked our own questions.
But neither of us had any intention of answering the other.
The silent standoff continued.
“I’ll ask one more time. I’ll warn you in advance—I don’t have much patience. So it’d be better if you answered while I’m still asking nicely.”
I posed the question again to the assassin, who still showed no sign of opening his mouth.
“Was it the Second Prince’s consort who hired you?”
The assassin remained silent for a moment before slowly parting his lips.
“You don’t look like royalty or nobility either. What’s the point of knowing? Even if you find out, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Stop wasting time and talk if you don’t want to die.”
“Go ahead and kill me then.”
At that moment, a strange light flickered in the assassin’s eyes.
I could feel the fierce determination and stubbornness of a man facing death.
“If you can kill me, that is!”
The assassin snapped the shaft of the arrow stuck in his leg and charged straight at me.
His movements were remarkably fast despite the paralytic poison spreading through him.
“Tsk!”
Clicking my tongue, I drew the two daggers hidden beneath my skirt.
They were among the hidden weapons I had stored in the luggage I retrieved from the back alley the other day.
‘It was a stroke of genius to leave my weapons behind instead of carrying them around every time I travel.’
Having them strapped to my inner thigh during the hunt had been incredibly inconvenient.
I quickly crossed the daggers in my hands forward.
Clang!
The assassin’s sword clashed against my daggers, sending a metallic ring echoing through the air.
His mouth gaped wide beneath his mask.
“Ha, hahahaha! I knew it!”
The assassin burst into laughter upon seeing me deflect his blade.
He seemed strangely exhilarated.
“You’re one of us after all!”
“…Think whatever you want, but you’d better keep that mouth shut.”
I readjusted my grip on the daggers and twisted one corner of my lips upward.
“None of the bastards who called me that have ever died peacefully.”
Clang, clang, clang!
The moment I finished speaking, the assassin lunged at me like a madman.
It looked like he was deliberately unleashing a barrage of attacks to divert my attention.
‘How predictable.’
I smoothly deflected the assassin’s successive strikes this time.
Then, spinning my body, I kicked him squarely in the temple.
“Gah!”
It happened in an instant, too fast for him to react.
The assassin collapsed to the ground, groaning.
“Now then.”
I crouched gracefully in front of him.
Then I grabbed his jaw with a rough hand.
As expected, a small poison pouch sat inside his forcibly opened mouth.
“I can’t let you die comfortably before I get my answer.”
Still holding his jaw to prevent him from clenching his teeth, I continued.
“So, who ordered you to kill the Third Prince……”
Just then—
“Aaaagh!”
A faint scream echoed from afar.
The problem was that the voice was all too familiar.
‘Edwin?’
Without thinking, I turned my head toward the direction of the scream.
‘Don’t tell me there were more of them?’
That couldn’t be. I had already confirmed there were no other presences nearby.
“Kgh!”
At that moment, the assassin seized the opening created by my lowered guard and shook his head, clenching his teeth.
The poison pouch burst, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Damn it!”
I tried to pry his mouth open too late.
It was useless—he had already swallowed the poison.
The assassin chuckled as he watched my flustered expression.
“Fool, indeed.”
The light in his eyes gradually faded.
Perhaps he had sensed that this was the end.
“To the Third Prince……”
The assassin looked me straight in the eye and spat out a single phrase.
“Angel’s Breath will reach him.”
Angel’s Breath.
The place to which I had devoted everything in my past life. The place where I had lost everything.
My breathing grew ragged at the all-too-familiar name.
“What do you mean……”
My mind knew I had to return to Edwin immediately, but my hands moved on their own.
I slowly reached out and removed the mask from the dead assassin’s face.
“This damned……”
It was a familiar face.
One of the men who used to trail after Ian.
Because they refused to listen to me simply because their leader was a woman, controlling them had been entirely Ian’s responsibility.
‘A guild member got involved in imperial palace affairs.’
It felt as though a burning stone had lodged itself in the center of my chest.
I clenched the hand holding the mask.
‘Does that mean…’
‘Ian is connected to the power struggle within the imperial palace?’
My thoughts were too tangled to make sense of anything.
I stood there blankly for a long while.
“…Your Highness!”
Only then did I remember that Edwin had screamed.
I quickly gathered all the items from the assassin’s body and mounted my horse.
I rushed back to where we had been, but Edwin was nowhere to be seen.
His horse was gone too—only the cart remained.
‘The game is untouched.’
Since the cart hadn’t been disturbed, it seemed Edwin had been the sole target.
I examined the direction of the hoofprints on the ground.
‘It looks like the horse suddenly bolted. There are no other hoofprints, so it doesn’t seem like anyone was chasing him.’
The hoofprints led into the forest without a path.
Without hesitation, I spurred my horse and plunged in after them.
To find the young prince wandering alone in the darkness.
* * *
The sun was setting.
It was time to wrap up the imperial palace’s hunting competition.
Buuuu.
As the sound of the horn signaling the end of the competition echoed across the hunting grounds, the royals and nobles began gathering at the starting point one after another.
Jerome, who had finished hunting early and returned to stand by the emperor’s side, watched the scene with leisure.
Just then—
“Captain.”
“What is it, Philip?”
Jerome looked puzzled at the anxious-looking vice-captain.
“The Third Prince has not returned.”
“What?”
“All the other royals and nobles have returned, but only the Third Prince……”
Jerome scanned the surroundings, feigning composure. As the vice-captain said, there was no sign of the Third Prince.
The fact that the insolent nanny who always followed him like a shadow was also missing suggested he truly hadn’t returned.
“Weren’t knights stationed in the area where the royals are hunting? Where is the Third Prince now……”
“According to the last knight who saw him, the prince suddenly spurred his horse and rode out of the hunting grounds……”
“Hah.”
Jerome ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
‘Just when I thought he was finally acting like a proper prince, he goes and tarnishes his own status like this.’
He glanced sideways at the emperor standing a short distance away.
The emperor disliked impulsive behavior. More precisely, he disliked any action that harmed the honor and dignity of the imperial family.
“Dispatch the knights immediately to find the Third Prince……”
“Jerome.”
At that moment, the emperor called him over.
Startled, Jerome approached his liege with an awkward gait.
“What is it, Your Majesty?”
“Edwin is nowhere to be seen.”
As expected. Someone as perceptive as the emperor would never fail to notice Edwin’s absence.
Jerome cleared his throat and lowered his voice.
“Well, something seems to have come up for His Highness……”
“If he were still within the hunting grounds, he couldn’t have missed the sound of the horn.”
“That’s true, but I’ve already ordered the knights to search for him. If you could wait just a little longer……”
“No.”
The emperor continued, his face expressionless as he stared straight ahead.
“We cannot make others wait for that child. This is a proper competition—wouldn’t it violate fairness?”
“But—”
“Failing to return within the allotted time is also grounds for disqualification. Even if he is my son, there are no exceptions.”
No matter how you looked at it, his own child had essentially disappeared in this vast hunting ground, yet he spoke of fairness.
That was just like the emperor.
‘If he’s saying this, it means he has no intention of backing down. There’s nothing I can do.’
Suppressing a sigh, Jerome bowed his head.
“Then let’s announce the winner first. I’ve instructed the knights to bring Edwin back immediately if they find him, so we should locate him soon.”