Eithne glared at the tightly closed door of Hesata’s room for a while, then she snorted quietly and left for the War temple’s library.
Heading to the West side of the temple, the priestess entered a large hall. Behind the wooden heavy doors, there were a hundred large bookshelves standing proudly with countless paper documents and books.
Since this temple of War had only been built for twenty years, its resources were not as rich as other century-old temples. Even so, the mountains of documents gathered by Demir’s people in twenty years were impressive. Most of them were history recordings and scriptures from various minor religions from ancient times when magic devices had not been invented. There were also some weird artifacts being displayed in the library, which were rumored to be Demir’s trophies when he conquered small kingdoms ten years ago.
Eithne saw the library staff sitting in a corner, surrounded by stacks of paper and many small objects like crystal stones and strange cubes.
A large golden magic circle appeared under their seats. The priests clapped their hands and muttered the spell. At the same time, the objects on the floor flew up. Small magic matrices started to spread all over the surface of crystal stones, while the cube devices detached their vertices and spined steadily.
Currently, they were trying to transfer the data on fragile old papers into magic mediums, which were the crystal seals and magic storage cubes, so that the information would not be lost easily. Later when other people wanted to view the recordings, the magic medium would automatically send the information into the reader’s mind once they touched it.
It meant that people would not need to read and scan long documents anymore.
‘Incredible.’ – Eithne thought.
She recalled the details in the comic ‘I don’t want to be a Saint.’
The comic did not mention the process of the main characters’ achieving knowledge, it just illustrated the result that they had already known everything and defeated the bad guys.
The heroine Noori Gynren could quickly study how to be a full-fledged Holy Maiden within a week, and perfectly passed the knowledge test of the Peace temple. The male lead Duke Rigel Solinue could somehow remember all the information about his target within one night.
This fitted the description of a powerful male lead and a genius heroine. Eithne used to take it for granted, since such comic’s genre usually contained these kinds of OP characters.
Now that Eithne thought about this, the term 'main characters knew everything' was only possible because of the existence of magic instruments. It was highly likely that they had used the magic storage mediums. As mentioned, a magic medium could amazingly send the information straight to the user’s mind, so they need not to spend too much time reading and remembering. It was an irreplaceable puzzle piece to explain the illogical abilities of the OP main characters, yet it was barely mentioned in the comic, just being a small detail in the background.
Those rocks and cubes could not achieve data themselves. People in the current time needed to work arduously to copy all of the documents into those devices, so the next generation - the main characters could use them in the future.
Eithne rubbed her chin.
‘Hm… All the magic devices currently used in Lumovas are invented by the Royal Mages faction, funded by the Queen. Even ten years later when the comic plot started, I remember the main characters still use the same devices…’
Noise cancellation devices, magic detectors, shock absorption devices and communication cubes… Except the teleportation gates, which the Mages faction improved, those devices were all invented by the Royal Mages faction.
Having been living in Lumovas since she was born, the original priestess Eithne Noceur knew that the Queen was crowned five years ago when the previous Emperor passed away. The Queen immediately took the lead of the Royal Mages faction after the coronation, and turned the faction, which used to be an impractical organization, into the most prestigious center of magic research of the continent. Within five years, they had invented many brilliant products and successfully convinced the people to trust them, including the priests.
‘The Queen is likely involved in the creation of magic devices’ blueprint. Only after she controlled the faction, had those mages begun to create useful things…’
There were rumors saying the Queen was a talent mage as well, though the citizens had never seen her true strength.
‘Raphael is on the Queen’s side. If the Queen truly took part in designing the magic detectors, she would know where the security hole is.’ – Eithne thought.
The Queen likely helped Raphael Ascian get away from detection, thus, the magic detector alarm did not go off when he used magic to fight Eithne. However, somehow Eithne’s power also fell into that security hole…
“…”
The priestess shook her head. It was only an abstract theory without concrete evidence. She might be wrong.
‘Let’s not overthink and focus on finding the root of my power…’
Eithne hid herself between the bookshelves and started indulging in reading historical documents. It was a shame that the history that she was reading had not been copied into a magic medium, otherwise she would have saved a lot of time from reading.
Manually reading was still a compulsory task for the people of this era.
--
“As expected, there’s no way I can simply find out all the sources of the problem just by looking in the library…”
Eithne put a book back on the shelf. There had been many religions that rose and fell since ancient times, but the recordings stated none of them worshiped a God whose head was holed.
