How to Raise a Dumb Wolf - Chapter 112

Once the window was locked, Elizabeth immediately felt much safer and breathed in relief. But when she looked at Brandon again, his expression frightened her into shrinking backward.

Darkfolk skin was already among the darkest of all races, a muted leaden gray. Now Brandon’s face had darkened further at her action, so naturally…

He nearly merged with the night.

“I-I’m sorry…”

Though Elizabeth was not the one who had illegally crossed a border in the middle of the night and landed on someone else’s balcony, she apologized involuntarily. Her hand tightened around the curtain and crushed the poor fabric into wrinkles.

Brandon paused, then softened at her words. If he could hear Elizabeth, she could certainly hear him. “…Can you hear me?”

“Huh? Mm…”

Elizabeth nodded cautiously. She had heard him all along. She had simply… been startled.

That was perfectly normal. Anyone would be frightened by knocking on the high window of a castle room at midnight, especially when opening the curtain revealed a darkfolk prince.

“Good.”

Relieved that she could hear him, Brandon no longer needed her to open the window. Yet after a pause, he found he had no idea where to begin.

Years of refusing to discuss anything had left him unable to start a discussion now. Moreover… there was a great deal he needed to say.

Learning that Princess Elizabeth was inviting mages from around the world to break the magic in her wrist had filled Brandon with intense anxiety. On one hand, he tried to reassure himself that even among darkfolk, only a few royals with magical talent knew this spell. It was also a paired-array spell and could not be broken easily. On the other… he feared an exception. The world held countless brilliant people, and Wold possessed an entire Tower of Magic and unparalleled magical prosperity. The reward offered by Ryan’s king and queen was enough to tempt many talented mages.

Irritation. Anxiety.

Brandon himself could not explain it. He and Elizabeth had originally shared no connection. He did not need to go to so much trouble worrying about her. But…

He was the left hand, and she… was the right.

The first time he touched her wrist, Brandon had been genuinely astonished. He had believed it impossible that anyone else in the world could be like him.

It was a strange power, present from birth. Brandon’s left wrist had always possessed far greater strength than an ordinary person’s. The strength was difficult to control and often emerged unintentionally, sometimes crushing whatever he happened to touch, sometimes hurting someone he wished to embrace. Worse… the power was too violent and unnatural for a child’s body—or any ordinary body—to bear. Unless the owner possessed a physique strong enough to withstand it, the backlash consumed the body. Bones grew fragile, the mind weakened, and no matter how much one ate, the body continued wasting away, as though something devoured all its energy first merely to feed the terrifying, insatiable monster within the wrist.

Brandon had been extremely frail as a child. Darkfolk complexions were a sickly leaden gray even in health, but his appearance had been far more alarming. The wrist stole nearly all his energy, leaving almost no nourishment to support his body. Even his wings failed to develop fully. He looked like a withered boy who had crawled from a grave, on the verge of death every day.

The decision then had come from his two maternal uncles, Princes Gilbert Grey and Maxi Grey. They took the spatial magic secretly researched by generations of the darkfolk royal family and placed it in his wrist.

It was both treatment and experiment. The spatial magic could transfer objects regardless of distance and had originally been researched for war. Darkfolk flight already offered an enormous spatial advantage on the battlefield, but they were not satisfied. Only magic could combine perfectly with that ability. If vast airborne armies could appear instantly anywhere in the world, then Helman, Beast, Wold… the entire world would once more witness the darkfolk’s glory!

Unfortunately, the spell was too complicated. Even now, it could not transport something the size of a human body, much less an army. It had therefore never truly been tested on a person. Brandon… offered a convenient opportunity. His two uncles personally placed the magic in his wrist for the first time, and it succeeded. His mother Shali consequently owed her brothers a debt and suffered their political pressure at every turn. The situation improved after Brandon learned to control the magic himself, but by then… the two princes already dominated Duke. Even after Shali ascended as queen, she wielded little genuine power.

Brandon also knew that Gilbert and Maxi, who had declared independence, continued the military-magic experiments South Duke had abandoned. He did not know whether they researched separately or had secretly agreed to cooperate. Though the two uncles often quarreled, their relationship with each other was far better than either shared with their sister. If their research succeeded, those two racist warmongers would unquestionably assemble their forces and begin another war. With such a terrifying magical weapon, darkfolk armies might truly descend from the sky without warning and vanish just as suddenly. Their operating range would expand from the lands around Duke to the entire world, instantly compensating for their small population.

