On the inside, Deber's independence fighter, Zion Bliese.
On the outside, Litania's prince, Zion Riobelt.
But nothing had changed.
'That bastard Gebel as Governor-General of Deber? I won't stand for that sight until dirt is thrown in my eyes.'
A colonial governor-general was treated at the rank of a duke. It meant becoming one of the five most powerful men in the Empire.
He had to stop it.
Setting personal feelings aside, he had to, for Deber's sake.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Your Highness. It is time to depart. I have prepared the magitech-powered automobile."
"Lead the way."
It was already the second day since he had entered this body. He'd gotten fairly used to it.
'Not having his memories is a fairly big problem. But he was such a raging delinquent that everyone just accepts it even when I act a bit strange, thankfully.'
On top of that, there was one more mitigating circumstance.
'To think he slept for more than thirty solid hours right before the possession.'
The result of carefully prying at the butler and the maids.
On the day he stormed into the prison, Zion Riobelt had not been killed.
It had been odd that, unlike usual, he hadn't said a single word, but he had returned in one piece and gone into his bedroom.
After that he had lost consciousness, and roughly thirty hours later he had opened his eyes with Zion Bliese himself dwelling inside him.
'Since my original body vanished as a result, it'll be processed as Zion Bliese having broken out of prison and that'll be the end of...... whoa.'
Admiration escaped him despite himself. The magitech-powered automobile provided to a prince...... an automobile, for short.
It was cushioned beyond imagination, and the ride quality was superb.
'Dwarf-made and handcrafted? The money for one of these would buy ten houses and leave change.'
The crown prince of a fallen nation was, as a rule, worse off in the wallet than your average commoner.
This was his first time riding in a car this expensive.
"Since it is the day of the banquet, the roads are somewhat congested. It appears it will take around an hour to reach the Imperial Palace."
Adding the time spent stopped at checkpoints, that meant a good three or four hours.
The destination was the Imperial Palace itself, so they'd have to go, stop, go, halt, and repeat inspections any number of times.
'Ugh, exhausting just thinking about... is how it should be, though?'
It was nothing of the sort.
"To the scion of the great bloodline, salute!"
"Glory to the Sun!"
From the very first checkpoint up to now, the automobile had not stopped even once.
Inspection soldiers saluting at the sight of the fluttering Imperial banner.
"......"
He remembered the times he had been caught at a checkpoint while infiltrating for a Liberation Army operation.
He'd been found out as Deber's crown prince and nearly died, hadn't he?
And yet now......
"To the scion of the great bloodline, salute!"
"Glory to the Sun!"
'Princes get free passage, no questions and no arguments?'
The Empire's defenses, that ironclad security and vigilance, had a hole like this in it?
Unbelievable.
"Your Highness. We have arrived. I shall be waiting in the car, so please call for me whenever you have need."
"Hm? You're not coming with me."
"......Your Highness said......"
Ah. Had this piece of trash said something like it was embarrassing to go in with an old man?
"I was joking. As if I'd go in with you."
He felt a bit sorry, but it couldn't be helped. He couldn't afford to draw suspicion.
Anyway, well.
The banquet hall was swarming with high officials.
'That bastard's number 87...... that one's number 43...... oh, number 26 is here too.'
For reference, the numbers he was reciting were rankings on his assassination list.
There were men to kill absolutely everywhere in this banquet hall.
"Eek, ah, ah!"
A short scream came from one side. A young maid running about in a hurry had caught on something and was falling over.
"Upsy."
He lightly caught her wrist and stopped her from falling.
Ash-gray hair. Ash-gray hair.
She was unmistakably of Deberian origin.
"Be careful, even when you're busy."
He let go of her wrist and moved on.
Just tilting an ear slightly was enough to gather the latest information on the Empire's key figures.
'Incredible. Has it been ten minutes? Just what I've picked up so far is a quantity and quality that one or two members of the order would have had to risk their lives for.'
He was in the middle of that thought when it happened.
"Prince Zion! You've come! It has been so long since I laid eyes upon your noble visage, hahaha."
A young noble suddenly approached and greeted him without the slightest reserve.
The decorative cane in his hand was striking.
It looked quite hefty, good for other uses as well.
'His face alone says sycophant. Were we acquainted before?'
He answered him casually enough.
"It's been a while."
"Hahaha, far too long!"
The man stuck close to his side and chattered without pause.
