The Crown Prince In Hiding

Chapter 27

Diablo

The colossal sand worm burst from underground, soaring over their heads, its body larger than the airship. Its tremendous length passed above them like a living arc.

Nora and Rafinya stood frozen, eyes wide.

Its voice was deep and muffled, resonating like a whale in the ocean.

Its body eclipsed the sunlight, casting a shadow over the ground below. It was a giant worm encased from head to tail in hard, scale-like plating.

Its arrival sent clouds of sand billowing across the entire area, but Genoa spread her armor wide to shield the honored guests.

"That is one of our monster beasts."

Genoa said.

"A servant of Prince Fury. Yormungan."

And it had returned to its master after many years.

It must have sensed them the moment the airship touched the ground, but it had been far away and needed time to arrive. Yes, it moved remarkably fast for something its size.

Both girls poked their heads out from behind Genoa's arms.

Fine grains of sand clung to every inch of their bodies and hair. By any diplomatic standard, this was an egregious breach of protocol, bringing disgrace upon a princess of an allied nation.

"Oof..."

"Mr. Fury... did you do that on purpose?"

Did it count as deliberate? Probably, given that he had been standing under an umbrella since who knows when.

"On purpose? That's quite the accusation."

"Personal grudge of some kind?"

"Not at all."

Nora and Rafinya looked at each other, brushing at the sand that had now worked its way into every fiber of their hair and clothes.

"Hehe."

"Don't laugh, Mr. Fury."

The giant worm Yormungan had already burrowed back underground. It possessed enough intelligence to know it should not linger too close to humans.

"Yormungan is the pillar that ensures no one dares invade our country."

Genoa explained,

"It once ruled this entire desert as its territory, until Prince Fury came and subdued it."

She added,

"Yormungan moves beneath the earth at all times. It senses every activity within its domain. When intruders appear, it sends a signal to all of us so we can respond and converge on the target's position immediately."

Just seeing the sheer size of it was enough to make both girls tremble.

Prince Fury, in his youth, had fought that thing.

"No wonder Iskaryx was no match for you."

"You should thank my mother for sacrificing the resources to bring me into this world."

Dan folded the umbrella and put it away.

After that, the airship took to the skies once more, soaring across the vast expanse of the desert district.

"Yormungan should rightfully be the guardian of the desert district. If not for the fact that it's a monster beast, not a Diablo."

Dan explained to them both.

"And it can't speak. So I appointed Genoa as the guardian instead."

"Where is the next district, Mr. Fury?"

"You two brought warm clothes, didn't you?"

"Yes... just as you told us."

"Then it's time to put them on."

The airship was accelerating. They could feel it climbing until it reached the altitude of the clouds, then pressing forward at full power to change course away from the desert's hot winds.

Heading toward a land that was the polar opposite of the desert.

District Four: Snow.

Cold winds began to blow against them as the airship crossed the boundary from desert into green forest, and from green forest into white.

What began as scattered flecks of white gradually became a blanket of pristine snow, and towering valleys draped entirely in white.

The sky above was a vivid blue, set sharply against the clean whiteness of untouched snow.

These were ridges that had been forming for hundreds of millions of years. Natural formations born from the collision of tectonic plates. The scenery resembled Nepal or Haiti. It was quiet... and still.

So quiet you could hear the faint sound of individual snowflakes settling on the ground.

"It's so beautiful..."

Rafinya could not tear her eyes from the natural splendor before her. Luminus had nothing like this.

Dan watched his second student from close by. He walked up beside her and said,

"We're very lucky today. The weather up here is quite good. Clear skies."

He glanced down at his pocket watch, and Nora caught the smile forming at the corner of his mouth.

"Here he comes."

"Who's coming?"

"Good day."

A mysterious figure appeared from behind them without a sound.

Rafinya spun around and instinctively stepped back.

Before them

stood a man with sleek, shoulder-length white hair, wearing round black-framed glasses. His eyes were blue like Nora's. His skin was the pale white of a Snowhaven native. He was roughly The Raven's height, with a straight nose bridge and sharply angled eyes. He wore a white suit, white shoes, and had a complexion as refined as a highborn lady's. His manner, his bearing, his voice... a nobleman draped in white. Everything about him was white.

But their instincts told them.

He might not be human.

"Princess Nora. Ms. Rafinya."

He bowed to both honored guests, then turned to his master.

