Chapter 31: Witch, Nadja

A modest welcome party was held in a room just wide enough for two or three people to live comfortably.  

The dishes laid out on the table were so delicately prepared that one could tell the skill of the cook at a glance, but the ingredients and spices used were by no means expensive.  

[Damn it. At this point, I’m curious about the circumstances too. That prince guy put his name on the line and boasted, but this is all we get?] 

[Ahahaha~ Frey is unnecessarily picky when it comes to food. Still, isn’t it pretty lavish for someone living in a cave on a rock island?]

[Yeah, that’s true. The problem is that the prince, who must have lived the most extravagant life in the world, is supposedly satisfied enough with this kind of meal to put his name on it! Look at him blowing that distilled liquor through the bottle. Is he a prince or some kind of pirate rag?] 

Frey’s doubts were justified, but Zion remained patient and did not rush.  

As the meal time, without course distinctions or strict etiquette, gradually matured, the two naturally moved on to the main topic.  

Zion’s words were calm and concise.

After finishing, he was surprised at how little he had to say.

This was partly because he was repeating the same story for the third time.

Above all, his past as the heir living in the House of Aleph was now an old matter that held no influence over the current Zion.  

“That damn Mione that scoundrel!”  

However, the prince, hearing Zion’s story for the first time, was anything but calm.

The moment Zion finished speaking, he suddenly shouted and slammed the table hard, then quickly caught himself and awkwardly cleared his throat.  

“ahem. Hmm, uh-hem! I- I’m sorry. I let my words slip a bit. Well, you see, after acting a pirate for so long, sometimes I get overly immersed. Yeah, that’s it. Method acting! I’m quite the theater enthusiast, you know. Hahaha!”  

[No, no. It seemed natural to me. Feels like that’s your true nature.]

Frey burst out laughing as he spoke.

Zion gave an awkward smile, and Yuria bowed her head, exerting all her patience to suppress her laughter.  

Knowing the situation was funny herself, despite the possibly rude reactions from the two, the prince busied himself changing the subject.  

“So, what happened after that? How did you meet Yuria?”  

There wasn’t much to say after leaving Illium.

It was better not to mention the Awakened or Demons of Earth, lest it provoke unnecessary distrust.  

[Let’s reduce the number of assassins. Around four is sufficient. You could handle four assassins easily, but you were ambushed at night and couldn’t respond properly, losing all your servants and soldiers. Alone, you survived and left for the Republic of Wecos seeking freedom, and on that journey, you met Yuria’s merchant caravan. Then…]

It was difficult for Zion to improvise lies on the spot, but luckily, Frey and Arcs were pros in that area.

Thanks to them, the story concluded naturally without suspicion, and Zion and Yuria found themselves the objects of the prince’s sympathetic gaze.  

“You both have endured great ordeals. I feel ashamed for wallowing alone in this place, brooding on my own misery.”  

Now it was the prince’s turn to take the baton.  

“It’s embarrassing, but I can’t avoid telling it. Where should I even begin?”  

After a brief moment of thought, the prince took a sip of the distilled liquor and spoke as if sighing.  

“The empire is rotten to its core.”  

The story went back about 40 years.

A woman named Nadja appeared at the imperial court.  

“That woman has countless nicknames and masks. When she first appeared at the court, she claimed to be the daughter of the then Prime Minister. The Prime Minister affirmed it, and the Imperial Secretary even recorded it in the annals. But in truth, the Prime Minister was a widower with no wife, let alone a daughter.”  

Nadja blended into the court as if she had always been there.

She seemed to assist the Prime Minister to learn politics, but before long, she appeared at royal court meetings where only high-ranking officials gathered, and no one stopped her from meeting the Emperor alone.  

The Emperor became captivated by her, neglecting his official duties, and the court meetings became gatherings of puppets obedient to her words.  

All these events were recorded as naturally as the sun rising in the morning and setting at night.

However, the actual annals were a chaotic mess, like the diary of a madman.

Some parts were filled with praise for Nadja’s abilities, passionate declarations of how charming she was, and confessions of love.  

“I… terribly failed to realize what was wrong with all this. That she maintained the same appearance for 40 years. That the entire court was swayed by her single word. That the Emperor’s first act upon waking each day was to kiss her feet. That every day, one of the palace maids was selected and drained of all her blood alive to be offered to that woman! I didn’t notice what was strange!”  

The prince shouted violently, unable to contain his emotions.

It was less an outburst of anger than an attempt to shake off overwhelming fear.

He slammed the empty bottle onto the table carelessly.

His face, which should have flushed with drunkenness, was pale as if gripped by terror.  

