Chapter 38

His face tightened before he could suppress the reaction. The magicians recognized him as well, and immediate, palpable displeasure darkened their features. Since the incident at the hunting tournament, Isaac had secured his place as their public enemy number one.

I should have slipped away sooner. What are they doing here?

“Well, well. If it isn’t Guard Isaac,” the man at the front sneered.

Too late to avoid the confrontation, Isaac hid his reluctance and offered a shallow, professional bow.

“Welcome. Have you come to see Lord Kaiyan?”

“Naturally. But what, pray tell, are you doing here?”

“I was reassigned some time ago. I now serve as a bodyguard at Blue Shadow Palace.”

The magician feigned recollection, nodding slowly with a wicked twist to his mouth. “Ah, yes. Now that you mention it, I did hear something of the sort. They say Lord Kaiyan brought you here personally, perhaps in case some unfortunate accident were to befall you.”

Isaac fell silent, stung by the naked mockery in the man’s tone.

There was indeed a rumor circulating that the prince had transferred Isaac to shield him from magicians who sought vengeance for the tournament. However, this was utterly baseless, as the prince was hardly the type to be concerned about someone else’s safety. Moreover, Isaac had almost been killed by these very individuals and had suffered significant losses as a result. They had never once apologized, choosing instead to escalate their petty grievances at every opportunity. Recently, the combined presence of magicians, witches, and stray cats had begun to drive his sanity to the brink.

The sheer audacity.

Isaac met the magician’s gaze and flashed a blindingly bright, empty smile. “Are people truly saying such things? Harm me? Surely there cannot be anyone so wicked within the palace that they would attack an innocent person without cause. If that were true, it would be truly terrifying indeed.”

“…”

“…”

The magician’s expression curdled into a mask of pure ice. Isaac only beamed back, open and guileless.

“If anyone wished to harm you, they would certainly have their own reasons.”

“Reasons? You imply they would decide to assault someone and then invent a justification after the fact? What sort of degenerate would commit such a thing? Who could they possibly be?”

“…”

“…”

The magician glared at Isaac’s vacant, cheerful expression until his teeth ground audibly. “You…!”

A prickling sensation suddenly shivered across Isaac’s scalp. He looked up and only then registered the presence looming over them. The prince stood at an upstairs window. Kaiyan had been in the reception room moments ago, yet he had somehow vanished to the study, looking down with the casual detachment of a man watching a play.

Isaac flinched, bowing his head sharply. Following his lead, the magicians hurriedly bent at the waist.

“L-Lord Kaiyan. We have come to pay our respects.”

The prince, with a hint of boredom, gave a slow, minimal nod. “If you’re done talking, come inside.” With that, he disappeared from the window as swiftly as he had appeared.

Just before Kaiyan turned away, Isaac risked a quick glance to gauge his mood, and their eyes met. Isaac immediately dropped his gaze, startled, yet for a fleeting second, it seemed as though the corners of the prince’s eyes had crinkled with faint, dark amusement.

I must have imagined that.

Isaac rubbed his chest. That scared the hell out of me.

He had assumed Kaiyan was occupied with his meat pie. Instead, the man had appeared like a phantom. There was truly no relaxing around him.

Careful.

Be careful.

Isaac followed the magicians as they hurried into the palace.

It was widely known that Blue Shadow Palace, or more precisely, Kaiyan himself, was perpetually at war with the magicians. Everyone at court was aware that the prince detested them, and the sentiment was entirely, viciously mutual.

Initially, the magicians were fixated on Kaiyan’s power and exhausted every resource to secure a contract with him. However, every effort culminated in bitter failure. Subsequently, the hunting tournament incident occurred, and after that, the magicians abandoned their pursuit entirely.

Isaac had been puzzled over the sudden arrival of this particular delegation at Blue Shadow Palace. The motive, however, surfaced with alarming speed.

“We believe that restricting our privilege of direct audience is a grossly unjust measure.”

Stationed in the corner of the audience chamber behind the prince, Isaac watched the magician deliver his complaint with aggressive, biting precision. He then clicked his tongue in silent disapproval.

Isaac recognized the man who had just spoken. This man, a prodigy often hailed as a once-in-a-century genius, had already amassed considerable influence despite his recent entry into royal service. The Magicians’ Guild’s Guildmaster, clearly enamored with such singular talent, had adopted him and supposedly showered him with excessive favor. Since the Guildmaster rarely appeared in public these days, the young man wielded authority in his stead. Rumors claimed that his arrogance was matched only by his supposed skill.

Arrogance requires a sense of time and place. If he keeps pushing like that, he is going to get himself crushed, Isaac tracked the interaction with mounting unease.

The motive for their intrusion was transparent enough.

Under normal circumstances, commoners seeking an audience with a noble were required to present a legitimate petition and secure a formal appointment well in advance. As the majority of magicians were of common birth, the same bureaucratic constraints applied to them by mandate. Court magicians, however, had long enjoyed a unique prerogative that bypassed such formalities; they were permitted to request and coordinate an audience on the very same day.

