Chapter 17. The New Masked Person
Radel tried to remain calm.
The sensation he felt in his hand was real.
An assassin?
However, nothing was visible before him.
If they had used Illusion Magic, Status Effect Nullification would have activated, but seeing as no notification sound or message appeared, it wasn't magic.
From his past life's experience, Radel knew several ways to deal with monsters with invisibility abilities, in other words, unseen enemies.
One could set off a smoke bomb to spot the parts that differed from the surroundings, or if there was a magic-wielding companion in the party, they could attack the likely location of the enemy with omnidirectional magic.
But right now, he had no smoke bombs, and he didn't know how to use proper magic himself.
Just then, the door to the Treatment Room opened.
“Excuse me, Your Highness.”
Gusto was entering the Treatment Room with a resolute expression, as if he had decided something.
Radel shouted without a second thought.
“Close the door, quickly!”
“?!”
Gusto must have sensed the unusual atmosphere, as he closed the door.
And he even locked it swiftly.
Seeing Gusto do something he hadn't been asked to, Radel could tell he was quick to assess situations.
Radel checked the closed window and locked door with his eyes. Even if the enemy was invisible, they would have to pass through one of these two places to escape.
“What is it?”
Gusto asked Radel.
“There’s someone else besides us in here.”
Hearing Radel’s words, Gusto’s expression grew even more serious. His hand moved to the sword at his waist.
“If that’s true, it is dangerous. Please come this way.”
“Just a moment, Brother.”
Radel thought that the opponent, who still hadn't revealed themselves in this situation, was either quite cautious or perhaps didn't have impure intentions.
If so, where could they be hiding?
Radel’s eyes went to the water pitcher in his hand.
Indeed, it wasn't a mistake.
There was a bloodstain on the corner of the water pitcher!
The moment he saw the blood, something came to Radel’s mind.
The opponent must be injured. In that case…….
“Brother, by any chance, can you cast Heal on this treatment room?”
“On this entire room, you mean?”
“Yes.”
In truth, it was a difficult task even for a high-ranking priest.
It was already difficult to cast healing magic specifically on a person, but to cast healing magic on an entire room?
There was no way just anyone could do that.
However, Gusto hesitated for a moment before nodding his head.
“I will try.”
Tiring.
[Healing Magic is not applied due to Status Effect Nullification.]
Along with the familiar notification sound, the room felt like it brightened for a moment.
Gusto, sensing something within, spoke calmly. There was a clear direction in which the divine power was moving.
“There they are.”
From then on, it was a swift process.
* * *
When the masked person regained consciousness, the situation was already over.
He was tied to a chair, and his mouth was gagged.
‘This can’t be happening!’
This situation was utterly humiliating for the masked person.
It hadn't even been a week since he had mocked his incompetent colleague who had been caught by the surveillance target.
He recalled the words of the colleague who had visited him last night.
‘So you’re going to surveil the 8th Prince?’
He had heard that his colleague was excluded from this mission due to an order to exclude mages from the 8th Prince’s surveillance team.
In the first place, it hadn’t been long since the guy who went for surveillance was caught and humiliated by the target, so there was no way he could be put on a mission so soon.
‘I normally wouldn’t say this, but.’
The expression of his colleague who brought it up was dark.
‘……Be careful.’
At the time, he had wondered what he was supposed to be careful of.
‘Be careful of the water pitcher.’
It was because he thought the fact that he was being warned about a mere water pitcher was ridiculous.
Isn't he a novice prince who just recently manifested his Ability? And he heard that the manifested Ability wasn't even related to combat.
And a water pitcher of all things?
Not a sword, not magic, but a water pitcher?
To the masked person, it was incomprehensible.
‘Could that be the water pitcher?’
Only after being hit did he realize the blunt weapon that struck his head was the water pitcher, but that was a coincidence.
He didn’t think knowing beforehand would have made any difference.
“So you’re awake?”
Radel was sitting in front of the masked person, wiping something. It was that damn water pitcher.
As the masked person glared at the water pitcher, Radel stopped the hand that was wiping the corner of the pitcher.
“Something seems to be bothering you. Are you uncomfortable?”
Wouldn't you be uncomfortable if you were me.
And what's with him asking so calmly when my mouth is gagged.
The masked person didn’t fly into a rage like his incompetent colleague who was caught before him, but the conclusion he reached inwardly about the 8th Prince was the same.
‘That guy’s a psycho.’
The apprentice holy knight handed something to the 8th Prince with an expressionless face.
“Your Highness, here it is.”
“Thank you.”
The 8th Prince naturally examined the object he was handed.
It was an extremely ordinary pen, but the eyes of the masked person, who recognized it, widened.
‘How did he find that?’
That pen was the invisibility artifact he carried with him on missions.
It was such a common item that no one would be able to notice it was an artifact.
“It’s an artifact. How did you find it?”
“It’s a knack I learned when I wandered the streets as a child.”
“Oh, that’s amazing.”
Radel was genuinely impressed.
It was just as Kirio had said.
He said Gusto used to pickpocket on the streets when he was young, and it seemed he had acquired the skill to discover hidden value in things, no matter how shabby they appeared.
Gusto, sensing Radel’s sincerity, was bewildered.