Still, Eithne found some clues about her dark power.
The power that was black-colored, being opposite with light and fire, and tended to corrupt life force… matched the characteristics of the power possessed by the priests of Death temple.
In this world, worshiping Death was not heretic, but it was not popular due to its scary affiliation with the demise of life. The only temple of Death of the North continent lay near the northern border of Lumovas.
The northern land of Lumovas was mostly deserted. Forests covered about eighty percent of its area which strong monsters and dangerous beasts inhabited, so the citizens mainly moved down to the southern part of the Empire. Nevertheless, the temple of Death stood unshakably amid hordes of monsters at the northern tip of the continent.
History recordings stated that the temple of Death had been there even before the Empire Lumovas was founded, and the priests of Death had sworn to guard the land of monsters to protect innocent people for thousands of years.
‘I have to find a valid reason to run to the North…’
Having her goal identified, Eithne snuck out of the library without causing any noise that disturbed the library staff. The priestess silently tiptoed into the dark.
Heinley the cat was munching on a dried fish. It flinched when a shadow flashed by, trembling the silver whiskers.
--
“The High Priest assigned us a mission. We must go to the North.”
Hesata waved a piece of paper with the list of to-do things.
Eithne was having a headache choosing a good excuse to leave the temple and travel to the northern land. She did not expect such a fortune to fall on her head like this.
“Our main mission is going to the Northern border to investigate the activity of monsters. However, we’ll have to drop by Kole fort halfway there. The fort being attacked by monsters and its teleportation gate is broken, so the High Priest commanded us to come to their aid. The Vice High Priestess’s homeland is also near the Kole fort so she’ll meet us there.”
Hesata explained the situation. The Vice High Priestess had not returned from her vacation since last month, but it was a good thing that she could quickly come to support the Kole fort.
Monster invasion was a common phenomenon occurring in northern territories. Each year, waves of monsters would rampage out of the forests to look for new lands to breed in about two months.
Eithne nodded her head, but soon she noticed something was not right.
“How are the Royal troops?” – She asked.
An Empire could not exist if they relied solely on the strength of priests. The Royalty’s troops were the country’s center of military strength, being responsible for defending the country’s border. They usually were the main force fighting back monster waves each year.
“The High Priest said the Queen had sent her people, but we don’t know about their leader.” - Hesata furrowed his eyebrows.
It seemed like the content of the mission also confused him.
“The Queen is demanding our support because it’s reported that the strength of monsters has surpassed the defense of Kole. Normal soldiers could not hold much longer.”
Eithne crossed her arms and leaned on the wall.
“I hope this is not another prank from the Queen.”
“The royals better fix the teleportation gate themselves. We’ll only protect the people as Demir’s wish, not to be responsible for their troubles.” – Hesata said.
Eithne nodded in agreement.
Restoring the teleporting gate was costly and required a long time. The broken matrix of teleportation would need mages constantly transferring mana into it to draw the magic connection again. It usually took the royalty two to three months to fix one large matrix.
If the situation at Kole fort aggravated too fast, the Queen may exploit the priests of War temple, who came in aid, to quickly restore the teleportation gate with minimum cost to the royalty. This had already happened once. The priests, who had been stuck with innocent people in the Kole fort, were forced to fix the teleportation magic matrix to evacuate victims. Then the royalty praised the temple a lot and threw them some honorable medals so that the priests eventually felt shameful asking for compensation.
Since then, the High Priest was not happy whenever the Queen asked for the temple’s help.
Therefore, Demir Noceur was sending two of his highest-rank priests, Eithne Noceur and Hesata Ragnar, as well as the Vice High Priestess, to make sure they could successfully push back the rampage of monsters without the necessity of fleeing Kole fort by teleportation.
“Kole fort is in urgent need of support. We should leave tomorrow morning.”
The red-haired priest resolutely said. He had an aura of a relentless warrior and naturally showed a disposition of leadership, making Eithne immediately felt a sense of loyalty. She subconsciously wanted to follow his command.
“The fastest way to Kole fort besides teleporting is catching the ferry to go upstream of Marah river.” – Eithne said. “I’ll order two tickets for us right away.”
Suddenly, the red-haired priest’s expression turned odd. The guy was silent for a while, then fidgeting his fingers.
“Can we… go by horse carriage?”
“???”
Eithne did not understand, her eyebrows furrowed.
Shouldn’t they go as fast as possible to the warzone?
