When he first opened his eyes in Zion Riobelt's body, he had honestly had plenty of complaints.
Even granting that the possession itself was inevitable... there were plenty of other decent men out there instead of Zion Riobelt, a piece of trash who went beyond mere delinquency, so why him of all people?
It felt like far too worthless a body to receive as compensation for losing his standing as a Grand Mage, the Deber royal house's bloodline legitimacy, and the seat of head of the Liberation Army, all at once.
Which was why he had concluded it was a possession with no gain and nothing but loss.
'As of this moment I'd better revise that view a little.'
"Aaaah!"
"T-the Ninth Prince has again......!"
The nobles around him could not contain their bewilderment and shock.
Naturally, since they had just witnessed an outburst that could be called flooring the accelerator without exaggeration.
...But.
There was no need to mind them. On the contrary, everyone else was minding Zion himself.
"Again? Again what. Hey. You. Step forward."
The noble who had cried out something about the Ninth Prince again vanished as though he had used an invisibility spell.
"Anyone else with complaints. Step before this prince at once."
"......"
"......"
"......"
Look this way, look that way.
Shuffle-shuffle. Shuffle-shuffle.
They were all busy dropping their eyes lest they be dragged in too.
Hah!
'It's a bit unfamiliar and awkward, but... this is really good.'
Zion Bliese had never once enjoyed a moment like this.
An overwhelming sense of liberation.
A freedom so complete it was unsettling.
Zion Riobelt must have lived his whole life enjoying nothing but moments like this.
'I'll be making some use of your trashy disposition, Ninth Prince.'
When he raised the corner of his mouth, the body's mouth twisted.
Now then, time to enjoy the privileges unique to human trash.
SMACK!
"Gwaaaargh! Ninth Prince!"
WHAP!
"This Paul Gebel, gurk! is one whom even His Highness the Third Prince, urk, whom you fear so terribly...... gaaah!"
He struck and struck again.
A thrashing that was nothing short of exhilarating.
WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!
Assault at an inauguration ceremony a stone's throw from the Imperial Palace.
And the target a marquis slated to take up a governor-generalship, no less.
Even in a novel it would be a development people cursed as having no plausibility.
But.
For human trash Zion Riobelt, it was more than possible.
Plausibility. A sense of reality.
He had it!
"Hoo. Rigert, the cane."
The decorative cane Rigert was holding. It had been striking from the first moment he saw it.
Because for a decorative piece it was thick and sturdy, shaped just like a mace.
"Oh dear, Your Highness. There will truly be terrible trouble. I beg you, if only for this Rigert's sake, please restrain your......"
"You want to take the beating in his place?"
"Here you are."
The grip felt exactly right in his hand. Exactly.
'Maybe this is a cane that bastard prepared for Zion Riobelt's sake?'
Perhaps Rigert had prepared it so he could enjoy watching Zion Riobelt's cruel behavior.
Either way, it was a perfectly good tool.
Good for what?
For making a man into half a cripple.
He swung it as though playing golf.
CRACK!
A crisp sound of impact. At the same moment, from the shin, a snap of breaking bone rang out.
"Gkk, gguk......"
"Does it hurt?"
"Pl...ease......"
Begging was useless. Because this was violence that doubled as punishment for the evils the man had committed all this while.
The gray-haired maid who had been struck across the face by Marquis Gebel and collapsed stood behind the marquis with a terrified face.
The eyes of the young subject who had come to a foreign land across the sea to earn money and had to endure bitter hardship were filled with fear.
'Half of it will be fear of me. But don't worry. You have no need whatsoever to be afraid of me.'
He gave her a smile.
Briefly, so that no one would notice, only for an instant, short enough to be dismissed as a trick of the eye.
Yet at the same time unmistakable and gentle.
For a moment her eyes went round.
CRAAACK!
"Your High...ness... spare my......"
Your pleading cannot reach this crown prince's compassion, Marquis.
The reason is the same as you in the past.
The same as you at that very moment when you ignored my father's earnest plea.
CRRRUNCH—!
The marquis's right knee was shattered.
***
One of the Deber Liberation Army's secret hideouts.
A solemn voice rang out.
"...In proxy for my lord, Liberation Army Commander Zion Bliese, I hand down the operation."
Tall enough to look about two meters, with a cloak covering the whole body and a pitch-black mask. The suspicious figure, who seemed to be draped in shadow, placed a fist over the chest in salute.