It was because he could feel that Radel's pure admiration, without any regard for his shameful past, was genuine.
“It’s not that amazing. And as a servant of the Supreme Deity… it’s not right either.”
“But I like it? This is also a talent given by the Supreme Deity, so you just need to use it for good. Just like now.”
Why let such a good ability go to waste?
Radel thought that the next time he became friendlier with Gusto, he should go to an antique shop or something with him. It seemed like he could score some good items for a cheap price.
Gusto felt as if he had been struck.
He had entered the temple, received education, and even became an apprentice holy knight, but the past that followed Gusto simply wouldn’t be erased.
There were bishops who refused to acknowledge Gusto, who came from the streets, to the very end, and the priests of noble birth subtly distanced themselves from him.
He felt like he now understood why Kirio had said it was okay to trust the 8th Prince.
Tiring.
[A part of the quest’s condition has been fulfilled.]
Radel checked the status window.
Condition: Gusto Zebro’s deep impression(3/5)
‘I don’t know how it happened, but this is good.’
In any case, he earned Gusto’s impression, and he learned that artifacts are not affected by Status Effect Nullification. It was a decent harvest.
Radel observed the masked person’s reaction and continued the interrogation.
“What was the reason you were lying in wait?”
The masked person did not react at all to Radel’s question.
He was a formidable opponent.
He thought of Armandy, who would answer with his entire being at just a single word from Radel.
He missed how desperately Armandy had reacted.
Those were the good times.
Radel muttered to himself without realizing it.
“Armandy was such an honest and decent person.”
“?!”
The masked person failed to maintain his composure.
To think the name of his incompetent magician colleague would come out of the 8th Prince’s mouth!
Seeing the masked person flinch in surprise, it seemed certain that he was an agent from the Ability Management Bureau, just as Radel had expected.
Radel wondered if there was any need to drag this out longer. They were here to surveil a royal family member anyway, and since magic didn’t work like last time, hadn’t they just changed their method?
“You seem to be close with Armandy?”
Radel asked with a smile.
“Doesn’t Armandy talk about me? I feel like he would have.”
Seeing the 8th Prince speak as if he were talking about a close friend, the masked person was flabbergasted.
What was even more maddening was the fact that Armandy had, in fact, talked about the 8th Prince.
To get caught like this even after heeding his warning. Now he could no longer curse Armandy for being an incompetent fool.
The masked person was from an assassin’s guild.
As the successor of the now-defunct assassin guild, he had received training for various kinds of assassination since he was a child.
From leaving no trace, ambushing, surprise attacks, tracking, to using hidden weapons, the assassination techniques he could use numbered in the hundreds.
And yet, not an assassination, but a simple surveillance mission like this!
An easy mission of just watching a young, novice prince!
It was bitterly painful that he had failed just because he let his guard down for a moment.
It already seemed like the 8th Prince knew what organization he belonged to.
Now, he too would be tied up with ropes and dragged to the Ability Management Bureau like Armandy, right? Then it was obvious that even Armandy would laugh at his state and point fingers.
It was horrifying.
More than anything else, that was the most horrifying thing.
It was then.
A sweet proposal reached the masked person who had fallen into a swamp of despair.
“Since we all know each other anyway, you just need to make a choice. Right?”
“……?”
Looking back later, he shouldn’t have taken the 8th Prince’s hand then.
“First is to go to headquarters with me amicably and negotiate a prisoner’s ransom.”
The masked person inwardly thought of the humiliation Armandy had endured. His body trembled without him realizing it.
“Second is to pay me a ransom and we’ll act like this never happened. What do you say?”
It was an absurd suggestion.
Covering up a mission failure was something a secret agent must never do.
However, in his mind, the image of Armandy’s swollen, bloated face, the pointing fingers of his colleagues, and finally, the sight of that damn Armandy clutching his stomach and laughing crazily at him, surfaced.
‘I knew you’d fail! There’s no way a nobody from a defunct assassin’s guild like you could do what even this great, true magician failed at!’
It was humiliating just to imagine.
“I’ll keep it an absolute secret.”
He shouldn't have given in.
But in the end, he knelt before his fear.
* * *
Gusto was watching this entire negotiation process from Radel’s side.
Radel had captured the invisible assassin with his wits, and now he was calmly threatening him.
‘Is he accustomed to assassination?’
There was no one who didn’t know that the 8th Prince had been attacked a month ago.
He also recalled what Kirio, who had come looking for him just now, had said. Something about how Heal stopped working after he manifested his Ability.
It was the moment he understood what Radel had said when he collapsed in the prayer room.
The words not to waste divine power.
That he would be fine after some rest.
Kirio had subtly added.
He is a lonely person. For the Prince had no one of his own in the Imperial Palace. But he is a strong person.
Perhaps because he had heard those words, to Gusto’s eyes, Radel’s composed appearance seemed like he was somehow enduring the situation.
A person who is detached in the face of death, and kind even before the one who tried to kill him.
A person who remains good without a care, even when the world is not on his side.
Gusto found himself wanting to trust that prince.
He wanted to trust him just as much as he had wanted to believe the royal family was the god’s blessing in his childhood.
Gusto’s eyes wavered.