Chapter 28 – Departure (2)

The Star of Annihilation
Chapter 28 – Departure (2)
Written by : eleven

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The next day of Roy’s coming to, his mother, Mathilde, immediately rushed to him.


“Sob…. Hicccc…Ha-hicc…..”


Mathilde stayed by her son’s side, her head on his lap as she sobbed.

‘She was so worried about me….’

Roy couldn’t help but feel immense regret in leaving his beautiful mother in a state like this.

If anything, it was more painful to see this emotional turmoil present in his mother than feel the pain of his body at that moment.


“I’m sorry mom.”


All he could do was apologize while she sobbed in his lap.

Roy felt his emotions struggling for balance as his eyes grew watery and stroked his mother’s hair.

Remaining silent, Roy figured that the best he could do was apologize. It wasn’t an empty apology, but it wasn’t an amending of his actions either.


Knock Knock.


After a bit of time, there was some knocking on Roy’s door.


“Come in please.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m sorry to visit at such a time, Roy.”

“It’s… fine….”


Roy immediately regretted letting the person in.

Howard Ismenian, the Second Imperial Prince, came inside.

‘Two-faced rat.’

Roy immediately spat curses out inside of his head.

In hindsight, it was his fault for not pledging to a single one of the Princes.

He was already being forced to the capital for questioning most likely, or monitoring, so what was the point of not picking out a backer?

Regardless, he would never pick the Second Imperial Prince, or the former Emperor in his previous life. He was a greedy pig who only chased self-interest.

It wasn’t as if Roy moved on others’ interest; in fact he was incredibly selfish and knew it.

But he had at least held those dear to him, and didn’t leave him with a good conscience to leave hundreds of thousands of individuals to be slaughtered due to monetizing losses or saving his own hide.


“Well, hello there Roy and of course, Mathilde.”


Howard nodded slightly, instead of bowing, an act that showed neither servility nor excessive arrogance.

He was quite well-versed in politics, as he had the largest following of nobles in the Empire, despite only having one Archmage in his notable troops.


“Ah… Hello your majesty, thank you for your time to visit us!”

“No-No of course, how could I not visit my savior?


Mathilde quickly lifted her droopy eyes and bowed immediately to the Prince, and he waved his hands in embarrassment.

Of course it was all a facade by the Prince, and Roy was sure of it.


“What brings you here today.”


Roy didn’t bother being blunt with his tone. It was an offense that could warrant lashing or even death for such disrespect to the Empire’s Imperial Princes, but Roy had just saved the fool’s life so he was certainly able to push this much.

Howard’s eyebrows wriggled in brief anger, but didn’t let it show.

However, Roy didn’t let the reaction escape his gaze.

He felt like grinning at that punchable face of Howard’s, but restrained himself from doing so.

Anything more than what he was currently doing, would definitely warrant punishment.


“Ahem~ I wanted to formally introduce myself to you and your family. My name is Howard Ismenian, the Second Imperial Prince of the Empire.”


Howard let out a fake cough of embarrassment and lowered his eyes as he put his hand to his chest in a respectful manner.

However, silence just ensued.


“…..”


Mathilde was no fool and caught on to her son’s attitude, as for some reason, Roy was abundantly making it clear that he did not like the man in front of them.

Mathilde shivered as she recalled the last prince they had not formally met, Michael, who had ogled her breasts and bottom like a serpent.

Roy held the same contemptuous glare for that man as he did for the man in front of them.

Seeing this, Howard realized the boy clearly held disdain for him.


‘What? This arrogant fucking boy.’


Howard grumbled and cursed in his mind.

He knew that the boy, Roy, held the knife in this situation as it was currently Howard who was looking to establish a connection and recruit them over to his side.


“I appreciate you coming here. But, if you came to recruit me to your faction, I am afraid I have already pledged myself and my friend Nate, over to the First Prince’s.”


The words struck out like a hammer to Howard’s ego.

Roy felt disgusted even saying that he had pledged to another Prince, the foolish one of the trio of all, but it was at least the best choice he could make.

It was also something he had been thinking over, and although Desmond seemed foolish, Roy felt that he had the best qualities of the three Imperial Princes to succeed to the throne.

Desmond had died in his previous life due to unknown reasons, but Roy was now certain that it had something to do with the line of succession.


“Ah, I see… that’s how it is then.”


Howard’s smiling expression turned cold and his words almost came out like rocks with how bland they were.

‘A child sees me for the fool then? I’ll bide my time well, there’s no need to force anything unless it’s a proven loss.’


Howard’s inner thoughts were most insidious when he thought of what he would have to do, if in fact Roy and Nate turned out to be golden eggs like they seemed to be.

They were still young and had much potential to grow. There was the chance of them panning out to be nothing but subpar commoner idiots, but if in fact they were to grow stronger and ended up getting in the way of his plans, he would not hesitate to act in ways unspeakable.

Roy stared at Howard with dead eyes, not backing down for a single moment during the entire exchange of words.

Howard brushed back his ebony hair behind his ears and turned back out the door to leave.


Ka-thunk.