It was a mercy that everything he said was hollow; had it been anyone else, the fact that he had no memories would have been exposed instantly.
So hollow, in fact, that he still hadn't heard the man's name.
Then again, if they'd been close to begin with, it would be laughable for him to state his name anew.
"Ah! But speaking of which, come, come. This way, if you please. I've scouted out some new young ladies in advance."
"......"
A proposal that made him feel exactly how the previous Zion Riobelt had lived.
"Not now. Later."
"Come now, don't be like that. I'll take good care of you."
"I said no."
"......Pardon?"
Faint bewilderment surfaced on Rigert's face.
"Y-Your Highness. I also have something stashed away on the terrace in advance! You'll be satisfied, heh heh."
Hmm. This slippery bastard. He's hiding something.
Going by the experience accumulated from life in the Liberation Army, he was certain: this man was scheming something right now.
'Zion Riobelt being trash is convenient at times like this.'
Because he could just ask point-blank without needing to hesitate.
"What are you up to? Whose orders are you under?"
"Pardon? Y-Your Highness....... It's me, Rigert. Rigert, the one Your Highness cherishes and favors most."
No way to tell whether that's true or not.
He was already frustrated at having no memories, and hearing things like that meant he had to be even more careful.
Annoyance flared for a moment and he glared.
"Your Highness...... surely you know the Third Prince is the one making me do this......"
He had merely glared, and yet Rigert's face crumpled into tears as he spilled everything and began to beg.
Zion Riobelt, just how much of a piece of trash were you?
"So it was the Third Prince's order."
'Garon Riobelt is looking after Zion Riobelt? Why on earth?'
He had no idea.
The opponent was too much of a heavyweight, so the thought did briefly cross his mind that he ought to step back and get a read on the situation.
But for some reason he didn't want to.
Instead, a stubborn urge surged up in him to do precisely the opposite.
He'd come here to meet Marquis Gebel in the first place, and he had no desire to simply back off like this either.
"Even if I drink later, shouldn't I go offer congratulations to the guest of honor first?"
Rigert's face turned ashen.
"Your Highness, please....... You may be fine, but I could genuinely die, please......!"
He'd met the man for the first time today; what did he care whether he died or not.
Striding forward, he turned his head this way and that in search of Marquis Gebel.
'The place is so vast it'll take a while just to find him. Hm, there he is.'
Fortunately he found him quickly.
In a banquet room some distance away, a voice was rebuking someone in a raised tone.
"You worthless thing. Do you know what you have done."
The distance was considerable and the place was noisy all over, yet strangely the voice came through clearly.
"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry, my lord Marquis. Please forgive me just once......"
An ashen-faced maid. Marquis Gebel looking down at a single drop of liquor splashed on his hand.
Nobles were packed all around them.
'Hm, that young maid...... she's the girl who nearly fell over a moment ago.'
Which meant a young compatriot of his, working in a foreign land across the sea, was being oppressed by one of the Empire's powerbrokers.
"I told you to tell me what mistake you made."
Marquis Gebel's manner of speaking was exceedingly elegant.
The very picture of a man venting his anger without losing his dignity.
Befitting the owner of rhetorical skill great enough to have him called a master of incitement.
Another reason the bastard's appointment as governor-general had to be stopped.
'Bewitching people is the one thing he's good at. If a specialist in propaganda and agitation is left free to cast his influence over all of Deber, there's no telling what will happen.'
That was when it happened.
Slap!
"Aaah!"
The maid collapsed in a heap. Zion's hand twitched.
"To fail to pour a single glass properly and spill it. This one drop is worth more than your body, wench."
"......the scent was so strong that......"
"Is that so. Then I shall grant you your punishment. Empty this bottle to the last. Should you spill even one drop, you shall be flogged."
The young maid's face turned ashen.
To be told to drink a full bottle of high-proof liquor. She would be laid up sick for days at the very least, and could die if it went badly.
'He punishes her because one drop of liquor is expensive, and yet the punishment is to empty the bottle.'
A contradiction. And yet not a single person around them pointed it out.
There was a power in Gebel's voice that made the same words sound uniquely plausible and trustworthy.
It was the reason Marquis Gebel was called the Empire's finest propagandist and had risen at speed all the way to a marquisate.
"M-my lord Marquis. I was wrong. Just once, please forgive......"
"I shall count to three. Decide within that time."