During a recent State Council meeting, Kaiyan had moved to abolish that specific privilege. While the Magicians’ Guild had initially offered vehement opposition, their political leverage had been effectively neutered following the conclusion of the hunting tournament. In the interim, Kaiyan’s political standing had only grown more formidable, and a collective resentment toward the magicians had begun to fester among the nobility. Barring a complete reversal by the prince, the proposal was destined to pass without further obstruction.

Consequently, the delegation had arrived to force a private negotiation.

“As Your Highness is well aware, we magicians maintain intimate associations not merely with the nobility, but with distinguished members of the royal family themselves.” The young magician allowed his loaded insinuation to hang in the air for a calculated moment before pressing his case. “Surely, you understand better than anyone that these individuals require our specialized services every month without fail.”

Kaiyan tilted his head, his expression as detached and impenetrable as a frozen lake.

“I would not know. That has absolutely nothing to do with me. No one has prohibited you from meeting them; you are simply being required to adhere to the established procedure. What, precisely, is the problem?”

His voice carried a chilling, clinical edge that rarely faltered.

That argument is not going to sway him in the slightest.

To make matters worse, the young magician pressed on, his tongue as sharp as a razor. He was essentially inviting his own destruction. Isaac felt his unease deepen as he observed the standoff.

“But what if an urgent matter arises?”

“If a minister or a general faces a genuine emergency and requests an audience, it can naturally be granted immediately.” Kaiyan’s eyes remained fixed, unyielding. “What urgent business could you possibly have with them, unless it were something intensely personal or political?”

The blunt retort struck with surgical precision. The magician clamped his mouth shut, clearly caught off guard. Political maneuvering wove itself into every social interaction, regardless of whether a matter of national importance existed. People convened, drifted apart, formed temporary alliances, and severed ties for countless self-serving reasons. A system requiring fixed-date applications would certainly cripple such tactical fluidity. Yet, that was hardly a disadvantage to the throne; if anything, it only consolidated the prince’s authority. Even the royals who held contracts with magicians had chosen to feign ignorance and silently bow to the prince’s will. The balance of power was clearly tilted against the intruders.

Isaac grasped why they had come despite the unfavorable odds. What he failed to comprehend, however, was the prince’s motive.

“…”

He studied the prince with narrowed, puzzled eyes.

Kaiyan continued to stare down the magicians, his expression so utterly impassive that his internal state remained a locked vault. The prince despised them, and he surely must have anticipated how this conversation would unfold. Why, then, had he permitted them inside Blue Shadow Palace at all instead of simply barring them from the gates?

The young magician, who had been stammering in search of words, suddenly lifted his gaze and locked eyes with the prince.

“We magicians have long bolstered the royal family and maintained an amicable relationship with the Crown. While it is true that we flourish beneath the royal grace, without our power, the members of the nobility would find themselves in considerable difficulty. Even if Your Highness has chosen to forgo a contract, is it truly wise to suppress us with such heavy-handed measures?”

Oh, hell, Isaac thought. The magician had clearly stepped squarely on a raw nerve.

Isaac’s expression tightened before he could suppress the reaction. The long-standing attendants of Blue Shadow Palace standing nearby froze, their features hardening in unison. Even the elderly magician, who had remained silent behind his younger colleague, permitted himself a single, sharp twitch of his snowy-white eyebrow.

Only two figures remained entirely composed: the hot-blooded young man who had spoken so recklessly and the prince, who regarded him with a gaze as placid and unreadable as a frozen lake.

“So the rumors were indeed grounded in truth,” Kaiyan murmured, shifting from his reclined position against the sofa. “They say the Magicians’ Guild has burgeoned into such a power that it challenges all but the most exalted lords of the realm.”

“Your Highness, that is not what he intended to imply. This man is a novice at court, and—”

The elderly magician scrambled to intervene, but Kaiyan silenced him with a dismissive flick of his hand.

At least the old man possesses the common sense that should accompany his years. He clearly has no desire to be crushed by the same hammer.

“I had heard that once the direct royal line sought contracts with your order to counter the witches’ curse, some among you grew arrogant enough to forget your station and invert the roles of guest and master,” Kaiyan continued, his voice terrifyingly soft. “I had not realized your influence had grown vast enough to pose a direct threat to me.”

The prince then rose and began to pace, his gaze drifting toward the landscape beyond the window as if the conversation held only the most marginal interest for him. It was only when Kaiyan encroached upon his personal space that the young magician finally sensed the palpable danger.

His face paled, then hardened in defiance. “Your Highness, threaten you? That was never my inten—”

He never finished the sentence.

His arm dropped cleanly from the shoulder, severed in a single, fluid arc.

“…!”

The young magician stared down at the discarded limb in catatonic disbelief before a ragged, piercing scream escaped his throat.

Kaiyan glanced at him as if the noise were merely an inconvenient buzz and raised his sword once more. Before he could swing a second time, the elderly magician rattled off a desperate incantation.

The young man’s scream was abruptly stifled into silence.

With practiced speed, the elder cast another spell, effectively cauterizing the agony. The young man’s features, which had twisted in a mask of primal terror as his eyes rolled back, gradually settled into a neutral slackness. Yet, as he continued to stare at his severed arm with trembling lips, the raw, naked shock remained etched across his face.