3
Eight days later, two in the afternoon.
He was at the usual clearing by the dead end at the time Yunmelngen had indicated.
“…He’s so late.”
However, Yunmelngen never came. Realizing he couldn’t be late again, Crossweil had come thirty minutes early and had even wondered whether he had gotten the time right as he nervously waited. But the meeting time had long passed.
“Is this payback for last time?” he asked out loud. “Seriously…”
The comm rang. A light melody came from the device.
“Hey there.”
It was Yunmelngen’s voice.
His usual levity was missing, however. In fact, it seemed weak and more of a hoarse whisper than anything.
“You sound like it’s the end of the world or something,” Crossweil remarked.
“We caught a cold…this sore throat has ruined our voice.”
The prince cleared his throat.
“It seems we caught one from being in the rain while waiting for a certain someone.”
“…”
Right…
As soon as the prince mentioned a cold, Crossweil pieced the puzzle together.
“I’m sorry about earlier. So, what would you like to do? Do you want me to buy something and bring it to you?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Hey! Wait, that was a joke!”
“We will invite you to the Castle Tower Seat as a guest.”
“I said wait!”
The Castle Tower Seat was, of course, the residence of the Lord himself. And he, a mere commoner, was supposed to enter that domain? He was also wearing a plain shirt that day. He would surely be stopped at the gate by the guards, and that would be that.
“We will send you information for a secret route right now.”
The comm rang again. A map with the Lord’s residence at its center appeared on the screen. It was even marked with a blue line that led him from his current location to the building.
“……Hm? But this doesn’t lead to the Castle Tower Seat?” Crossweil asked.
Instead, it led to the low hills right behind the residence.
“This is how we normally return.”
“But aren’t you there right now?”
“It is a secret path. Haven’t you learned about it in history class? Every head of state prepares an emergency escape route in every era, just in case the unthinkable happens.”
“I know that much.”
“The hills have a hidden passage that connects to the Castle Tower Seat.”
“Wait. That sounds like something you definitely shouldn’t be telling me!”
There was no question this was a national secret. If anyone found out that the Crown Prince had leaked the Lord’s residence’s secret escape route, it would be a scandal. And he would be in danger for even knowing about it.
“We are just a child. If we let a secret slip, who’s to chide us, considering we’re a minor.”
“…That’s no excuse.”
“But do be careful. We’ll have a huge problem on our hands if you get caught.”
“I genuinely hope that this secret route thing isn’t real,” Crossweil answered with reluctance and started walking toward his destination.
It took him about thirty minutes.
“…It was seriously real?” Crossweil said in a stupor.
The hill looked down upon the capital and overlooked the reddish-brown Castle Tower Seat.
There was a hidden passageway.
He was in the woods about fifty meters behind the stone monument that commemorated the hill.
When he thrust his hand between a giant pile of boulders, his fingertips were met with a switch, cool to the touch. The moment he pressed it, the space between the boulders opened up several centimeters and created a hole just large enough for a single person to pass through.
“Is the coast clear?”
“Yeah, there were some people on top of the hill, but nobody was wandering toward the woods.”
“Then enter. Once you’re inside, flip the switch and the door will close.”
“…Okay.”
One mystery down.
He’d wondered how Yunmelngen was frequently able to slip away from home. It seemed the prince had been giving his guards the slip by using the secret route.
“I’m still not so sure you should have told me about this, though…”
The passage descended underground. It had likely been made decades ago. The path was narrow and filled with the smell of dust and mildew.
He headed down the hill toward the area beneath the Lord’s residence. From there, he headed up a set of spiral stairs and hesitantly opened the door to the emergency exit.
It led to a dazzling inner palace decorated with stained glass.
“What the… Am I really inside Castle Tower Seat?”
He hadn’t been caught by the guards or seen on any security cameras. A regular commoner like himself had snuck right in. It would be a catastrophe if any unsavory characters discovered the route.
“Hope I never sleep talk or anything…”
A gigantic door decorated in a gold design towered in front of him.
“Are you here?”
“I’m on the fifth floor of this super-decked-out building and in front of a super-fancy door,” Crossweil answered. “I’m kind of worried that guards might storm in at any second.”
“Then I’m going to open it. Come inside once it is.”
Creak…
The mechanical door opened with an imposing sound.
A lit chandelier hung from the ceiling and an expensive-looking custom carpet was at his feet. Paintings reminiscent of the ages lined the walls. Even the view made him feel as if he was in the penthouse of a suite in a hotel.
“I feel like your furniture’s worth a thousand or ten thousand times more than ours…”
“Admire the furniture all you want, but isn’t it customary to start with a greeting for the person you’re visiting?”
The canopied bed was surrounded by a pearly lace curtain. Yunmelngen weakly motioned for him to approach while still lying down.
“…Hello,” the prince said.
“You don’t look like you’re doing so hot. Oh, I bought this in town. It’s pudding. Have some.”
