Chapter 10: Until Things Are Resolved
When Corundum told Ruri and the others that he’d arrived in time to save the third prince, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Ruri and Jade had gone back to speak with the doctor, and when the doctor gave up Prince Orio’s name, they’d found it hard to believe. They wanted to think that it was all just a big coincidence; after all, this implied that a child had killed their parent. However, the more the spirits investigated Orio, the more they found proof of his guilt.
The doctor had kept the blood sample taken from the deceased insect researcher in his locked cabinet. He’d said that he kept it more secure than anything else because his research showed how dangerous it was, but upon closer examination, he noticed a very tiny amount missing.
The doctor hadn’t even realized it until Ruri’s group pointed out the possibility of it being stolen. A harsh reprimand from Corundum was in his future for sure. That aside, the question remained: who stole the blood? The prime suspect was Orio given that he’d supported the doctor and had the key to the storage cabinet. The poison didn’t spread through the air, but once even the slightest bit entered the body, it could exert its full, terrifying force.
Jade had collected the blood on the spot. There was no way that he was going to leave a deadly poison in the hands of someone who didn’t even notice a change in the amount. He’d also told the doctor that he would be severely scolded, but whether that would be punishment enough was all up to Corundum. Even if the doctor had been unaware while it happened, someone—the emperor, no less—had still died due to his improper management.
The animals that had been given the blood for research purposes had also been dug up out of the yard and promptly burned. Jade had been outraged and had asked the doctor what he was thinking by burying them in the yard when he knew the infected blood was basically poison. Jade’s aura had been so frightening that even Ruri had shrunk in fear.
The doctor had taken the full brunt of it, turning deathly pale. He probably hadn’t expected this to turn into such a serious matter. It did seem as though he had the best of intentions, researching the infected blood with the hopes that it would aid people one day, but he’d dropped the ball on cleaning up after himself and judging the prince’s character.
For quite some time, Orio had been passionately asking about rare illnesses, their causes, poisons with no antidote, and diseases contagious to humans. The doctor had said that he would proudly share his findings with Orio, and since Orio was a supporter and a young man in search of knowledge, it had never crossed his mind that he shouldn’t tutor the young prince. It was likely that Orio had had designs to assassinate the emperor for quite some time, which was why he’d supported the doctor in the first place.
Orio’s artfulness and cunning had sent shivers rolling down Ruri’s spine. She’d been shocked that he had wanted to kill Adularia that badly.
After Ruri’s group pinned Orio as the culprit, Ruri had asked Kotaro to keep an eye on him. At the same time, they’d told the whole story to Corundum, who had been blindsided by the news. No one could blame him either. It was one thing to be suspicious of his sons’ involvement, but it was another to actually hear that one of them was the culprit. Corundum had figured that if any of them were involved, it would be the third prince, Samadan.
Although Jade had told Corundum that the Reaper contract might be a fake and Samadan himself had denied any involvement, suspicion inevitably fell on him because he was in a power struggle with his biggest adversary, the first prince. In contrast, the fourth prince, Orio, was so timid he barely stood out despite his royal bloodline, so he hadn’t even been on Corundum’s radar.
The news had been a bolt from the blue. At first, Corundum had refused to believe it despite Jade’s explanation, a testament to how upstanding Orio appeared on the surface. They also had no clear-cut evidence as of yet. At the time, they’d only known that there was a tie to the tachyotoxians and that Orio knew about the dangers. It wasn’t like they’d found the poison in Orio’s quarters. That was why Corundum had refused to accept it: he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Also, they didn’t know what Orio’s objectives were, so they needed conclusive proof.
Orio had apparently served Adularia tea quite often in the past, so he had numerous opportunities to poison her. It would have been great if a spirit or someone had seen him poisoning the tea, but there weren’t many spirits in the Beloved-less palace, much less a spirit who conveniently caught the moment. After the first prince fell ill, the soldiers swept the entire palace, but they hadn’t found any suspicious items in Orio’s room.
