MDL | Chapter 1.3

The prince dramatically flipped one side of his cloak over his shoulder. His exposed left side, his left hip… there…

Hanging from his waist was a single, rusted, chipped… old sword, still in its scabbard.

A sword!

The wizard, hiding among the beggars and watching everything, gasped and covered his mouth. A sword! How could the prince have a sword? By the king’s decree, fearing the curse, the prince was forbidden from owning a sword. He wasn’t even allowed to learn swordsmanship. So how could he be carrying a sword? And that sword, that old sword…

Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong!

This wasn’t just about the prince acting out. Something was fundamentally amiss…

…The wizard, yes, the wizard… couldn’t continue his train of thought.

Because the prince had drawn his sword from its scabbard. A chilling, metallic shing echoed through the air. The smell of rusted iron, like dried blood, stung the wizard’s nose. The wizard stared wide-eyed at the prince. The prince’s gaze, deep and damp like the shade of a summer forest, seemed to pierce through the wizard for a moment.

…Yes, that must have been the wizard’s imagination.

There was no way the prince could recognize him.

Of course, of course…

The wizard bit his lower lip hard. So hard that the thin skin split and a drop of blood welled up. He used the scent of his own blood to mask the rusty, iron stench lingering in his nose.

“Your Highness!” the captain shouted.

Because the prince had pressed the bloodstained blade—old and rusted but still sharp—against his own throat.

“Make way,” the prince growled through clenched teeth.
“Or I’ll run myself through right here and start everything over from the beginning.”

What?

What kind of absurd, nonsensical talk was this?

Stabbing himself to death with that sharp sword and starting everything over from the beginning?

The prince’s words made no sense by any conventional logic. Of course not! Death is final! People don’t just rise from the grave after three days or rewind time to hammer away at the fabric of causality. If such a thing were possible, no one would ever suffer. No one would be poor, no one would fail in love, no one would ever be denied what they desperately desired. Or perhaps the opposite would happen. If everyone kept rewriting their lives to their liking, the world would become another kind of hell. Everyone would meddle with the flow of time to create their own version of a happy ending. Another war—a time war!

Yes, so what I’m trying to say is… life, the world… it doesn’t work that way.

Huh? What’s that?

…Ah.

Ahh.

Right.

I almost forgot…

Yes, that’s right. This isn’t real life or the real world. This is just a story. A story I’m telling you. A fantastical, dreamlike… fake world.

……

……

……

…Still, even in this patchwork, fake world, the common sense of our world, the real world, seems to roughly apply.

“Your Highness, what kind of dreamlike nonsense are you speaking?!”

See! The captain is saying something so sensible!

“Dreamlike” is a polite expression born of respect for the prince, but the captain’s expression is more honest. His face is twisted as he looks at the prince, wondering if he’s gone mad.

“You think I’m mad,” the prince said with a fierce smile.
“It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”

The prince pressed the rusted, bloodstained blade closer to his throat. It was a precarious distance. The slightest tremor in the prince’s hand would drive the sharp tip into his flesh. The mere possibility of that sharp edge grazing his skin was threat enough.

The wicked thirteenth wizard had said, “The prince shall prick his finger on the tip of a sharp needle and die on his twenty-seventh birthday,” but… who knows? Maybe the curse could be fulfilled by the tip of a sword piercing his throat.

“Make way,” the prince said again.

The captain’s eyes flashed with anger. The prince’s actions were a direct threat to plunge the entire kingdom into a state of suspended animation.

But what could a mere captain do in that moment? He helplessly lowered his head and slowly stepped aside.

The knights murmured in confusion at their captain’s defeat. The prince’s cold green eyes rested on each of them in turn. Unable to withstand that icy gaze, the other knights also bowed their heads. The prince slowly urged his horse forward. The knights, their will broken, hesitantly cleared a path for him.

The prince’s back, breaking through the encirclement like a triumphant hero. The wizard… the wizard stared at it, transfixed…

You fool! The prince is running from the curse!

Snapping out of it, the wizard realized now wasn’t the time to stand there gaping at the prince’s handsome, valiant figure.

The wizard hurried after the prince. He threw off his dirty, smelly beggar’s clothes and donned the guise of a pitiful old woman. Her hands were covered in sores, her eyes nearly blind with cataracts, her hair white as parsnip roots, her back hunched into a curve. She was the image of a blind old woman no one could refuse to pity.

“My lord, my lord, merciful lord… Please, just a penny for this poor old woman…”

The prince’s white horse sped past the old woman begging for mercy.

 “No, damn it! What kind of prince doesn’t care for his people at all?”
The wizard glared at the beautiful tail of the prince’s white horse, seething with frustration.

Once again, the wizard hurried after the prince. He threw off the pitiful old woman’s clothes and donned the attire of a poor but beautiful girl. Snow-white skin, radiant golden hair, and trembling red lips from hunger and sorrow—a girl no man with eyes in his head could resist turning to look at.

“My lord, my lord, merciful lord… Please, just a box of matches…¹“

The prince’s white horse sped past the girl begging for mercy.