--
The next day, on a ferry next to Elden Wharf, which was about five miles to the East from the Capital, two priests found their seats.
The northern land of Lumovas was cold and full of dangerous monsters, so they had to carry thick coats and weapons.
Hesata put a long object wrapped in cloth down next to him, then sat quietly and closed his eyes to meditate. The long object was his new spear gifted by his teacher – the chief of the Warrior faction.
Eithne also had a briefcase containing a pair of machetes. The original priestess had no direct instructor, she self-taught and mostly used knives. The current Eithne was not really comfortable with short blades, but she did not know how to use other weapons so she eventually relied on the original priestess’s experience of using machetes.
In the past, the War temple’s seniors did not allow two young priests to use weapons since their strength was destructive, and shock-absorption devices had not existed that time. Holding weapons in their hands, Eithne and Hesata had fought every day to decide who was stronger – even when they stood outside of the training ground. Consequently, the floor of the War temple needed constant maintenance…
Eithne gazed at the red-haired priest, who closed his eyes trying to sleep right after he sat down. Her finger pressed against his arm.
“Hey.”
“Don’t talk to me.” – The guy immediately said.
“But…”
Hesata turned his head to look at Eithne with a grave expression. His face was pale.
“…”
Eithne still wanted to talk. However,…
“Heuh!”
He covered his mouth and was about to puke.
“…”
The priestess decided to keep silent. The ferry had yet to move, but that guy was already near dead because of seasickness. What was he going to do when the trip began?
Indeed, the river’s waves seemed especially strong today. The ferry heaved noticeably beneath their feet whenever a strong wind passed by lifting the waves higher and higher. The pale sky was cloudy today as well, indicating a not-so-good weather.
The ferry howled loudly to announce the departure.
Passengers quickly got to their seats. It would take about one day to reach Kole fort.
The ferryman turned on the engine. Mana energy was poured in the magic matrices engraved on the giant propeller behind the ship’s hull.
Brumm! The propeller growled.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The ship trembled and departed from the wharf.
Eithne looked around. Since the teleportation gate was broken, the number of passengers on this ferry increased more than usual. The ferry was mainly used for sight-seeing purposes since it was slow, but now it welcomed a lot of people returning home in Kole fort.
Currently, the Kole fort was in danger of being attacked by monsters. Still, the people had a lot of trust in the Lumovas royalty’s troops so they did not find it alarming enough to stay away from that area. There were tourists as well, being brave enough to visit the Kole fort at this time. They looked quite relaxed as if nothing dangerous could happen, some purposely came during the monster breeding season to witness the rampage of monsters…
“I… I will go to… sleeping chamber…”
Hesata shakily stood up and weakly dragged his luggage with him. The trip was long so there were always chambers prepared for passengers to rest.
If he were to be here any longer, Hesata would seriously vomit his guts out.
Eithne clicked her tongue and sighed. Such a strong and healthy lad became a deflating balloon as soon as he stepped on the boat.
She also followed him to go to the chamber to leave her baggage, then returned to the ship’s deck for sight-seeing.
There were many people also coming to the deck to enjoy the riverbanks’ view. Out of the sightseers, Eithne spotted two familiar figures.
An aristocratic woman with light pink hair held the hand of a small girl whose hair was also pink and even fluffier. Their eyes both had the color of the pale sky.
‘The heroine Noori Gynren and her mother.’
Eithne could guess their identity right away.
The pair of mother and daughter were excitedly waving at waterbirds hovering around the ship’s nose.
The priestess slightly shook her head. She pretended not to know them and looked at the greenery on the riverbanks, but her mind was occupied thinking about her current ability.
Eithne could use the dark power to create a field around her which increased her speed and vitality. Inside the field, invisible blades were her weapon. It could also work as a barrier stopping almost all intervention from the outside of the field, except the attacking from Demir and Raphael.
‘If I could somehow make the darkness stronger, can I stop them?’
If it was impossible to stop them with the darkness, could she counter-attack or even kill them fast enough before they reached her place?
‘I should prepare a trump card…’
The priestess glanced at the handle on the ship deck.
A tiny ugly fairy like a zombie with dragonfly wings was hugging the metal bar. Strong winds blew its transparent wings like flying flags. If the creature let go of the metal bar, the winds might blow it away as well.
The spirit of Isny was still following Eithne everywhere without her summons.
“Why are you here?” – She confusedly asked.
