Life’s Greatest Crisis 1: Chapter 1 1.
Life’s Greatest Crisis I’m sure I went to sleep with a partition up, but for some reason, the lighting tickling my eyes is too strong.
I thought I’d finally gotten some deep sleep for the first time in a while, but waking up to this eye-blinder put me in a bad mood.
My body felt stiff, and the moment I stretched out my arm to raise my hospital room bed…
“Eue…?
(Huh…?)” The remote control was out of reach, and a babbling sound I couldn’t believe came from my own mouth.
Confused, I looked at my hand, but all I saw was a small, chubby hand wiggling there.
“Eue, eua, auu!?
(What the hell is wrong with my hand?)” I only dozed off for a bit while playing the game, but when I opened my eyes, my once-emaciated arm was gone.
In disbelief, I just moved my arm up and down, but the arm, moving just as I willed it, was powerfully asserting that it was, in fact, my arm.
Stunned into a daze, I found myself scanning my surroundings.
The ceiling was engraved with a golden dragon mural that screamed, ‘I’m magnificent,’ and a chandelier that must have cost a fortune made my eyes spin.
The bed I thought was a hospital bed was a cradle, and I could see small pillars with luxurious carvings.
Between the pillars stood rows of furniture, white and shimmering with a golden hue, and the red curtains surrounding me were folded with crisp, sharp angles.
What was most confusing were those blue things, reflecting the sunlight and shimmering with a blue light.
Some of them looked like mold, while others just flowed like thin smoke.
Just as I was rolling my eyeballs in sheer confusion and wondering what had become of me, a woman entered through the ornate door.
“Hehe, my dear Imperial Prince~ This Mother is here.” Imperial Prince?
Mother?
I don’t know why, but the woman chattering in unfamiliar words picked me up, and my body was helplessly gathered into her embrace.
When our eyes met, she was so beautiful I could only stare blankly.
Wavy, beautiful brown hair framed her face, and within her drooping, innocent-looking eyes, fresh green pupils were shining.
“Uuua-uuu-uu a…?
(Um, excuse me, who are you?)” “Mhm, of course.
This Mother missed you too, the Eldest Son of our Luminaria Empire!
My treasure!” There was no way my question was getting through; the Son-Love Auto-Translator in her head had switched on.
The embrace of the woman holding me as if I were lovely was warm, but in contrast, my mind grew cold.
‘Luminaria…?
Imperial Prince…?
Eldest Son…?
The Luminaria Empire…
Liam Luminaria!?’ Judging by the words of the woman holding me, an all-too-clear candidate came to mind.
The last boss, the ‘F’ in ‘This game is fucking shit,’ the parent-killer of the game’s developers.
I think I’ve become the final boss of ‘The Rebel of the Academy’, the Crown Prince.
In this dark fantasy world overflowing with nothing but enemies…
*** “Ma’am, it is almost time for your audience with Marquis Florence.” As the elderly maid, who had been watching us with a pleased look, urged her, the woman gently placed me back in the cradle with a look of regret.
“Father is here already?
He’s so impatient.” “My son, This Mother will come to see you again~.” The eyes of the woman who set me down, prettily crinkled, were tinged with regret, but she tidied her stray hair, straightened her back, composed herself, and left the room.
With no time to sort through my confusion, only I and the attendants were left in the room.
No, with these unidentifiable blue molds.
I called them unidentifiable, but judging by the context, I think this is magic power.
What is fantasy?
A place where things that can’t happen in reality happen all the time.
I mean, this isn’t a fermentation room.
If this were real mold, the maids’ heads would have been lopped off for trying to turn the Imperial Prince into cheese.
Therefore, I’m the only one who can see this, and in the original story I know, there was no description of seeing magic power.
Only feeling or grasping its flow.
That magic power, with its convenient setting where you can just ignore the laws of physics that would make modern scientists clutch the back of their necks and collapse, wave your hands around, and have water or fire pop out of thin air!
In truth, it’s an unidentifiable something whose total amount in the world is unknown, and whose source is a mystery!
The thing that lets all the mages and swordsmen in the world perform miracles inside their tiny bodies by saying, “Oh, I have a mana circuit, lol”!
To be honest, I don’t really know either.
I’ve never even seen a Flying Blue Mold in real life, so how would I know?
Thinking I wanted to touch one, I reached out my arm.