“What was different about me? Unlike the others, I started sensing something was off about her. Once it caught my eye, everything seemed strange… and I eventually came back to my senses. No, no, everyone else was mad, and I was the only one who became abnormal.”  

After that incident, the prince locked himself in his room for two full weeks without eating, tormented by nightmares and hallucinations.

When he was about to give up on life, Nadja came to him.  

With an enchanting smile, she greeted him and forced the dying prince to stand.  

“That woman… that witch said to me, ‘Why would a wonderful toy like you break down on your own?’ Then she fed me something. Blood, flesh, or perhaps organs. Somehow, vitality returned as if by magic.”  

The prince bitterly reproached himself for his foolishness.

Whatever Nadja’s purpose, he must never let things proceed as she wished.

He, the only abnormal one, must not throw his life away in vain but become the variable that would block Nadja’s path.  

“Accompanied by only a few royal guards, I slipped out of the palace under cover of night. It was impossible to avoid the witch’s gaze inside. Fortunately, there were a few in the Royal Guard who were not completely enchanted. Soares was one of them.”  

The prince’s plan was to persuade local nobles to start a kind of rebellion.

Since the entire court had become Nadja’s puppets, calling it a rebellion was not entirely wrong.

However, Nadja’s response was faster than expected.

Her influence, which had been confined to the court, began spreading across the empire.

The prince and his few comrades were driven southward, fleeing without time to act.  

“I have not given up. But such a cause demands great cost. We lack people, money, resources—everything. Conversely, the options were limited. The result is what you see now. Raiding.”  

Their raids were not as brutal as actual pirates’.

At least they shared a common cause.

They never killed people, never stole from the poor, and always left enough to survive on the sea.  

“I don’t intend to use that as an excuse. Raiding is raiding, and the degree of suffering means nothing to those robbed. We are committing wrongful acts under the pretense of doing the right thing. I have no intention of wrapping it in a noble cause or shamelessly asking for forgiveness. I just hope, a little later—after everything in the empire has normalized—that I can pay for my sins. If then those robbed wish it, I will gladly offer my neck.”  

After finishing calmly, the prince sighed deeply.

Zion carefully reviewed the story from the start, then spoke in his mind.  

‘If my guess is correct, this woman named Nadja is…’  

[She’s a Demon.] Frey picked up Zion’s guess.

After a moment’s pause, the three Awakened nodded in unison.  

[Magic can suppress aging to some extent. But the older you get, the bigger the backlash. Maintaining the same appearance for 40 years? No matter how you slice it, magic alone can’t do that.]

[If immortality by magic were possible, mages on Earth would have all dried up by now from draining their MP. Human greed never ends!]

“Hmph! Those types would have been reduced to ashes by my hand long before that. Anyway, there are only two possibilities for someone looking the same for 40 years. Either they are a species that naturally lives for centuries, or they aren’t a normal being at all.”  

‘There’s also a chance she’s a High Elf. But I don’t want to believe a High Elf is the culprit.’  

The biggest reason Zion was sure Nadja was a Demon was her enthrallment ability controlling the entire court—hypnosis.

When he fought arrogance, if not for the Pendant’s help, he would have succumbed to the hypnotic control and perished.  

‘I should tell His Highness about the Demons.’  

[Tsk, it’s no good if such secrets leak unnecessarily. But this time, it can’t be helped. Ordinary people, whether hundreds or thousands, are just throwing eggs at rocks when facing Demons.]

Having reached an agreement, Zion left Illium and, after meeting Yuria, recounted the events in Kornika accurately.

The prince, who listened until the end, wore a doubtful expression.  

“Demons, huh? So you’re saying that witch is something like a Monster?”  

“I’m not sure exactly. I’ve only faced her once myself. I think she’s more likely a being higher than a Monster, rather than simply a Monster.”  

“A being above Monsters… that’s terrifying.”  

The empire had the largest territory on the continent, and the Monster incidents throughout the land had long been a major problem.

The existence of a creature above Monsters meant an even worse impact on national defense.  

“Yes. Now that you mention it, since that witch appeared, the reports of Monster sightings across the territory have vanished like lies.”  

“There’s a high possibility that the Demon Nadja is controlling the Monsters.”  

“Why would she do such a thing… No, it’s pointless to ponder. It’s obvious it’s bad news for us.”  

The prince furrowed his brows and sighed deeply.

Meanwhile, Zion felt that the moment they learned the adversary was a Demon, the tangled situation became neatly resolved.  

“Nadja isn’t human. She’s a Demon, isn’t she?”  

Zion spoke simply and clearly.  

“Then why not just find her and take her down directly?”  

||  

The prince began to suspect Zion might have secretly been drinking the distilled liquor and was drunk.