Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume4 Chapter1 (section)

=== Part 2 ===

"What on earth where you thinking!"

The group of people she was chasing through Apta recognised the figure of the princess who was holding up the hem of her skirt in order to rush towards them.

Held up between Shique and Gowen, the prince, who had been leaning against the wall to walk, looked as though he was hearing something incredibly annoying.

" What do you mean, 'what'?"

He didn't stop walking. She stomped towards him.

"I am asking if this time again, there was a deeper meaning to your actions. Up until now, no matter how foolish your behaviour appeared, you have always a secret reason that I couldn't begin to imagine."

"The fact is, His Highness acted that way because he was drunk."

Although Shique tone was placatory, his words had the opposite effect on Vileena. Her doe-like eyes widened even further.

"He did it because he was drunk? Hmm, is that so? In that case, let me change the question: becoming so drunk that you couldn't tell right from wrong and attacked a retainer with a sword, why on earth did you do it?"

"I was drunk. Because of the wine."

Gil grumbled in a thick voice. He sounded like a typical drunkard. Feeling even more incensed, Vileena started to draw closer. Just as Shique hunched his shoulders as though preparing himself for a thunderbolt, Vileena's furious expression suddenly crumbled.

Because she had remembered.

The prince's appearance, looking exactly like he was grovelling on his knees as he sobbed. Perhaps getting himself dead drunk also had something to do with that; as that thought occurred to her, Vileena lost the energy to be angry.


Entering the room that had been allocated to him in the barracks, Gil - or rather, Orba, threw himself on the bed. Gowen was the first to open his mouth.

"What happened?" He asked Orba, who was moaning softly. Shique turned towards Dinn, the page who had been awaiting the prince's return, and sent him back out saying "It's fine for today", then, having driven away the soldiers standing guard with a few glib words, he closed the door.

"Nothing happened."

"Orba", Gowen said in a low voice. Orba, who was currently as red in the face as Gowen was tanned, gave him a broad grin.

"Oh, right now, you've gone back to your slave overseer face. When they got up in the morning, everyone always knew what kind of mood you were in from the expression on your face."

"Is that right? Then I'll say this: right now, my mood's the worst." Gowen glared down at Orba who was burying himself in his pillow. "Destroying everything you've risked your life to protect up until now by going off and drowning yourself in alcohol is something not even a kid would do. This isn't like your usual calm self. You should be grateful to Pashir; if he hadn't stopped you, you'd have caused your own downfall."

"You're being too serious, Gramps."

"Orba!" Gowen barked angrily. He was raising his thick arms when Shique hurriedly stopped him.

"Now, now now, Gowen. Orba is constantly having to steel himself, so he must be exhausted. Suddenly going from being a sword-slave to the country's crown prince; given the circumstances, it's fine if he sometimes indulges in alcohol, right?"

"It's not." Gowen's breathing was ragged. "Orba, you said it yourself, didn't you? Making you a body-double was probably something Fedom did on his own. If anyone else in Mephius discovers you real identity, you'll be sent straight to the guillotine. Even you can't be ready for that. And also, if your real identity is discovered, we'll also be suspected of being conspirators and our lives will be forfeit. It's not just your problem if your neck gets sliced."

Orba stopped smirking and now lay facing upwards on the bed. Realising it, he turned over again so that his back was towards Gowen and Shique.
"Orba", Gowen continued to press him for a response when he heard in a voice that was almost a whisper:

"There's no more reason to continue being the prince."

Gowen suddenly stopped pacing around. He exchanged a glance with Shique. 

"There's no reason to let him live." Orba's back was shaking and his words tumbled out unevenly. "My brother died here. He abandoned him. Alice and my mother too, they were probably killed. Because of him. He set fire to villages from his own country of Mephius with his own hands!"

Just a short while ago, Orba had seemed in high spirits from the wine, but now he did a complete turnaround, shouting then immediately after sniffling.

"This 'he' you're talking about...", began Shique. Gowen continued,

"Don't tell me you're talking about that general you attacked with a sword. If I remember correctly, he's called Oubary, right? What did that man do? Had you met him, before you became the prince?"

