Drawing Manga in a Romance Fantasy – Chapter 59

After requesting the staff of the workshop from the Saintess, Rupert guided the Crown Prince to the reception room.

It was tough calming the Crown Prince, who insisted they needed to chase after the remnants of the Dark Wizards, but it wasn’t a pointless struggle.

For some reason, Rupert couldn’t figure out why, but he sensed that the Crown Prince was convinced that the incidents happening in the Somerset family were a scheme by the Dark Wizards.

Even before arriving at the mansion, he gathered that the Crown Prince was on some mission related to the Dark Wizards.

‘The Crown Prince lost his arm. There’s no other Dark Wizard organization on the continent but the Abyss Cult.’

In the original story, the Abyss Cult was one of the forces attacking the Academy, where the Third Prince and Amelia were located.

They were the last Dark Wizard group and a secret organization that marked the Academy as their antagonist.

Although the story revolved around the youngest son of the Imperial family and was a romance fantasy, it faithfully featured various evil organizations attacking the Academy because the Academy provided the setting.

The Abyss Cult appeared somewhere in the middle.

‘The leader’s name was Bialom, right?’

Rupert recalled him as a pretty cruel character. A brutal Dark Wizard who regarded even his minions as mere expendables.

Moreover, he remembered that his ability was exceptional enough to serve as a boss for the middle part, where the Third Prince struggled to hold his own.

Although the Third Prince eventually defeated him after awakening following the sacrifice of another Supporting Character, he was still the first antagonist to cause actual deaths, making him no simple foe.

“Have you perhaps gotten involved with the Abyss Cult?”

With the Crown Prince‘s palpable wariness towards the Dark Wizard and based on his injuries, Rupert risked mentioning the Abyss Cult. The Crown Prince nodded stiffly.

“They were vile creatures. If it weren’t for Sir Ustaf and Sir Harun controlling the Burrow Snake, it could have been a grave situation.”

Why was Ustaf‘s name coming up again? And Harun? If it’s Harun, then he’s probably the master of the Alchemy Guild. Was he associated too?

No matter how Rupert tried to connect the dots, the combination of the Crown Prince, Ustaf, and Harun felt bizarre.

“Thanks to Ustaf finding clues from the Magic Circle you drew in your comic book, the investigation could get underway.”

The Crown Prince reflected as if he were a great adventurer reminiscing about his past.

However, Rupert was busy soaking in his words to grasp the situation.

He suddenly remembered when Ustaf had come to the mansion, grilling him with questions about that Magic Circle from the comic book, looking at him suspiciously.

‘The narrative has changed.’

Rupert had to admit it now.

The Abyss Cult was not only the current threat. It was true they manipulated the Burrow Snake, but he had never heard of a plan to draw a Dark Magic Circle in the Empire’s capital where the Crown Prince was excitedly chattering.

Originally, they had attacked by burrowing underground to penetrate the Academy’s defensive barriers.

To think they would attempt to sacrifice the residents of Caldea, the capital of the Empire, to summon a Demon; that was too grand of a scale.

Those guys were merely failures, akin to a bald villain from some novel, trying and failing to seize a single school.

Thunk!

But that wasn’t the main concern now.

As Rupert listened to the Crown Prince, he grasped the general situation.

And now, he realized that depending on his next actions, it could turn into either a crisis or an opportunity, so he swiftly began to act.

He stepped down from the sofa in the reception room where he was seated with the Crown Prince and bowed deeply.

“Why are you suddenly being so formal? Didn’t I tell you to be comfortable?”

Startled by Rupert’s sudden action, the Crown Prince tried to stop him, but Rupert remained unmoving in his bow.

“Your Highness… Honestly, I never imagined that someone would recognize the hidden truth while I was creating my work.”

“Well, it’s understandable. If it weren’t for Sir Ustaf, I would have thought it was all fictional.”

“Of course, while Sir Ustaf’s wisdom in realizing that is amazing, I owe my utmost gratitude to Your Highness for believing in that story.”

“Sir Rupert…”

Moved by Rupert’s words, the Crown Prince seemed lost for words. Seeing the Crown Prince like this, Rupert pretended to wipe away a tear, raising his hand to gently poke at his eye.

Tears welled up unexpectedly, reddening his eyes.

Anyone could see Rupert was wearing a moved expression, tightening his throat as he prepared a choked voice.

“That’s right, Your Highness. Our family fell victim to those vile schemes of the Abyss Cult, putting us in jeopardy, so please forgive us for only being able to inform you in that manner!”

While the Abyss Cult that had already passed on might protest their unfair treatment, that would be for the Underworld King to hear.

The living must survive, right?

After all, they were already a bunch of criminals, so Rupert figured it wouldn’t matter if one more charge was added against them.

“No, it’s the opposite. By doing so, you prevented a disaster. I initially misunderstood you as an arrogant and rude fellow.”

Rupert felt a twinge of regret at the Crown Prince‘s words.

