After the banquet, Prince Kumcheok released all of Prince Sirean's handcuffs as if being generous.
But that did not mean anything had changed.
As long as Prince Kumcheok held the flower of the Unfallen Cactus hostage,
Escaping from his villa was impossible.
"What will you do?"
In the middle of the night, Prince Sirean called Trine out and asked.
They had intended to speak quietly on the balcony, just the two of them, but several soldiers were standing by, watching them as if keeping them under surveillance.
Trine replied somewhat irritably,
"Why are you asking me that?"
"Are you saying it is fine if Sia is taken from us like this?"
At those words, Trine could not bring himself to answer.
Trine's goal was only to break Princess Sia's curse.
He had never intended to marry Princess Sia in the first place, and if it was a marriage arrangement between royalty, there was no place for Trine to step in.
When Trine hesitated, Sirean clicked his tongue and said,
"I have absolutely no intention of handing Princess Sia over to a pig bastard like that."
Trine glanced at the surrounding soldiers and answered,
"Why? He seems like a decent person in his own way."
If he had truly been a pig, perhaps Trine would not be this conflicted.
However, Prince Kumcheok's first impression had actually been favorable.
He was handsome and had an excellent physique.
Even his somewhat arrogant personality surely meant he was capable as a prince.
'Maybe Princess Sia would be happier in many ways if she married him.'
That was Trine's true feeling.
Of course, he did not say it aloud in front of Sirean, but Trine's role was clearly over here.
Just then, Prince Sirean said to Trine in a low voice,
"Did you know? Prince Kumcheok has already replaced more than ten wives so far."
"...What?"
"He sexually abuses them in every way, and once he gets bored of them, he sells them to the slave market."
"Come on, surely even he would not..."
"I am not joking."
Prince Sirean looked Trine straight in the eyes and declared,
"I would rather die than let Sia marry that bastard."
At that single sincere statement, Trine was momentarily flustered.
He could understand Sirean's feelings well enough.
They had gone through all kinds of hardships to get this far, only for some unrelated bastard to try to steal Sia away.
At this rate, it would be happier for Princess Sia to die from the curse instead.
"...I understand how you feel, but if we refuse the betrothal in the first place, we cannot break Princess Sia's curse."
"Then let us take her and run immediately after breaking the curse."
"How, in the middle of enemy territory?"
"I will be the bait, so you take Sia and the others and run."
"Rejected. Whether it succeeds is uncertain, and there is a high chance the others will be put in danger too."
"Then what the hell are we supposed to do?!"
In the end, Prince Sirean exploded and shouted.
Sirean and Trine silently glared at each other for a moment.
But neither of them could say anything to the other.
Surely neither of them had the right to blame the other.
"...It cannot be helped."
Trine turned around.
Just before leaving, he said to Prince Sirean in a very quiet voice,
"Trust me."
The next morning.
In the villa's audience chamber, where every member of the knight department and numerous attendants had gathered,
Prince Kumcheok asked Trine,
"Are you ready to perform the ritual?"
"Yes. I am ready."
At that, Prince Kumcheok smiled nastily and handed Trine a glass tube containing a red flower.
"It is the flower of the Unfallen Cactus. Begin the ritual at once."
"I shall do so."
"After the ritual ends, I shall hold my wedding ceremony with Princess Sia right here."
"Understood."
At those words, the other students made anguished expressions.
"Is Trine really planning to give up Princess Sia like this?"
"It cannot be helped. Breaking the curse is most important."
"Even so, he is acting far too calm."
Just then, Prince Kumcheok glanced at Princess Sia and asked,
"By the way... why is my lovely little bird wearing a school uniform on such a sacred occasion?"
"I asked her to. It would be best for Princess Sia to perform the ritual in the most comfortable state possible."
"Hahaha! I like that you have no useless obsession with formality."
Prince Kumcheok said that while lounging on his ornate throne.
"Then begin the ritual."
Trine took the flower from the glass tube and held it out to Princess Sia.
"Princess, please swallow this flower."
At that, Princess Sia stared quietly at the flower and said,
"What will happen to me after I swallow this flower?"
"What do you mean? After the ritual, your curse will be broken."
"And after that?"
Trine answered in a cold tone with not a single shred of emotion mixed in.
"After that is not something I have any involvement in."
Unable to contain his rage, Prince Sirean tried to rush in.
However, the students around him grabbed him and barely held him back.
Princess Sia reluctantly accepted the flower and said,
"Benheim tried to feed me poison, but you are trying to feed me something even worse, Trine."
Trine did not answer at all.
He merely stared quietly at the expressionless Princess Sia.
In the end, Princess Sia murmured in resignation,
"...At the very least, thank you for allowing me to dream a wonderful dream."
Princess Sia swallowed the flower.
"Then... I will chant the spell."
Trine opened the grimoire.
