Chapter 1.1

“Your Highness will no longer be able to smile.”

The magician’s voice was as soft as a lullaby.

“Your Highness will no longer be able to show anger. Boiling rage will burn your insides, or be channeled through a sword pointed towards your enemies.”

After pronouncing such irreversible declarations, he took his brush dipped in blood and began to draw lines on the cut-open chest of Bertram, a prince of the country.

With every brush stroke, the rock embedded in Bertram’s heart writhed. The bone of a dragon. From now on, this would be Bertram’s main artery.

Before closing up the chest, the magician said, in a slightly sad tone, “Your Highness will no longer be able to cry. When the corpse of His Majesty returns from the battlefield, even on the day of the funeral… you will not be able to shed a single tear.”

“That is fine. This is what will make me a strong warrior.”

Bertram was a young man of only sixteen years, yet his voice was firm. His strong will could be felt from his eyes, blue like the ocean, underneath his black hair.

It was because he had this will that he must be throwing his body into battle, but….

As the magician drew his final line, he spoke.

“The people want a strong leader, but they also fear an emotionless one. Your Highness may not be able to sit on the throne even after the war is over.”

“Even if I lead us into victory?”

“Yes. When tears do not fall from your eyes in front of His Majesty’s corpse, the people will call Your Highness a monster.”

Bertram could not understand what that meant.

But he was now unable to express even his doubts on his face.

With a bitter smile, grieving the prince’s fate—the magician stitched the prince’s chest closed.

Six years after the very day the prince threw his body into the battlefield.

The war ended in defeat.

The country fell into ruin, and many of the youth could not return home.

Their living expenses conscripted to the nation, the people were simply sitting on their hands now.

In order to calm the chaos, Prince Sadle, brother to the previous king who died at war, rose to the throne in his place.

By doing so, they were ignoring the prince who had come of age during the war, but there was nobody who opposed the ascension of Prince Sadle.

On the surface, it was because he had acted as proxy to the king during the war and had done all the king’s duties.

In reality, it was because they did not want to serve a sword-crazy monster who had lost his emotions as their king.

The prince, Bertram, did not weep even at the funeral of the previous king. His blue eyes that did not know how to smile were as turbulent as the whirlpools of the winter sea.

Only when he was swinging his sword like a monster at the front lines did they feel any vitality from him.

He was a trigger that reminded the people of the war.

And so, Prince Sadle ends up deciding to separate his troublesome nephew from state affairs for a time being.

The Prince, who’d gained a long, long vacation overnight, thus chooses to….

***

Three years from that time.

In the vast countryside potato field, a stern voice of a woman rang out.

“Anything you want to say before you die!”

“What? Are you telling me to die just because I filched some potatoes?”

The two thieves raised their heads, dumbfounded.

But Anna, the farm manager, did not waver, and continued seriously.

“The potatoes from this field are for the resident villagers to eat. Therefore, by trying to steal potatoes, you tried to kill over a hundred residents.”

“What the? It’s just a few potat—gueh!”

Anna swung a pickaxe in the air.

Green eyes flashed between disheveled blonde hair. This was a murderous temper that did not fit the cute and small image of a countryside lady.

“You looking down on the potatoes, or you looking down on me?”

“S- s- stop! Fine, we’ll give it back!”

The men hastily brought out dirty potatoes from their pockets. But the pickaxe did not back off.

In the end, they jumped up and down in their places to prove that their pockets were empty, then watched her carefully.

“You’re done now, right? Can, can we go now?”

“Not yet. Pay me back for the manure.”

“……What?”

“You need to pay the price for digging up the potato field. So pay me back for the manure, or if you don’t have money, at least poop here before you go.”

At first, the men burst out laughing.

But Anna’s expression was serious, and the men were eventually unable to laugh.

‘This woman, she must be crazy.’

The price of hesitation was big.

Anna lifted up the pickaxe again and pointed at the buckles on the men’s pants.

“Should I take it off for you?”

Of course, the men refused and ran off.

“Aaaaah! She, she’s crazy!”

“Don’t you ever come back you b*stards! Next time, I’ll skin the leather off of you and use it as scarecrows!”

After the two scrambling men disappeared from sight, Anna picked the potatoes up and came down to the field.

It had already been three years since the war had ended in defeat.

The taxes were still heavy, those who had lost their hands or feet had lost their jobs, and many villages were still struggling with the lack of manpower.

Due to that, Anna usually turned a blind eye to petty thieves. She sometimes entrusted them with a few chores and pressed vegetables into their hands as compensation.

But no matter how you looked at it, the men who had come just now had not been simple petty thieves.

‘Those things, they definitely came to our village to find treasure.’

After the war. In the disorderly world, all kinds of peculiar rumors spread about.

They said that a prince addicted to blood was going around to kill citizens, or that missing soldiers had actually been eaten by the enemy, so on and so forth.

The treasure supposedly buried in this village’s public farm was one of those very rumors.

‘It’s a treasure of a field because it farms well, but that must have been reported falsely. You have to be a fool to believe it.’

What should I do if someone digs up the field again next time, kick their butts and bury them into ground? So they can be manure themselves?

Thinking up these joyful imaginations, Anna went down to the village, but…..

Soon, an unpleasant scene spread out before her eyes.

Young people from the village were threatening a seated man… and in front of Anna’s restaurant, at that!

Anna rushed to them and yanked on the sleeve of the young villagers who’d lifted up his fist.

“Why are you fighting in front of our restaurant!”

“Oh, Anna. This clearly suspicious guy was sitting at the front of your restaurant and won’t get up. And when we ask, he only says weird stuff!”

“And so you bring up a fist? Step out for a second! If he’s our customer, let me see him for a bit.”

Still huffing, as if they had not shaken off the excitement yet, they drew back.

And when the threatened man’s silhouette appeared—

Anna momentarily understood what they were feeling.