HideousGrain
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Path to Prosperity - B2 Chapter 52
🕑 Added 2024-09-29 10:00:07 +0000 UTCSince the revelation of Percy’s identity several days had passed. It hadn’t always been easy, especially with his parents asking numerous questions…questions he didn’t have an answer to, but it worked out fine. He’d told them almost everything he knew while also sharing his worries. That he didn’t feel like the crown prince, let alone like it was just for him to be the rightful heir to the throne.
Of course, it would help his Ego if he were to ascend the throne in the future, but that wasn’t the right place for him to be. It felt wrong.
Still, there were some useful perks he could use with his high status in the royal palace. Nobody asked any unnecessary questions. The servants followed his orders the moment the words left his lips. It could be that simple.
“Can I see the books related to the Devil’s Touch?” Percy asked the royal librarian. It took him a while to find the young man, but all problems were solved once he found him.
The royal librarian was a young man with bright brown eyes. He didn’t seem older than the King, but something told Percy that the librarian was much older than it seemed at first glance.
The mana coursing through him is so dense. He is definitely a Master…or did he already go beyond that Tier?
Percy swallowed hard and felt like asking the royal librarian about his age and Tier, but didn’t want to seem rude. Even if the royal librarian would probably answer most questions, there was no need to be rude.
“Of course, your excellency,” The royal librarian responded with a hint of a smile, “You must be very interested in the past. We don’t have many records of the Devil’s Touch and most of them are sealed for obvious reason, but your status is high enough to look at them. Please do not leave the library with the records though. We do not wish to scare the public, especially given your special…circumstances.”
Percy raised an eyebrow but nodded, “You mean because I’m marked by the Devil?”
He touched the back of his head where he had a black mole that was covered by his thick hair. Before he found out that he was the crown prince and a victim of Devil’s Touch, Percy didn’t think much about it. However, he faintly recalled Old Greg telling him to never shave his hair and to keep the mole covered by all means.
Now that I think about it…Old Greg knew about my identity, didn’t he? He prepared an Awakening Stone for me, knowing I’d need it and he prepared me for combat and other stuff. The only thing he messed up was teaching me common sense. Isolating me from other people wasn’t nice either though.
He would have loved to ask Old Greg a bunch of questions to solve the storm of emotions and questions tormenting his mind and mentality for the last few days. Unfortunately, the old man was dead.
I miss you.
“You could say so, Your Excellency. We didn’t know you were still alive, but if your identity comes to light, the factions working against your father might jump into action,” The royal librarian explained, “You know that the Kainesh Kingdom has more problems with Demon sightings than the other kingdoms, right? Your father’s enemies will say that this is your fault because of Devil’s Touch.
“Some will propose to kill you, while others will demand your father to resign from his position because he endangers the kingdom with your presence. Their reasoning is simple, and even though it sounds ridiculous, we have no hard proof to refute the possibility of it being true. They will say the crown prince is connected to the entire kingdom, and thus, the Kainesh Kingdom is fated to cease to exist. After all, Devil’s Touch ‘curses’ those connected to the target with misfortune.”
That…is not what I expected to hear.
Percy’s expression distorted in discomfort and guilt.
“Nobody can prove whether this is true or not, but humans are known for giving their utmost to seek fault with others. They would never want to acknowledge that they did something wrong and will pick you as their scapegoat,” The librarian continued mercilessly.
“Thanks…” Percy responded sarcastically.
“No problem,” The royal librarian smiled brightly at Percy, “I’ll bring you the information we have about Devil’s Touch soon. Is there something else you need?”
Is he acting ignorant, or is he actually like that? Still, he is nice. At least he is straightforward and doesn’t try to hide the truth from me. I can prepare for the outfall now that I know what ‘might’ happen. Not that it makes everything better, though.
“I need information about the Devils and all known Demons. It would be great if you could fetch me some detailed books about Devils, though given the look you are giving me, I doubt there are many details about Devils. In that case, how about some books with compact information about all Demons and as much as you have about Devils?” Percy requested, and the royal librarian nodded.
“I would like to know more about the incident from…when was it? Sixteen years ago, or was I older? I don’t know the exact date, but I’m talking about the incident with the Synther house. Their kidnapping and their summoning of the Devil. I think you know what I mean.”
The royal librarian nodded again. That meant they had information about the incident in the royal library. That was good since there wre still a few things that confused Percy quite a bit.
“I’d also like to know more about runic enchantments. I don’t know how much you heard about me, but my Ego helps me engrave runic enchantments on objects, but they’re always the same. I would like to learn more about runic enchantments to see if I can adjust the Ego-engraved runic enchantments in the future.”
The runic enchantments in his room – he was not in the guest room anymore and had been given an even more extravagant place to sleep…the room he’d occupied when he was a toddler, apparently – were very intriguing. However, his Ego couldn’t replicate the runic enchantments easily. Therefore, it was time for him to learn more about runic enchantments.
“I’d recommend you to start with the basics. There are some Egos that help with the engravement of runic enchantments, but you should start from scratch to build a formidable foundation,” The royal librarian recommended.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Percy nodded.
“Do you need something else, or is that enough for the day?”
For the day?
Percy snickered inwardly but shook his head.
“I should be fine—...” He stopped in his tracks, recalling something.
I wanted to find out what exactly happened in the Glacia Knight Order’s barracks, didn’t I?
Nobody had been paying much attention to it, which was weird. He’d expected the head of the Glacia Knights or Paul Reeze to inform him about their investigation into the incident, but nothing came. As time passed, Percy forgot about the incident until Emilia Dark mentioned it again on the day Percy’s life changed forever. For the Xth time.
It was already weird to be attacked in the barracks of a Knight Order, but there was more to it. First of all, there had only been one assassin since he arrived in the capital. After that incident, nothing big happened again. That sounded logical, but it was odd, in Percy’s opinion. The head of the Glacia Knight Order had also been…weird, to put it into simple terms.
The head’s attitude confused Percy, but maybe that was exactly what he had wanted. But the most confusing part was that Paul Reeze never mentioned the explosion again. The Reeze Duke didn’t strike him as a hesitant man. It was the opposite. The Reeze Duke was decisive.
Thus, it didn’t make sense for him to lay low when it came to a direct attack of his Glacia Knights.
The royal librarian was about to turn around when Percy stopped him.
“I still have one more thing I would like to learn about,” He said. The librarian turned back and nodded slowly.
“Do you know if there are any techniques that allow people to kill themselves by erupting with their mana, transforming their mana reserves into a storm, which erupts outward, creating a massive explosion?”
The royal librarian’s smile crumbled slowly the more Percy struggled explaining what kind of technique he wanted to learn about.
“What are you planning to do with such a technique?” The librarian asked sternly, the kindness on his face ceasing for the first time since he entered the royal library.
Percy didn’t see a reason to lie about the incident and summarized the incident, “The day I arrived in the capital, the Reeze Duke allowed me to sleep in the Glacia Knight Order’s barracks, but an assassin was already lurking in the shadows. I exposed him thanks to my Augmentations and would have killed him, but he summoned this weird storm from his mana reserves to kill himself.”
The librarian was surprised, to say the least, but he nodded slowly and returned to the shelves. He prepared the books Percy had been asking for and excused himself a moment later.
The librarian left the library with hurried strides.
“That was weird,” Percy mumbled but didn’t pay more attention to it.
Instead, he carried the books to a table were he sprawled them out. Percy picked the first one and started reading the first book with the title: [Royal Techniques].
