I Became the First Prince

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“Reveal yourself.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

Gwain’s tone and expression were very familiar to me.

“Eus?”

Upon my question, Gwain – or Eus, the Death Knight puppeteering Gwain – grew stiff.
He looked at me as he shut his mouth and turned his head to his companions.
With him was a man with slitted eyes and a man who looked at me with an awkward face.

“Ekion and Edar.
I told you not to do this.”

As I spoke, their distinctive thought waves began to flow in a frenzy.
I listened in on their telepathic exchange.

‘What is he talking about? Did I say that the meat is good?’

‘It’s frustrating – it’s frustrating.’

The ghost-stories were real enough.
I continued to feel their thoughts flow through my mind.

‘Should we jump?’

‘I think it would be better to just pretend that we don’t know until the end.’

‘Or maybe we can beat him, and then run away?’

‘I’ve already considered everything, and your plan means nothing.
It is impossible to subdue him – consider his actions and high level that we saw that night.’

‘There is no sword at his hip.
And here, we have a knife.’

‘A knife for meat, yes, but it is no sword.’

Their absurd musings flowed through my mind as if it had entered through my ears.
I finally cried out, making it clear that if they tried something, they would lose by it.

“Whoever tries to beat me will get thrashed in turn.”

‘Has he heard us?’

‘I think he’s heard us.’

‘You’re correct, so shut up!’

The thoughts exchanged by the three Ekyon brothers suddenly ceased.
As I saw all three men look at me with awkward faces, I brought my hand to my forehead.

Now I remember.

The three Ekyon brothers had reached levels beyond extraordinary.
They had been among the best Royal Knights, as well as being the most promising where prospective talent was concerned.
They had been the youngest Royal Knights, ever.

When the three brothers had died on Mount Seori, Ekion was twenty, Eus was nineteen, and Eidar was eighteen.

Apart from their skill, they were surely of an age to cause trouble.

“Okay.
I know you were all quite bold back then,” I said as I recalled the past.

Gwain rolled his eyeballs.

“Eus, it is obvious that you were inciting your brothers,” I continued.

In the past, the main fire-stoker had been Eus, the ever-cheerful second son.

“No,” was all that Eus said.

I kept to my own thoughts as I heard him speak.
These were loyal knights, but they acted like feral dogs with fleshy bones.

I wrapped my head around the possible accidents that could flow from these youths’ brazen poltergeisting.

* * *

“It is unfair.
It’s because I can’t sleep quietly these days,” Gwain, that is Eus wearing Gwain’s body, made his excuse.
He said that he could not stand his lack of a body.
He wanted to enjoy things that could only be enjoyed by those with corporeal forms.

“Is that all you want to do? Eat?” I asked.

“For some reason, I can’t resist my appetite.
Even if you think it’s funny, it’s a serious problem for us.”

Contrary to Eus’s words, I did not consider their desires to be ridiculous at all.
I understood it all.
When I had gained my human body, the first thing I enjoyed was food.
At that time, I thought it was enough to be able to eat as a human, so great was the pleasure.

Although they could not fully remember it, having been undead for so long, their appetites were still hale and hearty, as mine had been when I awoke in Adrian.

It wasn’t that they were completely claiming these bodies, nor were they extorting the lives of others.

I wasn’t even that they were filling someone’s stomach by stealing their body.

It was just a brief stroll into the night while the body’s owner was unconscious.

“You must avoid harm to the owner of the body.
You must have self-control,” I told them.

“I bet I haven’t done anything that hurts this body.”

“Yes.
I feel rather proud, because our energy would weaken if we did not do this.”

“But do you truly understand?” I demanded.

There was nothing to understand.
How could I blame them if I was walking around in another’s body? Even if they didn’t understand, would they be careful, as I had demanded?

I shook my head.
No way.

So, I offered the troublemakers and appropriate compromise.

“An hour each day.
However, no one must know.”

I laughed as they so eagerly nodded.

“By the way, I respect you all,” I stated.

“For now, I have an identity,” came Eus’s quick reply.

“That’s good, but behave, and be quiet.”

At my words, Eus, the current Gwain, said in a subtle tone, “And if our existence benefits them as well, no one is hurt.”

‘There is unusable mana scattered throughout my new friend’s body.
It is the first time that I see such a thing, with the fragments distributed all over the body.
It should be quite painful for this body to channel mana.’

‘It may not be possible in a short time, but if you work hard at it for a long time, you will not feel pain every time that you leave.
And if you’re lucky, you can finally absorb all that energy.’

‘Wouldn’t that be enough of a reward for using their bodies?’

The mindless thoughts of the three brothers made me consider things seriously.
I figured that I knew what mana fragments they were talking about.
It was evidently the remains of the mana rings that had been shattered due to the original owner of my own body.

In other words, the energy of the mana rings had exploded into the bodies of Gwain and the candidates.
I looked at the three Ekyon brothers.

‘But it is a big mistake to use the flesh of the living against their will.
I will be self-respecting and-‘

“No,” I said as I cut off Ekion and his guilty telepathic musings.
“It has nothing to do with being self-respecting.
You just have to cross that line.
Do what you have to do,” I said as I watched the three Ekyon brothers, and then added, “and it would be better if you passed into others as well and absorbed the fragments of mana spread in their bodies.”

It seemed that the ruined knights, the betrayed knights, could be healed in order to reach their previous level faster than I had ever thought.

Laughter flowed from my lungs.

It was not my mistake, my betrayal, but it had become the karma that I had to bear in the end.
And here was a way to somewhat balance that karma.
Still, it might not make the knights smile, and I would never be able to compensate them for the time that they had spent as broken men.

“Are you really closing your eyes?” Eus asked me with some curiosity.

“I’ll pretend I don’t know from now on,” I told myself.

It was not my body that had sinned, so the karma wasn’t truly harming me.

There existed no reason to miss such a golden opportunity.

* * *

Three more days passed after I met with the Ekyon brothers, who now roamed every night.

After finishing my preparations for leaving the castle, I headed to the capital with only a few knights in my retinue.

The war of winter was won, and I had passed the king’s test.
All that remained was to finish the business that I had started, and for so long put off.

My horse ran on without pause.
We finally arrived at the capital, and I immediately went to the king.

“I came to receive the prize you had promised me.”