The Youngest Prince Returned as a Heavenly Demon - Chapter 11

“What, what, what did you say?!”

The sudden bombshell statement made Duke Luke jump in surprise.

The Marquis and Yandel also appeared quite flustered.

“U-um… Seraya? I mean… no matter how much you want to get close to Prince Verdine… we just met today, and already…”

“Aang~ It’s fine, daddy~?”

“Ugh! B-but…!”

“Ah… is that not okay?”

“Hah?! No, I mean… if Prince Evan is fine with it…”

Duke Luke clearly seemed very uncomfortable with his daughter showing interest in me. However, it seemed like his daughter wasn’t just any ordinary girl—when Ainsera pouted and coaxed him, his resolve weakened, and he couldn’t even say a word.

He just glared at me instead.

“Marquis, is this okay?”

After making a move on Duke Luke, my next target was the Marquis.

Hah, a ten-year-old girl really is something else.

“C-cough! Evan… are you okay with this?”

The question, after all, came back to me.

What would I do if I said no? The atmosphere would be ruined.

My answer was basically decided already.

Smiling faintly…

“Yes, father. I’ll guide the young lady to the castle.”

“Hehe~ Thank you, Prince Evan!”

A resigned smile lingered on my face, while Ainsera wore a triumphant one.

After finishing the meal, we stood up first.

There’s a saying that a tree with potential is recognizable from its seedling.

Ainsera, though only ten years old, already had extraordinary beauty.

Silver hair like her father, the Marquis.

Captivating pale green eyes.

Fair skin and long eyelashes—this young lady would go on to make many young men at the Hebron Academy cry in the future.

But that didn’t matter to me.

‘Ugh, I wonder what kind of important conversation might be going on over there…’

Whether she knew how I was feeling or not, Ainsera sweetly called my name.

“Prince Evan~”

“Please call me Prince Verdine, Lady Luke.”

I gently set some boundaries, but Ainsera easily crossed them.

“We’re the same age, so how about we just drop the formalities and be friends?”

“…Excuse me?”

Was she already using informal speech?

“Hoo—”

What should I do with this bold little lady…

I absentmindedly brushed my bangs aside, feeling a slight headache.

Swish—

“Oh my…”

Ainsera let out an exclamation from her lips.

She seemed to have stared blankly for a moment without realizing it.

Well, I understood exactly how she felt.

Back when I was getting used to this face, I’d sometimes look in the mirror and marvel at it too.

“Fine… no, it’s fine.”

In the end, I accepted Ainsera’s suggestion.

After all, a person with this type of personality is difficult to change their mind about, so it wasn’t easy to oppose her.

“Heh— you accepted it faster than I expected?”

“Do you want me to go back to using formal speech?”

“No~ It’s fine.”

Even with a slightly cheeky response, Ainsera chuckled as if enjoying herself.

And then, the questioning began again.

“Hey— I’m just asking out of curiosity, so don’t take it the wrong way?”

“……”

If you think I’ll take it the wrong way, wouldn’t it be better to just not ask at all?

The words almost escaped my mouth, but I managed to keep them inside.

“You said you lived as a commoner until three months ago, right?”

“…What?”

Is this girl seriously bringing up my background?

I was a bit taken aback, but after hearing what she said next, it seemed like it was just the innocent curiosity of a young noble lady.

“Hey, what was it like living as a commoner? I bet it was a lot freer and more comfortable than being a noble, right? No etiquette to worry about.”

“…Hmm.”

How should I answer this?

It was tricky.

Because, in fact, I wasn’t really Evan Verdine, and I’d never lived that life.

But the following questions were even more awkward.

What kind of person was your mother?

Do you know how your mother, who was from a commoner background, met your father?

How is the life of the commoners in the Verdine Marquisate?

I heard there was some kind of explosion accident—what happened?

“…I don’t think the topic of conversation is very pleasant.”

“Really? I was just curious, but I guess that’s a shame.”

“Too bad.”

Though I had prepared myself with some paperwork to avoid unnecessary suspicions, there was no way I could properly answer those questions.

Just like the story about “the real Evan’s” mother and the Marquis, there were things I didn’t know.

“Hmm~ Then, was it Clove? Anyway, what about the method of purifying monster corpses with that herb?”

She seemed more interested in how I came to know about the method rather than the method itself.

So, I told her exactly what I had said during the monster hunting expedition.

The hard and difficult lives of commoners.

To survive, we had to make use of whatever we could, even monster corpses, and that’s how I naturally learned about it.

“Hee~ That’s an interesting story.”

Ainsera’s eyes sparkled after hearing this.

But something felt off…

She was definitely smiling, but her eyes didn’t reflect the same.

Her transparent, light green eyes seemed to be trying to see right through me.

It felt like she was doubting the very existence of “Evan Verdine”…

‘Could it be… this 10-year-old young lady?’

In the martial world, there are three things to be careful about.

Elderly people, women, and children.

But this applies to those whose identities are unclear.

‘Does Ainsera Luke, the daughter of Duke Luke, really have any reason to play detective on me?’

I couldn’t think of any reason.

I had no enemies, and there were no interests at stake.

Even if she were to uncover that I wasn’t the “true illegitimate son” of Marquis Verdine…

‘The Duke of Luke would gain nothing from this.’

