SHADOW AND LIGHT (CHIAROSCURO)

WHAT MAKES A MAN?

With the help of a few real friends, I created a secret guild that investigates mysterious crimes and conducts of the people of gladia, commoners or nobles. With my riches as a royal prince, I took a whole year gathering the best aura benders and scholars with certain detective skills to create the secret guild, Night's Eye.

Even though, we had uncovered so many dirty secrets and discovered interesting mysteries of my kingdom, Gladia. We were far from finding a single clue that would lead to my mother's murder.

I sighed, “Ha...!" Twas nothing but a thought I had. I soaked away my troubles, my aches and my entire body with my face under the bathtub.

I rinsed myself clean, covered my bottom half with a towel and exited my bath only to bump into my personal maid, Penelope, who was waiting for me outside as always.

She had fallen to the tiled floor, with her legs apart and her undergarments exposed to my eyes. "Black, huh?" I thought upon catching a glimpse of her underwear.

"Ah, sorry dear. Didn't see you there," I apologized to her as I reached out my hand and pulled her back up.

"Think nothing of it, my lord," she responded with a clumsy smile as she elegantly stood and dusted off her skirt.

This personal maid of mine was a young maiden of 14 years old with fair skin, blue eyes, full lips and a bountiful bosom. She may have been 14 years of age, about to be 15 but her body said otherwise.

Then again, the maids' french maid uniform was fit in a way to push and or pronounce a maid's bosom, thus I simply tried to ignore the seductive nature of Penelope.

"Umm, where's Paige?" I noticed that Paige was nowhere in sight.

"Ah... He had a few errands to run, but don't worry, I shall serve you in his stead," she cheerfully stated while getting a dry towel from a closet.

Penelope dabbed me dry with the dry towel from top to bottom. Once dry, I proceeded to put on my royal garments myself, alone.

"Would you leave?" I requested.

But Penelope insisted, “My sire, please allow me to serve you by dressing you in your royal garments.”

I immediately replied, “There is no need, Penelope. I'll be just fine on my own. I'm used to it.”

"Then I shall simply stay by your side," she compromised and stood quietly right by me as I removed my bottom towel and proceeded to dress.

As I dressed, my gaze shifted to the better part of her exposed cleavage, her breasts seemed like they would pop out without much effort. With such a size on a little lady, let's just say that she was well endowed for a young maiden.

With nothing but will, I avoided the temptation laid before me and properly wore my lavish embellished white tunic.

But the temptation just kept on coming. As I continued to dress, she kept insisting, “But sire, it is my duty as a maid of the monarch, no, the royal prince of this territory to assist you in all your daily needs.” She approached my chest, looking up at me with those puppy dog eyes.

Her bountiful soft breasts were pressed upon my chest as she continuously insisted on dressing me, but I listened to the head on my neck instead of the head below and gently pushed her aside as I continue to dress up, saying, “My dear, believe it or not, such advances will not deter my strong will. The answer is NO!"

With that, I immediately turned away from the succubus of a maid and continued dressing.

As I dressed, I recalled when I was fourteen and was always attended to by the maids at the palace, they always wore certain dirty, and lascivious expressions toward me. It was all so stifling, especially since I was still a growing boy at the time.

There was also the matter of a maid-related incident that prompted me to dismiss all maids from tending to me or my chambers once I had turned fifteen.

“They were parasites...” I mumbled to myself.

“Pardon, sire?” My words caught my maid's attention.

“Nevermind, dear,” I stated as I wore my lavish vest garnished with red jewels, my oxblood leggings, and my black trousers.

"Very well, sire. I'll be here if you need anything, 'anything' at all," she mentioned in a somewhat seductive tone.

If I had known any better, I'd think she wanted something from me and not I, from her.

“Alas, I am certain that you won't be any different from the others, Penelope, my dear...” I sternly thought to myself as I slowly buttoned my vest.

While I was slowly buttoned, I saw it on her... That lascivious expression in a reflection of one of the silver poles that lifted my mattress.