No, damn it! Did the prince have eyes on the back of his head?

Once more, the wizard hurried after the prince. He threw off the beautiful girl’s clothes and put on the attire of a cursed man whose touch turned everything to gleaming gold². Starved and emaciated because even his food turned to gold, this golden man would surely make anyone stop out of curiosity.

“My lord, my lord, merciful…”

The prince’s white horse sped past the man begging for mercy.

No, damn it! This time, he didn’t even let him finish a single sentence! How could this be?

Refusing to give up, the wizard hurried after the prince. The prince had grown up to be several times—no, dozens of times—more heartless and cruel than the wizard had imagined, but the wizard wasn’t one to give up.

The wizard kept changing disguises, trying to catch the prince’s attention even for a moment. He even tried to seduce the prince’s white horse by transforming into a beautiful mare with a silver mane. The prince’s horse almost slowed its pace, tempted by the sweet allure of the mare… but the prince, who knew nothing of love’s beauty, kicked the horse’s side with all his might. Damn it!

All the wizard’s attempts were in vain. Meanwhile, the prince had already arrived at his destination: a vast forest at the southern border of this small, beautiful kingdom.

Yes, everyone. The border.

The border of this kingdom.

A border no one in the kingdom had ever reached or crossed. A border that clearly existed but was forgotten in daily life. A border no one ever questioned.

The Forbidden Forest.

Only when faced with the vast forest did the prince finally pull on the reins and stop his horse.

A cool breeze blew from deep within the forest, caressing the prince’s raven-black, silky hair. As the wind passed through the densely packed branches, the entire forest trembled and let out a mournful cry. It sounded like the hum of an unskilled singer or the broken notes of a flute—a sound that plunged people into endless sorrow and despair. But the prince showed no fear of the forest’s eerie song or the cold touch on his hair. Like an ancient hero who had slain an evil dragon, pierced walls of fire, and rescued a fearsome warrior queen³… he simply stared straight into the Forbidden Forest.

Yes, what did the prince have to fear?

His beautiful green eyes—the color of a damp, muddy swamp under the sun and the color of a dewy sprout under the moonlight—were exactly like the forest itself.

Perhaps, at that moment, the prince realized it.

That he was a child of that forest. Though born as the son of the nameless king and queen of this small kingdom, that was merely a facade. His true soul belonged to the forest.

The prince lowered his long lashes and let out a deep sigh. As if to comfort him, the forest’s cold breeze tickled his cheek.

The prince leapt down from his saddle. Holding the reins in his right hand, he carefully took one step, then another, into the Forbidden Forest. As if welcoming back its lost child, the forest slowly opened itself to him. Tangled vines unraveled beneath his feet, and thick branches and rough leaves that had once been obstacles disappeared as he walked. Deeper and deeper he went, into a place no one in the kingdom had ever reached…

To the center of the forest, where a mirror-like pond lay.

……The wizard covered his face with both hands. Transparent tears streamed through his fingers.

The prince was going to ruin everything!

If only he’d just let himself be pricked by the needle!

It’s just a little prick on the fingertip. It wouldn’t hurt much. It wouldn’t harm the prince at all. After a brief, sharp moment, the prince would fall into a dreamless sleep, and a brave, beautiful princess would appear to wake him with a sweet kiss. The prince would marry her and live happily ever after, until the day he died.

Isn’t that a perfect life? All his happiness is guaranteed. So why did the prince reject his fate and flee into this forest? Did he really have to?

The wizard’s tears…

…Well, not just tears… tears of rage…

Yes, these are tears of rage. It’s best to make that clear.

The wizard wiped away his tears of rage with his long sleeve and steeled himself.

Yes, it’s not too late yet! There are still a few hours left before the prince’s twenty-seventh birthday ends. In that time, he just needs to prick the prince’s finger with this needle… (At this point, the wizard pulls out a thin, sharp needle.) That’s all he needs to do. It’s not too late to give up.

The wizard now dons a transparent cloak. Wearing it makes him invisible to everyone. It’s a magical cloak. Only the footprints left on the ground reveal his presence.

Cloaked in invisibility, the wizard strides into the Forbidden Forest. He follows the prince.

As mentioned earlier, the prince is standing by the mirror pond. He’s kneeling on one knee, staring at his reflection in the water for a long time.

As if entranced by his own image.

Yes, there’s an old tale about this. The story of the narcissus fairy who fell in love with his own reflection in a lake⁴.

If the narcissus fairy in that tale was as beautiful as the prince… he wouldn’t have been able to resist falling in love with himself.

 “Ah, dear me. Am I going on too much about the prince’s beauty? Haha… I suppose some of you might feel that way. But what can I do? The prince is truly beautiful.”

…Perhaps the wizard felt the same way. Just as I find the prince beautiful, the wizard must have felt it too. So, forgetting his evil purpose, he must have stared at the prince, who was entranced by his own reflection in the mirror pond, and become entranced himself.

Perhaps, in that moment, the wizard dared to harbor a wish.

To preserve this moment forever.

The prince gazing at the mirror pond, and the wizard gazing at the prince. In that moment. Forever.