FMY 40

“Yes. I suppose I do love this country.”

This country that my father cherishes so much that he works through the night. This nation where my younger siblings will continue to live.

The two men’s serious eyes met in the air.

Having heard the answer, Raphael also slowly opened his mouth and spoke.

“It’s the same for me.”

A prince, a descendant of the dynasty that leads the country, was declaring himself a patriot. It was utterly obvious, but both Serge and Raphael knew precisely that this was not the main point of the conversation.

Without even properly explaining why he had brought up the topic of patriotism, Raphael suddenly changed the subject.

“I’m so glad you weren’t hurt at the palace ball that day.”

“…That’s because you protected me.”

At the sincere thanks, Raphael shrugged as if it were only natural.

“Now that you’ve seen that chaos, you must know something about those who are showing radical tendencies.”

“You mean the extremists who planted the explosives?”

“Yes. The ones who claim to be true patriots and liberals.”

Serge flinched at the sudden mention of the Third Estate. As it happened, he had just come from searching for information about those extremists in newspapers and all sorts of available records. He couldn’t tell if this guy was just perceptive or if his own actions were that transparent, since it wasn’t as if he had spied on what he was doing. In any case, Serge found the situation, which only continued to prove that they were of the same kind, thinking and reasoning in similar ways, so absurd that a weak, incredulous laugh escaped his lips.

“Their power is growing, and their movements are becoming more violent.”

Raphael now bent his body, directing his gaze toward the ground they stood on.

“Serge, do you see this here?”

He pointed to a certain spot with his finger. Serge also shifted his gaze to the tip of his finger and looked in the direction he was pointing. There, a few ants were marching in a line, diligently carrying what looked like tiny pieces of leaves.

“Look at these ants. Each one is so small. So very small that people don’t even notice them passing under their feet and just step on them as they go about their lives.”

“…”

“But what if they gather not as a single ant, but as a colony? Tens, hundreds, thousands. A swarm of ants gathered like that can dig into the ground to create a city of their own, and by swarming all at once, they can even bring down a tree as large as this.”

Their gazes continued to follow the movement of the black ants heading somewhere in a line.

“A single ant may be nothing. But their colony can easily bring down even a large wooden mansion. I mean, they can shake the very foundation that serves as the pillar and cause complete and utter ruin.”

“…You think the extremists can do something that tremendous?”

The eyes of the two men, which had been following the small black creatures, turned to each other again.

Watching Raphael nod, Serge looked genuinely shocked. Because even as he asked the question back, things were coming to mind. The citizen revolution that overthrew a lavish and incompetent dynasty. Such events have always occurred throughout history, haven’t they? It was not a baseless speculation.

“While the press, under pressure from the royal family, keeps things quiet and only reports on our love gossip, the extremists are far more active than we think. If you go to the taverns lining the Rue Saint-Denis, drink some cheap wine or absinthe, and just listen carefully, you’ll know. The majority of what the common people talk about is that.”

It sounded like the words of someone who had actually gone to the Rue Saint-Denis, where the poorest of the poor, the day laborers and paupers who live from hand to mouth, reside, and had a drink himself. Serge narrowed his eyes and quietly observed his fake fiancé. It wasn’t the first or second time he had felt this sense of déjà vu, but surely….

“I intend to prevent this country I love from collapsing so futilely at the hands of people like them.”

“…”

“Even if it means I have to take the crown myself.”

The listener’s eyes grew as wide as they could possibly get.

Serge, who had been stammering as if about to scream in astonishment, shot up from his seat. Then, with a whoosh, he quickly scanned his surroundings and even walked a full circle around their seat to survey the area.

After confirming for himself that there was truly no one around, Serge plopped down on the bench they were sitting on and pressed a hand to his forehead.

“…My goodness.”

His expression was the very picture of shock.

“My goodness, Raphael! Raphael Duke de Bernadotte!”

Serge called his name like a scream, tearing at his hair with both hands.

“You don’t have to call me by such a grand official title for me to know exactly who I am, chouchou.”

“No! You don’t know! You don’t know, which is why you’re saying this right now, Duke Bernadotte!”

He was a man who had been separated from the line of succession early on and had received the title of duke. For such a statement to come from someone who would simply become a duke and the king’s younger brother if the throne were passed on normally, it was utterly chilling.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that is to say?”

His throat was so tight that his voice came out like a rasp.

“Are you… are you trying to make me… our family…. Are you trying to make us all traitors?”

With a flustered face, Serge couldn’t stay still, repeatedly standing up and sitting down, pacing about. It was as if he were the very embodiment of an anxious person.

And with good reason. He was willingly doing all this ridiculous nonsense to change his second life to a safe one…! But what difference was there between him and someone who had just been told that the ride he was on was an express train to hell?

Serge’s hands, which had been tearing at his own hair, now grabbed Raphael by the collar.

“Is it true? Are you really planning to commit treason?”

Hearing the hushed, scream-like voice, Raphael let out a chuckle. As if it were nothing for someone to so irreverently grab the prince’s clothing.

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what is it? Surely you’re not going to tell me I misread the context? You just declared that you would take the throne…!”

