I’m Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads - Chapter 165

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 165
I’d only heard that Rodban had made such a plan, but this was the first I was hearing that it would happen today—and imminently at that. I looked up at Enoch in surprise.
“Really? Is that true? Do you have a plan to defend against it?”
“We have a plan, so there’s nothing to worry about. Think of it as just one large insect that’s gotten inside.”
Enoch answered casually, but I couldn’t share his composure. That insect seemed far too enormous.
The Prince of Asdal, who sat across from Enoch, laughed and replied.
“Indeed, worrying about the Half-Emperor would hardly be a needless concern. Who could he possibly fall to?”
At the Prince of Asdal’s words, I finally felt reassured.
“Now then, the reason I gathered us all here to dine together is because we’ve already discovered the pattern Anata mentioned. You know, the peony flower caught in a spider web.”
The Prince of Asdal smiled with refined grace and sipped his wine elegantly. His bearing was so formal that he now looked truly like a prince.
According to the Prince of Asdal, someone had come from the Hestia Kingdom this morning to retrieve him.
But apparently, one of the knights dispatched to take him had that pattern inscribed upon him. That person was none other than Aberdeen Kristin.
Wasn’t Aberdeen someone the Prince of Asdal trusted so deeply that when he left his final will, he instructed us to find him and entrust future matters to his care?
It seemed he’d said there was no other successor capable of inheriting the Royal Family if he were to die.
“That child had the pattern inscribed on the back of his neck. I never once suspected that fellow had any connection to the Experiments. I truly thought he was an exceptionally outstanding young man…”
The Prince of Asdal’s expression darkened abruptly, and he sighed before draining his wine glass in one gulp.
“It seems I still lack the qualities befitting a king. I’m not worthy of possessing Magic Sight. Ah, now that I have only one eye, perhaps I truly am unworthy.”
The Prince of Asdal tapped the eye patch covering his right eye with his finger and laughed.
We all fell silent, unable to add any words.
“Well, at least we’ve learned that this ‘peony flower’ is a pattern inscribed somewhere on the bodies of those involved in that plan.”
At the Prince of Asdal’s words, Enoch, who had been quiet, nodded and added his thoughts.
“It would be best to narrow down suspicious individuals and search their bodies. Those who led this war must be close to the forces behind it. We should investigate them first.”
Then Archbishop Luzef raised a counter-question with a somewhat skeptical expression.
“That may be so, but conducting a large-scale body search is practically difficult. These are not people of low social standing, after all.”
“Right. If this were the Island, we could just drag them in and beat them, but it’s truly troublesome here.”
Yuanna Lucy spoke with a troubled expression, narrowing the space between her eyebrows. When Archbishop Luzef, now a Cleric, pointed out that such crude language was unbecoming, Yuanna pretended not to hear and flicked her ear. She’d apparently picked up that rough manner of speaking from Kaiden.
Enoch, who had been listening quietly to the conversation, opened his mouth.
“Then there’s also the method of bribing those close to them or those who serve them. If we find the pattern, we should immediately search for evidence that they participated in the Experiments. Or evidence connecting the Papal Court and the Rohade Family would be equally valuable.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Then Enoch continued calmly.
“I’ve already sent a Reconnaissance Team to Alea Island, so it would be good to search for evidence there as well.”
“Already?”
I couldn’t hide my astonishment at Enoch’s swift execution and looked at him. The Prince of Asdal snapped his fingers in vigorous agreement.
“If we can also secure additional evidence from Alea Island, that would be ideal. It would prove their connection to the Experiments far more conclusively.”
Kaiden, listening to the Prince of Asdal’s words, calmly answered while squeezing lemon juice over his carpaccio.
“There’s another way to prove the connection. There’s a blood contract within the Rohade Family. A blood pact that those who participated in the Experiments made directly.”
…What?
It seemed I wasn’t the only one shocked.
“How would the Lord know that?”
“It’s a matter of the Lord’s family, after all.”
Yuanna Lucy answered the Prince of Asdal’s question. Then Archbishop Luzef asked back with a puzzled expression.
“But wasn’t it the Rohade Family that offered Lord as a sacrifice?”
Everyone was murmuring their own thoughts when Kaiden set down the fork he’d been holding onto the table with a sharp clink, then added one more thing.
“That’s not it. I have Jenas sealed within my body. He told me himself.”
Clatter. Clatter—
At that very moment, everyone except Kaiden and me shot to their feet.
They assumed alert stances and drew weapons from seemingly nowhere. I had no idea where all those menacing blades kept appearing from.
I sat blankly beside Kaiden before thinking I should grab something too, so I quietly pulled a Flare from my pocket.
I’d actually been meaning to ask Kaiden whether he planned to tell the party about Jenas, but things had spiraled out of control.
Kaiden calmly surveyed his surroundings, then picked up his napkin to dab his mouth.
“It’s fine. He made a contract binding his soul eternally to me. He can never defy my will.”
“…That contract—I know of it. You’ve done something entertaining.”
The Prince of Asdal responded. Though he wasn’t a Mage himself, his family’s inheritance of Magic Sight gave him knowledge of Mana and Magic comparable to any expert.
“Did you impose a ‘punishment’ as well?”
“Every time we find a force involved, his soul will be torn. And—”
Kaiden rose from his seat,
“Manifestation.”
he said. His Red Eyes gleamed brilliantly for an instant.
“Each time I call out like this, a seal is branded upon his soul. It’s a punishment of his soul burning away.”
