A small flame burning above his palm.
This was the Empire's Imperial treasury.
Meaning a restricted place where not even the most trivial magic could be manifested.
Ti-dik, tik. Tik.
He gazed at the small flame.
Quiet.
Only stillness hung in the air, and not a single noise reached him.
'The surging of the mana isn't detectable even to me.'
Something that definitely existed and at the same time did not exist, like a paper densely covered in letters that had been rubbed out with an eraser.
Yes, he could put it this way.
'If I had to put a name to the changed quality of the mana......'
Blank. It seemed he could express it as the mana having become the blank attribute.
Suddenly he recalled the time he had set out on the assassination and fallen into the trap.
If the detection sensors hadn't caught his magic manifestation.
He would have assassinated Zion Riobelt and escaped safely.
'From now on there will absolutely never be an occasion where my magic manifestation is caught. And even after the magic has been manifested, they won't be able to pin down that I was the caster.'
The age was in the midst of upheaval. In the present era magic was not a mystery but an object of analysis.
Was the very existence of the discipline of magitech engineering not living proof?
'By now there's almost no one who goes to the trouble of learning magic.'
The appearance of mass-production factories for magitech devices. With money, anyone could work magic, so it was a natural change.
"By now not even an object of understanding and analysis, merely a remnant of the past, or the outmoded."
That was magic.
But......
'To the front, the station of a prince. Behind it, the magic of the blank.'
That made the story very different indeed.
Electrifying. Heart-pounding.
"To be able to use magic as I please without being caught."
He whipped his head around.
He'd only entered the discipline the day before yesterday, so his body still couldn't use magic worthy of the name.
But right now, as soon as possible, he wanted to test the magic of the blank.
"The Stem... of the North Star."
One of the two great sacred objects of the Deber royal house, a magic staff.
He picked the staff up off the display stand.
With a click, the touch of cold crystal slid pleasantly across his hand.
"Quere Stellam Orbita."
He intoned the activation words and began constructing the magic.
The body, a mere two days into the discipline, held no mana in its circuits with which to spin out magic.
That was fine.
Snap!
For someone of a prince's standing, every last button on the clothes he wears daily is a mana stone.
"Be consumed. Activate."
The bloodline may be the Imperial house's, but the magic he had learned was Deber's system.
The Stem of the North Star responded to Zion's mana and began to give off light.
Vwoooooom!
One of the reasons this staff had been given the name Stem of the North Star.
Since ancient times the North Star had been the star that served as a guide for finding one's direction.
Which is to say, this staff was a clever fellow that found its own way home even when lost.
"Quere Stellam Orbita. Defer. Accumulate. Await the hour, mesh and issue forth."
A path of mana drawn in empty air.
The mana traced out a circuit. Presently it transformed into a single array.
A magic circle. Support for magic manifestation through external structuring.
It was an enchantment and at the same time a technique for a deferred magic manifestation.
'That's one done. A shame, but this is as far as....... Huh?'
"......This works too?"
The Stem of the North Star. Like the Ring of the Guide, an artifact usable only by the Deber royal house's bloodline.
But the Ring of the Guide had responded to Zion himself even now, while he wore Riobelt's body, and declared the fulfillment of a new covenant.
The result of that was precisely the acquisition of the blank attribute.
"To think even the Stem of the North Star would grant me its efficacies."
The efficacies possessed by the Stem of the North Star numbered three in total.
Beyond basic magic reinforcement there were two more, and one of them was precisely this.
Click!
The staff's circuit joined with the mana circuit inside Zion's body.
It was the manifestation of binding magic.
The Stem of the North Star. The kingdom's finest magic staff, one it would not be amiss to say symbolized the very nation of Deber.
An artifact of that national-treasure class had, in this very moment, been bound to Zion.
Forever.
'Late King. I have reclaimed the sacred object that was taken from you.'
Strength went into the hand gripping the staff, squeezing tight.
"So this makes it going out pheasant hunting and having the pheasant and its eggs too, and then catching the fox that chased the pheasant and making a stole out of it as well."
He set the staff back down on the display stand. Because it was obvious it would be confiscated even if he took it out with him.
But he felt no regret whatsoever.
Because thinking of the last of the staff's three efficacies, the staff was already as good as Zion's own.
'To build an alibi so I don't get pinned as the culprit, I'll need to leave a few days' gap.'
He set the time limit for the magic's activation generously.
With that, everything he had to do in the Imperial treasury was finished.
'A week or so from now would be good? Have yourselves a taste of it. It'll be sweet enough to rot your teeth and then pull a few out.'
Kuh. Sweet just to think about. My own teeth won't rot too, will they?
In truth his brain was already melting sweetly.
He had used magic in the Imperial treasury, of all places, and it hadn't been detected?!
"Kuuuuuh! This is what real magic is."
Humming a merry tune, he walked to the entrance.
And the moment he stepped outside.
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep!
An alarm blaring stridently. At some point over a dozen guards and the Guard Captain had come to stand before the treasury.
'The Guard Captain was a post at the same grade as a duke, wasn't it? Treated the same as a prince.'
"Ninth Prince. What did you take."
