The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 65

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 65: Wings of the Bat (10)
The Marquis’s screams faded. Zion pushed off from the ground.
Wind rose from below, lifting the hem of his clothes, and his body drifted upward.
At the edge of his vision, black hair streamed in the wind.
Not blonde—black.
Hair the color of something forgotten, so unfamiliar now it had become, rippled in the dawn breeze.
‘Strange sentiment, this.’
At the boundary between night and dawn, one half of the sky remained deep blue while the other had brightened considerably.
Below his feet: the Slum District, a crowd forming a perfect circle.
Somewhere within that ring, the Marquis was still paying his debt.
He shifted his gaze.
Thousands of shabby, grimy rooftops.
Beyond those gathered near the Marquis, people stood between hovels, in the gaps between roofs.
Faces, faces, faces—all tilted upward, looking at the sky.
“The Crown Prince bears no guilt.”
“Though we may hold the sins of the fallen kingdom against his predecessors, there is no one in this land who would blame the Crown Prince.”
Words he’d heard that night echoed in his ears again.
He was grateful.
Words alone were enough.
‘But then again.’
There are things one must bear simply by being born.
People call it Original Sin.
And the word Original Sin, in truth, means more than guilt alone.
Responsibility too is Original Sin.
The weight that comes from being born with black hair and blue eyes and the name House of Blizhe.
Does it matter if I didn’t choose to be born this way?
Why should I be bound by such things?
The answer had come long ago.
‘Because everyone expects so much of me.’
Aristh wishes Zion Blizhe to become the king who saves the nation.
Rayanna wishes Zion Blizhe to be a hero worthy of her devotion.
All of the Liberation Army wish Zion Blizhe to be the central anchor that will lead them.
“So then. I’ll do it.”
Because they are precious to me.
Because precious people wish it.
Even if it’s difficult, painful, overwhelming.
For my people, I would gladly devote myself and meet their expectations.
‘Surely… not so long ago I wanted to cast it all away and be free.’
Now it was different.
Duty and responsibility had become joy somehow.
For he had become the kind of person who could fulfill duty and responsibility simply by doing as he wished.
For Zion Blizhe, the body of Zion Riobelt was exactly that.
The strange anomaly he had cursed was actually a blessing.
‘So from now on… just as now.’
As both Zion Blizhe and Zion Riobelt.
I will do my utmost.
For the liberation of the homeland, Blizhe.
So that all those precious people beneath my feet might live as freely and joyfully as I do now.
‘Come then, Quere Stellam Orbita.’
Black, translucent magical power gathered at his fingertips.
Void Attribute Magic ordinarily leaves no trace that any sensor could detect.
But this magic was different.
It was made to be seen, launched as a signal to be perceived.
Boom!
The magical power erupted high into the sky and scattered across the night.
The way the black fragments of power scattered resembled feathers falling from a raven’s wings.
Except there were thousands upon thousands of them.
And those feathers covering the sky etched wings into the heavens.
At the edge of each dissolving feather, a pale blue luminescence bloomed and faded, again and again.
Watching the sky descend with black eyes and blue sparks intermingled, his lips curled upward in a smile.
‘At this rate, my return will be known throughout the entire nation.’
As if on cue, the sound of the city awakening rose up from all around beneath his feet.
“What—what is that!”
Clang!
Clang!
The sound of windows opening.
People pouring barefoot into the alleyways.
Fingers pointing toward the sky.
Some opened their mouths in silent shock, others cried out in alarm and bolted in all directions.
And some—some wept.
“It’s—it’s Raven! The Liberation Army commander’s insignia!”
“Raven of Deber was alive! Damn it, the Empire’s worst criminal has returned!”
Across the river, in the Empire’s quarters, frantic whistle-blasts pierced the air.
Raven of Deber had not died.
Far from it—he had come back like this.
‘And naturally, this commotion will come with a bonus.’
With this, the people of the Slum District would no longer be accused of murdering Remikoning.
The Empire’s worst criminal had marked the sky, and that very night, a man had died.
The culprit was obvious, was it not?
He’d leave enough traces on the corpse to seal the matter.
Zion looked down again.
The entire Slum District visible in a single glance.
Collapsed walls.
Roofs rotted and crumbling with age.
Sewage pooled black in the streets.
Six pairs of feet, not hidden even by a single wooden plank.
‘Filthy. Unfit for human habitation.’
And yet—it moved him.
Thirty thousand people from Deber lived in places like this.
He swallowed down the emotion that rose to his throat.
‘Not now. But someday—without fail.’
That was when it came.
— Your Highness.
A voice reached his ear, carried on magical power.