'Marquis...... that revolting habit of yours hasn't changed.'
The base sense of superiority written on his face. Flaunting the gap in station and trampling the weak was one of the marquis's foul tastes.
"That drink. I'll take it."
The moment he raised his voice, the heads of Marquis Gebel and everyone around him turned toward Zion all at once.
And at that very moment.
The nobles simultaneously placed a fist over their hearts and bowed their heads in salutation.
The commoner attendants went so far as to drop to one knee.
"A subject of the Empire greets a member of the Divine Race."
"A subject of the Empire greets a member of the Divine Race."
"A subject of the Empire greets a member of the Divine Race."
"A subject of the Empire greets a member of the Divine Race."
The Empire called its imperial family the Divine Race.
Because they were a sacred bloodline descended from the successors of the Sun God, reverence was owed to them as a matter of course, or something like that?
'There's a limit to dressing up your authority before the gimmick devours you. Unbelievable.'
By that logic, was the Deber royal house truly descended from a mage who saved a god?
A legend is only a legend.
Even so, salutation to the Divine Race was a duty of Imperial citizens written into the Imperial Code, no less.
It was not a mere custom.
'Why didn't Rigert do it? Ah, they're close, so he was granted an exemption from the salutation?'
Well, it wasn't important.
"Marquis Gebel. It seems you cannot see this prince?"
Marquis Gebel was not performing the salutation.
Surely he hadn't been granted an exemption too?
"A colonial governor-general is equal to a prince in the order of protocol. Anywhere within Imperial territory, I may receive the treatment of a ducal rank. That aside, I did not expect you to come to me directly? Ho ho ho, did this Gebel appear so spineless to you."
What was this supposed to mean?
At times like this he had to deploy a skill he'd learned from chatting with Kaironi, who often said things he couldn't follow.
If you don't understand, ignore it for now and change the subject. That's the best policy.
"Maid. Hand over the bottle."
"But......"
The maid looked back and forth between Zion and the marquis.
"Hand it to him."
He took it and looked at the marquis. Protruding cheekbones and sunken eye sockets. A thin, gaunt face overall.
The last time he'd seen it was at the funeral when the late king passed, probably.
"Gebel. Are you eighty-three this year?"
For reference, eighty-three is the prime of life for the Empire's upper class.
"I did not expect Your Highness to know my age."
I know. I have to know. There's no way I couldn't know.
'He's aged considerably, and at the same time he's unchanged.'
He recalled what Gebel had done at that funeral.
......He tipped the bottle.
The liquor came gushing out.
"How much was one drop of this liquor worth again?"
Blatant provocation. Marquis Gebel, his compulsively neat squared beard twitching, walked over quickly and closed the distance.
Even though his slight build meant he had to crane his neck up considerably, Marquis Gebel did not yield, fixing Zion with a gaze that seemed to bore through him.
"How interesting. This is unlike you. I find myself curious as to what psychological substrate this behavior rests upon."
"Who knows. I wasn't thinking much of anything."
"Is that so?"
Marquis Gebel's cold gaze turned toward the maid.
"His Highness has drunk the liquor with relish, so it is your turn again. Fetch a new bottle. As before, if you cannot drink it all, you die today, wench."
Look at this bastard.
"Your Highness. If you wish to stop it, then buy the maid. The price is ten million Pen."
Pen, the Empire's currency unit. In the kingdom's Luon, that came to one hundred million Luon.
A vast fortune that could comfortably buy a great fortress city, as the price of a maid?
Blatant mockery.
"I was well aware that Your Highness was an ordinary sort of man, but today is the first time I have learned that you are a deficient one. To approach me after killing my confidant. And on the very day I ascend to a post treated as the equal of Your Highness's own, no less."
Only then could he understand the unexplained hostility Marquis Gebel was showing.
'So he'd been holding a grudge from the start.'
The torturer he had killed two days ago, setting a trap once he realized the man was Marquis Gebel's subordinate.
The hand he had borrowed to kill that man was Zion Riobelt's, the very body he was wearing now.
'So as it turns out, I'm the one wearing the shit I flung.'
Tch, nothing to be done. Who could have known I'd suddenly end up dwelling in this body.
"What will you do. Will you purchase her? Ah, that's right, wasn't the Ninth Prince famous for being a pauper? They say without the Third Prince you cannot even cover the costs of maintaining your dignity. In that case, I shall cut the price to one hundredth. Are you feeling inclined to buy now?"