Seeing him dispense with the salutation and use semi-polite speech, it seemed correct.
Which meant that even as a prince, he ought not to treat the Guard Captain carelessly... though.
'Not my concern. Because I'm a delinquent.'
This body was the piece of trash for the ages who had beaten a governor-general half to death not long ago, if you please.
"If you have something to ask this prince, observe the proprieties."
"Ninth Prince. Set down everything you took. Should you not comply, I shall discipline you severely pursuant to the Imperial command."
"You're being filthily strict."
"I merely uphold the sternness of the law."
"Ah, is that so. Then go ahead and take it."
Making a show of it, he thrust out the Ring of the Guide, or more precisely the middle finger wearing the ring.
"Ninth Prince... stop there."
The Guard Captain, feeling insulted, flushed and drew his brows together.
"Look at the ring, not the finger, hm? I tried it on inside and it wouldn't come off."
"Is that the truth?"
The Guard Captain seized his hand and strained at it for a good while, but the ring did not budge in the slightest.
"So what will you do now? Try cutting the finger off, why don't you."
Zion grinned.
***
The Third Prince stared blankly at the Chamberlain delivering the report.
"So. The ring will not come off."
"My apologies. Unless the Ninth Prince's finger is severed, recovery of the relic appears to be impossi-"
"Enough. I shall read it myself."
The Third Prince, cutting the Chamberlain off, turned the pages of the report one by one.
「Cause of positional fixation unknown.」
「No changes whatsoever apart from the fixation.」
「Even accounting for the anomaly that has occurred, relic grade is the lowest. It is estimated that there will be no room for revision.」
Since it was the result of direct analysis by a department under the Imperial house's own authority, even if it read "estimated" it was proper to read it as fact.
'The Ring of the Guide... a treasure only from the Deber royal house's standpoint. In reality, garbage without the value to be placed in the Imperial treasury at all.'
In the past the Empire had scraped together Deber's relics indiscriminately.
The Ring of the Guide was one of the odds and ends that had gotten mixed in amid that.
...Meaning it could not even be compared to 'that relic,' which was the reason the Empire had swept up the relics in the first place.
'Though in the end they never found even 'that relic.''
The Deber Kingdom is said to possess a relic touched by traces of a god.
The common salvation-of-the-nation legend, that it gives off light when the kingdom faces crisis.
Only, the source of the information had been credible, and accordingly the Empire had believed in the relic's actual existence.
'They devoured the kingdom and combed it thoroughly for decades. And despite pouring in an enormous budget they never found a single clue.'
It had been a false legend. Just as the Imperial house of the Empire spreads the falsehood that it descends from a god far and wide for propaganda.
Or, the thought occurred that a royal bloodline that produces one genius-level magic talent every other generation could itself be the origin of the legend.
It was half a joke, but seeing that it had produced a monster like Zion Bliese, perhaps the plausibility was not entirely absent.
Strength went into the Third Prince's jaw.
'Zion Bliese. Zion Bliese.'
When they had used the likes of Zion Riobelt, that disgrace to the bloodline, as bait and landed the big fish that was the Great Crow of Deber, the Third Prince had rejoiced enough to leap despite his emotionless nature.
Because Zion Bliese was an enormous harvest in himself and an all-purpose card that could be deployed like a queen in chess.
And then the bastard had vanished.
'How in the world did he break through that stringent surveillance and pull off an escape.'
The symbol and hope of the Deber Liberation Army, The Raven, Zion Bliese.
About a year since the bastard's capture. There had not been a day when an article about him wasn't published in the Empire's newspapers.
They had done propaganda work on that enormous a scale, and now they were to announce the fact of his escape?
There could be no humiliation more utterly humiliating. The Empire's face would fall to the ground.
'In the current situation I cannot expend resources such as time and mental energy on the likes of the Ninth Prince. To begin with...... even the basest Ninth Prince, if we are comparing nobility, cannot even be measured against the legacy of a fallen nation.'
The Third Prince turned his head in the direction of the main palace, even within the vast Imperial Palace. His Majesty the Emperor would presumably arrive at the same conclusion.
The greatness of the divine blood was that lofty and that noble.
"The ring will not be recovered."
It was while the Chamberlain let out a sigh of relief.
Because the Third Prince was utterly cold-blooded and did not tolerate inadequacy in those who followed him, and never kept beside him anyone who failed at judgments of value and chose the wrong option.
"What matters, then, is the disposition of that ill-bred bastard."
The Imperial house's disgrace. Garbage that felt revolting merely to call a younger brother.
Zion Riobelt had committed two additional grave crimes while already slated for confinement.
"How has the First Prince reacted."
"He remains quiet as yet."
On the surface Zion Riobelt belonged to the Third Prince's faction.
That was because, in order to use him as bait, they had taken the form of driving him out of the Imperial Palace and then taking him in.
"It is obvious the First Prince's side will attempt a political attack over this affair, so devise a countermeasure."
"Yes, Your Highness. I shall gather all the strategists and wring out a scheme to turn this affair into an opportunity, without fail."
It was a presentable reply, yet the Third Prince stared blankly at the Chamberlain.