Even as Gowen was still asking those questions, a possible explanation for all that Orba had just said dawned on him. He already knew that Oubary Bilan was the general previously in charge of defending Apta. Since Orba's brother had died here, could it mean that he had been a soldier stationed at the fortress?

"You say... That he set fire to a Mephian village? Orba, it can't be", as though realising something, Shique raised his voice, "it can't be that you're planning to get revenge on him?"

Orba, his back still turned, didn't answer.

Which also meant that he didn't deny it. Shique gave a large gulp while next to him, Gowen sighed deeply. Up until then, Orba had always been somewhat mysterious. He had a side to him that was very cool-headed, but also he also had a side to him that would see his emotions suddenly burst out. From an outside perspective, the balance maintained between those two conflicting halves looked precarious. Because it was quite possible that at any moment, his emotions might overflow and destroy Orba's fragmented personality.

''Is that moment going to be now?''

Two years ago – no, it was probably more like three years now, at the time they first met, he had thought that this was a guy he couldn't take his eyes off. It wasn’t just the iron mask, his heart also wore a mask, so it there was no way to grasp his real intentions. Yet now, as he stifled his weeping, Orba's back could not have been more defenceless. The man who boasted of being undefeated with a sword was nowhere to be seen, nor was there any trace of the man whose enemies fell into the traps of his all-encompassing strategies. The shape of that back was just that of a young boy's.

However, Gowen deliberately kept his tone strict,

"Revenge, huh? If you say your family was killed, then sure, it's not something you can just forgive. But here and now, if you let revenge take priority, you'll lose everything. Everything you've obtained by somehow surviving certain death, you'll…"

"Everything, huh? This 'everything', what is it?" Orba screamed in an almost hoarse voice. "I've already lost everything. What else is there? My life? Then I'll give my life. If in exchange he gets to taste the anguish of Hell, I'll give it any time!"

"You have duties to fulfil, Orba. You think that anything is fine if you're tired of messing around with the position of crown prince? But that position comes with responsibilities. Whether you want them or not. Give me one good reason why you should just do as you please."

"..."

It was the first time that Shique had seen Gowen be so talkative while admonishing someone.

From the time when he had been an overseer of slaves, he had never been a man to become deeply involved in other people's s lives. He would teach them swordsmanship, and he would teach preparedness and the tricks to pull through. However, he never showed anything like concern for other people's circumstances. It was a world were out of a hundred sword slaves that he trained, he could never know if even one of them would still be alive a year later. Learning about each and every one of them beyond what was needed for the job wasn't possible.

It had barely been about half a year since Orba had become the crown prince. During that time, the bewildering change of situation hadn't only affected him; which was to say that Orba hadn't been the only one to change.

That was why,

"That's right, Orba." Shique also tried to reason with Orba who was in such a state. "Our situation aside, you promised Princess Vileena reinforcements for Garbera, didn't you? If you kill Oubary here, you definitely won't be able to keep that promise. Since general Oubary is currently staying in Apta, there is no risk that you'll lose your chance to act. If you want, as Imperial Guards, we can help you keep an eye on him. It will fit right in with performing our usual duties."

Orba didn't say anything.


When the two of them left, utter silence filled the room. On the bed, Orba lay completely still.

Right after returning from Taúlia, Orba had spoken with the master blacksmith Sodan and learned of his brother's death. He had long realised that there was no possible way his brother could still be alive, but somehow he had still clung to hope – no, it couldn't even be called hope, more like illusions.

Even if he himself was living through days of hell, as long as those he had been separated from, his brother, his mother, Alice and the others were alive somewhere, then maybe, before he knew it, there might suddenly come a day when they might meet again. However, when he formally heard the truth about his brother from Sodan, the fragile illusions that Orba had held within shattered. It wasn't just his brother: Alice, his mother, and everyone he had known before - all his illusions crumbled as he was made to realise from the bottom of his heart that none of them were anywhere in this world anymore.

