"Your Highness, I'll be sure to catch any beastmen who escape."
......Yes, you can count on me."
The knight bowed reverently before me.
The knight nodded at my words and left.
I am Hiccuped Migga. I am the seventh prince of the Migga Kingdom, a position that is only worthwhile to the extent that I am royalty. I am twelve years old, and a knight who has lived more than twice as long as me bows down to me because I am royalty.
Because I am a "prince. It's a tight squeeze to be seen only as a "prince," but I accept it and live with it.
My father - in short, the king of the Kingdom of Migga - is impatient with the fact that the Kingdom of Fairytorov has now acquired a godson. If there had never been a godson in the kingdom of Fairytorov, I wouldn't be here either.
I am now in a town on the border of the Kingdom of Fairytorov. The city is located in the southern part of the kingdom, in an unexplored forest, where there is a village of beastmen, and my father told me to secure these beastmen. I, to tell you the truth, don't feel good about the act of dropping the beastmen - or any other non-human species - into slavery. There were several beastmen as slaves in the royal palace of the Migga Kingdom, but from my point of view, they were not much different from humans.
However, there was no way that I, as the seventh prince, could express such an opinion to my father. The only thing I can do is not to treat my slaves badly.
I am only a perpetrator and an enemy to the beastmen because we are the ones who attacked the village and enslaved the beastmen, even though we are the ones who are the ones who are the enemies of the beastmen.
I have no power. I have no power, so even if I had doubts about what my father is doing, I could not take action. At the age of 12, I am not yet an adult, and I do as my father commands.
The men who are currently with me in this region have attacked a village of cat beastmen. And they reduced the majority of the people in that village to slavery. They have put collars of servitude on them, making them unable to rebel, depriving them of their will. Children are crying out for their parents' names. Some of them died while enslaving the beasts. I must not turn a blind eye to that fact. I was not the one who directly attacked and enslaved the beasts. But those under me, who followed my father's orders, made them slaves under my command. I have to take it all, the cries, the hatred in their eyes.
The knights are in pursuit of the cat beastmen who escaped with the mercenaries they hired. I hope they are lucky enough to escape and are not found. If they do, they will never fall into slavery. They would be able to spend their lives without becoming slaves.
I am the one who is indirectly ordering them to become slaves, and yet I think so. I feel stupid for thinking like that.
But even though I feel foolish and stupid, I still wished that they would not be found.
Perhaps my wish was answered, or perhaps some mysterious force was at work, but I received a report that the cat beastmen had disappeared, even though they had not gone very far. They said that they had been able to trace their steps, but suddenly they could not find them. I don't know, but from my point of view, that's a relief.
If they are caught as slaves, they will be used as labor, or if there is a war with the kingdom of Fairytorov, they will be used as disposable pawns, or something like that. They will not be happy. While I have them in my hands, I can try not to make them worse, but sooner or later they will leave my hands. They will leave, and they will be unhappy. It was me, of all people, who caused that misfortune.
I am sorry, Your Highness, I think I am almost there, but strangely enough, I can't get there!
I'm sorry, Your Highness, I think I'm almost there, but strangely enough, I can't get to it! Well, it is all right. If you don't find it by the deadline that father said, I'll give you only the slaves I've captured so far.
I will surely find them by then.
The actuality that you can't tell people about your true feelings, I thought as I looked at the back of the knight who was determined to make the beastman into a slave.
However, just as the deadline that my father had announced was about to expire, a beastman was captured.
It was something that inspired the other members of the expedition to the Migga Kingdom. It was not the cat beastman we were looking for, but a wolf beastman man with wolf ears and tail. Wolf beastmen are known for their high fighting ability. If he could make a wolf beastman into a slave, his father would be very pleased.
In the battle to capture the wolf-beastman, five of our knights were killed. Many more were injured. I wonder if we have to make such sacrifices to enslave the beastman. I cannot speak of such a question here. I don't know what will happen to me if I speak out against the will of my father, the king.
The knights were eager to find out the location of the village from the man with the brown ears and tail they had captured. Perhaps they would torture him. The gagged and bound wolf beastman was a wreck at the stage of capture. He was staring at me as I went to check on him. I was the one who had created this wolf beastie's hideous appearance. I'm such a wreck, and now I'm going to be tortured again. I want ...... them to stop, I want them to stop, I think. But I still can't ...... disobey my father's orders.
The next day, I was informed that the captured wolf beastman had died. He said that no matter how much he hurt him, he never told him where the village was. Even though I told him that I would spare his life if he told me where it was, he didn't tell me.
Because he loves his village. He didn't want to harm the village. It hurt my heart that he didn't tell us.
I hoped that we, the Migga Kingdom, would not find the village that he never told us about and that he wanted to protect.
---The prince and his orders.
(The prince is questioning his father's orders. (The prince is questioning his father's order to enslave the beastmen. But the prince cannot disobey the order.)