There Is No Place For Fakes [EN]: Chapter 181

It was a preposterous statement, utterly without basis.

“What makes you say that?”

“Believe it or not, I found a magic eavesdropping device in the room you switched for me.”

The man, as if amused, stepped away from Eustis and chuckled.

“At first, I thought I was the target, but come to think of it, there must be more people who resent the Prince than someone like me who has lived a virtuous life.”

*Virtuous my ass…*

“Besides, you were the one who booked this room first, right? It’s obvious someone around you leaked the information.”

“No. You may not know, but I didn’t actually make a reservation. I came here suddenly. So, it’s impossible to install a magic tool in this room in advance targeting me…”

The words trailed off. A question had taken root in his mind.

*Is it really impossible?*

Strictly speaking, there was a slight gap between when Eustis decided to stay in the VIP room and when he switched rooms with that man.

If someone could enter the VIP room and install a magic tool during that time, it wouldn’t be entirely impossible.

*But the possibility is slim.*

The only people who knew the Prince was staying in the VIP room were the hotel manager and the Prince’s entourage.

It didn’t make sense that a hotel employee like the manager would be targeting his life.

In the first place, this was a hotel he ended up staying at on a whim.

Eustis’s entourage had been with him the whole time, so they wouldn’t have had the chance to sneak off and install a magic tool.

*Wait…*

Just as Eustis was considering a possibility, the door to the VIP room opened.

“Your Highness, have you finished your business?”

It was Dale.

“All the other preparations are complete, so all that’s left is for Your Highness to get ready.”

However, when the Prince remained standing still, Dale wore a puzzled expression.

“Your Highness?”

“…Dale.”

“What is it?”

Eustis stared at the attendant who had served him for so long and barely managed to utter the next words.

“Roll up your sleeves.”

“Yes? What suddenly…?”

“I said, roll up your sleeves.”

“……”

Despite furrowing his brow at the sudden command, Dale obediently rolled up his right sleeve.

“Roll up the other one too.”

“……”

But for some reason, he couldn’t carry out the next instruction.

“What’s wrong with you? You were the one who said we had to leave quickly.”

In front of the questioning Dale, Eustis slowly exhaled.

“I thought something was strange from the moment the dagger disappeared.”

The pain from the fingernails digging into his palm helped to clear his fading mind.

“An assassin who broke into my room and got their hands on the item under my pillow would hardly leave and then wait for me to fall asleep before coming back.”

He had been too distracted at the time to dwell on it, but it had been bothering him all along.

“But if it were you, staying in another room within the same suite, you could have come and taken the dagger while I was away.”

Dale’s expression slowly crumbled.

“Your Highness, are you suspecting me? That I’m the assassin who targeted Your Highness’s life?”

His voice was filled with shock and sorrow, enough to make one want to blindly believe him.

“How long have I served Your Highness? What did you hear from that man to make you act like this?”

He pointed at the magician with indignation, but the magician seemed to find the situation amusing and had been watching them from the start.

“This man said he found a magic eavesdropping device in his room,” Eustis answered Dale’s question.

“In this luxurious VIP room that I was supposed to stay in.”

“Are you suspecting me based on just that? Think about it. Isn’t it obvious that he’s lying!”

Dale loudly asserted his innocence.

“Our coming here was purely coincidental and a sudden event. I can’t see the future, so how could I have prepared in advance?”

“You don’t need to see the future. You just need to install the magic tool after it was decided we would stay here.”

“In that short amount of time? That’s impossible. Besides, my subordinates, including me, have been by Your Highness’s side the whole time, haven’t we?”

Indeed, as Dale said, they had been attending to Eustis from the moment he entered the hotel until he switched rooms with that man.

It would have been impossible for him to sneak up to the floor where the VIP room was located, install the magic tool, and return before Eustis noticed his absence.

But…

“There was one person. Someone who left for a while and then rejoined us at this hotel.”

Instantly, Dale’s face stiffened.

“The one who arrived at the hotel before us and told the manager that the Prince would be arriving soon.”

“Your Highness…”

“If it was Ronald, he could have heard from the manager that I would be assigned the most luxurious VIP room and installed the magic tool before I arrived.”

“Are you even suspecting Ronald? He was attacked by that man and is still lying down.”

“So this time, you had no choice but to do it yourself, didn’t you? Since there was no one else to order.”

