Chapter 10: The Trash Prince
The success at Echo Bridge did not bring him relief. It brought him terror.
Expectation. That was the word that now haunted him, a ghost far more frightening than any assassin. The gazes of the guards in the corridors had changed. The familiar pity was gone, replaced by something far worse: a respectful curiosity. Every time he passed, they would stand a little taller. Every brief nod from him was received as if it were a royal decree.
This was a new, far more suffocating prison.
Eldrin needed a place to escape, a corner in this vast castle where no hopeful gazes could reach him. He found it in the almost completely abandoned east wing.
The "Glass Garden."
The small conservatory was a forgotten monument of sorrow. Its glass panes, once surely gleaming, were now dull with dust and moss, several panels cracked, allowing the cold night wind to whisper through. The exotic plants from other continents that had once filled this space had long since withered, leaving behind brittle, brown skeletons, tragic poses of a life that had surrendered.
This was the only legacy of the late Queen, his mother—or the mother of this body. A garden she had tended with love, now as forgotten as her name in this court.
This place was perfect. Desolate. No one would look for him here.
Eldrin sat on a cold stone bench, its surface covered in a thin layer of dust. In the center of the room, atop a small marble pedestal, a silver bird music box lay tilted on its side. Its mechanism was broken, and it was forever silent. An all-too-fitting symbol.
He closed his eyes, trying to calm his racing heart. He replayed the event in his study. His order. Gregor's reaction. He had succeeded. A monstrous coincidence had saved him. But now, they expected more. They expected the next miracle. And he had nothing left in his pockets.
He couldn't keep getting lucky. Sooner or later, his bluff would be called. Sooner or later, he would make a mistake, and people would die.
Again.
No. He wouldn't let that happen. There had to be a way. Something. Any power he could use to control his own destiny.
He thought back to his old world. To the game. He was one of the best. He had the knowledge. And in every reincarnation novel he had ever read, that knowledge always came with an advantage: a system interface.
With a sliver of desperate hope, he opened his eyes and stared at the empty space before him.
"Status Window."
He concentrated, calling out the command that had been muscle memory for him for years. He waited for the familiar translucent blue panel to appear, for the rows of numbers and stats that had given him certainty in a world made of code.
Silence. Only the sound of the wind sighing through the cracked glass.
He tried again, harder, squeezing his eyes shut until his temples throbbed.
"Status! Open!"
Nothing. Only a dizziness beginning to creep into his head.
Alright. Maybe there's no visual interface, he thought, trying to suppress a wave of panic. But the power... its essence... it should be there, right?
His soul... his mind... it still remembered everything. In the game, his character had been an extension of his own hands. He had spent thousands of hours mastering it. Every skill combination, every enemy weakness, every cooldown timer was etched into his mind. He didn't "know" how to cast a spell like a true mage, but he knew their names. He knew their effects.
He tried to feel for the 'mana' around him, a concept he'd often read in skill descriptions. He tried to feel for his 'MP bar,' a reserve of blue energy that should be pulsing within him.
There was nothing.
All he felt was a sudden itch in his nose and a deepening emptiness in his stomach.
A bitter frustration burned in his throat. He held out a pale palm, staring at it intently.
Skill: Minor Heal.
He didn't know how to 'cast' a spell. In the game, he just pressed '3' on his hotkey bar and a beam of green light would appear. He'd never thought about the mechanics.
Now, he tried to imitate what he remembered from the screen: a soft green glow. He tried to 'will' the spell into existence, the same way he willed his character forward when pressing the 'W' key. He focused all his intent on a single outcome.
Here? There was only a cold, trembling palm.
The green light didn't appear. Just like the hand that couldn't reach out when Liana needed him.
A memory struck him without mercy. The screech of tires on wet asphalt. The deafening crash of metal. Him, still sitting in front of his monitor, frozen, unaware of what was happening outside his bedroom window until it was too late. His powerlessness in the hospital, staring at his sister's still form, was the absolute failure that had defined his entire life.
Useless then. Useless now.
The conclusion struck him with the force of a sledgehammer. He was truly alone. His game knowledge was just a meaningless echo. All the strategies, all the knowledge of monster weaknesses, it was all pointless if he didn't have the power to execute them.
He was powerless.
Again.
He laughed, a hoarse, humorless sound that was hideous in the silence of the glass garden. A laugh born from total despair.
So that was it. This world had given him a second chance only to show him once again how useless he was.
Fine. If that was the way it was. If he couldn't be strong, then he would be the opposite.
A cold, bitter resolution formed in his chaotic mind. His original plan was the best one. The only possible one.
He had to become the Trash Prince.
He had to embrace that role with all his heart. To be weak, to be incompetent, to be someone utterly unworthy of responsibility. If he did nothing, he couldn't fail. If he couldn't fail, then no one would die because of his weakness again. Becoming invisible was no longer just a desire; it was the only survival strategy.
With that thought, strangely, a part of his panic subsided, replaced by a numb calm. He had a plan, however pathetic it was.
He rose from the stone bench, brushing the dust from his robes. He glanced one last time at the silent, silver bird music box before turning away.
That was enough running away for one day.
He opened the creaking door of the conservatory and stepped out, back into the cold, dim corridor of the west wing, ready to return to his chambers and begin his new life as a grand disappointment.