Chapter 5 - A God King Needs No One

I stood there, frozen in place as my brain processed the words that had come out of Duke’s mouth.

How did it go? The intrusion into the castle?

How could he have known about the intrusion? How could he be looking at me right now with such a calm expression? Looking at my face, the face of the assassin who was sent to kill me?

Traitor.

The word hung on the edge of my tongue, heavy and cold, a guillotine blade poised to drop. I wanted so badly to let it fall from my dry, trembling lips.

Duke’s eyes were dark and solemn, watching me without emotion as he waited for my response.

“Ah.” I looked away, trying to maintain my composure as I walked over to a shelf by the door. I couldn’t look at him. A terrible storm was building up inside me, one of rage and sorrow. “It failed.”

I needed to be convincing. I needed to make him believe that I was the assassin, and not Yuto. Their plan was likely for the assassin to swap bodies with me and then kill me, so the fact that I was standing there already proved that something had gone wrong with the plan. I just needed him to believe that the plan failed before the swap.

Luckily, the fact that I had come almost directly here after being teleported away was probably the biggest factor in having Duke believe me. After all, it made perfect logical sense to immediately return to the hideout if the plan fell through, to report the results.

I placed my hand on a small sculpture of a three-tusked boar carved out of stone. My hands were trembling so much that I nearly knocked the carving over. Instead, I picked it up, pretending to examine it casually before setting it back down.

“He fired a teleportation wand at me before I could do anything. I wasn’t able to complete the mission.”

The old man nodded, his eyes lowering as he contemplated to himself. I knew that expression well. The slight furrowing of his brow, the subconscious droop in his lips, the soft yet intense look of concentration in his eyes.

It was the look he had in the past whenever I played jokes on him and he’d fallen for it. Rather than laugh or get upset, he’d put on this look as if thinking to himself, ‘How could I have been fooled?’

It was the look he had when we had failed to save a town from a Shadowkind ambush. We had made a mistake and defended the wrong location. The black smoke rose up in the distance and we knew we’d been tricked. As we looked upon the smoldering remains of the town Duke had the same expression on his face. We were both thinking the same thing, ‘What could we have done differently?’

I could see that he believed my story. Now he was taking on this same expression while he wondered how the assassination had failed. He was probably thinking, ‘How could we have improved our plan to kill Yuto?’

As I fought to control my emotions, I could only think of one thing.

Who else had betrayed me?

The captain of my guard had said that there were multiple intruders, but only one had made it through.

“Did the others make it out?” I asked, purposefully vague.

“Ezra was here. She left almost immediately.” Duke said, “She said that she was fairly certain that Ramp escaped unharmed.”

As Duke spoke the names I felt like arrows were stabbing me through the heart.

Ezra, Ramp, Yylisie, Duke and me. These were the members of the original party that I had formed when I had arrived in Avaria twelve years ago. We had adventured together as an unbreakable group for five years, slaying monsters, saving people. We hunted down the Cult of Obsidian as they tried to sow chaos in the western plains. They were by my side when we fought off the Ornis Empire, rallying the kingdom to victory under our banner. They were my honor guard when I was crowned the King.

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We’d done it all together, and when we were finished, we’d gone our separate ways.

And now they were working together to kill me.

My hands stopped trembling as I calmed down. My thoughts cooled, as if someone had poured water onto the flames that had threatened to burst out at any moment.

Well, if that’s how they wanted to do it, then so be it.

“We’ll need to try again.” I said quietly.

“It might be hard to find them.” Duke said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, “You said that you were completely sure that you’d succeed.”

“That Yuto is a crafty guy. I shouldn’t have underestimated him.” I said, “I didn’t account for the teleportation wand.”

“Can it still work? Do you still have time?” Duke asked.

I had no idea what Duke was referring to that needed time. Clearly the assassin had an ulterior motive. Something they were trying to accomplish by swapping bodies with me. Fortunately, it was simple to come up with an adequate response.