"O witch of misfortune, I offer a thousand years of tears for your sake, so please let go of your anger."
At that, Princess Sia's body began glowing faintly.
It likely meant the curse was being broken.
However, not a single member of the knight department could simply feel happy.
Some even thought perhaps dying would have been better.
In the middle of that, only Prince Kumcheok smiled and said,
"Splendid! With this, the baby bird trapped in her cage has finally been released!"
Just then,
Trine suddenly screamed.
"Damn it!"
Then came the sound of something small exploding.
The audience chamber was instantly covered in white smoke.
And suddenly, the cry of a rooster rang out.
From within the fog, the students shouted in confusion.
"What?! What happened?!"
"Princess Sia! Trine! Are you all right?!"
"Everyone, do not move recklessly yet!"
Soon, the fog began to clear.
For some reason, Trine was sitting there in blank despair,
And Princess Sia was nowhere to be seen.
Trembling, Trine murmured,
"The ritual... failed..."
At that, Prince Sirean ran to Trine and grabbed him by the collar.
"What do you mean, failed?! Where is Sia?!"
"She was devoured by the witch."
"Are you joking?!"
Sirean punched Trine's face with all his might.
At that, the students rushed out in surprise.
As they barely separated the two, Prince Kumcheok said,
"Hmph. If she died, it cannot be helped. This body is generous, so I will not hold you guilty."
The students glared at Prince Kumcheok with hatred.
But he paid them no mind and said with a smile,
"This body only needs to obtain a wife worth tormenting."
Then he rose from his seat, suddenly approached Lizbette, and said,
"A pheasant in place of a chicken, as they say. You are not as good as Princess Sia, but you are quite pretty too."
Prince Kumcheok tried to stroke Lizbette's hair.
At that, unable to contain her rage and disgust, Lizbette struck Prince Kumcheok across the face.
“Where do you think you are putting your hand?!”
Prince Kumcheok held his face and looked at Lizbette as if dumbfounded.
When he came to his senses, he crumpled his face and shouted,
"You bitch, I was being nice to you!"
In the end, every member of the knight department was imprisoned in the palace's underground prison.
The students trapped in the dark prison did not exchange a single word.
An unforeseen worst possible ending.
There was no one they could blame.
Only after a long time did Lizbette carefully open her mouth.
"Everyone, I am sorry. If only I had not struck Prince Kumcheok."
At that, Lilian placed a hand on Lizbette's shoulder and said,
"If it had not been you, someone else would have hit him."
At that, Prince Sirean, who had his head lowered, murmured,
"Do not worry. Prince Kumcheok cannot do anything reckless to us either, so we will be released soon."
Naturally, there was no student who could feel happy at those words.
They all merely remained still with gloomy expressions.
In the middle of that, there was only one person with a complicated expression.
'What should I do? Should I say something?'
A female student wearing a school uniform and an eyepatch...
It was Princess Sia.
'This eyepatch really is amazing. Even in this situation, no one recognizes me.'
Princess Sia briefly recalled what had happened during the ritual a short while ago.
Immediately after Sia's curse was broken,
Trine had suddenly set off a smoke bomb, forced the eyepatch onto Princess Sia,
And subtly pushed her into the middle of the other students.
'I understand his intent, but what am I supposed to do now...?'
Princess Sia quietly glanced at Trine.
Apparently, he was still pretending to be in despair.
He had not even looked toward Princess Sia once.
In other words, he still had no intention of revealing Princess Sia's identity.
Princess Sia gazed at Trine and murmured inwardly,
'I am sorry for doubting you. And thank you.'
To be honest, Princess Sia had thought even during the ritual that Trine had abandoned her.
To think she had resented that knight, who had worked so hard to save her, even for a moment.
In the end, the fact that she herself had broken her resolve to trust him until the end hurt her heart greatly.
Just then, Cat quietly approached Princess Sia and whispered into her ear.
"There is one big problem."
"...What?"
"The eyepatch was charged in a hurry, so its effect will not last even a day."
"That means..."
For the recognition-obscuring magic to wear off while she was trapped in prison would be the worst possible situation.
If Prince Kumcheok noticed, everything would return to square one.
When Princess Sia grew flustered, Cat grinned and said,
"So we are all breaking out of prison tonight. Harden your heart."
"A prison break? How?"
"Do you think that petty-genius Master Trine would not have prepared anything?"
At that, Princess Sia realized something and looked around.
Come to think of it, there was one person missing from here.
"Where is Lord Elford..."
"The prison break operation begins at midnight."
"Should we tell the others?"
"No. Until we are safe, every plan is absolutely top secret."
"...Thank you in many ways."
"Save those words for later."
Cat quietly read the mood and stepped away.
In the end, until midnight, all Princess Sia could do was stay quiet.
Princess Sia carefully looked around.
Her brother Sirean, looking as though the world had ended.
