Please Die, Your Highness - Chapter 41

The lake, located a little distance from the village, looked like a small fortress in itself. Around the lake were only tall trees. The dry, tall trees grew densely together, creating a jade-colored fortress where not a speck of light could penetrate. Long, extended branches formed a canopy, further intensifying the sense of enclosure.

Flickers of sunlight poured through the sparse branches, but even that only managed to make the gloomy lake surface shimmer slightly.

Prince Declan was concentrating on float fishing, holding an ash-wood fishing rod.

Fishing was not his specialty, and even less so his hobby. He preferred to go directly into the water and drive fish into a small net rather than sitting still and waiting for a fish to bite the bait.

Was he about nine years old? When he was roughly that age, his brother, Aidan, took him to the waterfront, saying he would teach him how to fish. Fishing was very boring, regardless of who was teaching it. However, he sometimes thought it wouldn’t be bad. That was because sitting side-by-side with his brother without any conversation felt affectionate in its own way, and he liked that.

Prince Declan was lost in nostalgia, recalling that distant memory when Aidan treated him with nothing but pure affection. The float, made of a cork stopper, quietly drifted, buoyant on the water’s surface.

The lake was quiet. It became even more silent when Fionechta, who was fishing behind him, briefly left his spot, saying he would look around and come back. Perhaps because light did not penetrate well, the area around the lake was quite dim, despite it being midday. The villagers said they generally avoided coming this way. They said the water was cloudy and covered in moss, so it was better to walk a little further to a nearby river.

Prince Declan craned his neck and looked at the water’s surface. It wasn’t clear water, but unidentified algae floated around, making it difficult to gauge the water inside.

“Are you catching anything, Your Highness?”

At the voice from behind him, Prince Declan corrected his posture, which had been slumping like a bored child.

“No, not at all. Why don’t we go in and drive the fish?”

Fionechta chuckled at the suggestion Prince Declan offered, thinking it was quite a clever idea.

“You must absolutely not enter water like this, Your Highness. It’s teeming with leeches. I think fishing is out of the question, so let’s stop.”

“You, yourself, said you were going to catch something, yet you’re empty-handed.”

“It seems even the wild animals don’t show up often in this vicinity. Instead, I saw some edible mushrooms…”

Prince Declan looked at Fionechta with a reluctant face, without putting down the fishing rod. Fionechta ignored his look, opened his old bag, and spread it out as if to show him. Naturally, it was not easy to see from this distance.

Prince Declan finally gave up fishing and stood up with a resigned look. Leaving the fishing rod in its place just in case, he walked toward Fionechta, who was already preparing to build a fire there. The skilled mercenary gathered materials and built a fire even faster than Maeve.

Prince Declan then watched him toss brown mushrooms into the small pot he held. After a few minutes, water drained from the mushrooms, and a savory smell began to emanate.

The mushrooms were delicious. Perhaps they were even tastier than meat. The wild animal meat caught by the mercenaries smelled worse than those raised for slaughter, no matter how well it was prepared. Fionechta pushed some more grilled mushrooms towards Prince Declan. Eating the mushrooms, Prince Declan spoke.

“We’ll depart around tomorrow. Everyone must be tired, so it would be good to rest for one more day. Especially since there was that… incident just before.”

Prince Declan recalled Rory, the mercenary they had chased out of the group before coming to this village. The young mercenary had never been to Prince Declan’s liking from the start. However, the image of him pouring out tears and snot with a broken ankle kept recurring vividly.

Fionechta before him had a face that was far too unbothered for someone who had committed such raw violence. Of course, he must have been accustomed to such things, but to Prince Declan, it was a strange kind of sensation that made him feel somehow even more distant. However, there was a person who watched Rory with an even more expressionless face than Fionechta: the maidservant, Maeve.

Fionechta spoke, as if he understood Prince Declan’s confusion.

“Rory was fundamentally ill-natured from the start. As you wander around, you can meet countless men of that kind. Most are those who were abandoned by their parents, or those who left their families to find a way to live for themselves. As they drift from place to place without the fence of a family, they inevitably meet bad crowds and are easily influenced.”

Prince Declan had not wanted to hear a story that sounded like a conjecture about Rory’s past in this way. It sounded as though it was providing justification for the excessive violence directed toward Rory.

“It’s not that everyone who wanders is ill-natured. I…”