Serge shook the hand that was gripping Raphael’s collar. The soft silk cravat was being horribly crumpled in his tight fist. But the one who had made the tremendous declaration and revealed the secret opened his mouth with an all-too-leisurely smile.

“I’ll show you step by step from now on, so watch carefully by my side, chouchou. I will take the crown without committing treason. So very naturally. As if it were the inevitable course of events.”

Raphael’s face was brimming with confidence.

And so, Serge could only ask in a trembling voice.

“But… but how?”

“The entire flow of events will lead to me inheriting the throne. That is how it will unfold. I have been preparing for a long time, and the entire flow has already been arranged.”

“…”

“Time will guide me to that position.”

“…You know, the way you’re talking so confidently. Do you know that this makes you seem a little insane…?”

Serge shook his head, looking at him as one would look at someone who believes that a unicorn with beautiful horns runs behind the hill where the rainbow appears. Like someone who had given up on persuading a fanatic engrossed in a cult, Serge plopped back down on the seat.

“Haaah…”

This was getting complicated. This wasn’t in his predictions…. Feeling as if he had taken in too much oxygen, Serge buried his head between his knees and slowly caught his breath.

“Serge, do you know about my prophecy?”

Raphael said with a casual face, retying his disheveled cravat.

For a moment, Serge didn’t quite understand what he had said. The tone was so nonchalant, the atmosphere so light, for him to be talking about the ‘Seed of 00,’ a secret kept by the royal family. Because of that, he ended up replying a little late, with a stupider expression than anyone else.

“A prophecy?”

“Yes. Have you never heard of it? The prophecy that Pope Paul VII, who was called a living saint, was said to have made when I was born.”

Of course, he knew. Thanks to it being a secret that was hushed up everywhere, whether in high society or in the press, there was almost no one who would openly speak of the prophecy or the situation at the time. It was like the one who ‘must not be named’ in the bestselling novel from his past life; though mentioning it was taboo, it was a story that was passed on to everyone behind the scenes to the point that there was no one who didn’t know about it.

“…I know.”

“Then do you also know its content?”

In a tone as light as if asking about yesterday’s dinner menu, Serge also nodded blankly.

<The one who bears the Seed of 00, he shall make the throne steadfast.>

“…It was something about a seed.”

“That’s right. The Seed of Miracles.”

For a moment, it felt as if the air had strangely frozen.

“…What?”

What did I just hear? Did I hear that right? Miracles?

“The word in that prophecy that is not known.”

His face was nonchalant even as he uttered words that were treated as a top secret by the royal family.

My goodness. Is today some kind of revelation day?

Serge’s face began to turn pale, like someone who had heard something he shouldn’t have.

‘In the movies, the kids who hear top secrets like this always die first…! Isn’t this a death flag…!’

Even though he was living on borrowed time, Serge had no desire to die earlier than his appointed death, and he slowly scooted his bottom back on the bench. It was to get even a little farther away from his fiancé-to-be, who was making one dangerous statement after another. It was an action that seemed to claim, I have nothing to do with this traitor, but they were already on the verge of engagement. In other words, in his panic, Serge was currently acting like a rabbit hiding only its head in a burrow.

“Listen, chouchou. ‘Miracles.’ Isn’t it a word that is both vague and magnificent?”

Raphael spoke as if sneering.

Come to think of it, wasn’t that true? ‘Miracles.’ It was a tremendous word, yet at the same time, an incredibly ambiguous one. A miracle for what, exactly?

“Is that all?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m asking if the phrase ‘Seed of Miracles’ is the entirety of the prophecy.”

“If you’re just looking at the prophecy itself, then yes.”

At Serge’s question, Raphael wore an expression as if he knew what he was thinking.

“No matter how you look at it, it’s a very ambiguous prophecy.”

“It’s a prophecy that could mean anything depending on how you interpret it.”

“I’ve always thought so too. That’s why I went to see the late His Holiness the Pope when I was a cadet at the military academy, to hear the proper interpretation directly from him.”

At the words that he had sought out Paul VII himself, Serge also nodded. It would be one thing if it were the prophecy of a deceased person, but the one who had made the prophecy himself had been alive until a year ago. There was no reason not to visit the prophet who was alive at the time to resolve his questions.

“Actually, rather than the exact meaning of the prophecy, I wanted to know what meaning the people of that time had found in it. Why I was so shunned by my parents.”

It was a very small and remote place he had reached after crossing rugged mountain ranges. The monastery on a sheer cliff where Pope Paul VII was said to be staying for prayer.

He had walked and walked the dangerous path and arrived at dawn as the sun was rising, but at the monk’s stern words that he must not disturb the vicar of Christ’s prayer time, he had simply waited and waited. By the time he was finally granted an audience, the afternoon had passed, and the sun was setting.

In front of the old, wrinkled face with a more benevolent smile than anyone, Raphael barely managed to maintain his composure.

Because a mixture of anger, unfairness, and sorrow, the reasons for which he did not know, suddenly welled up, and the impulse to grab the old man’s legs, kneel down, and scream or sob felt like it was about to burst out.

<I knew you would come to see me.>