He had wept. He had wept until his tears dried up, leaving way to burning emotions that raged from within him. He thought of slicing Oubary Bilan's neck. Or perhaps, when Oubary himself was within the fortress, Orba should face him with real intent to kill and without worrying about the consequences.

However, Oubary hadn't yet arrived at Apta. Orba's violent anguish was left with no target. Returning to his room, and without listening to Dinn's advice that he stop, he gulped down wine. One cup, two cups; as he got through them, Orba forgot his own limits. In truth, he didn't feel the least bit drunk. Yet when, after the sun had set, he heard that Oubary had arrived, he had found it difficult just to get up from his chair. After that, the events in the hall had occurred.

''Tsk.''

The alcohol he wasn't used to was starting to make him feel sick. He swallowed his own saliva several times and twisted his body left and right as he couldn't find a comfortable position. Under the weight of the accumulated fatigue from the battle at Apta to his visit to Taúlia, his body cried out for sleep.

"Brother..."

That word fell from rough, dry lips.


His brother had left to go beg for work as a merchant's assistant here in Apta, the fortress town nearest their village. Two or three times a month, he would take a holiday and return to his family. To Orba, for whom the sky and ground of the narrow gorge they lived in was everything, the stories he would listen to about life in the town were like something from a different world. Up until then, Orba hadn't known of the existence of ether-powered airships that flew through the sky, nor had he known of the existence of the circular arenas in which games were held where slaves competed against each other. Though apparently for those slaves, winning the right to live one more day was enough of a reward, Orba had insisted that "If I became a slave, I'd earn money!", which made his brother blink. In a village as rural as the one Orba lived in, there was also no opportunity to meet people from the slave class.

Orba's outlook had been broadened by the tales of his brother Roan's travels and by the many books he brought home. His brother had also been the one to teach him how to read and write. Orba became engrossed in what was written in those books. Illustrated stories for children; books about popular games; books which wrote of the time mankind had left the Old World; books that told of the ancient king Zodias and of his miraculous invention of magic; and, best of all, the many historical tales of heroes.

He would lose himself in reading, then be struck with despair since, after all, such tales would never happen to someone like him. But maybe, someday - if he could break away from that narrow village and step into the wide world - he held the faint hope that he too might live in that world of legends. He wanted to gaze upon the endless blue sea; he wanted to experience for himself the radiance of thickly piled snow in winter; to find out what kind of place the Golden Palace, said to be a nest of intrigue, really was.

Orba thought that his brother - who would open books one by one and also eagerly explain this and that to him - was like him. Since in town his brother had become familiar with the world that he himself didn't know, and since his brother was so much better than him at cleverly dealing with things, since he had always been ahead of him, Orba's young mind thought that his brother must have already set foot in the world that Orba only knew from books.


Within a murky sleep, Orba was dreaming.

In Orba's most vivid childhood memory of his brother, they were sitting side-by-side outside the barn. Above them, the stars were twinkling.

''This is...''

It was back in that time; just a few days before his brother had been drafted to Apta. Orba had been scolded by his mother after getting into a fight with Doug from the neighbouring village, and his brother had come to talk with him.

"Nobody knows what kind of person they truly are."

After he said that, his brother looked up at the sky that was bathed in the pale moonlight. For as long as he lived, Orba would never forget those words his brother had spoken then.

"What are you doing?" At that point, Alice also joined in. She was their childhood friend who lived in the house across from theirs. As she was three years older than Orba, in age she was exactly halfway between Roan and him. Before they knew it, they were talking about their memories. How once, when someone from the village claimed to have seen a wild dragon, the three of them had gone to the place where it had been sighted. However, the path through the ravine was complicated and they got completely lost. Finally, dragging their feet that seemed to have turned to lead, they made it back to the village but as it was already two hours after sunset, they were harshly scolded by their parents.

"Anyway, since Mother told me off for dragging Big Bro along, he didn't get blamed at all. I got scolded in his place."

