The Prodigal Prince - vanish into fiction

As the situation threatened to spiral out of control, the queen silenced the nobleman with a large sum of money. At the same time, she manufactured an even bigger scandal.

Louis only learned who the woman supposedly having an affair with him was through the newspaper. She was someone whose face he barely recognized—someone who had hovered around him at a formal banquet he had attended out of obligation. The feeling of having filth dumped over him faded quickly. What remained was simply the realization that his reputation had been used like a single card in their game.

Now, perhaps trying to flip the narrative, the king rubbed his palms together.

“To score some points, it might be a good time to promote a pro-commoner propaganda.”

“I’ve been refraining from media exposure ever since you instructed me not to last time.”

“Well, hasn’t the situation changed?”

Gehrt’s voice scratched out in irritation. Then, like throwing a meaty bone, he added bluntly:

“If you help out this time, you’ll receive a reward worthy of the effort.”

The queen chimed in from beside him.

“Isn’t it about time you were formally appointed as crown prince?”

Louis almost grimaced. Appointed crown prince? He couldn’t care less. He would bet his entire fortune that the juicy reward they dangled was a trap. The ones who would be most delighted to see him dead were the very ones suggesting the crown prince title.

Still, their insistence on compensation made it clear they were about to demand something serious.

“What is it you want?”

Gehrt twisted his beard with oily hands. Then came the merciless royal decree:

“Find a poor woman and get engaged.”

Louis’s eyes, fixed on the floor, wavered. Where was he supposed to suddenly find someone to get engaged to?

He couldn’t ask the king for leniency. Maintaining a perfectly calm exterior as he withdrew, he ran through the list of commoner women he knew. He deliberately avoided thinking of the first person who came to mind and instead considered the Phantom members who made up the majority of his contacts.

The moment he returned to the estate like he was fleeing, he received a report scribbled on a note.

“Miss Swatson has packed her things and left.”

The paper crumpled tightly in his hand.

***

The capital city of Schultz, pride of Rondobark’s long history and tradition, was massive. With the journey taking considerable time, it was already getting dark by the time Enze reached the city center. Light rain had started to fall, traffic slowed, and the once lively streets grew quiet.

Enze, tugging her scarf up to guard against the chill, stepped off on a street lined with cafés and taverns. She dismissed the carriage with the excuse that an acquaintance she was meeting would escort her to the castle.

As the carriage turned a corner and disappeared, she quickened her pace. Umbrella tilted low and head bowed, she looked around nervously. After confirming no one was following her, she moved forward. Just a few blocks straight ahead, and the train station would appear.

“I’ll get on whatever evening train I can and just get as far away as possible.”

Her ultimate goal was to cross the border into a neighboring country and vanish completely. There couldn’t possibly be no night trains running, right? Hopefully, there’d still be a seat left. The rhythmic pattern of rain on her umbrella heightened the tension.

“Should I send Prince Louis a letter from a layover station?”

She regretted leaving without even saying goodbye. If she posted a letter from one of the transfer points, it would reach his hands by the time she was already somewhere far away.

Despite what the press, like a pack of wolves, said about him, Louis hadn’t seemed that bad to her in person.

The so-called degenerate prince of the century—

“Ahhh!”

Suddenly, pain exploded in her forearm.

A man grabbed her roughly and dragged her into an alley. Two more joined in, surrounding her like a net. Overpowered, her frail body was tossed around helplessly. She was swallowed whole by the alley’s shadows in an instant.

“Help me! Someone, plea—mmph!”

A burly man clamped a hand over Enze’s mouth and gripped the back of her neck. A significant number of gang members were waiting in the alley.

Her umbrella flew from her hand, the frame snapping, and tumbled pathetically across the pavement. It rolled to a stop outside a brightly lit shop window, where a passerby’s shoe left a muddy footprint on it.

Though a few people were passing along the commercial street, no one moved to help the woman being dragged off screaming into a dark alley.

The large man—likely the leader—grinned, revealing yellowed teeth.

“So you’re the little brat who’s been giving your father such a headache, huh?”

The grip on her neck tightened.