However, he had thought of a way to respond, so he didn’t panic. He rose from his spot and retrieved a letter from a drawer in the corner of the reception room.

“From the moment I received Your Highness’s letter, I resolved to devote myself completely to you.”

The letter Rupert brought out was the anonymous one the Crown Prince had left during a previous visit.

“Indeed! I believed you would recognize it even without me mentioning my name.”

The Crown Prince gleefully remarked at the precious letter in Rupert’s hand.

‘Thank goodness I didn’t end up throwing it away back then.’

Back when humans were still beasts, they had bodily organs that are no longer present today due to the different needs for survival back then.

For example, wisdom teeth, which were once necessary for eating tough food before fire was discovered, have become useless and have since evolved out.

Much has changed into the humans of today.

However, the unexplained fear people still feel when seeing snakes harks back to a survival instinct engraved in DNA, leading Rupert to be thankful that he hadn’t discarded the letter.

Of course, not all of his questions had been answered yet.

-Don’t worry about the public rumors; I hope you continue acting as you always have. I, at least, can understand.

Even when he first read it, the contents of that letter were hard to grasp, and they still didn’t make sense.

What were these rumors circulating, and what did he mean by knowing something that others did not?

Did he and the Crown Prince have anything in common? No matter how hard he thought, nothing overlapped.

Their hair colors were different—blonde for the Crown Prince and black for himself—and their ages didn’t match at all, as the Crown Prince was already in his mid-twenties.

Surely, being a man didn’t count as a commonality.

“You grew up in such a household, with an absent father and a mother who left first… that must be truly lonely.”

“Excuse me?”

“Whoo… Still, you’re better off than I am. I’m a hopeless older brother who couldn’t even take care of my younger siblings.”

Rupert didn’t know how to respond to the Crown Prince‘s sudden comment about not having a mother.

In reality, Count Bradley and Aida felt like family after living closely together, but since he had no memories of the countess, it was different.

‘Come to think of it, the Crown Prince’s and the Second Prince’s mother died as well.’

Among the Emperor‘s four children, the first and second had different mothers than the third and fourth.

Thus, when the vicious struggles for the throne broke out later, they became divided into factions and engaged in intense schemes against each other.

Realizing that the reason the Crown Prince felt close to him was due to the absence of a mother, Rupert felt dumbfounded.

‘What is this, some superhero and sidekick story?’

Heroes who dramatically reconcile over a single line and team up to save the world.

But Rupert didn’t dislike the Crown Prince, who felt a bond with him and excitedly recounted the investigation process and moments of crisis he experienced.

‘So this is what he’s like.’

The Crown Prince, whom Rupert had vaguely viewed as a mere reckless character confined to the image in the original work, had shown a side that was, in fact, average—no, remarkable.

A true hero, filled with real courage, who was furious over the innocent people dying and refused to back down even when trembling before the Dark Wizards.

Rupert suddenly realized that since he reincarnated in this other world, he had treated the main characters of the original work like mere NPCs.

But this was already the reality he lived in, and the people moving within it were not merely characters.

They could all change and evolve. Just as the Crown Prince in front of him did.

“By the way, you’ve also suffered from a curse, but are you alright now?”

“Excuse me? Ah, yes! Of course. Thanks to the Saintess, I feel completely healed.”

“Then, that’s a relief. But how did the Saintess know to come here upon discovering the Dark Wizards‘ scheme?”

Rupert was once again in a rush to squeeze his head, faced with the Crown Prince‘s inquiry.

But he couldn’t hastily answer.

The Saintess was not someone he could carelessly talk about without careful consideration.

She could even be enraged, thinking he would betray her, so he had to choose his words wisely.

“Why are you acting like that? Sir Rupert, do you have something you can’t say…”

Rupert found himself in a pinch.

Creeeak.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

As if sensing they were talking about her, the Saintess abruptly entered the reception room.

“Saintess! Did everything go well with the workshop?”

The Crown Prince, rising from his seat to welcome the sudden appearance of the Saintess, inquired about the workshop.

Under normal circumstances, he would have scolded someone for rudely interrupting a conversation, but given who she was, the situation naturally passed.

“Yes, I’ve finished treating them all.”

“That’s truly a relief. To heal those afflicted by Dark Magic so easily, you’re indeed a miracle just like the daughter of Gaia.”

Rupert shrank back at the Crown Prince’s careless mention of Dark Magic.

Since the Saintess couldn’t know the situation, if she said it was just simple food poisoning, that lie would be exposed in an instant.

However,

“Yes. It wasn’t easy being cursed by Dark Magic, but thankfully, my mother bestowed grace upon me to heal safely.”

“Oh, Goddess! That’s truly a blessing.”

The Crown Prince breathed a sigh of relief.

And then, the Saintess subtly glanced at Rupert and flashed a mysterious smile.

The next chapter will be updated on September 2nd at 11 PM.