Side Story Chapter 32
Sparc gaped at the blaze rising into the air in the distance.
‘So His Highness really did it.’ Sparc closed his eyes.
“What in the world is his plan?” Hans asked Sparc, his voice tight with worry. “It won’t be easy to contain the entire fire on our own.”
Sparc had eyes, so he also knew that. The fire lit up in the entrance to the reed forest and quickly spread to the entire forest. Since it was past the rainy season, the weather was arid today, so the fire burned so fiercely that it looked like the fire would quickly spread to where the knights were standing.
“…I’m more worried about His Highness,” Sparc bitterly said.
“What? What do you mean…?”
“Those traitors have nowhere to run now, so what do you think they’ll do? They’ll attack His Highness using their full power.” Sparc gestured at the reed forest with his chin.
Hans grunted. “The traitors, us, His Highness… Everyone is in a fix.”
He looked around and saw his colleagues busily pouring water on the ground, in an attempt to prevent the fire from spreading to where they were right now.
“His Highness will probably be fine. Five hundred of us attacked him but couldn’t do anything to him.” Hans shrugged.
“It’s different now because they’ll be fighting for their lives. Even if all twenty of us remaining protect His Highness, the traitors have ten times our numbers,” Sparc said, frowning. “We’ll have to trust Sir Cain and the North Witch for now. Anyhow, let’s move. We absolutely cannot let this fire spread over this line.”
“Y-Yes, sir.” Hans came to his senses and then quickly ran to the river.
Sparc’s eyes lingered on the forest for a moment before he followed Hans.
“Your Highness, please let me prove to them that I made the right choice…”
* * *
Meanwhile, Kireua actually had a plan.
‘Hey, Coal,’ Kireua called.
-Yup?
‘Can you eat all the fire in this reed forest?’ Kireua asked. He was cautiously optimistic, but Coal wasn’t enthusiastic.
-Nope.
‘What? You can’t eat it?’ Kireua said, confused.
-I won’t eat that even if I could. You’re a liar, Kireua.
‘Ah, please. Just this once. I’ll keep our promise no matter what!’ Kireua shouted in his mind.
-I won’t believe you even if you say you can make metal out of swords.
“…It’s ‘make swords out of metal’,” Kireua said out loud without realizing.
Cain tilted his head in confusion. “What did you say, Your Highness?”
“Ah, I’m just talking to myself.” Kireua shook his head.
The traitors were slowly coming out from the reed forest one after another, so Kireua was pressed for time even if he started preparing right now. That made his plans even more urgent.
‘Just tell me,’ Kireua whispered. ‘What is this food you want to eat?’
-Adamantium!
Kireua almost couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Adamantium? Wait, are you talking about that mineral that can only be found in the Demon Realm?’
-Yup!
At that moment, Kireua had to try very hard to hold back his urge to curse. Adamantium was one of the rarest minerals in the world; a fist-sized piece of adamantium cost the same as the yearly expenses of a small city. No one would invest that much money to get their hands on one lump of mineral, but that was how rare the adamantium was; acquiring any of it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
“Your Highness!”
Kireua raised an eyebrow. Cain had been subduing the traitors that were jumping out from the reed forest while Anna had been containing the fire by creating walls of wind. One of the traitors used the confusion of the moment to ambush Kireua.
“Die!”
The heavily scorched traitor swung his sword at Kireua’s side.
Kireua coldly smiled. “You still haven’t come to your senses.”
Kireua’s sword pierced the traitor’s abdomen with a grisly squelch.
“…Ugh!” the ambusher coughed up blood.
However, Kireua wasn’t done. He swung his sword upward, tearing the traitor in half and splattering blood and brain matter everywhere. Kireua was unbothered despite getting covered in the traitor’s gore.
Once Kireua made a decision, he never hesitated. That was what he had learned from his teacher, and he had realized through his experiences that his teacher was right. Naturally, he wasn’t going to change this way of life. Mercy from a member of the Imperial Family? Ridiculous. Mercy was exactly what had led to the current state of the Avalon Empire.
“I’ve given you all enough time, so all the traitors will die by my sword,” Kireua said. His mana ensured that everyone in the nearby area would have heard him.
Cain turned and looked at Kireua, beaming.
“…This must have been the right answer,” Kireua muttered to himself.
The blood smeared on Kireua’s sword splattered on the ground. The traitors’ formation was completely broken, and they were now busy running away from the fire. It was time for Kireua to start delivering a stern punishment.
-Kireua, do you want to be recognized?
“…Yeah, I want to become the ruler of this Empire,” Kireua answered Coal.
-Why do you want to become the emperor?
Kireua actually hadn’t wanted the throne at the beginning, but after meeting with Selim, he could feel the desire beginning to emerge from deep within his heart. Maybe it was a martial artist’s desire to win or maybe it was a boy’s childish wish. However, one thing was certain.
