Pretending To Be Gilead's Prince and Master Wizard

-THIRD PERSON-

Against a dimly-lit wall with only candles framing it, a silhouette of a woman with her stomach pushed in and her big chest bared can be seen standing in front of a circular, wooden table with its swivel chair right into it. 

There, a man in his lavish garments was seated as he faced this girl in front of him, his expression cannot be fathomed with all the room being poorly lit.

"I am sure he has heard already about what I did to that old lady," the girl answered, her voice slightly wicked, her face smirking with content. "You must have given me the order very long ago. I would do anything to slay that old woman."

"Hush, now. What did I explain to you before?" the man mused. "Victory comes to those who are willing to wait.

The man then shifted from his seat, a goblet with champagne in his right hand, and took a long sip out of it before he added to his statement earlier.

That nuisance has been pursuing all my men for years, searching for an answer. It was really a wise choice to keep the old lady alive for this important moment to stop him from what he's doing."

She laughed. Having spent a year in their house, she has only seen him occasionally. However, she doubted that the loss of his beloved one would stop him from investigating. For all they knew, the death could have actually given him more reason to pursue justice.

Do you really believe that would stop him from investigating?" she dared ask. If anything could annoy the man in front of her, it would be if anyone is questioning his judgment.

"Yes, it will be sufficient to keep him occupied for a moment," he says, smirking. "But that wouldn't really stop him though. Until then, we will be able to get rid of the hoax prince in no time."

But when are you planning to get rid of him? Speaking of the devil, I've seen him go into the funeral with the captain." 

"Soon, my darling… " the man croons, like he was speaking to his child. "Everything has its own right timing."

The girl moved forward to where the rays of the sun were mostly shining, thus revealing the face of grandma Lucy's servant, Rica, as she forms a smirk at the corner of her lips once again,

"Sure, they have. I believe in you, master."

---

-KRISELLA-

With a proud smile on my face, I showed them my caramel cake that I made for the weekend. It was exactly what Alex had wanted it to be when I presented it to Lancelot and Lucas seated at the dining table.

"I don't know you are such an incredible baker, huh." Lucas teased, his eyes are darted at the cake that I am now placing on top of the table.

"I didn't know it myself. But I am a fast learner though, right?" I raised both of my eyebrows as I waited for their answer.

Lancelot and Lucas went silent for a couple of seconds, and that caused me to frown at them.

"Oh, come on! I am really not that hard to teach!"

"We are just fooling around. Of course, you are a fast learner." Lucas supported my statement, like a good friend he has always been to me. I gave him a high five for that.

A minute has passed and still no signs of Alex. 

Lucas must have sensed me looking for him here since he gave me a timid smile and said, "He is kind of busy these past few days. And we all know what he is up to right now. But I will see to it to get him to eat the cake as soon as he gets back home."

It really wasn't just the cake that I wanted Alex to be here. It was that one thing that I wanted him to know…. I had some random thoughts that came to me last night in a bunch of a moment that I wanted to share with him. But he's gone, doing whatever he's doing these days since he learned about his grandma's unnatural death.

But instead of telling this to Lucas, I just smiled back and said, "Yeah. Thank Lucas."

"I am excited to try this cake. This will be the first time that you have baked for us." Lancelot chimes in, ready to slice the cake any minute from now. 

He's right though. It was him who cooks and serves us food all the time. This is a first to me, and I really hope they will like it.

And they ended up chugging lots of water since the cake that I baked was way too sweet for them. I tried to taste it myself and did the same thing as well. Oh, my poor baking skills…

---

All afternoon, I have mostly spent it with Lancelot and Lucas during our daily training sessions. After that, with no Alex to train me for the magic training session, there is really nothing for me to do here.

I spent my remaining leisure time in the prince's office, jotting down something on my diary. If I'll have to forget this one information I had in mind someday, I might as well take note of it in my diary too.

---

Dear Diary,

That jerk Alex is nowhere to be found now, probably hunting down who is responsible for the death of his grandma Lucy. Meanwhile, while he is gone searching, there is a secret that I must write down here, for sooner I might have to forget any of this.

After everything that has happened with Grandma Lucy and after knowing about this so-called dream walking, I made a very important hypothetical guess… a wild guess, if you would like to call it that way.

According to that book I had read about the secrets of the black magic (I never even had any idea why that book exists in the first place and why would a black wizard or some writer chose to expose it in public) one of the abilities that a dream walker has is to create a dimension using his or her own mind and imprison his target. In that way, he or she could kill the target-- slowly but surely.

There is no way out in this dimension unless you find the dream walker that is responsible and slay them. And as I read its pages for further information, my mind flashed up an idea.

What if… Prince Arthur was actually kidnapped by some dream walker and is now trapped in some dimension far away from here as we speak? I mean, that is really not a crazy idea, right?

The kidnapper wants us to look for his body for a very long time, but that may not actually happen. Because the prince is still alive, I believe that he or she is only contained inside the mind of someone else... as long as they get what they want.

But what is it that they wanted to have in the first place? Maybe that will be something that we might discover in the near future…

~Krisella~

---

As soon as I finished writing, I immediately put the fountain pen down and relaxed my head on top of the table. It suddenly felt a little heavy for some unknown reason.

In that state, I was still waiting for Alex to come by when I heard the door open, making my head snap back up. I was then relieved to see it was just Lancelot who entered the office.

"Oh, Lancelot, it's only you." I sighed in relief. "Can I help you with anything?"

Lancelot asked me sincerely if I had any clue where Alex might have gone. My speculation was that Alex may have gone hunting Rica down to her birthplace or something.

However, I did not think it necessary to inform Lancelot of the truth. Instead, I shook my head, lips pursed, and replied, "I haven't spoken with him since his grandmother's death." 

Lies…

"Ah, I see. Thank you anyway." 

I saw that Lancelot was just about to leave through the door when he stopped, as if something caught his attention.

"What are you writing down over there?"

The instant he asked, I mentally slapped my forehead. I had carelessly left my diary open, but not enough to let him read the words I had written.

"This is homework Mr. Wimbshaw assigned for us," I lied for the second time around. Come on! This is Lancelot the archbishop of Citadel. Why must I keep him in the dark?

The moment he didn't push through with asking further questions, I was somehow relieved. He just stood there, shrugged, and said, "Okay, good luck." Before finally leaving this place.

Little did I know that I was holding onto my breath until I was finally able to release it along with all the tension I was feeling earlier...