The small creature raised its tiny fist and blabbed something in the spirit's language.
“#######!”
“…”
Eithne did not understand what it was saying.
She was not a spirit-controller who understood the spirit's language, but she had a feeling that the spirit was cursing.
The spirit could mimic human's voices, but it was unable to use human's language to express its idea.
After transferring the secret message to Raphael, the spirit had been waiting in the tree for her next command. Eithne wanted it to continue to stay in the palace to observe the next movement of the royalty, so she left the spirit there. However, it was mistaken that she tried to abandon it thus chasing after her.
Eithne sighed.
The dark power forced the creature to morph into a different species. It also allowed her to control their actions at some point. Most of the Isny’s spirits stayed at their original place, only this guy was determined to follow her.
“Why do you want to follow me? If you want to find a human friend so bad, you should meet a spirit-controller.”
Spirit-controller was a special type of mages becoming friends with spirits to gain nature's protection.
The ugly fairy snorted at Eithne. Its face could not make a clear expression, yet a slight scorn was clearly displayed.
It reminded Eithne of a quote: ‘Mediocrities cannot understand the great mind of a high achiever.’
“…”
Eithne had just realized that most people could not see spirits, so she probably looked like a looney talking with the air. The priestess then decided to ignore the spirit.
There was once Eithne intended to find a stronger spirit to make it her ally. However, it was not as easy as she thought.
Few days ago, Eithne had tried to corrupt more spirits around the temple of War. The spirits around the temple were much older and stronger than the spirits in Isny.
The darkness was deeply connected to her mood, when she saw the agonizing creatures, Eithne's heart shuddered, thus losing control of her power. The spirits resisted fiercely and refused to submit, eventually dying from transformation failure. Eithne had stopped trying to tame more spirits since then.
‘Unnecessary death is not my taste.’
She was not crazy enough to perform experiments on everything to build an army of corrupted creatures.
While the priestess was thinking, she noticed someone was approaching her from behind. The surroundings were full of noise, still the sharp instinct kept her guard up. Eithne quickly turned back to look, which surprised the person sneaking up her back.
It was a boy whose hair was as dark as charcoal, whose eyes were golden like hers.
“Rigel???”
Rigel flinched as Eithne discovered him too fast, but soon, he smiled.
“Hello!”
“What are you doing here?” – Eithne asked.
The boy sheepishly scratched his head.
“I was about to surprise you, but I failed. I came with Aunt Astraea to Kole fort for an excursion!”
“What sort of excursion in that dangerous place?”
As a feeling of bad omen was churning up inside, the priestess’s eyebrows furrowed tightly.
"It's a challenge for Solinue's inheritor!" - He excitedly said.
There was a small sword tied on one side of his hips, he was very proud showing the sword to everybody. The boy seemingly did not recognize the seriousness of the issue.
Rigel was eight and a half years old, the age at which he could barely kill a monster. Although Rigel looked much healthier than he used to be due to swordsmanship practice, but monsters were not at the level which a child could handle.
Eithne barely felt the fluctuation created from the mana in his body. In another word, Rigel was… miserably weak.
‘I thought the plot had changed. It seems I’ve underestimated this shit.’ – Eithne clenched her fist.
Unrealistic romance comic’s genre usually put the young male lead into dangerous environments when they were still learning how to run, so that they would develop into an OP man for the female lead later.
In the original plot, Rigel was so weak and had no one supporting him so he was forced to go on the battlefield at a young age to prove his talent as the Solinue’s heir. As a result, the male lead was barely alive when he returned to the duchy, if not for his amazing luck, Rigel could’ve died on the battlefield.
Eithne thought that she had already prevented this development. Was Astraea belittling the support of a War temple’s priestess to Rigel?
If Eithne was just a normal priest of the Peace temple, her support would not mean much to Rigel. The temple of Peace would not stop providing healing potions to the wealthy Solinue Duchy as long as the duchy did not provoke Raphael. Except the Saint, other Peace priests were just cabbages to the duchy.
Those greedy Solinues were only hungry for power, and afraid of power.
As Demir Noceur – one of the chairmen of the Royal Council – was the leader of War temple, they had been deeply associated with the Empire’s military strength.
A highest-grade priest of the War temple had the similar strength level to a colonel whose support should not be ignored. This violent world was still relying on the strength of fist to solve most problems after all.
Although Eithne Noceur’s reputation in politics was not significant, it should be enough to keep Rigel from dangerous battlefields before his coming-of-age.