The one who answered was an old man whose hair and beard were both stark white, though his frame alone was hale and firm.
He was Arist Reishal, the provisional head of the Deber Liberation Order.
"Hooooo."
Arist Reishal was aristocratic even in the way he let out a sigh. Because he was a descendant of House Reishal, the Deber Kingdom's foremost distinguished house of dukes.
"...Leianna. I am sorry, and I am grateful."
Leianna laughed in a distorted voice.
"Don't look at me like that. I volunteered, I volunteered."
If Marquis Paul Gebel became Colonial Governor-General, the Liberation Army's long-cherished wish would recede another step.
So it had to be stopped. Even if it meant a core officer throwing away her life to carry out an act of terror.
"Assault Captain Leianna. I have received the order to carry out an open-ended assassination operation against Marquis Paul Gebel. Then, if you will excuse me."
It was as Leianna turned her body and began to walk out.
"I shall go with you."
"Pardon? You yourself, Arist? All the way to the Empire's capital, no less?"
The Empire's capital. The place where the previous commander, Zion Bliese, had been captured.
Arist placed a fist over his heart.
"It is the least courtesy I owe you. I am going partly to gather information on His Highness the Crown Prince's recent circumstances as well, so do not refuse."
The Crown Prince. Hearing those words, which were like a dragon's inverted scale, Leianna let out a rough breath.
Ka-drrrrrk, a harsh noise of something being scraped away rang out from within the cloak.
"Calm yourself."
Arist, admonishing her, had a face that was likewise heavy and dark.
In a sense it was only natural.
Because Arist was the one who had smuggled the young crown prince out of the palace and educated him, Zion's foremost loyal retainer and his teacher.
"For now, understood. Let's go together, Arist. To the Empire's capital."
And so, after much hardship, the two succeeded in slipping into their destination. After taking the time to deliberate carefully, they also decided on the timing and method for carrying out the attack.
At the inauguration ceremony, when the bastard's agitation reached its peak, boom!
Even a small bomb that could be smuggled in would surely produce the maximum effect.
"Three minutes from now, the moment the Gebel bastard uses his collective-madness-imbuing magitech device, I will detonate the bomb."
The device originally had only a negligible effect, but Gebel maximized the device's effect with his outstanding propaganda technique and eloquence.
An irreplaceable asset to the Empire where propaganda was concerned. That was also why they were trying to prevent that man from becoming governor-general even at the cost of committing terrorism.
"Understood. Once more...... I pay my respects to your devotion. I shall never forget it as long as I live."
"I'll go on ahead. Be sure to come back having given our homeland its freedom."
Arist and Leianna exchanged their final farewell with grim resolve.
But.
Leianna's body never did go up along with the bomb.
Because the need for it disappeared.
"Ritado-do-do-dob! Ebeb? Ebebeb? Bebeb! Beeeeb!!!"
"......?"
"......?"
"Arist, is this perhaps another job by the Order?"
"It is not. The two of us are all who came out today."
"Then......?"
And the real confusion was only beginning now.
"Huh? That bastard over there, isn't that the Ninth Prince?"
Arist's eyes sharpened in an instant, and hatred began to seep out of them.
There was no way the members of the Order could fail to know the Ninth Prince's face.
Was it not because of that bastard that their lord had fallen into the Empire's clutches and was suffering hardship?
Imprisoned in the deepest part of the Empire's prison, within a stringent guard that could not be broken even if the Order staked everything it had.
"Ninth Prince... one day I shall most certainly kill you."
It was as Arist spat out a growl laced with resentment.
CRASH!
"......Crash...?"
Marquis Gebel, struck by the liquor bottle in the Ninth Prince's hand, was toppling over in a heap.
"Huh? Arist, did you see that just now?"
"I saw it. What in the world is happening right now...?"
And it was only the beginning.
"Marquis Paul Gebel. You have insulted me!"
WHUMMMMMP!!!
The violence delivered by the Empire's foremost piece of trash exploded against the marquis's body.
SMAAACK! SMAAACK! SMAAAAACK!
...Marvelously juicy. Had a voice amplification magitech device been switched on or something?
The sound of the slaps echoing all the way out to this distant spot.
...Arist and Leianna looked at each other without a word.
"......"
"......"
Leianna, who had been silent for a long while, rose and quietly drew back the loose black cloak.
Revealed beneath it were mana bombs covering her entire body.
She had prepared them for the attack and brought them all the way here through painstaking effort, and yet......
It seemed there was no longer any occasion to use them.
