Side Story Chapter 233
Anna and Kireua had been walking through the long, dark, and humid tunnel for who knew how long.
“Stop!” Anna suddenly shouted to Kireua. He immediately came to a halt in front of her. “The airflow up ahead is a little different.”
“Okay.” Kireua pulled out his necklace and promptly infused it with his mana.
After several buzzing noises, something shattered—meaning a magic trap up ahead had been disabled.
“I know how valuable an elemental spirit mage is, but I never imagined you would make the mission this easy,” Kireua muttered.
“I think that necklace of yours is the real cheat. This is what people call being born with a silver—no, a magic spoon.[1].” Anna shook her head.
Kireua’s necklace was a gift from Iceline on his fifteenth birthday. Living up to her reputation of being a master craftswoman in artifact development, Iceline had created a masterpiece that could disable spells and traps that were weaker than the Fifth Circle dozens of times.
Of course, it had cost Iceline an astronomical amount of money, but she hadn’t spared any expense. She had built three such artifacts in different forms as gifts for her loved ones.
“I heard I could buy a small city with this necklace...” Kireua murmured.
“Hey, buddy,” Anna immediately simpered.
Kireua was dumbstruck. “Come on. Where did you sell your conscience?”
“Don’t you know that anyone rich is your buddy?”
“Don’t your elemental spirits say that they don’t want a materialistic master?”
“I don’t think so. My babies wish for nothing more than my happiness.” Anna stroked Sylphy, who purred. Sylphy didn’t have a physical body, so it could shrink itself at will; the narrow space they were in didn’t bother it in the slightest.
“Come to think of it, Queen Consort Iceline built three of those necklaces, didn’t she?” Anna asked.
“To be precise, a necklace, a ring, and a bracelet. All of them have the same ability, of course.”
“Three small cities could have been built, huh? I know she’s a queen consort, but how rich is she?”
“I think she’s one of the five richest people on the continent. She paid for half of the Magic Tower, so the mages are extremely polite around her despite their reputation for being cocky. ”
Once Iceline developed an artifact, the Magic Tower was in charge of the distribution and sales, but they took twenty percent of the profit as commission. Although that seemed like too much considering the Magic Tower’s limited role, Iceline didn’t have a problem with that because the Magic Tower settled the account without delay and sold her artifacts without suffering a loss.
“I envy you for having wealthy mothers. From what I heard, Queen Consort Charles is also so rich that she’s one of the top five merchants in the continent.”
Kireua nodded. “They’re all competent people.”
“But wouldn’t it be better for Queen Consort Charles to take charge of distribution? Avalon could keep all the profit that way.”
Obviously, Charles’s company was more than capable of distributing Iceline’s artifacts. In fact, the group was better suited than the Magic Tower, but the Queen Consorts didn’t even try to use Charles’s merchant group—and for a good reason.
“The artifact sales are so profitable that they’re the Magic Tower’s main source of income. Avalon would certainly grow much richer that way,” Kireua agreed.
“So why would they miss such a good opportunity?”
“The other kings aren’t fools. It’s a bad diplomatic move since all the other countries would try to keep us in check.”
“...Oh.” Anna's eyes widened. She hadn’t considered that aspect. “I wasn’t aware that you knew your way around diplomacy. ”
“This is the basics. And there’s one more benefit to leaving the Magic Tower in charge.”
“I’m listening.”
“The continent may think the Magic Tower is helping us right now because Tower Master Theta and His Majesty are acquainted—”
“Ah!” Before Kireua could finish speaking, Anna clapped. “I get it now! Considering how much they’ve profited, the Magic Tower is obligated to help Avalon! Not to mention the future profits they’d be giving up if they didn’t.”
“And that’s politics.” Kireua smiled.
Seeing how well Kireua explained the diplomatic and political reasoning, Anna gave him a proud smile. “You’re all grown up now. I think you can actually be an emperor.”
“...Wait.” Kireua sensed ominous energy at the end of the dark tunnel and immediately stopped. “...Can you feel something up ahead?”
“Hmmm... it certainly feels like there’s something...” Anna closed her eyes and probed her surroundings.
Suddenly, she gasped and her eyes flew open.
