40 order, with the prince.




"Your Highness, we will definitely catch the beastmen who managed to escape.
"...... Oh, I'll leave it to you.


 The knight bowed reverently in front of me.
 The knight nodded at my words and left the place.


 I am Hiccuped Migga. I am the seventh prince of the Kingdom of Migga, a position that is only worthy of royalty. I'm twelve years old, and a knight who's lived twice as long as me bows to me because I'm royalty.


 Because I'm a prince. It's awkward to be seen only as "prince," but I live with it.
 My father, the king of Migga, is impatient with the fact that the Kingdom of Faerietrov now has the Son. I wouldn't be here either if there was no such thing as a divine child in the kingdom of Fairytlov.


 I'm in a city on the border of the Kingdom of Fairytlov. There's an untouched forest in the south, where there's a village of beastmen, and my father told me to secure them. To be honest with you, I don't feel good about the act of enslaving beastmen, or any other species for that matter. There were some beastmen as slaves in the royal palace of the Kingdom of Migga, but to me, they were not much different from humans.


 However, as the seventh prince, there was no way I could give such an opinion to my father. The only thing I can do is to not treat the slaves in my possession badly.
 The only thing I can do is not to treat the slaves I have with me badly. ...... However, since we are the ones who attacked the village and enslaved the beastmen, I am only a perpetrator and an enemy to the beastmen.


 I don't have the power. Because I don't have the power, I can't act even if I have doubts about what my father is doing. I'm twelve years old, not yet a full-grown man, and I'm doing what my father tells me to do.


 Currently, the people I've been sent here with have attacked a village of cat beastmen. And reduced the majority of them to slaves. We put slave collars on them so they can't rebel and we take away their will. Children cry out their parents' names. Some of them died enslaving the beastmen. I can't turn a blind eye to that fact. It wasn't me who attacked and enslaved those beastmen. But those under my command, following their father's orders, enslaved them at my command. I have to accept every cry, every look of hatred.
 The knights, along with the mercenaries they've hired, are trying to track down the cat-beastmen who escaped. I hope they are lucky enough to escape and are never found. That way, they won't fall into slavery. They don't have to be slaves.
 I think so, even though I'm the one indirectly ordering them to become slaves. I feel stupid for thinking that way.



 But even though I felt stupid and foolish, I still hoped that they would never find me.






 Perhaps my hope was answered, or perhaps some mysterious force was at work, but I received a report that the cat beastmen had disappeared, though they must not have gone very far. They said they had been able to find their footsteps, but suddenly they couldn't find them anymore. I don't know, but that's a relief to me.


 If you are captured as a slave, you will be used as labor, or if there is a war with the Kingdom of Fairytlov, you will be used as a pawn. You will not be happy. I'll be able to keep them from harm while I have them, but sooner or later, the people I enslaved will leave my hands. They will leave and be unhappy. And I, of all people, am the one who put them in that misery.



"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I think I'm almost there, but strangely enough, I can't get there!
"Stranger things have happened. Well, good. If we don't find it by the deadline you gave me, I will give you only the slaves I have captured so far.
"Haha, I'm sure I'll find him before then.



 I nodded to the knight who replied, but I hoped he would not find me. There is no way I could tell anyone about my true intentions, I thought as I watched the knight's back, determined to enslave the beastman.


 But just as my father's deadline was approaching, a beastman was captured.




 It was a story that inspired the other members of the expedition to the Kingdom of Migga. It was not the cat beastman we were looking for, but a wolf beastman with wolf ears and a tail. Wolf beastmen are known for their high fighting power. If I could enslave a wolf-beastman, my father would be very pleased.
 Five of our knights were killed in the battle to capture the wolf beastman. Many more were injured. Is it necessary to enslave a beastman at such a cost? I can't speak to that question right now. I don't know what will happen to me if I speak against the will of my father, the king.



 The knights were determined to find out the location of the village from the man with the brown ears and tail they had captured. Perhaps they would torture him. The gagged and bound wolf beastman was a wreck when he was captured. He was glaring at me when I went to check on him. I'm the one who made this werewolf look so terrible. I'm going to be tortured again, even though I'm such a wreck. ...... I want it to stop, I want it to stop. But I can't ...... disobey my father's orders.


 The next day, it was reported that the captive wolf beastman had died. He said that no matter how hard I hurt him, he never told me where the village was. I told him I would spare his life if he told me where it was, but he wouldn't tell me.
 Because he loves the village. He didn't want to hurt the village. It broke my heart that he didn't tell me.
 Please, I hoped that the village he didn't tell us about, the one he wanted to protect, would not be found by us, by the Kingdom of Migga.



 ---The prince and the order.
 The prince is questioning his father's orders. The prince is questioning his father's orders to enslave the beastmen. But the prince cannot disobey the order.