Although they were blood brothers, the first prince couldn’t manipulate mana, while Orio could, so Orio had his own pocket space. There was a chance that some proof was stored inside there, but that also meant that no one else could touch it.
While everyone pondered how they could retrieve the evidence, Ruri realized something everyone else hadn’t. “Why don’t I enter the pocket space and check the fourth prince’s room?”
“Oh!” gasped the group. They had just remembered that Ruri could access other people’s pocket spaces.
“If that’s what we’re going with, then I’ll be right back!” Ruri said.
“Ruri, even if you find it, all you have to do is confirm that it’s there. You can leave it just where it is. If you take it, then he’ll have a means to weasel out,” Jade asserted.
“Wait,” Pearl interjected. “Ruri, you wouldn’t know what the tachyotoxian-infected blood even looked like, would you?”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t,” Ruri answered, possessing neither medical knowledge nor tachyotoxian knowledge.
“Hey, you, lizard. Give me my dropper and a vial.”
“Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am,” Quartz replied with a wry smile as he pulled out a vial and eyedropper from his pocket space and handed it to Pearl. It seemed that Quartz was Pearl’s personal luggage carrier now.
Pearl then handed the equipment to Ruri and said, “Get a sample of the blood into this vial—any little drop will do—and make sure he doesn’t notice you. But do not touch it with your bare hands. Make sure to use the dropper.”
“Roger that!” Ruri said with a salute before jumping into the pocket space.
As usual, Ruri’s space was cluttered with an assortment of different items. The majority of them she’d inherited from Lydia’s previous contract-bearer, Weidt, the first Dragon King, but there were quite a few things that Lydia had brought over from other people’s rooms. Ruri had thought of organizing the piles, but she always left them as is since she had room to spare. Also, the number of things was ever increasing, so it was difficult to figure out where to even start.
Ruri figured that she would follow in Weidt’s footsteps and dump—no, bestow—these items on Lydia’s next contract-bearer after she died. Her idea was definitely not influenced by the fact that it was a pain in the butt to properly sort through everything—not according to what Ruri told herself to make herself feel better, at least.
“Lydia, are you here~?” Ruri called, and Lydia immediately appeared. “Lydia, I hate to be so abrupt, but I need a little favor.”
“Yes, Water and Wind filled me in on all of the details. You want to see the fourth prince’s space.”
“Wow, that spirit communication ability really comes in handy. I’m glad I can cut straight to the chase. Do you know which pocket space it is?” There were as many spaces as the number of people who’d created them, and Ruri couldn’t pinpoint a specific person’s space among them on her own.
“Tee hee hee, who do you think I am?”
Lydia let out a tiny chuckle and snapped her fingers. As soon as she did, Ruri found herself on the spiral staircase. This was the reverse side of the spatial dimension, a special place that only Lydia and her contract-bearers could enter. Here, there were a multitude of doors that led to other people’s pocket spaces. With another snap of Lydia’s fingers, Ruri was teleported to a glowing door. The glow meant that the owner was still alive, so she was in front of a living person’s room.
“This is the room of the fourth imperial prince?” Ruri asked.
“Yes. It’s just that simple,” Lydia explained.
The wicked thought of entering anyone’s room if she just asked Lydia crossed Ruri’s mind. She could only imagine what the fourth prince would think if he knew that someone was perusing his personal pocket space—a domain that no one should be able to investigate—right under his nose. If it were Ruri, she would point fingers and cry foul, even going as far as to call it deceitful. However, it was a necessary evil in this instance to ensure that there were no further casualties.
Ruri suppressed her guilt and opened the door. The space was so small that it couldn’t even be compared to Ruri’s. Ruri knew that this was a normal size, though, because she would sometimes help Lydia sort through the deceased’s rooms. The size of an individual’s room depended on their mana reserves, which meant that Ruri’s mana reserves were just abnormally massive. Fortunately, the fact that this room was small made Ruri’s job easier.
