The Lucky God

It reminded him of the first time he had ever seen Daisy.

Luther Rainer, the Emperor's Knight and scion of a legendary knightly family, who was also Franz's swordsmanship master, had brought along his own daughter and asked if she might train alongside the prince as well. The girl he presented was Daisy, all of five years old.

'...Can she even walk?'

That was what nine-year-old Franz had asked, staring at the tiny Daisy before him.

Daisy, thrilled by the sight of the sprawling training grounds, had broken into a run and fallen, scrambled back up, run again and fallen again, over and over.

'She can walk just fine. As you can see, she runs quite well too. She simply... cannot yet control her emotions, is all.'

But even Luther's voice carried no conviction as he said it.

Daisy, delighted by who knew what, kept grinning and giggling even as she tumbled. There was no one in the entire imperial palace who smiled like that, and so Franz found himself thinking that perhaps this, at least, was no bad thing.

'Your Highness the Crown Prince, I look forward to serving you well.'

Daisy had offered an impeccably formal bow, though where she had learned it, Franz could not guess.

In that moment, he decided she would make a fine comrade.

What had begun as little more than playing with wooden swords gradually took on the shape of proper training as the years passed. Perhaps it was the blood of a knightly house running in her veins, because Daisy's skill improved at a startling pace. There were moments when Franz thought that if not for the difference in their size, she might even surpass him. Her blade cut swift and true toward its target, without mercy or hesitation.

So this is what it means to be a natural.

That was what Franz would think as he watched her.

Daisy, however, had no interest whatsoever in any study beyond the sword.

'If I can write, isn't that enough!'

When Luther chided her, twelve-year-old Daisy would retort with all the confidence in the world.

'You think knowing how to write is necessary, then?'

When Franz asked, half bewildered, Daisy nodded her head vigorously.

'Of course. You can't devise strategies or issue orders if you can't read and write, can you?'

That side of her was endearing, too. To Franz, she was nothing more than his master's adorable daughter and a companion who trained at his side.

Right up until that point, that was all she had been.

Right up until that happened.

Franz's mother had died the moment he was born, and in the years that followed, demonic beasts began multiplying at an unnatural, explosive rate. The enemy nation of Yospanel had even begun crossing the Proponder Sea.

It was around this time that the rumors about Franz began to spread—the whispers of an ill omen.

A rumor born among the empire's common folk drifted into the palace, and even the palace servants began murmuring about it behind closed doors.

Franz had never been one for laughter, and aside from the handful of noble children who studied alongside him, he had no one to keep company with. Because of that, there was no one who felt warmly enough toward him to defend him, and the rumor spread faster still.

The Empress's death, the surge of demonic beasts, the enemy's invasion—all of it was because the Crown Prince had been born bearing an ill omen.

There was no way Franz could not have heard them whispering it behind his back.

Let them prattle all they like.

He had no time to waste worrying over such pointless talk. His lessons in preparation for the throne alone kept him busy enough.

But that day, the weather was impossibly beautiful—and so, after finishing his history lesson, Franz detoured briefly through the garden on his way to the training grounds.

The palace garden was brimming with every manner of flower and grass, glittering in the sunlight and sweet with fragrance. It wasn't as though he was fond of such things, but he was at an age saturated with sentiment, too full of feeling to simply walk past such an enchanting scene.

Franz had crouched down to watch a bee clinging to one of the blossoms when the voices of passing maids drifted to his ears.

'Isn't all of this the Crown Prince's doing?'

'Exactly. His Majesty hasn't been ill a day in his life, and now look at him.'

'I suppose that rumor is true, then. The one about him being born under an ill omen.'

Franz could not bring himself to stand.

It was the second day since the Emperor had taken to his sickbed, an illness that had begun as a light cold and flared into a burning fever. If the maids had pointed out a mistake, he could have corrected and scolded them and been done with it—but speaking up against this kind of gossip felt humiliating. It would be like snapping at someone not to insult him.

Besides, there were times when an absurd, unfounded guilt gnawed at him all the same. Could it truly be that his father had fallen ill because he himself had been born unlucky? Was he dragging the empire and its people into misfortune? Whenever the words ill omen reached his ears, Franz—who was otherwise always composed—felt his spirits sink. It was the only such moment.