"How many hours have passed since the bastard caused the incident."
"......Five hours."
In other words, meaning that for five hours he had failed to devise a method of offsetting the damage.
This was incompetence.
"I shall give you one hour."
"U-understood."
The Third Prince, watching the Chamberlain break out in a cold sweat, pressed his temple.
'Going forward the trash bastard's conduct will continue to lead to losses for me.'
One must assign usefulness even to a garbage card, but a card whose utility is gone must be discarded without mercy.
Zion Riobelt, having lost his sole reason for existing as bait, was nothing but a burden, no, a lump of dung.
Filthy enough to give off a stench merely by being kept nearby......
The Third Prince's expression changed.
'If merely keeping him nearby causes losses, then is it not enough to keep him not beside me but beside my enemy?'
A scheme killing two birds with one stone occurred to him.
The First Prince's domain. The reaction the First Prince would show upon being struck with a lump of dung.
The additional profit that could be drawn out of the opening created while his attention was drawn.
Decided.
"Chamberlain. I have decided the Ninth Prince's punishment. It shall be thus."
Looking at Zion Bliese's wanted poster laid out on the desk...... at the face of the Empire's worst criminal, the Third Prince continued.
"We shall present the bastard to the First Prince. Anticipate the subsequent fallout and submit it to me written up as a report."
And so Zion Riobelt's disposition was decided.
***
It was already the third day since he had been dragged out of the Imperial treasury.
He had undergone more than ten rounds of investigation and experimentation, and in the end it was determined that the Ring of the Guide exhibited no efficacy whatsoever yet could not be separated from Zion's finger.
'The Imperial house's magitech scholars had their pride wounded rather badly by not being able to release the binding.'
The sight of them turning bright red and huffing. Faces that were a delight just to look at.
At any rate, since they could hardly make divine blood flow over a garbage magitech device with no efficacy to speak of, the Ring of the Guide was determined to be Zion's property.
Though he did have to pay a fine by way of compensation.
'That aside, I cause an incident like this and I still don't get to see the Emperor's face once.'
Then again, the Empire's Emperor had been famous for his mystique from the outset.
Since they call the Imperial bloodline the Divine Race and sanctify it, the Emperor at the very top was in the middle of image-making as an utterly unidentifiable, mysterious being, you might say?
There would also be an element of doubling as a precaution against the threat of assassination.
'A bit of a shame, but even if I did get a private audience, assassination would be impossible.'
Perhaps after he regained the standing of a Grand Mage, but as things stood, however much he had acquired the blank attribute, assassinating the Emperor was absolutely impossible.
So it was right to focus his whole mind on the matter that was immediately important.
"Exile to Deber. Exile to Deber. Sss......"
He had to change confinement into exile.
And he had to make them designate the place of exile as Deber without fail.
The problem was 'how.'
'Because raising my hand and saying I'd like to be exiled to Deber isn't going to get heard.'
He had been agonizing over it for three days now since causing the incident, and no sharp method came to mind.
He was fairly resourceful with petty schemes, but he had always left the serious strategizing to Kaironi, that coward.
Had he known it would come to this, he would have practiced using his head a bit in ordinary times.
'Damn it, use what, in my position. I should just do what I'm good at.'
The Third Prince would notify him of the sentence again this time, surely? Should he furtively try a brainwashing spell then?
But using a brainwashing spell at his current standing would take decades off his lifespan, hm.
Would it be worth that much?
Knock, knock, knock!
"Come in."
"Your Highness. His Highness the Third Prince has summoned you."
At the old butler's message he rose.
"I still haven't come up with a method. Well, it'll work out somehow."
"When you say a method, what sort......?"
"Not your concern."
"I offer my apologies, Your Highness."
The old butler moved to kneel and slam his head down. Zion grabbed his shoulder and raised him up.
"......?"
Instead of giving him any reply, he walked past.
Today would be the last time he saw that sight too.
'Now for the climax.'
A word meaning the peak of a play.
The climax of everything he had done since dwelling in Zion Riobelt's body was right now.
'Either way, let's finish it splendidly, with no regrets.'
He would go into exile in Deber without fail.
Even if it came to using a brainwashing spell on the Third Prince.
***
"Choose."
The Third Prince said it out of nowhere.
"Will you be locked in a cell, or will you go into exile in Deber?"
"Pardon?"
Zion, who had just entered the office and was about to sit in a chair, froze with his knees half bent.
'This... turns out like this?'
He had agonized all day over how to draw out a sentence of exile, and it was this easy?
"Exile...... to Deber, you say......?"
He desperately held it in, because laughter was about to escape him.
'If I laugh here it's all blown. I absolutely have to hold it in.'
The chance to live as Deber's only Divine Race prince.
Put another way, the chance to become the highest-ranking power in the land and aid his homeland's liberation.
To think he could grasp it in his hands without having done a thing.
'That said, this makes me feel a little sorry?'
Since he'd naturally assumed it wouldn't go his way and had left a big one hidden in the Imperial treasury on his way out.
Well, whether an uproar breaks out among the Imperial bastards or not isn't my concern.