Chapter 4

Episode 4

"Hmph..."

I felt lighter when I moved my body with short breaths. Everyone would be shocked when they heard that a prince lying in bed for more than six years in a coma could now move like this. Of course, my bones were damaged, and my muscles were almost gone, so I wouldn't be able to recover easily, even with the priest's continued healing magic.

Moreover, most of the priests who had come for treatment were Queen Liness's people. And so, they didn't perform proper healing. Yeah, to put it bluntly, this castle was a very indecent place. As the queen wanted to kill the prince, there was no such thing as family affection.

We used to be family in the past because we proved to be partners that had to spend our whole lives together. Because of this, I approached them personally and believed in them. It didn't take much time to understand that was a stupid judgment. The first life on earth and the second life at this place were different.

There was no such thing as family love in this country, where people sold their children for the sake of instant success and used them as tools for a political marriage. They didn't give a shit.

Of course, not all nobles were like that. In fact, Queen Liness was a woman who cared so much for her own sons. But what if they weren't blood-related? What if he was the one who was standing in the way of her biological son?

Queen Liness wasn't my biological mother. She was a person with distinctly different blood than I. My mother, who used to be the queen, was killed by someone who poisoned her about five years after I was born. They failed to catch the criminal, and my mother's death ended in grief.

It was Queen Liness who took over my mother's position afterward. She was an ambitious woman that wanted to get rid of me, the son of the former queen, and push her son to be the next king. Of course, she was also a woman that had power. In the Kingdom of Rown, the maternal relatives had the strongest power, with the Duke of Liness's direct family was none other than the Duke of Varietta. Unless you were an idiot, you would understand that they were in cahoots.

In the meantime, my life had been quite monotonous. Mana, divine power, and command mana used to increase my recovery. I had exercised in my spare time to restore my body's muscles. In addition to this, I quickly sought recovery by eating all the meals that the chambermaid Amy brought.

Recovery magic used immediate divine power and showed a tremendous pace of recovery. For me, who had learned the knowledge of Hippocrate and studied extremely hard about the human body and the medicine directly under them, this recovery wasn't a very difficult challenge.

In the process, my appetite had improved so much that I was excitedly forgetting the budget allocated to the prince's castle, but who could say anything about it when it was my money anyway?

"Still, they probably took more than half of the money that was supposed to come in."

You could tell by looking at the condition of the castle. Who would think of this place as the first Prince's castle? There was a lot of split marble on the floor, and weeds were sticking out. Compared to other places in the royal castle, it was as good as a deserted house. The appearance of the royal castle was a great disadvantage to the prince's reputation, that was, to my image and position. However, it wouldn't change unless I replaced the people who were taking half of my money.

Therefore, recovery was important. No matter what I wanted, my body needed to be healthy. Revenge on the useless second Prince and third Prince, who were believed to have caused me to fall into a coma, and Queen Liness, who was believed to have caused the death of my mother. I had the freedom to because I had become quite a strong man.

"Ha..."

When sweat poured out of my body like rain because of the exercise, I raised my hand without saying a word and chanted.

"Clean."

With a short murmur, droplets of water appeared in the air, covering my whole body, and soon my body was washed clean and turned cool. Magic was a fairly convenient power. Wasn't there a saying that laziness was the key to scientific development? Odin, who taught me magic, told me that, but I believed in it very much.

"Prince. It's me, Amy."

"Come on in."

After organizing the messy clothes and lying on the bed, Amy, a girl with a very stern face, came in with her head down. In this royal castle, I was more known as the black sheep instead of the prince. Both nobles and servants ignored me behind my back, so Amy was quite faithful in that sense.

"I brought you a meal."

Her calm words made me smile.

"Thank you."

I didn't reject courtesy. Amy, at least not this long after she came to this castle, was the only one who didn't get involved in dirty politics. For now, anyway. Apparently, she had been demoted to this place because she was sent out of the queen's sight while working at the castle.

"The first prince's castle is a place where servants get demoted to... this is a mess."

"What?"

"It's nothing. You did a good job. Go back and rest for today."

"But Prince, today's rehabilitation training..."

"I'll take care of that, so go back and rest."

She looked up at me with a tremble as if she weren't going to listen. Hey, don't look at me like that. If you look up with that puppy-dog expression, you will make me feel guilty for no reason. She swallowed her words, and when I patted her head, she blushed, and then she bowed her head.