“Where is Astraea?”
The priestess’s voice turned cold.
Realizing her anger, Rigel thought she was mad at him for running around without an adult.
“I… I’m sorry! I’ll go back! Don’t tell Astraea.”
“Hello priestess Noceur. It’s been a long time we haven’t seen each other.”
A familiar woman was coming with a man that Eithne had never seen before. It was a good thing that Astraea did not make Eithne wait for too long. The priestess could guess the man accompanying Astraea was a Solinue relative based on his similar appearance’s features to Astraea.
“Please explain why Rigel is going to Kole fort.”
Eithne’s words were still polite, but everyone could recognize the cold expression on her face.
Astraea seemed to be a bit embarrassed at the priestess’s question since she did not protect Rigel well enough as she promised. The Head of Solinue household sighed.
“The heir needs to prove his worth in order to lead the dukedom.”
“By sending him to the battlefield at the age of eight?” - A corner of Eithne's mouth twitched up savagely. “What do you expect? A child kills an army of monsters with one flick of a finger?”
“Please calm down, priestess. Rigel also needs to learn more about the real-life situation. I, Astraea Solinue, have sworn to protect our heir at all costs. Our guards will make sure he won’t be in danger.”
Astraea explained, but her words only fueled Eithne’s anger more.
“And what does he have to do to prove his worth?”
The priestess furiously asked.
Although Astraea was startled inside, the Head of Solinue was full of experience dealing with people. She took a deep breath to calm herself and solidify her resolution. The noble woman began to explain, slowly dominating the atmosphere as a leader of a highly esteemed household.
“Rigel is determined to be Solinue’s ruler so you don’t need to worry. He just needs to prove his talent in situational leadership and swordsmanship. This is the tradition of Solinue house, so we must carry on as it’s the only way that Rigel Solinue is acknowledged. No one can stop it, including you.”
Her tone was meant to press Eithne’s spirit down. Astraea Solinue was still a duchess whose position was higher than a priestess in the Empire. Even if Eithne’s position was similar to a colonel in the Royal army, she did not have the actual authority of a colonel to threaten Astraea.
“…”
The priestess fell into silence.
Eithne realized that she could not talk with these people anymore. It was like a joke, telling a child to handle a situation where people might lose their life to monsters. And what the fuck Rigel had to do with swordsmanship now? Unless she was retarded, Eithne knew right away that the child had to fight a monster- at least a small one.
Eithne breathed deeply to ease her anger, knocking her finger on the ship deck’s handle.
“Where is Rogers?”
“He is…”
Astraea was about to say, but the man next to Astraea suddenly spoke.
“A commoner should stay where they are, don’t they?”
Eithne moved her gaze from Astraea to look at the person who had just intervened into the conversation. The priestess hid her irritation inside to see if he had anything more to say.
Astraea quickly introduced the two people to each other.
“He is my cousin, Alos Solinue, who manages half of dukedom’s business. This is priestess Eithne Noceur, a relative of Rigel.”
“Nice to meet you.” – The man politely greeted Eithne, then with a mocking smile, said the man.
“A commoner has no right to meddle in our dukedom's business, esteemed priestess. Filthy beings should not offend our precious heir's eyes."
He stopped a bit, as if thinking of the reason why the priestess argued with Astraea, Alos smiled wider.
"I have come a long way here to witness Rigel's greatest moment with my own eyes.”
Full of derision.
He did not care about the safety of Rigel.
Alos Solinue was quietly witnessing the argument between Eithne and Astraea as if he was seeing a theatre play. Were it not for inconvenience, he might have brought a chair and a bowl of popcorn to look at two bickering people.
The priestess did not greet Alos back. She averted her gaze from the noble man to look at the billowing waves of the river. The murky water seemed to be more attractive than the faces of shameless people.
‘Rogers is out of this game, probably going back to Isny.’
Eithne had understood most of it without the need of Astraea’s explanation. The other party in Solinue, most likely Alos’s faction, had kicked Rogers out of the race.
‘My influence is outweighed by a Solinue member’s opinion. Or…
It was Astraea being outweighed by their opinion!’
If the Duchess of Solinue - Rigel’s aunt - had an unwavering resolution, she would prevent a weak child, who had just learnt the way of sword fighting for two months, from going to a battlefield at any cost. Both Eithne and Solinue members like Alos undeniably had heavy influence, but Astraea was still the one who decided. Eithne would not believe that the duchess was clueless about the level of Rigel’s strength, yet she risked the boy’s life to earn a temporary approval of Solinue members.