From the shadowed alley mouth at the edge of the Slum District, intense gazes were rising toward him.
Heat that even concealment could not hide.
Members of the Liberation Society.
‘…Rayanna.’
A figure entirely cloaked in black, standing at the fore.
Rayanna, disguised as a towering form over two meters tall, was staring up at him with an unwavering gaze.
Zion leaned his body toward them.
* * *
The sound of kneeling came before his feet touched the ground.
Dozens of shadowed figures filling the alley dropped to one knee in unison.
‘Even if I told them to stop, they would not listen.’
Fifty years after the kingdom fell, to them Zion Blizhe remained the Crown Prince—one who would one day be king.
“Good to see you all. Especially you, Rayanna. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
The massive form rippled and shifted, then Rayanna pulled the black mask up and away from her face.
Her eyes revealed. Her face laid bare.
Traces of tears seemed to glisten there.
“Your Highness…!”
Rayanna stepped forward in a wide stride.
Zion’s hand rose reflexively.
“…That far enough.”
……
Rayanna stopped short, confusion and hurt flickering across her eyes.
But it couldn’t be helped.
‘I’m sorry. It’s not that I want distance between us—it’s that I don’t yet trust my own magic.’
Soul Transformation may cloak the body itself, but one can never be certain.
If Rayanna noticed something he himself had not yet detected—some minute discrepancy—
Things have become rather complicated.
“Rayanna.”
“Yes, Crown Prince.”
“Thank you. For holding on so well without me while I was detained.”
At a single word of praise, her shoulders shook visibly.
“Holding on? You endured all the hardship yourself.”
Rayanna’s voice grew heated.
“You weren’t merely detained—you suffered through all of it and still recovered the Northern Star’s lineage for us.”
Well, to be precise—
It’s a bit different.
But let’s leave it at that.
“And the intelligence you’ve been sending us lately. The investment information about Brown Defense from before, and every piece of information you provide is extraordinary. Crown Prince, when did you even establish such an information network?”
‘Information network,’ she calls it.
Zion pressed down on his lips to stifle a smile.
There was no such thing.
He simply walked about each morning wearing the face of the Empire’s Crown Prince.
But—
‘They look as if they’re saying, “Recovering artifacts while imprisoned and establishing information networks too!”‘
Not just Rayanna, but every member of the Secret Order carried reverence and adoration in their eyes.
Behind him stood an elderly man—a member of the Secret Order who appeared to be Aristh’s contemporary.
His eyes glistened with moisture.
Callused hands revealed beneath the tattered cloak.
The wrinkles on his forehead—a testament to hardships even greater than those hands bore.
‘Comrade. If you hadn’t devoted yourself to liberation, your present might have been brighter, cleaner.’
I’m sorry for leaving you in the shadows, unable to see your grandchildren play in your final years.
So I promise this.
To all of you who came crawling into this alley with your very lives at stake.
I will grant you the great aspirations you’ve longed for.
‘Those of you unbowed even after fifty years stolen. Your days ahead will be easier.’
“Crown Prince.”
Rayanna spoke, her voice firm with resolve.
“Let us return together. Everyone is waiting. The Vice-Commander has never left your position vacant for a single day.”
Here it comes.
Zion slowly shook his head.
“No, Rayanna. I’m not going back with you.”
“……What?”
It wasn’t only Rayanna.
The entire alley, which had been laughing and weeping moments before, froze solid.
“But… why not?”
“The Liberation Army needs a sovereign.”
When Rayanna raised her hand, the voices stopped abruptly.
“It’s been a year and a half, Crown Prince. You’ve been away that long, and now you won’t return with us?”
A reunion after a year and a half.
For Rayanna, that was the weight of it.
The first time she’d seen her lord since before the operation to assassinate the Ninth Prince.
‘Though I saw him this morning as well.
And very close at that.’
Of course, these words could never leave his lips.
“There are circumstances.”
“Please tell me the reason.”
“You and I—the Liberation Army moving in two directions will be more efficient for now.”
He’d already thought up an excuse.
“The organization I’ve newly built requires me to operate outside. There are still too many unstable elements. If I move with the Liberation Army, I won’t be able to act freely. You understand.”
Operating alone, Arch Mage Zion of House Blizhe would be freer than anyone.
Yet he had stayed with the Liberation Army all this time.
Everyone knew this well.
“……How long must we wait?”
“A year. Or perhaps three.”
I’m sorry.
It was forever.
He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud, so he lied instead.
‘Still, someday we’ll be able to face one another, all of us together. Even if we can’t stay beside each other forever.’
