The Crown Prince In Hiding

Chapter 23

Redbone

When Casca’s {Light Fortress} lost its power—

when the cloaking spell fell away…

everything that had been hidden and compressed exploded in an instant, flinging outward in every direction,

like a dam collapsing.

Rafinya was struck by a colossal pressure, like a storm wind crashing into her small body.

It would be a moment she remembered until the day she died.

Her breaths came short and fast, her heart pounding so hard it hurt.

Red fire-scales swirled in the air—some hers… and some the demon’s.

She had already suspected Dan was connected to demons,

but not at this level.

A huge, spined form; glowing crimson patterns throbbing in time with his pulse; an aura of danger; eyes red as blood that told her at a glance she was already dead by his hand…

Her legs locked rigid. Her throat went dry.

Both hands trembled so violently she couldn’t control them.

From a small-framed boy to a form towering beyond human—

Dan was FURY.

Her breath hitched to a ragged stutter. She managed a single step back.

He was not a classmate.

Not a rival.

Not even human.

Rafinya’s flames spread in a ring. Her hand moved, snatching up the sword at her side.

“Rafinya!!! Stop!!!”

It was Nora’s final warning, shouted at the top of her lungs—only to blow through Rafinya’s left ear and out her right like a feather-light breeze.

Because in that second, the red, flame-tipped blade roared in, aiming to shear Prince Fury’s throat clean through—

but the tip was arrested mid-flight by Totti’s hand, the retainer doing his duty, shielding his lord from this threat.

The instant Totti’s palm met the Saint Pauli flame, its searing heat flared, crawling up his arm and into his clothes.

“!!!”

Totti yanked his hand back at once, eyes bulging that this girl was this dangerous. He opened his palm—his flesh was ablaze, blackening like a corpse burned by fire.

And when he looked up again, instead of seeing Rafinya knocked off balance, retreating—no. She was floating right before Prince Fury now.

Totti: “Your Highness!” / Nora: “Mr.Fury!”

“You demon!!!!!”

The blade drilled forward like a spear—but it froze in midair, stopped by nothing more than his fist flashing out to clamp precisely, swiftly around Rafinya’s throat.

“Ghk?!”

At the same time, Fury tilted his head, the blade’s point grazing past by a hair.

His head was clear—but what wasn’t spared was… his shoulder armor.

The armor at Fury’s shoulder caught the sword’s tip. It split the shoulder plate and stuck there.

It didn’t slice clean like butter the way Casca’s did, but it cut in—and wedged.

Prince and retainer both widened their eyes.

The fact that it could do anything to him at all.

Armor that even giant swords could not bite; armor that had shattered, sloughed, and regrown over and over thousands of times—yet this kid managed to pierce it?

Totti knew in that instant that, in the future, RAFINYA had the potential to be a very serious threat to Fury.

“Your Highness!?!”

“I’m fine, Roma…”

“Urk!!!”

Rafinya, throat clamped, hanging there, clawed at the demon’s hand, but no matter how hard she strained there wasn’t the faintest light at the end of the tunnel. One eye squeezed shut, the other wide with effort—

and from that angle she could see it clearly: the prince was studying the rose sword embedded in his shoulder armor.

That seemed to shock him, too.

“How is that possible? Even Lamar couldn’t do that.”

“ Die, you piece of shit!!!”

Ptu!

Rafinya did something that shocked both Totti and Nora alike—

she spat in Fury’s face.

The prince fell silent for a heartbeat…

lowered his head.

“Sigh…”

He let out a breath.

Lightning struck his body, and Fury became Dan.

The rose sword clattered to the ground. Rafinya dropped and stumbled on the dirt…

The boy wiped his face with his sleeve while Rafinya, who had managed to get up, backed away two or three steps, staring at him. Then she spun and ran—fleeing at absolute top speed.

“Mr.Fury!!”

Nora ran in, panic on her face.

“Sigh… life, oh life…”

“Mr.Fury—I—!”

The princess, about to sprint after, halted.

“Roma.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Mr.Fury? What are you going to do?”

All that tailing Nora had paid off, but with a result like this, calling it “more than worth it” felt wrong. Honestly, discovering Dan was just some kid illegally using magic would have been preferable.

Rafinya sprinted through obstacles in the woods, face pale, breath fluttering, eyes blown wide with shock.

She prayed she would wake up in the next minute. She had to tell everyone, round up humans nearby as fast as possible, and slip inside the academy walls—that was the plan.

But as she vaulted a log that lay across the path—

something five times her size, moving with shadow-swift speed through the deep woods, swooped in and clamped her jacket, hoisting her clean off the ground.

“!!!!”

She twisted back—and found herself dangling from the jaws of a giant wolf demon.

This wolf demon’s upper half was sheathed entirely in white bone that had grown into armor from the skull down. It didn’t have the face of a wolf as humans knew it; it looked more like a “wolf encased in bone.”

Its eyes burned red-orange. Its breath was wild-beast heat. Its fangs could tear an ordinary human to pieces with ease.

This was ROMA’s demon form.

Rafinya screamed—at this range, “the real thing,” no trick of the eye.

The wolf demon, clamping her, leapt into the moonlight; then, with athletic grace, bounded from treetop to treetop.

Roma moved so fast that, before she knew it, he’d borne her to the edge of a very high cliff, bare gray rock yawning below.

Then he let her drop—not to kill, but measured so she had just enough time to catch a branch with her strong arms and dangle there.

On Roma’s back were two humans: Dan and Nora.

“You demon!!! Put me down right now!!!”

Dan leaned over.

“Can’t do that. If I let you go, you’ll sprint into the city and I’m the one in trouble.”

Rafinya glanced down—then up.

If she let go, she’d head-butt the earth and wake up in heaven. Though she felt a tiny bit closer to believing in God right now, she’d rather stay in the mortal world a while longer.

“How about we talk first? That’s the reason I haven’t killed you, isn’t it?”

“I won’t talk to a demon!”

“You have to listen to me.”

“I won’t listen! To anything from you!”

And that was when Nora sensed Mr.Fury slam into a new gear.

If talking wouldn’t work—whether from long-pent-up frustration or whatever else—

“Okay. Fine. Have it your way.”

Dan’s tone changed.

“Roma, take her down to the rock pit below.”

Fwip.

At once, Dan kicked the branch Rafinya clung to—it snapped.

“?!?!”

Her body dropped—Roma dove and caught her; Nora had to cling tight around Dan’s waist.

“Urk!!!”

Rafinya blinked herself steady… The wolf demon set her on the gray stone floor. Above: the sky and a ring of cliff walls.

Dan slid down from Roma’s back. The wolf demon shifted back into Totti and held Princess Nora in place.

“Mr. Roma?”

“Let His Highness enjoy himself.”

The ash-gray-haired man backed off to sit, arms crossed, against a rock, the princess standing at his side, hands clasped.

Rafinya slowly got up… her clothes streaked with black grime, but what mattered more was what got kicked back to her—

her sword.

“!”

“Pick it up.”

Dan’s voice carried, cold as ice.

“You’ve been demanding it all along, haven’t you—that you want to fight me. You have that right now, Rafinya.”

!!!

Rafinya’s eyes flew wide… she stared at the dirt—yet her body… trembled.

“It’s alright, kid.”

Dan slipped off those black gloves and cast them aside.

He snapped his fingers twice.

Snap.

The familiar red lightning split the middle of the pit.

Prince Fury returned to his true form.

“Lose, and you simply die. Simple as that”