Chapter 2: Prince of Mangani (2)

Prince of Mangani (2)

An unexpected visitor visited the mana heart facility today.

“His Highness is coming! Hurry up and arrange your garments! Prepare yourselves for His Highness’s arrival!” echoed in the hall as workers tried their best to look presentable to the prince.

From the look of their faces, one could only assume that the mana heart facility was the last place they would expect Prince Adrian to be, especially after his near-death experience.

“No, why is this man not paying attention even after he almost died?” I found myself thinking out loud

The maid who was helping the general manager looked at me and blushed.

I recalled my current situation, how the prince died at the tip of my blade. And how his body belongs to me now. Closing my mouth seems like the correct thing to do now.

“You can go now. His Majesty, the King, needs your service.” Nogisa dismissed the maid and turned her attention to me, displeased.

“Why do you pretend not to know?” Nogisa’s voice sounded impatient, almost disappointed.

Based on the situation, I can tell that Nogisa was the prince’s teacher whose body I took over. I have no clue what she taught the prince, and I have no way of pretending to know even if I wanted to.

“Your Highness?” her expression changed. She was staring at me as if she saw something strange. I could feel her eyes probing into me, looking for an aberration to analyze.

“Perhaps the trauma of the incident messed up your memories,” she said, “and you may not remember everything about who you are.”

Amnesia was a convenient excuse handed out to me in a silver platter. Finally, I had an alibi.

“I guess?” I replied, feigning ignorance.

Nogisa asked for a bit of rice cake from one of the servants. But before she could savor her meal, the king arrived.

I could not help but admire the king as I watched him enter the hall. He was a brilliant middle-aged man standing proud and tall amongst his attendants—the complete opposite of his son who lost his life because of his carelessness.

Meeting Prince Adrian made me think that perhaps over the centuries that I remained asleep in my sheath, my old friend’s bloodline was watered down until the mighty lion became a shriveling cat. But the king in front of me seemed to have no shortage of the charisma and dignity needed to lead an entire nation.

“You look much better than I heard,” the king said, his words heavy with affection for a son he almost lost.

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“You didn’t even say hello to your father,” he continued, “I thought you were going to die.”

“Your Majesty, it seems Prince Adrian has lost his memory due to the accident,” Nogisa replied for me.

The king turned his head to me, waiting for confirmation. I nodded.

“Oh my god! How could this be?” The king exclaimed, losing a bit of his composure “Why wasn’t I informed immediately? Call the physicians to figure out how to remedy this!”

Ui-Yu arrived at a moment’s notice.

“I cannot find any abnormality in His Highness’s head,” Ui-Yu reports, “the temporary memory loss may be due to mental shock.”

“A memory loss…” the king’s words rolled over his tongue, his eyes staring at me. It was almost as if he could tell that these cold eyes weren’t his poor son’s, but rather someone else’s.

The longer he stared, the more I was sure he noticed. I was nervous, and a part of me was waiting for him to scream, ‘who the hell are you, and where is my son?!’.

But he didn’t. There was no longer doubt in his eyes, only a tinge of anger.

“Sometimes, we can make the wrong choices. Sometimes, we behave extremely. But there is something to learn in all of this. What’s important is that we do not repeat the same mistakes.” The king said.

Suddenly, his anger in his voice grew more potent, “But you seem to have forgotten all of that. Since the incident, you have not taken a single step forward from your last mistake.”

His words, though deep, sounded more like a rant than a reproach.

“Your Majesty, please calm down,” urges the others in the room.

The king quieted, but the coldness did not leave his eyes.

After the king’s litany, I thought that the entire palace would despise me as the prodigal prince who does nothing but bring shame to his glorious father, but it turned out they were quite hospitable. But it still cannot be denied that some look at me with contempt. Living in a prince’s body isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

Before leaving, the king fixed his eyes on me one last time, perhaps trying to get one last chance to find the missing piece to prove that the person in front of him is no longer his son.

All I could do was sigh in relief the moment he and his escorts have left the room. It was Nogisa’s turn again this time to pierce me with her scrutinizing gaze before taking her leave.

The queen arrived shortly.

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“I heard of your condition on the way,” she said, “I understand if you feel a bit confused right now.”