"Commander Arist."
"...Yes, Leianna."
"Looks like I don't have to die?"
"So it would seem."
A collaborator of imperialism was being beaten like a dog by a prince of the Empire and reduced to a half-dead wreck.
Leianna took her hand off the magitech bomb.
Arist laughed heartily.
"I have lived long enough to receive help from the Empire's trash prince, it seems?"
They had meant to carry out the operation while bearing an enormous sacrifice, and yet without doing a thing the operation had already been made a success.
No, more precisely, it had been succeeded upon them.
Because the Ninth Prince had just this moment crippled Marquis Gebel.
"Considering Marquis Gebel's capabilities, it amounts to inflicting enormous damage on the Empire."
"Have you ever seen such a traitor to his own country, ho ho ho."
"Well, that's strictly from the Empire's standpoint, and thinking of it from our Deber side there could be no greater benefactor than him!"
Leianna laughed in high spirits. Arist's face was full of delight as well.
How many young ones had died while this thoroughly aged body pulled itself back on the pretext of being the head?
And their lord, the Crown Prince, was even one of them......
'What a relief. What a genuine relief.'
"Leianna! Pull the bomb's fuse. Let us return. A success is a success either way, so today let us go back and have a drink."
"Oh yes. Came here to die and got a drinking party instead! What a windfall, ahaha."
The two turned around, laughing. At the end of their line of sight was the trash prince, shaking the blood off his hand and spitting.
'Ninth Prince, Zion Riobelt.'
You too must one day die by the hand of our Order without fail, but.
'For today at least, I offer you my thanks. Your degenerate conduct kept a righteous life from losing its light.'
***
"Aaah!"
"Ah, ah, how cruel.... Ahh......"
"Madam, are you all right? Madam!"
"Someone stop him!"
"Who is going to stop His Highness. Go stop him yourself!"
One fact he realized while observing the reactions around him.
He had thought he ought to restrain himself at merely crippling the marquis, but it seemed he didn't have to.
"Send word to the palace at once!"
"Fetch someone else! Someone who can stop a member of the Divine Race!"
"Guards! Guards! Guaaaards!"
From far off came the sound of clanking along with the sound of running feet.
Meaning the Imperial guards were finally rushing over.
'Even accounting for this being outside the palace, they're pretty late.'
No, wait.
What if they weren't late because the banquet grounds are large?
Should he take that possibility into account too?
'Account for what. I'm not Kaironi.'
There was a saying among mages of old.
That they could interpret a ten-page magic formula in a single go but had no idea whatsoever what a one-page human diary was saying.
Zion was the same.
He was quick on the uptake as such and readily noticed when something felt off, but interpreting what it meant was his weak point.
'For now let's just think about beating this bastard.'
Oh, what a joy.
"Your Highness! Cease at once!"
The guards pushed their bodies in to widen the distance between the marquis and Zion.
Since they could not dare lay force upon a prince's august person, they blocked him with their bodies.
Except Zion was not yet satisfied.
"Do not interfere."
A low murmur. And yet heavier than a thousand pieces of gold.
The guards flinched and ceased their restraint. Their bodies reacted before their heads did.
Like the dignity the other princes occasionally displayed... no.
An oppressive presence beyond even that.
"Y-Your Highness......"
'If I disobey the order... I feel like he'll beat me too......'
'And yet the Ninth Prince has never once displayed a force like this.'
'Was he a man capable of giving off a force like this?'
"It will be over soon regardless. Stand and watch."
After giving his gaze to the guards and to the nobles around him each in turn.
He stood before the marquis once more.
"Marquis."
"Gk...."
"You committed an offense against this prince, a member of the Divine Race. This is contempt for the Imperial house and irreverence. Which is to say, you are a serious criminal."
He deliberately raised his voice as loud as it would go. It was to focus the attention of those around him.
After that he grabbed the marquis by the collar and dragged him close. Because he had something to tell him against his ear.
He whispered very small and low, so that no one at all could hear.
"Marquis, your true crime, in fact, is this. That it was not enough for you to plunge Deber into a quagmire with that paltry three-inch tongue of yours, but you dared take part in the regicide of His Majesty the late King."
"Gk...?!"
Marquis Gebel's eyes went wide. But he had no strength left to shout.
He couldn't have shouted to begin with.
Because Zion was, secretly but with all his might, throttling his throat.
Very hard, with every ounce of strength.
"Therefore, in the name of Prince Zion Riobelt, I pronounce sentence upon you!"