“That’s pretty thoughtful of you, Crow. We are not sure whether we will enjoy it, but that aside…ack…” The prince coughed right as he smiled.
“Are you really sure you’re okay?”
“We are much better compared to before, though it may not seem that way. Our body was never particularly hardy. We are as sickly and ephemeral as a flower…ahh, we hope to say goodbye to this way of life soon.”
“Hm?”
Something felt off. What did the prince mean about saying goodbye to life?
“Soon, the world as we know it will be transformed.” As Yunmelngen lay recumbent, he looked up at the canopy of the bed.
“Humans will soon obtain a new form of energy,” he continued. “There is even a chance that it will heal our frail constitution. I’m sure you must be looking forward to it, too, Crow.”
“…”
What was the prince talking about?
He had known Yunmelngen was eccentric since they day they’d met, but this was the first time he hadn’t been able to follow the prince’s words in the slightest.
“Sorry, but I’m not sure what you mean,” Crossweil said.
“You’re all excavating it, aren’t you? The energy that lies at the deepest point in the planet may bring us miracles yet.”
He was digging for that?
…An energy sleeping at the deepest point in the planet? What’s that even supposed to mean?
…We’re just mining metal veins. Just iron ore and rare metals.
However…
The excavation site was called the Planet’s Navel, and not a single soul had seen iron ore being extracted from the place.
“I think we’re talking about entirely different things here. We’ve just been mining for iron ore over at the site.”
“What?”
“At least, that’s what they’ve told the bottom rung.”
“…Really?”
Now Yunmelngen went silent. He continued to look up as though he were earnestly thinking something over.
“Oh, we see. Then the information is being withheld from the citizens right now,” the prince concluded.
“This is starting to sound dangerous…”
“Though we think they could just announce it. Are you curious? We are sure you must be.”
To be frank, Crossweil didn’t actually want to know.
Based on how Yunmelngen had just admitted the information was under a gag order, he wasn’t foolish enough to not realize how dangerous it would be for a commoner like him to know the truth.
Despite understanding that, curiosity had gotten the better of him.
“…So the excavation isn’t for ore, then?” Crossweil asked.
“That’s right. Why, of course it wouldn’t be. We would not have personally went to observe one of the many, many iron mines.”
“…Right.”
“We’ll let you in on what’s really going on as a special treat.” Yunmelngen smiled. “You are digging up an entirely new energy source over there.”
“What?”
“Humans live on but the surface of the planet. However, that energy flows within the deepest part of the planet, almost like lava. Periodically, this energy flows to an area very close to the surface. And, with a great amount of digging, one can make a fountain of it spout out of the planet.”
“…A fountain from digging deep into the planet, huh?”
“So there you have it. “
“Right.”
So that was the Planet’s Navel.
They had created an excavation point in the center of the capital and had drilled down four thousand meters all to retrieve that energy.
“Why haven’t they told the public about this?” Crossweil asked.
“We wouldn’t know. It is one of the Lord and the Eight Great Elders’ most secret projects, so perhaps they hope to make a great announcement to surprise the whole world over once the discovery is made.”
It almost sounded too good to be true. Had Crossweil heard a story about some unfathomable energy sleeping in the depths of the planet on the streets of the Empire, he wouldn’t have believed it.
“Doesn’t it sound like a dream come true?” Yunmelngen smiled. “If they are able to excavate that energy, the whole world would be pushed forward an entire step into the future. There is even a possibility that medical technology could be developed so that colds like this can be cured instantly.”
“Do you really think things would go that conveniently?”
“We are each free to dream,” the prince answered, almost as though saying it to himself. He nodded, though weakly because of his sickness.
“And that day will be coming soon,” he added.
“…When? When’s this too-good-to-be-true future coming?”
“In about two weeks.”
“That’s a hundred times sooner than I imagined!”
“If not, we would never have inspected the place.”
The prince was convincing. He had likely only paid a visit because the project was as good as complete.
“At the moment, you have reached a depth of four thousand eight hundred meters, yes? That yet-unknown energy has pooled five thousand meters below the planet’s surface. You have just two hundred more to go.”
“…It’s practically right in front of us, then.”
“As we said, the day our dreams become reality is near—”
Klack.
Right at that moment, they were both surprised by a rapping at the door.
“Oh no!” the prince cried. “It may be the physician or a vassal here to visit!”
Yunmelngen scowled.
“Hide, Crow!”
“Wh-where?!”
“Uh, behind the curtains… No, those are transparent, and the closet would not work…so under the bed!”
He dove under just as he was told. It was pitch-black, and all he could do was listen to know what was happening. He heard the door open.
“Crown Prince, Your Highness, how do you feel?”
“His Excellency the Lord is terribly worried.”
“Please do take care of yourself. We have brought you gifts for our visit.”
He heard their footsteps.
It sounded like it was three, or possibly four, people. No, there seemed to be many more. Seven…no, eight.
“…It’s just a cold,” the prince said. “You needn’t come all the way here, Eight Great Elders. The vassals will believe we are frightfully ill.”