“…I don’t want to lose to him,” Kireua answered.
* * *
A very conspicuous group of people were walking down the road in the eastern region of Avalon. There were exactly a hundred of them, and all of them were wearing pitch-black full-plate armor.
“Your Highness, you’ve met His Highness Kiruea. What was he like?” Blackbear, the captain of the Black Knights, quietly asked Selim as he rode his horse alongside him.
“He became stronger.”
“Has itt been a decade since you last saw him?” Blackbear recalled.
Selim turned and looked at his two meter tall captain. “What do you think?”
“How could I dare to assess His Majesty’s son?”
“Do it as a favor to me.” Selim chuckled.
Blackbear closed his mouth. His master, whom Blackbear looked up to, always asked for favors instead of ordering him. His master called his knights his comrades, not his subordinates. How could Blackbear say no to him?
“…Would my personal opinion suffice?”
Selim smiled. “That is enough.”
“Then… I’m just saying this based on what I saw, but I think he’s as strong as Agagette but weaker than Shiron.”
Among the one hundred Black Knights here, Agagette was the twentieth strongest knight while Shiron was at least the tenth. In other words, Blackbear viewed Kireua to be as skilled enough to be one of the top twenty Black Knights but not the top ten.
“Hahaha, Kireua is going to be furious when he hears that. But, from my perspective, he seemed to be hiding something.”
“It was the same for us. You didn’t use your full power either, did you?” Blackbear said. Selim didn’t reply. “Of course, I did find one thing surprising.”
“…What one thing?”
“Up until now, I thought you were the only one who was qualified enough to become the next emperor.” Blackbear tilted his head.
“Haha, I’m not anymore?” Selim joked.
“No, I’m still set on that, but I don’t think the chance of that happening is hundred percent anymore.”
“The one thing that came as a surprise to you must have been Kireua’s skills,” Selim surmised.
“Yes, I believed the rumors.”
Selim’s smile deepened because he knew right away what rumors Blackbear was talking about. “Are you talking about the rumor that he ran away from the Palace due to a lack of talent?”
“That’s right.” Blackbear nodded.
Selim quietly shook his head. It wasn’t true. Kireua’s desire to learn martial arts was greater than anyone else’s, so he had voluntarily left the palace to become stronger.
“Then what do you think the chance of me becoming the next emperor is now?” Selim asked.
“…If you’re okay with my personal opinion this time too…” Blackbear trailed off for a moment before he answered, “It’s below one hundred percent.”
“And?”
“…I think it’s above ninety-nine percent.”
Selim glanced to the side. “Blackbear.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Don’t ever tell your personal opinion to Kireua.”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
* * *
The fire intensified over time, but that didn’t spread any further because Anna was busy working up a sweat containing it with her walls of wind. While Cain and Kiruea focused on subduing the traitors, the twenty loyal knights tried their best to stop the traitors from fleeing. In other words, Cain and Kireua were defeating over two hundred knights on their own.
“You’re crazy, Prince.”
The traitor leader was brought in front of Kireua and was forced to kneel, but Kireua didn’t remember seeing him before. He assumed that the traitor had been laying low for this day.
“Your name… To be honest, I don’t really care.” Kireua scoffed.
“How in the world are you going to extinguish the fire?” the leader demanded.
“It’s none of your business,” Kireua said. He lifted his sword off of his shoulder and pointed it at the traitor. “Any last words?”
“Yo-You’re going to kill me?”
Kireua tilted his head. “Is there a reason why I should spare the life of a traitor?”
“Yo-You’ll regret it. The people in the south don’t know we betrayed you yet, so if something happens to us after the merciful prince forgave us—”
“The trust that I tried really hard to build will instantly crumble. Is that what you want to say?”
“Exactly!”
Kireua chuckled. Who would believe that? Hundreds of people had seen what these traitors had tried to do. Besides, the dead couldn’t speak.
“Is that all you have to say?” Kireua asked. The traitor flinched.
Kireua looked straight into his eyes. “Let me say one more thing before you die: work on your skills in your next life, not cheap tricks.”
The leading traitor leaped off the ground and rushed toward Kireua, but Cain didn’t stop him because Cain saw the determination in Kireua’s eyes.
“Kireua Sanders!” the traitor shouted at the top of his lungs. “If it hadn’t been for you—if that hadn’t been for you, the south—!”
“You’re noisy.”
Kireua swung his sword. Metal parted human flesh.
The leading traitor's eyes widened. His head was flying through the air.
That was the beginning.
“Sir Cain.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Kireua fixed his eyes on the traitors. “Execute every single one of the traitors. I’m going to use them as examples.”
After watching Kireua for a moment, Cain bowed. “I shall obey, Your Highness.”
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