Orio’s space was filled with many vials containing all sorts of liquid. Though it would’ve been helpful if one of them was clearly labeled “Tachyotoxian Poison,” Ruri had no idea which vial contained the evidence. Seeing as how she was looking for blood, she focused on finding a red liquid, but there were actually several vials of red liquid, and all of them were indistinguishable from one another. She was completely stymied.
Ruri stood in front of the vials and groaned. “Hmm... Hey, Lydia. Do you know which of these has the tachyotoxian-infected blood?”
“I don’t have that direct knowledge on hand myself,” Lydia answered, which made sense considering that she couldn’t leave the world of space. Her only source of information was the spirits on the outside. “Hold on. I’ll check with Water.”
“Okay,” Ruri uttered, waiting patiently as Lydia closed her eyes and remained silent.
Lydia was likely exchanging information with Rin on the outside. While it would have been quicker if Rin or Kotaro had come with her, just as Lydia couldn’t go to the outside, outside spirits couldn’t enter the space. Ruri had no idea why this was, but the notion wasn’t very surprising. If outside spirits could enter, Lydia wouldn’t have been so lonely all this time.
Besides, Ruri had been told that it was the rule. If she complained, it would just make Lydia feel awkward, although Ruri did wonder who came up with such a restriction. If that being existed, she wanted to give them a stern talking to.
After a few moments, Lydia opened her eyes, signifying that she was done communicating.
“Did you find out, Lydia?” Ruri asked.
“Yes, more or less.” Lydia nudged her finger in the direction of the room’s interior, and a vial floated through the air and stopped in front of Ruri. “This should be what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you, Lydia!” Ruri exclaimed, taking the vial. She saw that it had a tiny bit of red liquid within. “It’s not as much as I thought. He’ll find out if I take too much, so I’ll just take a smidgen.”
Pearl had told Ruri to only take a drop, but Ruri felt that even that much would tip the fourth prince off. Carefully removing the top so as to not touch the contents, Ruri used the dropper to collect the blood and squirted it into the vial Pearl had given her. She then had Lydia return the vial of blood to its original spot.
“You seem to be in a rush. Are you leaving already?”
“Sorry, Lydia. When this matter is resolved, I’ll buy some yummy snacks and we can have a nice tea party with Seraphie-san.”
“I’ll look forward to it, then.” Lydia waved goodbye to Ruri.
Ruri waved back and exited the space. A crowd huddled around her, as if they were eagerly awaiting her return.
“How did it go, Ruri?” Jade asked. He was the first to approach her.
Showing off her spoils, Ruri replied, “This was in the fourth prince’s pocket space.” She then handed the vial to Pearl.
“Very well. Wait a second. I’ll check it out,” said Pearl before she left the room. Not long after, she came back with a grim look on her face, saying with certainty that she was holding tachyotoxian-infected blood.
“So it’s proof, then?” asked Ruri.
“Yes, it is. Corundum, do you still refute what you hear?” Jade inquired, sternly staring at Corundum.
Corundum hung his head. “This can’t be...”
“Grieve later. Fulfill your duty now. With Adularia gone, you must.”
“Yes...”
While everyone could sympathize with the disheartened Corundum, it was his job to give the final word.
“I’ll go talk to Roy first,” Corundum said. “I’m sure he will find it hard to believe at first, as I did, but...” He then walked out of the room and farther down the hall until he was out of sight.
As everyone silently stewed in their conflicted emotions, a few of the spirits who’d been trailing Orio came back to the room.
“Um, he put in somethin’ weird!”
“Yeah, weird. It went ‘drip drip’ as it fell.”
Ruri cocked her head in confusion, unable to follow because the spirits hadn’t named who they were talking about. “Who put what in where?”
“Um, that fourth prince guy~!”
“So, like, he was preparing tea in a pot.”
“And then he put some red stuff in it!”
“Do you know what it was?” asked Ruri.
“It was the blood with that bug’s venom you were talking about!”
Tension gripped the room.
“Where is the fourth prince now?”
