/
In the alley not far from the Agnus’ private mansion, Aisha was quietly looking down at Lucia, who had fallen unconscious due to shock. Aisha suddenly raised her head—she’d detected someone approaching from the end of the alley.
“Aisha.” The person revealed himself before long.
Joshua always looked unreal every time Aisha met him, but she bowed without hesitation.
“I-I see the great…”
“You don’t have to do that now. Don’t you already know I’m not a dragon because of my letter?”
Aisha’s eyes were filled with confusion.
“Thank you for protecting my mother. To be honest, I wasn’t planning on revealing my identity… but it felt wrong to deceive my mother’s savior.” Joshua faintly smiled.
“It’s okay.” Aisha shook her head.
“…Hmm?” Joshua didn’t expect her response.
“I also received a favor.” Aisha looked at the ground.
Joshua tilted his head in confusion. “What are you talking about…?”
“The elf forest,” Aisha reminded him.
“Oh, Evergrant…” Joshua nodded.
Aisha was technically a dark elf, but she and the other elves all came from the same roots. Thus, she bowed without hesitation.
“Thank you for protecting my people.”
Joshua smiled brightly at her, pleased that they had finally met each other without putting up facades after three years.
“Thank you for protecting my mother,” he responded in kind.
* * *
It had been a while since Cazes, Ranger, and Viper walked around the outskirts of Arcadia.
“Where in the world are we going?” Ranger grumbled.
“Just a little further ahead,” Cazes blankly said.
“You’ve already said that ten times!” Ranger complained. “We’re not only in the opposite direction of the Agnus mansion but also the Imperial Palace. What is supposed to be in this kind of slum?”
“I definitely sensed it,” Cazes said with confidence.
“So what is ‘it’?!” Ranger snapped. “Do you really not understand that your damn intuition can make things irreversibly bad? What are you going to do if that crazy Marquis Arie finds the commander’s traces before us? Logically, we should try to find something where the incident actually took place, so why are we running around in a place that has nothing to do with the ambush—!”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing,” Cazes said, finally glancing back at Ranger.
“What?” Ranger’s eyes narrowed.
“We should check on Lady Lucia’s safety first, not our commander’s trail,” Cazes calmly said. Ranger shut his mouth. “You haven’t forgotten what the commander asked us to do on the day he left, right?”
Ranger tried to say something, but he ended up heaving a long sigh.
“That’s… I sincerely hope your intuition isn’t wrong because if things go south, I’ll put an end to it even if I have to put you in a headlock this time.”
“Of course,” Cazes confidently agreed. “If it comes to that, go right ahead.”
That was the end of their conversation for a while until Viper broke the silence.
“There is a house in a place like this…?” Viper wondered with undisguised shock in his voice.
“It’s a house that the Agnus family owns,” Cazes explained.
Ranger’s jaw dropped. They were on the outskirts of Arcadia, where people were barely seen, but an ordinary-looking, single-floor stone building stood ominously.
“If this house is owned by none other than the Agnus family, then why is it in a place like this?” he asked.
“This is a house where the commander was going to live with his mother,” Cazes recalled.
The unexpected story made Ranger and Viper noticeably stiffen as they remembered how their commander had been born.
“Those sons of bitches, tormenting people because of their origins…” Ranger mumbled in frustration.
But he abruptly came to a halt. He wasn’t the only one.
“…You also felt it this time, didn't you?” Cazes asked.
“…Yes.” Ranger nodded with a serious face.
“I guess I won’t get that headlock,” Cazes remarked with a shrug.
“I don’t think that is the important issue here,” Ranger grumbled.
“Hmm…” Cazes’s eyes narrowed.
“Didn’t you say you felt the commander’s energy?” Ranger closed his eyes to detect energy, but frowned. “This energy is like…”
The unpleasant energy was dark and icky, as if bugs were crawling around his body. There was only one energy on the continent like that.
“Demonic power?” Cazes said.
“It’s coming,” Viper quietly mumbled.
A sudden metallic clang made the three scramble for their weapons. The building’s door slowly opened and a person came out from the building.
Ranger’s eyes widened.
“That’s…!”
“I… I told you.” Cazes trembled with excitement because he had met the person before.
“No way…” Ranger’s and Viper’s eyes also blazed with excitement.
The person’s glowing black full plate armor was one-of-a-kind. He was definitely one of the beings that had disappeared along with their commander: the death knight, the top-class undead which was once considered a legend even among dark priests.
Cazes immediately darted forward.
“Hey, Cazes!” Ranger shouted in surprise.
In a flash, Cazes stood right before the death knight.
“You crazy bastard,” Ranger cursed, “are you out of—”
“Lady Lucia!” Cazes yelled.
Ranger’s breath caught when he finally noticed the extraordinary-looking woman on the death knight’s shoulder. It looked like the woman was unconscious, her waterfall-like hair spilling down.
“That’s the commander's…mother?” he blankly muttered.
“…Alive,” Cazes said.
Who was he talking about? Since Cazes didn’t mention the name, there was no way for Ranger to find out, but he noticed that when Cazes took Lucia from the death knight, his eyes were red.
“Really alive…!” Cazes had looked nonchalant, but a tear rolled down his cheek then. At the same time, his small doubt changed into a solid conviction, igniting a fire inside him. Now was the time to change the whole plan.
* * *
In the imperial council chamber of the Avalon Empire, numerous nobles stood on both sides of a red carpet. The knights were positioned menacingly around the chamber as if they were trying to threaten the two people who had just entered. No doubt the atmosphere made the red carpet feel like a path of thorns for those two, but they walked across the carpet with confidence nonetheless.
“He’s really the Black Lion…!”
