Ias treated Karl with a casual manner and speech that hardly seemed befitting of royalty. He gestured for Milton, who had been standing silently behind them, to sit, then dropped into the seat across from Karl.
“I heard about it. You’re looking for a cure?”
“Yes. I cannot simply sit still and wait for death, can I?”
“Right. Of course not.”
Ias fell silent for a moment at Karl’s answer and quietly studied him.
His eyes, which held less red than either Madius’s or Aingir’s, resembled ripe wheat gleaming beneath the sunlight.
“It is truly unfortunate that you lost your memories, but hearing you speak like that almost makes me think it was for the best. That is an admirable attitude.”
Ias grinned, then swept his gaze over the books piled across the table.
“But for someone searching for a cure, you’re reading books that are exactly to my taste.”
With his large, powerful hands, Ias casually picked up three thick, heavy books at a time and sorted them into separate piles.
His grip strength was tremendous.
It was difficult to believe he was not even twenty years old.
“I suppose you want to travel too?”
Ias spoke with an excited, cheerful voice, and only then did Karl truly realize that he was still a young man filled with dreams.
“I plan to travel after I recover. Right now, I’m looking for a cure.”
“A cure in these books?”
Ias asked as he flipped through a book about mysterious, hidden lands and strange creatures.
He had apparently read it before as well.
Karl repeated the same explanation he had given Aingir.
The reaction he received, however, was the exact opposite.
“That makes sense.”
Unlike Aingir, who had burst into amused laughter, Ias nodded with an extremely serious expression.
He looked so earnest that Karl was the one who ended up surprised.
“You’re not laughing.”
“Laughing?”
At Karl’s surprised words, Ias tilted his head as though he could not understand the question.
“The existing methods do not work, so you are trying something new, aren’t you? That is incomparably better than becoming discouraged and giving up, or wasting your time clinging to methods that have already failed.”
“…….”
“Besides, how could an elder brother laugh when his younger brother is doing something with his life on the line?”
Brother……
‘……No. This is not the time for that.’
For a moment, Karl felt the urge to tell Ias everything and cling to him for help.
He quickly pulled himself together.
“Something that cools heat…. Something that cools heat…….”
Ias muttered to himself, tapping the table with a thick finger as he thought.
Then he suddenly sprang to his feet and strode away, disappearing beyond the bookshelves before Karl had the chance to stop him.
Karl turned toward Milton in bewilderment.
But Milton had nothing to say either.
Ias returned before long, carrying five books stacked in his left hand—two thin volumes and three thick ones—which he set down heavily in front of Karl.
“If known medicines do not work, what about poisons?”
He rapidly flipped through the books and opened them to specific pages.
Surprisingly, he seemed to remember almost exactly what was written in which book.
Milton leaned forward slightly, examined the description of the poison Ias had shown them, and shook his head.
“It is a poison that causes the body to grow cold before death, but fundamentally, it merely suppresses the metabolism.”
“Then what about this one?”
“The skin turns blue-black and cold not because the body temperature falls, but because the blood flow stops and the tissue becomes necrotic.”
Naturally, anyone who knew medicines well enough to treat patients also needed to understand poisons.
Milton already knew all of them.
Karl looked hopefully at the thin books Ias had brought, the ones that appeared to contain mysterious tales more akin to folklore than texts about medicines and poisons.
Please let there be something about it in there…….
“Hmm……. Then…….”
Ias hesitated for a moment, fidgeting with the two thin books.
“…First of all, I’m not joking, but I would rather you did not take this too seriously.”
With that, Ias opened one of the books.
“It is the story of Kuhaln, the hero of a legend belonging to the Balturan people of the north.”
Karl showed no reaction at those words.
All he knew was the name of the medicine needed for the treatment and what happened when it was consumed.
The book-loving librarians who worked in the Imperial Archives, however, apparently knew something about the tale. They whispered among themselves and nodded knowingly.
“Kuhaln met his death at the hands of a frost fairy who loved him. He had drunk from the Sprout Spring, whose waters were said to keep the drinker’s body eternally healthy, so even when he was wounded, he healed almost immediately.”