“It’ll be tough.” I said, “Which is why I need to find the others quickly for the second attempt.”

Unfortunately, it would be too out of character for me to ask him for more information on ‘my’ motives. Then again, it didn’t really matter to me why they had done so.

“Hmmm..” Duke thought carefully for a moment. “Yylisie might know where Ezra is headed. Ezra said she would stop by Grace Village before she left the province.”

Grace Village was Yylisie’s home town. It was only half a day away from the capitol. Yylisie hadn’t been part of the main assault group, but sure enough she was involved.

How perfect, getting the whole group together for one last mission - to kill their old leader.

“Ramp will be harder to find.” I said, looking like I was deep in contemplation. My statement was based on my understanding of the Shadowmancer, but if Duke knew where to find Ramp, he would certainly interject. I could then play it off as a slip of my mind.

“I still don’t know how you found him in the first place.” Duke agreed, confirming my assumption.

I paced the room in thought as I considered the people involved in the operation. Using my knowledge of each person’s class and abilities, I deduced what their most likely role in the plot was.

As a Shadowmancer, Ramp was an expert at infiltration. I had a very secure perimeter around my castle, and even once inside the walls it was difficult to get into the castle itself. However if anyone could sneak in, it was Ramp.

Once they were directly outside the castle they would need to bypass the magical wards inscribed in the stones. These were likely handled by Ezra. After the wards were broken, the assassin would be able to sneak in while Ramp and Ezra escaped.

Yylisie was a specialist at making wards and defensive barriers. It’s possible that she was involved in coming up with a way to get into the castle, but... I had an epiphany as I remembered that the captain of the guard had said that light magic was ineffective against the assassin. Yes, Yylisie must have created some light wards to protect against my most likely attacks.

Finally, Duke provided secret passage into the inner city, as well as the use of his church as the base of operations, directly under my nose in the shadow of my castle.

Based on the incredibly low level of this character, the assassin probably stole this body from its original owner. Then he or she loaded her inventory up with single use consumables and ran the operation as an all or nothing one shot.

A one shot that had nearly completely succeeded.

Unfortunately, ‘nearly’ was not nearly good enough. Not when trying to take down a God King. And well, if they were willing to commit treason against a God King then they should be prepared to receive the highest punishment.

In my mind, each and every one of my ‘friends’ were already dead.

A Fortress was hard to kill, but not impossible. Their biggest moment of weakness was before they were able to get up their shields. In other words, stabbing them in the back.

How ironic.

“I’ll need a horse.” I said. “I’ll stop by Yylisie and get her help, and find out where Ezra went.”

“I have some in the stables out back.” The chair groaned under Duke’s massive weight as he stood up.

“Lead the way.” I gestured.

My hand brushed against the dagger that was strapped to my thigh, loosening it in its sheath ever so slightly. It was one of the items that the character still had in its inventory, which I hadn’t yet taken full stock of.

Duke stepped past me as he went to open the door, completely oblivious to my intentions.

I felt the cold weight of metal in my fingers as I silently withdrew the dagger, my eyes burning into the back of Duke’s exposed neck.

Goodbye, old friend. I muttered silently. Thanks for the XP.

Just as I was about to strike, the door swung open.

A man dressed in full platinum plate mail stood in the doorway. The set was masterfully crafted, with runic engravings that accented the shining metal. Emblazoned on his chestpiece was a crest of a fiery sun. Across his back an extremely long sword gave out a low hum inside its sheath, the distinct characteristic of a vorpal blade. He had a long, flowing red cape and a platinum crown on his head embedded with jewels.

His face was manly, with intelligent cool eyes and a sharp clean-shaven jaw. His short black hair was stylish. I knew this face better than any face in the world.

He looked past Duke, his eyes narrowing as he met mine.

Duke took a step back as he exclaimed in surprise.

“God King Yuto!”