“Hah?”
“Huh?”
The boy said in praise that might as well have been an applause.
“I see, that’s a good idea. If you made me out to be the murderer of the Tenkorius, then it would solve all your problems. You can easily convince them too given the state of this place. Then you can just say that you just happened into us and so decided to dispose of me. It would be very heroic of you too. A member of the royal family, who is responsible for determining the course of their nation, should at least be that black-hearted───」
But of course.
───That’s if you can actually make it happen.
Though he’d praised her with some excitement on his part, the last words he said were conspicuously cold.
Evidently, she’d said what she said merely out of desperation.
Above all, she herself, who had been involved in the battle up to this point, did not believe in the slightest that she could win against him.
But it was precisely because she couldn’t think of anything else that she could say something so outrageous and violent.
“Foolish princess, you are someone in the position of authority, so don’t say the impossible.”
Was it because of the lack of substance, or the lack of weight, or the irresponsibility of her statement that the boy reprimanded her as though she’d gotten on his nerves.
A pair of dark-brown eyes approached her, and on them could be seen more than one kind of anger.
“Huh─────?”
The impact that hit her assaulted her whole body, and for a moment it threatened to knock her out as it sent her flying into the air.
The rags left of her dress armor scattered into pieces as she fell to the ground.
“Princess!!”
“Half-assed wisdom and half-assed noble, that’s why you’re off the mark.”
“Uu, ahh… Gah!?!?”
She somehow managed to break her fall, but the boy’s foot buried itself into her stomach, and she found herself rolling on the ground before crashing into a tree and stopping.
Thanks to the bare minimum defense provided by her simple dress and the magic barrier that she reflexively activated, the impact was mitigated and despite tumbling many times, she suffered no pain.
Regardless, there was no denying the impact that penetrated her entire body preventing her from being able to get up immediately.
“Ah, gu… Uu.. Ahh!”
Then the boy casually stepped on her head.
Neither her face nor the ground sank at first, but it was clear that his foot was gradually pushing down on her from how her face was twisted in pain and how she screamed.
“S-Stop it!!!”
Unable to endure the sight, Kite forced his body to get up despite the pain.
Without bothering to even pick his sword up from the ground, he kicked off the ground with all of his strength, and with just as much strength swung his fist.
The boy coincidentally had his back turned to him, so he thought it was a good opportunity.
“If you’re going to try and take someone by surprise, the first thing you should do is to not scream.”
Despite not looking at him, the boy sent a kick behind at the perfect timing.
For a moment, Kite seemed to see the grim reaper’s scythe headed for his head.
He immediately crossed his arms in response, but that kick smashed him into the ground.
“Ah, gah, gi─────!?!?!?”
“Annoying.”
As his body sank into the ground, pain assaulted his whole body.
Just that one kick had bent both of his arms into the wrong direction.
Then as though to finish the job, the boy stomped on both of his legs to break them.
Already, he was screaming incomprehensibly, but his buried body couldn’t even writhe.
“Shut up.”
Kite was in too much pain to hear that unreasonable request from the person who broke all of his limbs.
However, the boy tapped him on the head with his finger, and suddenly, all of the feeling in his limbs vanished.
He looked up in a daze at the boy looking down on him with a cold face.
“Gyah… H-Huh?”
“I numbed the pain temporarily. I don’t enjoy hearing men scream.”
As the boy said that, he turned to the princess still lying on the ground.
Kite had a bad feeling about that and so desperately screamed.
“P-Please stop already! If what you said is true, then the princess and her maids aren’t related to this!”
The one who killed that which shouldn’t be killed was him.
The only reason these girls were suffering was because they came to save him.
“I’m the one who killed them! So if you’re going to punish someone, punish me! There’s no reason to do something so cruel to everyone, is there!?”
Kite complained that this was too cruel. If he was so strong that he could easily numb someone’s sense, then he should have plenty of ways to seal their movement without resorting to such needless violence.
But the black-haired boy just walked toward the princess.
“No, these people’s sins are in fact graver than yours. After all, you were the one who made him this ignorant, right, princess?”
“Ah…”
The boy grabbed her messy hair and forced her muddied face up.
Her body flinched from the pain, but as though to prove his words true, her eyes swam.
“You wanted him to be stupid, right? So he’d cause a commotion and worsen your reputation.”
“! H-How!?”
‘How did he know that?’, she seemed to say, but that in itself was an admittance of guilt.
Kite sent a questioning gaze to her asking what was going on, but the only thing written on her face was fear of the boy smiling at her.
Just what did this boy know? What was he trying to reveal?
The girl cried as she quietly asked him to stop, but the smile on the boy only grew bigger.
“What are you talking about? What is this about wanting a bad reputation?” Kite asked.
“This girl wanted to renounce her right to the throne due to some circumstances, but the faction supporting her interfered and blocked the legal path to that. So she came up with a plan to bring her trusted maids with her and the hero she summoned and kept ignorant, then used some old custom to selfishly leave the royal palace to go on a grand tour… In other words, she ran away,” the boy said.
“J-Just who are you?”
The boy accused her of suffering from persecution complex and running away, while the princess grew more fearful of him as she came to question how he could know so much.
After all, he spoke even of things that only those who served her closely could know.
Moreover, from the way he spoke, it seemed as though he knew what her circumstances were that led to her decision.
Even though that was a classified matter in the royal court of Earthgant.
Just what was this boy that they happened into?
Perhaps, the boy noticed her fear, for the crescent moon smile on him grew even deeper. What was creepy was that his tone remained the same.
“Then to make doubly sure of her poor reputation, she decided to play the role of a selfish princess everywhere, believing that her notoriety would make people less willing to support her… Of course, that includes the problems caused by the people under her.”
‘You were used,’ the boy seemed to say as he looked at Kite pitifully.
Lilisha neither confirmed nor denied the boy’s words, only averting her eyes, unable to look at him.
If the boy was telling the truth, then that was the reason why Kite was so ignorant.
Kite was speechless, but the boy nonchalantly continued.
“But in the end, that too was just a little girl’s shallow knowledge. How could a princess ignorant of the ways of the world possibly control a brat ignorant of common sense? A foolish child was playing hero with a real sword, but no one bothered to confiscate it from him. Obviously, something like this was bound to happen one day.”
If so, then this was simply the ending preordained.
Though the boy spoke nonchalantly, there was a tinge of dismay mixed in his voice.
He pointed at them and declared their sins.
“You’re trash because you knew that your world’s common sense didn’t apply here and yet you didn’t bother to learn anything,” the boy said to Kite.
“Uu, that’s…” Kite said.
“You’re an idiot because you tried to play the schemer and left the fool on his own, only to end up creating the worst possible trigger,” the boy said to the princess.
“Ah, forgive me, elder sister,” the princess said.
“And you maids are a failure for not admonishing your master,” the boy said to the maids.
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