The door shut while Roy and Mathilde watched the back of Howard leave.


“Why do you look at him like that Roy?”

“…. He doesn’t feel good to be around. Suspicious really.”


Mathilde didn’t mean to question her son like that, but she couldn’t help but feel awkward when Roy, who was 8 years-old, acted so rudely towards an Imperial Prince.


“Hm…. okay dear.”


Mathilde reluctantly nodded in agreement and then suddenly remembered something.


“Ah! We need to start packing.”

“Mom, I can’t really move that well still.”

“It’s okay dear, I’ll be packing most of our clothes and belongings for us. The Imperial Prince has gotten us settled with a place near the academy for you, as he has written both you, Nate and Elizabeth letters of recommendation to attend early.”

“Hm….”


Roy groaned inwardly as he didn’t want to be constrained to a schedule or academy life, but it would definitely prove useful for him in this life to receive formal learning and to even gain more spell models.

In his previous life and even now, he had lackluster spell models that were outdated and not too much of a large spell count.


“Alright honey, I’ll leave you to get some rest. We’ll be leaving in two days. Recuperate well and tell me if you need anything else.”

“Okay, thanks mom.”


Roy nodded as his mother left the room.


‘This is troubling.’

Roy thought as he focused his attention to the only problem he had at that moment. When he first woke up he felt something was different, but he was definitely still confused as to the state his mana core was in.

‘It’s like there’s so much mana in there, yet I can’t tap into it.’


There was an odd feeling within his mana core.

He was still a 2-star mage, but he felt like there was an untapped source of mana still hiding deep within his core.

Never had he encountered anything remotely similar to this.

Not only that, but there was a mark on his arm. However, this mark was something he actually knew a bit about as he had experimented with it a bit a few hours prior.


Swish.


Roy churned his mana through his mana circuit and let a sliver of it touch the mark on his arm.


– Hm?

‘Anything new?’


Roy asked Ifrit, as Ifrit was now able to communicate to Roy inside of his head whenever he slipped a bit of mana into Ifrit’s marking.

It was proof of their contract and it would not go away until one of them died.
– Not yet. You should be wary though of that man called the Second Prince. I was watching from your memories when you showed them to me. I don’t know what he’s planning but he definitely won’t just leave you alone like this.

‘I already know. I haven’t met him in person up until this life, but he doesn’t seem like the person to easily let go of things.’

– Then why did you provoke him?

‘Eh, I just felt like it. The line would have to be drawn clear at one point. Might as well draw it early.’

– Ha! I like it. Anyways, when your body is rested well and is ready to move again, I’ll begin teaching you how to manifest my powers in your body.

‘Hm…. are you sure that I’ll be able to? I have to learn swordsmanship from that… my master. It still feels weird saying that, but whatever. I have to learn from him, and it’s likely that Nate, Elizabeth and I will have to start learning in the capital. I’ll barely have time to add more things to my plate.’

– You say that, yet I can already see you had plans to leave the Academy from your memories.

‘Tch. Yeah, well if you saw my memories, then you know we need to collect more items and artifacts for the future.’

– Hm. Stay focused on one thing at a time. The future is already different from how it was in the past, and there’s no guarantee that any of the things from your memories will hold true. Also, there seems to be some… rather interesting things regarding the other races and the wars you fought against them in the past.

‘What do you mean?’

-…. I’m saying that…. I think they might have interfered.

‘You can’t mean…’

– Yes. I think the Dragons are not as simple as you think they are. As you already saw, your knowledge of them was lacking when Argenta polymorphed.

‘That’s true. I didn’t know they had the capabilities to do that, let alone the fact that he was able to master so many martial arts.’

– Yes. Not only that, but ‘he’ is much more cunning and intelligent as he leads them.

‘You’ve mentioned this ‘he’ before, but I don’t recall the Dragons ever having this so-called leader of sorts fight in any of the wars of the past.’

– He goes by the nickname of the Dragon Lord. His real name is much different though and he is much more dangerous than anything you can possibly imagine.

‘Who is he?’


Roy swallowed his saliva reflexively in anticipation. Ifrit really did know a lot more than he had expected, and if Ifrit was right… Roy was really lacking in terms of the things he was preparing for the future.



– Well. His name is… Parish. And if you have any thoughts of defeating him, you better start thinking much larger than the human standards you’ve thought of.

‘What?’

– I’m saying, you better stop thinking that reaching 8 or 9 stars is enough. There have been fools who thought they could topple him with such power and failed. If you want to even think of facing him…. You’ll have to reach 10. 10-stars that is.

‘10-stars?! That’s just a myth!’

– It’s not.

‘How are you so sure?’

– I’m not sure at all. All I am sure of though, is that you’ll need to be able to have the power of a myth if you want to defeat him.



Roy fell silent at the words.

10-stars? He wasn’t even a 5-star Wizard in the past. Could he really do it?

Ifrit noticed these doubts but didn’t say anything as he fell back asleep inside the mark on Roy’s arm.

If Roy wanted to truly save his world, or at least the ones he loved, he would have to come to the answer on his own.




Chapter 28 – Fin






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