“Um, let’s see...” the spirit trailed off, possibly corresponding with the other spirits tailing Orio. Times like this were when the spirit’s telepathic communication shone.
“He made tea and he’s on the move.”
“To where?”
“He’s telling the people around him that he’s off to ‘brother’s’ room. I wonder who this brother guy is,” the spirit said in an adorable manner, but Ruri and the others had no time to admire that now.
“Jade-sama.” Ruri turned to face Jade, who had panic written all over his face.
“The first prince can’t accept visitors due to his illness, so the only other person in the palace he could call his brother is the third prince,” Jade surmised. The second prince was away in the neighboring country.
“Don’t tell me he’s trying to poison the third prince as well?” Quartz asked, panic coming through in his voice.
“Finn, hurry and inform Corundum!” Jade ordered with a sense of urgency.
“Sire!” Finn yelped as he scrambled down the hall.
“Let’s go interrupt him!” Ruri cried. She was about to set off, but Jade grabbed her by the arm and stopped her. “Jade-sama?”
“This is actually our chance. He’s basically bringing the evidence to us. We have to leave this to Corundum.”
“I agree with Jade,” Quartz chimed in. “This is a great opportunity to catch him red-handed.”
This left Ruri without any role to play. “Awww, but I’m so curious!” she whined, hugging Kotaro’s fluffy body to calm her overwhelming worries. Pearl, on the other hand, was calm. Ruri respected and expected that from someone with the moniker of queen.
“Fear not,” Pearl said, her lips curled into a proud smile. “Even if he should drink that tea, I still have enough ingredients for the antidote. I’ll make sure to pump it down his throat till he’s cured.”
Her words were extremely reassuring, even though it meant that a certain amount of hell awaited the third prince, Samadan. Whether he was bound for a three-day mandatory tour of the netherworld’s dark depths was all dependent on Corundum making it to him in time.
Ruri, as well as others in the room, sincerely prayed for Corundum to intervene—for Samadan’s sake.
◆ ◆ ◆ ◆
As it turned out, the third prince didn’t have to take a tour through hell after all. Pearl seemed somewhat disappointed, but the less said about that, the better. Orio was apprehended, but he went peacefully, and he honestly answered questions during his interrogation, stating that he’d always been dissatisfied with his older brothers.
Orio had been raised relatively free because he had three prodigy brothers ahead of him. He hadn’t received a strict education like they had. According to Orio, he was worried that their educational plan for him was training him to one day lower himself to the likes of a vassal.
Orio was qualified to be emperor himself, but his eldest brother, Roy, was the closest to gaining the throne, with the third eldest, Samadan, behind him. The second eldest would be a ruler elsewhere even if he didn’t become emperor. Everyone had high hopes for the three brothers.
But where did that leave Orio? No one paid attention to him or had hopes for him, so his title of imperial prince was the only thing he had. The nobles were only interested in Roy and Samadan, although Orio himself was an imperial prince as well. He’d felt as though he was being ignored in the grand scheme of things, and he’d started to wish that his older brothers would just go away. That said, they weren’t going to just conveniently vanish.
That was when Orio met with a former palace doctor who treated the sick for cheap in a small clinic. More importantly, this doctor also researched cures for diseases deemed incurable. Possibly because of his time serving in the palace, he had a vast knowledge of poisons—all sorts, from all sorts of areas. Thinking he could use this to his advantage, Orio had enticed the doctor with his support and asked for his tutelage.
Orio had been looking for a poison known by few and immune to antidotes. That was around the time he’d come across the blood of a man who’d died from the venom of a tachyotoxian insect.
The insect’s venom contained a terrifying toxin that could kill a person with a single drop and that was immune to all antidotes, medicines, and treatments. Orio himself didn’t know anything about the tachyotoxians, but he also didn’t care either. The venom was tasteless and odorless, so he could easily slip the infected blood into tea. It would take a little time for the symptoms to show too, thus making it harder to identify the perpetrator.
