Chapter 1: The Fall of Byeokje Fortress

The imprisoned prince Muheun paced nervously for a long while beneath the wall of his residence.

‘If the fortress falls, what will happen to me?’

Even in this cold palace, surrounded by walls that easily exceeded Muheun’s height, the ominous tension from the fortress walls seemed to reach him. From what he heard the soldier guarding the entrance say, the enemy nation’s great army had been encamped outside the gates since dawn.

In the end, unable to hold back his curiosity, Muheun headed for the giant zelkova tree towering in front of the hall. It had already been four years since he was moved from the underground stone chamber of the Heero imperial palace to this Byeokje Fortress at seventeen, and he began climbing with movements as practiced as those years.

“Prince Eun-jeung! It is dangerous!”

Beyond the wall, one of the soldiers watching him raised his voice as always. Muheun settled himself high up, looked down at the soldiers, and tilted his head.

“Why aren’t you mobilized for defense? Why are you still here?”

“This is already the third time they’ve invaded Byeokje Fortress. They failed every time. Why would this time be any different?”

“So watching me comes first?”

“It is the lord’s order.”

“But I heard Geonwon is about to push in. Why is it so quiet?”

Muheun craned his neck and looked toward the fortress wall. The cold palace where he was confined was in a remote corner. It was so far from the wall that he could not see beyond it well, but he could faintly make out the Heero soldiers lined densely atop the wall raising arrows and fitting them to bows.

Geonwon’s two previous attempts to take Byeokje Fortress had failed. Heero’s Byeokje Fortress was an impregnable stronghold, an iron fortress no one could touch. No wonder the soldiers did not know fear.

But hope rose in Muheun’s heart. His heart began to pound. Somehow he had a feeling that today would be different from before. Muheun touched his necklace out of habit.

“Please come down quickly and go inside. If you fall from the tree again like last time, we will be severely scolded by the lord.”

“Last siege, I came down without finishing because you kept nagging. This time, I’m going to watch until the moment Geonwon retreats.”

Muheun gripped a sturdy part of the branch and fixed his gaze on the fortress wall. He could not step outside the wall, so this was all he could do.

‘Please… let them succeed.’

Both last time and this time, the side Muheun cheered for was not his own army but Geonwon’s. From birth until now, he had endured twenty-one years in a prison without bars. There were three ways to escape this boredom.

One was to flee amid the chaos of this battle.

If he climbed over the absurdly high wall with his bare body, he would not get off with just a broken leg, but it was not completely impossible. The problem was that with his incomplete body, he would be caught before he could properly escape.

Two was to leave as a corpse.

But Muheun, who had lived confined his whole life, still had regrets about life. There were many things he wanted to know and see.

Last, rather than dying meaninglessly, becoming a prisoner and escaping this place.

This third method was Muheun’s realistic hope and desperate wish. There was no guarantee they would spare him, an imperial prince of the enemy nation.

Just as he thought that, something flashed in the sky.

“They shot arrows!?”

The archers of his own country, stationed atop the wall with bowstrings drawn and waiting, loosed their arrows all at once.

But something was strange.

The huge volley of arrows that had arced upward reached its peak and then all fell limply to the ground. At the same time, something like black sand dust scattered thickly through the air.

“W-what… what in the world is that?”

“Your Highness, can you see what is happening?”

The soldier beyond the wall raised his head and asked, but Muheun had no presence of mind to answer.

He climbed higher and leaned against a thick branch. Standing on tiptoe, he tried to look farther and see the situation clearly. His heart began to race like mad.

Whoosh.

He had the delusion that he heard the sound of wind. Muheun blinked deliberately and thought about what he had just seen.

It was autumn. He had thought a bleak wind was blowing. But atop the wall, something unknown and black covered the top of the wall in a long stretch, beyond comparison to before.

It began to scatter on the wind in an instant. He could vaguely see the archers milling about in confusion.

Something strange was clearly happening.

Muheun felt a vague fear. Goosebumps rose along his arms, and his legs trembled. He was not certain, but he had a guess.

‘No way.’

There was only one thing Muheun could guess. A being that could cause such a strange phenomenon.

An ability user.

Humans said to use power granted by the gods to defeat monsters. There was no other way to explain what he had just seen.

‘They were mobilized for war? That can’t be. Even if Geonwon is a barbaric nation that knows nothing of propriety, to use abilities to kill people!’

“Charge!”

“Waaah!”

Only then did shouts ring out as if shaking heaven and earth, and beyond the wall dust rose like clouds. Geonwon’s soldiers poured through the gate that had been breached by an ability.

It was the beginning of a massacre. The curiosity in Muheun’s purple eyes turned to fear in an instant.