Memories of a few days ago flashed through Eustis’s mind.

“Now, let’s go quickly. The messenger I sent ahead will have told the manager the general situation.”

That’s right. It was Dale who sent Ronald to the hotel back then.

“There’s another strange thing. The assassin I encountered seemed inexperienced in killing people, no matter how I looked at it.”

If he were a skilled assassin, he wouldn’t have made a noise to wake him up, nor would he have let him get away so easily.

“But for some reason, the guard who was guarding the door was taken care of very cleanly.”

Upon roughly examining the body, there was no sign of a struggle.

Even if he were a skilled assassin, it was hard to believe that a knight of the imperial family would have been defeated without even putting up a fight.

“Ah, I see. It was an inside job.”

At that moment, the silver-haired man, who had been sitting in the chair in front of the desk and listening quietly, spoke cheerfully.

“Sleeping pills? If it’s someone they know well, it would have been easy to slip drugs into their food or drink, and they could have taken care of them while they were asleep.”

Eustis thought so too.

“Dale, you often made tea for the knights who guarded me all night. Did you do that last night too?”

He stared at the silent Dale and muttered self-deprecatingly.

“Why didn’t you just poison my food instead? Ah, right. Then your neck would have been on the line even if the culprit wasn’t revealed.”

Because he, as the attendant, was in charge of the food that went into the Prince’s mouth.

The only way for Dale to avoid blame was to make it look like the work of an assassin from the outside.

“Who ordered you? The Crown Prince? The Empress? Or someone else? Whoever it is, they must have wanted to get rid of me quickly before things got complicated because I met Count Orletta?”

“…It was His Highness the Crown Prince.”

It wasn’t a question he expected an answer to, but surprisingly, an answer came.

“He recognized my ambition. He asked me how long I was going to hold onto a rotten rope. He also said that if I made a decision, he would become my new lifeline.”

“You served our mother for a long time.”

“It’s not like I served her because I wanted to. How can subordinates choose their superiors?”

Dale continued calmly.

“To have to share one’s fate with a superior depending on who they are assigned to, regardless of their own will. How sad is that?”

He suddenly rolled up his left sleeve, revealing a clear scar in the shape of teeth. It was the moment when the identity of the assassin who broke into Eustis’s room a few hours ago was confirmed.

“I have no personal grudges against Your Highness or the late Empress. You are both pitiful. But I must find my own way to survive.”

As if he had decided not to hide anything anymore, Dale rattled on.

“The dagger I took is here.”

Eustis’s dagger came out of his chest. But instead of returning it to its owner, Dale unsheathed it, revealing the blade.

“Hey! Magician!”

Then he shouted at the third person in the room.

“Money! Success! Fame! Tell me anything you want! If you keep today’s events a secret, His Highness the Crown Prince will grant you anything!”

Eustis looked around.

The door to the room was behind Dale, and there were no windows near Eustis.

There was no way to escape.

In fact, he didn’t even have the will to. The last remaining will had scattered like sand in the wind when he learned the truth a little while ago.

Even if he escaped this crisis, similar or bigger crises would continue to come. Then it would be better to…

It was when Dale, holding the sword, rushed in and the Prince was about to face the end.

“Aaaaaah!”

In an instant, Dale’s body flashed red, and he screamed and rolled on the floor.

“I don’t like it.”

There was no need to think about who had done it.

The magician, who had gotten up from his seat, kicked the convulsing Dale.

“This bastard, how dare you order me around so presumptuously? Besides, you’re stepping on what someone worked hard to draw.”

The man grumbled and rolled Dale’s body out of the magic circle.

“……”

Eustis stared blankly at the scene for a moment before approaching Dale, who was groaning.

“You made the wrong judgment. I already tried to persuade him, but he’s not the type to fall for that.”

In the midst of his fading life, Dale barely managed to spit out an obscenity.

“Damn it, if it weren’t for the monster horde…”

It was a last word that revealed the fundamental reason for his failure.

If a horde of monsters hadn’t appeared on the way, Eustis would have stayed in the planned accommodation, and Dale would have carried out an assassination plan that he had been working on for a long time, rather than one he had hastily put together.

Soon, his eyes completely lost their light.

Thinking that he was a truly calculating man until the moment of his death, Eustis closed the eyes of the deceased.