The other students and even Instructor Eloy, all dispirited.
'Tada~ I am alive~ I wonder what faces they would make if I said that.'
Princess Sia laughed softly without realizing it.
But when several students glared at her, she quickly lowered her head.
Then she bit her lip and repeated to herself inwardly,
'This is not the time to joke. Nothing is over yet.'
Around midnight.
Just as most of the students, exhausted, were about to fall asleep, quiet footsteps came from outside.
Then the iron-bar door soon swung open.
"Everyone, please follow me quietly."
Butler Elford had truly appeared.
The students stared at Butler Elford in surprise, but Prince Sirean replied with his head lowered.
"What is the point of breaking out now? It is safer to stay quiet."
"Even though there is still an opportunity to save Princess Sia?"
At those words, Prince Sirean finally raised his head too.
"What do you mean?"
"I will explain the details later."
"If this is nonsense, I will kill you."
Just then, Trine was the first to rise.
He even yawned calmly as he stepped outside the prison first and said,
"I told you to trust me."
In the end, while everyone was somewhat flustered, they quietly left the prison.
For some reason, all the guards they passed along the way had collapsed.
Butler Elford had surely dealt with them in advance.
Thanks to that, they did not run into a single person until they left the palace.
Butler Elford mounted one of the camels prepared nearby and said,
"Let us go straight to the airport. I rented an airship in advance."
The students swiftly mounted the camels.
Princess Sia quietly climbed onto the back of Trine's camel and wrapped her arms around his back.
Trine desperately ignored her and began driving the camel.
After they had ridden for some time,
Prince Sirean looked around, then shouted to Trine,
"Now tell me already! Where is Sia?!"
"I'll tell you once we're on the airship, so wait a little longer!"
"You broke the curse, right?!"
"Of course!"
"You damned sly bastard!"
Prince Sirean laughed and rode ahead of Trine.
At that, Princess Sia asked against Trine's back,
"Lord Elford really is capable."
"That he is."
"To think he managed to break out alone and even prepare an airship."
"We truly survived thanks to him."
"Hehe. You can be more honest about being jealous, you know?"
Trine replied somewhat irritably,
"If you keep saying nonsense, I will leave you behind."
"You say that, but you would never abandon me."
Princess Sia buried her face in Trine's back, and Trine simply drove the camel in silence.
Camels raced across the empty desert beneath the moonlit night.
Amid the loud sound of camel footsteps,
Sia barely held back her tears and spoke softly.
"I will save my thanks and apologies for later."
"Please do."
"Actually, there is something I really want to say to you more than those things."
"What is it?"
"You will regret it if you hear it."
For a moment, Trine's chest felt terribly tight.
Trying hard to forget it, he shook his head.
Then, after pausing briefly, he answered.
"Then please do not say it to the very end. That would be better for both of us."
"I know."
"In any case, do not relax yet. We do not know what might happen."
Before long, Trine's ominous premonition came true.
Behind them, Prince Kumcheok could be seen riding camels with his soldiers.
"You bastards! Did you think you could escape safely from this body?!"
The knight department students began driving their camels even faster.
However, the distance gradually began to close.
Prince Kumcheok's voice became even clearer.
"All the men will be executed! All the women will be turned into slaves and tormented until they are ruined!"
At that, Butler Elford, who was in the lead, shouted to everyone,
"Running is impossible! Let us stand and fight here!"
At those words, everyone stopped at once as if they had made a promise.
Then they got down from their camels and drew their weapons.
Instructor Eloy stepped forward and shouted,
"Form ranks! Do not be afraid! You are the finest knights of the Altoria Kingdom!"
The soldiers following them also got down from their camels, held their spears, and faced them.
Only Prince Kumcheok remained on his camel and shouted,
"Ha! Do you think a few mere students can defeat this body's elite army?"
At that, Prince Sirean aimed his gun and shouted,
"You are aware that saying you will kill us is the same as declaring war on the Altoria Kingdom, are you not?"
"Do you think I would be frightened by a tiny nation like that?"
"Does your father know that you are rampaging around like this?"
At that, Prince Kumcheok's expression twisted sharply.
"T-That is..."
"Even if it is you, if you start a war on your own, do you truly think the emperor will let you be?"
At that, Prince Kumcheok could not answer and showed signs of difficulty.
If this went well, perhaps they could avoid a meaningless battle...
Just as everyone began feeling somewhat optimistic,
"Ah..."
Suddenly, Princess Sia's eyepatch came off on its own and slipped down.
At that, every gaze around them turned toward Princess Sia at once.
Prince Sirean opened his eyes wide and shouted,
"Sia?! Since when were you there?!"
There was no time to make excuses or be happy about the reunion.
Because Prince Kumcheok's face had turned red and blue.
"You dared try to take Princess Sia from me too?! I will never forgive you bastards!"