The Prince of Asdal let out an exclamation of fascination.
“Oh. Just now then?”
“A seal was branded.”
I couldn’t fathom Jenas being tortured so mercilessly. The Jenas who’d stormed into my tent last night had been so confident.
At this rate, I almost thought it would be better to meet death in one stroke like Anata had.
“How did you bind his soul? I thought Jenas was dead.”
At the Prince of Asdal’s question, Kaiden calmly explained what had happened that day.
How he’d confronted the fragment of Jenas’s soul remaining in his body, and how lightning suddenly struck Jenas—he recounted everything, including how he’d enacted the binding contract in that opening.
“Ah, so that’s why the vengeful spirits were striking you with lightning right before our escape. I wondered why Anata burned to death while you remained unscathed.”
The Prince of Asdal nodded with understanding dawning on his face.
“Is Jenas listening right now?”
Yuanna asked with sparkling eyes, and Kaiden nodded with an indifferent expression. Yuanna then quickly jeered at him.
“A Mage who lived for a thousand years, and this is your pathetic end. How fitting.”
Pfft. Puhahahaha. Kaiden burst into laughter at her words.
Just then, a servant entered the tent carrying the main course.
He took one look at the state of the tent and jumped back in alarm, quickly retreating. Chairs were scattered across the floor from everyone’s hasty departure, and we all stood in a standoff with weapons drawn.
We exchanged embarrassed glances before each retrieving our chairs and sitting back down.
“So we need to find the blood letter that’s supposedly in the Rohade Family?”
Hearing the Prince of Asdal’s words, Yuanna narrowed the space between her eyebrows in disgust and answered.
“A blood letter? How infuriating.”
“Indeed.”
Archbishop Luzef chimed in agreement.
Everyone seemed to be mentally organizing their tasks for the days ahead, and a brief silence fell over the tent.
After that, a quiet meal should have followed—but it didn’t.
Archbishop Luzef, who was eating the roasted lamb leg that had been served as the main course, watched Kaiden drink red wine without hesitation and quietly opened his mouth.
“I heard that the Lord cannot hold his liquor.”
Surprised by the unexpected remark, I turned to look at Kaiden sitting beside me.
“I’m hearing this for the first time. Kaiden, you can’t drink?”
“Why can’t I? I can drink just fine.”
Now that he mentioned it, Kaiden’s cheeks already seemed somewhat flushed.
“You may be able to drink, sir. Just please don’t end up so intoxicated that you need to be carried away.”
“Hey, lackey. Can’t you just shut up for a moment?”
“It seems the inability to appreciate concern is indeed a characteristic of filthy mages.”
Actually, at this rate, weren’t Archbishop Luzef and Kaiden best friends?
Kaiden, rather than responding to Archbishop Luzef’s provocation, suddenly bristled and drained the rest of the wine he was holding.
“See! This is nothing to me!”
“It’s only one glass.”
Archbishop Luzef mocked Kaiden and offered him another glass of wine.
However, Archbishop Luzef couldn’t hand the wine to Kaiden. True to his words, Kaiden drank just one glass of wine and then collapsed onto the table, his head falling forward as he fell asleep.
We all fell silent for a moment. Even Archbishop Luzef, who had offered the wine, seemed flustered, not having expected it to be this bad.
As I pressed Kaiden’s sleeping cheeks repeatedly, I suddenly recalled what Jenas had told me when he came to find me—that if Kaiden fell into a comatose state, Jenas could emerge from his body.
But no matter how long I waited, there was no response. Throughout the meal, Kaiden had been muttering something about “manifestation” under his breath. Perhaps I had left Jenas’s soul so utterly shattered that it couldn’t move at all.
Then.
Suddenly, someone entered the tent without any warning.
“Oh, everyone was gathered here?”
It was Prince Rodban.
His blazing red hair caught my eye immediately. He looked exactly as he appeared in Margaret’s memories.
Enoch’s prediction was flawless. I saw the armed knights entering alongside him.
When Prince Rodban’s eyes met mine, his face lit up with delight.
“Oh! Our Lady Flone is here too!”
Prince Rodban strode over and openly scrutinized my face. Why was he acting so familiar?
“You look exactly like your sister, but what a shame. I hear you have quite a twisted personality with that face? I’ve certainly heard the rumors that you were a madwoman.”
What is this bastard saying? I fell back into my old habits from the Island, unable to control my expression, and my brow furrowed.
“Young Lady, please restrain yourself.”
At that moment, the Prince of Asdal pressed down firmly on both my shoulders as if calming a rabid dog.
“Now listen here, Prince. Our Young Lady will pierce right through a person’s belly if you touch her. Don’t touch her.”
No, Your Highness. That sounds exactly like saying “our dog will tear a person apart if you touch it.”
Besides, I’ve never actually pierced anyone’s belly. It seemed he was referring to the incident where I pierced through Magical Beasts with a Flare.
“And who might this be, Crown Prince of Asdal? It’s been a while?”
Prince Rodban greeted the Prince of Asdal with familiarity, as if they knew each other very well.
After all, Prince Rodban had previously been the legitimate Crown Prince of Langrid, so it wouldn’t be strange if he knew the Prince of Asdal.
However, the Prince of Asdal was….
“I have no desire to spend much time with you. Aren’t you the criminal who tried to kill my brother? Did you escape from your place of exile? We were on the Island ourselves until recently, and we managed to escape too, haha!”
“….”
After delivering that chilling jest, I burst into laughter alone.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————