Rhys walked over, a smile on his face. “Hey.”
As he approached, he sucked all the filth, impurities, and bodies in the room into his core. With each step, a small whirlwind of debris vanished into him, leaving behind a sparklingly clean bar free of bodies or any sign of the conflict, save a few toppled tables and chairs.
The prince squeaked in fear and crawled away, into the corner of his booth. Plates clattered, cups toppled, and the pipe he’d been smoking dropped to the ground.
“S-stay back!”
“Nope.”
“What do you want? Money? Women? Men? Drugs? I—I can get you anything! Just— stay back!”
“But all I want is you, princey.”
The prince visibly paled.
“Non-sexually,” Rhys clarified.
The prince relaxed a hair. “Th-then, what… what do you want me for?”
“For killing.”
He paled again. “Which of my brothers sent you?”
Rhys shrugged. “To be honest, none of them. I came on my own.” He paused. “Non-sexually.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated, but basically, if I kill you, I get a level up and one step closer to the answer to something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while. It’s a twofer. Buy one, get one. Half the effort, double the benefit.”
“That’s a fourfold increase.”
“Yeah, I know. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. Hey, you have any brothers that you aren’t fond of? Not just people you don’t like, I’m talking some real scum of the earth assholes who’ve just totally thrown their lives away. And don’t say Tooru. I’ve already handled him.”
“What, so you can kill them?” the prince spat.
“Yeah, sure, why not? I mean, you’re going to die either way. Surely there’s someone you’d take out with you if you could, right? Don’t say there isn’t.”
The prince thought for a second, then nodded timidly.
“Come on, speak up. I’m doing you a favor here, don’t make me work for it.”
“Hanako! Hanako, the Fifth Prince. She needs to die!”
“Oh cool, so your last act is violence against women. Also, wouldn’t she be a princess?”
The prince squinted at him. “What’s that? ‘Prince’ is a word for both genders.”
Oh. Right. Something’s auto-translating for me, so whatever word he said wasn’t literally ‘prince,’ but whatever’s close enough for the auto-translator to glom on to it and make it prince. “Yeah, sorry. No worries. Hanako, huh? I’ll go take a look. Just in case, what’d she do to make her so worthy of death?”
He scowled. “She’s a tyrant.”
“And you’re a sub, so shouldn’t you be into that?”
“You don’t understand. She’s a cruel woman who knows no pity. I, at least, treat my men fairly.”
“I bet you do.”
“But she… she brutalizes her servants and mistreats everyone around her. Being her friend is as dangerous as being her most hated enemy.”
Rhys’s brows shot up. Do I sense a classic trash trope? Oh-hoh-hoh, I believe I do. Well, well, well, if I’m right, then I might be able to triple down on killing this woman.
A high-tier mana signal approached rapidly, but not too rapidly, surrounded by several signatures closer to Rhys’s own. He jolted. That’s my signal to leave. Giving the prince a friendly nod, he pulled back the sword. “Nice meeting you. I’ll see you in hell!”
“Wait, wait, wait—”
Rhys slammed the blade home. Blood splattered. Much like Tooru, this prince was a paper tiger, only Tier 5 on paper. He’d worked on his magic even less than Tooru had, who’d at least obsessed over his plant girls, and the second Rhys struck him, his mana ran riot. This prince had barely been holding himself together, magically speaking. He’d never even done the basic exercises.
He was like a goose tied down and stuffed with food to force him to make foie gras… or, well, in this case, to force him up to Tier 5. They’d filled him up with pills and resources, but they could only inflate his appearance of strength that way. He couldn’t actually become a powerful mage by hogging resources alone. Not without techniques, spells, practice, and insight. He could bully those beneath him with his influence and the tyranny of tier, but those on level with him would, in turn, easily be able to bully him.
He was the farmer harvesting this man’s foie gras: his wasted potential. Everything he could’ve been if he’d used the gifts he was given and actually devoted himself to becoming stronger, instead of sucking it all down like junk food and rotting in the corner, doing the mage equivalent of getting fat and watching television.
Unlike with Tooru, he sucked in this prince’s potential and safely stored it in his core; he didn’t need to immediately use it on any small miracles. Also unlike Tooru, however, this prince truly didn’t have much potential. His was tiny; even if he’d tried, Rhys wasn’t sure if he would have made it far as a mage. If not for getting force-fed items, he probably wouldn’t have attained Tier 5 in his life.
Rhys considered it as he stored the man’s potential in his core and hoofed it, the mana signatures closing in on him. Potential was such a strange thing. It wasn’t properly physical or ‘existent’ like mana, but it was there and could be manipulated, whether stolen or replaced. Every person seemed to have a finite quantity, or at least a base amount, but other peoples’ potential could be stolen. He didn’t know if potential could be grown or otherwise improved upon mage-style, but, well, even if he had trash potential, one, that played into his skills like Less is More and his general trash path, and two, he was actively stealing the stuff right now. If he ever needed more, he knew where to find it (in other people).
He glanced up. The world hadn’t protested him stealing other people’s potential so far. Was it only bothered because he was trying to give back Bast’s burned-up potential, rather than simply manipulating or taking potential? It kind of tracked that it wouldn’t step in now. After all, if it would have stepped in with someone stealing someone else’s potential, then it would have stopped Virgil from snatching Bast’s in the first place.
At least it’s applying the same rules to everyone, Rhys thought. He burst out of the back of the bar and dashed through the back streets, toward other people. He could lose his pursuers in the crowd. It could be worse. The world could be a giant hypocrite. So far, it was consistent, and it didn’t seem to hate him in particular. He appreciated both of those things.
I was summoned here by something high up. It makes sense that the world would approve. It’s not guaranteed or anything, but at the very least, it’d imply something if the world seemed to actively dislike me.