"But isn't that pretty much what happened?" Alice pursed her lips. "After all, the one who started everything and who was the first to brag that 'I've seen a dragon' was no one other than you, Orba!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Afterwards, when I asked the other kids about it, they all said that they hadn't heard that rumour. Now that I think about it, it must have been you, Orba."

"You're wrong! It was that Doug..."

"However it was, it was fun," Roan said. As he gazed up at the stars which seemed about to rain down, a faint smile appeared on his lips. The other two fell silent.

"Yesterday, I suddenly thought about it. Going by my memories, it was when we were walking through that ravine. I remembered it unexpectedly. In the end, after Alice said that we should retrace our steps, we struggled along for about three hours and finally reached that place which was like a plain filled with boulders. The wind was really strong there; yeah, if it was there, then there might be dragons – and not the kind of dragons that are selectively bred by humans or that have been domesticated, the real thing, from when they were called Dragon Gods, with intelligence and wings... no, it wouldn't be strange to find real dragons there, ones that could recite magic spells – is what I thought."

"Pff, that's really far-fetched. You're definitely brothers. I was thinking that you weren't really alike, but in that one area, you're exactly the same. Honestly, Orba still believes that he'll rise up in the world through strength. A commoner obtaining a country with nothing but one sword: what fairy-tale from what era is it that you believe in?"

Alice continued to tease him in that vein until Orba bitterly huffed: "Well, my bad." As he was saying that, Alice's face as she stared intently at his brother seemed somewhat lonely.

"It's not like that." His brother shook his head a little bashfully. "Even if for adults that was just a thee-hour walk, for us when we were children, that was a great adventure. Not being able to see your destination and having my heart beat fast just from that, I could really believe that once we got there, things would be different and that a life where every day was strange and amazing could be waiting for us."
To Orba, it felt like his brother's words stabbed at his chest but he didn't know why.

After that, they started reminiscing again; when Alice poked fun at Orba, Roan gently rebuked her, they went over each of their memories in detail and laughed again.

And that was the last of the time he ever spent with his brother.


When Orba slowly got up, it wasn't yet daybreak.

The effects of the alcohol were wearing off. With only a few hours sleep, his young body had shaken off its fatigue. He grabbed the pitcher that was by his pillow and poured water down his parched throat, emptying the pitcher in one gulp.

Outside his window, the hazy moonlight was shining. For some reason, as Orba gazed up towards it, a single tear fell from the corner of his eye.
He glanced casually towards his desk and saw that Dinn had piled a collection of documents as high as a mountain on top of it. Before leaving for Taúlia, he had requested that they be prepared. Within should be contained information about the Principality of Ende. Thinking ahead, it seemed that avoiding trouble with Ende was impossible. And so, he had stocked up on information, including intelligence on Ende's two successors.

''But that's also no longer...''

It probably wasn't something he would make use of. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, Orba fell backwards. The bed bounced beneath him.

''I no longer have anything to do with the crown prince and all that.''

The ceiling he looked up at was much lower than that of his chambers in Solon. That was because since it was originally a room in the barracks, it wasn't all that large. Even so, compared to his circumstances when was a slave, this could be called the height of comfort.

He would kill Oubary. Which meant that he would lose everything from his current environment. Exactly as Gowen had said. But Orba had already lost everything he had wanted to obtain. What need did he have to fear anymore? And yet...

"You have duties to fulfil."

Gowen's words swept through his mind. And with it, a stabbing pain. Maybe because of the wine, or maybe because of the problems that had followed one after another, his head hurt as though it were being split apart.

''I'll kill him. Kill him. Kill him...

Duties. Duties. Duties...''

Orba's eyelids closed once more. There was no strength left in his body, nor in his heart. He no longer knew what his real self wanted. Even though Orba longed to kill Oubary, Gil clamoured incessantly not to do it.

''I,''

It wasn't just his head, the fever coursed all the way to his back. The brand that had been seared into it burned with the fire of his deep resentment.

''I, who am I?''

No matter how many times that cry was repeated within his heart, he felt as though the only thing to reach his ears was a loud echo.