“Ahem….”
Ias was becoming slightly carried away by the fascinating legend.
Even when Milton cleared his throat to remind him of the matter at hand, Ias pretended not to hear.
“The frost fairy wanted Kuhaln for herself, so she stole an eternal flame from the dwarves beneath the earth and set fire to his back while he slept.”
“……Do you think the story of that horrifying, deranged fairy will actually help cure my illness?”
Karl began to feel skeptical.
Was Ias simply looking for an excuse to tell a story he liked?
“So Kuhaln writhed in pain and desperately tried to extinguish the flames. But the fire would not go out, and because he had drunk the water of the Sprout Spring, he could not even burn to death. That was when the frost fairy appeared and covered him with moss she had cultivated, temporarily smothering the flames.”
Ias continued the story undeterred by Karl’s remark.
“Then she whispered to the exhausted Kuhaln that the fire would burn forever without going out, tormenting him endlessly, and that he would be better off dead. But even dying was not easy for Kuhaln, so he fell into despair. At that moment, the frost fairy gave Kuhaln an extraordinarily beautiful flower and said……”
Karl, who had been disappointedly half listening while idly fiddling with his pen, suddenly looked up at Ias with wide eyes.
“‘This is a Frostwind Corpse Flower I grew for you. If you eat it, you will become ice that not even the dwarves’ eternal flame can melt, and then you will finally be able to die.’ That is what she told him. Kuhaln ate the flower the frost fairy gave him and became ice that would never melt, thus meeting his death. The frost fairy then took possession of Kuhaln’s frozen, unchanging corpse.”
Ias stopped speaking and hesitated.
Why had he been telling this story again?
“……Ah. Right. I thought that if this Frostwind Corpse Flower actually existed, it might be useful.”
Meeting Karl’s gaze reminded Ias of his illness, and he spoke with an awkward smile.
Ias had been deeply impressed by the story of Kuhaln when he read it and felt somewhat embarrassed that he had gotten carried away and rambled on about it.
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
Ias tilted his head at the sight of Karl’s green eyes staring at him in astonishment.
“How could we obtain it?”
Karl swallowed, licked his lips, and spoke in a trembling voice.
“You’re serious? This is only a legend.”
Karl did his best to suppress his excitement and smiled gently.
“Isn’t it better to place my hopes on a ridiculous flower from a legend than to simply give up?”
Of course, Karl knew.
No—
Han Changin, who had read The Iron-Blooded Emperor Rules, knew.
Whether Kuhaln and the frost fairy had truly existed was irrelevant.
What mattered was that the Frostwind Corpse Flower unquestionably did exist.
After all, there had been an episode in which Ingil obtained that very flower, saved a sick person with it, and took that person in as a subordinate!
Everyone stared at Karl in disbelief when he said he intended to wager his life on a legend from a distant northern people.
Ias was no exception.
Naturally, none of them had even considered the possibility that such a flower truly existed, so when Karl asked how to obtain it, no one had an answer.
But merely hearing about the existence of the Frostwind Corpse Flower from Ias was enough for Karl.
He had even learned that it came from the legends of the northern Balturan people.
All that remained now was to obtain the flower.
Karl did not know exactly how to acquire it, but he did have something he could make use of in a situation like this.
Karl might be wasting away with death just around the corner, but that did not mean he had absolutely no connections to grasp at.
The Emperor might be another matter, but Karl’s mother Viole’s family surely had nothing to lose if Karl, an imperial prince, recovered.
He would use Viole’s family to obtain the flower.
***
“That……. Lord Karl, I’m afraid that will be difficult…….”
“What? Why?”
Karl had returned to his room filled with hope, only to be so dumbfounded by Cecile’s answer that he forgot to act and asked the question outright.
“House Felt is… well…….”
This was the first time Karl had even learned that Viole’s family was called House Felt.
But if they were a noble family, they should at least have money and influence.
So why……?
“After Lady Viole passed away, and House Felt learned that you were ill…. Well……. House Felt was never a particularly powerful family to begin with…. And…….”