"Your Grace."

"Your human form is something I'll never get used to, no matter how many times I see it."

"It looks rather fine, wouldn't you say, Your Grace? I designed this form myself."

"A perfectionist like you probably trimmed it until every strand of hair was exactly the same length."

"You flatter me."

"Nora, Rafinya."

"Yes, Mr. Fury..."

Dan clapped the man on the back.

"This is Dominic."

The instant that name left his lips, both girls recognized it immediately. Nora had heard Fury mention it often, and Rafinya had read about him in Sir Harry Kane's writings.

The Owl Diablo. A symbol of intellectual malice. He was the battle strategist of the Demon Empire. He made no sound. He could see in the dark. And most importantly, he appeared at the Demon King's side every single time. He wielded considerable authority.

Beyond being the battle strategist,

Dominic was also the guardian of Diablo's snow district.

"Right about now, the Empress and the Demon King should be at the beach according to the schedule. So allow me to introduce this district to you."

Dominic adjusted his glasses with a flick.

The terrain of this district consisted of the Anticline Mountain Range, folded mountains formed by the buckling of the earth's crust. The steep gradients gave rise to deep U-shaped valleys carved by ancient glaciers.

The geological highlight of this area was the veins of frozen indigo mana crystal embedded in the fractures of granite beneath the ice layer. These crystals possessed the property of refracting and emitting low-intensity blue light waves when reacting with sub-zero temperatures, causing the light to travel through the clear ice and reflect outward.

And because it was a large enclosed valley, wind was blocked by the mountain walls, resulting in low air circulation within the valley. This created a state of Atmospheric Calm, an eerie stillness free from the howl of storms, unless wind currents collided at the high peaks outside.

"This last point has a direct impact on the adaptation of every living thing within the snow district. Silence is an essential tool for survival in this biome."

The Diablo who called this frozen valley home had developed their physiology to fully support a system of "silent hunting and movement," or Acoustic Stealth.

Ordinary demons typically exhaled with fierce, growling force. But the snow-dwellers possessed intricately curved nasal cavities and specialized diaphragm muscles. The white breath they exhaled in sub-zero temperatures was filtered to a whisper, devoid of any rushing sound, even when sprinting at full speed to close in on prey.

Here, silence was everything.

Princess Nora understood that meaning better than anyone. Snowhaven legends often featured the "snowy owl" as a hunter more terrifying than any saber-toothed tiger, precisely because of its silence. It was the symbol of death for the people of Snowhaven.

And Dominic was exactly that.

She knew he was an owl-type Diablo, in one form or another.

Looking down below, Princess Nora began to see them. Emerging from the white expanse of snow.

The snow Diablo, who had come out to pay their respects to the foreign princess. They all gazed up at the airship, looking at her. Most of their bodies were a soft, pale white, and they were remarkably quiet. Rafinya could barely hear any footsteps at all.

(Dominic must be white too, in his true form...)

Nora thought.

"Our snow district also has mana crystal mines. The caves within the valleys serve as another primary excavation site for us."

Dominic took the liberty of positioning himself between the two girls and began his explanation. His approach had been so silent that they both instinctively edged away. He was quiet to the point of being unnerving.

"Dominic, you're scaring them when you do that."

"Am I?"

"If you had come with me to Artheris from the start, things wouldn't have gotten so messy."

"Mr. Dominic would have come?"

"The one originally supposed to accompany me wasn't Freya. It was him."

Nora and Rafinya silently agreed. If Dominic had come instead of Freya, the Prince would have had a much easier time.

His manners and way of speaking alone were in an entirely different league from Freya's.

"You're the one who chose not to bring me."

"I just had you doing something more useful."

"I would have liked to see the wider world myself."

"Everyone's nerves would have been shot."

"Why is that, Mr. Fury?"

"Because you're ridiculously high-maintenance."

"High-maintenance how, Your Grace?"

The beautiful young man with sleek white hair adjusted his glasses.

"I'm simply thorough."

"Mr. Dominic..."

"Yes, Your Highness?"

He turned to Nora at her call.

"Mr. Fury talks about you often... You're the one who planned the battle strategies for Diablo during the war, aren't you?"

"Not at all, Princess Nora. I merely served in an advisory capacity."

"He's the one who planned the battles."

Dan cut in immediately.

"He's the one who whispered in my father's ear. This guy right here."