Hunched and helpless, he turned the self-blame over and over in his mind.

'What did you just say?'

He had been hesitating—should he stay where he was until they passed, or rise with dignity and continue on his way as though he had heard nothing—when Daisy's furious voice rang out.

'Who said he was born under an ill omen?'

'My lady, that is...'

'Do you think it's acceptable to run around saying such things?'

Daisy confronted the maids, who were easily twice her age.

'But my lady. However I look at it, that's the only conclusion there is. It's a fact that strange things began happening the moment His Highness the Crown Prince was born.'

One of the maids retorted with open disdain. Daisy was a noble, true, but her rank was low and she was young—the maids evidently decided she was fair game.

'What are you even saying? Do you have any idea how earnest His Highness is about everything he does? And anyway, if His Highness is unlucky, then so am I. I've never even seen my mother's face.'

'No, that's not...'

'Do you have any idea how wonderful His Highness is! Ever since I met him, I get to smell wonderful flower blossoms every day, eat amazing food as much as I want, learn swordsmanship to my heart's content, and skip the lessons I hate. To me, His Highness is a lucky... lucky... god of fortune!'

Daisy had only ever heard the phrase goddess of fortune. But since Franz was a man, she had racked her brains and invented god of fortune on the spot.

He didn't need to see her puffing away, steam practically venting from her nose, to know exactly how furiously she was standing her ground.

Still crouching where he was, Franz couldn't help but chuckle.

'Anyway, never let me hear you say such things again. How dare you spread such nonsense about the very Highness we serve?'

Grumbling to the very last, Daisy herded the maids out of the garden.

Franz sank back onto the garden path with a smile on his face and gazed up at the sky. The dizzying swirl of anxious thoughts had all vanished. Just lying there, laughter kept bubbling out of him.

Everyone whispers that I was born under an ill omen—and she declares that I am the very symbol of fortune.

From that day on, Daisy was no longer simply a cute, amusing younger sister figure.

She was the comrade who would watch his back no matter what happened, and the one person in the world who believed in him. The one who could stand tall and cry no even as everyone else pointed fingers behind his back and called him cursed. The one who could pin the absurd title of lucky god of fortune on a boy with no charm whatsoever, who had nothing about him worth liking.

When Daisy had grown old enough to take the field, and Matheus Van der Dite—the son of the lord of Ranke, the northernmost province—joined them, the three of them were charged with hunting down the demonic beasts.

Side by side through the war against the enemy nation and the war against the beasts, Franz entrusted his back to Daisy more times than he could count. She was the single person who would protect him even if the world collapsed around them. She was the home he would return to.

When Yospanel invaded, the three of them went to war. Driven onto the defensive, Franz swung his sword—and for reasons no one could fathom, friend and foe alike fell in great numbers beneath his blade. As though some kind of spell had been cast on it.

In the battlefield turned river of blood, Franz simply stood there, dazed, with no idea what had happened—drenched in someone's scarlet blood, whose he would never know. The soldiers, allies and enemies alike, had fled backward in terror until he alone remained, standing stark and silent among the corpses.

Because of that day, Franz was elevated from Crown Prince of Ill Omen to the Cursed Crown Prince.

Yet even then, Daisy would snarl that she would cut out the tongues of anyone who dared spew such filth. And she was always the first to come running whenever he stood alone.

When the second invasion by Yospanel cost him his father and Daisy hers in a single stroke, the two of them were together. When he inherited the throne with no preparation at all, and when he arranged a political marriage to strengthen the crown and calm his people—Daisy was there.

And so he had believed that whatever he did, Daisy would always, always be at his side. That she would not waver. That just as he trusted her, she trusted him in return.

But that was a delusion, and arrogance besides.

Daisy was trembling with insecurity, visibly, painfully, for anyone to see. And she was demanding an answer—a solution, a reason she could accept.

Franz could offer Daisy no answer at all.

Merely imagining her suffering made an old bruise ache deep in his heart, a weight settled so profoundly within him that he could feel its every ounce. But there was nothing he could do.

Not yet.