'In the name of Crown Prince Zion Bliese, I pronounce sentence.'
He knew perfectly well how to turn a man into a vegetable.
You come to know it even if you have no wish to.
The live-experiment logs he had obtained while going up against the Empire numbered rather more than one or two volumes.
"The late King will be waiting. Go on to him quickly."
Pupils trembling violently. Breath on the verge of being cut off.
With his last dying cry, the marquis screamed out the name of his killer.
"Z-Zion, it's Ziooon!!!"
CRACK!
'A pity, Gebel. Your final cry will never reach anyone.'
Because he would have been shouting Zion Bliese's name.
But people would take it as him calling Zion Riobelt's name.
'Gebel can never regain consciousness now. It would be possible if there were a healing-class mage who had reached the requisite level. But magitech engineering can't do it.'
It was one of the weaknesses that arose because magitech engineering had chosen general applicability and scalability.
It was a trivial problem that would be overcome in the not-distant future, given how fast it was developing.
'What matters is that right now it's an extremely grave problem for Gebel.'
"......"
"......"
"......"
Looking around, everyone was silent.
Ashen faces. Expressions holding every sort of emotion.
And among them, a single expressionless face drawing closer and closer.
"Ninth Prince."
A cold, inorganic voice. A face he knew.
One of the three most powerful men in the Empire.
Third Prince Garon Riobelt.
But the mood around him was rather badly off. Moving only his eyes, he studied the nobles' expressions.
'Every last one of them has an "I'm screwed" look.'
It was an expression his teacher Arist hated intensely as being without dignity, but there was no more fitting expression than this.
"A subject of the Empire greets a member of the Divine Race!"
"Enough. For today alone the salutation is dispensed with."
"......"
"......"
An ice-cold silence. Like a rabbit warren when a hawk has taken to the air.
Meaning it was as quiet as death.
'Why are they all so terrified? I know he's a man of a cold and merciless disposition. Hm, it seems he's worse than the rumors.'
The Third Prince's emotionless eyes bored into Zion.
"You have gone and done it well. To dare, at an occasion celebrating the new year. And while defying this Garon Riobelt's orders, at that."
It would be reasonable for him to be furious, yet there was no change in his expression at all.
A frigid, rigid face.
Enough to make one wonder whether this man had no emotions.
"Go to this prince's office and wait there. Until your disposition is decided."
The Third Prince ordered him to wait without even asking the reason for the assault.
He appeared not even curious about the operating principles of a piece of trash.
'Not even room to make an excuse. Well, I wasn't planning on it anyway.'
Whatever punishment came down, he intended to accept it without complaint.
Never mind punishment, when he had finally accomplished his revenge for his father.
'It'll come to at least fifteen years of imprisonment or confinement, I'd guess?'
He had accepted the price of making Gebel a vegetable and snapped the bastard's neck bones.
As a prince he wouldn't be executed, but he would be confined for a tremendously long span of years.
A shame. He had only just realized how many things he could do with this body.
'Nothing to be done.'
He moved his steps with a bitter smile.
***
The Third Prince's office.
A calm remark rang in his ears.
"Well done."
"...Pardon?"
Praise from the Third Prince. Zion was, literally, dumbfounded.
Well done, he said. And this after he had beaten a marquis, one slated to take up a governor-generalship, no less.
"Are you serious?"
Instead of answering, the Third Prince sat at his desk and wrote something.
"If anyone asks, say that you were subjected to corporal punishment here, beaten and healed over and over."
Not actually beat him, but say that?
He couldn't work out what they were aligning their stories for, either.
"It is a reward bestowed upon you, so understand it as such. Now get out."
Ah. It was a reward?
He was dumbfounded for two reasons.
How on earth is that a reward.
Why is he giving me a reward.
'Still, one thing I understand. The Third Prince also intended to block Marquis Gebel's appointment as governor-general!'
The Empire's princes were in a succession contest over the next throne.
He'd understood Marquis Gebel to be neutral, but it seemed he had joined the opposing faction this time.
If that was the case, then there was nothing strange about the Third Prince handing over a reward.
'Things lined up this exquisitely...?'
Zion Bliese grinned despite himself.
As the habit remaining in the body dictated, Zion Riobelt twisted the line of his mouth despite himself.
From the look of it, the governor-general appointment itself had been a power struggle between the princes?
...In that case.
'I might be able to squeeze a bounty out of them after causing a scene?'