She must have thought that I couldn't see her as I was showing her my back, and yet she was showing me that same expression behind my back. That disgusting expression, the one of greed.

“Fetch me my shoes, dear,” I calmly ordered.

“Yes, sire!” She responded with a quick curtsey and hurriedly left my chambers in search of my poulaine shoes.

Even though it had been a month since I moved into the estate, I had yet to finally settle in, and that meant that I still had a lot of unpacking to do. There were still items of luggage of my things in a room, down the hall of the top floor. So it would take her a while to find the shoes.

While she was gone, I had some time to myself so I began to think...

“How do I begin to rule this territory?” I uttered as I strolled around my room with my hands in my pockets.

“It has been a month since I was sent to rule the territory of Sterilia and I have yet to announce my presence to the people of the state, talk less about my rule over it," I thought as I strolled.

“Haa...” I sighed.

I had been putting it off due to the shame of my inadequacies. For as long as I could remember, I never had a healthy body, I would fall sick every full moon of every month and I had very bad eyesight as well.

"My sight is so bad that I became one of the very few in the kingdom to equip a vision device called occularia, spectacles or in the peasant's tongue, 'glasses'," I thought as I caught sight of my glasses on a drawer by the side of my bed.

I picked up the round-rimmed spectacles and wore them, my slight blurry vision faded in an instant.

I sighed once again, thinking, "Most that wore this only wore it for reading, but I wore it to live with some epitome of good sight, pathetic." I shook my head in disapproval, thinking about the fact that I had taken numerous tonics and potions to fix my sight but to no avail. For now, my best choice for good sight would be these 'spectacles'.

This bad sight of mine coupled with my poor physique prevented me from attending many of my princely duties like knighthood training, hunting and martial arts. Hence, the title – The Incompetent Prince.

I began to think back to before I was sent here...

"As a crown prince, It was a true shame as an heir to the kingdom of Gladia to be dubbed an incompetent prince. To the point that my father, the king, sent me away to this barren territory, Sterilia, to 'prove' myself," I thought with a frown across my face.

I also remembered vividly how my father visited me in my chambers at the royal palace in the dead of the night. Our conversations were more than that of father and son. No, it was more like man-to-man...

“Tell me, son, what makes a man?” my father asked calmly.

“Well, father, there are many things that constitute what makes a man, like his actions or his status... But I couldn't really say, father" I answered to the best of my knowledge.

“Pain and suffering,” he said with a cold expression.

“Father?” I uttered as I curiously looked up at him, he was a burly 8ft man, and I was just a 6ft young man then and now.

“Only through pain, tribulations and suffering can one thoroughly become a man,” he answered me without any pauses in his statement.

There was a bit of silence between us before he also said, "Son, I sense that something in you has changed. That is... exceptional. But for you to truly become a man..." He stopped for a few seconds before stating in a cold and heartless manner...

"YOU MUST SUFFER LIKE NEVER BEFORE."

With those few words, he just left... without so much as another word. The next day, I was summoned to the royal palace from my chambers and given a royal decree, to develop the barren land of Sterilia.

The moment I got that royal decree from my father, it wasn't a request from my father, it was an order from the King of Gladia. It was at that very moment, that I thought, “I've been sent to die.” And that thought was justified because it was a known fact that the territory of Sterilia was nothing more than a barren land and a death trap for foreign attacks. Being as it was situated right next to the border between the kingdom of Gladia and five other kingdoms. Even I, an incompetent prince knew that.

And yet...

“Go forth and prove your worth O precious child of mine, bring the land of Sterilia to its former glory and may ye prosper as a prince of the kingdom of Gladia!” Those were the last words my father said to me before he sent me to this barren land.

My furious thoughts wandered, “PRECIOUS CHILD!? FORMER GLORY!? What a load of bull! If I was your so-called 'precious child', you wouldn't send me to a death trap so far away from the capital! And ‘Former glory’!? We both know that this land has never seen any worth in ages!!” I was frustrated and annoyed, so much so that I lost my composure for a moment.

I felt abandoned by my own father.