This was what Brandon and his mother feared. Unfortunately, East Duke and West Duke had escaped their control entirely. The former princes possessed complete sovereignty within their territories. Brandon and Shali could not stop them. Powerful empires and federations might be capable of doing so, but…

Even divided, the darkfolk and their kingdom of Duke remained enemies to humans and beastfolk. They could not ask either country for help, and even if they did, the request would probably be refused.

Brandon composed himself and looked at the human princess again.

To tell the truth, discovering in Wold that she suffered the same condition he once had left him profoundly shocked. More alarming still, the girl had no idea that her physical weakness was connected to the excessive power in her wrist. Without taking any precautions, she had wagered that power against a life as faint as a dying candle and stood on the battlefield with a sword.

The fastest emergency measure Brandon could imagine was placing an array in Elizabeth’s right wrist, which was continually consuming her life force. But the transferred power needed an exit array within a similar environment. In that crisis, the only option he could devise was his own right wrist.

Now his left wrist contained one array, while his right contained two. One received Elizabeth’s power; the other transferred that power onward into an array whose surrounding space had been imitated with extensive magic to resemble a wrist. This kept the curse-like ability from consuming him completely, but too much had been placed inside his body. His right hand sometimes throbbed with pain. Moreover, maintaining three complicated arrays prevented him from using magic under ordinary circumstances, reducing him to a swordsman in battle.

As for breaking Elizabeth’s wrist…

That truly had been an accident. Because it lay closest to the source of power, the wrist was the most vulnerable part of the body. In daily life, everyone must have handled Elizabeth like porcelain, so nothing had happened. But when Brandon discovered her condition, excitement overcame him for one second. His hand tightened unconsciously, and he had no idea that years of erosion had left Elizabeth’s wrist so brittle that the slightest force could shatter it.

Seeing Elizabeth much healthier after the power was transferred had brought Brandon some relief. Yet the current solution treated the symptom, not the cause. He had intended to let the young princess live on without encountering an unpleasant man like him again. But now she and her parents were determined to remove the spell. Unless he explained, they might…

In truth, there was a way to use the power.

After a pause, Brandon said, “You cannot remove that array. Otherwise, the power in your right hand will destroy your body. Convince your parents to stop recruiting mages. If you truly want to remove it someday…”

Elizabeth stared. “How do you know—”

“Do not interrupt me.”

Brandon’s eyes turned fierce. Under his glare, Elizabeth instinctively closed her mouth and watched helplessly. Through the glass, his bottomless black eyes held her captive.

“To endure that power, you must train your body until it can withstand it. If you want details, I can explain further. Ultimately, only you can help yourself. But…”

Brandon paused.

“If you want to learn swordsmanship, I can teach you.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and her fingers tightened around the curtain. She still did not understand his explanation. He had watched her for so long yet spoken only a few sentences after appearing without warning. But…

The words “magic array,” “power,” and especially that final, crucial word—“swordsmanship”—seemed to move her. She hesitated until cold sweat nearly soaked the curtain. Then she heard herself ask softly, “Then… tell me about it?”

“…All right.”

…

Moonlight remained peacefully suspended in the sky, guarding a field of stars. A world without war appeared tranquil. At that moment, Aisha had no idea that her friend’s fate would change completely within minutes.

Just as no one in the world, including Queen Shali and Prince Brandon, knew what opportunity the fallen East Duke and West Duke were awaiting.

Just as their two rulers, King Gilbert and King Maxi, had not realized that the array in Princess Elizabeth’s wrist—the spell recently made famous throughout the world—was the secret they desperately wanted to conceal, placed years ago by the nephew they despised.

And Aisha herself had not yet understood that the notebook casually left beside her bed recorded a terrifying weapon of war.

There were far too many things Aisha could not predict. For example…

She had no idea that her boyfriend was preparing to propose.

“I… I don’t know how to say it.”

Even Les looked nervous and uneasy. Though a hardened beastfolk soldier accustomed to battle, he appeared no different from any ordinary young man at such a moment—except that he stood rather straighter.

“Aisha, would you… be willing to marry me?”

“No! Not sincere enough! Your eyes aren’t loving enough!”

Carter III evaluated him from the other side of the magic. This was already the third proposal speech the cat emperor had rejected, and his expression was extremely grave.

“Les, if this is how you practice alone, what will happen when you truly stand before Aisha?!”