Chapter 40: The Wise, Sage Real (3)
“H—my real identity?”
"Yes."
Leo answered indifferently, looking at the serious look that suddenly appeared on Edwin's face.
“Your clothes under the abaya look crazy extravagant, but nothing about you says you are noble. So I kept wondering: Who are you really?”
Am I not a noble? How do nobles behave in the first place?
Does he mean I look like I'm from the imperial family?
Edwin was surprised and stared blankly.
How do nobles behave, I wonder?
When he thought about it, he remembered that he had hardly met any nobles in the imperial palace.
There was not a single noble in the empire who bothered to check on the helpless Third Prince.
Even the chief bridesmaids and senior ladies-in-waiting were from noble families.
But they left a long time ago, and even when they were here, their work was so much that they had no time to babysit him. The relationship was not close enough to allow for interaction.
“At first I thought you were the son of one of the heads of the merchant unions.”
Leo shrugged as he explained his suspicions.
“Someone like that might have something to do with the wise old man.”
"Huh? What do you mean?"
“What do you think? I thought you came to buy a prescription from the sheikh.”
“Medicine? What medication?”
Leo blinked in surprise at Edwin's reaction.
“Wait… you really don’t know? You came to Sheikh Saj and you don’t know?”
“I only came because Rachel said he was the smartest man on the continent...”
Liu scratched his chin: “The smartest person on the continent? Yes, that may be true. Sheikh Sage is the one who developed the treatment for scab disease.”
“W-what?!”
The sound of Edwin's shock echoed through the forest.
“Impossible! Scab disease has no cure! They say it can only be cured by divine power!”
Leo nodded as if he was used to that reaction.
“Yes, that's what everyone says. But he actually made a cure. That's why he's called the Wise.”
Edwin paused for a moment at Leo's words, then furrowed his eyebrows:
“Then why are the patients here still sick? Where is the medicine?”
“He couldn't make it anymore.”
“Why?”
“Ingredients are missing. There is a key ingredient missing now.”
“And what is it?”
“I don’t know either, but it only grows in the Holy Kingdom.”
“Shouldn’t someone go and fetch him from the Holy Kingdom?”
“You know that's impossible. The old man hasn't left this village for years. Don't you understand what that means?”
“But...”
Edwin recalled the faces of the patients he had seen in the village.
The thought weighed heavily on his chest.
“So the medicine really exists, right?”
“Why would I lie? I owed my life to that medicine.”
“But didn’t you just say he couldn’t make it anymore?”
“There was one vial left before he got here. I was the one who drank it.”
When Leo first met Sage, his parents had died from illness.
While he was alone and injured, that old man saved him himself.
“The sheikh is the one who saved my life. Even if that means now that I am stuck with all this annoying work.”
Leo's confession froze Edwin in place.
He lost his parents?
Edwin had lost his mother long ago, but his father was still alive—though he didn't care for him at all.
Losing a parent is difficult...so how could he lose both? He couldn't imagine the pain.
He wanted to say a word of comfort, but his tongue was tied.
He knows very well that an unfortunate word can deepen the wounds.
So he finally chose to change the conversation awkwardly.
“So you were injured too? And the medicine cured you?”
"Yes. I was injured, but I drank the cure before the flesh started rotting, so I didn't have any scars. I was lucky."
“I see… it was really good luck.”
When he couldn't find anything to say yet, he started fiddling with his fingers.
Perhaps sensing the prince's embarrassed mood, Leo resumed walking.
"Okay, this is the last task. We'll finish it and go back. If we're late, the old man will start to feel bad."
“H—okay!”
After silence on the road, the two boys reached a small cave in the middle of the mountain.
Leo entered the cave, which had a dim light inside, and picked up a shard of metal that had fallen from the wall.
“You have to extract stones whose surface shines somewhere between blue and violet. Just like this one. Understood?”