All in all, it was the best solution that Orio could find, so he’d stolen a small amount of the blood from the storage cabinet it was kept in. The doctor couldn’t utilize a pocket pace because he didn’t have any mana, so the blood was there for the taking and ripe for Orio to pilfer.
The rest was easy. Orio had put a drop in Adularia’s tea for a few days and made her drink it. From there, it had taken several days before the symptoms started to appear. No one had known that the tea Orio was serving his mother had been poisoned. All that was left was to wait for Adularia to die, and so she did, just as Orio had hoped.
Orio’s next targets were his two elder brothers. He didn’t care which one he took care of first, but since Roy had visited him to check on him after the death of their mother, Orio had used that as his chance to poison him. That was the only reason he’d gone after his eldest brother first—no more, no less. His brothers had assumed that Orio was shocked by his mother’s death and was holing himself up, which was the exact impression that Orio had wanted to give them. He couldn’t be in shock; he was the one who’d done it.
Orio had left clues hinting at the Reapers near his mother’s bedside and in Samadan’s room to confuse people. This had brought suspicion on Samadan, but Orio didn’t think it would keep Samadan from the throne. While Orio intended on ultimately killing both, when he heard of the eldest falling ill, he’d figured that his time was near, so he’d simply set his sights on his next target.
Fortunately, Orio’s perfectly orchestrated crimes all came quickly crumbling down just before the finish line. If it hadn’t been for the combined efforts of Ruri, Quartz, and Pearl, Orio would have likely become emperor, and the truth would have been buried in darkness forever.
Once Corundum told Ruri the details, she shuddered at Orio’s ruthless and callous nature. He held no reservations about murder. Who ever said that he was timid and gentle? He was the total opposite of that.
“Anyway, what is going to happen to Orio?” Ruri asked, curious.
“We cannot let the scandal of his killing the emperor go public,” Corundum replied. “We will give him poison and officially say that he died of an illness.”
“I see...” Orio had assassinated the emperor, so it was only natural that he would be given a punishment deserving of his crime.
“However, that will wait until the second prince arrives back home. We are arranging to bring him back from the neighboring nation as soon as possible,” Corundum explained. He thought it possible that the second prince would want to see his younger brother one last time.
Corundum bowed deeply to Ruri and the others, but he especially praised Pearl, the savior of Roy’s life. “I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Thank you very much for your cooperation.”
Pearl grinned with satisfaction. “It’s fine. This was the first time I used the antidote on a human subject. Served as good research material. I actually wanted at least one more subject, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles, I suppose.”
Corundum grimaced. For her first time curing a live human, she sure hadn’t hesitated to make Roy guzzle down her concoction. What would have happened if she had failed? You could say, in a certain sense, that Pearl was just as ruthless as Orio.
Corundum reproachfully glared at Quartz, the man responsible for bringing Pearl in the first place.
“Well, she healed him, and that’s all that matters, right?” Quartz quickly commented before fleeing the room.
“This has been quite the ordeal, but now that matters are settled, we should get back to the Nation of the Dragon King,” Jade stated, patting Ruri’s head with a relieved look in his eyes.
“Yes, I agree. I have a feeling that Euclase-san will give us grief if we don’t get back home soon,” Ruri added. The chancellor, interim ruler of the nation, was most likely impatiently awaiting Jade’s return.
The party from the Nation of the Dragon King readied their things and left the Imperial Nation not long after. Once they drew near the nation, Quartz headed toward Yadacain in order to drop off Pearl and her ladies-in-waiting. While everyone assumed that he would come right back, Quartz said that he was going to learn how to make the tachyotoxian antidote in case an incident like Seraphie’s ever happened again. His plan was to bring the knowledge back home and pass it on to the doctors in the Nation of the Dragon King. From there, he wanted to share it with the other allied nations and have them proliferate it to other nations as well.
Ruri debated whether it was safe to spread a medicine with such a hellish taste across the world, but considering that was the only way to cure the poisoning, it had to be done. She just hoped that someone, anyone, would come along and improve the recipe.
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