How the Prince Makes Friends - Chapter 167



Only Noblemtl

Episode 167

The butler came over and looked around. Then he put his fingers on Dave’s neck and shook his head.

“His heart stopped. He was a young boy, it’s a shame.”

That was all there was to it. Yvonne was confused.

How can this be, when a person dies? Or is he really dead? Why? How come? What did Dave do?

“It looks like you came after receiving your fortune? Oh, you don’t even have an identification badge.”

The butler searched Dave’s chest and said:

“Okay, just a moment. Sir, I’m going to get my ID card, but Dave is, uh, still young……”

“They must have checked everyone’s ID when they entered, right?”

“That’s, that’s true, but…!”

“How did this boy get in here?”

“Hey, butler!”

As Jane was making her case for him, a young voice came from the box. Everyone looked up.

No, the little prince was fidgeting.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Please give your order.”

“Well, is something wrong? Well, at least, Congressman……”

“Your Highness, a magic contract cannot be falsified. This boy must have been instigated.”

“Ha, but…!”

The prince’s expression turned from embarrassment to guilt, and soon a sense of betrayal dawned on him.

“Really…?”

At the same time, the crying questions filled with all kinds of emotions began to weigh on people.

The older brother glared down at him with a fierce expression. It was on a different level from the pressure he had felt earlier. Yvon realized then that his heart could stop just from killing him.

“I will kill all those ungrateful things.”

“You, you guys got a fortune too…?”

The prince’s eyes were filled with tears as he asked that question to himself and Jane.

“It wasn’t meant to be merciful in the first place.”

Yvonne, who came to her senses at her older brother’s muttering, quickly made an excuse.

“Oh, no! We didn’t receive any fortune telling! We only found out today that Wernus is the name of the palace. Please believe us!”

I opened the cap of the fountain pen and signed the contract. My hands were shaking so much that my handwriting was sloppy, but I had to prove my innocence.

I was so scared that I wanted to run away, but I didn’t know what kind of disadvantage it would bring to the children remaining in Shaton.

“Look, look. I finished signing too!”

At that moment, the contract sparkled. I closed my eyes tightly, thinking that this was how I would die, but nothing happened.

I felt so fortunate, but at the same time, I felt despair.

‘Did Dave really get a fortune told?’

Dave was the only one who insisted on submitting the application. Furthermore, if the reason I was able to enter the hall without an ID card was not because I had a document screening certificate, but because someone helped me from behind… … .

“Really…, Dave….”

Although we hadn’t been together for that long, the shock didn’t go away easily.

Clap, a clap was heard. It was the butler.

“It appears that the magic contract is valid. You have five minutes. The entrance is over there.”

At those words, about five people headed toward the entrance without looking back. A woman wearing a maid’s uniform offered them a purse of money, but they ran away without even taking it.

Yvonne stared blankly at the sight, only coming to her senses after the hall door closed again with a heavy sound.

“Uh, we should have gone out too, right…?”

Jane also seemed to have lost her mind, so she stared at the closed door and muttered in vain. Yvonne looked around. The rest of the people were signing contracts.

No more people died. Dave was the first and the last.

“Aren’t you going to sign?”

Then the butler came over and asked Jane. Jane hesitated, then remembered that Yvonne had already signed, and wrote her name with trembling hands.

“That’s it. You can get up now.”

“……?”

My head tilted. What do you mean, “Get up” when I’m already standing up? … .

Bam-!

“Eww!”

Kkudangtangtang-!

Jane was so shocked that she backed away quickly and bumped into Yvonne, sending them both rolling on the floor.

“Ugh, I thought my heart was going to burst!”

“…Dave?”

Dave woke up with a start, grumbling and dusting off his clothes.

“Jane shook me so hard I almost opened my eyes.”

“…You’re not dead?”

“Of course I won’t die……”

“Your Majesty, it is dangerous!”

Everyone was standing there dumbfounded, watching the resurrected Dave, when a voice came from above.

The prince, with tears streaming down his eyes, was sticking his head out through the gap in the railing.

“…Dave, are you alive?”

“Yeah, no, yes. I’m alive.”

“You didn’t get a fortune telling…?”

“I got the fortune, huh….”

Dave answered hesitantly, recalling what had happened before he entered the hall.

Arriving at the 8th Avenue Opera Hall, Dave looked around for the white head that must have been somewhere. It was none other than that little boy who had told him the name ‘Wernus’.

Oh, those kids were child actors. They came out to test their acting skills, and the big brother was a mercenary hired to protect those actors.

I thought to myself as I looked up at the magnificent building. I especially thought that Ner was very good at acting like a fool.

Then, I lost track of my brothers in the crowd and was stopped at the entrance because I didn’t have my ID. I tried shoving in my document screening certificate, but it didn’t work.

Because the employment condition from the beginning was ‘having identification’.

Of course, I had expected to fail. It was easy to guess that Neil had taken some action to pass the document screening, even though I did not meet the requirements.

It would be shameless to expect more help, but I didn’t know that I would be blocked at the entrance without being able to do anything. If I had known, I would have just said I was 15 and made an ID card.

‘If it was going to be like this, why didn’t you just pass the documents in the first place… … .’

Dave, unable to shake off his disappointment, crouched down on the lonely steps. He couldn’t go back alone. The carriage fare would have been doubled. In the end, he had to wait for his brothers to come out.

‘Dave.’

At that moment, a familiar little boy appeared. Unfortunately for the white-haired boy who had been searching, the boy came up to me in a suspicious outfit with a hood pulled down low, and suddenly said this.