“Isn’t that girl standing next to him the famous heaven-sent genius…?”
“Then was the rumor true? The one about how the Hero King’s strategist is managing the Pontier Merchant Group in secret.”
“It’s crazy…”
The nobles murmured among themselves, their voices gradually getting louder. Although everyone was talking about different topics, they all wanted to ask the same question, which was:
“But why did they come here voluntarily?”
“They must have gotten tired or…”
“Cut it out. You don’t seriously believe that groundless rumor, do you?”
Even while the nobles talked among themselves, Cain and Icarus walked forward without hesitation. Soon, they stood right before the top seats, where the three princes were sitting.
Kiser’s eyes turned cold. “You’re…”
“We’re here to deliver our master’s message,” Cain quietly announced.
The people who had been watching him stared wide-eyed, because, as far as they knew, there was only one person who Cain de Harry, the Black Lion, would call “master.”
“Do you have a new master or something? How dare a traitor try this after he defied the imperial order and the draft?!” the hot-tempered Kaizen viciously growled.
“It was obvious how I was going to be used, but I’m not a dispensable tool for your civil war, Your Highness,” Cain said.
“Ha, I thought you might be trying to atone for your crime since you shamelessly returned voluntarily. However, you’re giving me such bullshit…” Kaizen narrowed his eyes.
“Whether in the past, present, or future…” Cain said, enunciating every word. “...I have only had one master.”
“You crazy bastard!” Kaizen sprang up from his seat, unable to hold back his anger.
However, Kiser suddenly interrupted
“…Is Joshua Sanders really in Arcadia?” he said, uttering the forbidden word.
“I can actually show him to you,” Cain confidently answered. He had the legendary doppelganger on his side, after all.
“Then…” Kiser continued before the nobles could start talking among themselves again, “Don’t you think Joshua needs to present himself here then? I believe the incident that occurred among us can’t be taken lightly…”
Cain nodded. “My master will show up soon. He’ll make an appearance a week later in the colosseum where Berche’s Bloody Battle will take place.”
“…He’s going to prove he’s innocent using his skills?” Kaizen interrupted. “Joshua Sanders’s biggest crime is his close involvement with the undead, and everyone in the Empire knows about it. So how dare—”
“Are only the members of the Imperial Family allowed to practice black magic?” Cain quietly asked.
Kaizen’s fervent speech stopped.
“What?”
“I don’t think the Imperial Family has made an official announcement to forbid that yet.” Cain looked at Kaiser, the last of the princes seated in the top seats. Cain was poking the beehive that no one in this place had so far dared to.
“You bastard…” Kaizen growled.
“I and my master only wish to straighten out the misunderstanding. Of course, in the eyes of the Imperial Family, my crime would be assisting the traitor Joshua Sanders.” Cain’s eyes shone. “If my master is exonerated, then I would be exonerated too.”
“Let’s do that,” someone else unexpectedly interrupted.
Kiser turned back and realized who had just spoken.
“Duke Tremblin?” he gaped.
“Your Highness, you haven’t forgotten the current situation of the Empire, have you? Tremblin asked. ”
“That’s…”
“If Joshua Sanders is alive and we could straighten out that ‘misunderstanding’, wouldn’t that be the best news for the Empire?” Tremblin shrugged. Kiser was rendered speechless. “Once the next emperor is chosen and our civil war ends, the two other empires and the numerous kingdoms won’t leave us alone anymore; the only reason they left us alone so far is that we’ve been crumbling on our own. The moment we try to rise again, they’ll try to make sure we fall again.”
“I’m on the same page, brothers,” Kaiser immediately added. “Wouldn’t it be good if Duke Tremblin and the famous Hero King assisted us? Then the Avalon Empire will be able to rise high once again.”
Silence fell upon the chamber as everyone was busy calculating the benefits and losses inside their heads.
‘Yes, if he truly wants to help the Avalon Empire, it’s perfect.’ Kaiser smiled slyly in his mind.
As long as Joshua lived in this world, he would never be able to defy Kaiser because Kaiser had the valuable seal that symbolized the Emperor of Avalon.
“Ha, hahaha…” Kaiser quietly chuckled, unable to hold down his laughter.
Find the original at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.
But there was one thing that even Kaiser didn’t know about.
Meanwhile, Tremblin, another person who was deep in thought, quietly looked outside the window of the chamber.
* * *
“I want to ask you a question,” Tremblin said.
Joshua was about to leave, but he came to a halt.
“Ask.”
“I don’t want this country to fall nor this tiring civil war to continue,” Tremblin said with a serious voice.
Joshua shrugged. “Then you should have stayed in the palace.”
“His Majesty was my priority.” Tremblin met Joshua’s eyes.
“Does it mean you’ve given up now?” Joshua asked.
“It has already been three years,” Tremblin bitterly explained, “and during that time, the Empire has irreversibly declined. Even if His Majesty is alive, what’s the point in finding him if he doesn’t have a home to return to? Besides, I still have a deep love for my country. While I searched for His Majesty, I kept my eyes and ears on the Avalon Empire. So answer me carefully since my choice will differ depending on your answer.”
Joshua smiled faintly. “I assume you already met the Fourth Prince.”
“That’s not an answer to my question,” Tremblin irately returned.
“You’ve also seen the Emperor’s seal,” Joshua guessed.
That was when Tremblin froze up.
“How do you…?”
“Kaiser’s seal is not the real one,” Joshua calmly answered.
“Wh-What?” Tremblin asked, baffled. Joshua’s smile deepened.
“The real one is…”
Tremblin’s eyes bulged in shock, threatening to pop out any moment because Joshua was pulling out something that Tremblin was very familiar with.
“...here.”