Buck blinked and thought to himself, "Do you have a voyeuristic tendency too?" The thought flashed through his mind, but his expression remained calm as he waited for the prince's next words.

  The prince continued, "I once considered taking action against you again, but later I realized that you're not a simple useless person, so I gave up on that idea early on."

  "Are you this merciful to all your enemies?" Buck’s lips curled into a cold smile, one that held a hint of sarcasm.

  "Not necessarily..." Roland shook his head slightly and continued walking, his pace steady and confident. "I admit, at first, I misjudged you. I never expected that the real Buck Frank would be a man who hides his true self behind a bad reputation. If I hadn't decided to force Viscount Hein to choose a side, others might never have discovered your true nature. I shouldn't have used you as leverage to move the viscount."

  If you hadn’t killed the original Buck Frank, I wouldn’t have had the chance to occupy this body, Buck thought silently. However, the prince’s candid admission of his scheme made him somewhat admire him.

  In fact, whether it was the prince’s misjudgment or his own admission of mistakes, such things had never happened before. Prince Roland O'Brien Goliath was widely regarded as a genius throughout the empire, and he was known for his precision in everything he did. He had never made mistakes, including when he first sent Viddens to eliminate Buck Frank, the so-called scoundrel. If Buck hadn’t crossed over into this body, Viscount Hein would have surely been forced into Roland’s camp under those circumstances.

  It was the failure a year ago that gradually sparked Roland’s strong interest in Buck. When McKinley returned and informed him that Buck’s strength had exceeded expectations, Roland realized that he had misjudged the same person twice. So, he had specifically come tonight to meet with Buck.

  Then, he discovered that his third judgment was wrong. This person was actually planning to set aside his father’s position and choose to follow him. Did he truly understand what that meant? Roland stared into Buck’s deep and calm black eyes and gradually confirmed that Buck fully understood the significance.

  "So, Buck, what do you want?" This was the key question Roland needed to figure out.

  "Power," Buck answered without hesitation. He had no interest in the royal power struggle, and neither wealth nor secular power were his goals. With the ongoing dark forces attacking, only power, taken to the extreme, was the eternal truth.

  What Prince Roland could offer was a shortcut to power. Buck had suffered from the curse for a long time, and no matter how many monsters he killed or how much life energy he absorbed, he made little progress against that mysterious threat.

  He was like a newborn with only "health" but no extraordinary power or secret knowledge like Viddens the Hunter. Even if he were connected to more limbs, he still couldn’t truly release their power.

  He often felt that he couldn't fully unleash the strength from those attachments! So, he had to step out and venture into a broader world to seek the true path to power, even if it meant being dragged into an endless vortex.

  Roland gently plucked a blood-red rose from in front of him, the petals glistening with dew, emitting a faint fragrance. He said softly, "In that case, come with me to the north. You’ll find what you’re longing for there." And I, too, am ready to return to the center of the power vortex.

  "Alright." Buck nodded decisively, without any hesitation.

  "McKinley said you are a very devout follower of the goddess," the prince suddenly smiled, his expression warm and gentle. "Would you like to become a holy church hunter?"

  "I’d be glad to," Buck replied. Going north with the prince, getting close to the imperial capital of the Goliath Empire, and using the prince’s influence to directly infiltrate the Church’s hunters—everything was just as Buck had hoped.

  At least in the past year in the viscount’s territory, he had never been able to find a way to solve his problems. The cultists’ half-baked knowledge of the dark arts could not help him. Now, he was left with only one final path: to delve into the core of all the empire's extraordinary beings and obtain the knowledge of legitimate mystical rituals.

  Moreover, he also wanted to uncover the origins of the Hand of the God’s Corpse. So far, all he knew was that it came from the north.

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  The Fourth Prince quietly left the Viscount's territory in the night. He had obtained everything he wanted, including the potential loyalty of the entire border nobility. Even though Viscount Hein had not yet explicitly chosen a side, as long as Buck Frank was willing to leave with him, it would be enough to signal an attitude to everyone.

  …

  Perhaps Viscount Hein had witnessed Buck's interaction with the prince in the castle. When Buck informed him of his decision to go to the imperial capital, the viscount seemed a bit lonely, yet his gaze remained cold as frost.

  "Do as you wish," were the last words the viscount spoke to Buck.