‘Protect Rigel, her ass! I shouldn’t have trusted Solinue people too easily.’
Eithne gritted her teeth. The monsters were reported to have surpassed the general troop level of Kole fort, which meant it was alarming enough for common people to flee away from the fort. However, the Queen had silenced most sources of news about monsters to keep the citizen’s trust in royalty. Even so, the Solinue Duchy should have some informers to tell them about this, yet they dare to bring Rigel here?
‘They won’t bring the boy back as I say.’
Eithne had given up persuading Astraea. Talking was not effective anymore.
Astraea and Alos were not strong fighters, but they were still confident going to Kole fort since they had rarely strong bodyguards. Eithne glanced at the mages and knights standing behind Solinue leaders.
‘Tsk. They’re still too weak compared to the priests of War, but I hope they can actually protect their masters.’
The priestess then glared at Alos Solinue.
‘This person isn’t on Rigel’s side.’
From his speech, Eithne already knew that he opposed Astraea. A man held a half of Solinue’s business, he was definitely coveting the seat of Duke Solinue.
The actual culprit behind the assassination of Rigel in Isny was not found yet. Eithne had enough reasons to suspect Alos Solinue.
Rigel saw the adults stopped arguing and glared at each other. After listening for a while, he had understood that they argued about his safety in this excursion.
“Please don’t worry about my safety. Uh… uh right! Azriel also came with me!”
The boy reluctantly said, thinking that if he said he was going with his friend, they would be less worried.
However, the faces of the adults were frozen after hearing what he said.
“Which Azriel…? Azriel the Imperial Prince?” – Astraea asked.
Clearly, they did not know that the Prince was coming as well.
At that moment, a boy stepped outside from the crowd with two bodyguards behind. He lifted his hood, revealing his little handsome face.
“Rigel, I told you to keep it a secret.”
Azriel Daneva sighed.
“Greeting your Highness the Imperial Prince.”
Everybody bent down to greet the young prince. Alos stepped up and asked.
“Your Highness, are you leading the Queen’s reinforcement troop to Kole fort?
The prince raised his eyebrows at Alos’s question. What a mischievous man, asking straight to the point.
A simple question from Alos could cause Azriel many troubles if he answered wrongly.
“No. The reinforcement troop is under someone else’s command. The Queen even kept this as a secret to me so I’m also wondering who it is.”
The prince acted as if he knew nothing. “I’m here to observe and learn from that person as well.” – said the prince.
A slight disappointment flashed in Alos’s eyes. He did not know that Azriel had noticed all of his expressions. He believed the prince was telling the truth, since Azriel was just a young boy like Rigel. Having been manipulating the naïve Rigel gave Alos the conceit that he could see through the young prince as well.
However, the fact was far different from Alos’s thought. Azriel Daneva had gotten used to conspiracies as someone who grew up in a royal palace.
‘Cunning old fox!’
Azriel lightly frowned, but quickly, he smiled like a child who had just seen his friend again.
Truly, he was leading the Royal reinforcement troop. This was the first outing mission that the Queen gave him, so the prince was being extra-careful.
The Solinue would never let an inexperienced prince lead a large unit of army, and given a chance, they would try to overtake his authority. The greedy ducal leaders had been coveting the power of commanding the royal troop, they - represented the aristocracy faction - would force the weak prince to follow their instruction, in other words, making the prince their puppet.
Not many knights had trusted and vowed allegiance to Azriel Daneva. On the other hand, the reputation of Solinue was high enough to command troops on the royalty's behalf. Therefore, the scheme of Solinue leaders would likely succeed.
However, if the commanding authority had fallen into another person's hand, then the Solinue had no reason to cling on to the Imperial Prince.
‘If you want to manipulate the army so bad, then try to find that none-existent commander.’ – Azriel thought. ‘Haizz, I shouldn’t have met Rigel here.'
Assassins were always waiting for him so Azriel was hiding earlier. But now that he was discovered, Azriel felt annoyed.
The prince turned to Eithne.
“Priestess Noceur. I haven’t seen you since the Queen’s birthday.”
Eithne lowered her head as an act of respect.
“I’m honored to be remembered by your Highness.”
“Why don’t we go inside to have tea?” – Astraea suggested.
“Good idea.”
Alos agreed.
“Alright.” - Azriel nodded.