“And it’s not just him. Even you, Your Majesty, refuse to speak of her. You tell me not to ask questions and to let this go.
And for what?
For the sake of the Kingdom’s image? To bury an uncomfortable truth?
Do you not see how strange all of this sounds?
Are you not seeing things from my perspective?”
Kael voiced out his frustration, finally confronting the King.
Was his outrage real?
Well, somewhat.
Although he did feel all this to some extent, was it enough to make him rage like this?
Of course not.
He was only doing this to get some more information out by playing the role of the naïve Hero.
The Political Dynamics here were clear. The King wanted to talk about his daughter, but due to political pressure, he couldn’t and the Prince wanted to do everything in his power to stop the Princess’s name from being mentioned, but he didn’t have enough power to stop the King.
So all Kael needed to do was to give a little push to the King, pressure him into revealing more about Lavinia using his position as the naive and desperate hero, and let him do the rest.
And what better way is there to pressure someone than to create some drama?
So that was exactly what Kael did.
He let the silence hang for a moment, and then, he pointed at the King.
“You summoned me to protect this world, yet you try to hide the truth from me and pressure me into not asking any questions.
How am I supposed to trust you here from here on out?
Who am I supposed to trust here?
The Crown Prince who lied to me? The King who refuses to talk to me?
Or do I trust a Foreign Empire, whose Mage revealed the truth to me and told me to be careful?”
Kael’s gaze then became even sharper and,
“Who am I supposed to protect?
And from whom?
Who is the real enemy?”
“…”
“…”
Silence.
Complete Silence fell over the place.
The Hero stared at the two members of the Royal Family, and they both remained silent. No one knew what they were thinking.
Kael himself stayed silent as well. He had done his part; it was now the King’s turn, and the King didn’t disappoint.
Now that he finally had enough reason to talk about his daughter, he began.
Of course, he still remained very careful with his words.
“Twilight.”
The King started.
“They are the enemies.”
Kael stared at Alden, and the King continued,
“They were the ones who learned to use the Power of Corruption. At first, every force in Nerathis believed that the corruption of Magic Beasts was a natural calamity. However, very quickly, we found out that it wasn’t.
It was man-made.
A group of people, who call themselves Twilight, had what we call the Seed of Corruption. This Seed, once consumed by a Magic Beast, would corrupt them in an instant, increasing their powers to a ridiculous degree. But at the same time, it would turn those intelligent Beasts into mindless entities of destruction.
At first, it was only these Mindless Wild Beasts that we had to deal with. And while dealing with them was a problem, Drakthar and other Nations could still hold on. But soon, things changed.
Twilight started targeting the very core of Nerathis.
The Tamers.
The Tamers they chose were weak. Most of them had no chance to grow any further. These people, who had long forgotten power, were enchanted by the idea of strengthening their Bonds.
So they fed the Seed of Corruption to their Bonds and strengthened them. At first, controlling those Bonds was still possible. They were different from the mindless beasts of destruction known to people.
But soon, the truth as to how the Power of Corruption constantly tortures the Beasts and slowly turns them into mindless beasts that crave destruction was revealed.
This, combined with all other negative effects that came with Corruption, very quickly turned all the Nations against Twilight, and they were branded as Nerathis’s Enemy.
This, however, did not stop them. They continued to corrupt more and more Beasts and Tamers. And despite every nation coming together against them, no one was able to find anything about them.
Who they are, where is their base, how many of them are there, or what their goal is—none of it is known to this date. All we know about them is what they have revealed themselves. We have tried to capture their people more than once, and we have even succeeded in that a few times. But every time we capture them, they lose their minds, and we get nothing out of it.
We have no way to track them down. We know next to nothing about them. We are practically helpless.
This is the first time in the recorded history of Nerathis that something like this has happened. And in our desperation, we could only turn to Myths.”
“The Summoning of the Hero…”
Kael muttered, and the King nodded.
“Indeed.”
“Why wasn’t I told about Twilight before?”
“Marshal Therian was supposed to tell you about Corruption and Twilight after you returned from your Test, when you had experienced the power and habits of corrupted beasts on your own. But then… those events unfolded, and you learned about them yourself.”
The King answered honestly, without hiding anything, and then,
“The Princess was the same. She became corrupted, and the instant other nations found out about it, I had no choice but to punish her and erase all her connections to Drakthar and the Royal Family to keep the Kingdom’s stance regarding corruption clear.
As the strongest Kingdom, we cannot show any weakness, especially when Twilight is getting more and more influential with every passing day.”
Alden then stared at Kael and,
“But you are correct. The Hero was summoned here as our protector. You are our ray of hope. You are supposed to know the truth.
So ask me anything, regarding any topic you want, and I will tell you everything I know. Even if the matter is related to the Princess.”
Alden’s gaze then became heavier and more meaningful and,
“You can trust us, Hero Kael.”