Cecile spent a long time circling around the answer, delaying it as much as she could.
But when Karl merely stared blankly up at her, she eventually squeezed her eyes shut and muttered painfully.
“House Felt… will not do anything for you, Lord Karl….”
“B-but even so…. If we could at least contact them…….”
Karl asked in a trembling voice.
Tears gathered at the wrinkled corners of Cecile’s tightly shut eyes.
“I’m sorry. Lord Karl…….”
“…….”
Cecile had nothing to apologize for.
Karl finally realized that Cecile had cared for him and protected him not because his family had ordered her to do so, but entirely out of genuine affection.
Fourth Prince Karl had been completely abandoned not only by the imperial family, but by his mother’s family as well.
The only reason he had survived this long was because Cecile had refused to give up on him and had continued struggling for his sake.
Karl felt dizzy and pressed a hand to his forehead.
Come to think of it, he had never even had a proper conversation with Cecile.
He had merely thought she might prove useful when the time came to contact House Felt and obtain the medicine.
Absurdly enough, Karl had been treating Cecile less like a person and more like some insignificant extra who merely passed through the story.
Even though he himself was no different.
“I’m sorry…. I’m so sorry…….”
Overcome by helplessness, Cecile sank to the floor and began sobbing.
Karl could not understand whom she was apologizing to or what she had supposedly done wrong.
He could only stare blankly at her.
Karl knew that he had very little time left.
Yet watching Cecile cry did not make him angry.
Instead, he felt as though he had committed some terrible sin.
Like a mother whose terminally ill son had just been deprived of his final hope, Cecile had completely broken down in tears.
Viole had died shortly after giving birth to Karl.
The person who had raised him for the sixteen years since then was Cecile.
To her, perhaps Karl truly had been no different from a son.
Karl—
Han Changin—
felt sickened with himself.
He had taken ‘Karl’ away from Cecile.
Only after he began seeing Cecile as a person did Karl finally understand.
He had taken a son away from his mother.
***
Perhaps because of the severe emotional shock, Karl fell asleep as though he had fainted before Milton could even treat him.
Cecile swallowed her sobs so as not to disturb Karl’s sleep while Milton told her what had happened that day.
‘Such an absurd story…….’
Cecile trembled with grief and anguish.
She could not even shake her head and dismiss it as ridiculous.
Unless they somehow obtained an object from a legend like that, there might truly be no way to cure Karl.
“…If he obtains it and eats it, wouldn’t he simply freeze to death?”
“We do not know. We do not even know whether such a thing exists in the first place.”
“…….”
“And….”
Milton trailed off before closing his mouth.
Cecile knew what would have come next.
And he is going to die soon anyway.
“……Wouldn’t it be better to try anything we can?”
Milton murmured the words and quietly looked at Karl, who was barely clinging to life through the aid of his healing magic.
As an imperial physician, Milton was supposed to do only what he had been ordered to do.
Because his position brought him into contact with members of the imperial family, he had to hear without hearing, see without seeing, and know without knowing.
He was not permitted to speak his own opinion presumptuously either.
“Third Prince Ias seemed to take quite a liking to Lord Karl.”
Milton stepped slightly beyond the boundary he was permitted to cross.
It was the first time in his entire life he had crossed that boundary, and once he had done so, he found that it was not nearly as remarkable as he had imagined.
Nor did it feel particularly unpleasant.
“I’ll take my leave, then. I’ll return at midnight.”
But that was as far as Milton went.
He did not cross the line any further.
Still, those few words were more than enough to bring life back into Cecile’s pale face, which had looked as though she were even sicker than Karl.
Cecile nervously bit her lips and quietly paced the room so as not to wake Karl.
Then she drew back the curtain slightly and gazed at the evening sky as twilight descended.
She clenched her teeth and left the room.
Yes.
They had to try anything they could.
Düren loved those who strove earnestly.
Cecile prayed to God.
But God gave her no answer.
There was only a single woman there, struggling for the sake of Karl—a child of such noble blood that she was not even permitted to consider him her son.
Cecile could not know that the real Karl no longer existed.