A clump-like guy drew close to my hand and then entered like smoke, swoosh.
As I stared blankly at the fascinating sight, it seemed like the surrounding mana particles were gradually gathering toward me.
If magic power had a mouth, it would have surely said something like this.
‘Haa…
You’re the one who tempted me first, you know?’ “Eh?
(Huh?)” The surrounding mana particles were sucked into my hand with terrifying force.
Is this really okay…
No, it’s not!
It’s hot!
This is definitely wrong.
Something is filling my body, but I can’t control it!
My outstretched arm trembled, and tears streamed from my unblinking eyes, but I felt as if the world I perceived was gradually expanding.
I’d even forgotten to breathe and was gasping when the room door slammed open.
“What in the…
Dammit!
A doctor!
Call a doctor!” A magic circle spread around the body of the handsome middle-aged man with brown hair and green eyes, who looked somewhat disheveled.
His two fingers started at my arm, then my heart, my neck, and continued to sweep over my entire body.
Breathing gradually became easier, and the burning pain in my head subsided and calmed.
“Father!
What’s going on…
Aaaah, Liam!” The person I presumed to be my mother rushed inside, saw my flushed red body and bloodshot eyes, and shrieked as if the world were ending, horrified.
She quickly scooped me up and asked the handsome middle-aged man in a trembling voice.
“Father…
what is happening?
Is Liam, is Liam okay?” Her hands, holding me tight, trembled, and tears streamed from the corners of her eyes like a broken faucet.
“From what I just checked, there’s nothing wrong.
The flow of magic power was strange, so I rushed here, and it seems he went through a mana overload.” “What?
A mana overload?
Liam is still a newborn baby.” “Yes…
I’ll have to seek an audience with His Majesty about this.
It’s something even I cannot comprehend.” “Then Liam…
Will Liam be okay from now on?” “…I’ll have a few court mages called.
I must have an audience with His Majesty.” With no strength left in my body, I croaked and passed out after those last words.
*** The time I opened my eyes again was a dark night.
Seeing that the light filtering through the curtains wasn’t very bright, it seemed I had just passed out and night had fallen.
“Auu…
(Ugh…)” A deep sigh escaped from within.
I’m a little weak and tired now, but earlier, I really thought I was going to die.
The pain of the world expanding before my eyes, of my brain feeling like it was on fire, was still vivid.
If I’d known these bastards were a toxic substance in the first place, I wouldn’t have even touched them.
I mean, just because one guy went in, they all ganged up on me like, ‘Alright, let’s go~,’ and it felt like I’d been sucker-punched out of nowhere.
Strength returned to my drained body, and rage began to build.
My hands and feet trembled and tears welled up, but those things just roamed the air, as if mocking me, ‘What can you do?’ Having moved from a weak body to a newborn, weak body, all I could do was glare; I couldn’t really do anything.
As I was glaring at these toxic substances, they flinched and trembled.
‘What…
Don’t tell me…
again?’ A budding anxiety.
For me, who had only wasted time lying on a sickbed, the pain was far too intense.
I tensed up and shrank back, afraid of a second round of the pain I had just suffered…
When I gently opened my eyes, which I had squeezed shut in anxiety, these things were gently circling nearby, as if they were watching my reaction.
Dumbfounded by this, I was staring blankly at the mana particles circling around when my eyes met with a man sitting next to my cradle.
“Eh?
(Who the hell are you?)” “So you’ve woken up.” The man with white hair, golden eyes, and a sharp gaze was tall and dressed in ornate clothing.
The man, wearing a bitter and somewhat weary smile that contrasted with his sharp eyes, carefully picked me up.
“Imperial Prince…
I heard from the Marquis that you had a mana overload.” Even though there was no way a newborn could understand, the man met my eyes with a look of pity.
A somewhat complicated expression.
“Such is the Imperial Bloodline.
They receive more of Mana’s Love than others…
You couldn’t escape the shackles either.” This is exactly the kind of talk I hate, spouting a bunch of incomprehensible nonsense that gets on your nerves.
Shackles?
Love?
I have no idea what this man means by shackles.
And what kind of love in this world takes turns jumping you?
Isn’t this dating violence, not a consensual act?
What snapped me out of my long train of useless thoughts was a single phrase the man muttered under his breath.
“Should I have a spare…?” ‘…What?
Have a what?’