The bed shook slightly.
Yunmelngen had likely sat up with as much enthusiasm as he could from the bed. He sounded more animated than he had just earlier, almost as though he hadn’t been feeling unwell at all.
…Yunmelngen?
…You sound quite harsh right now.
But what he felt more unsettled by was the displeasure in Yunmelngen’s voice.
“We will be back to official business tomorrow,” the prince said. “See, we are quite fine.”
“How terribly rude of us. We heard that Your Highness had run a high fever and was quite ill. Why, His Excellency even posed delaying the upcoming Festival of Spiritualism in two weeks’ time.”
“There is no need,” the prince said in a sullen tone. “Now, you may take your leave. We are quite busy.”
“As you wish. Please take care of yourself.”
The eight sets of footsteps filed out of the room. The door shut on them, almost as though it were shooing them out.
“Ack…cough! …Cough……ugh…ah…!” Yunmelngen fell to his knees.
He knelt on the carpeted floor, coughing terribly. Even from the bed, Crossweil could tell the state the boy was in.
“Yunmeln—”
“Wait!”
Crossweil attempted to crawl out from under the bed, but he was stopped by the prince.
“Wait. Wait until we say that you may leave…”
“…?”
“……We do not want you to see our nightclothes…as……well, then you would know…”
“Know? Know what?”
“…Please, just wait.”
Yunmelngen almost collapsed back onto the bed. He struggled to breathe for some time after that.
“…Thank you for waiting.”
Crossweil crawled out from under the bed. When Crossweil turned around, he found Yunmelngen flushed and covered by a blanket brought right up to his neck. The prince was staring back at him.
“…We would like you to be here, close to us, for longer.”
“Like I said, what was that?”
“…” Yunmelngen looked up at the canopy. “Let us speak of hypotheticals. Suppose there are fathers who wish for daughters, and others who wish for sons.”
“Well, obviously there are,” Crossweil said.
“Just listen. We speak of a specific case. A father who lost his son too soon. And one who felt the need to protect his next son.”
The whole conversation was so odd that Crossweil wasn’t following. He had no idea what the Crown Prince was trying to tell him.
“So. Any child would be sensitive to a parent’s affection, isn’t that right? A child would know that, yes, their father wanted a son. And the child may try to fulfill their parent’s wishes out of the desire for praise. In fact, one might try to lead a life to meet their parent’s ideal expectations.”
“…? I’m not following what you’re saying here.”
“The Festival of Spiritualism is coming up,” the prince said.
“…And this is related to what you were saying how?”
“We simply returned to the subject at hand. We were just talking about it before the Eight Great Elders disturbed us.”
An inexplicable energy that slumbered deep within the planet. And the Planet’s Navel was the site of the energy’s extraction.
“The Festival of Spiritualism commemorates reaching the deepest point of the excavation. As we said before, the deepest point, five thousand meters below, is just ahead of us.”
“None of the miners have heard of this,” Crossweil countered.
“The foreman likely is aware. We and the Lord will also attend the Festival of Spiritualism.”
“The Lord?! …Oh, right,” Crossweil remembered. “He’s your dad.”
Over time, he’d grown less sensitive to that feeling. They were having an ordinary conversation, but the person in front of him was indeed the Crown Prince.
…I was so surprised hearing the Lord would be making an appearance at the site, though.
…But it’s already a big deal that the Crown Prince came for an inspection.
Just two hundred meters away.
A new type of energy slumbered down below where they dug, an unimaginable form of energy.
“There may be an announcement that the Planet’s Navel is actually being used to excavate it. The Festival of Spiritualism’s schedule has been finalized, after all.”
“…This is all such a big deal it doesn’t even feel real.”
The whole world would likely be clamoring about it. Even Yunmelngen himself dreamed that this new energy would revolutionize the world.
“Well, all right. This isn’t something commoners like me are supposed to even think about… Anyway, do you not like those eight vassal guys or whoever they were? You really sounded short with them.”
“You mean the Eight Great Elders?”
The Lord’s council was also known as the eight sages. They were each leaders in their fields—in medicine, chemistry, biology, physics, military studies, and linguistics.
“We don’t fancy them,” Yunmelngen answered. As he looked up, his eyes narrowed, and the disgust was obvious on his face. “The Lord has had ears only for them since their arrival. They’ve made him their puppet. Once we become Lord, we will be sure to drive them out.”
“…Sounds like a lot of trouble, being the Crown Prince.”
“But we’re in a good mood today. Since you came, Crow—cough, ugh…cough…!” Yunmelngen doubled over. It seemed the prince was far from well.
“Don’t strain yourself,” Crossweil warned. “I should get going soon, too. Can I use the same route to get back?”
“…Cough…you may…”
“Make sure you rest up. You’re going to at that Festival of Spiritualism event or whatever, right?”
“…Yes.”
The prince seemed more docile than usual for whatever reason. He nodded weakly from his sickbed.
“…You may use the secret route you learned of whenever you would like, Crow.”
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