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Unlike the king who confronted my situation with anger, she met me with tears.

“Your memories will be back soon,” she says in a warm tone, “it would be a serious issue if you don’t remember anything of the past.”

After all of the contempt I faced today, her gentleness took me aback. It made me uncomfortable knowing I was the weapon that ended her son’s life and why she is in the position she is now—that and the fact that I was too old to be pampered like this. I shut my mouth and continued listening to her.

The sun had already set when the long dialogue with the queen ended. It was only then that I had the time to work on my real goal—mana development.

“Well, this fat is going to be a huge problem,” I tell myself.

Already, my first hurdle is a big one. No matter how hard I tried, this body would not accept mana. I had no choice but to accept the fact that I must first fix this body’s inferior qualities before it could ever be ready to accept mana.

“I wish I had my own body,” I can’t help but murmur to myself. As far as mana was concerned, an impossibility.

Losing my original body was a tragedy. All the mana I had been steadily accumulating for hundreds of years are gone and vanished into oblivion. The day went on with more futile attempts at absorbing mana.

“Your Highness, the queen, has sent special food to replenish Your Highness’ strength,” the servant said.

The ‘Boyangsik’ sent by the queen was like rain to a famished land. It contained a surprising amount of refined and pure mana.

“I can assist His Highness if he pleases,” the servant said, embarrassed. She was worried that I could not or would not take the food.

Of course, I have every bit of intention of eating it. Without waiting for another word, I took the plate from her hand and ate every last bit. I dismissed her shortly after, eager to be left alone so that I could examine my mana.

I could feel the mana that swirled around me. I did not hesitate to pull them into a single place, on my left chest, where my heart resided. But just like before, most of the mana refused to settle on this body. They dissipated away into the air. However, forcibly holding the mana that has already entered this body was not a difficult task.

What little mana I was able to gather settled in the body. But it was still not enough, and even it would be scattered again after a day. Still, mana is mana, no matter how little.

I called the servant once more and asked her for more of the food she delivered a while ago. Her eyes opened wide at my request.

***

I ate several servings of the food sent by the queen. Thanks to that, my mana collection drastically improved, and I finally collected enough mana to forge a new mana heart.

I quickly instructed the servant not to let anyone enter my room without my permission. I have to be left entirely alone so that I could concentrate on forging a new mana heart.

After hundreds of years of forging mana heart, one would assume it would be a simple task for a veteran like me. Probably something I should be able to do even with my eyes closed. But apparently, this is a different story altogether.

“Agh!” I screamed at the sudden pain in my chest. When mana falters during the creation of a mana heart, the area where the mana would jump to would feel terrible pain.

The pain caused by the mana fluctuation hurt, but not so much as the pain caused by embarrassment. This was the first time I ever failed to make a mana heart.

‘Ah! I think it’s on fire!’

‘I think my chest is going to burst!’

In my head, I could hear the screams of the former champions who wielded me in battle—everyone who forced me to make mana hearts. Forging mana hearts had been painful for them, too, I realized. I overlooked this before when I was a sword because I had no human body to register pain. I had no blood to shed, no tears to cry, nor pain to feel at that time.

‘Stop it!’ I told myself. I need to concentrate. Unlike my previous owners who had me to help them control mana, I have no one. If I were to lose my mind doing this, mana would reflux, and the consequences would be dire.

With every ounce of my being, I desperately clung into every single speck of mana in my body until I eventually succeeded at forging a new mana heart.

“I did it!” Despite making countless mana hearts before, this made me cheer with satisfaction. I made this one for me, and me alone. The idea of making something my own after centuries being treated as a possession felt surreal.

Only

『Mana Heart was successfully created.』 a dream-like voice whispered.

Just hearing those worlds doubled my satisfaction. However, this satisfaction was short-lived as soon as I realized that it was a status message just like all the others I sent my former masters when I was still a sword.

『Resting the connection with the root source.』

“Wait, what?” confusion surrounded me as the new message came out of nowhere.

『The connection has been restored. However, the connection is not good.』

『The connection is volatile. 』

『Most powers are unusable.』

『Only some powers are currently accessible.』

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