Then again, I could just be too antlike for the world to notice. It did acknowledge my path, but is that the same as acknowledging me? Or does it acknowledge me without recognizing me as a threat?
Lots of questions. For right now, the answers aren’t pressing, because it’s not threatening me. Rhy turned a corner and came out onto a full street. He slowed to a jog, mingling with the people around him. The mana signatures slowed, but they didn’t stop their pursuit.
Not that easy to shake, huh? He twisted his lips. They knew his mana signature. It would be hard to throw them off. He could; he could alter his signature by messing it up with trash, or call it in and try to hide it, but he didn’t want to do either of them in the middle of the street with no clear exit strategy. He needed something to throw them off. Some juke that he could use to slip free.
And then he raised his brows. Oh. That—that could work!
He rushed off through the streets, moving fast but not so fast that any passerby paid particular attention to him. Overhead, mages on swords swooped by, searching for him, but likewise refusing to act too clearly like they were chasing someone. Both sides wanted the city to not react to their pursuit.
We’re trying to keep this quiet, huh? So I guess whoever’s chasing me is putting in a token effort, but isn’t trying too hard to find me. Politics are saving my ass… or, I guess, keeping this city’s police- equivalent alive. Honestly, this is kind of a smart move by whoever’s in charge. The princes were supposed to scheme and kill one another. If the police force intervened, it could look like favoritism, or even lead to families claiming interference. And if I have to guess, the police are likely controlled by the king, making them one, as neutral to the families as it’s possible to be in this country, and two, unwilling-slash-unable to intervene in the inheritance process, since the current king’s clan is supposed to sit things out. He was sure there was always interference by the king’s clan toward their allies and favorites anyways, but something like the police force jumping in on a small-time clash was too obvious and also (more importantly) not worth it.
After all, neither this prince nor Tooru were likely to win the inheritance battle. They’d both given up on it. It was expected that they’d eventually die in the cleanup, so for them to die a little early wasn’t too shocking or too problematic. Of course, he’d been a bit too loud about it, so they had to respond to look like they were in control of things, but they didn’t want to respond to ‘help’ two princes who weren’t even popular with their own families. The police force would be risking other families trying to weaken their police power on account of their supposed “illegal interference” in a conflict they truly didn’t care about.
If that’s the case, then I know exactly where to bring them. He sped up a little, and the sword-flying mages sped up as well. Snaking through the citizens, Rhys beelined toward the expensive part of town. He’d been avoiding this area so far because he’d wanted to go unnoticed, but now that he’d gone loud, there was no longer a reason to hold back.
A thought occurred to him, and he chuckled aloud. Someone’s about to get the shock of their life.
Behind him, the flying mages suddenly sped up. He sped up again, almost running. I’m running out of time. They didn’t want to interfere unduly, but they couldn’t look incompetent, either. If he continued to trashily take advantage of their kindness like this, he’d wind up having to explain to his new cellmate that this really was just a hobby, thanks, no, I’d rather take top. Bunk, that is, haha… He sped up again.
Ahead of him, a fancy hotel loomed. Rhys ran past, pretending not to be interested, only to suddenly double back and leap in a window. The window’s aura pressed toward him as he launched toward it, the glass at least Tier 4, but he had the firepower to overcome that, and kicked it in with gusto. A woman shrieked and a man shouted as glass rained down on their bed, and Rhys saluted them and their hopefully martial duties and burst out the front door. Down three rooms, he knocked rapidly on the door, faster than he’d ever knocked before.
There was a half-heard grumble from the other side, and then Ryota pulled it open… and stared. He did a double, then triple take, and then his jaw hit the floor. “What the—”
“Yep, it’s me. You recognize my aura, right? Am I cute or what? Excuse me, by the way. Coming in.”
“Rhys, what the fuck?”
“Shut the door, lover boy. I came in hot.”
“What does that mean?” Ryota glanced out into the hallway, then quickly shut the door.
“Don’t worry about that. Where’s the tub?”
“Right over there… Rhys, what are you doing?”
“Furthering the Young Prince’s future prospects.” Rhys pulled the tap on the luxurious claw-footed tub, and it near-instantly filled with scented, steaming water. He yanked off his clothes and hid them in his storage ring, then dove into the water.
Ryota rounded the corner only to immediately back away and put his back to the bathroom. “Did you do something I asked you not to?”
“Sorry, can’t hear you over the sound of me working hard for your future and to help the citizens of your country.” Rhys activated the water sprite technique faster than he ever had in his life, reverting to his usual appearance. He altered his mana signature and pushed his face out of the water, relaxing back into a casual lounge as though he’d been in here all day.
“Rhys,” Ryota said, a note of warning in his voice.
“Ryota.”
“Give me one good reason not to give you up to the police.”
“Because you’ll get taken in for questioning, too, and it’d be super inconvenient and piss off your grandpa. Also, in case you forgot, I am stronger than you. Do you want to get caught in that crossfire?”
Ryota’s body language went rigid. He scowled so hard Rhys didn’t have to see his face to know what he was doing. “Rhys…”
“Also, what if I told you this, the ascension battle, everything, is all part of a grand conspiracy that, if I’m right, might kill you?”
“What?” Ryota whipped around, shocked, only to quickly look away again.
“I’m not kidding. It’s looking bad. Seriously bad.” The prince he’d just killed had had the savage mana, too. He’d been busy pondering potential, but he hadn’t missed it when it shot off, and the direction it shot off in was beyond ominous. He still didn’t have the third data point he needed to be really sure, but it wasn’t looking good.
There was a loud knock at the door. “Police.”
Ryota froze. Rhys waved his hand. “You know what to do, prince. Make your pick. Stick with me and find out if I’m talking shit, or give me up and risk your life in a crossfire well above your power level. What do you choose?”