  The next day, Buck, accompanied by his twin maids and Doug, left the Viscount's territory with a light and simple departure. They met up with the prince’s entourage at the Greenfield City steam train station. While the prince was still bidding farewell to the local nobles, Buck, acting low-key as usual, led the two maids onto the train first, with Doug once again acting as the porter, handling their luggage.

  The steam locomotive was quite similar to the steam trains from Buck's past life, with one notable difference: it featured a much larger engine and employed a steam circulation pressurization principle that Buck had never seen or understood before.

  This power system consumed less fuel yet was capable of generating tremendous force. Clearly, it was a form of alchemical black technology unique to this world.

  As a noble, Buck had a private compartment in the front car. He sat by the window, quietly gazing out at the vast fields, waiting for the train to start. Meanwhile, Roland, under the strict guard of the royal guards, boarded the train and entered the most spacious compartment, casually opening a letter in his hand. It was an urgent message from the imperial capital, delivered just before he left Greenfield City.

  "Fifth-tier Fallen Hunter, Undead Montette has escaped from the Death Prison and is heading south." Roland read the brief but shocking message in the letter, his eyes narrowing slightly with a hint of caution and thought.

  "Fenris, has there been any progress on the investigation you were looking into?" He asked, turning to a middle-aged man dressed in splendid silver hunter attire standing beside him.

  "Your Highness, we've been thoroughly investigating the suspicious ritual activities you mentioned, but we haven't found any related clues near Greenfield City in the past year." The hunter named Fenris replied quietly.

  Behind him stood a whole team of superhumans responsible for escorting Prince Roland back to the capital, a total of thirteen individuals. Not only that, but this exclusive train for Roland was also accompanied by a three-hundred-strong royal guard.

  The royal guards were all tall and imposing, always clad in heavy armor and equipped with steam-powered rifles, truly armed to the teeth. However, even seeing the letter, Roland still didn’t feel entirely safe...

  At the back of the hunter team, Veronica's lips moved slightly, as though she wanted to say something. She had also been involved in the investigation task given to the Hunter Guild by Roland. Almost a year ago, they had tracked down similar clues, following them all the way to the border, until a sudden surge of dark forces appeared.

  However, in the end, those cultists were brutally silenced by the Void Hounds, and the site of their suspicious ritual activities had long since exceeded the scope Prince Roland had specified. She hesitated and ultimately kept silent.

  The young female hunter was also a member of this train’s crew. In reality, she was a failure who hadn’t passed her trial mission and had been sent back to the capital. Veronica’s mentor, Viddens, had died outside the border, and she and Muken’s trial mission had been suspended.

  In the year that followed, they had repeatedly failed two more missions, and eventually, Muken had been seriously injured and bedridden. Left without companions, Veronica could only endure a tough year in Greenfield City, ultimately receiving a "failure" evaluation.

  As a "failure" hunter, she really had no face to speak in front of the prince...

  ...

  The train slowly started with a rumbling and the sharp sound of a whistle. Buck gazed out the window at the scenery moving backwards and, for some reason, his mind suddenly flashed with the image of his unfamiliar father, Count Hein Frank.

  The poor relationship between Buck and his father stemmed from his long-dead mother. As a child, Buck Frank had deeply loved his mother, the beautiful and gentle Countess. Until he was eight, when the Countess suddenly contracted a strange incurable disease.

  At that time, the Count, occupied with a border disturbance, was unable to bring his wife back to the capital for medical treatment. In Buck Frank's view, his mother could have been saved. With the mysterious powers of the Church of Light and the Empire’s advanced alchemy, she should have been able to be revived.

  However, his father had abandoned his mother's life for the sake of land, power, and wealth. Since then, Buck Frank had harbored resentment toward Count Hein. Yet, when he decided to leave that night, he caught a glimpse of something different in his father’s gaze. Sometime during the years, the Count's hair had turned gray.

  As Buck sank into deep thought, an annoying creaking sound suddenly pierced through the air, like someone slowly sawing through bone and flesh with a saw, sending chills down his spine. Frowning, he glanced toward the partition at the front of the compartment, wondering if the dining car was ahead, with the chefs preparing lunch.

  Then came a louder crash, as though something heavy had fallen in the car ahead. Buck stiffened, and just then, the door to his compartment was violently pulled open, revealing a tall figure clad in a blood-stained brown coat and a filthy hunter’s hat. He tightly gripped a blood-dripping saw blade, and his beast-like eyes flashed with murderous intent, locking onto Buck sitting in the compartment...