Chapter 9
One year and eight months?!
Starting the day with suppressants and ending it with suppressants was Kasselard’s most basic routine. He had no confidence he could endure without them.
“Why don’t you use the guiding substitute you used before? There is some discomfort after taking it, but it’s better than having nothing.”
Meds that replaced guiding were divided into guiding substitutes and suppressants. Guiding substitutes were, as the name suggested, potions that replaced guiding itself, while suppressants were closer to forcibly suppressing a Transcendent’s unstable waves.
Kasselard was the type for whom substitutes did not work well either, so he had mainly relied on suppressants.
“Tsk, there’s no helping it. Bring the substitute.”
“Your Highness, you do know that substitutes can also build tolerance, right? If you take more than two bottles a day, it will really become a serious problem later. If even substitutes stop working, it will be truly dangerous.”
“I know already!”
He snapped irritably and urged Bart on. The reason he had stubbornly stuck to suppressants instead of guiding substitutes was to prepare for the worst. When on the verge of going on rampage, suppressants were useless. At that point, only guiding substitutes worked.
‘I snapped back at Her Majesty the Empress like that, but I didn’t expect the time the potions stopped working would come this quickly.’
When the image of Ephinia’s face, looking as if she might burst into tears at any moment, floated into Kasselard’s mind, he hurriedly shook his head and brushed the thought away.
The water had already been spilled, and the words had already been spat out. That woman would now think of him as monstrous, and he could just go on living as he always had.
He was used to pain anyway. If life was nothing but something to endure, then he would endure it.
‘If I just hold on… a Guide who fits me perfectly will appear.’
And she would be his destiny.
* * *
Kasselard tried to keep it hidden, but news reached the Emperor that the new potion he had been taking no longer worked, and that he had returned to the guiding substitute he had used before. The Crown Prince’s health was directly tied to the safety of the imperial family, so this was only natural.
“Foolish brat…”
Since it wasn’t as if there were no Guides at all, the worst-case scenario did not need to be worried about yet. What was troubling right now was the concern that Kasselard’s torrent of verbal abuse might drive Baroness Linier into locking eyes with another Transcendent and running away.
‘At my age, do I really have to meddle in my son’s love life?’
Such a high match rate could be called a blessing from the Goddess. The problem was that the boy stubbornly refused to receive guiding.
‘If he received guiding even once, he’d cling to her for sure… How do I make him accept her?’
He was the Empire’s Crown Prince, the eldest son, an SS-Class Transcendent, and someone praised as beautiful beyond merely handsome. Was doting on him too much, because he was pleasing not only to his own eyes but to everyone else’s, the mistake?
“Your Majesty.”
The Emperor, who had been deep in thought, relaxed his expression when the Empress entered the audience chamber. Since she was his imprinted Guide, he reached for her hand the moment she sat beside him.
“I’ve just returned from sending off Baroness Linier.”
“That must have been awkward. How is she? Does she still feel poorly of Kasselard?”
When Empress Yekaterina glanced around, the Emperor waved his hand, dismissing the attendants from the audience chamber. Only then did the Empress speak.
“She said she’s afraid to guide him because the Crown Prince dislikes her.”
“Hm… Since she was originally a commoner, that’s understandable. Commoners are afraid of the imperial family, aren’t they.”
To commoners, nobles were frightening beings, and the imperial family were exalted beings so great that even stepping on their shadows would be terrifying.
“I don’t understand why Kasselard is being so stubborn.”
“Is it because he envies Duke Lanas? When he was young, he took a great interest in Fleur, after all.”
Though Kasselard would never admit it. Fleur was a B-Class Guide whose match rate with Kasselard was passable. However, it was below average, and with her being several ranks lower than him, guiding was impossible.
She was a young lady of a marquis’s house. After Duke Hylian Lanas, fervently courted her, she became his Guide, then after an engagement, married him and became the duchess.
Because of the large difference in rank, even guiding him took a toll on her stamina, so it was known that she rarely engaged in public activities.
“It’s an absurd desire. Perhaps if the difference were only two ranks… but her match rate barely exceeded 46%, didn’t it? With Hylian, it was as high as 78%.”
With a match rate hovering just over 46%, telling her to guide him would have been unreasonable given the vast difference in rank. In Fleur’s case, even a single guiding would be a risk to her life, and the efficiency would be poor as well.
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