An insult so severe that the original Ninth Prince Zion would probably have wanted to die from the shame and humiliation.
Of course, the current Zion took no damage at all.
'Hm, so this kid, no, that's me now. I was a beggar.'
That aside, continuing a war of words with a man whose specialty was his tongue would only rack up losses.
For times like this, he had another skill picked up from chatting with Kaironi.
"Go eat your own shit."
Shock rose on Marquis Gebel's face.
"How dare?! Have you forgotten even the nobility of the blood you were born with?"
"I said go eat your shit."
"......"
Within those sunken orbits, the pupils, black dots planted in the middle of white sclera, moved busily.
He had literally just told the man to eat shit, and since the marquis seemed to be searching for some hidden intent that didn't exist, Zion gave him a little snickering smile.
At which Marquis Gebel began to laugh along with him.
He appeared to have misread the intent entirely.
"So you would preserve your dignity even by such base means. How pitiable. I shall dare to offer you advice. Try finding a specialty of your own."
Marquis Gebel pushed his face in close.
"Just as this Paul Gebel, by rhetoric and eloquence alone, has become the equal of a man like you who has nothing but blood."
Hair slicked tightly back. A grooming in which, for all its neatness, the compulsion could not be hidden.
One corner of his mouth drew a handsome curve.
It was a smile.
'Insufferably obnoxious.'
"Thanks to the Ninth Prince my mood has improved, so I shall extend my magnanimity to that wench. Now then, I must deliver a speech before the inauguration ceremony, so if you will excuse me."
Marquis Gebel withdrew.
Well, whatever else, it seemed he had prevented the maid's death.
The nobles trailed out after him in a mass.
Only Rigert remained at Zion's side.
"Er, Your Highness. Even now, shall we go to the terrace...... and have a drink together. Haha. Hahaha......"
Rigert's attitude was exceedingly cautious.
Exactly as though he had a bomb on the verge of going off beside him.
'It doesn't bother me at all, though.'
Marquis Gebel. He'd been openly insulted by the bastard who murdered his father.
But.
Even so, he was enjoying himself.
He was simply glad, purely glad, to have met the man.
'Marquis Gebel. You told me to find a specialty of my own, didn't you. Sorry, but I already know my specialty very well.'
He was giving a speech at the inauguration ceremony, was he.
An amusing picture took shape in Zion's head.
To paint a picture, you need paint, or at the very least a single pencil.
'I need magic. My cultivation all evaporated when the bodies switched, but well.'
He closed his eyes. He concentrated his mind.
He carved a pattern into the world of consciousness inside his head.
A magic circle. No, a mana circuit.
The mana circuit engraved on his consciousness encroached upon the material world.
Threads stretching outward. Pioneering the circuit's flesh.
The human body is riddled with holes. Blood vessels, the passages through which blood flows. Now they served the role of mana circuits as well.
"Hoooo."
He opened his eyes.
For the moment, this was the best he could manage.
Still, it cleared the minimum.
"Rigert. How much time has passed?"
"Pardon? It has been roughly five minutes since you closed your eyes."
Five minutes ago, Zion had been an ordinary man.
But now, Zion was a mage.
It had taken a mere five minutes to reach a level that would take anyone else several months at minimum, or even several years for a mediocre talent.
Zion still possessed the overwhelming talent that made this possible.
That was because magic is a discipline in which the quality of the soul matters far more than the potential of the body.
'There must be magic detection sensors all over this banquet hall, but......'
He swept his eyes over the surroundings. To be precise, he looked at the lingering traces of mana visible only to a mage.
'At a modest scale, I can manifest magic without being detected.'
The mana wavelengths gushing from the magitech devices carried by the high nobles. So many of them were overlapping that small-scale magic wouldn't be detected.
'Marquis. You know what? Your insults don't bother me in the slightest. Because seeing your face made me so glad and so happy.'
Entering the body of a raging delinquent bastard is good for this one thing, at least.
Getting his hands on an opportunity for such an incredible revenge.
Anyway, Marquis. From the look of it, you seem awfully proud of that tongue of yours, your specialty?
'At your most brilliant moment, I'll drop you into the deepest depths.'
Inside Zion's palm, a faint blue light was projecting a particular pattern.
It was the circuit structure he had read off the magitech device disguised as a uniform button when Gebel pushed his face in close.