‘Play dead.’

‘…uh?’

‘Go in there.’

‘Huh, huh?’

The boy pointed to the only entrance without guards and then leisurely disappeared.

At first I didn’t know what it meant, but when the ‘magic contract’ appeared, I could understand its meaning.

So you’re asking me to act as a wind catcher?

Dave acted passionately, recalling ‘Rabbit Arm Inn’. While thinking about what position a corpse should be in, he suddenly remembered his sister’s corpse that was abandoned in an alley in a red-light district and he was moved to tears.

“Ugh, I, hyung, I, really, hyung, thought I was dead…, huh, Neil, hyung, why, aren’t you telling me, huh, Evan too hyung, meeeee.”

Nerr… no, the prince cried with tears and snot flowing out of his eyes.

Even though Neil had made him pretend to die, Dave wrinkled his nose awkwardly because he didn’t expect him to cry so sincerely. He felt a little uneasy.

The little prince soon became embarrassed and pulled the cloak of his older brother, or rather the knight, and hid inside it. The sobbing sound could still be heard inside.

At that moment, the butler standing next to me opened his mouth.

“Isn’t our prince truly lovely?”

Dave nodded without realizing it.

***

Jane fiddled with the name tag on her chest. It said that if she successfully completed the one-month training period, she would receive a badge with the royal crest on it.

‘The main palace is ‘Hiems’, the second prince’s palace is ‘Wernus’, the first prince’s palace is ‘Estas’, the queen’s palace is ‘Autumnum’… why are all these names so difficult… … .’

Jane grumbled to herself as she wrote. If she made a mistake later, it might be a bother to the prince.

The badges worn by employees change color depending on their place of work, but surprisingly, the symbolic color of Wernus was ‘pink’.

The symbolic color of the Prince’s palace, ‘Estas’, is ‘green’, but it was changed to blue a long time ago because no one likes green.

‘What’s wrong with green… … .’

Jane thought of the wavy, dark green hair and how petty the people in the First Prince’s Palace really were.

‘The Hiems palace is white, the Visionary’s ‘Autumnum’ palace is reddish brown… The butler told me to straighten my back as much as possible when I see the reddish brown curtain.’

I don’t know about anything else, but it is certain that the butler has regrets about His Majesty.

The four palaces are unusually small in size, due to the unique culture in which the palace of the heir to the throne becomes the ‘main palace’.

This culture was said to have come about 300 years ago, when the main palace called ‘Tempus’ disappeared without a trace as soon as it was built, and no new ones were built after that.

I wondered how the big palace could disappear, but I just ignored it because it wasn’t useful information to me.

In the first place, it was a huge deal just to be able to set foot in the palace.

It must have been the prince’s breath that touched him. If not, there was no way he, who had nothing but his body, could have entered the palace so gracefully.

Dave, who had been acting as a wind catcher, was not hired. Instead, the butler gave him a lot of money, so Dave went back without any complaints.

Now that Yvonne, who had been taking care of the children, and herself have fallen for each other at the same time, it might actually be a blessing in disguise.

The children sincerely congratulated the boys on their employment. Of course… , they only knew that they were working in the opera hall… … .

“Hey, should I tell you something fun?”

As I was preparing to leave, wondering if the kids were doing well, a middle-aged man who had been assigned to the same room spoke to me.

The name was… Raymond, I think. The first thing he said to me when he saw me was, ‘What? You’re not a girl?’ The next thing he said was, ‘You look dirty.’

You mistook my name for a girl’s name. But even putting aside the fact that my name is a girl’s name, I don’t know what you expected when you wouldn’t assign a man and a woman to the same room in the first place.

Anyway, he was a bit of a rude person. When he found out that he stuttered, he immediately looked down on him.

‘This kind of person is my teacher… … .’

To say that I was just unlucky with the assignment, I heard something from the butler.

‘Jane, I’ll give you some advice on how to thrive in society.’

‘Uh, what…?’

‘If possible, try not to contradict the shooter. Do you understand?’

I thought nothing of it since it was advice I could hear anywhere, but it seems like I was assigned to this person on purpose.

“…Wh, what are you talking about?”

“You know that pretty little belly button. It’s a bit lacking in speech and speech….”

Raymond twirled his fingers around his temple as he spoke. Jane was a little offended, but she didn’t show it and asked.

“Why, why are you here, Master?”

“You always call me ‘Master’. But that’s just lame.”

“…….”

“Really. I heard the prince picked it up when he was injured.”

Likewise, Jane, a beggar, couldn’t open her mouth. So she had no choice but to just nod.

“Is it because you have a pretty face? There are so many rumors going around, but honestly, it’s funny to see girls talking about it.”

It wasn’t funny at all.

Jane knows to be careful with her words, wherever and whenever, because she has seen Nihil appearing like a ghost, observing the court ladies and writing on their evaluation forms.

In particular, you must not gossip about the prince. No, what is gossip? Even simple criticism is not allowed.

The moment you dare to judge the master of the palace, two lines will be drawn straight across his name, whether you are an appraiser or a swindler.

Yvonne doesn’t seem to know that fact yet, but… she’s such a kind-hearted person and not the type to gossip about others, so it wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t tell her.

Rather, if other employees say something like that, I’ll nag them and tell them not to do that.

“Yeah, if I had to be picky, I think it’s probably a young Suin. Why, they’re a bit stupid to be human.”

“…What, you say I’m stupid?”

What the hell is this guy talking about?