Soul Transformation was a spell he’d only just conceived.
He’d used it only three or four times. The longest he could sustain it was a little over an hour.
There were mountains of adjustments needed, and his current command of magic fell far short of what it had been in his Arch Mage days.
Until he could properly refine and master this spell, this distance was the bare minimum.
“Three years.”
Rayanna turned the number over in her mind.
Then she lifted her head with resolve.
“I’ll wait, Your Highness. But promise me this—when that time comes, you’ll truly return to us together.”
“……Yes. I swear it.”
Layering lie upon lie, Zion smiled.
The Crown Prince those people knew always smiled at precisely this moment.
“I entrust the Liberation Army to you all. Tell Aristh as well. I will fight my own battle, on my own field.”
“Your Highness, please.”
Rayanna placed her fist over her heart.
Thump, thump.
Dozens of fists followed, striking each breast in unison.
“May you endure.”
“May you endure.”
“May you endure.”
“May you endure.”
Taking in dozens of loyalties with his eyes, Zion pushed off the ground with the balls of his feet.
Into the sky where the black feathers had ceased, the Crown Prince vanished.
* * *
‘Time to return to being a scoundrel.’
Descending into the alley behind the hotel, Zion dispelled the magic first.
Black hair became gold, blue eyes turned crimson.
The form of the Crown Prince melted away, and the dissolute imperial prince emerged.
‘Who would dare suspect anything, but it’s better to prepare nonetheless.’
There was no harm in leaving traces of his whereabouts as evidence beforehand.
He needed to make sure every hotel employee knew that the Ninth Prince had drunk himself senseless all through the night and thrown a drunken fit.
‘If I were Zion Blizhe, I’d never dare do such a thing, thinking of my reputation’s collapse.’
But the Empire’s greatest wretch had no reputation left to lose—!
Zion drew a bottle of strong liquor from his pocket and unstoppered it.
He held a mouthful in his mouth and spat it out, then splashed the rest liberally over his collar and sleeves.
‘Ugh, the smell.’
He burst through the main entrance.
“Manager! Manager! The light’s blinding me! Why is it morning already!”
‘Because the sun’s risen, of course. My apologies.’
He harangued the manager with nonsense that made no sense.
Seeing the man’s flustered face left a bad taste in his mouth.
In a few days, he’d pretend to be in a better mood over some trivial matter and slip him a generous tip.
While every eye around began to gleam with that familiar thought—what a wretch the imperial prince truly was.
He climbed to the top-floor suite.
‘Flawless. Heh.’
A flawless performance, a flawless night.
He’d executed Remikoning, one of the Five Court Evils.
He’d tied off his business with the Liberation Army.
Everyone would have seen the mark, so by morning all of Seiel would be in chaos, and once the supposedly dead Zion Blizhe came back alive and the disgraced Zion Riobert was provoked into madness, everything would unfold perfectly.
“Perfect. Just perfect.”
Humming softly, he opened the door to his room.
And froze.
“Welcome back.”
His heart dropped into his stomach.
Inside the darkened suite, curtains drawn and lights off.
Winter stood there, half-obscured by shadow.
That characteristic expressionless face.
“Winter? What are you doing here?”
Winter was supposed to be in Aincen right now, discussing business with Eitar.
He’d said himself he would come up tomorrow afternoon.
Winter spoke while gazing out the window.
“So Zion Blizhe has appeared. I thought he was dead.”
Slowly, his gaze turned toward Zion.
“The Crown Prince announced that he had shot him down, after all.”
“You saw it yourself. I actually thought he was dead. There was even a body.”
“I see.”
One step. Winter emerged slightly from the darkness.
“You’ve seen the marks of Zion Blizhe? The same man who was drinking Strong Liquor without restraint just moments ago and making a drunken spectacle of himself in the lobby.”
Damn.
…….
A bead of cold sweat rolled down his spine.
He’d been caught.
It was a leading question.
‘This bastard Winter. Last time when he asked about my identity, I dodged it and thought he’d let it go since he went quiet afterward. But he hadn’t given up at all.’
Then it happened.
Something flew toward him—he caught it.
It was the chip Winter habitually rolled in his hand.
‘Throwing the chip means…….’
He’s making a bet.
Winter stepped fully from the darkness and stood directly before him.
“Crown Prince. What is your relationship with Zion Blizhe?”
‘He’s not just betting—he’s going all in, Winter…….’
“Please, tell me.”
…….
He said nothing.
No other response came to mind.
“I ask again. Crown Prince Zion Riobert.
Are you, perhaps, the same as Zion Blizhe……?”
Zion swallowed hard.

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