“Hah! Ugh…”

Startled, Muheun missed his footing and slipped, but luckily his hands held the branch tightly, and his feet caught on the thick part of the trunk where branches had just begun to spread.

“Everyone, run!”

Muheun shouted urgently. The soldiers guarding the cold palace looked up at him in surprise.

“What?”

“The gate has been breached. If you don’t run now, you won’t survive!”

“Then Your Highness…”

“Since when did you worry about me? Get lost, now!”

Truly, not a single one remained. They all vanished from before Muheun’s eyes.

“Hah… not one of you would take me and run. Then again, touching me would only pass on a curse.”

His legs had lost their strength. Muheun barely set his rear on the spot where he always sat to watch beyond the wall. He let out a breath as if spitting it out and pressed his left chest with his hand. His heart was pounding madly. It was not excitement but terror.

“So this is what war really is…”

He watched in a daze as the wall turned red, gray smoke rose, and blood formed streams throughout Byeokje Fortress. He felt pathetic for all the time he had cheered for the enemy just to see the outside world. His resolve to flee through the gap if the gate was breached had long since disappeared.

‘It must have been a situation where they could enter without bloodshed. Do they have to swing their swords everywhere they step? They could just accept a surrender. The rumors were true… How cruel will they become?’

The reality of war was unspeakably brutal. Wherever Geonwon’s soldiers swept through, screams and wails poured out.

Among them, a group of dark figures caught Muheun’s eye.

From the helmets on their heads to their armor and even their feet, they wore black armor and were entering deep into the fortress at high speed. They looked like grim reapers, and Muheun gasped.

‘Black armor… that’s Geonwon’s northern Hyomyeong Army.’

Terrified, Muheun could not even think of climbing down. He gripped the branch tightly and hunched over. He recalled what he had read in books.

Unlike Heero, where the imperial household directly managed ability users as a single unit, Geonwon was said to divide them into central and northern forces, each operating ability-user units under the command of the local lord.

The ones who had just appeared were the northern elite Black Star Unit.

“No, why… why are they coming this way?”

Muheun’s already pale face turned even whiter with fear. The Black Star Unit was moving in the direction of the cold palace where he was.

Muheun hid among the thick leaves and watched the black-armored group approach with growing anxiety.

How absurd had it been to dream that being taken prisoner by them would let him escape into the world outside. Muheun blamed his own foolishness and tried not to make even the sound of his breath.

As expected, the group arrived before the main gate of the cold palace. A young man who looked about Muheun’s age stepped forward and began pounding on the door with his fist.

“Is anyone inside?”

When no sound came, the young man tilted his head and turned.

“Is this Prince Eunjeung’s residence?”

From among the dark-clad unit members watching him from behind, a particularly sturdy military officer approached. If his hand grabbed you, it felt like your wrist would be crushed to powder.

The officer easily removed the bar on the door, and the one who had been waiting ahead laughed and ran inside.

“My lord, the walls are unusually high and the entrance is controlled from outside, so this seems to be the place.”

The officer, holding a door bar as thick as a grown man’s body, reported to the tall man who had just entered through the gate.

Muheun’s gaze naturally moved to him. He could only see the top of his head, but he clearly felt an oppressive presence different from the others. His heart pounded as if it would break.

“I will search for Prince Eunjeung…”

Before the officer could even finish, the young man who had run inside earlier rushed to stand before the man called my lord.

“I found him! There!”

The moment the young man, his face full of mischief, stretched his arm high and pointed at the tree, Muheun froze. Every member of the Black Star Unit gathered below was looking up at him. Fear seemed to stop his breath.

Muheun could not escape the gaze of the man called my lord, who was staring intently at him.

If it was black armor, all of them wore it, but he was different. He brought to mind a grim reaper. Under that blade-like gaze, Muheun could not move as if his body were bound.

‘And I expected men like that to take me out safely as a prisoner. The moment I’m caught, that man will surely snap my neck.’

“Are you Prince Eunjeung? No, you are. Wow… my lord, there can only be one person like that in the world.”

The young man who had first discovered Muheun shouted excitedly. The phrase “a person like that” struck Muheun’s ear clearly, and he frowned. It was obviously about his strange appearance, which was different from others.

A face white as snow, long hair just as white, and purple eyes with a blood-red gleam.

That was the appearance of Muheun, born an albino and called the cursed prince.

“Drag him down.”

A cold voice echoed through the courtyard of the cold palace. Juyun, the strongest ability user on the continent, ordered Prince Eunjeung Muheun to be brought before him.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Miss Witch, Please Kill Me

FantasyGender BenderMagical

Read Now →
Not interested