At least, that’s what I thought.

Ainsera seemed to think differently, though.

Three months ago.

Ainsera Luke woke up in the lord’s manor of the Duke’s territory.

Chirp, chirp, chirp—

The sound of birds chirping could be heard through the half-open arched window, and the clear morning sunlight streamed through the gap.

It was an ordinary, refreshing morning.

But…

“Ha! Damn it… I’m dead again.”

She half-rose from her bed, cursing with a wrinkled face.

Dead again?

What could this possibly mean?

「Asron Empire, Year 711, March 13, 7:00 AM」

For most people, this would be their first day in life.

Naturally, that’s the case. But…

For her, this was already the sixth repeating morning.

Crunch—

‘Lucas, that bastard…!’

Last night.

Ainsera gritted her teeth, recalling the man who had killed her. She could still feel the chilling sensation of the cold blade stabbing into her neck.

‘As I thought… he must have been the mastermind.’

Her mind was far from calm.

The rage rising in her chest.

The helplessness and despair from repeated failures.

‘Sigh… What went wrong?’

She felt somewhat exhausted.

When she first returned to this life, she was filled with hope and certainty that she could prevent her family’s downfall…

But in the five lives that followed, she hadn’t been able to stop the Duke Luke family’s destruction.

Sigh.

‘Is this… my last chance?’

She held a pendant in her hand.

It was an unusually antique object for a young girl, and it was the Duke’s family heirloom.

When the Duke died and the family faced ruin, it had appeared to her as a miracle.

Thanks to it, she was able to return to this moment every time she died, but now the jewel embedded in the center had lost its brilliant golden glow and had turned completely transparent.

Squeeze.

‘I must succeed this time…!’

Ainsera Luke, starting her sixth reincarnation, reviewed the events of her fifth life.

She began planning her next steps…

However, after three months, a major problem arose.

“What? You’ve discovered a way to purify monster corpses without using magic in the Verdine Marquisate?!”

This was something that had never happened in any of her previous regressions.

‘What on earth… is going on?’

Of course, just because she had regressed didn’t mean the world would always follow the same course. The events that unfolded were different because she had acted differently than in her previous life.

‘But… I haven’t done anything yet???’

Ainseira was confused.

But, like a seasoned regressor, she quickly calmed herself down and began to respond calmly.

“Wow~ That’s amazing! How did you do it?”

“Haha! It seems that our daughter is really interested, huh? I’ve been studying magic diligently lately, so maybe that’s why.”

“Yeah, it’s so fascinating!”

First, she needed to figure out exactly what had happened.

“They say they use a common plant called clove.”

“…Clove?”

She wondered if this was a method that had been unknown in her previous life, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

‘But clove wasn’t known to be able to purify monster corpses until five years later…?’

Specifically, after the ‘calamity’ from the Behamag Mountains.

‘What is this strange sense of discomfort…?’

Could it be because she, as a regressor, had been acting based on knowledge of the future?

She felt as though someone knew what was going to happen and had already started moving in advance.

“So, did Marquis Verdine discover this?”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t the Marquis. There’s an illegitimate child the Marquis had been secretly raising as a commoner, and it’s said that this boy shared the knowledge with the common people.”

“Marquis Verdine’s… illegitimate child?”

This was something she didn’t understand.

There had never been any mention of a third illegitimate son in the Verdine family in her previous lives.

“Yes. His name is… Evan, I think? He was registered about three months ago, and he looks so much like the Marquis that anyone would easily believe he’s his real son.”

Apparently, even the Marchioness had been in a fuss, but in the end, she couldn’t prevent the registration.

The “blood verification magic” confirmed with over 99.9% certainty that he was indeed his biological son.

‘An illegitimate child of the Verdine family suddenly appearing…’

It looked suspicious.

Ainseira was sure that the change in this life had started with that boy.

‘This event is a major one that will change not only the kingdom but also the political situation of the entire continent.’

As a result, a lot of the future information she knew would surely change.

Sigh… This is the worst.

In a situation where regressing was no longer possible, it would be hard to control all the variables, and this felt like a true ‘calamity.’

‘At this point… I absolutely need to uncover the true identity of that illegitimate child.’

Perhaps the fate of this regression would hinge on that boy.

“Heheh… Daddy!”

“Ugh, huh…?”

So, she had begged Duke Luke and had finally come to Verdine.

Before coming here, she had thoroughly investigated Evan Verdine, and now she was sticking to him like a leech, trying to probe him about everything—

‘What? He was a commoner until three months ago, yet he’s displaying such perfect manners?’

It was as if he had been born into nobility, carrying himself with such grace.

His speech and conduct were flawless.

Ironically, that in itself was a problem.

‘The stories about his life outside the castle also seem suspicious.’

He skillfully avoided answering but left too many ambiguous details in his own story.

It almost felt like he was talking about someone else’s life.

‘Most importantly, the way he learned about the purification effect of clove…’

There was a high chance it was a lie.

She had conducted inquiries in both the village where the boy was said to have lived and throughout the Verdine Marquisate, but no one knew about the method of purifying monster corpses using clove.

‘Evan Verdine…’

Who exactly are you?

Ainseira was curious about the boy’s true identity.