房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

"...hmm...?"

The unexpected noise made Surou raise his head over the hard hay mattress, and let\'s say that the second prince wasn\'t too keen on being disturbed as he was focusing on the movement of the mana within his body.

It was already after breakfast time and the monks should attend the sermon without exception, this was the time for Surou to concentrate and practice his water magic to a degree he never actually thought of before.

With no books or actually any means of killing the boredom aside from praying and fasting – which could hardly be called fun in the second prince\'s opinion – the blue-haired boy had to find his own way to kill time.

"..."

*hsss*

Surou gritted his teeth and released his spell, and the scalpel-like translucent blade on the tip of his index finger turned into a puff of stead that dispersed into the air.

The blue-haired boy really didn\'t like when the monks decided to pay him an uninvited visit – normally he should have time at least until lunch.

At lunch, two monks would come to his cell – that they dared to call the chamber.

One earth mage and one water mage plus the person carrying the tray with food.

The tiro would offer the meal to the boy...

Although not really.

The word offer implied that Surou had a choice whether he wanted to eat or not.

In reality, if the blue-haired boy wouldn\'t want to eat the two mages would force the food down his throat. and with the perfect coverage of the physical and magical defensive spells that the two monks could provide to each other, Surou had little chance of winning.

But even though he could try to oppose it, why would he?

To send a message?

Why bother?

It was better to turn his anger into determination and polish his magic skills.

Yes, it was always better to just eat in silence while making plans for the future.

That\'s how it would usually go, but now someone went ahead and show up just to disturb him!

"Who\'s there!? Bastard! I know that not a single one of you has the guts to kill me, so better be prepared that any form of bullying will get you reported to your superior. I might be a prisoner here but I am not your outlet to relieve stress. Go listen to your sermon and piss off."

Surou scoffed angrily, getting up from the mattress and dusting off his clothes from the stone power that got onto him while he practiced.

"... whoa... that one sentence has more critical thinking in it than everything that I heard you say during your brief stay in the Academy, my prince."

What answer him was a familiar voice, but certainly, this voice didn\'t belong to any of the monks that Surou met until now...

"Open the visor already so I can see your face. It seems like you want to talk, courtesy calls for making eye contact when your intentions are pure."

The blue-haired boy spoke cautiously while furrowing his brows, trying to match the voice to the face.

"Oho! Would you look at that! And here I thought that you don\'t mind talking through the door. After all, wasn\'t that how you always talked with your mysterious supporter~?"

"..."

The voice from behind the door said confidently which made Surou tense up and he glanced at the opposite wall wondering whether the time has come to put all of his preparations into practice.

"...ah... It seems that I made a miscalculation in my prediction..."

The second prince nodded slowly and breathed out in an almost perfectly calm voice – almost perfectly calm because there were some undertones of annoyance surfacing through.

"Wait... what...?"

The voice hesitated and asked in confusion, it seemed like the person behind the door flinched and took a step back.

"Nothing, really. It is just that I underestimated the efficiency of you people. Since you are here for me, that means my brother is dead already... It is... so infuriating... he must have died thinking that I despise him... You can tell that whore of a queen of yours that I will not forget her that - neither her nor her firstborn!"

Surou sighed, turning away from the door and approaching the wall with a tiny window blocked with sturdy iron bars while his body began glowing blue from the physical enchantments.

--------

"Wha...?! Wait, what are you even...! Hold on! Surou?! I...!"

*WHAM*

*RUMBLE*

Zoemi gasped in disbelief over Suoru\'s words and called out to him, but he was interrupted by the sound of a powerful hit followed by the sound of falling stones.

"Break it open!"

The black-haired boy\'s eyes widened and he shouted, pointing at the sturdy door.

"(~!)"

*SPLAT*

His sentinel only hummed in response and charged at the door, fusing with it only to make it turn into a murky puddle the next second.

"Surou! HUH...?!"

Zoemi rushed inside the chamber and was initially stopped, taken aback by the sight.

One of the walls and part of the sloping ceiling were covered with bumps and indentations that could be used to practice rock climbing.

The one opposite to it, the one under which a hay mattress – the only thing that could be called a piece of furniture in the entire room – was placed, was thoroughly covered in the most intricate carvings of a myriad of flowers of the most intricate shapes and all the different sizes, each and every single one so detailed that if not for their uniform color, the result of being carved into the same stone, one could easily mistake them for living plants.

It was an entire stone garden carved by a real master.

And finally, there was the wall opposite the door, the one that the black-haired boy was facing.

There was a jarring hole in the middle of it, one with a perfect view on the line of the horizon and the trees down below as that part of the monastery was facing a cliffside to the old bank of a river whose course was changed decades earlier.

"Holy shit! Surou what the hell?!"

Zoemi managed to shake off the initial shock and rushed towards the hole looking out of it, honestly expecting to see a gory splatter of red down below...

"...where is he...? HUH?!"

Well, that wasn\'t the case – but when the boy leaned slightly farther and began looking around, he spotted the blue-haired boy hugging the wall of the monastery while climbing down with the dexterity of a seasoned mountaineer!

"Holy fucking shit! Is that really supposed to be hi...! AAAAHHHHH! CATCH HIM!"

While Zoemi was watching, the blue-haired boy down below reached the ledge that was near impossible to traverse without using earth magic or at least a specialistic gear – and instead of retreating, he took a deep breath and pushed himself off the wall, jumping off a two-hundred-feet fall, causing Zoemi to shout in panic and urge his sentinels to save the reckless second prince.

But, was Surou really that reckless?

As several murky black orbs were zooming towards him through the air, the blue-haired prince rolled into a ball and surrounded himself with a water sphere several times larger than himself.

"...!"

Zoemi\'s jaw dropped at the sight, but the next moment, the water sphere got swallowed by a murky-black gate created by his sentinels mid-air and...

*SPLASH*

"!!!!"

Another shadow gate appeared back on the chamber\'s ceiling and the water sphere came right out of it, crushing against the floor and causing a small flood that drained almost immediately through both the doorway and the hole in the wall, and Zoemi barely dodged getting pushed out by the torrent by sidestepping and clinging to the wall itself.

"...tsk... So be it!"

Drenched Surou who realized where he was with a single glance and didn\'t let the change of location render him defenseless, jumped right up, clicking his tongue and conjuring a water spear - and judging by the steam coming from the bubbling spearhead, he somehow made it boiling hot too.

"I will not die laying do...! Huh...? Zoemi Auequas...?"

Surou scoffed proudly, pointing his weapon at the wide-eyed black-haired boy, before recognizing him, becoming wide-eyed himself.

"That doesn\'t make sense. You can\'t be working for the queen... why are you here?"

The second prince gasped, lowering the spear while blinking repeatedly.

"Of course, I\'m not working for the queen! The question is, what happened to you?!"

Zoemi breathed out, shaking his head in disbelief before waving his hand at the blue-haired second prince.