“What? What is it?” Kireua quickly turned to look at her.
Anna was trembling as if she were having a seizure and her eyes were hazy and unfocused.
“What in the world is going on...?” Kireua murmured.
“...Agh!” Anna coughed up a handful of blood. “Urggh!”
She started foaming at the mouth, the froth mixing with the blood. Kireua had seen elemental spirit mages in shock like this. When their elemental spirits were critically injured, the spirits were summoned back to where they came from, putting the elemental spirit mages into shock. Anna’s elemental spirit had been scouting the area—it must have been attacked by someone. The problem was, Anna’s spirit could fight off a Master on its own.
Kireua caught Anna in his arms before she hit the ground. He gazed down the tunnel with a grave expression.
“Who in the world is down there...?”
*
A man lay in the center of a deep dungeon. He was a king and the hope of his people.
The continent also called him the Flame Emperor out of respect for his martial prowess.
“Urgh...” Ulabis groaned and slowly opened his eyes. Every part of his body hurt, and he was covered with lacerations that were festering due to a lack of proper treatment.
Ulabis had never imagined suffering a crushing defeat from someone who wasn’t the Battle God or the Martial God. The man who was responsible for Ulabis’s defeat happened to be seated right in front of him; he was quite young—he looked to be in his thirties at most.
“Are you up?” The man grinned at him.
“How are you... related to Grand Duke Lucifer?”
Ulabis had an idea or two about the man’s identity. Since he had been studying Lucifer’s sword techniques for a long time, Ulabis knew that the man was using a style similar to Lucifer, the Crimson Sky, who had been Thran’s enemy—and was long dead now. In fact, the man looked similar to Lucifer, especially his wicked blood-red eyes...
“What do you think?” the man asked back.
Ulabis frowned. The first idea that came to his mind was that the man was Lucifer’s son. Or perhaps the man was Lucifer’s student, like Bel and Zactor—however, the chances of that seemed low, considering how much the man resembled Lucifer. It was far more likely that he was Lucifer’s blood kin and had inherited everything from him.
But two things didn’t add up if that was the case.
‘First of all, although it’s nothing compared to Joshua, I’ve made significant progress of my own. It’s hard to believe that there’s another monster like Bel and Joshua in the same generation,’ Ulabis thought.
Even if a hidden expert was bound to be powerful on some level, the man was beyond Ulabis—no, anyone’s expectations.
‘Lastly, I’ve never heard of Grand Duke Lucifer having a son who is as skilled as him.’
Ulabis had devoted his entire life to the complete independence of Thran, so he’d studied every possible obstacle that could stand in the way of accomplishing his dream. The biggest obstacle in the past was, naturally, Lucifer, so Ulabis had kept a close eye on Lucifer’s family after the Crimson Sky’s death. As improbable as it was, it would be highly problematic if a child of Lucifer inherited his demonic talent and turned his sword on Thran.
“You’re an open book. You must be thinking ‘I never heard anything about the Crimson Sky having a son who’s as skilled as me...’”
The man read Ulabis’s mind.
“As the man who will take your dearest treasure... I’ll answer your question.”
“What?”
The man stood and slowly walked toward Ulabis. Ulabis scowled at the man the whole way.
“Doesn’t this seem familiar?” The man smiled crookedly.
“What in the world are you saying...?”
“Duke Altsma, the Wild King.”
Ulabis’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull. “Wa-wait...”
“What you’re thinking is correct.”
“Impossible!” Ulabis exclaimed, dismayed. “That won’t...!”
“Before you deny reality, open your eyes and see the world. Do you really think anything about the world is normal right now? The entire race of dragons has been exterminated by a human, and gods are feeding on lowly humans.”
“But... but you’re...!”
“Accept reality.” The man smiled slyly and positioned himself right in front of Ulabis. “Since I paid the price, it’s time to take your treasure.”
Before Ulabis could say anything, the man threw a mana-empowered kick aimed at the mana hall in Ulabis’s abdomen that he had spent his entire life building.
With a thunderous crack, excruciating pain rushed over Ulabis.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
1. The raw is ?? ?? ??, ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? that is about how having a mage mom, Iceline, is as good as being born with a silver spoon in their mouth. ☜
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