Edwin tilted his head as he looked at the stone in Leo’s hand: “But what kind of stone is this?”
“What do you think?”
“Hmm, it shines… Maybe it’s a jewel? I’m not sure.”
Leo shook his head as if he was expecting the answer: “Not everything that glitters is a gem.”
“So what is it?”
Leo turned his gaze to the shimmering glow deep within the cave.
“It is a magic stone. According to the old man’s words, it is a stone that makes magicians obsessed, and its price is more expensive than jewels.”
“A magic stone? If so...”
Edwin had heard of it before: a strange metal charged with magical power.
Magic stones are the basic material for magical tools, enabling even those without mana to obtain the benefits of magic. That's why they're rare and precious—and the mines from which they're extracted are rare.
“The sheikh and I discovered this place. Even the villagers and the gate guards don’t know about it.”
Leo said proudly, raising his chin.
Edwin looked at him with admiration, and a little doubt remained in his mind:
I heard that magic stone mines are very rare in the empire.
Because of its scarcity, the empire relies heavily on imports.
Yes, sure. I heard the chief bridesmaid say that.
He was mentioning a conversation he had happened upon about investing in mines - and she said that day: If a magic stone mine opens, you have to invest immediately.
While he was deep in thought, Leo came with a pickaxe from the entrance of the cave.
“This is a pickaxe. I will drill through this wall, and you search the opposite side.”
“Ah, yes.”
Edwin grabbed the pick and clumsily imitated Leo's movements.
Fortunately, the cave walls were soft enough to crumble easily even with his weak arms.
With a few careful strokes, a magical stone the size of a child's fist crumbled.
It was as satisfying as plucking ripe fruit from a high branch.
“Hey, I have a question.”
“What's wrong now?”
“Why does the sage ask for magic stones? He is a sage, not a magician.”
“I didn't ask him. I don't care.”
“What? Aren’t you curious? I really want to know.”
“I don’t. I have no use for it.”
Liu continued swinging the pickaxe with cold eyes:
“Do as the old man says and that's enough. You're the one who's curious about everything.”
“Oh, um...” Edwin cringed at that comment, muttering softly, “Sorry.”
Leo stopped mid-motion and turned to him.
When he saw the prince with his head down, he sighed with regret:
“Hey, Edwin.”
"Yes?"
“My style is always a little rough. Don’t take things in a bad light. I’m not scolding you.”
Leo corrected his grip on the pick and resumed digging:
“If you stay with that old man for a long time, your tongue will become like this. I hope you will understand.”
Edwin's eyes widened.
No one had ever asked him for understanding so kindly.
People were asking for understanding, but they were not asking for it with such familiarity.
"Stop saying 'sorry' unnecessarily. It makes me look like the villain."
“H—right. As—”
He picked up his speech midway through it and corrected:
“Okay.”
His voice was clearer than before.
"good."
Leo answered curtly and returned the tool to the rock.
Soon all that remained in the cave was the clang of metal on stone.
“Looks like we've collected enough. Let's go down.”
Before she knew it, twilight had spread over the sky above Luxen.
After examining the amount of stones they had extracted, Leo decided it was time to return.
“Does this mean I passed the test?”
“Test? What test?”
“The sheikh said that I have to prove that I am not ‘anyone’...”
Before Edwin could finish his words, Leo pulled him into his embrace and jumped to the side.
“Waah!”
Edwin screamed in terror, and a faint groan came from nearby:
“Oh...damn.”
Edwin's features paled.
Leo's right arm—the one with which he jumped—was marked with a deep claw wound.
“A-Are you okay?!”
“It's not deep. I blocked it with an axe...”
At that moment, Liu pulled out the ax strapped to his back to block the claws, but its handle was shattered into pieces.
"Not deep?! You're bleeding—!"
Edwin held out his trembling hands to inspect the wound.
The blood wasn't a lot, but what was around the cut was black like charcoal.
They're toxins—that's for sure.