"So...sorry!"

"That's enough. Go back now."

"Ye-yes!"

A handsome face was helpful in situations like this.

"Hmmm~"

I felt good and hummed while looking down at the meal Amy prepared for me.

"They're treating me like an old man because I'm a patient."

Considering my mental age, I wasn't an old man by human standards, but an actual living fossil. Sadly, I wasn't mentally mature enough to be such an upright person either. Most people or heroes who lived for thousands of years or tens of thousands of years were still giggling, as if they were in their teens or early twenties.

Are you confused? It meant that people go around and around. It would be a natural change for those who had already accepted death once. Some people kept their seriousness, but others eventually returned to their childhood personalities. The worst of them was the saint Daphne, and the self-proclaimed survival king Hercules.

They were both mad.

While silently eating the meal on the table, I didn't forget to use mana and divine power at the same time. The mana would recover on its own even if I didn't do anything, so that meant I just needed to use the rest of them.

What you could do with the divine power was the basic magic of healing, restoring, and curing. Magic was all about simple lights, magic missiles, and other life magic that could be used easily, but that was only the case for me, who hadn't recovered fully.

Even though it felt like my stomach was about to burst, once I used the restore magic, my digestion became better, and I could eat endlessly. What I ate was roughly more than three times the average amount eaten by an ordinary person.

That was too much? If you forced it in, it'll eventually all go in. Amy looked surprised at the amount of food I ate, but I'm also a stubborn person. After pushing in so hard that my cheeks were about burst, I felt like my soul was about to return to my body. Oh, of course.

"Oh...the damn bathroom."

The disadvantage was that I needed to go to the bathroom frequently because I digested everything too fast. If Haris, the lazy god, saw me, he would have made fun of me. An old man that doesn't act like his age...

The recovery process proved to be smooth. However, soon problems began to arise elsewhere. The problem finally revealed itself about a month after I woke up, and it threatened me.

"Hmmm..."

I experienced a stomachache, and I groaned loud enough that the sound flowed out of the castle. Amy's expression naturally turned to a frown, and there was a shadow over her face.

"Sorry, I'm sorry!"

"No, you didn't do anything wrong."

I consoled her and read the document she gave me and let out a laugh. The royal budget allocated to the royal castle was extremely small, so the ingredients for food seemed to have run out.

"I didn't expect the first prince would have to worry about eating."

Although, it was quite obvious where the issue stemmed from.

"Amy."

"Yes, Prince."

"Currently, how many maids and servants are working in this castle?"

She looked embarrassed by my question.

Seeing her expression, I didn't know what to say.

"Is it just you?"

"I'm so sorry. I have sinned!"

I couldn't help but sigh at her bowing. It wasn't a very wide place, but it was still a castle that the prince used. Originally, it wasn't a castle used by the royal princes who were chosen as the next king, but it was quite wide as it was a castle where the royal family once lived.

"So you're telling me that you're taking care of this castle by yourself?"

"That...that..."

After returning from a coma, the situation was very unusual. However, in the past, it was a place where people lived, and I never felt that there was a severe shortage. But it changed to this just in six years. It wasn't a short time.

Listening to Amy, I got a rough idea of what she said. Davey Al Rown, the first prince of the royal family, was the black sheep in the queen's eyes. A royal prince couldn't even enter the Parondas castle because he lacked the power to do so. Was it my fault?

It was my fault.

Couldn't they have just treated me as a family and embraced me, even if my brothers weren't blood-related?

"No wonder the castle is in a mess."

"I'm sorry, just kill me!"

"That's enough. I'm not cold-hearted to kill innocent people."

Compared to the beginning, it was now getting easier to move. Was this the body of a weak prince? I slowly got out of bed, sat on a chair, and wore magnifying glasses. My blurred vision gradually became clear. My original body had very bad eyesight. That was why I was naturally weak, and...

I also had a memory that I didn't want to think about.

"Let's see. What's the original budget for the castle?"

"It...it's 5,000 gold a year."

"But only 10 gold is left in the castle."

"..."

"And the prince's castle isn't in charge of it."

Having a lack of food in the castle was an error.

"How much did we earn this month? We could still work around that budget so that we have enough food to eat."

"Well, that's..."

"It's okay, so tell me."

"It says 500 gold on paper, but the actual amount we receive is 100 gold..."

I sighed deeply after hearing her words.