The Fallen Prince ☆1
About 20 kilometers east of Shklov City in the Republic of Belarus, across the Dnieper River, lay a vast stretch of desolate former collective settlements. Planned during the era of the former Soviet Union to create a new heavy industrial zone, these settlements were abandoned when funding was cut off after the Union collapsed.
After gaining independence, the Republic of Belarus tried to carry on with the old Soviet plans, but in an open economy it was impossible to make the production costs work. Perhaps it might have been viable during the Cold War, but now importing goods was far cheaper. The government attempted to repurpose the area, yet Belarus was experiencing a classic rural exodus. Young people who spoke Russian moved to major cities or neighboring countries, the population steadily declined, and the small rural towns and scattered collective settlements around them gradually turned into ghost towns.
As a result, old factories and apartment blocks that had never been properly maintained exuded an eerie, desolate atmosphere.
And deep inside those bleak ruins, a flickering light burned.
Firewood crackled inside a metal drum. As scraps of old timber—still crusted with thick, dried paint—burned, the faint stench of chemical fumes stung the nose. Such a small fire could never drive away the biting cold that gripped the abandoned building. Yet the man feeding the fire showed no reaction to the chill that could freeze bones solid. With an expressionless face, he split old planks and tossed them into the drum.
Anyone with a keen eye would have noticed that he was tearing apart chunks of wood that were neither rotten nor dried to dust—using his bare hands. Even now, he gripped what had once been someone's wall or door and pulled it apart along the grain as casually as if he were tearing apart a well-boiled chicken.
—Crrrk…
A finger protruding from between grimy wool gloves twisted the cap of a liquor bottle. An unpracticed grip crushed the glass neck with a sharp crack. Whether a human hand could shatter a glass bottle was debatable—but given that he could tear apart planks like poultry, it was hardly surprising.
"Damn it."
Grumbling as he looked at the broken bottle in his hand, he bit down on the jagged neck and poured the liquor straight into his stomach. Strong vodka—and likely shards of glass mixed in—slid down his throat without any filter at all.
"Ptah!"
He spat irritably. Even diluted with saliva, the alcohol content was high enough that the spit hit the drum and flared up in a flash. Staring blankly at the flames, he pulled his rags tighter around himself. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, likely from the glass, but he simply tilted the bottle again and drank.
The burning fire cast heavy shadows on bare chunks of concrete with no insulation. A harsh wind scraped through the empty corridors.
Then, cutting through the dry air, came footsteps—heavy, deliberate, almost like thunder. Step by step, they echoed. Hard leather soles struck the concrete corridor, advancing confidently, without the slightest hesitation.
The man drinking paused.
The footsteps continued regardless. Dress shoes in a place like this—was it a soldier? No. Belarusian military boots didn't carry weight in the heel like that. Hard soles, designed more for appearance than function. Whoever this was, were they an enemy?
The man had many enemies. Too many. From childhood to the present day, he had lived his entire life evading those who sought his life. Anyone approaching him in a place like this naturally warranted suspicion. The owner of the footsteps made no attempt to hide his presence, but some assassins in the past had advanced just as boldly, marching straight at him. There was no reason to let down his guard.
Even so, he set down the empty bottle and pulled out a new one. Beside the fire, empty bottles were already piled high, like a procession of believers listening to Jesus Christ deliver the Sermon on the Mount.
"So this is where you were."
As he watched the bottles reflect the firelight, the man covered his nose. A musty stench, the acrid smell of paint-soaked wood burning, and above all the reek coming from a man who looked like he hadn't washed in months assaulted his senses.
Most of all, the man crouched among empty and full bottles reeked of the animal musk you'd expect from a beast's cage. The fact that the well-dressed man merely covered his nose while facing such murderous stench was proof enough that he was no ordinary person. After all, the temperature was currently minus thirteen degrees Celsius. Even near the Dnieper, Belarus's continental climate made the dry air harsh enough to crack skin.
Surviving in just a suit without even a vest was no easy feat.
"Goodbye, mister…."
The homeless-looking man muttered. His voice was hoarse, yet strangely clear and resonant.
"We just met."
"Get lost."
The homeless man snapped irritably. At that moment, a red gleam flared in his eyes. But just then, the suited man slipped a hand into his jacket.
A handgun? Or perhaps something even more excessive—some large-caliber rifle or machine gun hidden beneath that suit? The young man watched him calmly, curious about what he would pull out.
What emerged instead was a smartphone bearing the Verizon logo.
"Take this."
"Why should I?"
"Because he wishes to speak with you."
"He…? Who is he?"
The young man cracked open a new bottle and began gulping it down. Watching him drink vodka like water, the suited man let out a sigh.
"The leader of the Four Serpents."
"…."
The homeless man froze. He sighed, then took off his hat.
Greasy gray hair, dark with months of grime, spilled out. His beard was thick and unkempt, but his blue-gray and red eyes still marked him clearly as a young man.
"The leader of the Four Serpents, huh. Quite the illustrious figure."
With a sneer, the young man took the phone. A Verizon signal working in the northeastern abandoned collective settlement near Shklov, Belarus, seemed unlikely—but the moment he accepted the call, his surroundings melted away in an instant.
"..."
He wasn't particularly startled. It felt as if he had been flung from Earth straight into outer space, but his life had been far too harsh for something like this to shake him. Darkness and luminous mist spread everywhere, like a Hubble telescope image of a distant nebula.
[Ah… what a look. Hyung, is that it? Cosplay? I don't really get the character, but I can tell. You've always had a good base. You'll pull off anything.]
A human voice came from beyond the nebula-like haze. The young man clicked his tongue as he realized it belonged to his biological younger brother.
"Mocking me?"
From within the nebula, someone stepped forward. A refined-looking man wearing a slim two-button suit. He stared at the young man's vagrant appearance in shock.
[…Are you serious, hyung? That's not some deliberate getup—you really look like that?]
The phrasing irritated him. Still, even in this illusory cosmos of light and darkness, he instinctively found another bottle.
—Crack!
As he popped the neck and drank deeply, the presence beyond the vision—his brother—shouted.
[Why are you living like this? You're free now! Didn't you say you'd live as a free man?]
"…I don't want to talk about it."
He crouched down, deciding there was nothing more to say.
"No, this is strange. Rossini. You should know why I'm like this, shouldn't you?"
[I can't use this ability often.]
"…."
That couldn't be true. Rossini—his younger brother, the reincarnation of Tetra Anax—had inherited Tetra Anax's abilities in full. Telepathy and precognition powerful enough to manipulate the memories of thousands, even tens of thousands, and to toy with legal systems and social records at will—abilities that, if he wished, could even glimpse the future.
And yet he claimed he couldn't use them often?